Page 44 of A Home Among the Snow Gums
‘True. Mary Frankton.’
‘For real? She lives down in Cooma now. Two kids who play hockey, from memory. I didn’t know you two were an item.’
‘We weren’t. I had my eye on someone else but was too chicken to ask.’
She snorted. ‘You? Chicken? I don’t believe it.’
‘Who’s being chicken now? It’s time to stop dragging up ancient history and tell me why you assaulted some bloke at Dalgety.’
She took a swig of wine, gathered her thoughts, then launched in. ‘A long time ago I had a problem as a result of a photograph taken of me.’
Tom leant back in the sofa and crossed his long legs out in front of him. His feet, in worn loafers of mahogany brown, were close enough to nudge her knee. ‘Why is that?’
‘When I finished school I got accepted at uni in Sydney. Medicine, a guaranteed entry spot after a science degree.’
‘Really? I didn’t know that.’
‘Well, you were long gone by then, I suppose, learning how to bomb submarines or whatever it is naval recruits do.’ She cleared her throat. ‘In my first semester, some girls played a prank on me which involved a photo of me, but the body of someone else.’
‘Jesus.’
‘Not Jesus, no. A professional, um … person, who was engaged in skills about which I knew nothing.’ Still knew nothing, if she was honest. Not that she would be telling Tom that.
‘Oh, Hannah.’ Tom wasn’t looking so relaxed now. He’d set his glass down and was sitting forward. His face had lost that remote, forbidding look. ‘What happened? What did you do?’
‘I did what any inexperienced, wounded girl would do. I fell apart.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘I didn’t drop out of uni, not straight away. That came after.’
Tom frowned. ‘After what?’
She swallowed. ‘I kept falling apart. Cried a lot. Wouldn’t get out of bed. Came home, eventually, to Mum and Dad, who had to drop everything and try to put the pieces of me back together.’
He reached out and for some reason her hand was in his and his thumb was doing odd things to her breathing, which was weird, because his thumb was nowhere near her diaphragm or trachea or lungs, but on her palm.
She dragged her mind off the biological conundrum. ‘That’s it.’
‘No, it’s not. The Hannah I knew would have taught those mean girls a lesson and carried on studying. What really happened?’
This was the bit she didn’t want to tell. ‘That’s just it, Tom. Ididn’tcope. You thought I was tough—heck,Ithought I was tough. But I wasn’t, okay? I needed help. The viral photo wasn’t the problem, not really. The way I reacted when a problem came up in my life—that was the problem. I was diagnosed with depression.’
Tom did that thumb thing again and let out a long sigh. ‘I can’t believe I didn’t know all this.’
She shrugged. ‘You know what Josh and my parents are like. They’re protective.’
‘Mmm.’
She risked a glance at him. She had an agenda, and she wasn’t going to baulk now, just because Tom was looking all concerned and sad and angry and … kind.
And that thumb …
‘Yousureyou’re a disinterested party, Krauss?’ she said suspiciously.
‘For heaven’s sake—’
‘Kiss me and find out. It’s now or never.’
