Finn looks at me for a long time, before asking, Why don’t you start your own agency?
A flood of anxiety washes over me. What do you mean?
I mean in Victoria. This prick does not have the rights to a good idea, and if you’re the one who brought it to life, I don’t see why you couldn’t do the same thing.
The thought, I’m ashamed to admit, had never even occurred to me.
I couldn’t do that, I say.
And why not?
I’m not a chef for starters. And I mean, he’d probably blacklist me. So I wouldn’t have anyone who would want to work with me. And besides, I couldn’t just steal his business idea.
It’s not stealing if you’re the one who was doing all the work anyway, Finn says, his eyes roving over my face. It’s like you’re intimidated by this numpty. His tone is a little menacing when he says this.
I shake my head. Not intimidated, more embarrassed, I guess? I feel like I let him down.
Again, I’m surprised by how much of the truth I’m letting out and how easy it is to open up to him. But I decided earlier at the fortress that there’s really no harm in letting Finn see it all—since this isn’t going to be anything permanent, or even real. It’s kind of a relief to have it out there, when I’ve kept it all inside for so long.
Finn makes a noise to himself, a slow hmmm, as if he’s not buying it. Despite how easy it felt in the moment, I’m now feeling like I’ve overshared, so I jump at the chance to take the heat off me.
What do you do for work?
I’m a physiotherapist, he says, surprising me again. I’m not sure what I pictured for his job prospects, apart from male model. I work mostly with sports teams; football and rugby. So I get to travel with them for games, and help players when they’re working through injuries.
It’s obvious that he likes his job, from his animated tone as he tells me all of this. How did you get into that? I ask him, curiosity getting the better of me.
Finn picks up our now empty plates and basket of fries, taking them to the garbage next to our picnic table. He motions towards the car.
I’ll tell you on the way to the beach.
Chapter 17
FINN
BACK IN THE JEEP, MY mind shuffles through everything Violet has told me.
I don’t like her former boss, at fucking all, that much is clear. I have a lot of questions about what happened there, but this is clearly a sensitive subject, so I don’t want to push it.
I think about her feeling lost after returning home when she finished school. Without Billie, I’m not sure I ever would have found my path forward.
I get it, I tell her, looking over to her across the Jeep. The feeling of being frozen. Like you’re not even sure where to start.
You do? She asks and her eyes are so hopeful I feel almost a little sick. I get the sense life has tested Violet a time or two, especially recently.
During a game in my second year of uni, I got knocked around hard. Bashed up my knee, but even worse, I got a severe concussion, hitting my head. I had memory loss, brain fog, even exhaustion from it. I wasn’t myself for about six months.
I think about Billie, who basically made it their full-time job to dig me out of the hole I was in.
I had worked towards coming to uni to play football. Didn’t have any real plans after that. What was I supposed to do? Any choice I made, forward or back, was still going to take me farther from that goal. I was stuck like that for quite some time. I try to laugh this off, but I can see Violet out of the corner of my eye, biting on the inside of her cheek like she’s worrying.
Not keen to ever see that look on her face again, I go on. I was lucky though. When I came out of the fog, I had Billie telling me to get my head out of my arse. And while I was recovering, I had a physiotherapist who was fantastic. Billie came with me once a few weeks in, and told me that’s what I should be doing.
Billie sounds like a good friend, Violet says, smiling.
The best, I tell her with a nod. I’d accepted that I couldn’t play football anymore, not seriously anyway, and this felt like the next best thing—being around the sport, helping others. Been a good fit from the start.
She mulls this over, but doesn’t get a chance to reply, as the gravel road we’ve been driving along finally opens up to a parking lot, the ocean visible to our left. Violet lets out a little gasp that makes me smirk.
