Chapter 21 #3
Fran still had a year left at school, and sometime after his hospital stay but before Christmas we had agreed we would apply for the same university in Brisbane, so as to be together again in twelve short months.
I remember that is what he said – ‘twelve short months’ – but one month is not short, and twelve felt as though it might as well have been a lifetime.
Melbourne had not even been mentioned. And then there I was.
The first-year student accommodation was small, smaller than a hotel room, with a single bed, a desk, a wardrobe, and a bathroom I shared with one other person.
Its saving grace was the corner window that at least allowed me to look out at the trees lining the street, and welcomed in a beautiful amount of light.
Going back to my room after a class felt like I was a toy being packed away in my box for the night.
Being in my box meant I did not have to exist, and finding the capacity to leave, to wholly exist again, became increasingly difficult.
I started skipping non-compulsory lectures, and doing as much as I could from my computer, and my bed.
I was not getting the full university experience, because I was not capable of the full human experience.
Homesickness was a constant, though I forced myself to stay away until Christmas, as promised.
I did not want to give the impression I was failing.
That first holiday season, I did not see Fran – he had gone to Vietnam with his family to celebrate his graduation, Elsie filled me in.
Home just a week, I spent a lot of time in my room.
Being a science-degree-studying university student, my parents understood my need for recharging.
This was a time to sleep and eat and rest my mind.
Mum would cook for me, and bring me an excessive number of cups of tea.
I was not exactly verbally responsive, but I understood how lucky I was to have this, to have her.
My mind does not have much more to offer here, instead jumping forward again.
In my second year, I eventually made one new friend – bright, big-hearted, big-haired Cleo.
She was the kind of person who radiated goodness out of her bouncy curls and round, smiley face, who dressed in bright colours and patterns as if her goal was to spread cheer to those around her in as many ways as she could.
Though we gravitated towards one another in our lectures because we were the only two sitting alone, she was the one I would have chosen out of any of them, if I had been up for choosing.
She made me want to leave my box. When she began asking about my home, my family, and my life, I told her about Fran, in dribs and drabs, at the start of lectures or over after-class coffees lying on the grass.
She seemed to get the idea pretty quick.
‘It sounds like you’re soulmates,’ she whispered, during a lecture on cell biology.
‘We are, or we were. I don’t know,’ I replied, preferring to put it out of my mind.
‘Twin flames, maybe. Ugh, I love it, it reminds me of this book I’m reading . . .’
Cleo let me borrow her notes and brought us snacks and bent herself in one hundred other ways to cater to my needs, while I barely registered what hers even were.
She became my emotional support person, and I her pet project.
I did not ask her to do that, and perhaps I should have etched out more of a conversation about it, with boundaries that I had not learned to understand or set, but she did not ask what I wanted, or for what she wanted from me, either.
I got comfortable in the dynamic, as though she was my assistant, or an extra piece of my brain added especially to keep me on track.
In my mind, if she needed more from me, or to do less for me, she would let me know.
I also grew to feel that she was good for giving, and I was bad for taking, which influenced our relationship dynamic from its origins, giving me a lane that I trained myself to stay in.
Enacting the role of the bad friend allowed me to continue judging myself and feeling bad, which was ultimately my goal.
Things are running on fast-forward now, my next Christmas ready to play.
I saw Fran once, his being home from Brisbane overlapping with my return to Queensland by about five days.
I cannot recall how we reconnected, though I am sure it was through his kindness rather than any attempt on my behalf.
I remained a ghost and he allowed me to haunt him, just a little.
We went op-shopping, where I bought some 1970s cotton dresses and he picked up a pair of leather loafers pre-softened by years of wear.
There was no direct conversation about anything that had happened between us, or the distance that had grown both emotionally and in terms of kilometres, in the time since then.
Life continued on, me too messy to address it, Fran perhaps too scared.
I had just got my licence, having taken the test on my second day home, and so we drove around a bit, dissecting the people and streets of our town, never touching anything closer to home.
Despite all evidence to the contrary, I desperately wanted to find a way to reconnect.
It felt important that he understood why I had failed him so badly, but I did not have any insight to share, and shame spooked me out of every moment when I might otherwise have been inclined to self-reflect.
So I made peace with treasuring whatever pieces of himself he still wanted to give me.
Or, that is what I told myself. I preferred not to think about it either way.
I preferred especially not to think about what he must think of me.
‘Do you ever think about dying?’ I asked Fran as we pulled out of the op-shop car park, heading next for a hike at the waterfall.
‘I guess, sometimes. Do you?’
‘All the time.’
‘Like, you want to die?’
I saw him in my peripheral vision, looking at me with down-low eyebrows and too much concern.
‘Not really. Not actively. I’m okay, I promise,’ I reassured him, hoping we could skip past this part to get to what I really meant.
‘Then how do you think about it?’
‘I wonder what it will be like. I wonder when it will happen. I wonder when it will happen for every person I care about. Like, will my mum die first or my dad? My brother or my sister?’
‘Okay, yeah, I think about that too. Sometimes I can’t sleep because I imagine Ranger dying and how awful that’s going to be,’ he said.
‘That will be so awful. Ranger has to live forever, I think. There’s no other option.’
‘I agree.’
‘I think I am going to run out of steam sooner than the average person,’ I said, casually trying to put into words what I had felt since I was a child and very much wanted him to know.
‘Run out of steam? Like die young?’
‘Maybe. I feel like I’m working twice as hard for half the outcome, so that has got to catch up with me eventually. Like my heart will just give out, or something.’
‘Don’t say that.’
And so I did not say any more, because Fran needed to believe I was a person who could live a long life with minimal effort, and though it had become increasingly obvious that was not true, I wanted to let him enjoy the unknowing a little longer.
Later, as we sat on smooth river rocks listening to the waterfall, I felt brave enough to try again.
‘You know how people say, “omg lol I don’t know what I’m doing,” but they mean it in a chill way?’ I asked.
‘Yeah?’
‘Well, I feel like that, except not chill. I profoundly don’t know what I am doing, like, all the time.’
Fran cracked up though I was not trying to be funny.
‘What do you mean?’ he eventually asked, and his voice was soft like his laugh. Like water. Like light.
‘It’s just . . . all moving too fast. I feel like I’m sprinting to keep up.’
‘I think I get it. Do you ever get to catch up?’
‘Rarely. It’s like, mental space I need.
Where nothing is happening, and no one is around to ask anything of me.
Then I can actually understand what all of it means – my thoughts and feelings and what has happened to me and what is happening to everyone around me.
But most of the time I’m just in the whirlwind and everything is there, I suppose, but there is no chance of seeing it clearly. ’
We stayed sitting there in silence and Fran seemed like he was taking it all in, trying to understand. He tried very hard to understand me, for longer than I deserved.
‘It’s okay to take more time,’ he eventually said.
I held those words in my heart, allowing them to curdle into something they were never meant to be. And the next day, I was gone again.