Page 37 of After the Siren
They slipped into easy conversation about the AFLW season. The party, overall, was more chill than Theo had expected it to be. There was a very aggressiveMario Karttournament happening in the living room, but nobody was going too hard on the substance front (at least, not obviously). The sliding doors at the back had been thrown open to connect the open-planliving room to a covered deck and the backyard. The playlist had clearly been put together by people with diverse and divergent musical tastes, but it was kind of working.
Theo stuck with the group of players, drinking kombucha while everyone else drank beer and got louder and looser in increments. He got pulled into theMario Karttournament eventually.
‘Should have known you’d be fucking good at this,’ Paddy griped as Theo emerged victorious from the first race. Theo lost the cup to Jake, who was the sort of player who moved his whole body as he played, his shoulder pressing into Theo’s every time he leaned to one side. Theo maintained that Jake had deliberately jostled his elbow at a crucial juncture, but he had to take the L.
He surrendered his controller and went to grab another kombucha, lingering for a moment in the empty hallway, taking a deep breath. He was hit by a sudden feeling of dislocation. Everything had changed so much in a year. When he blinked, he could almost catch snatches of last New Year’s. Sarah’s hand in his, pulling him out onto the balcony to watch the fireworks. The pulse of the bass. The flickering of the coloured lights in her friend’s Kirribilli penthouse. Increasingly incoherent voice messages from Priya and Rachel, demanding that he go out with them after. Thinking,This will be my year, this year will be better, as golden starbursts blossomed and fell into the dark water, light pouring in an endless waterfall off the Harbour Bridge.
His chest tightened. He headed for the backyard rather than the group he’d been talking to.
There were a few people smoking outside and a couple sitting on the grass, wrapped up in each other. Theo ducked around the corner of the house and found it quiet, away from the glow of the outdoor lights. The only seating option was one of thoseridiculous swinging love seats, so he lowered himself onto that and focused on his breathing, counting in and out, then on the feeling of the cold bottle against his fingers, then the points where his thighs touched the seat. There were coloured fairy lights wrapped around the frame of the seat. He counted those, too.
He wasn’t sure how long he’d been out there when he heard footsteps – a few minutes, maybe. He straightened as Jake rounded the corner and stopped.
‘Hey, this is my hiding spot,’ Jake said.
‘Sorry.’ Theo made to get up, but Jake waved him back down.
‘It’s all good, but you gotta share.’ Jake dropped down onto the seat beside Theo, sending it rocking, then stretched his legs out. ‘And you gotta tell me whyyou’rehiding.’
‘I’m not hiding.’
‘Yeah, sure.’ Jake rocked the seat again.
‘Why areyouhiding?’
Jake crossed one ankle over the other and took a sip of his beer. ‘My ex and I got together on New Year’s the year before last,’ he said eventually, picking at the edge of the label on the bottle with his thumbnail.
‘Oh.’ Theo felt like he was intruding, again, but Jake had told him to stay. He suddenly wanted to know what the deal had been with Jake’s ex: his name, what he’d been like, why they’d broken up. Not that he was going to ask any of that.
Jake continued pulling at the label. ‘His parents have this place on the Peninsula. So then the year before last he invited me down and got this fancy dinner delivered and set up the table with candles and shit. It was ... it was nice.’ Jake took a long pull of his beer. ‘I was trying not to think about it, but I also don’t want to get too fucked up, so now I’m thinking about it.’
‘I feel that.’
‘Yeah?’
Theo sighed. ‘I was thinking about my ex today too. She really liked New Year’s.’
Theo hadn’t – not before Sarah – but she’d loved the excuse to plan and set goals. Sometimes he’d wondered if Sarah had created a relationship spreadsheet the same way she’d had spreadsheets for her professional goals and her running. He’d always been a planner, too, so they’d planned together, and every time they’d done it Theo had felt the settled kind of comfort that came with being on a good team.
Harvard had always been in her plan, but he’d thought when the time came they’d work something out. Hadn’t thought it would come down to a yes or no.
Last New Year’s had been a good night. He’d been doing well at the Sharks’ pre-season camp and Sarah had just published a paper in a prestigious journal. They’d gotten drunk on champagne and when he’d looked at her, smiling up at him under the fireworks, he’d thoughtI’m going to ask her to marry me. Had thought about asking right then and there, except she would have thought a public proposal was tacky.
He wasn’t still in love with her. He didn’t even really missher, anymore, but sometimes he missed having a partner. Someone to come home to, and wake up with. Someone to talk to, to share with. Someone who knew all the little things about him, the things you only learned through time and proximity.
‘So, you’ve only ever dated girls?’ Jake asked. It was the first time since their scuffle at training that he’d alluded to the fact Theo was queer.
Theo hesitated. But Jake didn’t sound judgemental, just curious.
‘Yeah. I dated a bit in high school, then my ex and I got together our first year of uni and we were together for five years.’
‘Wow, sounds serious.’
‘It was.’
‘What happened?’ Jake rocked the seat again. He glanced across at Theo. ‘You don’t have to talk about it.’
Theo shrugged. ‘It’s fine. She got into Harvard to do her PhD. She wanted me to move to the US with her.’
