The Trouble with Flying (18 page)

“You were right, though.”

“Well, yeah, I was,” she says. “But I shouldn’t have said it like that. I could have been a lot more—Wait, did you say I was right? Ohmygosh, did you break up with Matt? SARAH! You can’t go for so long without talking to me! I’ve been dying here trying to figure out if I should call you or not. What happened? What did I miss?”

I start laughing, then grab a tissue from my bedside table to mop up my continuous nose-dripping. “No, I didn’t break up with Matt. But today someone told me pretty much the same thing you told me—well, he actually shouted it at me—and I figured that if it’s obvious to someone I’ve known forever, and it’s obvious to someone I just met, then maybe it should be obvious to me too. So I started thinking about it, like
really
thinking about it, and … I guess Matt
is
super controlling. And … maybe a little possessive and …” Probably a few other things too, but Livi doesn’t need to know what happened the night before I left for London. “Anyway, it’s probably all stuff we could work through together if I actually wanted to be with him, but I’m not sure I do.”

“Really? So what are you going to do? And wait, who is this ‘he’ you just met who was shouting at you about Matt?”

I let out a long sigh. “I think I need to tell you what happened on my flight back from London.”

“Ooh, yes, please do. Is this a good story?”

“Yes,” I say with a smile.

“Great. I’ve got popcorn.”

I start laughing again. “Seriously?”

“Yes. I was watching a movie before you called, so I’m all ready with the snacks.”

I slide down a little further in my bed and start telling Livi all about Aiden. Popcorn crunches in my ear, punctuated by the occasional ‘What?’, ‘Seriously?’ and ‘Ooh!’.”

“Okay, so this Aiden guy sounds pretty amazing,” Livi says when I’m done telling my story.

“Yeah, but … I don’t know. I think he might have some relationship complications of his own—” I still need to find out more about the ‘she’ Emily and Aunt Hannah were referring to “—and he’s returning to England next Friday, so then what? Even if he wants to be more than friends, it would all be long distance, and that sucks. And why am I even saying any of this, because I’m technically still dating Matt!”

“So … here’s how I see it,” Livi says. “The decision isn’t ‘Matt or Aiden.’ The decision is ‘Matt or no Matt.’”

“Yes. Wow. That makes a lot of sense, actually. How did you become so wise, Liv?”

“I have my moments.”

“It seems obvious what I should do, but then …” I groan. “Then I start thinking about Matt’s family and how awesome they are, especially his grandparents, and if I break up with him, I’ll never see them again, and—”

“Like I said,” Livi interrupts. “Matt or no Matt. That’s it. Leave his family out of it. As nice as they may be, they’re not the ones you’re dating. And it might be sad if you can’t see them anymore, but you can’t stay in a relationship with Matt just because you want to see his grandparents.”

With a sigh, I say, “I know. You’re right.”

We chill out in silence for a while—well, as silent as it can get with Livi munching popcorn in my ear—before I say, “So now that Adam isn’t around, are you going to tell me your story about the foreign guy?”

“No way. I’m saving that story for when I have your
full
attention, not your Matt-confused brain.”

I chuckle, then shove the tissue up my nose again at the dribbles that threaten to escape. “Well, I’m looking forward to a non-Matt-confused conversation about your foreign romance sometime in the near future.”

I spend Sunday and Monday in bed, snivelling, shaking, dosing myself with all the flu medication I can find in the bathroom cabinet, and tossing the ‘Matt or no Matt’ question around my head. By the time Tuesday arrives, I’m dreading it for more than one reason. One, I hate New Year’s Eve because I’m always pressured into going to some great big social event I feel one hundred and fifty percent awkward at. Two, I’ve decided what to do about Matt—and I’m pretty sure it’s going to land me in the middle of another massive argument before I get to finally say goodbye. I know Matt, and he is not the type to go down without a fight.

Now that my body’s functioning normally again and recognises that we’re still in the middle of a hellishly hot summer, I stuff all my germ-covered winter pyjamas into the wash basket and pull on some shorts and a tank top. I rush through my breakfast, then struggle to keep it down. I’m terrified of the conversation I have to have with Matt, and it’s messing with my stomach. The sooner I talk to him, the sooner I’ll feel better. And it has to happen before tonight so I don’t have to be dragged to a New Year’s Eve party as awful as last year’s.

I climb into my oven of a car and wind the window down. “Okay, I can do this,” I tell myself. “I can do this.” I reverse out of the driveway and hit the button on my remote to close the gate. After making sure it closes all the way, I head off down the road. Part of me hopes that Matt won’t be at home—I didn’t tell him I was coming—but the rest of me just wants to get this over with.

As I reach the corner, a car turns into our road, and it’s only after the driver flashes his lights at me that I realise it’s Matt. My heart hammers in my chest as he drives past me, and my car jerks as it stalls. “Fabulous,” I mutter under my breath as I turn the key in the ignition. I do a U-turn and follow Matt back towards my house. Great. Looks like this break-up is gonna happen in our driveway.

I open the gate and drive back in. Matt parks in the road, but instead of walking through the gate, he waits beside his car for me. Are we supposed to be going somewhere? Did we make plans that I’ve forgotten about?

“Hey,” I call out as I walk towards him. He doesn’t respond, which is a little weird. He’s staring at the ground, and as I reach him, he looks up. The sight of his red eyes shocks me.

Wait a freaking second. Does he
know
I’m about to break up with him? Is that why he’s been crying?

“Um, what’s wrong?” I ask tentatively.

He reaches out and takes my hand. He sniffs, then says, “Grandpa died last night.”

***

It’s a shock to everyone, because it’s not like he was sick or anything, but he was old and frail, and I guess it was his time to go. Someone suggests that he was weaker than we all knew, and perhaps he was just hanging on for that birthday and family reunion celebration so he could see all the people he loved one last time. He went quietly in his sleep, and everyone keeps reminding everyone else how fortunate he was that he didn’t have to suffer through a long and painful end. But I can’t help thinking how traumatising it must have been for Nan to wake up and find him like that in the morning.

The memorial service happens a week later at a church about half an hour from the farm. It’s full of laughter and tears and happy stories about the life Grandpa lived. My cheeks are wet along with almost everyone else’s. Afterwards, everyone drives back to the farm, and the family—which I’m told I’m part of today—gathers around the bench beside the lake where Nan and Grandpa used to sit on warm evenings. Nan takes the urn and scatters the ashes around the bench and into the water.

I sit with Matt for the rest of the afternoon. Matt, who is quieter today than I’ve ever seen him before. He puts his arm around my shoulders several times and tells me how glad he is to have me. How glad he is that he doesn’t have to go through this alone. How glad he is that I’m always there for him.

***

I spend the whole of Wednesday lying on the couch with my laptop perched on top of me. Mom’s back at work this week, and Dad’s closed up in his study doing something incredibly boring like lesson planning since he’ll be spending most of next week at teacher development workshops, and the week after that, school starts. I’ve got a month left before university classes begin, and the thought of that looming date circled on the calendar hanging in the kitchen makes me feel ill. It’s the main reason I’ve got my laptop set up on top of me and about a thousand browser windows open: I’m researching my options.

I always figured I’d just carry on with my BSc, and somewhere along the line I’d become wildly excited about chemistry and atoms and the structure of amino acids and everything else that makes the world work at its tiniest level. As if my parents’ love for this stuff might somehow seep into me as time went by. But the truth is, I hate it now, and I’m probably going to hate it more the longer I continue with it. So even though I’m nowhere near the point where I can say, ‘Hey, Mom and Dad, I made a mistake. I’m never going to be a scientist. I just want to make up stories for the rest of my life. I’m sorry for wasting your money. Can I start again?’, I’m at least looking into what I
might
be able to do if I’m ever brave enough to tell them something like that.

The movie playing in the background ends, and Sophie flicks to another channel. I click on a link to read about the English courses offered by my university. Ugh, why are they all so boring? Why can’t I get a degree by simply writing stories all day long for three years? I click on another link that takes me to a page listing a whole lot of short story competitions I can enter throughout the coming year. Hmm, I wonder if I could make a living by doing nothing else but entering writing competitions? No, that doesn’t exactly sound feasible. I’d have to be the best—every single time. And I doubt all the prizes would be large enough to live off. Still, competitions are probably something I should try out, just to see if I’m any good. I can’t exactly trust Aiden’s opinion after he was caught sneaking my notebook out of my desk. He probably would have said anything to get himself out of trouble at that point.

After a little more Googling, I come across a popular site called
The Hippy Writer’s Guide to the Galaxy
. The Hippy Writer, whose real name appears to be Felicity, hosts a monthly writing competition called
Write It or Bite It
. In the first week of the month, people can send in the first three pages of a story. Felicity randomly selects twelve entries, posts all the first pages on her site without the writers’ names attached, and readers vote for their favourite. At the end of the second week, the bottom half of the entrants ‘bite it,’ and the top half of the entrants get to ‘write it’ by having the second page of their stories added to their entry. After the third week, the bottom three entries get cut, and the final three entries go through to the fourth week with the third page added onto their stories. After the fourth week of voting, a winner is announced.

Cool. I can do that.

I check the date. Dammit, it’s the 8
^th
today. But it’s the first
full
week of January, so maybe the Hippy Writer is still accepting entries.

I open a new document, chew on my lip for a few minutes, then start writing. This story is going to be
good
. It’s going to be
epic
. It’s going to knock the socks off every other entry.

On the other end of the couch, Sophie groans and changes the channel again. “Why are chick flicks so
pathetic
?” she moans. “There’s always some helpless woman who doesn’t know what’s missing in her life until some hot guy shows up and basically makes her feel like her life is worthless without him. He gets all macho if another guy shows any interest in the woman, which is apparently attractive instead of being, you know, creepy, and the woman falls all over him thinking how lucky she is that he picked her.” Sophie throws the remote onto the couch and stands up. “Ugh. Puke.”

“Good point,” I murmur as Sophie heads for the kitchen. I press the return key a few times in my document, then type, ‘Note: Make sure heroine is strong, confident, and kickass. No helpless, pathetic women.’ I scroll back up to my opening paragraph, then freeze with my hands over the keyboard. A light comes on in my brain, blinding me with sudden clarity.

That’s me
, I realise.
That helpless, pathetic woman is ME.
At school, I was a nobody—and then I became Matt’s Girlfriend. When we’re at a large gathering of his extended family, I’m Matt’s Girlfriend. At varsity, I’m Matt’s Girlfriend. I don’t know who I am without him! I’m still that swooning girl who can’t believe how lucky she is that Mr Popularity picked her. That swooning girl who can’t do anything without his approval. I’m not strong or confident or kickass. I’m the definition of a doormat. And if Matt has his way, I always will be.

Just like that, my mind is made up: Matt and I are over.