14
HAYLEY AND LUKE are holding hands, staring into each other’s eyes, saying their cute vows, and, damn it, I’m choked up looking at them. I’m definitely in danger of crying. I look at the sky, at the ground, out into the crowd, trying to distract myself before a tear betrays me. The ceremony is outside, with Hayley and Luke standing under a canopy of beautiful trees and a flower arch. Hayley’s veil is fluttering slightly in the soft breeze.
My gaze lands on Bianca, and that does momentarily ground me. She catches my eye and smiles, and I smile back before looking quickly away. We are not going to be friends. I picture Hayley having a baby and turning to Bianca for advice. No. Hayley and I are supposed to be pregnant together, going through it together, like Mum and Bobbi did, our babies becoming best friends like we are. We have a legacy to uphold.
But I am acutely aware that there is this enormous gulf in our lives and I am slipping further and further behind. In every way. Hayley owns a house. That was the first big difference. Owning a three-bedroom house in a nice suburb of Melbourne before thirty in this economy is like owning a private jet. The two things are equally beyond my reach. Hayley’s father, Gary, is wealthy, and Luke’s family is rich rich, which explains a lot of it, but that doesn’t change the facts.
I have savings but I am still years away from a house deposit. I have HECS debt and my super is okay but not great. I am fine . I never wanted to be rich. I never actually worried about money until Joel and I broke up. For so long I’d coasted on the idea of having both our incomes. The panic hit about a month after our breakup, when I realised that I truly had lost all the security I’d had. I felt sick. What had I done? How had I let myself become so reliant on the idea of someone else? We got together in our last year at uni, so I had never really navigated adulthood on my own.
I needed to go back to some kind of learning-to-be-an-adult school and get my sea legs. There must be a halfway house, for getting out of long-term relationships, for those of us who emerge like unsteady foals, blinking in the sun. I hadn’t changed a lightbulb in eight years. Joel always did that. I had to quickly make a list of chores he did so I could be sure I knew how to do them. Even simple things. He took the lint out of the dryer, I needed to remember to do that now so I didn’t cause a fire. The real problem was that Joel was very domesticated, he was very organised and clean. He was very particular. He liked things a certain way, and when you’ve been in a relationship with someone who was the dominant one in terms of domestic tasks, it takes a lot of time to readjust. It was also a revelation. Oh, I don’t have to do things that way. I can wash sheets on my own schedule. Joel is not actually morally superior to me because he liked the dishwasher stacked a certain way.
The thing was, he was so confident about things, and I felt so messy. I was stumbling around in the world, and he was smoothly and carefully making his way in a determined path, so I just started walking on the path behind him, in his footsteps, without realising it.
Looking at him now, standing across from me, behind Luke as I stand behind Hayley, I wonder how he’s doing. He doesn’t like surprises, he doesn’t like things not going to plan. The baby news must have knocked him sideways. I can imagine the pressure he is putting on himself, already, to support his new family and have everything perfect for the baby. There will be so much he can’t control and he will struggle with that. He looks at me and I give him a small smile. He smiles back. It feels strange, to be together in a wedding ceremony. It could have been us getting married.
I catch Mac watching me, and immediately feel flustered. My skin prickles with the desire to have his hands touching me. No, stop. You aren’t allowed to think those kind of thoughts at the altar in front of a priest—well, makeshift outdoor altar and celebrant. Still bad though.
We’re at the pointy end of the ceremony now, thankfully, because my shoes are so uncomfortable and I’m worried I will sweat on my dress. Hayley and Luke kiss, and are pronounced husband and wife, and they walk down the aisle. Joel and I link arms and follow them, with Mac behind us. I thought everyone would be looking at Joel and me and thinking what a scandal it is, two exes walking down the aisle together, but, of course, that’s not what is happening. No one is looking at us at all. Everyone just wants to congratulate Hayley and Luke.
We are swept into a crowd of well-wishers.