37. Holly, Melbourne

‘What are you doing today?' Adam asks, rinsing his cereal bowl and placing it in the dishwasher.

I shrug.

He gives me a fed-up sigh and crosses his arms.

I make a face. ‘What?'

‘You can't stay indoors and mope every day, Holly. The funeral was a month ago, and you've barely stepped outside.'

‘I've been out,' I shoot back.

‘You went to the shop on Monday to grab some milk and that's only because Meg and I were frantic with the kids.'

‘Well, sorry for being devastated that Mum died.'

He stares at me a beat, like he can't believe I said that. ‘I'm devastated too. She was also my mum. But Meg and I have a lot of stuff to deal with – the business, the kids, Meg's job, the house. None of that stops because Mum isn't here anymore. If you're going to stay here, we need you to help.'

I open my mouth to defend myself, but he continues.

‘Maybe you need to talk to someone to help you deal with what's happened. I need to deal with it by getting on with things.' He grabs his car keys from the bench. ‘And whatever happened with that chick in Berlin or London or wherever, bloody sort it out. And while you're at it, can you reply to Tom? I'm sick of getting messages from him every five minutes asking about you.' He raises his eyebrows at me waiting for my response.

Chastised, I bow my head. ‘No need to rip me to shreds. It's been a hard time, okay?'

‘It has for all of us, Holly. But sitting around staring at your phone isn't going to make it easier or make the hurt go away.' His tone doesn't soften. ‘We've been leaving you alone because you've had a tough time, but we can't keep looking after you like this. We're falling apart too. Can you do some stuff to help out today, please?'

‘What do you want me to do?' I ask in a small voice.

‘First, if you need to, speak to someone about Mum or book an appointment with a therapist or something. You know I'm not good with that stuff. I can't help. Then, can you go to the real estate and see what's happening with Mum's house? It was supposed to go on the market this week. And we need some groceries.' He jerks his chin towards a piece of paper on the kitchen bench. ‘There's the list.'

‘Righto. Geez.'

‘See you tonight, and you'll be helping with dinner.' He heads for the back door as Meg walks into the kitchen pulling her hair up into a top knot and glancing between us. ‘And fucken call that English chick so you stop being miserable,' Adam says. ‘Or if you're sticking around here, look for a job.'

‘Adam…' Meg says, but he leaves, slamming the door behind him.

I gape out the window as he strides across the backyard towards the garage. Has it been a month since the funeral? Have I been that obvious about Casey? I search my mind for any evidence that I've been helping Adam and Meg and getting on with my life, but all I see is me lying in bed or on the couch, dressed in pyjamas or the same old pair of grey trackpants, scrolling through photos of Mum and Dad or Casey and stalking Eva's Instagram.

I face Meg. ‘I'm sorry.'

She rushes over to me, pulling me into a hug. ‘He's just upset and trying to deal with things his own way.'

I cling to her. ‘I'm in the way.'

‘You're not.' She releases me. ‘You're welcome here as long as you want.'

‘He's right, though. I probably need to look for a job. Find someone to talk to about Mum.'

‘Only if you're ready,' she says.

The thought of getting on with life makes my body deflate. ‘Everything's so hard and unfair.'

‘You'll be okay, Holly. You just need some time,' Meg says gently.

Time. The answer to everything. ‘I'll get those groceries for you.'

‘Leave it. I'll grab some stuff on the way home.'

‘No, let me do it. It'll be good for me to get out of the house.'

She gives a grateful smile, and I shuffle off to the shower. After I'm washed and dressed, I scan the grief resources that the hospital gave us and make an appointment to speak with a therapist. Then I add some items to the shopping list so I can cook dinner. I grab my camera, which I haven't touched for weeks, and my car keys, and head out into the bright sunshine.

As I start the engine, my phone rings. I sigh when I see the caller, but answer. ‘Hi, Tom.'

‘Holly! Are you okay?'

I click in my seatbelt. ‘I'm fine. Sorry I haven't replied to you. I've just been a bit down.'

‘Of course you have.'

‘I got your text about dinner tomorrow night,' I say. ‘I'm free if you still wanted to go somewhere.'

‘Yes! Great. I'll find somewhere and let you know.'

I'm disheartened by the excitement in his voice. ‘Okay. I was just heading out, so I'll see you tomorrow night.'

‘Look forward to it.'

I hang up and set off towards the city, muttering, ‘Don't look forward to it, Tom.'

Half an hour later, I'm in the botanic gardens walking towards the lake where Mum and Dad took me for my tenth birthday. It's a weekday morning, so this section of the gardens is quiet and I'm grateful for the solitude. I dump my bag and wander along the water, looking for potential photo subjects. That's what Dad taught me that day – look for the photo potential in the ordinary things. I spot a leaf on the ground and bend down to inspect it. At first glance, it's just a pale green leaf that's recently fallen. But a closer look reveals a fine silver thread weaving a symmetrical pattern through the leaf. I take it to a bench and set it in position. Through the lens, the silver thread catches the sun, giving the leaf an ethereal glow, and the edges blur into the soft morning light.

‘That's for you, Mum and Dad.' I close my eyes and hold the leaf to my heart, release some tears to ease the heart ache. I feel my parents' presence and it comforts me.

I open my eyes and take in the lake, the trees, the city buildings in the distance. I do love Melbourne, and I still have Adam and his family and my friends. Maybe I should be more positive about setting up a new life here. I had my what-if answered. Casey is alive and well and we were never meant to be. I'll be fine on my own, my camera for company. At least it never lets me down.

The following night, locked in the restaurant bathroom, I pull out my phone and stare at Casey's message.

It doesn't matter we're in different countries. I don't want anything from you other than to stay in touch. It's not pointless and you're wrong we weren't meant to be. You said it was fate and I believe that.

It's the reply she sent a week after Mum's funeral, and there hasn't been another since. Yesterday, after deciding to get on with life in Melbourne, I stayed on the park bench for a while longer and deleted her messages, bar this one. Even though she's sent me pleading messages for weeks, there's something about this one that almost cuts through the barrier between us. Almost. I take a deep breath, swipe delete and head back to the table.

Tom brightens when I reappear and tops up my wine. ‘It's nice here, don't you think?'

I glance around the restaurant. It's small and busy, sleek furniture, exposed brick, hipster staff, overpriced food. The kind of place Tom never would've suggested going to when we were together. ‘Yeah. It is.'

As though he knows what I'm thinking, he says, ‘I'm sorry we didn't do this more when we were together.'

I shrug. ‘Just the way it was.'

He swallows and gazes at me like a lost puppy. ‘I'm sorry about a lot of things.'

I shake my head. ‘Don't, Tom. It wasn't all you.'

‘I didn't appreciate you enough.'

I fiddle with the cloth napkin in front of me. He opens his mouth to speak again, but I reach across the table and give his hand a friendly pat. ‘Seriously, it wasn't all you.' He glances down and hope blooms on his face. I slowly retract my hand, gripping my wine glass instead. ‘I'm sorry I left the way I did. That wasn't the right way to handle it. I feel guilty about that – and about how much that would've hurt you.'

‘Okay, I wasn't sure you wanted to talk about that, but since you've brought it up – yeah, you leaving hurt like hell, and I struggled.'

My guilt flares, but I also feel the urge to defend myself. ‘I'm sorry, Tom, but I felt suffocated here. Not just us, but Mum needing so much care, my job, the past few years … it all became too much, and I had to get away.'

‘I know. And expecting you to take on Jack…' He shakes his head. ‘That was a big ask. I don't think I even discussed it properly with you.' He reaches for my hand again. ‘I'll do better if we try again.'

My stomach tightens. ‘Oh, I thought this was a friends' dinner.'

His face falls and he slowly releases my hand.

‘Sorry, that was insensitive,' I say.

He breaks eye contact and adjusts his glasses. ‘No, you're right. I did mention the F word.'

Our meals arrive and he picks up his cutlery, giving me a resigned smile. ‘Tell me about your trip? We haven't talked about that. Your photos are amazing.'

I tense at the mention of my travels, but I want to be honest with him. ‘I met someone, Tom.'

He stops chewing for a moment as he looks at me with wounded eyes, then resumes eating. He swallows. ‘And here I am trying to woo you back.' He clears his throat. ‘I really do misread things sometimes.'

‘We're not together. It didn't work out and they're in the UK. I just wanted to be honest with you.'

‘In the UK. Okay, well, I'm not going to pretend I'm not happy it hasn't worked out, but I can see you're upset about it, so…'

I suck in a sharp breath, and he lets out a remorseful sigh. ‘Now I'm being insensitive. I'm sorry you're not happy. This person it didn't work out with … it's the woman in the photo with you, isn't it? The one on your Instagram?'

I nod. ‘Casey is her name.'

There's a strained silence as he takes a sip of wine. ‘As soon as I saw that photo, I knew I could never compete.'

‘Please don't think that. It's not a competition.'

‘I meant, how you were looking at each other. You seemed so happy. I don't remember you ever looking at me like that.'

I hang my head guiltily and murmur, ‘Sorry.'

He leans forward and ducks his head so he can meet my eyes. ‘I wasn't after an apology. It was just an observation, and it was nice to see you happy.' He sits back. ‘Did you meet in Berlin? I'm confused about how you could be like that with someone you'd only just met.'

‘It's a long story,' I say and take a bite of salmon, regretting my decision to be honest.

He shrugs. ‘I haven't got anywhere else to be.'

‘Really? You want to hear about this?'

‘If it's important to you, of course.'

So, as we work through our meals and have another glass of wine, I tell him the whole story, starting with my uni exchange in Berlin and meeting Casey in the Alte Nationalgalerie. I tell him about our fleeting time together – leaving out the details of our intense connection – about Monbijoupark, the time and day and place thing, how Casey ran off and we lost contact, and finally, finding each other again in the park when I returned.

‘Well, that explains why you were keen to get there so quickly,' he says.

‘Not because I thought she'd be there. It was something I needed to do for myself, to forget the idea of her and move on. I wanted closure because I had spent a decade thinking about her, wondering what had happened and creating this ideal person and relationship in my head. But in the end, it wasn't meant to be.'

‘Why not?'

I tell him about Eva, watching him closely to gauge his reaction, but his face is unreadable. ‘So that's it,' I say finally. ‘And now I'm home, trying to build a new life.'

He pushes his plate to the side and picks up his glass. ‘You know, Hols, people aren't perfect. Relationships aren't perfect. You do have high expectations, and sometimes it's a little hard to meet them.'

A slow heat crawls up my neck. ‘Geez, Tom. Say what you think.'

He gives a short laugh. ‘Well, we're friends, right? Did you listen to her side before you wrote her off?'

‘Her side? She lied to me, and to Eva. They were getting married in a matter of weeks.' I know this from going through Eva's Instagram page. I down the last mouthful of wine, angry he's siding with someone he's never met. Besides, Casey not only lied, she and Eva were still having sex right up until she left for Berlin. They probably had sex before Casey ended it, too. Thanks for the shag, Eva. By the way, the wedding's off and I've been sleeping with this Australian bird called Holly in Berlin. Later. Is that how it went?

Tom leans forward. ‘I didn't mean to upset you.'

‘Yes, she told me her side, and I didn't believe it, so…'

‘So…' he says, his eyebrows rising above the frame of his glasses. ‘She did something human and that's it? Someone who looks at you like that? Someone you searched the world for and who searched for you?'

‘I didn't know she had a fiancée,' I argue. ‘I thought?—'

‘What?' he says abruptly. ‘That she was perfect? You're always going to be disappointed if you're looking for perfection, Holly.'

My face warms. ‘Okay. Thanks for your insights, I guess.'

‘I don't mean to be harsh?—'

‘Ha, you and Adam with the "I don't mean to be harsh" talk.'

He smiles. ‘I don't want you to be unhappy. If we can't be together, then I'd like to think it's because you're with the one.' He raises his wine glass. ‘Friends?'

I pick up mine and clink, but the sting of his words lingers, because the truth cuts deep.