Page 8 of Hate You to Love You

It’s not that I don’t like Patrick. In fact, out of all the guys that Laney has dated, he’s the one who feels like the most natural fit for our group. But there’s a certain limit to how many conversations I want to have about things like the history of cathedrals in France or how the British stealing mummies from Egypt was the inspiration for the party game ‘Pass the Parcel’.

‘So good to see you, Carlos!’ Laney jumps in, getting up from her side of the table to give me a hug. ‘I can’t believe it’s been three months since we last saw each other.’

‘Has it really been that long since Jones’s house-warming?’ Sal asks.

Of course it has, I think to myself.

‘What are we discussing?’ Jones asks, sliding smoothly back onto the bench and placing my wine in front of me.

‘Your house-warming,’ Laney tells him with a smile.

Sal tugs at his All-American Rejects shirt to give himself relief from the heat. ‘Oh yeah. That was a great party.’

‘Not as great as some of the parties we used to throw at our old place,’ I add, resorting to one of my favourite things to do: reminisce about the good old days. I wouldn’t have to worry about missing my dad, or the fact that I’m about to see Elliot again, if I could get them to recall the memories of the time we’ve spent together.

‘Those parties were infamous,’ Jones says.

‘Remember the one where someone’s cousin turned up with a snake?’ Laney recalls with a laugh.

‘Was that the same night your mate John dressed up as Colonel Sanders and came to the party with a bucket of KFC?’ Jones asks Laney.

‘It was!’ Sal declares. ‘By the way, did we ever find out why that guy had a snake?’

‘I think it’s destined to forever be an Inner West mystery,’ I say.

Jones leans forward on the table and asks, ‘Do you know what my favourite thing about that house was?’

‘What?’ Laney asks.

‘The rooftop,’ Jones says.

‘Best view in Sydney, I reckon,’ Sal adds.

And he’s not wrong. We’d lived together in the terrace house in Sydenham for two years before we’d discovered that we could get onto the rooftop. After a drunken night out at a local brewery, Jones had climbed up there to profess his love for our local barista, who lived just down the road from us. And while attempting to get him safely down, we’d realised how easy it was to get onto the iron roof, which offered a spectacular view of the city skyline. It became our spot to watch the sunset and talk. If I closed my eyes and thought back to those nights on the roof, it wasn’t the brilliant sunset that came back to me the clearest, it was all the little pockets of time that had built up my friendship with this group.

I can still remember holding Jones in my arms the night that same barista ended things with him. I told him that he was more than enough as he tearfully asked me whether any of his relationships would go right. And when Sal unexpectedly quit university to pursue music full-time, we were all there to support him and go to his gigs – even when his family was giving him a hard time. I even remember Laney sitting up on the roof, sketching the skyline into her notebook. We framed the illustration when it was done and placed it in the living room. As if the view, like our memories, was just for us.

‘So, Carlos, what’s new?’ Jones asks, snapping me out of my reverie.

Terrific. The dreaded question. What was I meant to tell him? There was nothing new going on for me. Jones, Sal and Laney seemed to have found the magic formula to progressing in life. But I was just so stuck! I’d been crashing in Addie’s spare room for a year now. And there was nothing to say about my love life, unless they wanted to hear about my failed dates and how I dreaded letting someone in again. I couldn’t tell them about the Claudia Leighton opportunity yet because I wasn’t sure I was even up to the job.

‘Give up, Jones. Carlos is a man of mystery – I can’t even get him to tell me where he’s living at the moment,’ Laney teases. But her comment cuts deep.

‘Hardy-ha. What about you, Sal? You moved out of Petersham, right?’ I ask, trying to shift the attention away from me.

‘Yep,’ he replies. ‘I’m done with living in a share house.’

‘Where’s your new place?’ Patrick asks.

‘Rouse Hill,’ Sal reveals.

‘You’re renting all the way out there?’ I ask, shocked that Sal would be willing to commute that far.

‘Yes! I swear I mentioned it in the group chat,’ Sal says.

Well, that explains it. I’d been ignoring the group chat because I couldn’t handle how much the group dynamic had changed. Rather than being a part of each other’s lives and making memories together, our messages were updates of lives lived separately. Lately, it felt as if my closest friends were strangers.

‘That’s amazing, I’m so excited for you,’ I tell him, forcing myself to sound positive.