by Emily Forbes
‘No.’ That felt surprisingly good. Normal. Like old times. And that was what was so strange. That she should so easily slip back into their relationship. His company was easy. She knew that wasn’t how he’d got his nickname, which came from a movie, but it suited his personality perfectly. At least in her opinion. ‘I feel like it’s only been weeks, months since I’ve seen you but it’s really been almost half my life, yet I feel like you should still know everything that’s happened.’
‘So tell me. Get me up to speed and it will seem like the old days,’ he said, and, once again his words accurately reflected her thoughts. ‘You left Byron as soon as you finished school and headed to Brisbane?’
Poppy nodded.
‘And became a paramedic? I thought medicine was high on your list, like Lily?’
‘I realised I wasn’t cut out for years of studying and ultimately I didn’t want to be cooped up in a hospital or clinic. I wanted to help people but I also wanted to be amongst the action. Paramedic seemed a better fit. No two days are the same.’
She’d also worked out that she would be able to hide behind the uniform. She wouldn’t need to form relationships with patients. Most of them she would only deal with once. That suited her perfectly. She wouldn’t get attached to them and they wouldn’t become too familiar, dependent or attached to her either. She wasn’t good at close relationships, she preferred to keep her distance, and being a paramedic allowed her to do that.
‘Have you been in Brisbane ever since?’
She shook her head. ‘No. After I graduated from uni I worked in Brisbane for a couple of years and then I went to London. There were good jobs there for paramedics and I thought I wanted adventure.’
‘You thought you did?’
She smiled. ‘Turns out when I left Byron I was looking for a change, not adventure. When I moved to Brisbane it gave me a chance to find out who I was. You know what it was like in the commune,’ she said. Ryder had spent countless hours with Poppy and Jet in the surf and at the commune and Poppy knew he would remember the dynamics.
‘Us kids were seen and treated as one entity, by everyone really, the members of the commune and the public. If I wasn’t seen as one of the commune kids I was seen as just another one of the Carlson tribe. I needed to find my own identity. Once I graduated and got some experience I wanted to push myself a bit more, test myself a bit more, so I went to London. It was fun for a while, for a summer, but I missed the sky and the sun and the weather and my siblings. I wanted a place to call home. I needed a place to call home and London wasn’t it. So I came back.’
Her goal as a teenager had been to escape the commune as quickly as possible and it had taken her a while to figure out that the change she’d been looking for was security and stability, not adventure.
‘And you met Craig in Brisbane?’
Poppy shook her head. ‘We met in the UK. I travelled to the other side of the world and ended up meeting someone from Brisbane. I was really homesick; he was coming home and I decided to come back with him. It felt like it was meant to be.’
‘It’s serious with him? You’re happy?’
Poppy hesitated. ‘I think so.’ It wasn’t about being happy with Craig but how did she explain that without making herself sound weird. In her mind she was responsible for her own happiness. Her relationship with Craig was about achieving other goals. Her twin goals of security and stability.
‘That doesn’t sound very convincing. What’s wrong? Are you unhappy in Sydney? Are you missing Craig?’
‘Not really.’ She had been finding herself more annoyed with him over the past couple of weeks. She didn’t feel like she was a priority for him and considering everything she was giving up to make this move she found herself irritated. ‘I just need a bit of time to adjust to the move.’
‘It wasn’t your idea?’
‘No. Craig got promoted at work and the promotion meant a move to Sydney.’
‘So you’re following someone else’s plan? That doesn’t sound like you.’
He was right. She’d always set goals and timelines for herself and there had always been something she’d been working towards. Her current plan was to own her house. She imagined that having a place to call her own would provide her with the security and stability she needed and she was on her way to achieving her goal—admittedly with Craig’s help—but now she’d let Craig change her plans and uproot her from her house. Was that why she was feeling unsettled? Because she was following Craig’s plan? She was here in Sydney and where was he? Still in Brisbane.
Her plans had been derailed by Craig and somehow Ryder had spotted the problem.
‘You didn’t want to move here?’ Ryder asked when Poppy hadn’t verbalised her thoughts.
‘I was happy to move...’ She’d been happy to make the move to Sydney because it meant she and Craig could maintain the status quo of their relationship. Moving together meant they hadn’t needed to have a conversation about their relationship and where it was headed, and Poppy was always happy to avoid conversations that focussed on her feelings. It had been far easier to agree to the move except now she was here and he wasn’t. If it hadn’t been for her siblings—and Ryder, added the little voice in her head—she would be even more annoyed.
‘But?’
‘But the plan was that we move together but now I’m here and he’s still in my house in Brisbane.’
‘You have a house there?’
‘Well, we do. Craig and I bought it together. I miss my house,’ she admitted, choosing not to outline that she missed the house more than she missed Craig. She and Craig hadn’t discussed how long the move to Sydney would be for but Poppy knew she had never imagined leaving her home permanently.
‘You miss your house!’ The surprise was evident in Ryder’s voice. ‘It’s just a building.’
She shook her head. ‘It’s more than that. It’s my sanctuary. Growing up in the commune, we never had any privacy and then I lived in a university college and that was the same. I want somewhere that is mine, somewhere that reflects me.’ She knew that Ryder was one of the few people she knew, one of the only people she knew, who would understand her logic.
‘And does it reflect you?’
‘It needs a lot of work.’ She laughed. ‘It needs time and love and money. It might reflect me more than I realised.’
‘So you’re going to keep it? You’re not planning on selling it?’
‘No!’ She had spent endless hours working on their house and working additional shifts to pay for it. The house was a labour of love and she hadn’t contemplated selling it. She wouldn’t contemplate that. ‘I have put my heart and soul into that house. I’ll get the renovations finished and then we’ll have to rent it out but I’m not going to sell it.’ She knew that wasn’t the agreement she and Craig had made but she still hoped to be able to change his mind.
‘And Craig. Does he love it as much as you do?’
‘He’s not as attached to it as I am,’ she admitted. ‘He sees it as a good investment. He’s an accountant,’ she added by way of explanation.
‘I’m sure you’ll be able to convince him to keep it if it means that much to you.’
She wasn’t so certain.
‘A man in love will do anything,’ Ryder added.
‘I don’t think that’s the case.’
‘Really? It is in my experience.’
Poppy hadn’t been disagreeing with Ryder’s opinion but rather with the idea that Craig loved her. ‘Have you been in love?’ she asked.
He nodded. ‘Twice.’
‘Twice!’ She wondered about the type of women Ryder had loved. What did he look for?
‘What about you?’
‘Once,’ she said. ‘And I got my heart broken. I don’t want to feel like that again.’ She had never forgotten the pain of her first heartbreak. Losing Ryder ha
d had long-lasting repercussions on her impressionable teenage heart.
‘So you’re not in love now? You’re not in love with Craig?’
‘We’re compatible.’
‘That’s not what I asked.’
‘We have similar goals.’
‘That doesn’t sound very romantic.’
‘Romance isn’t a high priority.’ She still wasn’t sure what she expected from a relationship but she knew she wasn’t in love with Craig. And she didn’t want to be. Love was fickle. Love led to heartbreak.
‘But it should be,’ he said. ‘You should be spoiled, adored, loved. Life is too short to miss out on all those things.’
Coming from Ryder’s lips, those words sounded wonderful but Poppy couldn’t imagine they applied to her. In her world love wasn’t reciprocated. She’d never felt adored by her parents and Ryder had left before she’d ever had a chance to find out what might happen. And surely their teenage love wouldn’t have lasted.
She was unlovable and it was better not to expect too much. It was better not to dream of love.
‘Tell me. How does Craig make you feel?’
Ryder always used to ask how she was feeling. Was she okay? Was she happy? Was she sad? Craig never asked. And she didn’t want him to. She didn’t want to discuss her feelings.
She didn’t want to feel.
She didn’t want to hurt.
‘Does he make you feel like you can’t live without him?’ Ryder asked her. ‘Does he make you feel excited? Like the world is a better place, a brighter, more positive place?’
‘Is that how love feels?’
He had just described exactly how she had felt as a teenager.
He nodded. ‘You remember what it was like,’ he said.
Was he reading her mind again? ‘What what was like?’ she asked, even though she was afraid of what his answer would be.
‘How it felt to be seventeen. Or, in your case, sixteen.’
Poppy swallowed. She remembered every minute detail. How Ryder had tasted. How he’d felt. How her breath had caught in her throat. How her pulse had raced. How her heart had broken.
He held her captive with his gaze as he said, ‘You remember that sense of excitement, of anticipation. Like nothing else in the world mattered. That first amazing teenage kiss.’
Poppy nodded. She remembered that kiss like it was yesterday. ‘I thought you’d forgotten all about that. It was so long ago.’
‘No,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘I’ve never forgotten. That was the best and worst day of my young life. Finding out we were leaving Byron Bay and then getting kissed by you. Mind you, the best and worst wasn’t in that order,’ he said with a smile.
‘And then I never heard from you again,’ she accused.
‘I know. I’m sorry, I had no idea what to say.’
‘I thought about coming to find you,’ Poppy said. She’d been upset when he’d left but also envious that he’d managed to escape. She couldn’t wait to get out of Byron. She’d thought she was destined for bigger and better things but, in hindsight, it hadn’t been all bad. But once Ryder had left her life had felt drained of colour and she had fantasised about running away to be with him. By the end of the following year, when she’d finished high school and had been accepted into university in Brisbane, she had put him to the back of her mind.
‘Why didn’t you?’
She shrugged. ‘It was just a teenage fantasy. I felt that you understood me in a way no one else did, especially my parents, and when you left I felt like I’d lost someone really important, but running away wasn’t very realistic. I knew I had to finish school.’
‘You stuck to your plan.’
‘I guess I did. When I didn’t hear from you, I realised how foolish the idea of running away was and getting an education and using that to get out of Byron seemed a bit more sensible. I guess I grew up.’ And forgot about falling in love. She had seen from Lily’s example that studying hard was the way to get out of Byron.
Despite the fact that she was being forced to remember those foolish teenage days and emotions, she was enjoying Ryder’s company. Even if she didn’t want to talk about her feelings he was happy to listen to her talk about her plans. He always had been and she had lapped up his attention. He had made her feel that her ideas were worth something. That they were important. That she was important.
‘Have you been back to Byron recently?’ Ryder asked. ‘How are your mum and dad?’
‘They’re well, I guess.’
‘You guess? You haven’t seen them?’
‘Not for a while,’ she admitted. Some people might argue that a year was longer than ‘a while’ but Poppy was never in a hurry to return to Byron Bay. She accepted it was a beautiful place but she was quite happy to leave it to the hordes of tourists who flocked to the district.
‘You must have driven through Byron on your way here. You didn’t stop?’
‘It wasn’t the right spot to stop. I wanted to get closer to Sydney before I broke the journey.’ Byron was only a two-hour drive from Brisbane on the direct route to Sydney but she’d deliberately driven for an extra hour before stretching her legs. ‘They wouldn’t have cared if I stopped or not. You know we’re not close.’ She shrugged. That was why she’d kept on driving. The reception she would have received would not have been the one she’d hoped for and so she’d decided it was better to keep driving and avoid the disappointment.
She knew she should get over herself. Plenty of people had grown up in worse environments than she had and she was fortunate to have her siblings, but it didn’t change the fact that she had never felt valued or loved by her own parents.
Growing up in the commune, parenting had been a collective responsibility. Her father, Pete, had spent time with them in the surf but that had usually been a group activity with numerous children, not just the Carlson siblings. There had been very little time spent alone as a family unit. There had always been other people around and Poppy didn’t feel she’d ever formed a close bond with either of her parents.
Neither of them were demonstrative or overly affectionate, her mother in particular, and Poppy often wondered if she had even wanted kids. She knew Goldie had fallen pregnant unexpectedly with Lily when she’d only been nineteen but she’d gone on to have four more children. Surely they hadn’t all been mistakes?
‘They’re still your parents,’ Ryder interrupted her thoughts.
‘Don’t judge me,’ she said. Ryder might be a good listener but she did not want to talk about her parents. ‘Why don’t we talk about your family for a bit? They’re not nearly as crazy as mine.’
‘Maybe not as extraordinary as yours but we’ve had our fair share of drama and dysfunction, although thankfully we seem to be coming out the other side now.’
Poppy couldn’t imagine Ryder creating drama. He’d always been her stabilising influence. Sure, he’d joined in on their wild, youthful escapades but he was far from dysfunctional. From her perspective he’d had a perfectly normal family.
‘What drama did you have?’
‘Aside from my dad’s affair with a colleague, you mean?’
‘Aside from that.’ People had affairs all the time and while she disagreed with it in principle it was hardly unusual and, in her mind, it didn’t make his family any more dysfunctional than many others. Particularly when compared to hers.
Ryder hadn’t spoken to his father in years. His dad’s affair had been the reason his mother had dragged him and his sister across the country to Perth. Ryder’s parents had been teachers and they’d taught at the same school. Their marriage had broken down when his father had had an affair with another teacher and his mother had taken the children and left. Ryder blamed his father not only for breaking his mother’s heart but for having the affair that had forced their move to Western Australia. The move that had ripped him
away from Poppy.
‘We lived with my grandmother when we first got to Perth, Mum’s mum, but that didn’t go so well. Mum was pretty fragile and I think she was hoping for some emotional support but my grandmother was more in favour of the “put on a brave face and get on with things” approach. Mum just seemed to give up. She spent a lot of time in her room, which didn’t help Lucy. Lucy was only young and she needed her mother. Things were a bit of a mess for a while.’
That was an understatement but he didn’t want to go into specifics tonight. It wasn’t a cheerful subject. His mother had started drinking and his sister had stopped eating. It had been a cry for help but he hadn’t recognised it at the time and he had blamed himself for some of his sister’s suffering. For a long time he’d felt there was more he could have, should have, done. He’d felt like he failed both his mother and his sister. He’d tried to give them what they’d needed but he hadn’t been able to. What they’d needed most had been his father and he’d let them all down.
‘They’re both doing better now,’ he said. ‘Mum has a new partner, he’s a nice guy, and Lucy has turned the corner. That’s why I could embark on my road trip.’
Steve was a good addition to their family and knowing his mum and his sister had someone to watch over them helped Ryder sleep at night.
‘Are you running away from home?’ Poppy teased.
‘No.’ A part of him wished he could stay in Bondi but that hadn’t been his plan and he knew he was only thinking of it now because of Poppy. But it wasn’t really on his agenda. ‘I’ll be going back. They still need me.’
‘And what about what you need?’ she asked. ‘What about your hopes and dreams and plans? What do you want?’
He wanted Poppy.
Seeing her again had made him realise that he’d never truly got over her. It was crazy to think those old feelings were still there, as all-consuming as ever. He wondered if he should tell her but decided against it. What was the point? It was likely to make one of them feel uncomfortable and it was irrelevant now anyway—as long as she was in a relationship, she was off limits.
He wished he could be happy for her but in his opinion it didn’t sound as though she had found the perfect guy. She should have romance and love. She might want security—who didn’t?—but he suspected she still had more of her parents’ free spirit in her than she cared to admit. And she needed to be given a chance to soar. He didn’t think she should be constrained by finances and budgets. She had always had plans but that had been to escape Byron Bay. He’d thought she’d travel, see the world. Perhaps her idea of escape was different from his.
