“It’s the one in Darwin. The one I wanted.” I tried to sound excited but, truth be told, I was terrified.
Joy fled Mum’s face for the quickest of moments before returning, less vibrant but no less proud. “That’s wonderful, Eloise. Congratulations. I’m so proud of you.” She wrapped her arms around my shoulders and began to cry.
“Thanks, Mum, but please don’t cry,” I said, shrugging free and standing up. “You haven’t gotten rid of me yet.” I folded the letter and placed it on the dining room table.
Dad stepped forward and picked it up. “What do you mean?”
“I also got accepted into Deakin Uni, here in Melbourne. It’s a good course. I’d be stupid not to consider it.”
“But I thought you said the one in Darwin was your first preference.”
“It was.”
Mum twisted my shoulders, angling my body toward her. “Was?”
“Is.”
“Then what’s stopping you?”
“Nothing. I just haven’t decided what I’m doing yet.”
The room fell silent, so I kissed them both on the cheek and took the letter from Dad. “I’m going for a walk, okay?”
They both gave each other the I’m-not-sure-about-this look that only parents could give.
“I’m fine. Honestly. I’ve two amazing placement offers. It doesn’t get any better than that, right?”
As I closed the door behind me and made my way down the driveway, my smile slipped when I noticed Connor’s car parked out front, his silhouette in the driver’s seat.
I paused, not knowing whether I was ready to face him. It had been nearly two months. Don’t be stupid, Ellie. You were friends before you were lovers. And you’re an adult now. You can do this.
Drawing in a deep breath, I walked up to the passenger side door and squatted to peer through the open window. “What are you doing here?”
He glanced over at me, his red-rimmed eyes lifeless. Fear shot through me faster than any bullet ever could, and I opened the door and sat down. “Connor? What’s happened?”
Never had there been a time I wanted his words and yet didn’t want them, because I knew from the look on his face that they would be the worst I’d ever hear.
“Drive with me?” he asked.
I nodded and closed the door.
We drove in silence to a small car park atop a hill overlooking the local water catchment. I’d never been to the well-hidden spot but knew from Chris’s many detailed ‘parking’ stories—stories I’d tried hard to quash by blocking my ears—that it existed as a popular hangout spot for kids our age.
Empty chip packets and beer bottles littered the asphalt, and my nerves heightened with unease as to why he’d brought me here of all places. It was disgusting and deserted.
“Connor, you’re worrying me. Can you please just tell me what’s wrong so we can leave?”
“That’s exactly why I don’t want to tell you,” he said, bursting into tears. He gripped the steering wheel, his knuckles white, and shook it with force. “FUCK!”
I jumped in my seat, my heart galloping in my chest. “Connor, what’s wrong? You’re scaring me.”
Not once in the six years I’d known him had I seen him this distraught, and he’d had plenty of reasons during that time to break down and crumble in the way he was.
He shook the steering wheel some more and cried even harder before just stopping, the tension in the air, terrifying. My chest constricted, and I wanted nothing more than to wrap my arms around him, hold him tight and take away his pain, but I couldn’t. I wasn’t ready to reopen my broken heart to the boy who would always own it.
Reaching out, I touched his shoulder instead. “It’s okay. You can tell me—”
“She’s pregnant,” he said, his voice devoid of all emotion. He turned in my direction, his skin ashen, his eyes bleak.
I froze. “Who?”
“Lilah.”
Every last bit of air within my lungs whooshed out of me, and I faced forward and clutched my chest. My heart seized, my throat closed. I reached for the door handle, my fingers fumbling as they tried to get it open.
“Ellie, she’s having my baby.”
“STOP!” I yelled, finally opening the door and stumbling out. “Just stop talking.”
I’d taken only a few steps before I felt his arms encase me. “I’m so sorry, baby. I fucked up and I can’t change it. I can’t fix it or make it go away.” He began to cry and held me tighter.
I fell limp and couldn’t speak, couldn’t find the words, didn’t want to find the words because no words would right our wrong no matter how much we wanted them to. Connor and I were done. Finished. Never to be again. And for the first time in my life, I realised words weren’t the answer—nothing was.
“Let me go,” I said, my voice near lifeless.
Connor released me, and I stepped away, holding my hand up to keep him at bay. “THIS IS ALL YOUR—” I stopped myself from screaming at him. There was no point. I had no scream or energy left. “You … you did this to us.”
“I know.” He scrubbed his face. “I’m going to be there for her and our baby. I have to, Ellie. I have no choice.”
Nodding, because that’s all I could give him, I walked back to the car and opened the door. “Can you please take me home now.”
“Ellie, I’m—”
I didn’t allow him to finish what he was saying, instead climbed into the car and closed the door. My stomach churned with nausea, and I wasn’t certain I could stop myself from throwing up.
Connor followed moments later and drove us back to my house in silence, and before he’d even had a chance to cut the engine, I opened my door and got out, shutting it behind me.
“ELLIE!”
Pausing only a few steps away from his car, I closed my eyes and sucked in a breath, slowly exhaling before I reopened them and glanced back over my shoulder.
“You’re my best friend,” he pleaded through his open window. “I can’t lose you too.”
“You’ll never lose me, Connor. You just can’t have me, either.”
His shoulders bounced as he sobbed, and it ripped me in two. I’d somehow entered a nightmare I couldn’t find my way out of and, yet, no nightmare could ever be as real as Connor and I were, never as painful and heart-wrenching, never as high or as low. No nightmare could scare me as much as knowing that I was about to walk away from the only man I had ever loved and would ever love as deeply as I did.
“I’m sorry this happened to us,” I said, as I took a step back. “But I can’t stay here in this town and watch you live your life with another woman, the life we were supposed to live together.”
He stopped crying and blinked. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying goodbye because I’m moving to Darwin.”
Part Two
Chapter Twenty-One
Ellie
“Turn it off,” I groaned, rolling over and covering my head with my blanket.
The hideous honking sound of our alarm clock ceased, and comforting arms slid around my waist, gently pulling me against a warm, firm chest, the scent of musk and pine needles familiar and soothing. I settled once again.
“That’s the last time I’m pushing snooze, Elle,” he said, as he peeled the blanket from my face and allowed an unwelcome beam of light to hit my eyes. “You have a plane to catch, remember?”
Hours of lovemaking and reduced sleep had lent dryness to his voice. He sounded sexy, and it made me want to stay in bed all the more.
“I don’t want to go,” I grouched. “I’m happy here, in bed, in the land of sun and … sweat.” I waggled my sleepy eyebrows and wiggled my butt into his groin.
His fingers gently pressed my ribs like the keys on a clarinet, and I couldn’t help but giggle at the ticklish feel. “Stop it.” I turned to face him.
Cocoa-coloured eyes met mine. “Stay then. Don’t go.” They grew darker, like espresso, their rich warmth a constant trigger for craving a cup
of hot morning coffee, yet I wasn’t enchanted enough to miss the warning that swirled among his irises when he continued, “I mean, I’m sure you’ll find the same amazing job opportunity here in Darwin—”
I narrowed my eyes and sighed. “Okay okay. I’m getting up.”
Byron kissed my nose, and his once unfamiliar lips alarmed me a whole lot less these days. “I’ll see you in a few weeks. It will go by so quickly you won’t even realise we’ve been apart.”
I pouted.
“Stop pouting.” He threw the blankets off our bed and sprung to his knees. “Come on. I have to drop you at the airport before my first class starts.”
Plastering a faux smile to my face, I climbed out of bed when all I wanted was to climb right back in. Today would be the first time I journeyed back home since I moved away. It was also the first time I chanced facing what I’d left behind, or more so whom.
Two hours into my five-hour flight from Darwin to Melbourne and I’d done nothing but reflect on the past four years of my life away from my family, and Connor. I’d simply run away, and I wasn’t afraid to admit it. The heart-splintering pain I’d felt after learning Connor and Lilah had slept together and were expecting a baby pierced so deep and without mercy that running to the other side of the country had been my only choice. It meant I could pretend to move on, pretend to start afresh, pretend none of it had ever happened and that I was happy. I could also pretend I didn’t know, deep down, that neither distance nor time could heal an unhealable heart. Nothing could.
Since leaving Melbourne, I’d secured a cute little apartment close to Uni, a loving boyfriend of two years, an amazing suntan I never thought possible due to my pasty-white, freckle-covered skin, and I’d completed a Bachelor of Arts – Popular Music Studies of which I was now postgraduate and working with various local artists to create lyrics for their songs. Life was good. Not perfect. Just … good. But then, I’d experienced enough to know perfection didn’t exist. That the most we could hope for was a pleasant contentment, and if you could find that it was best to stick with it and protect it as best you could.
“Are you finished with that, ma’am?” the flight attendant asked, her Barbie-pink, immaculately manicured nails dangling from her outstretched hand.
“Oh, yes, thank you.” I glanced down at my own nails, unvarnished and practically chewed to the quick before scrambling to pick up my empty food tray.
The lady seated to my right, handed me her tray as well. “Would you mind, dear?” she said. “I can’t reach.”
“Sure. Not a problem.” I took it from her and handed it to the hostess.
My seat-neighbour thanked me then lifted her tray table and secured it to the seat in front. “That’s better.”
I smiled, secured my own tray table and then pulled out my notebook and opened it to the page that contained scribbled information about Saxon Reed, an unknown musician who’d just been signed to Sony and who’d requested a meeting and possible lyric partnership with me on his current album. According to the email sent from his agent, his sound was ‘sombre and organic’ and he wrote and performed from the heart, which I thought most musicians did anyway. His agent also stated that Saxon’s songs mostly spoke of heartache and longing, and with my help he hoped to shine a bit of love and positivity into the mix. To be honest, Saxon’s brief confused me, but it was undeniably intriguing. The job also paid a lot, more than I’d earned to date, and the prospect of working with new talent, unique talent, and talent saleable enough to be represented by one of the countries biggest recording labels, was probably the most exciting hook of all.
“Oh, what a delightful notebook you have there. My granddaughter would just love that.”
Smiling sheepishly, I rotated the multi-coloured, sequin-covered book in my hand and shrugged. “You’re never too old to like rainbows.”
“You’re quite right. Who doesn’t like rainbows?”
I laughed. “Actually, my boyfriend doesn’t.”
“Well, dear, boyfriends can be boring at the best of times.”
I grinned, agreeing, because Byron was rather boring. He was sweet and loving but settled in his safe and repetitive monochromatic ways—khaki for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. He used the same shampoo, always; the same orange juice, always; and he preferred Hawaiian pizza minus the pineapple.
Minus. The. Pineapple. Who does that?
But I loved him as much as my broken heart could love, and he, too, loved me. A bit like a boa constrictor loves it prey: tight and unyielding. Which was why this trip, despite the location and the apprehension it stirred within me, was good timing.
Swallowing dryly for possibly the one-hundredth time since taking off, I opened my notebook to ease my nerves. They’d been raging and raving ever since I’d found out the job was based in Melbourne.
Melbourne meant home.
Melbourne meant Connor.
After fleeing to Darwin shortly after graduating High School, I’d tried desperately to do what he’d successfully done—let us go. Because holding on to something that could never be only tore the gaping hole it created even wider, and that served no good purpose other than to hope for the hopeless or to mourn what you would never have. But telling your heart not to yearn was easier said than done, for our hearts know and our minds think, and my heart knew only Connor.
So I lied, every day, to myself, my family, my friends, and to Byron. I played happy pretend in a life of consolation.
Turning the pages of my notebook, I stopped at the very back to a pocket that held a letter Connor had sent me the day before I moved. It contained lyrics to a song he’d titled ‘Ever After’, part of it comprising what he’d written in the notes he’d given me when I’d found out he’d slept with Lilah. It was his unspoken words. His plea. It was words he’d never say, but that were forever said.
Sliding the note free, I unfolded it and read it for the second time. Truth be told, I didn’t need to read it because it was tattooed to the part of my heart he would always own. Yet, for some reason, I did read it … thirty-four thousand feet above sea level.
The wind blows through this
And I don’t want to miss
A second of your time
So I will wait here for all of this life
My dreams will fade away
If you choose not to stay
You’re my ever after.
How long?
Only if there’s time.
You’re my ever after.
I know.
Only if it’s right.
So come here and see the truth
And you’ll know that it’s all for you.
Staring at the lines ‘only if there’s time’ and ‘only if it’s right’, my heart ached all over again, the helplessness in his words just as painful as the first time I’d read them. I could never be his ever after because there wasn’t time, and because it certainly wasn’t right.
“Is that a poem?” The lady next to me nodded toward my book as if reading what was written between the lines wasn’t in the slightest bit an invasion of my privacy.
“No, it’s not,” I said politely, folding up the note away from prying eyes. “They’re song lyrics.”
She swished her hand. “Same thing. Songs are poems and poems are songs.”
I wanted to tell her she was wrong, that although both rely on potent language and stem from engaging their audience emotionally, that one was designed to connect with a reader, and the other to connect with a listener. Both were very different.
I was about to enlighten her on the mistake often made between the two when she started reciting ‘How Do I Love Thee?’ by Elizabeth Browning. So help me God if I disengage the emergency exit door mid-flight.
“Romance is beautiful,” she cooed. “It’s light and hope in a world full of hate.”
Her wrinkled eyes twinkled with what I thought to be nostalgia, so I forced a smile that didn’t quite reach my eyes, and I bit my tongue from telling her that romance was an umbr
ella, that it created a false sense of security because, when the miserable raging storm of life came out of nowhere and hit us, our umbrellas buckled. They only ever kept us dry from a mere sprinkling of rain.
Since moving to Darwin, I’d let true love and romance take a back seat while resignation drove me forward, and as I watched both notions swirl in her eyes and light up her weathered face, I, too, missed them, deeply. I missed how they made us feel both lighter than a feather and heavily rooted to the ground, which was why—for the remaining two hours of my flight—I didn’t think it would hurt to once again allow myself to believe that love and romance could weather the storm.
My mother’s excited screech pierced my ears as I opened the door and stepped out of the taxi.
“Oh my goodness! What have you done to your hair?” She pulled me to her then held me at arm’s length, her fingers twisting my blonde strands.
“It’s called peroxide, Mum.”
“But why?”
“Because the Darwin sun was lightening it anyway. Plus, Byron thought a change might be good for me.”
She screwed up her nose.
“Don’t start,” I warned.
Mum’s hands slowly rose in surrender. “I’m not.”
“Good.” I eyed her with an approving smile and hugged her again. “I’ve missed you so much.” Too much.
“Elliephant!”
I glanced over her shoulder and squealed at my brother. “CHRIS! What are you doing here? I thought you were playing football in Perth this week.”
His athletic frame, rich with muscles—even richer than the last time I’d seen him—was supported by one lone, wooden crutch as he hobbled down the steps toward me.
My hand shot to my mouth. “What did you do?”
“Osteitis Pubis.”
I bit my lip but couldn’t stop from smiling.
“Go on, laugh. Everyone else has.”
“We have not, Christopher,” Mum piped in.
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