I hadn’t eaten properly for weeks. Every time I tried, the process seemed pointless. I couldn’t taste, smell … feel. I couldn’t do. Losing Danielle, yet again, was all I could think about, and it was slowing killing me. She’d been fucking her roommate — a friend she was happy to fuck — and I’d never even seen it coming. I was too obnoxious and self-involved in my own quest for her that I’d forgotten the art of a good blindsight, something I didn’t experience all too often. It had really knocked me down and was keeping me there, my struggle to get up and move on from it, painstakingly difficult. But I knew I had to, eventually, perhaps after the garden was finished and I wouldn’t have to see her. But then that notion tore me to shreds even more so, because what was killing me the most was that I’d let our friendship slip through my fingers, again, and not being able to see her beautiful smile or hear her sweet voice was the worst punishment imaginable.
Today wasn’t about Danielle, though, and it wasn’t about me either. Today was about Mr Hillier and his selfless act of courage. It was about paying our respects the best way we knew how; by celebrating the hero he was in a place built in his memory.
“Everyone will start to arrive soon,” Mum said, her head on my shoulder. We were seated on the park bench overlooking the completed Hillier Community Garden.
I wrapped my arm around her and hugged her tight. “You’re amazing. You know that, right?”
“Yes. I created you, didn’t I?”
I chuckled. “Yeah, but you created her, too.” I gestured to my sister as she sat on the other side of Mum.
Laura handed us both a takeaway cup of coffee. “What’s he winging about this time? Let me guess … Danielle? Honestly, it serves you right. I did warn you that your stupid, immature game would backfire and hurt you all.”
I snapped my head in her direction. “Stay the fuck out of it, Laura.”
“Elliot! Don’t speak to your sister like that.” Mum’s head turned from side to side, looking between us both, her brows pinched with concern. “What’s she talking about, Elliot? What’s going on?”
“Nothing. She has no idea what she’s talking about.”
“Sure I do. Your engagement was an elaborate ruse, and it has blown up in both your faces. I mean, seriously, Elliot, what did you expect? You’re not kids anymore. You’re adults, and you can’t play the ridiculous games you both so often played. People get hurt, clearly.”
I went to speak but dropped my head to my hands instead. “It wasn’t a game. It was real. I love her.”
“I never said you loving her wasn’t real. But the engagement, yeah, that was a sham.”
“I don’t understand,” Mum pleaded. “Why would it have been a sham?”
“It wasn’t.” Deep down, I truly believed that our engagement wasn’t a sham. When I put that Cheezel ring on her finger twenty-two years ago, I meant it. “It wasn’t a sham, but it is over.”
Mum’s hand rubbed soothing circles on my back. “Why, sweetheart? What happened?”
“I’m no good for her. All I do is remind her of a time I let her down and nearly killed us both.”
“What? What are you talking about, Elliot?”
“He’s talking about the storm,” Laura groaned, sounding both annoyed and disinterested. “Which is, again, ridiculous.”
Mum turned to my sister. “Stop being a pretentious bitch. I love you dearly, but you’re not helping right now.”
“Fine,” she said, standing up. “But I will say this, little brother, you and Danielle are two peas in a very rare pod from a very rare tree that, sometimes, I wish I could just cut down. You were both made for one another; back then, in between, now, and forever. Cut the crap, stop the childish games, and sort it out once and for all, yeah?”
She flashed her insistent eyes at me, unblinking, then walked off, tilting her head back while sipping her coffee, the morning sunlight bouncing from her face and highlighting her black hair. I loved her, but she pissed me off, and pretentious or not, she was bloody right.
“She’s right,” I said, scrubbing my face and sitting upright. “But that doesn’t mean I can fix this.”
“Why not?” Mum lightly patted my back. “You fix things all the time.”
“How so?”
“You solve cases. Sooooo, solve this one.”
I turned my head to her, a smile spreading across my face. “You really are amazing, Mum. I don’t think I tell you enough.”
She shrugged. “I don’t think you do either.”
“No, I mean it.” I swept my hand in front of us, toward the immaculate garden with it’s winding yellow brick path, manicured garden beds, feature tree, playground, glasshouse and shed. “Look what you and Jeanette have accomplished.”
“Elliot, this was all you. You fought the demolition, and you paid for the entire thing. You’re the amazing one. Why can’t you just accept that?”
“Because if it weren’t for me, none of this would be necessary.”
“ENOUGH!” she said, her angered tone slicing through me. “You’re here, right now, in this garden because a man put his life on the line to save you. Stop disrespecting that heroic act by constantly living in a shadow that you cast over yourself. Mr Hillier wouldn’t want that. He’d want you to be happy. We all do.” She stood up and waved to Jeanette and Danielle, as they made their way down the path. “Now, although I don’t think it necessary, forgive yourself, Elliot Parker. Forgive but never forget. And when you’re done forgiving, go and get the girl.”
Not before long, the garden was bustling with local families, media personnel, the mayor, and Mr Hillier’s widow and two adult children. The atmosphere was abuzz with excitement and anticipation, and as I stood up to the makeshift podium, a microphone mere centimetres from my chin, I paused to take in what we’d achieved. Before me was the original gum tree — the centrepiece of the entire site — a fairy themed garden and memorial plaque at the base of its trunk, paying tribute to a local hero. A garden shed and glasshouse stood in one corner of the yard, a playground in another, and all of it surrounded by garden beds full of herbs, flowers and vegetables traversed with a golden, yellow brick path.
I smiled, proud, took a breath, and began my speech, tapping on the microphone to garner everyone’s attention. “Good afternoon, ladies, gentlemen, and children. I’d first and foremost like to thank each and every one of you for being here today. It means so much to all involved in making this garden what it has become. For those of you who don’t know, Hillier Community Garden was originally erected as a tribute to a man whose selfless actions saved both my and Danielle’s lives.”
I nodded to where Danielle was standing by the gum tree, and she gave everyone a polite, sheepish wave.
“When Mr Douglas Hiller passed away almost nineteen years ago, our mothers wanted to honour his memory by creating a safe place where children could play and respect the gift that is life, and that’s essentially how Hillier Community Garden was born. Sadly, and ironically, we almost lost this place to that very thing — life. Because it can often get away from us or lead us down a path we least expect. But the beauty about life is that it can always change, convert … be reborn, and that’s exactly what we’d like to celebrate today. New beginnings.”
I glanced at Danielle, tears filling her eyes. She quickly wiped them and smiled, nodding and encouraging me to continue, so I did, keeping my eyes fixed to hers.
“This garden represents a second chance at life, at friendship, and at love; all the things we should never take for granted. So please join me in welcoming Danielle; our mothers, Helen and Jeanette; and Mr Hillier’s wife, son and daughter to officially open Hiller Community Garden for the second time.”
The crowd applauded while Danielle, Mum, Jeanette and the others made their way to the podium to cut the giant rainbow ribbon strung from the tree to the shed.
“Who wants to do the honours?” I asked, offering the scissors.
Danielle reached out but turned them back to me. “You should do it.”
“No.” I shook my head, took her hand, and placed the scissors in it, covering her fingers with mine. “We should do it.”
She stared at our clasped hands and nodded then looked back up at me. “Okay. Let’s do this.”
Gripping the scissors, we snipped the ribbon, instigating a wave of cheers, camera flashes, and applause.
“Please,” I added. “If you haven’t already, go and explore. There’s plenty to see. And if you’re lucky, you may even find some butterflies in the glasshouse.”
“What?” Danielle spun to face me, her eyes wide with astonishment. “Are you kidding?”
I shook my head and cringed. “No.”
“You turned the glasshouse into a butterfly house?”
“Pretty much. By filling it with indigenous flora and fauna, it’s the perfect environment to attract native butterfly species. So far so good.”
“Wow!” she drawled, focussing on her twiddling fingers. “Look, Lots, I just want to say I’m really sorry about what happened between us.” She looked up, desperation, sadness and regret marring the lines of her beautiful face. “I don’t want our friendship to end. It means so much to me.”
“It means so much to me, too,” I said, pulling her hard against my chest and hugging her tightly.
She wrapped her arms around me and squeezed. “I made you a promise, Elliot Parker, one I intend to keep. I promised I wouldn’t let our friendship die ever again, and I won’t. I won’t abandon you. Cross my heart.”
Pulling back, she placed a soft kiss on my cheek then walked toward the glasshouse, and I swear it was a kiss I would feel every time a spring breeze blew.
I won’t abandon you. Her promise kept replaying in my head over and over for the remainder of the afternoon, as if it were a cryptic message I needed to decipher. It had plagued me so much that I must have said, “Sorry, can you please repeat that?” countless times to friends and the media from lack of concentration.
My mind was with Danielle, but my body was posing for a local newspaper photographer, my mouth sarcastically singing the word “cheese”. The over exaggerated smile on my face as he continuously pressed his camera shutter button waned when I noticed Chris’ arrival followed by Danielle’s excited greeting. They embraced, laughed, and walked arm-in-arm up the path, causing my stomach to flip like a deck of cards. I couldn’t begrudge the fact he was here; it made sense that he’d want to show his support. But I could begrudge the fact that he was here, because I was bitter like that.
Just as I was about to return my focus back on the animated wow-look-at-my-garden pose that I was currently being coerced into performing, Chris’ eyes met mine and he nodded. I nodded back, but he whispered something into Danielle’s ear and then let her go and made his way toward me. Shit! The last thing I wanted was to get into an argument with him in the garden. Hopefully, he was smart enough to know that. After our last encounter, when he’d diffused my rage with a simple, “You’re upsetting her. Go home, Elliot, and calm down”, I figured he was smart enough. Well, at the very least, he was smarter than I’d first given him credit for.
“You got a minute to talk in private?” he asked, stopping just shy of where I was standing.
“Sure. We can talk in the garden shed.” I turned to the photographer. “Do you have what you need?”
He nodded, so I excused myself and led Chris to the corner of the garden.
“The place looks awesome. You and Dani make a good team.”
I felt like laughing at his remark as I pushed open the door to the shed, peering in to see if it were vacant. But I didn’t laugh, instead ignoring it and gesturing he enter. “After you,” I said, quickly glancing around the garden to see if anyone was watching us.
They weren’t.
“Duck loves you,” he announced before I’d even closed the door behind me.
I crossed my arms over my chest and leaned on the surrounding benchtop. “Duck?
“Yep. It’s her initials.”
I knew it was her fucking initials. I also knew ducks had corkscrew dicks and even weirder shaped vaginas, but I didn’t tell him that.
“And you’re telling me this, why?” I asked.
“Because I love her, but not like you do, which is why I need you both to get your shit together.” He placed his hands on the wall and dipped his head. “Fuck me,” he groaned. “She’s miserable, and I hate it when she’s miserable because she’s a pain in my arse. Plus, we go through a tin of Milo in a matter of days. I’m sick of making her Milo. You should be doing it.”
I shook my head, confused, but was more concerned at hearing how miserable she was. “I don’t know what to do or say, Chris. I don’t have any answers.”
He pushed off the wall and took a step toward me. ”What do you mean you don’t have any answers, you son of a bitch?”
“I’m the son of a bitch? You don’t ‘love her like I do’ and yet you’re happy to fuck her?”
He rolled his eyes. “I’m not fucking her.”
“That’s not what she said and you know it.”
“You’re a disappointment, mate,” he said, picking up a nearby hand trowel. “No wonder you keep abandoning her—”
My body jerked at his choice of words. “Wait! What did you just say? Abandon? Why’d you say abandon?”
“Because that’s what Dani says you do. She can’t take it. Every time someone she loves leaves her, she dies inside, and apparently…” He pointed the trowel at me “… you’ve killed her the most.”
I stood there, stunned, not knowing how to react. “I’ve done what?”
“That stupid look on your stupid face indicates you’re stupid.” He turned his back on me and balanced the handle of the trowel on his pointer finger. “This doesn’t make sense. Dani said you’re smart. A lawyer. Lawyers are supposed to be smart.”
“What the fuck are you on about, Chris?”
“Think about it. Her father abandoned her. Her good for nothing boyfriends abandoned her. You abandoned her.”
“I haven’t abandoned her. I’m still here.”
“The way she sees it, you abandoned her when you moved away, you abandoned her after she finally broke her own rule of intimacy with a friend, and you abandoned her that day in the storm drain.”
A chill swept over my body, icing me to the bone. “I didn’t abandon her in the storm drain.”
“You left her alone to go and get help, right?”
“Well, yeah, but I—”
“You left her, mate. She was terrified you’d drowned to try and save her. You leaving her that day triggered abandonment issues. She saw a doctor for years because of it. She can’t handle people leaving her so she doesn’t let them stay to begin with. Only a select few. Only those she trusts. She trusted you, again, and you left her and broke her fucking heart and spirit.”
“I didn’t leave her again. I would never do that.”
“Yeah? Well you did. You backed off after you fucked her.”
“I had no choice.”
“Of course you had a fucking choice.”
“I was triggering her nightmares again.”
“What?” The trowel wobbled and he caught it.
“That first night, after we made love, she had a nightmare. It was horrible. Then she had another the following night. She couldn’t remember them, and she was adamant she hadn’t had one for years.” I turned my back to him and looked out the window, spotting her showing a young boy the carrots and tomatoes she’d grown. “It was me. I was triggering her memories of the storm and causing the nightmares to return. How could I stay so close knowing I was at fault? That’s selfish.”
The clatter of the trowel being placed back down on the bench sounded behind me. “It’s not you. She has nightmares every now and again but doesn’t wake. You don’t trigger them, and neither does memories of the storm.”
“If it’s not me then what does?” I asked, feeling absolutely helpless.
“The notion that you could leave her.”
I turned around. “What?”
“Her fear lies with abandonment.”
Chris had all of sudden turned into a fully qualified psychologist. It was making my head hurt even more. I rubbed it, as if it were a gene’s lamp. “How do you know all of this?”
“Because I’m her friend, her roommate, and I might have gone to the doctors with her a few times.” He shrugged. “She was fucking waking me up and nearly making me crap my pants, all right? It was scary shit. So it was either sort it out or kick her out. I like Dani, and I’m not an A-grade arsehole, so we opted to sort that shit out.”
“Hang on a minute, so what you’re saying is that her doctor said the nightmares are triggered by her fear of being abandoned?”
“Yep. Because you, you fuck, keep abandoning her.”
I glared at him but felt the pit of my stomach drop past my balls. “Fuck! So it is my fault?”
“Partly, yes, so fix it. I don’t want to wake up in my own excrement, nor do I want to be making Chris’ Magic Milo every few hours because she’s moping around like a sad little puppy dog. Even Pugly is over it.” Chris opened the door to leave but paused. “She loves you. You love her. So for fuck’s sake, geek boy, fix this shit.”
The sun burst through the open door and slammed into my face. I squinted and shielded my eyes, trying to process everything he’d said. She loves me. I’m not triggering the nightmares, but then I am triggering them because she’s scared I’ll leave her. She likes to drink a lot of Milo. Chris shits himself. Geek boy?
One thing was for certain; I wasn’t going to abandon her. Ever.
I planned to do the opposite.
I planned to make our engagement official.