—51—
‘Fifty minutes?’ Frankie looked at the neon timetable that hung above her head. ‘The train to Sunbury takes fifty minutes?’ Why did he have to pick a station so far away? She groaned in exasperation and tried calling Sunny again. She was expecting to get the voicemail she had heard the twenty other times she had called, and she was right. She left a quick message, saying she was running late, and not to leave. Sunny, please wait for me.
What was she thinking when she told Cat she was ready to let Sunny go? Her heart hadn’t stopped racing since she found the books. Now, the chance to see him was so close, she could almost touch it. Images of his big blue eyes, his tall, shielding body, flooded her mind. But remembering him made her feel skittish, so she forced herself to stop. She picked up her phone, but this time dialled a different number.
‘Frankie! So good to hear from you. We’ll be seeing you in about ten minutes or so, right?’ Marie chirped into the phone.
Frankie bit down on her lip, hard. ‘I’m so sorry. I’m not going to be able to make it. An emergency has, uh, come up. Can we please reschedule?’
‘An emergency? Frankie, I’ve called the entire publishing team to this meeting. And it’s in ten minutes,’ Marie snapped, her tone changing instantly.
‘I know, I’m so sorry. You know I wouldn’t miss this if it wasn’t super important.’
‘Is there any way you can attend to this emergency at a later date?’ Marie asked. Frankie could almost hear her eyes roll through the phone.
‘No, I’m sorry. I can’t. I’ll call you later today. Sorry again!’ Frankie hung up quickly to avoid Marie’s wrath, and in case Sunny was trying to get through. Why can’t we just meet in the city? Why all the way out in Sunbury?
Finally, the train sluggishly pulled up to the station, making loud, ostentatious noises. Frankie hopped over the gap and swiftly into the train, ready to depart. She stood in the centre of the carriage, even though there were plenty of seats free on this 11am Monday express to Sunbury. As the train took off and the subtle movements of the carriage rocked her into tranquility, Frankie closed her eyes. It had been approximately twenty days and seven hours since she had last seen him, and in that time, she had experienced a rollercoaster of emotions: mostly gut-wrenching, horrifying heartbreak. She inhaled, remembering his musky, masculine scent. She recalled the way he would gently tuck her hair behind her ear when it drifted into her eyes; the back of her ear tingled at the thought. She reminisced about the way his eyes lit up when he was reading a Young Adult book or talking about his family holidays to rural Victoria. She remembered the last time she saw him: that gutted, inconsolable look splashed all over his usually carefree face. That look, she hoped never to see it again. She tried to count the reasons she loved him. One: his stupid fear of bananas. Two: how, because of him, my kitchen will always be stocked with at least enough ingredients to make French toast. Three: the way he makes me feel safe. Four: everything about him. Frankie rolled her eyes at her own cliché. One of AA Milne’s best pieces of writing floated to mind: Piglet asks how to spell love – and Pooh says it’s a feeling, not a word. That was how she felt about Sunny.
Frankie looked at her phone, ignoring the seven missed calls from Marie. She felt sick to her stomach. Am I missing my one chance at a new book deal for a guy? But then she thought, Not for a guy. For Sunny. She dialled Cat’s number but it too went straight to voicemail. Why is nobody answering their phone? She rolled her head in a full circle, stretching her shoulders. She tapped her knees, stomped her feet. Only forty-five minutes to go. She stared at the people around her, trying to distract herself by guessing which book they might be reading if their heads weren’t buried in their phones. The blonde girl with the lip ring and cool earrings? Walk of Fame by Sharon Krum. The old man with the iPad? When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi. She groaned. Her mind still swam with thoughts of Sunny. So, she did the only thing she knew would always take her somewhere else entirely. She picked up her copy of The Complete Poems of Winnie-the-Pooh, opened to the first page, and read.
As the train slowly approached Sunbury station, Frankie jolted to attention. She was so consumed by the words on the page, she had momentarily forgotten where she was. She looked up at the remaining people on board. The lip-ring girl was still there, absently twirling a piece of blonde hair around her finger. A tall woman wearing a skin-tight sparkly dress and high heels swayed in the corner. The man with the iPad was now asleep. As the train came to a halt and the doors opened with a leisurely hiss, the passengers piled out. But Frankie remained standing, suddenly afraid of what awaited her at the station.
After everyone had evacuated the train, Frankie crept out like a hermit crab seeing sunlight for the first time. She took a deep breath. A good forty kilometres out of Melbourne, the air was crisper and fresher. She looked to her left and then to her right. And there, she saw him, sitting on a train bench, wearing a dark green coat. His legs were crossed and he was casually reading Eleanor & Park. Her copy of Eleanor & Park with the torn cover. As soon as she saw him, she forgot about Marie, about Cat, about all the dates and all the heartbreak. Her whole body yearned for Sunny, and she ran towards him, stopping right in front of him so that her knees were almost grazing his.
‘Hey,’ she managed to say.
Sunny glanced up from his book. ‘Hey.’ He looked her square in the eye. ‘Thanks for the book.’
‘My pleasure.’ Frankie fidgeted. ‘How are you?’ Is that the best you can do?
‘Good. You?’ Sunny replied. He looked nervous as he ran his fingers through his perfect hair. What I would do to touch that hair.
‘Good.’ Frankie gazed at him and he stared back, his bright blue eyes burning holes right through her.
‘So …’ Frankie said when she couldn’t take it anymore. She cautiously sat down next to him. ‘Why am I here?’
Sunny half-smiled and went back to reading his book, as if he were casually waiting for a train and not sitting next to his ex-girlfriend. The ex-girlfriend he had just lured here using a cherished childhood story. Frankie watched him as he slowly turned a page, grinning to himself.
‘Sunny,’ she said, more firmly this time.
‘Mmm?’ He didn’t look up.
‘Sunny, you can’t just tell me to meet you at Sunbury station with this huge, elaborate, romantic gesture, with our favourite book for God’s sake, and then not even speak to me. I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry about the dates, about the blog, about the lies. It was cruel and thoughtless. I’m sorry I resisted you and pushed you away. You were right. You were right about everything. I used the other dates as a crutch, as a way of keeping myself at a safe distance from truly feeling. I was trying to protect myself, but I was selfish. So very selfish. No matter how hard I tried and how much I doubted, I couldn’t help but fall for you, Sunny. And oh, how I’ve fallen. You’re all I think about. You’re all I want. Now I finally know what Jane Austen was talking about when she wrote, “When I fall in love, it will be forever”. I love you, Sunny. My heart, my body, my soul, it’s all fallen, head over heels, in love with you.’ Frankie breathed for the first time since she started speaking, bracing herself for his response.
‘I forgive you.’
‘And another thing, you just, you make me—’ Frankie paused. ‘What did you say?’
‘I forgive you.’
Frankie couldn’t believe what she was hearing. He forgives me? Just like that? After weeks of unreturned phone calls and after the anger and resentment that she knew had brewed deep within him, he forgave her? Frankie’s whole body relaxed, the tension of her grief suddenly melting away.
‘You forgive me? What changed?’ She didn’t know if she was pushing her luck, she was suddenly terrified he would change his mind, that this was some twisted joke of revenge.
Sunny gazed down at the floor. ‘When I found the first book you put out for me I was just so mad. I thought, how could you think that the same thing that tore us apart could bring us back together? I needed you to be out of my life. But then when I found the second book, and the third …’ He looked up, his eyes beginning to crinkle. How Frankie had missed seeing his face slowly erupt into a smile. ‘I couldn’t keep ignoring you. Ignoring how I feel about you and all the good that you brought into my life. Finding each book was like this strange cathartic release of all the pent-up rage consuming me. But still, I couldn’t let go. Let go of what you did.’ He looked at Frankie with such intensity, it made her flinch. ‘Then, when Cat turned up at my door …’
‘Cat turned up at your door?’ Frankie asked, shocked.
‘She didn’t tell you? YA book in one hand and baby in the other, she got on her hands and knees and begged me to take you back. She said she’s never seen you so heartbroken before. That you were like a shell of a person without me. And well, I guess I was also a shell of a person without you.’
She couldn’t help but smile then, and he smiled more broadly too as he continued. ‘Something clicked. I wondered why we were both walking around so hopeless and heartbroken, when we could do something about it.’ Sunny brushed his fingertips lightly over Frankie’s hand, and she inhaled. ‘So, I had to find a way to forgive you, Frankie. And I hope you’ll forgive me too, for not always being open and for walking away and for not trying to understand you better.’ He put his arms around her waist, pulling her just an inch closer. ‘And Frankie, I can’t deny my feelings any longer. I love you. “Most ardently.”’ Austen’s words rolled off his tongue like they were chocolate.
‘Oh,’ Frankie gasped, suddenly lost for words.
‘Can I kiss you now?’
‘Yes.’
At this, Sunny grabbed her face hungrily and brought it towards his. He gently pushed her hair behind her ears and, before she had time to think, he kissed her, tenderly at first, and then with a rapid passion that made her hang on to him as if he were the only concrete thing in this unsteady, dizzy world. And finally she knew what Margaret Mitchell meant when she wrote, ‘before a swimming giddiness spun her round and round, she knew that she was kissing him back’.
Sunny pulled back, a cheeky grin plastered on his face. ‘I’ve wanted to do that for a while,’ he confessed.
‘So, why didn’t you?’ Frankie replied huskily.
Sunny pressed his thumb to her lower lip, his eyes fixed on her. ‘I had to forgive you first, and I didn’t know whether I could. Frank, I was so scared of getting hurt again. Of losing someone I loved. So, when what happened, happened, I shut down.’ Sunny didn’t take his eyes off Frankie, and she was terrified to look away. ‘But then I lost you anyway. And then I lost myself.’ He sighed. ‘And that was just stupid. Even more ridiculous than buying someone a pet turtle on the second date.’
Frankie laughed, tears pooling in her eyes. ‘Winnie was the second-best thing to ever happen to me these last few months,’ she said.
‘What was the first thing?’ he asked with a glint in his eye.
‘This incredible chocolate croissant I had this morning.’
He laughed softly. ‘I love you, Frankston Line Rose. More than pizza.’
‘Whoa. I never said I loved you more than pizza.’
‘You did so. In your Facebook message.’
‘You read my messages?’
‘Yep. All hundred-and-twenty-three of them.’ He grinned.
‘Oh, God.’ Frankie put her head in her hands. Sunny chuckled and slowly pulled her hands away. He held them in his own and kissed her once more.
‘Sunny Day?’ she said when she finally pulled back.
‘Yes, Frankston Rose?’
Frankie looked around, taking in her surroundings. She sat on a bench at a train station in the middle of nowhere. There was not another person in sight. Lush green hills hovered in the distance and a fine air of chilly mist escaped their mouths when they spoke.
‘Why on earth are we at Sunbury station?’
Sunny laughed. A big hearty laugh, like this was the funniest thing he had ever been asked. Then he leaned in close to her, as if he were letting her in on a secret. ‘Sunny – it’s short for Sunbury Station.’