The Long Distance Playlist

by Tara Eglington

  I just shouldn’t have said the ‘Be yourself, she’ll love you’ bit. That was the honest part of me slipping through.

  Amateur. I should be better at this whole thing by now. After all, I’ve done this all before.

  When I was twelve, I had the biggest crush on Taylor. I know the exact moment the crush started. If I close my eyes right now, I can time travel in a split second and I’m back there, in Taylor’s backyard on Easter Sunday . . .

  We’re sitting on his trampoline, breaking off pieces of the enormous chocolate Easter egg that’s sitting in between us. Taylor’s telling me he reckons he could outrun a T-rex.

  ‘Get over yourself,’ I say, through a mouthful of chocolate. ‘You could not.’

  ‘If I was sprinting I might. Something that enormous can’t move that fast.’

  ‘Um, what about an elephant? They can run up to forty k’s an hour.’

  Taylor rolls his eyes. ‘That’s elephants. Not a T-rex.’

  ‘I’m telling you, T-rexs are faster than elephants.’

  ‘Who even knows that? No-one’s ever raced a dinosaur.’

  We wind up googling ‘How fast could a T-rex run’, but that doesn’t answer anything because none of the articles agree with each other.

  ‘Well, BuzzFeed says you’d have to be Usain Bolt to outrun a T-rex, and I don’t care how many primary school sprints you’ve won, you’re not Usain Bolt.’ I shrug.

  ‘I reckon I could out-board the thing down a hill, then.’

  He always has an answer, even if he knows he’s losing. It drives me nuts.

  I look at his know-it-all grin, the way his arms are folded over his chest like it settles the argument. ‘You are the most annoying person ever.’

  ‘I can be more annoying.’ Taylor stands up and starts jumping right next to me so I’m bouncing all over the trampoline.

  ‘Stop it!’ I toss the last of the Easter egg at him, and it hits him on the head.

  He manages to catch a piece of splintered chocolate in his mouth. ‘Mm, delicious! Thanks, Goldie!’

  I grab his knees because that’s my only option for payback, and he falls right next to me. I look over at him, his head thirty centimetres from mine, and he’s still wearing that infuriating smile. There’s chocolate on his cheek – he’s obviously face-planted onto one of the splintered pieces of the Easter egg that are scattered all around us on the trampoline.

  I look at his grinning face and that’s it. In that one second, Taylor goes from the most annoying person in the world to something else.

  I stand in the shower that night, wasting ten minutes of water while I silently ask myself, Do I like him, or do I like-LIKE him? By the time Vi starts banging on the door, saying she has to go to the bathroom, I know the answer.

  I have feelings for him.

  Non-friend feelings.

  Crush feelings.

  I feel sure he’s going to notice. Notice how when we’re playing Xbox and his hands brush mine when he hands me the controller for my turn, my fingers start trembling and I always mess up the first round. Or he’ll realise how when we’re lying on his bed watching The Art of Flight, I keep looking over at him every few minutes, like a nervous tic.

  Having these completely new reactions around someone I’ve known for my entire life is so weird for me – how can he not pick up on it?

  But he’s still the same Taylor. He’s not self-conscious at all. Meanwhile, I feel like I might die from it sometimes.

  The most embarrassing moment is cutting my thirteenth-birthday cake. I can see Vi’s amused smile, even though she’s trying to hide it behind her hands. She’s onto me. She has been ever since I went red after hugging Taylor hello at the airport. Vi had come up beside me while we were walking out of the terminal exit and tapped her finger against her right cheek.

  You’re blushing, she’d mouthed.

  But on my birthday, Taylor’s the one who’s red-faced as Finn jabbers on about dirty knives and me having to kiss the nearest boy. That’s when I know nothing’s changed for Taylor. I’ve had this stupid crush for eight whole months, meanwhile he still thinks anything love-related is gross.

  ‘Taylor hates anything to do with kissing,’ I say, letting him off the hook.

  As I eat my birthday cake, I decide I’m giving up. So the last thing I’m expecting on New Year’s Eve, is for Taylor to grab my hand and pull me through the crowd.

  Please don’t let go of my hand, I pray silently as we finally come to a stop down by the shoreline, and he turns to me and smiles. For four seconds, I don’t think I can get any happier – and then we hit midnight and his head starts moving towards mine, and I’m a balloon that’s close to bursting.

  He’s going to kiss me, I think. Just like I’ve been imagining for so long. But he doesn’t. He hugs me instead. When he finally pulls away, I’m struggling so badly to hide my disappointment, that the only thing I can do is look up at the fireworks.

  You read things all wrong, you idiot, I say to myself.

  But an hour later, back home in bed with the lights off, I remember Taylor’s fingers laced through mine so tightly, and the way he’d said my name, and I just know:

  I wasn’t imagining things. He has got feelings.

  Maybe he’s not ready yet. Maybe I just need to wait a little longer.

  We’ll be back in the winter, I think fiercely. Six months. That’s not that long. He’ll still feel the same way.

  But then in April, Mum says we’re not going to Queenstown to ski that August. Work is too busy and she can’t get the leave. I know she’s lying. I overheard the argument between her and Dad last month. Work isn’t the reason we’re not going back to Queenstown. Dad’s upset about the money Mum’s offered to loan the Hellemanns for Tobi’s stem-cell transfer.

  ‘It’s inappropriate, Louise,’ I’d heard Dad saying as I stood outside their bedroom door.

  ‘Inappropriate? He’s going to die without that op, Patrick. Are you okay with that on your conscience?’

  Dad said a string of bad words. ‘I’m not saying we shouldn’t loan them the money. It’s the fact that you didn’t talk to me first before offering it to him.’

  ‘The conversation didn’t start out about money. And he didn’t ask me, if that makes you feel better.’

  ‘Louise, don’t go there.’

  ‘Well, don’t use the word “inappropriate”, then. He didn’t ask. I offered because I knew he wouldn’t ask. He’s too proud, Patrick. But the reality is, they used all the equity out of the mortgage for the chemo. Where are they going to find that kind of money for a stem-cell op?’

  ‘Exactly. That kind of money. Which you offered without even talking to me about it.’

  Their voices had raised, harsher and louder than any fight I’d overheard before, and I’d walked away because I felt sick.

  I’m still hoping for Christmas. Taylor might not have the same feelings by then, but maybe I can make them come back if we’re together again in the same place. I feel like I can. We’re still talking all the time, after all. We skype every couple of days.

  And then in September, Mum tells me we’re going to Noosa for Christmas. She says it’s not up for discussion, which means Mum and Dad are obviously still fighting about Tobi and the money, even though they’d already sent the Hellemanns the loan.

  I call Taylor to tell him we’re not coming over at Christmas, and I start crying, even though I feel like an idiot.

  ‘That’s okay, Goldie,’ he says. ‘I have some news about Christmas too. I won’t be in Queenstown for it this year. I’m going to train in Aspen this winter. That’s big, Goldie. Really big.’

  I know it is. So I’m happy for him, even though Google tells me he’ll now be 13,230 kilometres away, and he won’t be back until May next year.

  I’m happy until October, when he tells me about this girl he met in Auckland airport after his last meeting with his sponsors.

  Natalia.

  He comes to Sydney in November, a quick
stop-off before he flies out to the US, and she’s with him. Dad and I pick them up from the airport and take them to lunch before their afternoon flight.

  She’s stunning. Even I can’t stop looking at her.

  I don’t dislike her because of the way she looks. I dislike her because I can tell from the way she looks at him, and what she’s said in every post she’s put on her Instagram of them as a couple, that she doesn’t love him for who he is. She loves that he’s an up-and-coming snowboarder and he’s good-looking.

  I don’t tell Taylor what I think of her. I keep my mouth shut, hoping he’ll work that out for himself. But he doesn’t. They keep dating into the next year. Then in February the following year, in the middle of one of our Wednesday-night Skype calls, he tells me he’s going to tell her he loves her.

  ‘You don’t sound happy about it,’ he says when I summon up a one-syllable reply – an ‘Oh’.

  I know this is it. My last chance to finally tell him how I feel before it’s too late.

  To say: ‘That’s because I want you to be with me, not her.’

  But I don’t say that. I’m too scared. Instead, I say a few things about Natalia, things I shouldn’t, but they’re spilling over. He doesn’t want to hear them.

  The ‘I love you’ comes out, of course. But it’s not the right kind. It’s an angry one, said in an angry way, a You know I love you, Taylor. What kind of friend would I be if I stood back and didn’t say anything?

  He doesn’t say, ‘I love you too.’ He says, ‘If you want to be a good friend, then let me make my own freaking decisions.’

  His voice is mad now. Mad at me. I hate this.

  ‘Stupid ones, you mean,’ I say before I can stop myself.

  His reply is just as fast. ‘You’ve never even had a relationship, and you’re acting like you know everything about mine!’

  My blood’s teeming with angry words, and my skin splits open and the worst spills out.

  ‘I know she’s going to dump you when someone bigger comes along. She’s that kind of person.’

  I hate myself the second I finish the sentence. I can tell from his eyes how much I’ve hurt him.

  ‘Just let it go, Isolde! Far out – you’re stubborn as hell, you know,’ he shoots back. ‘I feel sorry for the guy who has to be your boyfriend.’

  I know that what he meant to say was, ‘You’re being bossy, don’t tell me what to do.’ But my heart doesn’t hear that. His words are a brand burned into it.

  I feel sorry for the guy who has to be your boyfriend.

  Like it’s the last thing he’d ever want. Like I’m the last girl he’d ever want. And it makes me so angry, I snap.

  ‘You know what? When Natalia winds up dumping you, don’t call me for sympathy. In fact, don’t call me at all. I never want to hear from you again.’

  And I hang up the phone and he doesn’t call me back – not the next day, or the next week, or month.

  I don’t call him either. We’re not friends at all any more.

  I think that’s the worst pain I can ever feel, and then in June the accident happens, and that goes beyond any type of pain I’ve ever imagined. For a few days, his life hangs in the balance, and all of us are praying – Mum, Dad, Vi, Tobi, Maia.

  When Maia skypes us to say he’s out of danger, I have to leave Mum’s office because I can’t stop crying. Vi follows me.

  ‘Isolde, didn’t you hear what Maia said?’

  I can’t find words to explain to her that the tears are relieved ones.

  When I finally stop crying, what I know for sure is: I want to be in his life any way I can.

  Except he doesn’t seem to want me to be.

  Every call I make goes to voicemail. Maia tells me to keep trying – that he’s struggling to come to terms with the loss of his leg. ‘He’s not really talking to anyone on the phone. Maybe you should write instead?’ she suggests.

  I don’t know how many letters I send. A lot.

  In October, I finally get a text. It’s nine words long. I text back. No reply. I try again three weeks later, and then two weeks after that. Silence.

  In December, when I don’t hear from him on my birthday, I finally give up.

  So three months later, when Aidan lifts my chin so my lips are almost touching his, I let him take the kiss I’d been naively saving all this time for Taylor. I say ‘yes’ when Aidan asks me out. I let myself say ‘I love you’ because it’s not that scary any more. I’ve already staked everything with Taylor and had the worst result.

  I say those three words to Aidan, even though I know there’s a guy out there that I’ll always love way more.

  And then Aidan dumps me. And Taylor gets in touch and I write back, even though my heart tells me I shouldn’t. We come full circle, and the same feelings start to sneak in when I’m doing all I can to stop them.

  The signs are obvious. The feeling in my stomach the first time we skype. The realisation on New Year’s Eve that he’s the only guy I want to count down to midnight with. The way I obsessively change the water in the vase holding his Valentine’s bouquet – twice a day – hoping to extend the life of the blooms forever. How the last few months I haven’t been able to stop thinking of June and Queenstown and us, finally together in the same spot after two and a half years.

  And six weeks out from that, I have to watch him fall in love with some other girl all over again. Smile and pretend for the second time that I’m happy for him.

  Because I love him and I want the best for him, right?

  Even when I feel like the best for him is me.

  Instant Messenger Conversation

  Tuesday 23 April, 9:31pm

  Violetta Byrne: Can you grab Mum? I’m close to cracking it over this seating chart . . . What’s all that noise in the background?

  Isolde Byrne: Mum and Dad fighting.

  Violetta Byrne: I thought you said they’d been doing better lately?

  Isolde Byrne: They have, most of the time. Or at least, when they see each other they have. Mum’s been at the office all the time because she’s assisting the Executive General Manager with the financials for a ‘critical’ (her words, not mine) board presentation.

  Violetta Byrne: And Dad’s been gallivanting around town seeing shows.

  Isolde Byrne: WRITING REVIEWS, you mean. It’s opening season.

  Violetta Byrne: I wish Dad would think about Mum a bit more. Have you looked at her lately? She’s exhausted.

  Isolde Byrne: Of course Dad thinks about her. He planned a surprise trip for their anniversary this weekend.

  Violetta Byrne: Oh. That’s kind of cute.

  Isolde Byrne: Mum doesn’t think so. When he told her about it tonight, she was mad, can you believe that? She basically said she can’t go away this close to the board date, even though they’d only be going to the Hunter Valley, and were going to drive up Friday night and come back on Sunday morning. So Dad’s peeved. THAT’S why they’re fighting. He says the tickets cost a fortune.

  Violetta Byrne: Tickets?

  Isolde Byrne: For the concert thing. Opera in the Vines or something. Apparently, he got one complimentary ticket as a reviewer, but he had to buy the other one.

  Violetta Byrne: So Mum’s 26th anniversary present was to a show she won’t even like?

  Isolde Byrne: That’s mean, Vi.

  Violetta Byrne: No, it’s honest. If he wanted to do something nice for HER for their anniversary, he could have booked some things that she’d like to do. I get why she’s annoyed. I would be too.

  Isolde Byrne: You always take her side.

  Violetta Byrne: Only when there’s just cause, like Dad being selfish.

  Isolde Byrne: Well, I think it’s selfish of HER to want to spend their wedding anniversary with a board paper.

  Violetta Byrne: She’s being responsible, Isolde. So she doesn’t get fired, like Dad.

  Isolde Byrne: He didn’t get FIRED, he was made redundant.

  Violetta Byrne: ‘Redundant’ was what
he and Mum agreed to say because he was embarrassed about what happened.

  Isolde Byrne: How do you know?

  Violetta Byrne: Mum TOLD me. I love Dad. I love how he wants to makes everything fun – but you can’t have fun 24/7.

  Isolde Byrne: As opposed to Mum, who can’t have fun at all.

  Violetta Byrne: I’m over this conversation. Just put Mum on. Isolde Byrne: MUM! Get off Dad’s back and come help Bridezilla!!!

  Violetta Byrne: NICE.

  Isolde Byrne: You try living in this house and staying in a good mood.

  Note on the Byrne Family Kitchen Bench

  Friday 26 April

  Louise,

  I’ve gone to the Hunter. If you change your mind and want to spend our wedding anniversary together, I’ve left you the address and map for the hotel.

  Patrick

  Isolde

  Sunday 28 April

  Saturday night’s phone call with Vi starts out awkward as anything. We’re still mad at each other for the fight we had on Tuesday night, and because we’re both Byrne-family-level stubborn, neither one of us is inching anywhere near the edge of ‘I’m sorry’.

  I feel like she wants to say I told you so about Dad, and let’s face it, she’d be justified in saying it. So I stick to the facts: when I got home from ballet on Friday evening, I found the note from Dad on the kitchen counter. When Mum got home and read it, I could see all the different emotions. Anger. Disgust. Hurt. And then her face contracted back into the usual Louise has this under control expression.

  Mum didn’t call Dad. Or text him. I know because I looked at her phone on Saturday morning while she was in the shower.

  Today is their actual anniversary.

  When Aunt Marie pops around for a coffee, I hear Mum say, He doesn’t respect me, Marie.

  When Dad gets home, he actually looks like he’s on the point of vomiting.

  Guilt, I guess. Mum doesn’t want to hear him out, and I can’t blame her. She cuts him off less than a minute in, somewhere around the fifth ‘I’m so sorry’ and tells him to go shower for dinner.