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I wiped my brow. Nausea swirled. I leapt up from my chair and slammed the laptop shut. I couldn’t respond.
This weekend had been a lie.
Four hours later, a message pinged on my phone.
Rosie: hey, you busy tonight? Want to meet at the snow gum? Impossible to get privacy over here.
My blood boiled with rage. Was she kidding me right now?
Me: you want to see me?
Rosie: god yes. Been so unfocussed all day thinking about you
Sweat beaded on my forehead.
Me: Why don’t you ask one of your many admirers instead?
Me: Go and enjoy yourself with them, Rosie
I wanted to scream. To throw my phone across the room and smash the damn thing into a million pieces. I also wanted to take back my words and let her use me. I wanted an explanation. I wanted time to travel back to the moment it had all gone wrong. When had it gone wrong? What had changed her mind?
What the fuck was actually happening?
My thumb hovered over my phone’s screen. Delete or reply again?
My messages updated their status from delivered to read.
Rosie had seen my replies.
I squeezed my eyes shut for a long moment, opened them, took a screenshot of the exchange, selected her profile and then hit ‘block account’.
A month later, considering my uni applications, it was obvious there was no second chance for us. No contact by email or texts, or even a visit to the homestead. Rosie had moved on.
Logging onto my uni application portal, I changed my degree preferences, putting Rosie’s university last.
Similar degree, different place, different direction. Time for me to move on, too.
22
TOM
Tom’s unsent letters:
Dear Rosie,
I skipped school today to go to the scholar’s afternoon at your uni. About to head up the highway, Ryan is coming as I’m on my provisional license. I saw a flyer at the career counsellor’s office that you’re doing a talk, and I thought, why not go and see you?
I’ve been rereading my letters. I want to ask you in person to be my friend again and clear the air.
My palms are actually sweaty writing this. Fucking nervous, but today is the time to be brave.
Yours Tom
“What about,” Pete said, waving a marker pen in the air, “direct sales for lamb and mutton? Worthless wool?”
The sale of Pete’s parents’ farm had been delayed a day, and he’d come over, bored and desperate to help with something. After a brief update about Ainslee, I packed for the muster while Pete acted as scribe to write ideas for the future of Turner’s Creek on poster paper tacked to the wall.
But the paper was still blank. I’d promised my family they’d have a proposal for our future after the wool clip. I had lots of notes with links to online articles as ideas but nothing was compelling.
