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Ainslee nodded, and we walked in silence towards the closest café. She stopped suddenly at the entrance.
“I’m a fool because I knew your heart was never available to me or any of the other girls you were seeing on campus.”
“What do you mean?”
“You made it perfectly clear you were here for a good time, not a long time. It also made you more of a challenge, to be honest. Who would be the one to turn the heart of the Campus Rake?” We took a seat in the café just inside the door.
I broke out in a sweat. Something in the way she’d just said that made me think of a certain folder on my laptop of unsent letters. My heart was never available because I’d given my heart to someone else years ago.
“But you were always a closed book. You didn’t want to get closer than something casual. But I knew all along and yet kept trying to wear you down into a relationship. Even during the doctor’s appointment today.”
There was something about how miserable Ainslee looked right now. And serious, too. She’d never discussed her family before or anything deep when we’d hooked up.
And she was right. I’d never been interested beyond hook-ups.
“What do you mean ‘you were desperate’? You’re a beautiful woman, Ainslee. I’m sure guys would be lining up for you.”
“Not the right one at the right time,” she muttered and then shook her head, smiling sadly. “Doesn’t matter. I’m sorry. I thought you marrying you would solve my problems, but I was kidding myself. Now I’m the Campus Idiot.” Ainslee glanced inside the café. “You don’t have to eat with me. You can go if you want to. I know you have the muster and stuff. You probably don’t want to ever see me again.”
I hesitated. Yeah, I was keen to leave after a sleepless night last night wondering if I’d be a parent in eight-ish months’ time, and planning a muster or a wool clip doesn’t happen by magic.
But it could wait.
“Nah, let’s eat.”
I held out a menu. Ainslee finally met my eyes. Hers shone with tears, but also gratitude. “Really? After what I just did?”
“I’d like to talk, if you want. But, if you want to eat with me, we do so as friends. Proper friends. No more marriage schemes. Deal?”
“Really, you want to be my friend?” she croaked and blew her nose. “After what I did?”
“Yeah, for real.”
“Deal.”
* * *
The rest of my siblings left the kitchen, leaving me with the topographical map, taking in details of the terrain even though I knew that part of our station better than my bedroom, and my laptop.
It was late. I should have been editing an assignment but instead was reading the unsent letters to Rosie.
Your heart was never available to me…
Ainslee had never said a more accurate statement.
The sound of china and cutlery rattled behind me. I slammed the laptop shut as Mum came into the room with a tray with a pot of tea, two cups and a plate of jam drops and then retrieved two photo albums with stamps and other stationery things.
“I’ll miss you on the muster,” she said, placing the over-stuffed albums down while I poured two cups of tea.
“It’s two days, Mum.”
She accepted a cup and took a biscuit. “A mother is allowed to miss her baby.”
I huffed and bit into a jam drop. “I’m twenty-two.”
“And you’ll always be my baby.” Mum turned one of the album’s brittle creaking pages with a sigh. “Oh my, this scrapbook about Amanda’s trip overseas years ago. I even printed the photos she’d send me online to stick in it. Never finished it though. Think I’ll finally get it done as a bonus wedding present and surprise her.”
Photos of Amanda in Paris at the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben in London, and the Colosseum in Rome tumbled out, and other photos of places I couldn’t identify from the landmarks.
