If We Were Young: A Romance Read online

  For Steph,

  Who would say to me, “You’ve just got to get on with it, love.”

  Contents

  Dreams

  2005

  Reunion

  Re-Uni-Not

  Grafitti

  Messenger

  Jupiter

  Advocate

  Piercings

  Pinot Fog

  Coffee

  Noodles

  Theory

  Girl Talk

  Cranky Pills

  Trains

  Memories

  Lavender

  Science

  Tea

  Carlings

  Dancing

  Rings

  Purple Vegetables

  Photographs

  Continue the story…

  When We Were Young

  Thank You

  Acknowledgments

  Dreams

  I think about you when I shouldn’t.

  When my eyes blink open in the depth of night and I’m chasing the tail of a dream, you stand there, a ghost of a whisper calling my name.

  I see you everywhere I look. In places I know you’ll never be: the turn of a shoulder, a flash of dark hair.

  I hear you until it hurts my heart: a shout in the park, a rumbled laugh that makes me turn and stare.

  I think about you more than I should. Secrets and regrets. Split moments of indecision. Moments where I wish I’d been someone else: brave, wild, and free.

  But that’s not me.

  I’m not brave.

  Not brave enough for you.

  That’s why I live without you and every day is a passing moment until I might see you in my sleep.

  There, in the dark places of the night, there is just you and me. We are memories in notebooks worn around the edges, jokes half-remembered but still halfway funny. We are hands that brush in a passing touch, long silent moments full of words never said.

  For you, my heart aches over what could have been. Because for us, despite my regret, there is only the time when we were young.

  2005

  “Oh my gawwwd.” Ange fell through the front door, gasping and clutching her chest. She bent at the waist and I re-opened the door so that if she threw up it would be on the front step and not on Ma’s carpets. Please not on Ma’s carpets.

  “It’s okay,” she gasped. She looked like she’d just walked out of a sauna. Her hair stuck in twisted vines across her forehead, her cheeks were a deep blotched red. “I won’t get the carpets.”

  “Have you run here?” I peered out of the doorway to check if there was a bunch of wild animals out in the deathly quiet cul-de-sac. I could think of no reason, other than a lion trying to chew off her leg while she clawed on her elbows to get to freedom, for Angela to run. None.

  “I have. I think I’m going to faint.” She slid down the wall and her chest rattled.

  “You need to stop smoking, Ange.” I kicked her feet over the threshold to the house and shut the door. Outside was blindingly hot. Stupid hot for August, or any month.

  “I need a ciggy to recover.”

  “You know you can’t smoke in here.” I left her on the floor and walked back to the kitchen where I’d been working my way through a list of jobs entitled “Veronica’s To Do List”. It filled the front and back of a sheet of A4 lined paper. I’d been cherry-picking my preferred chores off of it.

  “What have you been doing?” Angela staggered behind me and dragged a chair across my mother’s kitchen tiles.

  “Sweeping the stairs.”

  “Since I saw you last week?”

  I held in a smile. “There are lots of stairs.”

  Angela poked her head back into the hallway. “No there aren’t. It’s the same eighteen I slipped down last month after those vodka jelly shots.”

  I shot her a glare but bit my tongue from retorting. The vodka jelly had caused the long chore list. It appeared my time hadn’t been utilised efficiently.

  “Anyway, why are you here? I thought you were at work?”

  “Gaaaaaaah. Don’t you mention that heathen place.”

  “The Post Office?”

  “Ugh. Do you know how hard it is working every damn day? It hurts me, Ronnie. It hurts me.”

  I snorted a laugh. “I think that’s the idea.”

  “Why haven’t you got a job? Why's it just me?”

  “Jeez, you sound like you’ve signed up for a lifetime of service in a distant war zone. It’s a summer job at the Post Office, they won’t work you to death.”

  “No, Ronnie!” She held her eyes wide open and grabbed my arm tight in one hand while waving the other in front of my face. “Look! Look at this. Six months these took to grow and look at them now.”

  Shaking my head, I pulled out a chair and offered her the seat.

  “No. I do need a smoke.” She motioned for the back garden and I cringed. “Coming?”

  “Ma is out there.”

  “Ugh. Does she look like King Kong has punched her in the vagina?”

  I gagged loudly. “Please don’t ever mention my mother’s vagina again.”

  “Quite.” Ange and I both straightened at the voice behind us. How had she crept around the front like that? The woman was everywhere. “I ask you to not discuss my private areas, Angela Bennett.”

  I gagged again. This conversation was heading south quick. Literally.

  Ange nodded her head towards the kitchen door in a not so secret code for ‘let’s get the hell out of here’. Shooting an apologetic glance at Ma, I hustled her out.

  “I don’t know why you have to antagonise her.”

  “Because she’s Hitler dressed in women’s clothing, Ronnie. I know you love your parents, but this is ridiculous. You’ve been living here the whole time I’ve known you. I bet she made you a boiled egg and soldiers this morning.”

  “French toast, for your information.” I fell into one of the garden chairs with a sigh. They were the type where you had to get your balance on right otherwise you’d flip through the air like a pancake.

  Ange slunk into a spare one and crossed her long legs. “I thought I was having a heart attack there for a moment.”

  “And how we would all mourn, although I have to say I’m liking the red lipstick. Better than last week's pastel pink,” I teased.

  “You would mourn me, and you know it.” She performed a shit job at looking offended. “Lemme guess, you’ve been nowhere and done nothing since the last time I graced you with my fabulous presence.”

  I curled my top lip. “Where would I go?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. The bloody job centre? Beg them for something to do so you don’t have to be your mother’s skivvy all day.”

  “I’m not a skivvy. It was part of the agreement, you know that.”

  Ange sucked on her cigarette like it was dying and she planned to give it the kiss of life. “Yes, yes. Veronica.” She wagged her finger and twisted her tone so it rankled right down my spine. “You shall stay here the whole way through university and forthwith are banned from participating in any fun.”

  “That’s exaggerating.”

  She arched a fair eyebrow.

  “Uni is over, isn’t it, Ronnie? You’ve stayed home, had your tuition paid. What happens next?”

  I glared at the sky. How dare it be so pretty and blue when my heart felt like a black hole in the middle of the universe?

  “Oh, here you go.” Ange clipped, as tart as an unripe apple. “Let’s sigh and look depressed while we flop all over the place. Come on, Ronnie! What happens next?”

  I grimaced, but that tightness around my chest pinged like a rubber band. “I’m not going anywhere, am I?” I pushed back in the chair and made the spring
s behind the floral cushions squeak.

  “Just go. Pack a bag. Take a gap year.” Her smile stretched. “Better yet, come and work in the post office with me.”

  “I’m not working in a post office, and you know why I’m not going anywhere.”

  Her smile dropped. “Why? Because of him? Are you thinking you can stay here so he knows where to come and find you? I’ll tell you straight, Ronnie. That won’t happen.”

  “No.” My cheeks sizzled, and it had nothing to do with the heatwave baking the back garden until the earth on my Ma’s lawn had cracked like over-baked terracotta. “It’s just, you know.” I tried to swallow around the tightness.

  “You can’t speak to people and throw up at the first sign of stress?”

  I nodded.

  Ange narrowed her eyes into lizard slits. “But you’ve been better. I know the first few weeks at uni were a bit, well how can I put it… vomitty.” She pulled a face at her lacklustre adjective. “But you’ve been better.”

  “And you know why.” I shifted and tugged at my vest top.

  “Maa-the-ewww.”

  “Not funny.”

  Ange’s face dropped as she sucked on her cigarette again.

  “What?” Something about her expression put me on a trigger warning. And when I said trigger warning, what I meant was that any mention of my former best friend, Matthew, was likely to make me wail like a banshee and set myself alight on a pyre in the garden.

  I know. Dramatic.

  “What exactly happened that day? You know you should just tell me.”

  I slunk down, pulling my shoulders up close to my ears. “Nothing.”

  “Nothing? You cried for a week and you are now on a self-imposed exile.”

  “I’m not telling. Why do you keep asking?”

  “Because.” She paused. “I saw Scott.”

  “Who’s Scott?”

  “You know. Ma—”

  I cut her off. “Don’t!”

  “Okay. Ugh. I’m gonna have to dig deep here.” She paused and looked like she was thinking very hard or trying to fart. “You know that bloke with the strawberry blonde hair, freckles. He was friends with a six-foot four Scottish brute, and he captained the football team?”

  “Oh, the guy you shagged in Professor Carpenter’s office and then we all got lectured by the Dean for irresponsible behaviour?”

  “Totally, one hundred percent that one.”

  My heart skipped a beat. I hated it. Would have dug it out of my chest if it wasn’t for the fear of Ma telling me off for making her lawn worse. “Okay? And he’s the reason you ran here? Is he going to make an honest woman of you? Are you going to keep the baby?”

  Angela’s face paled. “What baby? Honest what?”

  I snorted and stretched my leg out so I could poke her with my toe. I waited for her to smile back, but she bent over and took too long to stub out her ciggy.

  “Angela?”

  When she looked up, she had the slightest hint of genuine concern on her face. That’s when I knew something was wrong.

  My brain went to funny places. Who could be hurt? Had someone hurt him?

  Something bloody bad must have happened for Angela to look even halfway serious.

  “Is it…?” Acid crept up my throat.

  “Ronnie. I’m not going to sugar coat this; I’ll say it how it is so then you can move on. You can get on with your life, instead of sitting here all broken hearted. Now, I know you won’t tell me what happened, what it was you think you messed up, but know I’m your best friend. I’m always going to be here for you. There will never ever be a guy who comes between us again.”

  Again? I opened my mouth to question what she meant. I’d never had a boyfriend the whole time we’d been friends.

  I didn’t get a chance. Her lips moved in slow motion, the sound numbing my ears, stretching out for all eternity. “Matthew’s getting married.”

  All I heard was. “Maaaarrrriiiiiiieeeeed.” In that animated, someone’s been punched in the face way.

  The air, partway through the process of transforming from oxygen to carbon monoxide, got caught in my chest. I couldn’t breathe in or out; my lungs pinched and burned like someone had lit a match within their recesses and turned the air to sulphur. I tasted it on my tongue for one short moment before the sting of acid replaced it.

  I puked on the lawn, heaving my stomach dry.

  Tears welled, and I didn’t want to let them roll. If one went, then they would all go, and I’d been fighting them for over a month, not allowing them to brim over the edge.

  “Ronnie?” Ange rubbed my back as I heaved again. “Sweets, I swear it will be okay. He wasn’t meant for you; don’t you see that? It was all a stupid mistake.”

  One fat plump tear exploded onto the dry grass, followed by another.

  “Ronnie, don’t you see, you weren’t in love with him, not really. And he certainly wasn’t in love with you. He’s getting married for God’s sake, to a girl he’s been with the entire time you’ve known him. He was with her before you two even met. You and he were just friends, and not even good ones if he’s left you messed up like this. He’s a bloody player. I warned you.” Ange pulled a face. It made her look like she didn’t want to be brutal, but she knew she had to fulfil her life’s destiny to put me on the straight and narrow about Matthew Carling.

  Matthew Carling.

  I groaned. I couldn’t imagine a life without him in it and now I was staring at it like I stared down the barrel of a gun.

  “He can’t. He’s only twenty-one.” And he can’t because I never got around to telling him that I might love him.

  Ange, despite the face she pulled at my explosion of sick, came alongside me and slipped an arm around my shoulders. “Exactly. What a fucking loser. Come on, sweet. Just forget about him now.”

  I raised my hand and brushed my cheeks. Hot sticky water trails smeared everywhere. My eyes stung. “Yeah. I know. I’ll just forget about him now.”

  “See! That’s my girl. Come on, let’s rinse your mum for some cash and we can go out for wine and chips.”

  “I don’t think so. Sorry, Ange. I know you came all this way, but I think I just need… just need…” I needed to rinse some bleach into my brain so I wouldn’t remember Matthew Carling’s name. Face. Smile. Laugh. Anything.

  What I needed was to re-write the last three years of my fucking life and do it again, but differently.

  “I said all along, Ronnie. Boys and girls can’t be friends. It’s just not science.”

  I nodded. “Sorry, Ange. I’ve got a bit of a headache. Can we meet up on the weekend?”

  “You going to be okay?” She peered closer. “You will forget about him, I promise.”

  “Like you forget about every man you’ve ever been with?”

  “Aha! You see the difference here? I forget about them and that’s after I’ve shagged the breath out of them. You and Matthew were never like that, were you?”

  She watched me for a long pause, eyes narrowed, until I nodded. “No, we weren’t.”

  “See. Now, come on, let’s go and be grown-ups.”

  I forced a smile on. “Not sure how to do that when I can’t even leave the house or talk with people without feeling like I will puke or die.”

  “Don’t worry, babes. I’ve got your back.” She cupped her hands around my cheeks. “Better?”

  I nodded and smiled.

  No. No, I’m not better.

  Matthew Carling was getting married, and I knew for a fact he was marrying the wrong girl. The blame for that laid firmly at my door.

  Reunion

  “Repeat after me. ‘He will be bald and fat’.”

  I groaned and placed my head against the cool bathroom mirror. The burst of chilled freshness on my hot skin slowed the thump inside my ribcage until my heart fluttered a faint stuttered echo.

  I’d been like this for days, ever since I’d agreed to go.

  And to go… I’m talking about that thing�
� the reunion… A meeting at the gates of hell.

  Re-uni-on; such a stupid word.

  “Say it,” Angela shouted through the wall of the hotel bathroom. To be fair to her, the determination she’d put into making sure I couldn’t back out had been impressive; twenty-four-hour monitoring, an emergency first class flight from Scotland, and all toilet breaks chaperoned. She’d taken on a stealth security detail; not letting me out of her sight, apart from now. I’d locked that bathroom door as quick as humanly possible. In fact, I think it bordered on meta-human super-speed.

  She rapped on the wood again. “I can’t believe we are still doing this, eighteen years later. I’m worried about your personal growth here, Ronnie. You’re a grown woman, a successful businesswoman; you shouldn’t be barricading yourself into a bathroom of a budget hotel. It smacks of desperation.”

  Her pep talk seeped into my logical thinking. The woman was never wrong. I was a grown woman—sort of. I was a successful woman too—so long as you discounted the growing debts and the month to month worry about whether I could pay my staff.

  I turned to reach for the latch of the bathroom door and then remembered that everyone would look at me. Me, the widow. Poor Ronnie, did you hear her husband died in a snowdrift?

  Then I remembered him. It was the worst bit. It’s the deep and desperate secret of my soul.

  Looking in the mirror, my breath misting against the glass, I gagged. “I can’t,” I finally said, sure that I wouldn’t be sick.

  “Are you dry heaving there?” Like she even needed to ask.

  “Mm.” I lowered my head down. Let’s all praise the Lord for the pristine shine of a chain hotel toilet.

  “Your gag reflex is pathetic, Ron. How do you even run a successful business? Don’t you spend half your time hiding in the toilets with your head down the bowl?”