Perfect Strangers (Language, Violence and Big-Kid Stuff)

[[Desolate Divine]]

A few months back, I heard a song by a band called the Color Morale called Perfect Strangers which stood out to me. The song is basically around wanting to have a chance to start over with a person, which resonates with me, as there are definitely people I wish I could start over with completely afresh. Some of the lyrics are

Maybe if we could just start over
Go back to when we were just perfect strangers
I could reintroduce myself
As someone I'm a hell of a lot more happy with

And I want to say goodbye, but in my head I said goodnight
I'll always find a way to mess up good things in my life
Close your eyes on the chapter and this night
I know you've tried to read me, but I threw that page away, oh-oh
But I threw that page away

On my way home when I was listening to this, I had an idea for a story based around this idea of wanting a do-over. So when I got home I started writing.

[[Desolate Divine]]

Prologue

“Come on Mason, it’s been five years.”

I walked to the door, as if to walk in, but paused again for a second.

“If you don’t do it now, you will never do it.”

I sighed, as I walked past the door, and sat in a nearby chair, putting my head in my hands.

“You’re just being a coward. You’re gonna walk over to that door and walk in.”

I stood up and walked quickly to the door, hoping to not give myself enough time to back out. But somehow I still stopped. My hand was on the door handle.

“The people working here have probably noticed you hovering by the door. What’s going to be more awkward? Going in, or explaining this to them?”

“F*** it.” I muttered to myself as I knocked on the door. I had a good point. I could only imagine what the hospital staff were thinking.

“Come in.” came a voice from inside the room that I hadn’t heard in a long time. I opened the door slowly and made my way in. As I walked through the doorway, I saw her sitting upright on the hospital bed, hooked up to all of the medical equipment and holding a book. Emily.

“Hello.” she said, her tone friendly, but unsure.

“Hey.” I replied awkwardly, “How are you?”

“For someone in a car crash as bad as the one I am in, I’m doing okay.” Emily replied with a smile, “These painkillers are amazing though.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. I had missed this. Emily still seemed a bit unsure, but that was to be expected. Still, I was surprised at how friendly she was being considering the circumstances of when I last saw her. Maybe she had forgiven me? Maybe the accident had caused her to see there are more important things in life.


“Look, I have to be honest with you, and this isn’t going to be easy to hear.” Emily said, starting to sound a little more serious.

“S***t, I thought things were okay.” I thought to myself.

“Truth is, when the car hit mine, my airbag didn’t go off, and I smacked my head pretty hard on the steering wheel.” Emily explained, “I’m lucky that I didn’t break my neck or anything, but it was a pretty serious head injury.”

I remained silent. I didn’t know where she was going with this.

“I can’t remember anything before I woke up here.” Emily said, “Not even my name. My mum said my name was Emily, and I’m still getting used to that. But what I am trying to say is that I don’t know who you are.”

“I’m Mason.” I replied, shocked by what I had just heard, “We went to school together.”

“How long ago was that?” Emily asked with a smile, “I’m sorry, I am still learning everything again.”

“No it’s fine, seriously.” I said, “We met when we were fifteen.”

“And I’m twenty four right? So are you?” Emily asked, grabbing a notebook from her bedside table, and writing something down, “So nine years?”

“Yeah that sounds right.” I replied. What I failed to mention was that five years ago, she told me she never wanted to see me again.

“So what have you been told so far?” I asked, trying to sound like I was just making conversation, instead of finding out if she knew what had happened between us.

“Not much to be honest,” Emily replied with a slight frown, “The doctors don’t want to overload me with too much information. Just my name, that I’m twenty four, I live in Melbourne and that I’m in my final year of university, though I can’t remember what I was studying.”

She flipped through her notebook trying to find it, however I already knew.

“Teaching. Secondary teaching.” I said, “But that’s all you know? I could only imagine looking through my phone after losing my memory, and taking all that in.”

“My phone has a passcode.” Emily said, tossing the iPhone off the bedside table to me, “A passcode that I can’t remember. It’s a glorified brick now. Same as my laptop. Everyone has told me to read through my Facebook messages, but I can’t get into my account to do that.”

There was an awkward silence, whilst I was silently and selfishly thanking God that Emily couldn’t remember that night from five years ago.

I noticed Emily look to my side and point, pulling me from my own thoughts.

“Is that a camera?” Emily asked, “Are you a photographer?”

“Yeah,” I replied, “At least, I hope so. I manage to get by taking photos, but that’s about it.”

“Can I see some of your photos?” Emily asked, sounding more and more curious.

I pulled the tablet from my camera bag, and opened up the photos app, pulling up a photo of the fireworks from last New Years Eve, and handed the tablet to Emily, who began scrolling through them.

“Wow, these are pretty incredible.” Emily said, “Where did you learn this?”

“I went to university for a year and learnt the basics, but dropped out.” I explained, “I spent more time there panicking about assessments and learning stuff that I didn’t really give a damn about, for a Bachelor of Arts that would get me nowhere anyway.”

Emily handed the iPad back, listening intently.

“I dropped out and made a point of spending my days taking photos. Helped me to become a better photographer than I ever would have there.”

Before either of us could say anything else, a nurse walked in.

“I’m sorry to interrupt, but visiting hours end in five minutes.” the nurse said.

“That’s fine. I’ll head off soon.” I replied, before the nurse walked out.

“Thanks for coming to see me.” Emily replied, “It gets pretty lonely here, and it’s comforting to know that one of my friends cares enough to come visit me. I was starting to think nobody would.”

“Wait, none of your friends have come to see you?” I asked, somewhat shocked.

“Nope.” Emily said, “They sent me texts, but I can’t reply, because of the whole passcode thing. They eventually stopped texting, and none made the effort to come out and see me. Every time some nurse would come in, I’d get excited thinking maybe its a friend, but nope. B****es.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. It must be horrible.” I repled.

“Before you go, can I ask a favour?” Emily asked, “Can you take a photo of us? For my notebook? Everything is all new to me, and I wanna make sure I don’t forget anything.”

I couldn’t help but smile. I grabbed my camera from the bag and put on a portrait lens, setting it to autofocus, and turning on the wireless remote, before placing the camera on the table at the opposite end of the room. I pulled my chair up against the bed, and sat next to Emily. That was the closest we had been in years. It felt foreign yet familiar.

“Smile.” I said, before pressing the button. There was a click as the mirror in the camera flicked up, and the shutter opened and closed within a second.

I packed up the camera, and put the chair back before making my way to the notebook.

“I’ll print that and bring it by tomorrow.” I said, before writing my phone number down, “If you need anything, and can get a hold of a phone, give me a call.”

“Thanks.” Emily replied, “I really appreciate it.”

“It’s fine.” I replied, “I’ll swing by tomorrow.”

I made my way out of the hospital to the carpark, and unlocked my car, before climbing in, and leaning back in my seat.

“That was completely different to how I thought it’d be.” I thought to myself, “I hate myself for thinking it, but maybe this could be for the best.”

I tried not to dwell on it too much. I turned the key, and the engine that sat behind me roared to life. I put my foot down, as the black Toyota MR2 began to move.

I arrived at my apartment an hour later, and made my way straight to my laptop on the kitchen bench, stopping by the fridge to grab a beer on my way there. I opened the laptop as the screen lit up, showing Skype from before I left to see Emily. The conversation was still open with a friend from a photography forum. Aperture.

WIthin a few seconds of me coming online, there was a new message.

“How’d it go??”

I opened the beer and took a drink before typing.

“Completely different to how I thought, but I am not sure if that’s a good thing.”

I took another sip as I waited. Soon there was a reply.

“How so?”


“She lost her memory in the accident. She couldn’t remember anything. But she was happy to see me. Apparently none of her friends have come to see her.”

“So you didn’t tell her what happened between you?”

“It wasn’t the right time. She doesn’t even know who Aaron was. It’d just upset her and make things awkward.”

“But will you tell her eventually right? I mean what if she sees her messages from back then? Or someone tries to tell her?”

“She can’t get into her phone, or her facebook account. And she is pretty pissed at her friends for not seeing her. I honestly don’t think she will find out.”

I grabbed another beer from the fridge, and opened that. I could feel it kicking in. I was more than used to that at this point.

“So what exactly happened between you guys??”

I took another sip, unsure of how to proceed.

“I loved her. That’s what.”

[[Desolate Divine]]

Chapter 1
I awoke the next morning with a dry mouth to the sound of my alarm buzzing, groaning as I rolled over to turn it off, before getting out of bed, and getting a glass of water. The venetian blinds that blocked my window cast small lines of light across the messy bedroom of my apartment. I grabbed a clean shirt and some jeans, before making my way into the kitchen. Tomorrow was rubbish day, so I cleaned up the kitchen of the empty beer bottles from last night and nights before that. It wasn’t a rare occurrence, what happened last night. Staying up late chatting with online friends and have a few drinks to take the edge off. It had been like that for a while now.

I grabbed an empty Corona box, and filled it with the bottles I had gathered, before taking them downstairs to the recycling bins. This was my way of hiding my drinking. I didn’t interact much with the others in my apartment building, but I knew they gossiped. Last thing I need is them spreading rumors about the alcoholic next door. By getting rid of it all at once, I am not being seen dumping bottles every day, as well as it tends to go unnoticed with everyone else getting rid of their stuff before rubbish day.

As I got back up to my apartment, I recalled the events of the previous day. Meeting Emily for the first time in years, and finding out just how much the accident affected her. Then telling Aperture exactly what happened. I had hinted to them that I had messed things up, but never went into detail. But I was sick of hiding it from them, yet expecting them to understand.

I also remembered the photo. The one I took with Emily, that she asked to be printed for her. Getting myself another glass of water, I pulled out the SD card from my camera, and plugged it into the laptop, as I booted up Lightroom. Within seconds, it had detected the card, and was importing all the shots from the shoot I did before visiting Emily, and the photo I took then. I quickly made sure the lighting was correct before printing it.

As I waited for the printer to print it, and the ink to dry, I began looking on my Facebook profile, backtracking to when we were teenagers, and managing to find a couple of photos from our teenage years. My sixteenth birthday, her eighteenth and our graduation. I lined them up to be printed, remembering the conversation with Aperture from the night before. I knew that if I expected them to understand exactly how tricky the situation with Emily was, I’d have to be honest, and tell them everything.

I remember sitting in morning homegroup at school. I was in ninth grade, really wishing I could be somewhere else. I had arrived at my locker that morning to find ‘f***ing loner’ tagged across it. I knew who did it, but I couldn’t prove it. I could confront them, but that’d end in a fight and I’d get the blame. It’d have been the third one this semester, and at my rate, I’d have been kicked out of the school by tenth grade.

I sat at the back of the classroom with my earbuds in, quietly listening to some music, trying not to draw attention to myself as I looked down at my desk in front of me. Whilst I did that, my teacher, Mr. Levy was up the front reading the bulletin. The usual bulls***. Announcements, detentions, room changes. As I said, the usual bulls***.

In the distance, I can hear my name being called. Within a few seconds, I realized what had happened but I was too late.

“I’ll take that iPod off you for the day Mason.” Mr. Levy said sternly, “I take it you didn’t hear what I just said to you?”

I remained silent, just wanting it to be over.

“Emily, the new student has her first few classes with you. I’d appreciate it if you’d help her get there.”

I looked up to see a slim figured girl with long brown hair and brown eyes, sitting up the front of the class looking cautiously at me.

“Probably the closest he’s ever been to a girl.” yelled out one of the guys from the other side of the room. Tristan. One of the people who bullied me.

“That’s not counting your mother last night?” I replied, loud enough for everyone to hear.

“Hey f*** you!” Tristan yelled back, standing from his seat.

I stuck my middle finger in the air at him, before Mr. Levy spoke up.

“Tristan, sit down. Nobody likes a smart a**.” Mr Levy said, sounding irritated, “Mason, don’t cause trouble.”

“Cause I f***ing started it…” I muttered under my breath.

The bell went, as I got out of my seat, and reluctantly handed my iPod over to Mr. Levy. As I made my way to the door, I was approached by the new girl. Emily.

“The teacher said that you can take me to maths?” Emily asked.

“Yeah, it’s just in the next block over.” I said, not really in the mood for conversation. I knew that Tristan and the guys were watching, and anything I said would be used to make my life hell later.

“I’m Emily.” Emily said, not seeming to see that I wanted to be left to my thoughts, “And Mr Levy said you’re Mason?”

“Yep.”

“And that guy who was making fun of you? He’s-” Emily began.

“An a**hole. One of the many a**holes in this place.” I muttered.

“No s***.” Emily replied with a slight laugh, “I’m glad to see you could stand up for yourself. Too many people just take it.”

“It’ll bite me on the a** later.” I said, “I’m not sure why they feel the need to be a**holes.”

“How long has it gone on for?” Emily asked.

“Years. Since we all started here.” I replied.

“Don’t let it get to you.” Emily said, “Anyone with half a brain can see they’re just childish a**holes.”

“Well half a brain is pretty rare in this s***hole.” I replied, to which Emily laughed.


We soon arrived at our maths class, where I took my seat at the back, which Emily followed me to, and took the seat beside me.

After the class it was recess, and we made our way back to our lockers. I showed Emily to hers, and whilst she was putting her stuff away, went over to mine to find some fresh graffiti.

“C***sucker”

As I looked around, I noticed Tristan and the guys looking at me and having a laugh. I opened my locker, and tried to ignore it, putting my stuff away and getting some food from my bag. As I did that, Emily came over, asking a question about the class before. I closed my locker about to answer it, when Emily noticed the graffiti, before looking over at Tristan and his mates, giggling to themselves like a bunch of idiots.

“Did they do this?” Emily asked.

“What do you think?” I replied, before locking my locker and making my way out of the locker room.

When I was sure I wasn’t being followed, I made my way to the bottom of the school, and sat behind the old water tank. Nobody ever went down there. Usually I’d sit there listening to my iPod, however that was now confiscated. Instead all I could do was eat my food, and try and figure out how I’d get through the next year and a half with these a**holes, and that was only if they dropped out.

I laid down against the tank and closed my eyes for a few minutes, until I heard footsteps, then a voice.

“Ditching a girl on her first day of school?” Emily scolded jokingly, “I thought better.”

“I just wanted to be alone for a little while.” I muttered.

Emily sat down next to me.

“I know what you mean. The reason I moved here was because of b****es in my class. They’d spread rumors about me.” Emily replied, “And there were times I’d just want to be alone, because I felt like it helped.”

Emily remained silent for a moment, as if she was still deciding if she should continue.

“But the truth is, it didn’t. The bullying made me feel alone, and forcing myself to be by myself just forced me to dwell on the fact that I was alone. It was hell.” Emily continued, “I know that we just met, and really, you’re only putting up with me because I’m the new kid, and you were unlucky enough to get picked to show me around, but don’t force yourself to be alone, just because of people like them. It will just mess you up.”

I remained silent. I could understand what she was saying. I didn’t like to hear it, but I understood it.

The bell rang, and we made our way back to the locker room. As I got my stuff from my locker, I noticed that the graffiti was mostly gone. I looked over at Emily by her locker, who flashed me a quick grin before getting the last of her stuff. We made our way to our next class, but after that, she was my best friend.


I was snapped out of my daydream by the printer beeping, signalling it had finished its jobs. I grabbed the pictures, and put them in a binder to stop them from being damaged, before heading out to my car.

Whilst I did tell Emily I’d visit her, I wasn’t able to stick around for long. I had a shoot booked for later this morning that I couldn’t afford to miss. Either way, being out this early meant being stuck in peak hour traffic. My left leg began to ache from the constant pressing down of the clutch. After an hour and a half, I arrived at the Northern Hospital, and grabbed a parking ticket from the machine before parking the car and making my way up to the fourth floor where Emily was staying.

I found myself out the front of her room, and knocked on the door, much more at ease than the day before.

“Come in.”

I opened the door and found Emily in her bed, watching the TV. When she saw me walk in she quickly turned it off.

“How are you going? I asked, as I put my bag on the seat and pulled out the binder.

“Same old.” Emily replied, “I’m just keen to get out of here.”

“When do you get to leave?” I asked, as I removed the pictures from the binder.

“Tomorrow.” she said with a smile, “It sounds silly, but really, all I know is this hospital. I want to see what life I had before the accident.”

“It doesn’t sound silly at all.” I said as I took a seat next to the bed, “And I might be able to help you with that now.”

Emily looked at me slightly puzzled as I passed her the photos.

“I printed that picture from yesterday, as well as a few others floating around my computer’s hard-drive.” I explained, “That one is from your eighteenth birthday party.”

Emily looked at the photo, trying to take it all in. The picture showed her and myself sitting behind a fire in a metal brazier. I was wearing a black button up shirt and some charcoal coloured jeans, with my black hair still messy and my smile awkward and uncomfortable. Emily meanwhile looked completely natural and in her element. She wore a navy blue dress, with her hair down. She had her arm around me, whilst I kept a pretty solid gap between us.

“Why do you look so awkward in this picture?” Emily laughed, “Was I that crazy girl that just followed you around and didn’t leave you alone?”

I couldn’t help but laugh.

“No, nothing like that.” I replied, “Until about eleventh grade, I was bullied pretty badly. It did wonders for my self-confidence. Believe it or not, that was me being comfortable. But I never was a big fan of being in photos. Part of the reason I like taking them is that I’m not on the receiving end of the camera.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Emily said solemnly.

“It’s fine. It was a long time ago.” I replied, “And you said it best yourself. Anyone with half a brain can see they’re just childish a**holes.”

Emily laughed, before moving on to the other photo. This one was a selfie that Emily took. We were both in our school uniforms, with me holding a box with a miniature version of my MR2. She jokingly had a shocked expression on her face, and was pointing at my face. Meanwhile, I was caught in the middle of laughing in this shot, with a black eye.

“What the hell happened to you?” Emily asked.

“I got into a fight.” I said.

“No s***.” Emily replied, “How?”

“Do you really want to know?” I asked, “I’m just saying, there was some nasty stuff said about you.”

“You can’t show me a photo like this and not tell me the full story.” Emily laughed.

“Okay, so this was my sixteenth birthday…”

I was standing by my locker, grabbing my lunch. The door was now a few tones darker than the others due to the constant graffiti from Tristan, and it constantly being cleaned off by Emily, even though I’d told her not to bother.

I was hoping to be quick, but I knew I wasn’t quick enough when I was nearly tackled by Emily hugging me from behind.

“You’ve been avoiding me.” Emily said, “On your birthday of all days.”

“It’s not a big deal.” I replied, “I just want a normal day.”

“That’s fine. You can have a normal day…”

“Really?”

“After I give you your birthday present!”

I sighed, as Emily passed me a small, wrapped box. I tore off the wrapping and found a small box with a model car. A second generation Toyota MR2. My favorite car.

“How did you know I liked this car?” I asked, shocked.

“It’s your phone wallpaper.” Emily said.

“Yes, but how did you know what to look for?” I asked. Emily had constantly said she knew nothing about cars.

“Google. Lots of google.” Emily said, “I knew it was a Toyota, and it looked like it was from the 90s or so. Then I just searched and searched until I found it.”

“That’s really cute Mason.” said a voice from the other side of the room.

We looked over to see Tristan and his mates, walking over.

“F*** off Tristan.” I muttered.

“Why do you and your boyfriends get off on being such d***s?” Emily asked, sounding irritated.

“You guys wanna be left alone?” Tristan asked, “That’s fine. I expect you’ll want a bit of privacy for your next birthday present, if you catch my drift.”

He made a gesture with his hand and mouth, as a stab at Emily. Before he could even finish, I punched him in the nose, then whilst he was still in shock, grabbed him by the shirt and slammed him into the locker, causing him to crumple in a heap on the ground. I went to kick him, however was yanked back by one of Tristan’s mates and held against the wall, as I saw Emily flee the room.

Tristan got to his feet and walked over.

“Motherf***er…” he muttered as he spat a mouthful of blood onto me. Unable to do anything, I was helpless as his fist connected with my eye.

“What the f*** are you doing?” shouted an unfamiliar voice from the other end of the locker room. I looked over to see Emily and her brother from twelfth grade. Tom

“None of your business.” Tristan muttered, “P*** off.”

“Excuse me, you little s***stain?” Tom said, walking over and grabbing Tristan, and slamming him up against the locker, “When you talk about my sister like that, it is my f***ing business!”

Whilst they were distracted, I smashed my elbow into the face of the guy holding me, then threw him to the ground.

“This c*** hit me first!” Tristan shouted.

“Like you didn’t f***ing deserve it.” I replied.

“Will you just shut the f*** up?” Tom said to Tristan, letting him go, causing him to drop to the ground, “Don’t ever let me catch you disrespecting my sister again, got it?”

“Whatever…” Tristan muttered, as he got up and walked off. When he did, Tom turned to Emily.

“If he ever hassles you again, let me know.” Tom said, before returning to wherever he came from.

“Are you alright?” Emily asked, seeming a little frantic about my eye that was already starting to bruise.

“I’ll be fine. Let’s just get out of here.” I said, trying to forget the whole thing happened.

“Well what are you doing after school?” Emily asked, “We gotta make sure your birthday is better than this.”

“It’s not a big deal Emily.” I said, “I just wanna get through today, and forget that it happened.”

Either Emily didn’t hear me, or ignored me.

“What about we go to Greensborough and hang out there after school?” Emily asked, “See a movie or something?”

“Will you let me say no?”

“What do you think?”

“Fine.”

The day finished fairly slowly. After school we met up, and caught the bus to Greensborough Plaza, where we found ourselves sitting in near awkward silence, on a seat near Ben and Jerry’s, eating ice-cream and waiting for our movie to start.

I ate my ice-cream quietly, until Emily finally spoke up and asked the question I was hoping she wouldn’t ask.

“Why did you punch Tristan today?” Emily asked, “Like, I get that he was a d***, but we could have just done nothing and waited for him to get bored?”

“He disrespected you.” I replied, “I taught him a lesson.”

“And nearly got the s*** kicked out of yourself teaching that lesson.” Emily replied, “Seriously, did you think you were saving some damsel in distress? Or trying to look like a tough guy and show off? Because I’m not helpless. And I don’t think that being violent is attractive, if that’s what you were playing at...”


“No, it’s not like that, it’s just…” I began, trying to find the words.

I stopped to think for the moment, to find the best way to explain this.

“You’re a nice girl Emily. And you’re a better person that I am in that you can take having people treat you badly, and still walk with your head held high. You don’t let it get to you.” I explained, “But you deserve to be treated a lot better. Just because you can handle it, it doesn’t mean you should. I just hope that next time Tristan thinks about talking s*** about you to p*** me off, he remembers getting his a** handed to him.”

Emily was silent for a second. I could tell she knew what I meant, but didn’t agree with me.

“If I agree to take a little less s***, will you stop taking none for me?” Emily asked, sounding more serious by the second, “I just don’t want you doing anything stupid for my sake. If word gets out what happened, you’ll be suspended for sure, and if it happens again, maybe even expelled.”

“I’ll try.” I replied.

There was another awkward silence, as we both finished our ice-cream. The movie was about to start, and Emily decided to try and make things a little less awkward by pulling out her phone.

“Let’s get a photo.” Emily said with a grin, “I doubt we will forget today, but for good measure.”

I knew that I wasn’t currently in a place to argue with her, so I didn’t. Instead, I just looked at the camera with my usual awkward attempt at a smile.

“Now say ‘Tristan’s a f***wit!’” Emily said, causing me to burst into laughter. She took the photo, pointing at me and my black eye.


“Jesus…” Emily muttered, “That sounds like it was nuts.”

“It was.” I replied, “And we have the photo evidence to prove it.


I looked at my watch and realized I was running out of time.

“I’m sorry, but I got a job I have to get to.” I explained, “Maybe once you’ve been home for a few days, we can go get lunch or something?”

“That would be nice.”

I made my way to the door, and was about to leave, before Emily spoke again.

“Mason, before you go, I gotta ask you something.”

“What’s up?” I asked.

“Before my accident… What were we?” Emily said, “You said that we were friends, but is that all? Because I know I’ve probably got other friends, but none of them have come to visit me. And from what you said, it sounds like we were pretty close.”

I thought about this for a second. I didn’t want to lie to her, but then again, the fact that we are talking again is purely based on the fact that she doesn’t remember telling me she doesn’t want to see me again.

“You were my best friend.” I explained.

“Were meaning I was and now am not?” Emily asked.

“No not that. I am just talking about back then.” I replied choosing my words carefully, trying to be truthful, “We did stop talking as much as we did when we were teenagers over recent years. But you were still my best friend.”

Emily was quiet for a moment before speaking up.

“Thanks Mason.” she said quietly, “You’ve given me a lot to think about.”

“Try and get some rest.” I replied, “I’ll be in touch soon.”

[[Desolate Divine]]

Not sure that anybody is following yet, but just letting you know that later this week I'll have a new chapter up. I have an assignment due that I'll be writing the next few days instead of this, hence why!

[[Desolate Divine]]

I now am off placement and had time to finish this chapter!

Chapter 2
It had been a few days since I had seen Emily. Unless the hospital changed their mind, she would have returned home two or so days ago. I was intentional about giving her some space. The last time we were friends before her accident, me not being able to control myself and how I felt about her was what messed things up. We had been given a second chance, one that I didn’t believe I would ever get, and I wasn’t going to ruin it.

It was nearly midday, as I sat in the study that was originally the spare bedroom, on the work computer, working on photos. After I visited Emily, I went to a shoot, where I was taking photos of some cars. The customer was a collector of classic Japanese cars, which was why I was so eager to take the job. He had everything from Datsuns from the seventies, Toyotas from the eighties, Mazdas from the nineties and even a few modern cars as well. Afterwards we shared a drink and talked cars, especially my MR2. It was probably the best shoot I had done.

On the primary monitor, I had Lightroom open, making adjustments to a shot of a white ‘93 Mazda RX7, with Facebook open on the secondary monitor. Though I told myself it was to make sure I was responding to customers contacting me via my page as quick as possible, I spent more time with it on my news feed.

My attention wavered from Lightroom when I heard light ping come from the speakers. I glanced over at Facebook to see a new friend request.

Emily Collins

I clicked accept in a heartbeat, before opening her profile to have a look. The profile picture was a selfie that looked like it was taken very recently. She mustn’t have been able to get into her phone or computer, so had to start a new one. Other than that the profile was empty. It was saddening to see that. It wasn’t empty because she didn’t care for Facebook. Her old account was full of details about herself. Favorite movies, music, pictures. Everything. But now, she knew nothing.

I attempted to look back at Lightroom, however was distracted by another noise from Facebook. A message from Emily.

”Hey! Are you free today? I’ve spent the last few days at home, and I’ll lose the plot if I don’t get out and do something today!”

I considered declining, and using work as an excuse, so I wasn’t spending too much time with her and risking undoing what had happened over the last few days. However I had been working on these shots fairly consistently for the last two hours, and she seemed to really want to get out of the house.

”Sure. I’ll pick you up. What’s your address?”

A little notification appeared to show Emily had seen it, however it took a few minutes to reply.


”Sorry, I had to find some mail with the address. 113/1320 Plenty Road, Bundoora. How long will you be?”

”I’m about a half hour drive away. I’ll head over now. See you soon.”

I grabbed my camera bag out of sheer habit, as well as my keys and wallet, before walking out of the apartment, and taking the lift to the underground carpark. As I walked to my car, I punched Emily’s address into my phone, before climbing in and driving out.

I arrived at Emily’s a little under half an hour later. It took me a few minutes to find her apartment, however fairly soon I found myself face to face with the door marked 113.

I knocked on the door, and a few seconds later, the door opened.

“Hey!” Emily said, before hugging me, which took me by surprise. I still was wrapping my head around her not hating me. She must have noticed this.

“Sorry, I wasn’t being weird was I?” Emily asked, sounding somewhat embarrassed.

“No it’s fine. You just caught me off guard.” I laughed, “You used to do it all the time, and near tackle me.”

Emily laughed, before speaking up.

“So what are we doing today?” she asked.

“I was hoping you’d tell me.” I replied, “I haven’t planned anything.”

“Well I do have one idea.” Emily said, “Could we maybe go to places that I should know? I’ve spent the last few days trying to learn everything I can about myself from what is around here. But I think this place has run dry.”

“So what, places where you used to hang out?” I asked.

“Exactly!” Emily replied excitedly.

“Sure. Let’s head down to the car.”

Emily grabbed her phone, which she had probably wiped to be able to use it again, her notebook and her keys, before locking the door, and following me down to the main road where my car was parked. When it was in sight, and Emily noticed we were walking towards it, she spoke up.

“Wait a minute!” she exclaimed, opening her notebook and flicking through it until she found the right page. She opened to the page with the photo from my 16th birthday, where I had a black eye and was holding the model MR2.

“Is that the same car?” Emily asked, “The NR2, or whatever you called it?”

“Yep. That’s an MR2.” I replied, “And it’s mine.”

“Bulls***.” Emily said confidently, however soon looked me in the eye, “Really?”

I pulled the keys out of my pocket, and unlocked the door, then started the engine.

“Believe me yet?” I asked.

“Maybe…” Emily joked, before climbing into the passenger seat, “So where to first?”

I climbed into the driver’s seat and closed the door behind me.

“Greensborough Plaza?” I asked, “It’s where we’d hang out most of the time.”

“Sure.” Emily replied, “Take me to Greensborough!”

I pressed in the clutch and put the car into gear before taking off.

“So you’re probably the person I have seen most since waking up in hospital, but I still hardly know you.” Emily explained.

“What do you want to know?” I asked, as I slowed down for a red light.

“What can you tell me?”

“Well I was born in Greensborough, around the corner from the plaza, and grew up in Eltham, which is one of the nearby suburbs. I went to primary school there, then went to St. Helena for secondary.” I explained, “In year seven, I lost my dad to cancer, so from then on it was just Mum and I.”

“I’m sorry…” Emily murmured, “I shouldn’t have asked.”

“No, it’s fine seriously.” I said, “It was twelve years ago, and he lived a good life.”

I took a second to think about how to explain it as I shifted gears.

“It happens to all of us at some point. Some sooner than others, and some too soon. And yeah it sucks.” I explained, “But being depressed about it all these years later isn’t going to bring him back. All we have left of him is our memories. I just hope that one day I can make him proud.”

“I’m sure you already have.” Emily said, touching my shoulder.

”If you knew the half of it, you wouldn’t be saying that.” I thought to myself.

“So what was your dad like?” Emily asked curiously.

“He was a genuine good bloke.” I replied, “No other way of putting it. He ran a garage down in Diamond Creek, and was always doing work for people cheap who couldn’t afford any more. He loved MR2s, and always said that one day we’d fix one up.”

“Is that why you love this car so much?” Emily said.

“Pretty much.” I replied, “I mean, it’s a great car regardless, but it does have that sentimental value to it.”

We pulled into the parking spot in the Greensborough Plaza carpark, and made our way in. As we entered, we found ourselves surrounded by shoppers and store-fronts. Once Emily had taken it in, we decided to head over to the food court.

“So this is where we’d hang out after school and on weekends.” I said to Emily, “We’d get food, and make our way downstairs to JB HiFi and you’d always walk out of there with a CD.”

“I was pretty surprised when I got home and saw how many CDs I had.” Emily laughed.

“I always told you you were wasting your money and that you could just torrent it for free.” I replied, “But you always insisted it sounded better on CD. I think you were the reason that department still exists.”

We got some food before browsing through a few other stores, eventually finding ourselves near the cinemas. Emily looked around, before pulling out her notebook and flicking to the page with the photos I printed for her. She pulled out the one from my sixteenth birthday, holding it in front of her, analysing the photo and the area in front of us.

“This was taken here wasn’t it?” Emily asked.

“Yep. On that seat over there.” I said, pointing to the seat out the front of Ben and Jerry’s.

Emily walked over and sat down, seeming as if she was just trying to take it all in.

“I want to say that this seems familiar to me.” Emily said quietly, “But it isn’t.”

“It hasn’t been that long.” I replied, “Maybe one day, you’ll start to remember again. You still have the rest of your life.”

“That’s a long time to feel like a complete stranger.” Emily muttered. I was silent for a moment, before conceding to the fact that maybe I couldn’t help her with this more than I already am.

“I wish I knew what to say to make it better.” I said, as I sat down next to her, “But I guess this is just one of those things we can’t change.”

“I’m sorry.” Emily replied, “You’re right. It’s been not even two weeks, and I still have time. Besides, you’ve been more helpful than anyone else with all this. So thank you.”

We made our way back to the car, before making the drive to our old school. I pulled into the carpark as students in uniforms flooded out of the property into the car-park and surrounding streets after a long day. We got out of the car and made our way past the office into the main courtyard.

“Are you sure we’re allowed here?” Emily asked, looking around somewhat self-consciously.

“We’re ex-students, and we’re just looking around. Besides, I’m friends with the media and art teachers.” I explained, “I’m here at least once a month giving some sort of photography demonstration to those classes. And there is a staff meeting after school today, so everyone will be there.”

“Okay.” Emily said, not entirely convinced, but following along anyway.

We made our way to the classroom where Mr. Levy assigned me to show Emily around on that day nine years ago. Whilst the computers were new and it looked like the carpet had been replaced and walls painted, it still looked mostly the same. After that we went to the locker room where I had gotten into a fight with Tristan on my birthday, and found my locker, mostly based on the fact that it was the one with a near black door as opposed to the others being a light grey.

“So this is where that fight happened?” Emily asked cautiously.

“Yeah.” I replied, “This is my locker here.”

I then walked over to another locker a few metres away.

“And this is the one I threw Tristan into.” I explained, “And that’s the wall that they threw me against.”

Emily kept silent. I needed to tone down the talk of fighting. It was making her uncomfortable.

“Come with me.” I said, before walking out the door, and making my way towards one of our old classrooms. Through the window it was pretty bare. Desks, tables and a whiteboard, but not many posters.

“What’s so special about this room?” Emily asked.

“This was the maths classroom.” I explained, “You loved maths, especially when it got weird with letters and stuff. Before your accident you were studying to be a maths teacher.”

“Really?” Emily asked, starting to sound a little more excited.

“Yep. You loved that it followed rules, and that you could always figure it out if you knew how. And you loved that you’d find yourself using it in your day to day life.” I explained, “I mean hell, you even helped me pass it in year twelve, which is a miracle in itself.”

Emily laughed.

“You don’t like maths?” Emily asked.

“Maths for the sake of maths, no.” I replied, “Photography uses a lot of numbers and calculations and I don’t mind that. But when you start trying to figure out the angles of lines off the edges of circles and other obscure stuff like that… Well, I have things I’d rather be doing.”

Emily laughed, before gazing through the window again.

“Where did we sit?” she asked, without moving.

“Back row, left-hand side.”

“So right there?” Emily asked, pointing at a table.

“Yep. Right there is where we spent hundreds of hours over our years at school.” I replied, “You were always getting praised by the teacher, whilst I was frantically trying to do last night’s homework.”

“You make me sound like I was some sort of teacher’s pet.” Emily said.

“You weren’t. Well not intentionally. You were the only person who enjoyed the work, so it was easy for the teacher to like you.” I replied, before looking at my watch. It was nearing 5pm.

“The staff meeting will be over soon, so we better head off.” I explained.
“I thought you were here pretty regularly?” Emily asked.

“Yeah, but I wasn’t the most popular student, even with the teachers.” I replied, “The ones who get me to demonstrate to their classes were the only ones who didn’t think I was some hormonal drop-kick, and I’d rather not run into them.”

“Fair enough.”

We made our way back to the car, as we climbed in, sitting in silence.

“So what do you have planned for the rest of the night?” I asked, somewhat awkwardly as I started the car.

“I was going to have a party and invite all of my friends.” Emily said sarcastically, “In all seriousness, probably pizza and a movie. Granted, I wouldn’t know where to begin.”

There was another awkward silence, before I spoke up, going against every instinct I had.

“Well, if you’d like some company, we can do that at my place?” I said, somewhat cautiously, “I know what movies you like, and what pizza is your favorite.”

“Sure!” Emily responded with a grin, “I’m always happy to find out a little more about myself.”

The rest of the trip was spent discussing movies, which was mostly myself telling Emily which movies she liked, and what they were about. As we drove down the main road of Doncaster, Emily looked out the window, taking it all in. On one side of us was the hotel, and the other side the shopping centre, one of the biggest shopping centres in Melbourne. I turned left at the lights, before turning on my right indicator and driving into the driveway to the underground carpark of my apartment building.

“Where are we going?” Emily asked.

“My place, remember?” I replied, somewhat confused.

“Wait, you live here?” Emily asked, sounding shocked, “I thought we were driving through here to another suburb? It looks like it would cost a fortune to live around here.”

I parked the car and we began walking to the elevator.

“Well it isn’t cheap.” I replied.

“So how do you afford to live here?” Emily asked, “You’re not some big time drug dealer are you?”

“Really?”

“Hey, I gotta ask!” Emily exclaimed.

“A mixture of things. I enter hundreds of photography competitions each month, for cash prizes and equipment. The stuff I win that I don’t need, I sell.” I explained, “That and once you get a good portfolio together, and have your own style of photos, you can charge whatever you want for your time. If people really want what you can offer, they’ll find a way to pay for it.”

The elevator arrived at the eighth floor, as we stood out and made our way down the hall to my door. I unlocked it, flicking on the switch and made my way in. When I saw the empty beer bottles on the bench and coffee table, the empty chip packets and the DVD cases, I started to realize this may be a bad idea.

“Sorry about the mess.” I said quickly, grabbing the empty bottles and putting them in the recycling box, trying to think of a cover story, “I had some friends over for a few movies last night.”

“It’s fine.” Emily replied, though not sounding entirely convinced. She made her way over to one of the walls, where a large canvas hung of a photo that was pitch black, with a few orange, decorative light globes.

“Did you take this shot?” Emily asked, looking up at it, “It’s amazing.”

“Yeah I did.” I replied, ceasing tidying for a second to look, “I won my first competition with it.”

“Wow.” Emily muttered, “Where is it?”

“A cafe at uni. I went there after failing one of my photography assignments and was pretty depressed about it. I saw that and decided to take the shot, and really liked it. I had been struggling with uni all year, and felt like giving up on photography altogether.” I explained, “It was going to be my last shot before I threw in the towel.”

I walked over to have a closer look.

“So why didn’t you?” Emily asked curiously.

“You wouldn’t let me.” I replied with a smirk, “I sent you that and told you it was my last. So naturally you submitted it to a competition to prove a point and it won. That helped me realize that uni wasn’t going to do anything for me, and that I needed to find my own way.”

“Wow…” Emily muttered to herself, as I walked into the kitchen to grab a pizza menu from the bottom drawer. Emily began walking around the apartment, taking it all in.

The apartment itself was impressive. The main room consisted of a kitchen and dining room, and a lounge room down some stairs. On the left hand side were two doors, one to my bedroom and the other to the spare room which acted as my study, then on the right a hallway to the laundry, bathroom and toilet. The wall opposite the front door was a giant window with a balcony that provided a breathtaking view of the Melbourne CBD. Emily had found her way there, and was looking out at that whilst I called the pizza shop.

I placed the order and hung up, before grabbing two Coronas from the fridge, and taking them out to the balcony, where Emily sat on one of the chairs taking it all in. I grabbed the bottle opener off the wall and opened a bottle before handing it to Emily and opening my own. I took a seat as Emily gave me a funny look.

“Beer? Really?” she asked, reading the label on the back.

“Trust me, you like it.” I explained, “When we finished school you used to drink as much as me.”

“Used to?” Emily asked, “So did I start drinking less or did you start drinking more?”

This caught me by surprise.

“You less.” I replied, “You started university and didn’t have as much time on your hands.”


Emily took a sip of her beer before grinning.

“I gotta learn to not question you.” she laughed, before taking another sip, and looking out over the balcony, “I still can’t believe you live here. You really have made it.”

”That’s if made it includes being a lonely alcoholic.” I thought to myself, before shaking the thought.

“I guess so.” I replied, “It’s alright, but I still have a lot I need to do.”

“Give yourself some credit.” Emily said, “You said you were bullied right? Those people, what’re they doing with their lives now?”

“The main one is now a plasterer.” I laughed, “And he is still an apprentice. He kept trying different trades and getting sacked.”

“And let me guess, he still lives with his mum?” Emily asked.

“Nope.”

“Really?” Emily asked, sounding shocked.

“His girlfriend’s mum. He got a girl pregnant and moved in with her family in their two bedroom townhouse.” I replied with a grin, “Other than when he gets caught cheating on her and gets thrown out for two weeks.”

Emily burst into laughter.

“You see? I’d bet every cent I have to my name that he is miserable right now, in some shack, now stuck looking after a kid that he probably doesn’t want, doing a job that he hates.” Emily replied, “Do you like what you do?”

“I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t.”

“Do you like living here?”

“I wouldn’t if I didn’t.”

“Does it bring in enough to live comfortably?”

“More than enough.”

“Then you’ve made it.” Emily replied, taking another sip, “Whilst you’re sitting here on the balcony of your flashy apartment, looking at the sky-line, he is probably sitting on an old couch with a Jim Beam, trying to watch the footy over a screaming baby.”

“Fair enough.” I said, before being interrupted by the doorbell. I made my way to the door and was greeted by the smell of fresh pizza. I paid the delivery boy, before placing the two boxes on the bench and grabbing some plates.

“Which would you recommend?” Emily replied.

“Your favorite was meat lovers.” I said as I grabbed a slice of hawaiian, “You always said you could never be a vegan. It just tastes too good.”

Emily laughed as she grabbed a couple of slices, and we made our way to the couch. I grabbed the remote, and turned on the TV, starting up Netflix, and scrolling down through my recently watched list.

“Wait, stop for a second!” Emily exclaimed, “That one there. Remember Me. Is that a chick-flick? The poster looks a lot like a chick flick!”

“Maybe…” I muttered, “What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing!” Emily replied with a grin, “Each to their own. I won’t tell anybody.”

I kept scrolling until I found the movie I was looking for.

Hot Fuzz.

“An action movie?” Emily asked.

“What did you say before after I gave you a beer and you liked it?” I asked.

“Okay, I’ll trust you.”



The next two hours were filled with a mixture of unexpected laughs, groans and noises of disgust from the excessive blood. When the credits rolled, I flicked off the TV.

“So what did you think of that?” I asked, curious to hear what she said.

“It was pretty weird and f***ed up.” Emily replied before grinning, “But it was pretty hilarious and I loved it.”

“You said the exact same thing the first time I showed it to you.” I laughed, “I guess some things never change.”

“I guess you’re right.” Emily smiled, before checking her watch, “It’s only nine. Do you want to chuck on another movie?”

I thought about it for a second, before having a thought.

“I have a better idea.” I replied, “Go get your jumper.”

Emily didn’t question it, but got her jumper off one of the chairs whilst I grabbed my camera bag and a few more beers from the fridge. I walked to the front door and beckoned her to follow, before we made our way towards the lift, and headed for the twelfth floor. The roof.

As the lift doors opened, it revealed a room made up of glass that covered about half of the roof. On one end were a couple of couches and a TV, and in the other corners were a pool table and a grand piano. I walked to the door that lead to outside, and sat down on one of the seats there. Emily followed me out taking in the view.

“This is nuts.” Emily muttered, as I passed her another beer. She sat down opposite me, with a glass-topped coffee table between us, “I could never get sick of this.”

We sat in silence for a few minutes, before I tried to spark a conversation.

“So you made a new facebook account?” I asked.

“Yeah, I gave up on ever getting into my old one.” Emily replied, “I can’t even see the old one. I had it set to private.”

“Do you want to see it?” I asked, before pulling out my phone. I opened the Facebook app, and searched Emily. Two profiles came up. The one that added me today, and the one that added me nine years ago. I clicked the second and handed her the phone.

For the next few minutes she furiously scrolled through her profile, clicking on every photo, reading every comment.

“I have listed under favorite quotes, ’The greater good…’” Emily laughed, “You were right.”

“Told you.” I replied, taking a sip of my beer.

“Jesus, I have 1,200 friends.” Emily muttered, “And only you visited me.”

“You don’t remember how Facebook works?” I asked, “If someone meets you once at a party, or even just sees you across the room, they’ll add you, either to make themselves feel like they’re popular because of the amount of friends, or ‘cause they like you and don’t have the nerve to say anything.”

“Still…” Emily said before scrolling further. Her eyes widened, “Who’s Aaron Turner?”

“S*** how far back did you go?” I asked, sounding shocked. I’d hoped to never hear her talking about him again.

“About 5 years.” Emily replied, “It says I was in a relationship with him, but I am not sure if that was legit or just a joke.”

“He’s your ex.” I replied, “You dumped him when you found out he cheated on you.”

“Jesus…” Emily muttered, “I kinda wish I remembered that.”

“Be glad you didn’t.” I replied, “It was messy and he was an a**hole.”

“I’ll take your word for it.” Emily lamented, “Still, this seems so full of life and personality, and my new one seems so empty. I mean, even the profile picture is better…”

Emily turned around in her chair so that she was now facing me side on, and pulled her legs up, hugging them whilst holding her Corona in one hand, and staring into the distance.

“Don’t move a muscle…” I said, before grabbing my camera out of the bag, and putting on my 85mm portrait lens.

“What’re you doing?” Emily asked nervously, not having moved but her eyes trying to see in her peripheral vision.

“Look forward, and relax a bit.” I said, looking through the viewfinder and lining up the shot. Emily figured out what I was doing, and relaxed a bit, not posing or faking a smile. Just taking in the moment.

I focussed the shot before pressing the button to release the shutter. Within a fraction of a second it was closed again, and an image appeared on my screen. Emily staring out deep in thought, with the Melbourne sky-line behind her.

I reached over to hand her the camera.

“What about that for a profile picture?” I asked, as she held the camera and stared at the shot. She tried to hold it in, but couldn’t help but smile.

“Thank you. For everything.”

[[Desolate Divine]]

New chapter coming. It only took nearly 2 months. It's a little shorter than the rest, as I have been flat out. But I am nearly done with uni and hopefully will be more motivated to write!

[[Desolate Divine]]

Chapter 3
I awoke with a slightly dry mouth, but thankfully nothing more. Mason still had to give me a lift home last night, so he didn’t have too many. I had a couple more.

We sat out on the roof for hours, mostly talking, occasionally sitting in silence, drinking and just taking in the view. Whilst I learnt a lot yesterday, I still wanted to learn more. It took all the self control I had to not interrogate him about every detail he may have known. Though he seems fairly understanding, I could imagine it would end up getting on his nerves whether he wants it to or not.

I slowly climbed out of my bed, and got changed into some trackies and a hoodie, whilst remembering the night before. Mason mostly told stories about our time in school, but didn’t seem to mention much after we graduated. He had said earlier that I didn’t have as much time, but could I have just not had any time for him at all? I hoped that wasn’t the case, but deep down I was scared that it may have been that way.

It was well past midnight when Mason finally said he should get me home, granted, I wouldn’t have objected staying up there all night. Even though it was as simple as some beers on a rooftop, it was the best night I have had since waking up after the crash.

We walked back to his apartment so he could get his keys and put the photo he took onto a flash drive, before he drove me home. It was nearly 2am when I finally went to sleep.

As I walked into the kitchen to get some water, I couldn’t help but remember waking up after the crash. For a few minutes, I was somewhat awake. I could hear voices talking, but wasn’t paying attention. My eyes were closed, and everything was black. Eventually the voices got louder, and the lights above me began to shine through my closed eyes, getting brighter until I had to wake up.

I remember waking up, and slowly trying to sit up. There was a doctor who was surprised and telling me to to take it easy, before asking if I knew what happened.

I was still groggy and out of it, and before I could even respond, a woman burst into the room and near tackled me with a hug. I saw her heart break when she saw me look at her like a stranger. That was when Mum knew that something was wrong.

I felt a slight throbbing in my head that had become all too familiar. Whilst I wouldn’t know if these constant headaches were happening before the accident, it’s a pretty safe bet that it started after. I opened the medicine cabinet, and pulled out a box of panadol, removing two tablets from the wrapping and swallowing them with the aid of some water.

I sat on the couch and grabbed my laptop off the coffee table, and pressed the power button, causing the display to illuminate. It was my laptop before the crash, however we had to wipe it if I wanted to use it. I couldn’t remember the password to get in. I was locked out, just like my phone and Facebook. I’m just thankful that Mason was able to show me some of it last night. Granted, there was so much more I wish I could have seen. Even just my messages. They would be a treasure trove of information.

Once I had logged in, I plugged in the flash-drive, and opened Facebook, dragging the lone file from the drive into the Profile Picture section. Within seconds, the awkward selfie was replaced with a beautiful looking shot from last night. I can’t figure out how he got it to look so good. The balance of light, and the background blur are just perfect. He said yesterday that photography uses a lot of numbers, so he probably has a formula for it.

It had been a few days since I first came home, and I was still getting used to this being my home. Mum tried to move in with me until I was a little more used to, well, whatever you’d call this. However I talked her out of it. Regardless of my memory, I’m an adult, and I kind of want to figure all of this out on my own, to a degree.

I still remember my first night alone here after the accident. I ended up ordering chinese, and spent the night until some late hour looking through my DVD and CD collections, watching and listening, trying to figure out what it was about these that appealed to me enough to buy them. I was still without any internet, since my phone and laptop were both locked at the time, so I couldn’t even look up anything. I had to just watch them. Most of the time, I was just unsure of whether my mentality was similar before the accident, or if my thoughts on them were new. What was I like before I lost my memory?

I was snapped back to reality by the sound of my doorbell. I put down the laptop, and made my way to the front door, taking a glance through the peep-hole to see who it was, and decide if I needed to get changed. It took me a second but I recognized the face of my older brother, Tom, carrying a plastic bag.

I opened the door, and greeted him with a hug, however it still felt like I was hugging a stranger. I mean, technically, I was.

“How’re you doing?” I asked, as he walked inside.

“I’m fine. More importantly, how’re you doing? I’m not the one recovering from a wreck.” Tom replied.

“Yeah I’m fine.” I said, “Just getting used to everything.”

We made our way to the kitchen, and I pulled up a stool for Tom, as he put the plastic bag in the fridge.

“Brooke has been cooking extra all week, sticking the leftovers in containers for me to bring you.” Tom explained as he took a seat.

I felt a slight sense of embarrassment, not knowing who Brooke was. Chances are it had been mentioned, and it’d just slipped my mind with this information overload.

“Brooke is your girlfriend?” I asked, trying to make it sound like I sort of knew.

“Fiancé, but close enough.” Tom replied, noticing my embarrassment, “It’s fine. You guys were really close. She sees you as the little sister she never had, instead of the sister that I got stuck with.”

“Rude.” I retorted, however I knew he was only kidding around, “So when do you guys get married?”

“In four months. We sent you an invitation.” Tom replied.

“Yeah, but let’s be honest, I know where nothing is here. By the time I find it, it’ll be next June.”

“Fair enough.” Tom said, before glancing over at my laptop that was sitting on the coffee table. The photo Mason took last night was still on the screen. “That’s a nice photo. Did you manage to get a hold of some old ones?”

“No, that’s from last night.” I replied.

Tom’s eyes widened slightly, though he quickly composed himself.

“What did you get up to last night?” Tom asked, trying to not sound concerned, but failing.

“I went to a friends house. We watched a movie and had a few drinks.” I replied, slightly annoyed.

“Which friend?”

“Mason.”

Tom’s jaw dropped slightly.

“You mean Mason, the angsty kid who seemed to be getting into a fight every second week?”

“Dude, I have no memory from before last week…” I replied, lying slightly. Mason had mentioned getting into fights at school with the people that bullied him. But I wanted to hear what Tom had to say.

“And he didn’t try to…”

“No Tom, and if he did, I wouldn’t be talking to you about it.” I replied, “We hung out during the day and he showed me some places like where we went to school, and the shops where we’d hang out. Then we went to his place, got some pizzas, watched a movie, had some drinks, and hung out. And he barely had anything to drink, and gave me a lift home.”

Tom looked uneasy.

“Just be on your guard with him.” Tom said.

“For God’s sake, I’m twenty four, and have lived independently for years.” I snapped, “I get you think that you need to do everything for me because of this memory loss thing, but I am capable of making my own decisions. And it’s not like any of my other friends came to see me. None of them even called.”

“Just be careful.” Tom replied, “You don’t remember this, but until you were 19 or so, he was your best friend, and you wouldn’t shut up about him. Then all of a sudden he just disappeared. You never talked about him, and he stopped coming around. You guys stopped seeing each other. I don’t know what happened, and now you don’t either. It just seems a little too convenient that all of a sudden you have memory loss and he is all of a sudden a big thing in your life again.”

“Tom, just leave it. You sound ridiculous.” I explained, “How was he supposed to know that I’d have memory loss when he visited me? I told him about it and he was shocked. There was no faking the way he reacted. He said that we just had less time, and honestly, I believe him. We’re adults. It’s what happens.”

Tom opened his mouth to protest, but stopped.

“I better get to work.” He muttered, before standing, “Brooke wants to have you over for dinner soon.”

“Whenever works.” I replied, “It’s not like I’m doing anything.”

“Fair enough.”

Tom grabbed his jacket, and made his way to the door.

“Just, please be careful around him.” Tom said, “I get you’re a big girl, and don’t wanna be told off by your brother, but for once, just trust me…”

“Fine…” I muttered, more so to get him to give up and leave.

“I’ll let you know about dinner.” He said as he walked out the door. I closed it behind him, and went back to the couch.

“For f***’s sake…” I muttered to myself as I collapsed onto the couch. I knew he was only looking out for me, but still, Mason was my only friend who visited me. Outside of himself and my family, I know nobody else from before the wreck.

I leant back, and looked up at the ceiling trying to figure it all out. Tom raised a valid point. If what he said was true, and we just stopped talking, something must have happened. Could the visit in hospital be the first time he had seen me in five years?


Whilst I considered asking him about it, I quickly decided against it. As it stands he is my only friend, and the person who seems to know the most about my past. Even if there is something strange going on with regards to the last five years, I don’t want to lose that link to my old life.


It was nearing midday, and I could foresee an afternoon of boredom. I could only watch DVDs for so long, and whilst I wanted to see if Mason was free, I didn’t want to push too much. He has a job, and probably has other friends. I can’t expect to see him all the time whenever I feel bored. And soon enough I’d have to try and actually do something with my life. Go back to university and see how they deal with cases like mine. If I did 90% of my course, but have no memory of it, am I still qualified? Granted, that’s probably the case for most uni students...

[[Desolate Divine]]

Chapter 4
After an hour of sitting on the couch, flicking through channels, and finding myself bored out of my mind, I finally snapped. I went to my room and got changed into something I could bear to be seen in public in, before opening up my laptop and googling what public transport was like around here. Sure enough, I was able to find a bus to Greensborough, and from there, a train into the city. With or without a guide, I wanted to learn more.

I grabbed my bag and my phone, before making my way out the front door, following the directions to the nearest bus stop.

Had I not know exactly where to look, I may have missed it. Whilst I was expecting to see a full on shelter and seats, instead it was just a pole with a small sign with the route number. I was thankful it wasn’t raining.

Roughly ten minutes later, the bus arrived. I waved an arm to flag it down, and after it stopped and lowered, I climbed on, approaching the driver with a ten dollar note.

“Hey, I’d like a ticket to Greensborough please?” I asked.

“Sorry, you can’t buy tickets on the bus?” The driver replied.

I felt my stomach sink. My first time trying to be independent since being home, and I barely made it past the end of my street

“Really? How am I supposed to get a ticket then?” I asked.

“Train stations and certain stores sell cards that you load up with money there, and scan on that machine.” the bus driver explained, gesturing to the green box on the pole by the door, “You must be new around here?”

“You could say that…” I muttered.

“Look, I’ll let you ride for free, just make sure you get a card as soon as possible.” The driver said, “The fines are pretty unreasonable for getting caught without one.”

So my adventure for the day wasn’t ruined. But the journey wasn’t over yet. I still had to get one of these cards, and make my way into the city.

I thanked the driver, then took a seat about halfway up the bus, near the middle door, before pulling out some earphones and plugging them into my still freshly-restored phone. In the days after coming back home, I went through my CD collection and ripped a few of the albums that appealed to me into digital format and put them on my phone. Even when I was spending time on the bus, I still had a whole life to figure out.

I opened the music app, and swiped down to an album with an interesting cover, finding one by a band called ‘State Champs’.

Around The World And Back

I tapped on the first track, and instantly, I heard loud, aggressive guitars and punchy drums. And surprisingly, I really liked it.

From then on, I zoned out somewhat, keeping an eye on the display at the front that showed the next stop, for the next fifteen minutes.

I wasn’t sure why I wanted to go to the city. I guess that it is far enough away and that little bit out of reach to make it an accomplishment. Whilst I do appreciate people helping me, I am not helpless. I can make my own way, even if Tom thinks he and everyone else needs to protect me.

I glanced up at the display and noticed it change to Greensborough Railway Station. I pressed the button on the wall next to me, signalling the driver to stop. After a few minutes the bus stopped and I stepped out onto the footpath next to a busy street. A few metres away from me was a fence, with a steep drop on the other side, with train tracks at the bottom.

I made my way to the walkway that crossed over the train tracks, then down to the platforms. I soon found myself in a small building, making my way to the counter. Behind some thick perspex was a middle aged women who really didn’t look like she wanted to be there.

“Could I please buy one of the public transport cards?” I asked.

“You mean a Myki?” the woman asked, sounding irritated.

“Is that what the public transport card is called?” I asked.

“Yes.” the woman responded.

“Then yes, I’d like a Myki.” I replied, somewhat irritably. She knew what I wanted yet felt like wasting my time anyway.

“No need for the attitude.” she replied sourly, taking the ten dollar note from my hand, and handing my a small grey card, “Your change is credit on this.”

“Thanks.” I replied, before making my way outside to the platform. I held this new card against one of the readers, causing it to beep, before making my way to a seat, and waiting for a train.

When the train arrived, I wasn’t surprised at how empty it was. It was early afternoon on a weekday, and everyone was either at school or work. Still, better this than an overly crowded train.

I plugged my earphones back in and zoned out, occasionally taking in things around me such as the station names, especially the ridiculous ones like Dennis, but mostly just thinking about everything. Especially how I will have to adjust. I mean most people base their decisions off of their past experiences. But how do I do that now?

After about forty minutes or so on the train, I finally found myself at Melbourne Central Station. I stepped off the train and found myself on an underground platform, and made my way to the nearest escalator to take me upstairs.

I wasn’t quite sure what I was expecting when I reached the top, but it wasn’t this. Nearby were gates that I assume only opened after scanning a ticket and beyond that was dozens of stores, making up a small food court with everything from fast food to international cuisine, as well as other stores nearby such as newsagents, clothing stores, and even electronics stores. There were people everywhere, of dozens of different nationalities.

I grabbed lunch from an Indian store in the food court, before making my way through one of the hallways towards an elevator that took me to the surface.

I had watched a few movies since coming home, and one place in them was New York. For some reason, when I saw the city on the skyline from Mason’s roof, and imagined it on my way here, I thought it’d be similar, but it wasn’t. In a good way.

There were anywhere near as many skyscrapers. There were a few but most of the buildings weren’t anywhere near as high. The streets were filled with cars and trams, but there was no beeping of horns. The streets were busy, but they didn’t seem intimidating. The whole place seemed friendlier. I couldn’t help but notice all the unique little stores that gave the whole place some colour, instead of it being the grey cityscape that the assumption of it tended to be.

I noticed, further down the street I was walking down, a large yellow sign, that I recognized as the same as the electronics shop Mason took me to in Greensborough the day before. The one that he said I probably kept the CD department open in.

I made my way into there, curious to see the difference between a suburban and city store. This one had multiple levels, and seemed to be at a right angle, with an entrance on the two intersecting streets. It seemed as if they wanted to open this store here, and just did everything they could to make it fit.

I browsed through the CD sections, looking at artists that I recognized from my own collection, and wasn’t surprised to see that they had nothing stocked from those artists that I didn’t have. Mason was right. I really did like my CDs.

I made my way to the exit, and walked further down the street. I stopped by a busker, to listen for a second. He was tall with red hair, wearing tight jeans and a button up shirt, playing a shiny acoustic guitar and singing. However the more I watched, the more familiar he seemed to be. This was a first. Not even my mother was familiar to me. Everything was new. But I had seen him before somewhere. Maybe before the crash.

Once he finished his song, he looked up and seemed to recognize me. I was right.

“Emily? How are you?” He asked.

“I’m sorry have we met?” I asked. This guy was still a stranger to me.

“Very funny.” He replied.

“I’m sorry, you probably don’t know this but I had a car accident.” I replied, “All my memory from before then is gone.”

“I’m sorry.” the busker replied, somewhat shocked, “I’m Aaron. Aaron Turner. We used to be good friends.”

That’s it. He wasn’t familiar from before the crash. I saw that photo of him on my old profile. My ex. The one who cheated on me. I faked a smile, whilst half wondering why he didn’t introduce himself as that, half knowing it was probably so he could take advantage of me not remembering what happened.

“Right. And how did we know each other?” I asked, hoping to put him on the spot.

“We went to school together. I was the year level above you.” Aaron replied, “But now that we’ve bumped into each other it’d be nice to catch up sometime.”

I’d rather have another car crash.

“We’ll see. I am still trying to figure everything out.” I replied, whilst thinking of a way out. “I’m sorry I can't stick around, but I’m supposed to be meeting a friend nearby and I’m running late. So I’ll see you around.”

I made my way down the street, not looking back. I’m glad that Mason told me about him, because chances are, I might have actually fallen for that s***.

As I walked, I pulled out my phone and opened the messenger app, finding my last conversation with Mason.

”You would not believe who I just ran into…”

I pressed send, and straight after felt myself collide into someone walking out of a shop on the corner of the street I was walking around, as his own phone in his hand made a noise.

“Sorry…” I said, looking up, as my jaw nearly dropped. Mason.

Mason looked at me then looked at the phone, reading the message I just sent him.

“Me. I reckon you just ran into me.” He said, with a slight grin.

“Well you aren’t wrong, but no, I wish I was talking about you.” I replied, “Aaron.”

I noticed Mason’s mood drop in the space of a heartbeat.

“What did he say?” Mason asked, sounding worried.

“He recognized me and spoke to me first. I didn’t know who it was until I told him that I had no memory, and he introduced himself, and I remembered the name.” I replied, “Get this. The smug b****** said we were good friends. Conveniently left out that he was my cheating ex. Even said we should catch up.”

“He probably realizes that he hasn’t had anyone since, and probably thinks that he can get with you again.” Mason responded coldly. It was obvious Mason hated the guy with a passion.

“So what’re you doing here?” I asked, to which Mason just gestured at the sign for the shop he just walked out of.

Michael’s Cameras

“Getting some new gear?” I asked.

“I was hoping to, but this shop always overcharges. Was hoping to talk them into charging a more respectable price for the gear, and offered to promote them, seeing as I have a large audience in Melbourne.” Mason replied, “But they didn’t go for it. Their loss. But what about you? Why are you here?”

“I’m not quite sure to be honest.” I replied, “I guess that I wanted to go do something, and wanted to prove that I can be a bit more independant.”

“Prove to who exactly?” Mason asked.

“Myself. My brother.” I replied.

“Tom?” Mason asked.

“Yeah. He came around today and tried babying me.” I replied, “It really p***** me off, so I decided to go do something a little out of my reach. And so far it has been pretty good.”

“Fair enough.” Mason replied, “But you know he is probably just looking out for you right? I mean, when we were in school, he didn’t like you being friends with me, because of how much trouble I seemed to get into. Which is fair enough. I wouldn’t have liked my little sister hanging around someone like me.”

“He doesn’t know you.” I replied, “Anyway, what are you doing now?”

“Well I was planning on heading home, before I bumped into you that is.” Mason replied, “I have nowhere to be. What about you?”

“Neither. I’m just here trying to figure stuff out, but am out of ideas.” I replied, “We could go get a drink?”

“It’s 4 in the afternoon…” Mason said, slightly shocked.

“It’s also midnight somewhere, and I have no idea where I am going.” I laughed, “Besides, you probably know me more than I do right now. Where do I like going?”

Mason was silent for a second.

“There is only one place around here I can think of. A bar in Melbourne Central. You used to go there pretty regularly. But that was also the place where you found out Aaron cheated on you…” Mason explained.

“Well f*** Aaron.” I exclaimed, getting dirty looks from one or two people nearby, “Seriously, I wanna enjoy myself, and I don’t wanna let some ginger d*****bag who I don’t even remember, stop me from doing that.”

“Let’s go there then.” Mason said with a grin.

We began walking back down the street I had just come from, and as we drew closer to where I saw Aaron, I was hoping he had packed up and moved on. However when he came into sight, I knew he hadn’t.

“Act natural.” I said to Mason, before sliding a lot closer to him, and pulling his arm over my shoulder. If Mason didn’t like Aaron, chances are the feeling was mutual, and I wanted to give this lying p**** something to notice.

Mason was confused for a few seconds until he saw Aaron, and put the pieces together. As we walked past I glanced over at Aaron just to see the look on his face. If looks could kill, we’d both be dead.

Once he was out of earshot, I finally spoke.

“A**hole.” I muttered.

Mason didn’t say anything, but instead, just laughed, not moving his arm from when we were faking it, but I didn’t mind. I felt safe there anyway.

[[Desolate Divine]]

Chapter 5
My day had turned out quite the opposite of what I had planned. Whilst I had intentionally made plans without Emily, as to not spend too much time with her at once, that had failed. Even with me going into the city to look at camera gear, I still ended up running into her right outside. And a few minutes after she ran into Aaron, of all people. I am just thankful that he didn’t say anything more than he did. I didn’t want to keep what happened between Emily and I a secret forever, but was more waiting for the right time to tell her.

At least that’s what I told myself, as I looked at her across the table, in the bar in Melbourne Central. I took a sip of my beer as I thought about this. Truth is, I was putting it off, and now, the fact that she seems so annoyed about Aaron wanting to take advantage of her memory loss, means it’s a little harder to bring myself to tell her.

“So what were you wanting to buy today?” Emily asked, trying to make conversation, and pulling me from my thoughts.

“A new lens.” I replied as I got my phone up, and opened the web browser to get a photo.

I pulled up the store page with the lens, and handed it over to Emily.

“Jesus, $2800? For a lens?” She asked, shocked, “What’s so special about it?”

I couldn’t help but laugh.

“If I went into detail we’d be here for a while.” I said, before taking another drink.

“Well you said that I like numbers, and that photography is mostly numbers.” Emily replied, “I haven’t got anywhere to be, so teach me.”

“Okay, but some of my terminology might be off, so don’t quote me.” I replied, “Firstly, you see how it is an 85mm lens?”

“Yeah?”

“85mm is the focal length. That is the distance between the lens and the point at which the parallel beams of light going through it converge. The higher that is, the more zoomed the shot is, and the more blurry the background becomes. Basically the human eye sees at roughly the same as 50mm.” I explained, “That photo I took of you last night was taken with an 85mm, just one a lot less expensive. It’s a good focal length for portraits.”

“Okay, so far so good, that makes sense.” Emily replied, “So what makes this 85mm so much better?”

“You see how it says f/1.2?” I explained, “That is part of it.”

“What what does f/1.2 mean?” Emily asked.

“That is the widest that the aperture can go.” I replied, “Basically, inside the lens, there is a series of blades that make up a hole called an aperture. The wider the whole, the more light that gets let into the shot, and the blurrier the background becomes. My current 85mm only goes to f/1.8.”

“So what, 0.6 difference?” Emily replied, “You want to spend $2800 on a blurrier background and a wider hole?”

I knew what she was doing. Playing dumb to keep me talking. She knew that when it came to photography, I couldn’t just let her believe that. She wanted to know more.

“It’s actually a pretty massive difference.The f-stop is a ratio. The actual size of the aperture is the focal length divided by the f-stop. So in my one, the widest the hole goes is roughly 47mm, whilst this one it gets to nearly 71.” I explained, “And that is a hell of a lot of light, and in photography you take all of the light you can get.”

I took another drink of my beer, before continuing.

“Basically, the amount of light in a photo is measure by three things. The aperture, the shutter speed and the ISO. To get the perfect shot you need to balance them three things.” I explained, grabbing four chips from the bowl of wedges in front of us, and lining them up into three lines lines, with the centre one being two tall.

“Each of those three things have side effects.” I explained, “The shutter speed is how long the sensor has light exposed to it. When it is quick, fast moving subjects are captured perfectly and have no motion blur. However the longer it is open the more light gets let in.”

“I told you about the aperture, that causes everything in front of and behind the subject to go blurry, the wider it is. And the ISO causes photos to become grainy and horrible if it is up too high.” I said, as I pointed at the chips.

“Just say I am taking a photo of someone playing sport, and I have the shutter speed at 1/100 of a second, the ISO at 200 and the Aperture at f/5.6, but they are moving too quickly, and the shot is too blurry.” I explained, “What do I do?”

“You’d make the shutter speed quicker wouldn’t you?” Emily asked.

“Yep.” I said, as I took a chip from the centre column, leaving it as now the same height as the others, “So now I am shooting at 1/200 of a second, but I am getting half the light…”

I stuck the chip at the end of the one on the left.

“Since I halved my shutter speed, I could double the ISO to 400 to let in more light, but that might make my photo grainy and horrible.” I said, before picking up the chip again and sticking it at the end of the one on the right, “So my best bet would be to open my aperture to f/2.8 instead. It will make it a little harder to focus the shot, but it means it will let in more light and still give a nice shot.”

“I get what you mean when you say there are a lot of numbers involved.” Emily replied, trying to process all of this, “It’s a lot more than just point and click.”

“Pretty much. It is all based around ratios and balance.” I said, as I went to eat the chips that were my props for the explanation, “If you adjust something, you need to compensate with something else to let in enough light.”

Emily took another sip of her drink before grinning slightly.

“Do you have any more stories from before the crash?” she asked, somewhat whimsically.

“You don’t like my photography 101 lesson?” I said jokingly.

“I think if you tried to teach me any more my head would explode.” Emily retorted with a laugh, “It’s fine if you don’t.”

“Nah I got one.” I replied, “This was at the end of Year 11, when we were about 17. Near the end of the year, around the start of summer…”
“Emily, have you even been to this place?” I asked during the last period of the day. Maths.

“No, but Tom and his mates go there all the time. They camp on the lookout there and apparently the view is amazing!” Emily replied, as she finished solving the last equation on the board, whilst I was still only about halfway through, “He said it’s not that far. Just down that road near the fire station. Five minutes.”

“They’re driving. It is gonna take longer than that.” I explained, “Besides, I’m feeling pretty wrecked. I might just have an early night tonight.”

“Come on! Seriously?” Emily said, “It is near the end of Year Eleven and next year we will be flat out! You won’t have time to hang out with me then, and by the time uni starts we will just drift apart and never see each other again. And whilst you’re making it as a professional ‘whatever-you-end-up-doing’, I’ll be a bored and lonely education student, drinking a bottle of wine a night to hide from my depression from my friends abandoning me…”

I was silent for a second. Whilst her anecdote was over the top, she did raise a point. We didn’t have a great deal of time left for stuff like this.

“You really know how to guilt trip me.” I muttered.

“So you’ll come with me to Blue Lake after school today?” Emily asked, sounding hopeful.

“I don’t really have a choice now do I?” I laughed.

“Thank you! You won’t regret it!” Emily said, trying to hug me from the seat next to me, and nearly knocking me off my chair. The noise of me nearly being tackled caught the rest of the classes attention, as I tried to put my head down and remain unnoticed.

“I just need to stop by home and grab some board shorts and a towel.” I explained.

“Fair enough.” Emily replied, “As soon as we’re done here, we’ll grab our bags and go to your place. No dawdling.”

Half an hour later, the bell rang, and I was pretty much being shoved in the back by Emily towards our lockers. I hadn’t seen her this excited in a while. Within minutes we were walking back to my place.

“So how did you convince your parents to let you go to Blue Lake?” I asked, somewhat curiously.

“I didn’t.” Emily said, “I told them I am going to Jordan’s place to work on an assignment. And I haven’t done this sort of stuff before, so they have no reason to think I’m lying. Well, at least, I haven’t been caught doing this sort of stuff before.”

“Why am I not surprised?” I laughed to myself.

“What about you? What will you tell your mum?” Emily asked.

“Nothing. As long as I pick up my phone when she calls, she doesn’t ask too many questions. Besides, she has a night shift tonight. She’ll be working from 4 til 1am. Probably won’t even realize I’m out.” I explained, “Growing up without Dad meant she had to let me become a little more independent a little earlier. She couldn’t be everywhere for both of them, so I had to grow up a bit.”

Emily was silent for a second.

“Sorry to bring that up…” She said quietly.

“Don’t be, you didn’t bring him up. I did.” I replied, “And to be honest, I think he’d be pretty happy with things at the moment. Ever since Tristan and his mates dropped out, school hasn’t been complete s***.”

“You do seem a bit more confident.” Emily said with a smile, “It’s amazing what a lack of a**holes does to a person!”

I couldn’t help but laugh at the spontaneity and sincerity of that comment.

We arrived at my house, with no car in the driveway, meaning Mum was already on her way to work. I rushed in to grab a pair of board-shorts, a towel, and a t shirt, as well as some food. Emily on the other hand was prepared and already brought her bathers, getting changed in my mums room, emerging in a pair of shorts and a t-shirt over her bathers.By the time we left my place and went to the bus stop, it was already 4pm.

The bus trip wasn’t very long, and we were stepping off the bus, out the front of the fire station in about half an hour. As we stood off, I walked over to the road that separated off from the main road and went down into the bush.

“Five minute drive you say?” I asked Emily.

“You said yourself it’ll take longer to walk.” Emily explained, “Either way, we can’t turn back now.”

“We can very easily turn back now…” I replied.

“Okay, let me rephrase that.” Emily said, “I’m not turning back now, and I’m not letting you turn back now. So let’s go.”

And with that, we started walking down the long straight road. After walking for about half an hour, we were at the end of the road, facing a sign that said ‘Yellow Gum Park’.

“It’s in here.” Emily said, “It can’t be much further.”

“I hope so, because my feet are killing me…” I muttered.

“Probably ten more minutes.” Emily said with a grin, nearly skipping into the entrance to the park.

Emily’s ten minutes turned out to be more like twenty, by the time we passed the car
park.

“I don’t see any lake?” I asked as we walked through the main gate to the actual park.”

“You won’t see it for a little while. It’s right down the bottom.” Emily explained.

“Wait, how far up are we?” I asked.

“I’m not sure. We can see from the lookout.”

“Do you know where it is?” I asked.

“Tom said that you follow the main path towards the bottom, but just before it actually goes downhill, there is another path to the right that leads to the lookout. Then you jump a fence if you wanna get right to the edge.” Emily explained.

Sure enough, not even two minutes later, this path to the lookout appeared. We followed it to the end, until we were standing by a fence. On the other side was a few meters before a sheer drop. However we couldn’t see any lake from where we were.

“I’m gonna climb over and take a look.” Emily said, before mantling the fence before I could object.

“Don’t get too close to the edge.” I said, “It doesn’t look safe. I can’t believe your brother camps there.”

Emily climbed the fence, and walked a meter or two forward, looking down.

“Jesus, this looks incredible!” Emily yelled to me, “Come over and take a look!”

“It’s fine. Let’s just go down and swim. We’re running out of daylight.”

“No, seriously come see this! I’m not letting you go down there ‘til you’ve seen this view!” Emily shouted.

I remained silent, intending to not let her win this. However instead of getting annoyed, she grinned at me, before taking a step towards the edge.

“Emily, don’t be stupid. Let’s just go and swim while there is still time!” I said to her, however she just continued grinning at me, and took another step towards the edge.

“You’re acting like a child!” I shouted, however she didn’t stop. Another step.

“For f***’s sake…” I muttered, as I climbed over the fence, “I’m coming, okay? Just get away from the edge.”

“Glad to see you care so much.” Emily said, before stepping over, and putting her arm around me, “What do you think?”

I looked down and saw around fifty or so meters below me, a massive lake. It was an incredible sight.

“It’s nice. Not worth me nearly having to explain to your parents why their daughter fell off a cliff though.” I explained, “Let’s head down before the ground crumbles beneath us.”

“Buzzkill.” Emily laughed.

“Well someone’s gotta do it, otherwise you’ll get yourself killed.”

We made our way down to the bottom, which took about twenty minutes, where we eventually found ourselves in a clearing with a few large rocks, and an entrance to the lake. I quickly found a densely wooded area to get changed, before making my way to join Emily in the water.

“How is it?” I shouted out to her.

“Perfect temperature! Couldn’t be better!” she shouted back with a smile.

I made my way to the opening of the lake, and launched myself in, trying to reach the deep part and not crash into the bank, as I wasn’t sure how deep it was. The moment I touched the water, I felt an icy chill go through my body.

“F***ing hell Emily, it’s freezing!” I yelled as Emily burst into laughter.

“It’s not that cold!” Emily yelled back, as I swam over. Her head was still dry.

“Really?” I asked, “So you wouldn’t mind if I did this…”

I dived underneath the water, and bearhugged her around the midriff, pulling her under the water with me. When we first met, we were about the same size, however I was on the back-end of puberty, and was now considerably taller and stronger than her, so it wasn’t much of a challenge.

Once she had been under for a few seconds, I let her go and swam back up to the surface. A few seconds later she joined me.

“A**hole!” she shouted, as she started shivering.

“Hey, after what you have put me through this afternoon, I think I owed you that.” I laughed.

Emily was silent for a few seconds, processing what I had just said.

“Well, I’m not gonna lie, you’re probably right.”

We swam for another hour or two, until the sun started to go down, before climbing back out of the water. We were both pretty wrecked from the walk here and decided to wait before walking back, and lit a campfire in the clearing near the water to kill time. We ate some of the food I brought with me, talking about life in general.

An hour later was when we had the conversation that put me on the path I’m on now.

I sat with my back against one of the large rocks, watching the fire with Emily sitting next to me.

“So why do you want to be a teacher, if you don’t mind me asking?” I asked her, “I mean, we spend 30 hours a week around teenagers, and most of them are a**holes anyway. Why go back?”

“I don’t know to be honest.” Emily replied, “I guess that I want to be there for them.”

“Be there to tell them off for not figuring out that x equal pi?” I asked.

“No, smart a**.” Emily scolded, “Think about it. Compared to when our parents were teenagers, how much worse have things got? The drugs, the bullying, the mental illness?”

“On paper sure.” I said, “But bullying has increased because of the technology evolving, and we know a lot more about mental illness now than we did twenty or thirty years ago.”

“So how much worse will it get by the time we have kids?” Emily asked.

“We?” I asked, to stir her up, before she punched my arm.

“You know what I mean. When we, separately, have kids.” Emily explained, “I look at my teenage years and I was lucky I had some decent teachers to support me. I guess I want to be able to do the same. Even if it means dealing with a**hole kids 30 hours a week.”

“Fair enough.” I replied, “I could never do it. I am struggling to get through high school, and really don’t want to go back there.”

“So what do you want to do?” Emily asked, “We finish school in just over a year, and I haven’t heard you talk about anything after that.”

“I don’t know what I will be able to do.” I said, “I’m barely passing Year Eleven.”

“Did I ask you what you will be able to do?” Emily said firmly, “Or what you want to do.”

“Honestly, I have no idea.”

“Really?” Emily asked in disbelief, “Nothing?”

“Really.”

“No dreams or passions?”

I was silent for a second, as I watched the flames a few meters from me dance around, too quick for my eyes to even comprehend. That’s when I had the idea.

“I’d like to take photos.” I said, “Granted, it’d be hard to turn that into an income anytime soon, since I’ve never used anything more than a phone camera, but that’d be cool.”

“So be a photographer?” Emily asked.

“Who else takes photos?” I replied sarcastically.

“Cops when people drive too quickly. Perverts when people aren’t looking.” Emily replied bluntly, “Is this your way of telling me you’re a sex pest who wants to take photos of people when they aren’t expecting it?”

“Really?” I asked sarcastically, “Yes, I’d like to be a photographer.”

“Then do it.” Emily said, “Seriously, school craps on about how important it is that we get a ninety-something ATAR score, and get accepted into twelve different universities, but really, you smashing every test isn’t going to make you a better photographer. If you wait until you finish school to get into a course for it, you’ll be stuck behind everyone who has been doing it as a hobby since they were a kid.”

“Why do you care so much?” I asked, not realizing how blunt I sounded. I was just surprised to hear her talking like this. I felt Emily punch me in the arm again.

“I’d be a pretty s***ty friend if I didn’t care.” Emily said, “I guess that I just haven’t heard you talk about the future much, and I’d hate for you to be stuck in some crappy job that you hate.”

I remained silent for a second, just thinking about all this. This is actually the most thought I had put into the future.

“Just promise me you will try it.” Emily said, “Even if you try taking photos for a month and hate it, just try it.”

“I will.”


I don’t remember much after that other than waking up to the warmth of the sun on my face, the ache in my back from the rock I had sat against all night, the weight of Emily’s head on my shoulder, and the sound of my 6:30am alarm going off.

We talked late into the night and must have fallen asleep before we were supposed to leave.

“S***, s***, s***.” I muttered to myself, “Emily, wake up!”

I felt movement on my shoulder as Emily stirred back into consciousness.

“Did we fall asleep?” Emily asked.

“No Emily, we went home, then magically teleported back here.” I said sarcastically, “We have school in two hours!”

“Oh s***.” Emily said, “Mum probably thinks I’m dead or something! I never came home last night!”

We quickly got changed into our uniforms from the day before, and made our way back up to the main road in, walking as quickly as we could.

As we were walking down the main road, Emily called her mum.

“I’m really sorry, we lost track of time working on this assignment, and by the time I thought to let you know I was staying at Jordan’s, I knew you’d be asleep.” Emily told her mum on the phone, “I’m on my way to school now.”

Once she was off the phone, she breathed a sigh of relief.

“She bought it?” I asked.

“I think so.” Emily replied, “Now we just need to get through the day.”

“You know we’re both covered in mosquito bites?” I said, “Do you think your mum will believe that you were working on your project outdoors last night?

“I hope so…”

We got to the bus and got to school on time, however both of us fell asleep during first period english, causing a few rumours about us that lasted a few weeks. At recess, I snuck out to the shops, to buy a few energy drinks to get us through the day, which they barely did.

I got home expecting to be crucified by Mum for staying out all night, however was pleasantly surprised when she didn’t say a thing. She got home late and went straight to sleep, then woke up at about midday, thinking I had gone to bed before she got home, and gone to school before she woke up.


“Jesus, how did my mum not kill me?” Emily asked as she fidgeted with her empty beer bottle.

“I’m not too sure.” I explained, “You never told me whether she found out or not.”

“Really?” Emily asked, “That seems odd. Unless it was scarring enough that I didn’t want to talk about it.”

“I don’t think so.” I explained, “The reason I told you that story was that that night actually changed my life. That night is the reason I am where I am now.”

“How so?” Emily asked.

“I think the reason you didn’t tell me how your mum reacted was because before you could, I went out and bought my first camera. And you were too excited for me to even think about it.” I replied, “Honestly, you were right that night. If I hadn’t have done that, I’d be doing some boring as f*** job that I hate right now.”

I looked down at the empty bowl that had our wedges in it, and the empty beer bottles, then at Emily. It was still pretty cold, so she was wearing a thick white jacket with a red scarf, fidgeting with the bottle.

“Stay still.” I said, pulling out my camera. She already knew what stay still meant.

“Jesus, all the photos you’ll have of me with a beer, people will think I’m an alcoholic.” Emily laughed.

”Trust me, you’re far from an alcoholic.” I thought to myself, “I’d know.”

Once I had the camera set up, I snapped a quick picture of Emily. The photo seemed pretty candid, as she wasn’t smiling over the top. More that she was already happy, and I captured that moment. She was leaning on the table a little bit, playing around the the empty beer bottle and smiling at the camera.

I passed the camera to her so she could see, as I looked out the window and saw how dark it was.

“We should probably head off soon.” I explained, “I got a bit of work to do, and need to make a start on that before it gets too late.”

“I can catch the train back, so you get home a little quicker.” Emily offered.

“Like hell I’m letting you catch the train alone at night.” I replied, “Seriously, it’s fine. I’m parked just around the corner anyway.”

We made our way to the carpark, where I paid for my parking, before we headed off. As I drove, Emily spoke up again.

“Why do you take photos?” she asked, “Why on that night in particular did you decide you want to be a photographer?”

“I guess that I love how a photograph can capture a moment perfectly. Even more perfect sometimes than the original moment itself.” I explained, “Honestly, that night changed my life, because that was when I realized just how special capturing the moment is.”

However I was leaving a massive part of the story out. That may have been the night I realized I wanted to be a photographer. But it was also the night I realized I was in love with my best friend.

[[Desolate Divine]]

Chapter 6
I dropped Emily off at home, and was home not too long after that. I walked in the door, put my camera bag on the table, then crashed onto the couch. I had so much on my mind, that just thinking was exhausting.

I never thought anything like this would happen when I first went to visit Emily. I visited because I hoped five years had been long enough for us to put the past behind us and try to move on. But now, the past might as well not exist.

I grabbed my laptop off the coffee table, and opened it, loading up Skype.

When Emily told me about her memory loss, what was I supposed to do?

“Oh, well I’m Mason. I’m that guy who beat the s*** out of your cheating boyfriend five years ago, that you said you never want to see again. We haven’t talked since then. But otherwise, how’re you doing?”

I guess I wanted to give her a bit of time before I told her the truth, just to adjust to her life, and to see me as more than just a perfect stranger. And I told myself I was going to do it soon. But now after what happened with Aaron, things will be even worse if I tell her now. So when?

I opened my contact list and saw Aperture was online. Within a few seconds, I got a message from them.

“How’s things with her?”

I grabbed a beer before replying, opening it and replacing the empty six pack in the fridge with two fresh ones.

“Things just got a whole lot more confusing.” I sent.

“How so?”

“The other night I let her look through her old Facebook profile from my account. She accidentally found her cheating, ex-boyfriends account.” I typed, “She accidentally bumped into him today, and he tried to take advantage of her memory loss. Pretended that they were close friends and tried to get back into her life.”

“He didn't tell her anything did he?”

“No. But she is really angry with him for doing that. Like, she hates him.” I replied, “I wanted to tell her the truth soon, but if I tell her now, she will hate me.”

“You know the longer you wait to let her know, the angrier she’ll be.”

“No s***.” I typed back, “Seriously everything was going fine until she ran into him! I would have told her when the time is right and explained myself. But now if I tell her the truth she’ll think I’m just as bad as him.”

“What even happened between you guys?” Aperture asked, “Last time I asked you were pretty drunk, and said some vague s*** about loving her.”

I had just gotten back from the fridge with another beer as I read it. This was my third for the night, and by my standards it was only the start.

“I made a promise I wasn't able to keep.”




“Parties aren't my thing. I don’t do big groups of people.” I said, as I sat on my bed, not looking up from my camera, “Emily knows that and she is fine with it.”

“It doesn't matter if parties aren't YOUR thing.” Mum said, sounding somewhat disappointed, “She is your best friend and it’d mean the world to her.”

“So what, I am expected to drop my own opinions towards parties for her, but she doesn't have to do the same with the regards to me being there?” I asked, “Mum seriously, Emily understands how I feel. She is fine with it, since she ropes me into things I don’t want to do all the time.”

“Why are you being so stubborn?” Mum scolded, “Look I won't say anything more than this. Emily would move Heaven and Earth to do something nice for you.”

Mum walked out as I pretended to not take in what she said, and looked through photos. But the last bit echoed in my head over and over.

“F***ing hell!” I yelled to myself.

“Language!” Mum shouted, “Get dressed and I’ll drop you off.”

Tonight was Emily’s 17th birthday party. It had been about a month since that night at Blue Lake. School had finished for the year a few days earlier, so Emily decided to throw a birthday party now that everyone wasn’t stressing over the end of year assessments. One of the perks of having a birthday as late in the year as she has is that school doesn’t interfere with it.

I went to my cupboard and found my usual go-to party outfit. A button up shirt, a pair of skinny jeans and a clean pair of converses. I got dressed and made my way down to the garage where Mum was waiting in the car.

“You’re doing the right thing.” Mum began.

“I’m dressed and in the car. You can stop convincing me.” I muttered. Though I said yes, I was dreading the party. I was the social outcast of my cohort. Before Emily, I didn’t really have any friends, and I never really have been invited to a party. I have next to no idea of what to expect.

We arrived at Emily’s house, and Mum dropped me off out front.

“I’ll come get you at midnight.” Mum said. I remained silent as I made my way to the the open door. I walked in and was immediately met with the sound of loud music, as I looked around for Emily.

After I second I recognized somebody. Her brother, Tom. I walked over, as he noticed me.

“Mason, how’re you doing?” He shouted, barely audible over the sound of the music, “Emily said you couldn’t make it.”

“I’m good. And there was a change of plans.” I shouted back, “Is Emily around?”

“She’s out by the fire.”

I made my way to the backyard. As I walked out the door, and looked around for Emily, I was nearly tackled by someone somewhat smaller than myself launching into me to hug me.

“I thought you weren’t coming?” Emily asked, “You said you don’t do parties?”

“Well I’ll do this one. Happy Birthday.” I replied, “How’re you going?”

“I’m good!” Emily replied, “Just waiting for everyone to rock up. Trying to get away from all the noise.”

“Fair enough.” I replied awkwardly. This is part of the reason why I didn’t do parties. The expectation of small talk. Even with my best friend, it was hard. Suddenly Emily’s face turned to one of concern.

“S***!” she muttered to herself.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Don’t get mad, but you aren’t going to like this…” Emily said cautiously.

“What’s going on?”

“Well you know how as soon as I sent the invite, you told me how you felt about parties and that you weren’t going to come?” Emily asked.

“Yes…”

“Well my friend Melissa is kind of going out with Tristan, and asked if she could bring him as a plus-one.” Emily explained, “I figured that if you weren’t coming he wouldn’t be much trouble…”

“I can go.” I said, reaching for my phone. However before my hand even reached my pocket, Emily had grabbed my wrist and wasn’t letting go.

“Don’t.” Emily said, “I want you to be here. If he can’t leave you alone for a night, then he can just f*** right off.”

Emily let go of my wrist, and I didn’t get my phone out.

“Okay.” I replied, “I’ll stay. I’m gonna go grab a drink.”

“Before you go…” Emily started, seeming cautious, “Remember your 16th birthday?”

“Yeah, I remember.” I replied.

“You got the s*** kicked out of you because Tristan insulted me, so we made a deal. If I took less s*** from other people, you’d stop taking none for me.” Emily said, “I want you to promise me that no matter what he does, you won’t get into a fight. You’ve been so good since Tristan and those guys dropped out.”

I thought about what she said for a second, before replying.

“I… I care about you a lot… So when someone says the stuff he said, sometimes I just snap.” I said, “But I promise, I’ll try my hardest to bite my tongue.”

“Thank you.” Emily said with a smile, before hugging me, “Try and enjoy yourself okay? It means a lot that you came tonight.”

Emily rushed off to greet her guests, whilst I made my way to the drinks fridge and got a can of lemonade.

Whilst I did occasionally make small talk with a few of my classmates who approached me, I tended to keep to myself mostly. As I got changed, I made sure to sneak an SD card reader for my mobile phone, and the memory card from my camera into my pocket. Even when I was sitting alone, I was entertained, sorting through photos that I had taken the last couple of days.

That worked for an hour or two. Until he showed up. Tristan.

I had flashbacks to the years of torture the second I heard his voice. He had dropped out of school a year ago, and I thought that was the last I would see of him. Turns out I was wrong.

When he wasn’t looking, I slipped back into the house, and made my way towards the toilet, and sat in there for a minute, trying to stop myself from stressing. All I had to do was avoid him. Nice and simple.

I left the toilet, and made my way back into the main room, attempting to make conversation with people, just to blend into the crowd, and hopefully not be seen. However it wasn’t long before Tristan made his way into the house. As I noticed him walk in, I didn’t look away quick enough. We made eye contact for a second, and he smiled, but not in a good way. It wasn’t long before he made his way over.

“Figures I’d see you here.” He said coldly, offering his hand to shake. I took it as to not appear rude to everyone else, however regretted it instantly, as I felt his grip tighten. I kept a straight face, and looked him dead in the eye. I wasn’t taking any of his s*** tonight. I made a promise to Emily that I wouldn’t hit him, but I still wasn’t taking any of his s***.

“I could say the same about you.” I replied.

“So I’ve heard some interesting things about you Mason…” Tristan said with a smirk. My gaze didn’t waver for a second.

“Apparently you and Emily left school together one day, and rocked up the next day together, absolutely wrecked, to the point where you both fell asleep.”

“I didn’t realize that was any of your business.” I replied coldly, as the people I was chatting to before he showed up quickly walked away.

“You seem a little defensive.” Tristan said condescendingly. “Were you guys… You know…”

I stayed silent, as my hands clenched into fists. I made a promise to Emily, and that was the only thing holding me back right now.

“We’re just friends.” I muttered.

“I mean, her being involved doesn’t surprise me.” Tristan continued, “But you? I’m impressed.”

I took a step towards Tristan, much closer than I’d usually get into people’s personal space.

“Just remember what happened to you last time you spoke about her like that Tristan. And every other time I wasn’t in the mood for your s***.” I said coldly, “You got hit, and the only reason you didn’t get the s*** kicked out of you is because you had your little friends around. But they aren’t here. The only reason I haven’t dropped you is because Emily asked me not to, but f*** me, I am tempted…”

Tristan seemed shocked for a second, however composed himself, as Emily’s dad started speaking loudly to get everyone’s attention to do speeches. He gave the usual birthday speech, before Emily got up to speak.

“I just wanted to say thanks to everyone for coming and for a good night!” Emily said confidently, “I get it wasn’t easy for everyone to make it and be here tonight, and I just want to say that I really appreciate it.”

Emily made eye contact with me for a split second before continuing.

“There is still some time left, and plenty of food, so dig into that, and have a good time!”

Everyone began singing happy birthday, as whilst they were distracted, I snuck out the back door, and made my way around the side of the house. I leant against the wall, taking deep breaths trying to calm down. After a second, I realized my fists were still clenched.

I struggled to open my hands, from being held so tight for the last few minutes, and noticed red marks where my fingernails had dug in. They ached from the constant pressure.


Everyone began cheering as Emily blew out the candles on her cake, and after a minute or so the music began. I stood there for a few minutes, wishing time would pass quicker, until I heard footsteps. It was probably Tristan wanting to prove a point.

“For f***’s sake…” I muttered under my breath, as the footsteps got closer. After a few seconds, someone walked around the corner, but it wasn’t Tristan.

Emily.

She was silent for a second, before she wrapped her arms around me.

“Thank you.” she whispered, as I remained silent and unmoving, “I saw everything, and could tell what he was doing. I know he didn’t make it easy for you.”

“I’m gonna go home.” I said, “I’m sorry, but I don’t know how I will get through the night, if I that is going on the whole time.”

“You’ll stick with me. That’s how.” Emily replied, “I won’t leave your side, okay? And if he keeps it up, I’ll tell him to f*** off myself, so you don’t have to.”

“Okay…”

“Come on. Let’s go get some cake.”

Emily grabbed my wrist, and walked me out back to the party. However, just when things seemed like they were gonna be better, they took a turn for the worse. We had to walk past the fire and he was there. And naturally, he noticed us. He was silent until we were close enough that only we could hear him.

“A bit of birthday action, I see-” he began, before Emily spoke up.

“Listen, you creep. I only invited you because Melissa asked me to.” Emily said loudly, “If you’re gonna keep being a p****, you can just f*** right off. Got it?”

“Geez, chill out.” Tristan retorted, “No need to be such a b**** about it.”

Not even a second had passed between the final word leaving his mouth, and my fist hitting it.

“Mason, no!” Emily shouted, as I grabbed him, and threw him to the ground. Kicked him in the torso, before holding him down with my left hand, and punching him with my right. It wasn’t long before I was pulled off of him by Tom.

“Go around the side, and cool off.” Tom shouted at me.

“He-” I began, however was interrupted.

“I know what he f***ing did!” Tom shouted, as he pulled Tristan off the ground, “You think I wasn’t keeping an eye on this f***wit?! I’ll deal with him! Just go and get your s*** together!”

“F***ing hell.” I muttered as I walked back around the side of the house.

I broke my promise. Just when it seemed like I’d be able to survive the night, it all went to s***.

I stood against the house, resting my forehead on the brick wall, with my eyes closed. No matter how hard I tried, it seemed like the universe just wanted me to f*** everything up.

After a few minutes, Emily walked around the corner, carrying an old towel. I looked over and saw tears in her eyes.

“Here.” Emily said, handing me the towel, “For your hands.”

I took it, and looked down at my hands, only now realizing the were covered in blood.

“I don’t know what to say.” Emily said, “I don’t even think I can look at you.”

“Emily…” I began, however couldn’t find the words to say like she could.

“I asked one thing. One f***ing thing!” Emily exclaimed, “I shouldn’t have let Melissa bring Tristan along, but you promised me you’d keep a lid on it! And now look! Everyone’s leaving! Everyone’s going to remember my birthday as the one where the s*** hit the f***ing fan!”

“I’m so sorry for ruining your party.” I whispered.

“I’m not angry about the party!” Emily exclaimed, “Well I am, but that’s not the point! I’m angry because you lied to me. You told me back at the movies on your birthday that you’d stop. And you told me today that you wouldn’t do it! I don’t know how I will ever bring myself to trust anything you say anymore!”

I was silent. She had been a little annoyed at me before, but I had never seen her this angry. Granted, she had every right to be.

“You’re eighteen in six months! You can’t just go around punching people, even if they are an a**hole that deserves it anymore!” Emily shouted at me, “What are you going to do when I am a teacher and one of my students talks about me like that? Will you show up at the school and beat up a kid? Or what if someone says something and you hit them, then they pull a knife?! I swear to God, if you keep this up, you’ll end up in jail, or getting yourself f***ing killed!”

I tried to speak, to defend myself, but knew she was right.

“I can’t deal with this.” Emily said, “I can’t. I don’t think we should be spending so much time together, if you can’t get a hold of yourself.”

“Emily, please.” I pleaded.

“You think I want this?” Emily asked, “Mason, you’ve made it abundantly clear that you can’t help but punch people when they make stabs at me!”

“Emily, you’re my best friend okay?!” I exclaimed, “Before I met you, my life was s***. I hated waking up every morning, because I knew that every day was just going to be s***. But you changed that!”

Emily stood silently, trying to process this.

“It scares me to think where I’d be right now if I didn’t meet you. But I did, and now, I actually like getting up of a morning. I actually have some sort of goal to strive for, and that’s because of you. Meeting you was the best thing that ever happened to me.” I pleaded, “I know I don’t deserve it, but please, give me one more chance. Because, without you, Jesus, I don’t know what I have!”

Emily was shocked. I have never been one for heartfelt conversation, so this was all new to her. Finally she spoke.

“One more chance.” Emily said, “Against my better judgement, I’m trusting you. And if you break my trust again, then I don’t want to see you again. Us, this friendship, is done. Got it?”

“You won’t regret it.” I said to Emily, “I promise you, it won’t happen again.”


“Now’s your chance to prove it.” Emily said, “You’d better go. My dad wants to kill you. I’ll keep him distracted, while you go out the side gate.”

I nodded, and turned towards the gate.

“And Mason…”

I turned again to face Emily, who was forcing herself to smile.

“Thanks for saying what you said.” Emily said, “I wanted a reason to give you another chance, and you gave me one. So please, for both our sakes, don’t make regret it. Because I’d hate for all of this to f*** things up between us.”

I nodded, more so because I had no idea of how to respond, before making my way out the gate.




“Jesus, she forgave you?” Aperture asked.

“Eventually she did, but she never forgot that promise that I made her.” I replied, “That’s how I ruined it. A few years later, I broke that promise.”

“No wonder you were putting off telling her.” Aperture said, “That’s some heavy s***.”

I stumbled to the fridge to get another beer, however it was empty. I looked back where the computer was, and counted the empty bottles. Thirteen. It had been like this ever since the night I broke our promise for the final time. Every night I spent alone that I wasn’t working, I struggled to remember details the next morning.

“Exactly.” I replied, “And now a d*****bag ex is in the picture, making things even harder.”


That last sentence was barely readable. Over the course of the night, my messages took longer, and became more difficult to type. It was time for me to call it a night.

“I gotta crash. Talk again soon.”

I closed the laptop and made my way to my room where I stumbled into bed.

Jesus, Emily thinks she knows me now and she trusts me. Little does she know that deep down, I am just a pathetic alcoholic who is keeping secrets from her...