Page 28 of Nothing Without You

They stared at each other for a moment before she sidestepped around him and started to walk up the street towards her house.

‘Evie. Evie. What’s wrong?’

In a flash he was beside her, and when he grabbed her arm, she stopped. He wore a T-shirt that said Stradbroke Island, the picture of two dolphins leaping through the waves smudged with some sort of grease stain. For a while she looked down at the ground, his tanned legs and bare feet easier to look at than his face.

‘Why’re you avoiding me? What happened to you last night? I waited and you didn’t come. I’ve tried to ring. What the hell is wrong?’

She continued to stare at the ground, all the time willing herself not to let him see how upset she was.

‘Evie. Talk to me. I don’t know what I’ve done wrong.’

For a moment she considered spilling it all out. His father. Her mother. Having sex in her mother’s bed. The conversation. Chris. Geraldine. In Chris’s bedroom.

Her words came out with a vengeance. ‘You lied to me. I don’t want to talk to you again.’

‘What the hell are you talking about? I have no idea what you’re on about, and I have never lied to you.’

‘Bullshit. You might think I’m stupid, but I know exactly what you’ve done. You’re a two-timer.’

He drew back from her, letting go of her arm. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘You’ve been with someone else. Leading me on. You can fuck off.’

A quizzical look crossed his face. ‘What are you talking about? I haven’t been with anyone else. Tell me who.’

‘You tell me.’

‘How can I when I haven’t been with anyone else? You’re my girlfriend.’

‘You’re lying.’

‘You’re not making any sense. I don’t know what you’ve heard, but it’s crap, and I’ve never lied to you.’

She looked up at him, his blue eyes staring back at her. Did he stare at Geraldine like that? His hand stroked her arm and she pulled back. Had he touched Geraldine everywhere? Had they touched each other? The thought made her feel sick and she strode past him. ‘I don’t want to see you again. I’m breaking up with you.’

‘For what reason?’

‘I told you.’

His voice grew angry, and he walked quickly to catch up with her. ‘What, you’re not even going to talk to me, or tell me what I’ve done wrong? You’re just going to call it quits? Don’t I mean more to you than that? I don’t even know what I’ve supposedly done wrong.’

She crossed her arms, glaring as hard as she could at him. Tears stung her eyes, but she refused to let them come. She pushed past him, striding up the footpath. This time he didn’t follow her. She walked faster, not slowing down until she reached the corner. Her chest ached and she wiped her hand over her face, as tears spilled down her cheeks. When she turned around to look back at him, he was still standing in the same spot, with his arms crossed and an angry look on his face. ‘Goodbye,’ she whispered. ‘Cheater.’

Chapter Twenty-Six

Two suitcases lay open on her bedroom floor. Grimacing at the red one she was placing items into, she remembered the last time she had seen it covered in dust, under her mother’s bed. Now it was clean, with most of her clothes already folded and packed into it. Her flared jeans and Bombay shorts, along with striped T-shirts and sloppy joes took up one end, while some cotton dresses and underwear wrapped around some of her china ornaments and photo frames, filled the other end. The second case was smaller, and in this one she put her most treasured items.

How do you pack up your entire life of nearly sixteen years into two old suitcases? School photos, a family photo album, her favourite books, as well as a small timber box that held a variety of badges, some Italian coins and jewellery. She stared at a silver coin her father had given her. It had an eagle with outstretched wings and the word, Italia, on the front. When she turned it over, she read the name of the king whose head appeared on the back—Vittorio Emanuele III. She threw the coin back in with the others, wishing she had kept the penny she had found on the beach at Stradbroke Island. Her father had drilled a hole through it, and they made it into a keyring. ‘You can keep it for when you have a car,’ he told her. She didn’t reply, her mind already set on giving it to Chris for when he got his car.

She looked closely at some of the small black-and-white photos in the box. One photo showed a row of four smaller photos taken at a photo booth one day, when she and Chris had gone to the shops. Their heads were touching, and in one photo they were pulling silly faces. One of the other photos was of them kissing and she folded the photos over, trying to decide whether or not to put them in the bin. She tucked them under the others at the bottom of the box, before taking the ring from her finger. It was a thin band of silver with tiny stars etched into the surface. Chris had bought it for her at the jewellers in the city, the same day they had taken the photos in the photo booth.

‘They call it a friendship ring,’ he told her, ‘but I’m calling it a love ring.’ Until now she had never taken it off. The ring was supposed to be a declaration of his feelings for her, meaning they belonged together, and that they loved each other. Shutting the lid of the box, she wished she had the courage to throw the ring and the photo in the bin, along with every dream and hope she had for the future. Just like she was shutting the lid on the box, so was the lid closing on her life.

After three days of packing and sorting, her mother declared they were ready to go. The strained look had not left her face, and taking Aspirin now seemed a daily ritual. Evie lost count of how many times her mother gave her boxes of papers, or other items to put in the incinerator in the backyard. Her father was also going through his belongings and there had been a couple of trips to the dump. ‘I’ll take some of the furniture with me to Sydney, but I can sell the rest,’ he told them. ‘You’ll be better buying new stuff for you and Evie.’

Life resembled a whirlpool. With every item thrown away, her childhood slipped deeper into a spinning descent of blurred time. If only Layla had been here to talk to, but she was away visiting relatives. Evie couldn’t bring herself to go and see any of her other friends before leaving. Sooner or later, they’d all find out she’d left. At least no one would know why. They might find out that her father had gone in one direction and her mother in another. But no one would know the real reason. Not even Mr McIntosh would know the truth. No one except the three of them knew. And that was how it was going to stay forever.

As much as she wanted to be angry with her father, she couldn’t. Every time he looked at her, his eyes filled with tears. She wished so much that he was coming with them, not heading south when they were going north. It didn’t matter what she said though. All the suggestions she gave him about moving with them were met with the shaking of his head. ‘I’m sorry, Evie. Nothing will work, except this plan.’

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