The Long Distance Playlist

by Tara Eglington

  Just so you know, I wasn’t angry about the ‘thanks’ text. And you don’t have to apologise for our last conversation – I think we both know that the ‘heated’ part of our Skype session was me.

  There are about a thousand things I want to say to you, Tay, especially about that fight, but every time I try to grab onto the most pressing one that’s flitting around in my mind and pin it down onto this email, it looks like a mess.

  I don’t want to pretend that ‘I’m sorry’ is a magic word that sends us straight back to the start.

  Do you remember me telling you, years ago, that I hate apologies? Receiving them, I mean. I know that sounds horrible, like I’m a stubborn, self-righteous hard-arse who’s determined to hold a grudge. What I mean is, I feel like people treat apologies like get-out-of-jail-free cards. That the second they say ‘I’m sorry’ they think that the other person owes it to them to instantly forgive and forget.

  So the person receiving the apology is left feeling like there’s something wrong with them for still feeling hurt, or angry, or betrayed. For ‘not getting over it’ in the prescribed amount of time that the apologiser thinks is ‘right’.

  I know I sound jaded. Maybe it’s because I haven’t had the best examples at home (let’s not get into that), or maybe it’s because I’ve just been cheated on, but I can’t help feeling that ‘I’m sorry’ doesn’t mean much at all. At its worst, it’s this two-word tool that people wield for less-than-honourable intentions. ‘I’m sorry’ isn’t ‘I realise how much I hurt you’ or ‘I’ll never do that again’ – it’s actually ‘I feel like a horrible person, and maybe saying “sorry” will make me feel better’. Apologising winds up being the way that people relieve themselves of guilt. So really – the I’m sorry is all about them, not the person they’ve wronged.

  Anyway, when it comes to our fight, and the last nineteen months, all I want to do is launch into ‘I’m sorrys’ – hundreds of them – and I know part of that is a self-indulgent scramble to feel your forgiveness.

  I feel a ton of guilt over what happened with us. But I deserve that guilt, and it’s my cross to bear.

  What I will say is:

  What I blurted out that night over Skype – I shouldn’t have said it. It was my own stuff – my own ugly, selfish stuff – and I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to admit to you the real reason that I said it. The real reason doesn’t exist any more, so in all honesty, it’s better left unsaid.

  I can’t undo what I said that night, and I don’t expect you to forgive me for it, but I hope you’ll believe me when I say that you didn’t deserve it. That I never want to say anything like that to you again.

  What I’m trying to say is, thank you. For the empathy and distraction, and I guess, really, for emailing someone you could have written off.

  For the playlist. Which I’ve had on repeat for the last three days.

  What I’m also trying to say is – there’s no obligation to email me back. Receiving a bunch of downer emails from someone who is ‘wallowing in sadness’ over a shallow-as-hell ex is more punishment than you deserve.

  I’m looking forward to talking properly next year when we’re over for the wedding. Not that I’m that much better at verbally expressing myself, but here’s hoping, right?

  It’ll be good just to see you – to say I’ve missed you is a major understatement.

  X Goldie

  Isolde

  Sunday 16 September

  Breakup rule 101 – DON’T follow ‘expert’ advice.

  Get out of the house, they say. It’ll get your mind off things, they say.

  HA.

  It’s been twenty-two days since Aidan broke my heart, and up until this morning, I had my coping technique down pat, which was ‘retreat from the world’.

  Basically, outside of school and dance class, I stayed at home and therefore avoided hideous moments like bursting into tears while buying broccoli (aka three days after the breakup, when Mum insisted I pick up dinner ingredients while she collected a prescription).

  I needed to go hermit on the weekends because it took all my strength to be witness to Aidan and Steffanie making goo-goo eyes at each other six days a week and not lose it completely.

  All I wanted to do was hate Aidan – for what he’d done to me, and for how he’d made me feel humiliated and worthless – but my heart kept relentlessly pumping hurt through my body.

  What was almost as horrific was that every single class, I could feel the other dancers watching me, betting each other as to whether I’d cry in the studio that day, or crack it and say something to Aidan or Steffanie.

  I didn’t want to give them the satisfaction. The thought of Sundays and being alone was the only thing getting me through each week.

  And then today, Mum is insisting that we keep the first-Sunday-of-the-month family brunch.

  Dad has been fine with my retreat-from-the-world stance. He even tries to suggest that he and Mum go on their own this morning as a kind of ‘spontaneous date’, but obviously in Mum’s eyes, keeping the romance in her marriage is way less important than forcing me to keep a calendar appointment.

  The only reason I am by the front door fifteen minutes later is because Dad pleaded, and seeing as he’d come to the rescue of my Grimace-inspired hair less than twenty-four hours prior, I feel too guilty to say no.

  The first hour is tolerable. Mum has been discussing the wedding, of course. In amongst the latest update on budget (Mum actually has a printed copy of her latest spreadsheet), she’s been telling Dad about the dates they both need to put in for leave.

  I tune out, my mind lingering on Queenstown, and therefore Taylor, which leads me to think of Taylor’s email and my reply, meaning I enjoy a brief respite from the constant monologue of Aidan dumped me.

  As the waiter takes our bill, Mum folds up her spreadsheet and we set off on our usual stroll down the Balmoral esplanade. The sun’s out. It has to be at least thirty degrees, a bonus for Sydney in September.

  We cross the bridge and walk up to Rocky Point lookout. We sit for a while, the spring sunshine seeping into our shoulders. Dad’s recounting a story from Positano, where Mum and he honeymooned.

  The people he’s talking about – newlyweds sipping Aperol Spritzes at all hours of the day and slow-dancing on bougainvillea-covered terraces – sound nothing like the Mum and Dad sitting at either side of me on the bench right now.

  ‘We were constantly making out in public,’ he says.

  ‘TMI,’ I say, putting my hands over my ears because it’s gross. But for a second, I feel sad because these days the only embarrassing thing they do in public is argue, or make little digs at each other’s expense.

  We head back down the hill, and just as I’m thinking, Hey, this whole change-of-scenery-thing WAS a good idea, I see them.

  They’re on the beach to the left of me. Aidan’s putting sunscreen on Steffanie’s face. He playfully dabs a blob on her nose and she retaliates, swiping a handful across his forehead.

  I watch as he draws a white heart over her collarbone, and I remember sitting on the bus with him to the city, back in May. It was a drizzly, bitterly cold day, but when he drew our initials on the foggy window, tracing a heart around them, the whole world felt brighter.

  They’re kissing now, and his hands are cupping her face, exactly the way they used to hold mine.

  For a second, I wonder if this morning is just another of my horrible post-breakup dreams, where I relive the moment of Aidan’s betrayal again and again.

  ‘Isolde! We’re going right, remember?’

  Mum’s shout shocks me out of my stupor.

  ‘Isolde!’ The second shout is even louder, and I watch in horror as Aidan and Steffanie stop kissing and turn their heads my way.

  He sees me. And the three weeks of tears that I’ve just held back whenever he’s been around, come rushing at me.

  I’m used to seeing them together in class. But for some reason, seeing them outside the studio, hangi
ng out at the beach like an average couple, is different. Stumbling upon their date here, in my neighbourhood, on the one day I’ve decided to stick my neck out into the real world, is excruciating.

  I take off, running across the zebra crossing to the other side of the street where they can’t see me. Mum and Dad are right at my heels, Mum incessantly repeating my name like she thinks it’s a magic word that will make me freeze on the spot like the Road Runner.

  Outside the café on the corner, my right calf seizes up into a cramp, a sickening double whammy of overworked muscles combining with the shock that’s trembling its way through my body. I reach down and grab my foot, pulling my lower leg into a stretch. Because I’m still crying, my nose starts streaming at the same time. I can feel the eyes of all the patrons at the café’s outdoor tables on me, and I know they’re thinking, That girl is a mess.

  Mum and Dad reach me, and Dad takes over on calf-stretching duty. Mum’s staring at my face, which I know is red and probably streaked with mascara.

  ‘I want to go home now,’ is the only thing I manage.

  Mum just thinks I’m having another crying spell, and she’s saying something about us taking a juice break at the café so I can pull myself together, but Dad gives her a look and she shuts up. He runs off to grab the car.

  As we stand on the footpath waiting for him to swing by, my tears dry in the sun. My leg’s not cramping any more, but it’s still burning like crazy, as if someone’s scalded my calf with a hot iron. The heat rises up my body and into my lungs. As I stare over in the direction of the beach where I can just make out Aidan and Steffanie near the water, I realise the burning feeling inside my chest, rising with every breath, is fury.

  I can tell he’s in love. Meanwhile, I’ve spent twenty-two days crying and torturing myself every night, trying to figure out what I did wrong, and by that reasoning, what was wrong with me.

  I’ve felt all of that, and he’s felt nothing.

  At that moment, I’m so angry I think, Screw dignity, and pull out my phone.

  Isolde’s Mobile

  Aidan

  Sunday 16 September, 2:31pm

  Find yourself another beach, you jerk. You know I live five minutes away.

  Isolde, seriously? I know you’re mad, but this wasn’t personal. We were just hanging out at the beach.

  Balmoral Beach is MY territory now. Take your girlfriend to Manly. Or Bondi. Or Palm Beach. This is SYDNEY – THERE ARE OTHER BEACHES AVAILABLE.

  JEEZ. Okay, whatever. We’ll find a new beach.

  Don’t JEEZ me. How hard is it for you to make SOME attempt at sensitivity?

  I’m not having this conversation. I’ve got better things to do.

  Taylor

  Sunday 16 September

  They called me Hellfire Hellemann once.

  Hellfire: A fire that burns with unusual heat or ferocity, or the devil’s fire.

  Dramatic, right?

  Then again, when you compete in a sport that’s a Frankenstein mix of ski-jumping meets halfpipe that the New York Times once described as ‘the most beautiful, insane, stupid, dangerous and death-wishing sport ever perpetuated on innocent spectators’, you quickly realise that the commentary around Big Air and its boarders leans towards the dramatic. And the drama – as in the spectacle and the excitement and the stunts – was what I loved the most about Big Air.

  Not only was it the most dangerous of all the snowboarding disciplines – riders blazed down a super-steep slope and off a ramp, or ‘kicker’, before vaulting themselves into the sky to perform aerobatics for the crowd at an average height of sixty-five feet above the ground – the event itself was all about ‘go big or go home’.

  In a nutshell – it’s basically the biggest, baddest trick contest, off one gigantic jump. So for every run, you need to use every single moment of ‘big air’ time – which is around two to three seconds at the most – to pack in as many twists and turns as you can, while still landing clean and in control.

  High risk, high reward.

  Every comp, you see something new. Something next level. Because everyone’s trying to outdo each other to wind up on that podium after finals. A few years back, a 1440 triple cork was a big flipping deal. Nowadays though? The top competitors are pulling out quad-cork 1880s, as in upside down, four times over, off-axis, and FIVE 360-degree revolutions. It pushes the limits of what anyone on the scene used to think was humanly possible.

  Some people have flying dreams. I dream of triple corks.

  In those dreams, I don’t just see the snow and the sky. I see the mountains as well, stretched on forever. I feel as if everything around me is endless, and I am too, and I can keep rotating for minutes on end instead of sheer seconds.

  I always land the trick.

  That’s the thing that wakes me up. The stomp of the board connecting with the ground. My whole body jolts on my mattress from the impact. For a second, I’m sure I’m at the bottom of the landing area, that I’ve wiped out and the darkness all around me is from taking a blow to the head. My hands go to my chest, my arms, my legs. An instinctual pat-down to make sure I’m not in pieces.

  I feel my heart pounding when my hands go to my right knee. To below it.

  Because the rest of the limb’s not there.

  For a second, terror rips through me. And then I remember. Or at least my mind does. My body already knew. That’s why my face is wet long before my hands roam my body.

  From: taylor_hellemann@gmail.com

  To: IsoldeByrne@hotmail.com

  Sent: Sunday 16 September, 10:37pm

  Subject: Not getting rid of me that easily :)

  Hey Goldie,

  So . . . about those last few paragraphs in your email from last night. You know, the whole ‘I’m looking forward to talking properly next year’ and ‘there’s no obligation to email me back’.

  Way to make a guy feel wanted, Isolde.

  JOKE.

  Sorry, but you’re not getting rid of me that easily.

  You know I pretty much did a PhD last year in pushing people away, right? I can spot your moves from 1938 kilometres away. Busted :) :) :)

  And that word you used – ‘obligation’ – if I’d seen emailing you as ‘obligation’, that email would have been a super quick, ‘Hey, Goldie. Sucks about your breakup. That guy is a (insert appropriate SWEAR WORD here). Hope you’ll feel better soon – Tay.’

  Straight up? I’ve wanted to reach out for ages now, but I just didn’t have the guts to do it. Basically, your breakup finally gave me a legit excuse.

  What I mean is: if something good can come out of a rubbish situation (your breakup), then it’s that you and I are talking again.

  Anyway – what I was trying to say about your breakup was:

  GOLDIE, I’M HAPPY TO HAVE YOU BACK IN MY LIFE.

  Honestly? I’ve been scared out of my mind that we’d never speak again. So throw whatever at me – downer emails, rants about your shallow-as-hell ex, the intense and the heavy, the banal and the superficial.

  TBH, I like superficial stuff. Last year was . . . well . . . kind of dark in a lot of ways. So I need the lighter end of the spectrum – you know, equilibrium and such.

  So, consider me your unofficial breakup counsellor. My advice is going to be sketchy at best. I’ll probably have frequent flare-ups of foot-in-mouth-itis and my own post-breakup insecurities are sure to weave in and out of future emails. But I am 100% here for you. You need to vent.

  Now that I’ve responded to the first part of your email – that I WANT to hear from you – I need to respond to the second, probably even more crucial bit. Which is – you know that our fight was my fault as well, right? ’Cause I was kind of sensing from the language that you’ve let me off the hook for MY words that night – words that might have been uglier and more selfish than yours. Which makes me feel sick.

  Issy, I’ve replayed that fight in my mind a million times, and I was far from innocent.

  We’ve been friends our whol
e lives, and in amongst the sweet-as times, we’ve had a fair few fights too. Admittedly, none of those were as bad as the ‘Natalia fight’, but they were bad enough that I can see a pattern.

  You and I have the same flaw. As in, when we get mad, we get stinking mad, and words start catapulting out of our mouths. The wrong words. Ones that are way off base when it comes to what we want to say to the other person.

  I know that’s exactly what happened that night. I said something, I saw you take this sharp, short breath, and then boom – your words came at me like a Japanese bullet train.

  I know what came out wasn’t what you wanted to say. When you said that Natalia would inevitably dump me for someone else, what you really meant was, I’m worried she’s using you, not Why would she want to be with YOU, Taylor, when you have nothing to offer?

  But I got hot-headed all the same. Because, to be embarrassingly honest with you, I was insecure about Natalia and me. After all, I was this grommet from tiny little Queenstown and she was a gorgeous model flying in and out of LA and Paris, whose parents owned a TIFFANY sugar bowl.

  I don’t know why that stupid overpriced object has continued to stick in my mind, but I guess it just sums up the difference between her world and mine.

  As you know, the year I met Natalia, Dad was halfway through his second year of being sick. He couldn’t do his usual landscaping jobs around the chemo sessions because it’s kind of a struggle to move boulders and wield a machete when you’re as weak as a kitten from vomiting . . . So what with living off Mum’s salary and paying the gap between what the health insurance covered and the actual cost of each chemo treatment, money was tighter than tight.

  Anyway, basically, I all-out believed Natalia was light years out of my league, and I was trying my hardest to hide that from her. So when you and I were arguing that night, I felt like you were saying, Why would she want you? and coming from you – aka the girl who knew me best in the world, who loved me like a brother – that stung like mad.