Page 53 of Begin Again Again

It was fucking awkward though.

“I should go,” she told Lara. “See you later?”

“Sure,” Lara told the bathroom wall.

Beth kissed her cheek and left in a knot of guilt. Every step she took away from Lara and their unacknowledged conflict stung. She kept moving on pure willpower, wishing she’d done everything differently.

The night was cool and smelled of damp roses. Beth slumped against Lara’s front door, her blood prickling like acid. It was hard to be sober. It was harder to tell the truth. She stared into the darkness. She couldn’t see Byron anywhere. Maybe he’d bailed? She’d never felt less like going on a date, but if he’d ditched her… Her lip quivered and everything that had happened in the past day—the past year—rose over her like a sudsy grey tidal wave. Stephen and Dolly. Her aborted old life and her failure to launch in Melbourne. Her parents and Lara. Her looming unemployment and her occupation of her friend’s spare bedroom. When was she going to be done swimming? When would she be able to rest?

“Horoscopes?”

Beth jumped about a mile. “Byron?”

He emerged out of the darkness, hands in his pockets. Beth stared. She’d only ever seen him in work clothes, but he looked amazing in his light grey t-shirt and black jeans, the neutral colours throwing his beauty into sharp relief. She couldn’t believe she’d kissed him. That he’d made himself come looking athernudes.

“You okay?” he asked.

Beth wiped under her eyes, hoping she hadn’t smeared her eyeliner. “Are you hanging out in Lara’s garden?”

“Yeah, this is my usual Friday night. Weird coincidence, huh?”

“Definitely.” She pasted a smile on her face. “Should we get going?”

“Give it a minute. Do you need a tissue?”

Beth’s fake-smile wavered as fresh tears pricked her eyeballs. “If I didn’t know you had a sister, I would now.”

But that wasn’t true. Her brothers had two sisters and whenever they saw she was crying, they invented reasons to leave the room.

Byron rocked on his heels. “We don’t have to go out, you know?”

“No, I’m fine,” she said quickly. “Just… having a time.”

“Homesick?”

She frowned. “Homesick?”

“For New Zealand? Auckland?”

“Oh.” The suggestion was so unexpected she laughed. “Um, not exactly. But kind of? It’s complicated.”

He stepped forward. “We’re in no rush. You can tell me if you want.”

“What about your sister’s show?”

“We’ve got time. What do you mean, ‘kind of?’”

Beth hoisted her bag higher on her shoulder. More than anything she wanted to leave Lara’s house and disappear into the night with her sexy young lover. Her embarrassment at being found crying on the doorstep hadn’t hit yet—but it was coming, and she’d rather be alone when it did.

“This is all a bit heavy for a first date.”

He shrugged. “Maybe. But you can still tell me.”

Beth moved down the garden path toward him. Byron stood still and straight-backed, his expression patient, and with a pang, she realised shewantedto tell him.

“There’s a Welsh word,” she said, before she could overthink it. “‘Hiraeth.’ It means, like… longing for a home that doesn’t exist. And maybe never existed. Like how you remember Christmas being amazing when you were little, but it was only because you couldn’t read the adult vibes and your family was actually as pissed off and miserable as they are now.”

Byron’s expression was unreadable. “So, what’s your home that doesn’t exist?”

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