‘Here.’ He pulled out a battered blue book with a red man on the front who appeared to have been squashed, his arms and legs splayed out like a frog. The spine was worn and the edges of the cover were tattered with tiny fibres of thin cardboard. It smelled musty and the outer edges of the pages had taken on a yellow stain, but I found its worn appearance reassuring.
‘Thanks.’ I looked up and gave Doug the most genuine smile I could manage.
‘Are you looking for anything?’ I asked and Doug shrugged his shoulders.
‘I was just wandering, didn’t really have any reason for coming here. I just needed to get out of the house.’
‘Fair enough’ I acknowledged. We stood awkwardly, well as awkwardly as our present situation would allow. Despite all that had happened I felt comfortable with him, he didn’t induce the social anxiety that others had triggered in me all day. We both went to speak at the same time and broke into nervous laughter.
‘You go,’ he said.
‘No, it was nothing important. What were you going to say?’
‘Um, I was going to ask if you had the time to get coffee?’
‘Yeah sure, I’ve got time.’
***
I know why I was so nervous about talking to Doug again. It wasn’t because I was worried about my feelings or about his; I was worried about us and our friendship. What Doug had done changed my perception of who he was and I didn’t know that my feelings would correspond to this new person. It was easier to be ignorant than enlightened, yet sooner or later you must confront the inevitable. I couldn’t go on feeling this way about Doug if the person I cared about was just a construction of my former glass world. If Mel was right; if I did love Doug, then I wanted it to be the real Doug, for both his sake and mine.
‘How are you feeling for exams?’ I asked. Uni was a safe topic for small talk.
‘All right I guess.’ Doug shrugged his shoulders and I couldn’t help but notice how tired he seemed. Something about him was different. ‘The pressure has been insane this semester and the anatomy unit, that’s going to be hell on paper.’
‘You’ll be fine, Doug.’ I tried to be reassuring but felt helpless and confused by his admission.
He nodded his head. ‘Yeah, it’s gonna be okay, but it’s just a struggle you know?’
‘Are you okay, Doug?’ He looked up at me and his eyes appeared greyer, less of the brilliant blue.
‘I’m just over it. I feel like it’s impossible at the moment and there’s no point in trying because I’ll never succeed.’ Doug’s melancholy left me silent and he gave a big sigh before looking back at me and flashing a tired smile.
‘God I’m sorry, this isn’t what I wanted to talk about.’
‘No it’s okay. I’m glad you feel like you can talk to me about this,’ I assured. Doug was still silent, staring down at his coffee with his hands tucked under his legs.
‘Well, what did you want to talk about?’ I asked. The question hung in the air between us and I waited for Doug to take it. It took him a moment.
‘I wanted to talk about us.’ My body tightened like a vice and Doug brought his eyes to mine. ‘I know you don’t want me to say this but I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.’
My tiny internal panic stalled my ability to reply but I eventually managed to stutter one out. ‘You don’t need to apologise, Doug.’
‘No, I do because it’s the only way I can make this situation better. You asked me not to contact you, I’m not going to flatter myself and pretend I know the reason why, but all I can take from it is that I must have really hurt you and that’s killing me.’
‘Doug,’ I interrupted him and he looked at me, his eyes in a faint state of frenzied pleading. ‘You’re blowing this out of proportion.’
‘You can’t expect me to believe that, not when you said we couldn’t see each other all semester.’ Doug had a point. ‘Listen, I know that I can’t expect anything from you but I just needed to tell you how sorry I was. I just want to make this better but I have no idea how. I know that we won’t be able to go back, but I really miss my best mate.’ Doug’s voice wavered slightly. I don’t think I’d ever wanted something as badly as I wanted to go back and start again. To go back to before the Blackhole had crept into my bed. I wanted that for Doug, so he could have met the real me instead of the empty girl I’d been, as much as I wanted it for myself. I’d missed out on so much and although I didn’t necessarily regret it, I was sad; knowing that I had wasted so much time and so much life.
‘We can’t go back, Doug, it’s just not possible.’ I tried to ignore the irrational panic that paralysed Doug’s eyes as I said those words and continued. ‘I can’t tell you how to make this better because there is nothing to make better. You did nothing wrong, Doug. If you need my forgiveness then you have it, but know it only means something to you. I didn’t realise the hurt I would cause, asking you to leave me alone and as your friend please understand that it was never my intention. I was being selfish but I had my reasons and I can’t explain them to you right now. Please believe me when I say that these have honestly been the hardest few months of my life and a part of that is because you haven’t been in them. I’ve really missed you, you’re my best mate too Doug but my hesitation in talking to you was because I had no idea what to say, not because I didn’t want too.’
Doug stared at me in what appeared to be a state of shock and misplaced gratitude before that smile crept across his face and I wondered how I had ever thought of this as a bad day. Nothing more needed to be said. We both wanted to move on and moving on didn’t require forgiveness or forgetfulness, all that it needed was acceptance and two people who wanted the same thing. Doug was the one to break our contented silence.
‘You know, sitting with you doing absolutely nothing means absolutely everything to me,’ he confessed.
A faint thud in my chest reminded me that something alive existed in there.
20
‘What’s the worst they could ask us?’
‘Something we don’t know the answer too.’
Bryce and Abby were terrible to prepare for exams with. We were waiting outside the venue of our last exam. The rest of the semester had passed so quickly. Since running into Doug that day in Fremantle it felt like a year had gone by, but it had only been six weeks. It was amazing how much, and how little could change in six weeks. Things with Doug had been strange initially. Things that still needed to be said remained secret between us but quite suddenly we had returned to what we had been. Well perhaps “returned” was the wrong word. It felt the same in the sense that I had my best friend back, and if any awkwardness remained between us I no longer noticed it. Yet it was different in regards to the person I was. I felt like I was being honest with him for the first time since we had met. I was letting him in and telling him the little things that mattered, the things that other people wouldn’t care about. I also no longer felt confused about my feelings. Call them what you will but they were real and had remained as unchanged as possible in a metamorphosis of heart. The stress of uni had given me an excuse not to think too long or too hard about what I needed to do with Doug, but the end of exams now instilled a form of fear in me. I needed to resolve this, whatever “this” was for both my happiness and his. I felt like I was balancing on a razor edge between two possibilities and I didn’t care into which one I fell, so long as I did fall. Abby had remained cautious of Doug initially, she had talked continuously about putting my own happiness above his and it had taken repeated efforts to assure her that talking to Doug was doing exactly that. Glen meanwhile appeared not too care beyond his own self-interest; he was happy merely because his friends had started talking again and I had to admire him for his simplicity.
‘Guys, can you please stop, you’re stressing me out.’ Lev’s sharp tone revealed his nervousness, he was sitting to the left of me, on the limestone retaining wall and we w
ere facing Abby and Bryce. Abby was fidgeting, shifting her weight from foot to foot while Bryce’s gaze all but burnt a hole through his notes as he poured over them. They didn’t appear to have heard Lev, nor do I think Lev cared if they did. I felt a tap on my right shoulder and turned to find Doug’s face grinning at me.
‘How are you feeling?’ he asked.
‘Ah, good I guess. I’m just trying to tell myself that it won’t be that bad.’
‘It won’t. You can do this, in two hours you’ll be free and we’ll be at the tav.’
‘Can we just skip to that part now?’ Abby asked and we both looked at her.
‘It’ll be over before you know it,’ Doug reassured her.
‘You guys feel like going out afterwards?’ I asked; the question was directed at Lev and Bryce. They both shook their heads.
‘Nah, sorry guys but I’ve got my brother’s birthday tonight,’ Lev explained.
‘I’ve got work.’ Bryce didn’t even bother looking up as he offered his excuse.
‘That’s all right, next time,’ Doug replied for me, Lev and Bryce didn’t acknowledge it.
‘How was your exam this morning?’ I asked.
Doug sighed. ‘Ugh, I don’t really know. I mean, I knew how to answer every question but because it’s anatomy that could be a really bad thing.’
‘If it’s easy you’re doing it wrong?’ I asked with a smile.
‘Exactly.’
I gave him a slight bump with my shoulder. ‘I’m sure you’ve done well, Doug. You’ve smashed every test and assignment this semester so stop with the false modesty, it’s not flattering.’
Doug laughed. ‘You’re right, I’m brilliant.’
A press of people had now begun to gather at the doors to the gym.
‘They’re letting us in,’ Bryce observed.
‘Ah.’ Doug pulled me in for a side hug. ‘Good luck.’
‘Thanks, I’ll send you a message when we’re out.’
***
The muffled grating crunch of the coffee grinder snapped me out of sleep. It was my first day of holidays. The exam yesterday had been easy enough, nothing we hadn’t prepared for, but I always found it hard to tell how I’d done on exams. Usually they were worse than my assignments but then again I’d never actually studied properly for exams before. Perhaps this was the time I turn that around. In all honesty I no longer cared about my exams. One of my first lecturers at uni had told me that once an exam was over you should forget about it; there was no use in stressing about what you couldn’t change and that was what I was going to do. Not caring had begun at precisely 4:11pm yesterday afternoon and had been our axiom for last night; Doug, Abby, Glen and I had celebrated in the most appropriate student fashion, by getting so blind drunk we’d thought the seediest club in Northbridge was the perfect place to waste our time. Glen got high on pingas, Abby fucked some random in the toilets and I’d fallen down the stairs, flashing the entire dance floor my knickers in the process. Thank god I’d had nice ones on. Doug was the only one who’d managed to maintain his dignity and allowed me to keep some semblance of mine. Glen and Abby had both called it a night in the early hours of Saturday morning; after we’d been kicked out of the club at closing. Glen ordered a taxi home and Abby had been picked up by her older sister, René. Noticing me, clinging to Doug to keep myself upright, René offered to drop us home too but Doug had spoken for both of us and assured her he was sober enough to drive. I don’t remember walking to Doug’s car or the drive home. I just remembered images: Glen’s dilated pupils, Abby with one leg caught in the foot of her tights, Doug’s smile flashing as we ducked through the street lights.
I waited for the hangover to hit me like a freight train but I felt fine and oddly awake. I looked at my phone: 5am. Jesus, I must still be drunk to be this invigorated after only three hours of sleep. It was Dad who must be using the coffee grinder; he was going on his morning run no doubt. I could go with him if I wanted. Dad had taken to asking me to join him lately and I think it was to re-establish the routine we’d had before the Blackhole; our running together every weekend. I liked running. Peter and Henry both hated it; they were more team players so running was something I shared with dad and him alone. I swung my legs out from under the covers and opening my door, avoided the creaky floorboards as I made my way to the kitchen. I scared dad.
‘Christ, what are you doing up?’ His voice came out like a hiss, his shock making him unable to manage a whisper.
‘Are you going for a run?’ I asked.
He nodded his head. ‘Yep.’
‘Can I come with you?’ Dad looked shocked before his face melted in an idiotic grin.
‘By all means.’
‘Gimme five minutes then,’ I whispered.
‘Take all the time you need.’
The only difference between spring and summer in Fremantle is that spring has nights that are relatively cool, summer is just enduring heat. It was still cold now, the pale sunlight was just emerging and was still too weak to crack the cool entirely, though summer was only days away.
‘Sure you don’t want to get a jumper?’ Dad was stretching out his calves. I shook my head, rubbing my hand briskly against my forearm.
‘I’ll be okay once we get going.’
‘All right.’ Dad’s voice was tainted by a slight suit-yourself tone. I wasn’t worried about the cold. I was always hot after a run and sweat more than a regular person so I’d be warm in no time. I was more worried about being able to keep up with dad. Even though I’d been running frequently over the past few months I was nowhere near my old level of fitness. I was getting there and was proud of my progress but running five kilometres still nearly killed me and Dad’s usual route was twelve.
‘How about we do the six to Walter’s Point and get some breakfast before doing the six back?’ Dad suggested. That would suit me perfectly.
‘Yeah, sounds good. I’m just tagging along so do your usual thing.’
Dad laughed. ‘I just didn’t want you to think that getting breakfast was my usual thing.’
***
The run to the point had been easier than I’d expected but I wasn’t entirely sure how much I could trust my judgement. I was still slightly drunk and when drunk I had boundless energy. Now my breakfast was just hitting my stomach and I could feel that muggy fatigue creeping in. When combined with the fact my body was already tired from the run here I was dreading the run back.
‘Are you ready to go?’ Dad asked.
There was no point preventing the inevitable. ‘Yeah, let’s do it.’
It felt as though I was running through pudding. It took all my effort to put one leg in front of the other, and they seemed to move two seconds too slow as my muscles fought against every thought that told them “keep going”. We were only a kilometre away from home. I knew that thought should inspire me to persevere but the distance just seemed like my Everest, and the hill we now had to climb felt like irony. I was already several strides behind Dad and I knew he’d slowed his pace to accommodate me. My ankle bucked momentarily underneath me; I didn’t fall but it was enough to shake me and my body ordered me to stop. My hands fell to my knees and I sucked in a big gasp of air, my lungs felt tiny and I realised I hadn’t been breathing properly. I was so focused on getting my breath back and trying to stop my legs from shaking I hadn’t noticed dad had also stopped until I felt his hand rest lightly on my back.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked.
I nodded. ‘Yeah.’ My words were choked from breathlessness and I wiped away the sweat that had collected on my lip. Dad rubbed my back as I took a few more moments but I eventually stood back up.
‘I think I’ll walk the rest dad. It’s just a bit hard this last part.’
‘Okay.’ Dad took his hand off my back and waited for me.
‘You can keep going though,’ I sa
id. I didn’t want to ruin his run.
‘No, I’ll walk with you. You don’t have to do it alone.’
I gave him a small smile and began to walk slowly. He matched my pace and we slipped into an easy silence which I was grateful for as it allowed me to catch my breath back. Is this how Mel felt when we walked into town? Getting to the top of the hill we were given a panoramic view of the port. A bulk carrier was being piloted out of the river mouth; the immense bulk of the vessel was aligned perfectly with the faint golden path of the rising sun reflected on the rocking sea. I’d like to stand on the bow of that ship and let the wind whip my hair back from my skull and pull at my clothes. You’d gaze ahead at the open expanse of nothing but an azure blue ocean and know that you were but a tiny blip on the surface of the world which was itself a tiny part of an ever-expanding universe. I imagined it would feel like total freedom; to realise how truly insignificant you were and how liberating that could be. The wind drove up the bank of the hill and I sucked in a deep breath of the cool, cleansing air which left me feeling breathless again.
‘There we are,’ Dad announced. We’d rounded the corner of our street and I could see our front fence, peeking modestly out of the bend. We were home and I was so glad to see it.
The surest way to become lost is think happiness is a destination. People are always thinking that someday in the future they’ll be happy. They rely on that one thing they so desperately want and wait for it to happen, thinking it will fix everything. That’s what I’d done; I’d waited for something to happen and thought that once it did the Blackhole would just disappear. That it would just vanish into a similar darkness and never reappear. This belief was all the more ridiculous when I tried to remember the thing that I had wanted to happen. The event that I had so desperately wanted to happen was simple: I’d wanted the Blackhole to vanish. I had honestly thought that one day I would wake up and the Blackhole would be gone. Imagine living a life like that. Actually to call it a life is wrong. It would just be existing; it would have taken everything and left me nothing but an empty space which my life had once occupied. I didn’t want to imagine a life like that. I could think of nothing more terrifying and I think that was a good thing.
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