9. Did You Find What You Were Looking For?
DID YOU FIND WHAT YOU WERE LOOKING FOR?
ANNELISA
If anyone asked how long I’ve been sitting in Mum’s car near our old spot at the top of the Kangaroo Point Cliffs, I couldn’t tell them, but it’s certainly long enough to class myself a coward. I’ve not been back here, unable to face the years of happy memories this place held for me. For us.
Every week after we’d gotten our licences, we’d come here to go for a walk along the river, doing the loop across the Story Bridge and through the city Botanic Gardens before crossing to South Bank and coming back.
It had become our ritual, and we’d stop for coffee and snacks, just spending several hours talking and laughing together.
Even after we moved in together, we still came here every Sunday morning, the perfect way to spend time together after a busy week.
Will pulled up a while ago, and I watched him get out and clip a lead onto a red cattle dog that jumped down from the back of his ute. The dog is clearly well trained, and looks up at Will with so much devotion in its eyes, it almost hurts. I remember when I used to look at him like that.
It’s been seven years since I was able to look at him, and now that’s all I can do.
I thought he was hot at sixteen, and when we were twenty-five, he was the only guy I wanted.
But now? At thirty-two? He’s all man. Sun-kissed skin, a body with muscles in all the right places and just the right amount of stubble to get my heart racing.
But the look on his face is what has me frozen in this car.
He looks like a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders.
While I was still trying to find the courage to get out of the car, Will crossed the road and took a seat at a picnic table overlooking the river and the city on the other side.
But he doesn’t look out at the view. Instead, he stares down at his hands, his shoulders rounded.
While it might have been seven years since I last saw him, we were together for nine years before that, and I can still read that man’s body language perfectly.
Sadness and frustration mingle together, causing his eyebrows to knit together while he waits quietly.
Waiting for me.
The woman who caused him so much pain and should never have come back.
So many memories have been swirling through my mind since he walked back into my life last night, and the pain I’ve been shoving aside for years has clawed its way to the surface.
There’s no way I can turn it off now, and I’m realising now that I never should have tried.
I deserve the pain I’m feeling right now.
Taking a shaky breath, I get out of the car and cross the road.
Will is scratching the dog behind its ears while it rests its head on his knee, and I pause, watching him.
Although I’ve been dreading this conversation, being within arm’s reach of him again feels like something out of a dream.
He was once the other half of my soul, but it’s like he’s a stranger to me now. And that is entirely my doing .
While I try to find the strength to take the last few steps towards him, the dog lifts its head and looks at me, its little stumpy tail starting to wag energetically. Will turns, his gaze meeting mine, and he gets to his feet while I force myself to keep moving forwards.
“Hey,” he says, and I can see the lines of fatigue etched into his face once I’m standing in front of him.
I guess I wasn’t the only one who didn’t sleep last night.
“Hey,” I reply, kneeling to let his dog sniff my hand before scratching its ears while it gives me a sneaky lick. “And who’s this?”
“This is Alfie.” He looks down. “Say hello, Alfie,” he says, and Alfie barks immediately.
I laugh, despite the tense situation we’re in, before standing back up.
“He’s cute,” I say.
Will nods, a short, sharp movement, and that small reprieve from our emotions ends. There are so many things we need to say to each other, yet I can tell that he is struggling to find the words, just like I am.
“Should we walk?” I ask after a moment of silence, and he nods again.
We fall into step beside each other, but I’m aware of the distance between us, both physically and emotionally. All these years apart have me at a loss for how to speak to him now.
Eventually, I know I need to do something to get the conversation started.
“So, where are you living these days?” I ask the first question that comes to mind, before realising this may lead to an argument straight away.
Although, there’s pretty much nothing I can say that wouldn’t make me feel that way right now.
“I bought a place in Kedron a few years ago and have been working on renovating it for a while. What about you?” He keeps his eyes forward, laser focused on the pavement ahead of us .
“I’ve still got my place in London. Mum asked me to take care of her place for a few months while she travels the east coast.”
He shakes his head. “I still can’t believe Tara didn’t tell anyone you were here.”
“I asked her not to. I didn’t want to put her in a position where she was caught in the middle. Not again.”
The muscle in his jaw twitches, and I can tell he wants to argue with me, but he just nods, still not looking at me. “And work? What are you doing now?”
“Still writing. Still going okay.”
We continue along the top of the cliffs, heading towards the main road and the Story Bridge beyond it. I realise now why he picked this location. It’s going to take us at least two hours before we get back to the cars, which means lots of talking time.
Or awkward silence, if we keep this up.
Or I could just start running…
“What about you? Are you still working for Bill?” I ask.
He shakes his head again. “No, I went out on my own a few years ago now. It’s going pretty well. Got a few guys working with me too.”
“Wow, that’s great. And are you happy?”
Oh God… Why did I ask that?
“As happy as I can be.” He shrugs, but there’s tension in his shoulders. “How about you?”
“Pretty much the same.”
“I guess travelling the world isn’t all it’s made out to be then, if you ended up back here.” There’s an edge to his voice, and I know we’re hitting dangerous ground.
“I’m not back…”
He glances over at me with one eyebrow raised. “Huh,” he says, and I wait for him to continue speaking, but it seems that was all he has to say on the subject.
But I can read between the lines and know that he’s pissed off.
We continue on in silence, and I’m just grateful we have Alfie to focus on, both of us watching while he checks out every passerby, wagging his stumpy tail happily.
I eventually crack and ask Will how his family is doing, needing to fill the silence between us.
Over the next twenty minutes, he tells me about the twins and their families.
His parents have apparently just retired, and love spending time with all their grandchildren.
I try not to let that last part get to me, certain that this was more than just a passing comment.
“And Kylie?” I ask.
He gives me a confused look. “Hasn’t Tara told you anything?”
I sigh. “I just know little bits…She hasn’t wanted to tell me much, and I’ve avoided asking about anyone.”
He shakes his head. “Of course you did.” I open my mouth to respond, but he continues speaking. “Kylie lives in Canada now. She married an NHL player and they have twin two-year-old boys.”
I feel my eyes widen as I take that information in.
I guess that explains Kylie’s absence last night.
Was probably for the best. Of all the people who would likely have some harsh words for me, I’m pretty sure Kylie would be at the top of the list. She loves hard and is fiercely loyal towards her loved ones, and I used to be lucky to fall into that category.
I can only imagine how she’d react if she saw me now.
Finally, we reach the Botanic Gardens and come to a stop next to a familiar park bench overlooking the river. Most weekends, this was where we would stop and watch the boats while we drank our coffees.
Unable to deal with the memories, I try to keep walking, but Will catches my hand and pulls me down to sit beside him.
“Why’d you do it, Annie?” The pain in his voice is like a knife to my heart.
I let out a long breath while I stare at my hands. “Nothing that I say is going to make you happy. Can we just leave it in the past?” I know I’m asking a lot, and when I look up and see the look on his face, I know I’ve pushed too hard.
“No, I’m sorry, that’s not good enough. After the way you just left, you owe me more than that.
Did our relationship mean so little to you that you couldn’t even be bothered to say goodbye to me?
To give us a chance to work things out?” The change in his tone seems to upset Alfie, who lays his head on Will’s knee and stares up at him.
I draw in a ragged breath, forcing myself to look at him. “Our relationship was everything to me. Everything. It was my entire reason for existing. And that wasn’t how it should have been. I needed to find myself. To be able to breathe and understand where you ended, and I began…”
The look he gives me is a mixture of confusion and anger. “So, you loved me too much? Is that it?” he asks, the derision in his voice clear.
“I know it sounds stupid. But you knew what you wanted. You wanted the complete package. The kids, the wife, the happy family thing. And after -” I stop, unable to continue that sentence.
To remember the moment when it all went wrong, and I realised I couldn’t give him what he wanted. “I felt suffocated by everything…”
He shakes his head. “So, it was my fault? I deserved to leave one day thinking we were getting back to normal after everything, only to come home to an empty house and a note that just said ‘I’m sorry, I can’t do this anymore’?
For a writer, that note was damn short, I can tell you that much.
” He gets to his feet, and for a brief, heart-stopping moment, I think he’s about to leave.
But he turns to face me, forcing me to look up at him.
“Do you have any idea how much that hurt? How long it took me to get past it all? We both lost something that day, Annie. But instead of talking to me about it, you ran away. And no one had any clue where you were or if you were coming back. Except for poor Tara, who you left in such a shitty position. It wasn’t just me you abandoned, Annie. Morgan cried for weeks.”
I nod, feeling the prick of tears forming behind my eyes. I get to my feet, not loving being talked down to, even though I know I deserve it.
“I wasn’t in a great place, if you remember?
My head was filled with so much sadness and misery, and I couldn’t handle your feelings as well.
Back then, running away from everything seemed like the only way out of the pit of misery I’d fallen into.
I needed to try and find myself again… alone. ” I wrap my arms around myself.
He continues to study my face. “And did you find what you were looking for?”
“I thought I had. At least, for the first month or so. The change of scenery made it feel like I was starting over. But then reality set in, and I realised too late that by cutting myself off the way that I did, I’d cast myself adrift.
But I couldn’t come back. Not after the way I left.
So I just had to get on with life and try not to think about it all.
Because it was too painful.” My voice cracks, and I swallow hard, fighting back a wave of emotion.
“And then Dad died, and I needed my family. So I decided to come home for a bit.”
To see if coming back would save me from the echoes inside my head.
“And you didn’t even consider reaching out to me?” The hurt on his face is unbearable, and I want so badly to reach out now and touch him, but know that will only make this all worse.
“I wanted to reach out to you every single day. But I knew I had broken us. I didn’t think you would ever want to see me again.”
He looks at me for a moment, the tension in his jaw returning while he scans my face.
“You’re right.” I cringe at the tone in his voice, the anger there so at odds with the Will that I knew all those years ago.
“You smashed what we had apart. For the longest time, I went from hating you to missing you constantly. I never want to feel that way again. And seeing you now…” He pauses, drawing in a breath as the hurt and anger flash in his eyes.
“It’s stirring up a lot of feelings that I thought I’d gotten past. But I still wish you’d reached out. ”
I don’t know how to respond to that. There’s no right answer here.
So I just nod and wipe away the tear that escaped.
After a moment of silence, he just shakes his head and waves his hand for me to start walking first. Neither of us says a word for the longest time as we continue on, side by side but alone in our thoughts.