Page 16 of A Smart Girl's Guide to Second Chances
‘What’s wrong with Auntie Becs?’ Evie asked at the top of her voice.
‘I think she’s had too much party juice,’ I heard Nick, who’d rolled in just before cake, still in scrubs, reply as I finally worked out that the backdoor opened outwards.
Stella and Nick’s house backed onto a small park, and I let myself into it using their gate. The sun had set, and the park was predictably empty. It had been an oppressively hot day; the air was heavy.
I swung back and forth on the swing a few times then stopped – the world was already spinning.
I pulled out my phone and googled ‘Alex Lawson’ again. Then I did another search, adding ‘Melbourne’. There were a few stories about the sale of his company to ATG. I clicked on his profile on their website. He had a short bio, the type that indicated that he was someone whose reputation preceded him. I stared at the photo. It was a typical corporate head shot, except Alex managed to defy any attempts at uniformity. His blond hair sprang up like he was a farm-based golden retriever. The gaze wasn’t the expected one of quiet, reassuring confidence but rather his sky-blue eyes were piercing, like they could X-ray andwere searching for fractures and breaks. And his face wasn’t centred, as if he’d deliberately resisted the photographer’s explicit instructions.
I clicked back to the search-results page and scanned them. I paused, then pressed on the final link. An ‘Alex Lawson’ in the thirty-five to forty-five age category had completed the Albert Park Parkrun for the last few weeks. I swallowed hard.
He’d been a runner when we’d met. He didn’t enjoy the exercise as much as the impact it had on his brain’s ability to function at its peak. But running around a lake that was a short walk from my house felt very close to my real life. Was he living around here? Would I run into him as I dashed to the shops in my tracksuit to buy milk? Maybe it was coincidence, and it was another Alex Lawson. Surely life wouldn’t require me to be on guard both at work and at home.
There was an enormous bang and then a crack broke the sky. A chilly breeze swept through the park, picking up leaves and bits of the day’s rubbish. One of the city’s infamous cool changes had arrived. There was another boom of thunder and thick raindrops started to fall.
I stood and held my palms to the sky as the rain splattered on my hair. I woke up thirty minutes earlier than usual twice a week to blast it into submission, so I knew I should run to shelter – to the picnic area or back to the house. Instead, I tipped back my head and let the rain fall on my face.
‘Are you okay?’
I spun around. Matt was standing behind me. ‘Yeah, fine,’ I said. ‘I think everything’s gone straight to my head. Mum was trying to kill me with dinner, so I barely ate. She went to med school... do you think she’s just forgotten about anaphylaxis?’
‘There were heaps of side dishes, but they got stuck at the other end of the table,’ Matt said evenly.
‘I mean, this is the lady who filled out the allergy section of our wedding RSVPs withMild intolerance to Chanel Number Five.’
‘I know these family things can be full-on for you,’ he said gently. ‘I know it brings up... stuff.’
‘Let’s practise our wedding dance,’ I said. I knew it was a non sequitur, but the words came out before I could stop them. We’d had two classes to learn our first dance, but then the instructor had developed tendonitis. Because, of course.
He took my outstretched hands but didn’t move closer. He searched my face. ‘Are you sure you’re okay?’ he asked again.
‘Yeah, of course,’ I said.
I stared for a moment at the man in front of me – my fiancé. I wasn’t a natural writer and every time I’d sat down to draft my wedding vows, I’d ended up staring at a white screen and a blinking cursor for far too long.
But right then, as I stood opposite Matt, who smelled slightly of damp wool and earthy red wine, his kind eyes crinkled with concern and his strong hands wrapped around my mine, I knew the promises I wanted to make. I wanted to promise to honour his best qualities: his easy kindness, his ability to revel in small, everyday pleasures, his instinctive creativity. I’d promise to always be the one to make the microwave popcorn before we curled up together to watch movies. I’d promise to always buy him a novelty pair of socks on a work trip. I’d promise to be with him forever.
Why had it been so hard to get the words down when these commitments felt so clear?
‘I can’t believe I get to marry you,’ I said.
His shirt collar was turning, one splatter at a time, from pale to dark blue. The cotton had begun to stick to his abs, like he was Mr Darcy or Anthony Bridgerton emerging from a lake.Raindrops sat like a spider’s web on the top of his hair and his glasses had begun to fog. Even soaking wet, he was handsome.
He pulled me close and spun me like we’d practised. Suddenly I felt incredibly dizzy and out of breath. But while the park turned into a blur of glistening leaves and half-hidden stars, Matt’s face stayed totally in focus.
A crack of lightning broke through the sky. We stopped moving and, as the rest of the world became clear again, a wave of panic rushed through me.
I pulled away from Matt, and clung to the back of a park bench for balance. Matt said something but was drowned out by another rumble of thunder and my own whirring thoughts.
I knew exactly what needed to happen. I added a new item to my mental to-do list: ‘Negotiate rules of engagement with ex’.
Chapter 8
I woke up on Saturday with a churning stomach – a combination of too much champagne and gin and an undercurrent of anticipation.
I pulled on a navy outfit that had cost an unholy amount at Lululemon as I stared at Matt’s sleeping form nestled in the ode to linen that was our bed. He’d been nothing short of heroic last night: helping Stella with Alice, humouring Mum and generally oiling the wheels of familial harmony. No man on earth wanted to spend his Friday night with his partner’s extended family, but Matt had turned up with bells on. And I’d got uncharacteristically drunk – instead of taking the edge off the day, I’d gone over the edge.
But, like the lightning bolt that we’d been at risk of being struck by, I’d had a blinding flash of clarity. In exactly five weeks’ time, give or take a few hours, I was going to marry Matt. Nothing was going to get in the way of our wedding. Dealing with the reappearance of Alex in my life was just another road bump to get over, like reordering Matt’s suit, which had arrived sky instead of navy blue, or reposting the invitations because the last-minute change of lettering meant that the numbers one and seven were indistinguishable. We’d fixed those things; I could fix this.
