Page 57 of A Home Among the Snow Gums
She frowned. Her champagne buzz was threatening to turn into a headache at Charlie’s ominous words. ‘I don’t need to relive my past, Charlie. It’s done. It’s over.’
He nodded. ‘I’m glad. So glad. I heard about the overdose.’
‘How could you know about that?’ Her insides felt like they’d just been crammed full of ice chips.
He shrugged. ‘Word travels.’
Yeah. So did malicious fake photos and rumours. So did her own bagful of regrets. She crossed her arms. ‘That stuff’s been over and done with for years. I don’t know why you would bring it up.’
He took a breath. ‘It’s not over for me.’
What on earth could he mean? This wasn’t about him, for Pete’s sake; they’d broken up before it all unfolded, and he’d been the opposite of broken-hearted—he was in the arms of someone else within a week, as she recalled.
‘I’m not following.’
‘You know the picture.’
She dropped her head into her hands. She shouldn’t have come. Karen, Charlie, Marci … no matter how far away she moved, how much time had passed, meeting up with anyone from that time in her life was a mistake. She was tired of it. Not traumatised, which, admittedly, could be the effects of champagne and having all six-foot-two of Tom cosied up against her for the last few minutes on the dance floor.
But hearing Charlie bring it up all over again wasn’t making her upset. It was making her irritated.
‘I’ve heard enough,’ she said, and started to slide out of her seat.
‘It was me.’
She froze. ‘Excuse me?’
‘I studied graphic design at high school. I was on the school newspaper, did all the photoshop work. I thought it was a joke, because, you know, we’d never …’
‘Let me get this straight.Youmade the image of my head stuck onto some porn star’s body?’
He reached out to hold her hand, but she slapped him away.
‘I’m not proud of it. It’s a stain on my conscience and I need to apologise.’
Her breath caught in her throat then roared out. ‘You wrecked my life.’
‘I know it. I know you dropped out. I know about the time in the clinic. If I could take it back, I would.’
‘So you just apologise, and that’s done, is it? You go back to your life, your medical career, your picket fence, with a clean conscience and pick up where you left off?’
‘I’m truly sorry. I was an idiot. Worse, I was an idiot with the skills to do so much damage.’
She felt the tears about to start, but she was not going to be weak before him. She was done with feeling weak. ‘I don’t forgive you.’
‘I don’t expect you to.’
She pressed her hands to her forehead and tried to tune out the inner demon that had started crying in her head.
‘My wife is refusing to share a bed with me until I apologise. She—I just told her, a few months ago, when Karen told me she’d invited you. She’s here, at the reception. She’d like to meet you.’
No freaking way. She was not this idiot’s absolution. He could live with guilt the way she’d had to live with a shame she didn’t deserve.
‘We have a daughter. Lisa, my wife, asked me how I’d feel if some privileged prick put my daughter’s face on a nude pic and sent it off into the internet to spread like weeds.’
She found her voice. ‘You’d feel like my father felt. Like my brother. Sad, vengeful, impotent, worried.’
‘I’m sorry, Hannah. You were a sweet girl, and I turned you into a joke. I was an arse.’
