Chapter 45
FORTY-FIVE
Alexia
The thing about coming back to the place you think of as home, after some time, is that everything is just... different.
It's a universal truth you need to be prepared for.
The sounds, the smells, the location of things. Everything you thought you knew like the back of your hand is just... not quite right. Or maybe it has nothing to do with the place at all.
It's all about what's happened to you inside, during the time you've been away.
As it turns out, I'm not even remotely prepared for the way I feel when I'm back in my Sydney apartment. Everything is essentially exactly where I left it almost three months ago, but it feels like I'm just visiting someone else's life.
Someone with a life eerily similar to mine: same cleaning habits, the same weakness for Japanese green tea, the same pile of books she has no intention of ever reading. But she's not me. And I'm not her. The only difference between us is time.
I stare at my reflection as I'm getting ready, wondering if I could go back to that version of me — the one who'd feel at home here, like she'd woken from a fever dream, back in the life she was always supposed to live.
"Can we maybe do this later?" I ask the woman in the mirror. She's inwardly rolling her eyes at me, but gives in and goes back to practising her presentation.
"The following reports," I say for the hundredth time, "found that multilateral sanctions regimes..." I lose the thread halfway through, because suddenly who I'm seeing in the reflection is no longer me.
It's Marcus, grinning like it's Christmas, telling me I'm gonna knock everyone's socks off. Then he lifts his foot to show me his sockless foot. I laugh.
And then he morphs into Zachary, running around, making sure I have everything I need: water bottle refilled with IV hydration powder, extra printed copies of my paper, a spare pen tucked into my bag because I always forget I've stuck one in my hair.
Then Rhys takes his place, not saying anything, just watching me rehearse with that steady, unreadable stillness of his. When I finally run out of words, all he offers is, "Nothing is beyond you, Alexi."
I blink and they're gone. And if I could jump into a mirror... I would.
My phone buzzes on the counter and I go for it too fast, some stupid, naive, hopeful part of me thinking the messages I just imagined might actually be there. Hope I've got no right to feel.
It's my mother.
Mum
Good luck today, sweetheart. Xx
Despite it not being from who I had hoped, it still brings a warmth to my chest. I reply a quick thanks and go back to my preparations.
Ten minutes later, all the words have become a jumble in my head and I'm staring at myself, suddenly barely able to remember my own name.
"Stop freaking yourself out. Even I know the bloody thing by heart by now." A voice comes through the door and I freeze, staring at myself in the mirror. Did I imagine that?
The door flies open without waiting for my reply.
My brother's standing there, holding rather than leaning on the cane he uses on bad days.
He's looking better by the day, and likes to say the cane's only there for sympathy.
The pallor that crosses his face when he pushes too hard tells me otherwise, but it's also why I let him think I believe him.
"You're supposed to be resting." I turn to face him, arms crossed. "I said I'd come get you when I was ready." It's the deal that convinced me to let him get on the plane to Sydney in the first place.
"I got bored." He shuffles further into the room and drops into the armchair by the window, cane propped against the arm. "You have an alarming lack of DVDs."
"I use streaming services. Like everyone else living in our century."
He scrunches up his face, an expression I've seen on my own face countless times. "I much prefer to browse a wall of DVDs than look at pictures on a screen."
"What do you think you'd be looking at once you picked a DVD to watch?"
He opens his mouth, closes it again, clearly buying time. "That's different."
"Yeah, how?"
"Pictures are stagnant. Movies are... moving.
" He frowns, and then his whole face lights up.
"Holy shit. I just realised, the term 'movies' comes from moving pictures, doesn't it?
Looks like you're not the only big brain in the fam.
" He grins and taps the side of his head.
"Is this the kind of scintillating debate you're expecting at your presentation? "
"Absolutely." I press a hand to my chest. "I should scrap my whole topic and just go with: 'Why Movies Are Called Moving Pictures. It's all there in the name. The end. I will not be taking any questions.'"
He leans back and laughs, and it eases something in my chest. "You're welcome. I could've saved you seven years of study." Then his smile softens. "Ready, sis?"
I take a breath and nod. "I guess as ready as I'll ever be."
"So. Have you spoken to any of them?" he asks when we're downstairs waiting for the Uber.
I blink at him. "Really?" There's only incredulous sarcasm in my voice. "Now?"
He shrugs. "Sure. Don't you want a distraction?"
"By leading with the one topic I haven't wanted to talk about for weeks?"
"I mean, it'd take your mind off your presentation."
"So would pushing you into traffic."
He takes two very pointed steps away from the road and leans against the wall. "Too messy, you'll be late for your presentation. Also rude. You're triggering my PTSD." He shifts his weight and hisses, sharp, and I stop dead, reaching for his arm, all annoyance forgotten.
"Maybe you should just stay at the apartment," I suggest, voice softening.
"I'm fine." His face transforms from the look of pain to a grin. "Bet you didn't think about your thesis for a solid eighteen seconds there. See how good I am at that?"
I stomp to the road, looking left and right. "Where's one of those really fucking big semi-trailers when you need one?"
He grabs my arm and pulls me back. "Hey. Listen. Seriously, though." His voice drops the bit entirely. "I'm proud of you. And whatever happens from today, you know the only thing I've ever actually wanted was for you to be happy. Right?"
I don't say anything. A million thoughts crossing my mind at once.
A frown spreads across his face when I don't reply. "What — you don't know that?"
My lips tighten over my teeth. "I think that you think that you think that, and hope that I think that you think that too."
He blinks. "Are you having a stroke?"
I ignore the comment. "Look, you can say that's all that matters to you. And I know that you love me. But what you want to feel is not always how it manifests in your behaviour. Do you ever actually think of me as anything except your little sister?"
"You are my little sister."
"Yeah. I'm also twenty-five, and I've been managing an entire life on my own for almost seven years."
"I know that."
"Do you? Because..." I take a deep breath, knowing I either stop now, or we're having this conversation. I guess we're having it. "...Okay, you want to talk about the guys? Let's talk about the guys. What actually happened, with you and them?"
Now it's his turn to turn his face away. "That's none of your busine—"
I cut him off with a huff. "Wow. Really?
You really want to go there. You've been in every corner of my business my whole life, Leon, and that includes this situation.
" I shake my head. "And we're talking about it.
So if you can't think of anything to say, let me ask the questions.
What was it that really bothered you about us being together?
Was it that they got involved with me? Or that they hid it from you? "
He doesn't say anything, and it's the first time all morning — hell, maybe our whole lives — that he doesn't have a quick comeback. So I keep going. "And what would you have done if they'd decided they weren't going to end things with me?"
Still nothing.
I sigh. "Fine, I'll talk. I want you to know this: if I wasn't so afraid of you losing them..." My voice catches at that thought and I have to take a beat. "...or them losing you, I'd be with them right now. No hesitation. You are the reason I ended things. I want you to understand that."
"Alexia..."
"Let me finish." I press the heel of my hand flat against my sternum. "You are the reason. And I've made my peace with that. And no, I don't resent you. I promise. But"—I swallow, and it feels like razors in my oesophagus—"leaving them felt like ripping something vital out of my own chest."
He winces and I consider stopping, just for a moment.
But I don't. I continue. "So, I need you to actually understand what it took out of me to end it with them.
It was, and will probably always be, the hardest thing I've ever done, except sit in a hospital room waiting to see if I was going to ever see you again. "
He's gone completely still, bracing for more.
"And why? Because I could never be the reason they lost you.
I could disappear out of their lives completely, and eventually the three of them would get it.
" My eyes sting badly enough now that there's no holding back what's coming.
"But the four of you losing each other? That's not something I ever want to be the reason for. "
Leon's quiet for a long moment, then he finally says, "You really felt that strongly for them, after only a few weeks?"
I wipe a tear away. "But it wasn't only a few weeks, was it?
It's been since I can remember. It's been always.
" I sigh. "Or, at least it was for me. For them...
I don't know. Maybe I walked away because I knew it would always be a one-way struggle, and I didn't want to go through it all to find out I'd be the only one standing on the other side.
That I was the only one willing to fight for it. So I just never even... started to."
And there it is, the thing I hadn't let myself say out loud until now.
I pushed them away because they'd hurt me, and I'd held onto that hurt like armour.
But I never fought for them either, never showed them I'd risk it all — that even knowing it might come to nothing, the trying was the important part.
It's quite a thing to realise, standing on a footpath. And it knocks the wind out of me.
I grab my stomach with one hand, brace the other on the wall, dragging in long, deep breaths.
But nothing helps.
Leon just watches. Not saying a word, but somehow understanding.
Finally, when I've stopped gasping, he limps over and pulls me gently into his hold.
"You're wrong, you know. It's not just that I think that I think that, or whatever it was you word-vomited up before," Leon says, gentler than I've heard him in years.
"Your happiness is all that matters to me.
I'll work on getting better at showing you that.
" He presses a kiss to my temple. "I love you.
And in case you're wondering, if I ever had to make a choice, it would be you. I'd choose your happiness."
"Thank you for your time this morning, Dr Ri—" The panel chair catches herself, half a smile at the slip. "Ms Riley. The panel will take some time to deliberate, and we'll call you back in once we've made a final decision."
I thank the panel for their time, and it's only once the door's shut behind me that my hands actually start shaking, my knees barely able to hold me up.
Leon's waiting right outside, and he lets go of the cane to grip my hands.
When I ask how much he heard, he says that even though he'd been kicked out for the question portion — his words — he has supersonic hearing and didn't miss a word.
And then he pulls me into a hug that lifts me half off my feet.
Seven years of coursework, journals, rejected drafts, two a.m. panic emails to supervisors, hundreds of sleepless nights, heartbreak and broken pride, and now it's just over.
I don't know how to feel something that big all at once, so it arrives in pieces: my knees going soft, my throat closing over, my body breaking into a full body sweat, something that's been winding tighter and tighter inside me for years just... letting go.
Leon must see all of it happening on my face, because he holds me longer and tighter than a normal hug dictates. "You did it, Xi-Xi," he says, quiet, right against my ear. "You actually did it."
"We don't know yet. They might come back and say it was all terrible and I have to go back to the drawing board."
He rolls his eyes and doesn't even bother to argue.
Instead, he digs his phone out of his pocket.
"Someone wants to see your face." He holds the screen up between us, and it's Mum, camera wobbling, already crying, already talking too fast about how proud she is, how much she wishes she could be here, how our father would have — she doesn't finish that one, and neither of us makes her.
I laugh and cry at the same time, waving at the screen like an idiot.
Leon had told her in no uncertain terms that she was absolutely not allowed to get off the cruise ship to come home for him when all he had was "a little bruise" and nothing a bandaid wouldn't fix.
So she hadn't come, but I know it's been hard for her to be so far away when big things are happening here.
But it's her first trip... ever. And we both knew it was her time to do the things that made her happy.
And seeing her smiling across the screen is all I need.
"I love you, Mum, I'll call you as soon as we have the result," Leon says, and we all blow a hundred more kisses to each other.
I sink into the chair Leon was in, feeling my heart race in my chest, and try not to focus on the empty space inside it, wishing there were three more people I could be celebrating with right now.
"Ready for your gift?" Leon says, tucking his phone back into his pocket.
I eye him. "It better not be a noogie."
"Already gave you one of those this morning. No — this one you're actually going to like."