Page 110 of Begin Again Again

She turned to find Gandalf also taking in the drama. She extended a hand and he trotted closer, whinnying. Beth stroked his velvet nose. “Bet you’ve seen all kinds of whacky shit living here, bro.”

Gandalf snuffled.

“Not that I can judge. At least Lara’s family gets it out. Everyone in mine is just quietly growing tumours.”

She looked at the white-grey walls of the Nugent home. Different from hers in some ways, exactly the same in others. A place where everyone was the victim, no one liked each other and no one ever got what they wanted.

“Fuck this,” she told Gandalf. “Not for me. Not even if it means dying alone.”

He huffed, perhaps calling her a drama queen.

“I mean it,” Beth said, her chest glowing like an ember. “I will never be trapped in a place like this again.”

Apparently, Lara felt the same way.

“Fuck that,” she said over and over again on the drive home. “Fuck all that forever.”

Nathan and Beth locked eyes in the rear-view mirror but neither of them said anything. It wasn’t their place and, Beth thought, there wasn’t anything they could have done. Lara’s baggage was hers to own too.

Boxing Day saw her on Lara’s couch, messaging cousins she’d forgotten to contact the day before and coughing up yellow mucus. Yellow mucus, according to the internet, meant her immune system was striking back. She chugged Benadryl and orange juice and hoped her body was giving the cold hell.

It was an odd, saggy sort of day. Angus bashed his new toys around, Lara nursed her hangover and Nathan buried himself in a new sci-fi novel. Beth couldn’t bring herself to work on the podcast. When she wasn’t messaging cousins, she binge-watched Superstore on Netflix and found herself actually laughing, the sensation shifting hard packs of mucus in her cheeks. She felt light, almost giddy, which was probably why she did something stupid. She looked up Audrey Baker on Instagram.

As soon as she saw the top result,AudreyMBaker,she knew she had the right girl. They shared a mutual friend—Sal. With trembling fingers, she pressed the circular photo of the laughing brunette.

As she scrolled Audrey’s feed, Beth’s mood plummeted. She was prepared for hot. She was expecting hot. But Byron’s ex was stunning. Gorgeous. A ten out of ten. Andrich. There were photos of Audrey graduating from St Jerome’s Girls Grammar, driving a white Mercedes Benz, taking family holidays to Paris and Barcelona. There was Audrey in Dior jumpsuits and Balenciaga heels. Audrey carrying a pink Birkin bag, a white leather Chanel bag, a pale blue YSL clutch. She didn’t look tacky in designer labels. She was the kind of girl they were made for. A thoroughbred woman, as her gross uncle Mick might have said. The kind of girl Beth was destined to look low rent and busty beside. And that was Byron’s ex-girlfriend. The one who missed him. The one he couldn’t get over.

Wondering what the fuck she was doing—and if this was technically self-harm—Beth kept scrolling. Past Audrey on the beach in Bali, past Audrey at a fashion show with someone who looked like Cara Delevingne but wasn’t. Then, like she’d known it was there all along, she found what she’d been looking for.

Byron wasn’t smiling in the picture. If Beth hadn’t known it was him, she’d have thought it was an actor’s headshot—someone Audrey had a crush on and had posted on Instagram the way Beth had posted pictures of Orlando Bloom on her bedroom walls.

His face was leaner than it was now, the harsh sunlight bleaching his curls and turning his eyes sea green. The ocean churned behind his right shoulder and sea salt flecked his clear, tanned skin. The overall effect was shocking. He was so handsome it hurt. The caption was a green heart and nothing else. Beth studied the image. Audrey had taken it; she’d have bet her right arm on that. There was a lover’s eye in the way the camera had caught him. But Byron looked unaware, almost shifty. He wasn’t gazing at the lens so much as staring through it, beyond Audrey, beyond Beth, beyond everyone.

Beth pinched her fingers and spread them, zooming in. Up close she saw Byron wasn’t looking into the camera but slightly away, fixed on something she couldn’t see. Distracted, she thought. Hungry. He didn’t want to be there. But if he wasn’t happy at the beach with his Sports Illustrated girlfriend—where did he want to be? Disneyland?

Then another photo of Byron came to mind. An eighteen-year-old leaping to mark a ball, his face the picture of focus. Synapses connected. Beth could almost feel it—her boots tearing up turf, the leather ball wedged perfectly in her hand. She was running, her heart and lungs and brain pumping. The crowd vibrated, roaring like a million-headed beast, but she wasn’t afraid. She had never felt so alive.

Football, she realised. That was what Byron was thinking about. Football. He’d been one of those guys who burned for the game. Who saw his whole life culminating in sporting glory. She’d met guys like that in Auckland—men who were absent everywhere but the rugby field. Who’d sell their souls to be an All Black. Beth closed Instagram and lay back on Lara’s couch, her skin ripe with goosebumps.

She’d been wrong. She thought Audrey broke his heart. Thought Audrey was her competition. But Byron’s true love had been lurking just around the corner, out of sight. More desirable than the most beautiful woman in the world. He’d told her football had been his life back at the pools. Why hadn’t she seen what he meant?

… Because she’d taken it as a schedule thing. That his days and nights had been dedicated to being match fit. She hadn’t understood it was what he loved—maybe the only thing he loved. She unlocked her phone and went back for more. She studied Byron’s absent green eyes, trying to recall if she’d ever seen him looking like that. She didn’t think she had. There didn’t seem to be any distracted hunger in him anymore. He barely talked about football and when he did, his voice was flat. She’d never gotten the impression he wanted to go back to the game or even that he missed it.

A song rattled in the back of Beth’s mind. Humming, she realised it was “When The Party’s Over” by Billie Eilish. Sadness washed over her. She wanted to go back to Audrey’s feed and get jealous of how hot she was again. At least that was an emotion she understood. Being jealous that someone would never love you as much as they once loved football was an entirely different sensation.

Beth pulled her hands over her head, stretching her arms and shifting her hips. She bet if she DM’d Audrey Baker, they could have a long conversation about how Byron changed after he couldn’t play anymore. And what about Derek Hardiman? Beth was suddenly sure the tension in their friendship wasn’t some dishwasher-based feud. How did it feel to live with a mate who was at the top of their professional game when you’d been hustled out? How did you talk to him about something that was still a huge part of their life—the game?

Beth stood, absently making her way to her bedroom. She was due to talk to Dolly in an hour, but she needed to run, get some heat into her blood. She pulled on her black leggings and her All Blacks rugby jumper, grabbed her AirPods and sprinted out of the house. Usually she tried to jog, raise her knees and warm up a little. Today she ran full pelt through the streets of Brunswick, legs pumping, sweat and snot running from her face. She hit Princes Park in record time, rushing past picnics and frolicking packs of dogs.

It was only as she ran toward the sports pavilion where Byron had once lifted her up and kissed her that her feet slowed to a walk. She stepped off the running track and onto the grass that somehow managed to stay emerald all through the summer. She thought about the night he’d come to her touch game. He’d come to see her, Beth was sure, but he’d come to see the game too.

It didn’t matter that Byron couldn’t play professionally or that he missed playing AFL. But it mattered that he’d smacked up against tragedy and it had taken him down like a tonne of bricks. He was barely twenty-five and completely sandbagged by the past. He didn’t want to move on. No wonder she couldn’t see a future with him.

Beth unlocked her phone and went back to Audrey’s Instagram. She found the photo of Byron and felt the swooning punch of his presence. But there was something else too. A flickering sense of relief that she wouldn’t have to solve the puzzle. That she wouldn’t be Carrie, smoking and drinking and waiting for Mr Big to get over himself. She traced the line of Byron’s jaw with her fingertip. He was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. The hottest guy she’d ever slept with. Fifty years from now she could show it to her grandnieces.I pulled this once, right after the COVID broke out. That’s the level I was operating on, kiddo.

Beth brushed away a tear because that was a future she could see. A happy one, where she built something good for herself. She was going to apply for more jobs. Move out of Lara’s place. Make more friends and prioritise her dreams. She was going to finish her run, then take an Epsom salt bath and paint her toenails raspberry. She went into her old messages and after a split-second of hesitation, deleted Byron’s texts and his contact details. It didn’t feel good now, but hopefully it would soon.

She opened Spotify and started a new playlist, titling it ‘This is Thirty.’ She made “Body” by Meghan Thee Stallion the first song. Her phone buzzed as she added “God must be Doing Cocaine.” It was a Facebook message from rugby team Josh.

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