Page 118 of So Wild

Scott held up a hand. “I appreciate you saying that, but I did. I knew he was getting meaner, I knew he had an axe to grind against Sam’s dad about my mum. I should have got him sectioned or called someone, and I didnt.”

There was a short silence. The music in the background pulsed, some indie band that sounded like Foster the People, but weren’t.

“How is your life over?” Toby asked. “I mean, I know your dad tried to burn down your girlfriend’s house, but how else?”

“That wasn’t all he’s done.” Scott stood up, testing his beer-weakened knees. “I’ll get another round and then I’ll tell you.”

“You’ve gotten the last two, this one’s mine.” Scott watched as Toby half-stood, half-slithered off his barstool and headed for the counter. He wondered if he could get his assistant to call Tabby and ask if Samantha was okay. He’d gotten her voicemail, but he couldn’t bring himself to call her back and risk saying or doing something that hurt her. They would need to invent new words to describe how much he and his accursed bloodline had injured her family, and not just because of his father. He’d smashed Sam’s pie, left for London without saying goodbye, let Martha get away with insulting her and then acted as though their class differences didn’t matter. He’d failed to stop his dad from burning her property. He was a failure.

Toby returned, placing his pint in front of him. Scott looked at it without much appetite. He was feeling decidedly waterlogged. He would have switched to whisky, but then he’d be heaving behind the table instead of lying on it.

“So,” Toby said. “How is your life ruined?”

“Are you sure you want to hear this?”

“Definitely.”

Scott picked up his pint, reassured by the sloshy weight of all that alcohol. “I’m not going to go back to the beginning, because it’ll take forever and I’ll cry. All you need to know is there once existed a website called buy­scott­sanderson­aroot.com…”

He told Toby about most of his and Sam’s shared history and despite his attempts to not drag it out, his pint was almost empty by the time he was done. “…and that’s why Samantha DaSilva is probably the love of my life and I don’t deserve her. The end.”

Toby stared blearily at him. “That’s a big story, Mr Sanderson.”

“Scott.”

“Scott. Do you…do you think you moved back to Melbourne to be with Samantha?”

He’d been asking himself the same question ever since she tackled that guy outside her shop. He’d known the answer all along, so why deny it now? “I think so. It wasn’t conscious, I just thought I wanted a change, but as soon as I saw her, all the feelings came back.”

“That’s good.”

“It was, until my dad revealed he’d stolen her underwear Polaroids and tried to burn her house down.”

Toby looked dejected. “Oh, yeah. Does that mean you don’t mind her tattoos?”

Scott frowned. “Why would you…bloody Martha, is she gossiping about Samantha?”

“Not heaps! She just said she hoped she wasn’t your girlfriend because tattoos are super unprofessional.”

“Christ, I should have told her to butt out when I had the chance. I love Samantha’s tattoos, they’re beautiful. It’s just new for me to have a girlfriend who’s cool. All my girlfriends have been…” He flipped through his mental rolodex trying to find a common denominator. “Me.”

“You?”

“Yes, they’ve been female versions of me.” He shook his head, amazed by his own obliviousness. “I can’t believe I never noticed before. I feel so sorry for them, Toby. Who wants to date the male version of themselves?”

“Narcissists. Not that I’m saying you’re a narcissist, Mr Sanderson!”

Scott smiled. “No, you’ve got a fair point, although maybe I wasn’t trying to date the male versions of myself. Maybe I just couldn’t handle the idea of dating a girl who wasn’t Samantha.”

“I think that makes sense, if you don’t mind me saying so.”

“I don’t.”

They drank in silence and Scott realised he’d been ear-bashing Toby for hours without reciprocal questions. “I’ve been going on about myself for ages. What about you? Are you seeing anyone?”

Toby’s cheeks turned scarlet. “Nah.”

“You don’t need to be embarrassed. My dad just tried to burn my girlfriend’s house down. I’m in no position to judge anyone’s love life.”

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