Page 69 of A Smart Girl's Guide to Second Chances
‘Leave,’ I repeated. ‘Sick leave?’ Was Matt under the weather? Was he still feeling dusty from the weekend and had decided to have a doona day? Is that why he hadn’t replied to my messages?
‘Umm... a day in lieu, I think,’ she said. ‘We’ve all been working such long hours, so we got given some extra leave to make up for it. Matt emailed the team last night to let us know that he was taking a few days to get on top of wedding stuff. Oh shit... maybe that was a surprise, and I’ve ruined it!’
‘Don’t worry, Jen, I’m a good actress,’ I said with a forced laugh. ‘I’d better go. I just had a break between meetings and wanted to say hi to Matt.’
I made it out of the lobby before I began to breathe heavily. I stood on Castlereagh Street in the shadow of skyscrapers, hoping that no one I knew would spot me. Where should I go next? I’d planned to go to Matt’s hotel room and wait for him to finish his workday.
Our Sydney office was just around the corner. I knew that I could go there, find a spare office and regroup. No one would question why I was in Sydney – our staff were always popping up in random offices with wheelie bags.
No, I didn’t need to regroup. I just needed to know where Matt was. I needed to know that he was okay. What was he doing here? Or was he in Sydney at all? Had that been a lie too?
Matt. Are you okay? I just turned up at your office. In Sydney. But you’re on leave, doing wedding stuff? Where are you?
I didn’t really think about what I was writing, I just tapped furiously and pressed send. My phone lit up almost straightaway. It was him.
‘Matt, what’s going on?’ I asked before he’d even had a chance to say hello.
‘Are you really in Sydney?’ he asked. Did he sound a bit nervous? Or guilty? Or just himself?
‘Yes, on the street outside your office,’ I said. ‘Are you up here?’
‘I am. In Sydney. Not in the office,’ he said. ‘Can we meet?’
‘Yes! Of course we can meet. That’s why I’m here – to see you,’ I said.
‘I’ll meet you on the Woolloomooloo Wharf in twenty minutes,’ he said.
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘But Matt—’
‘Let’s speak in person,’ he said, and ended the call.
I walked the familiar route to the wharf, the place where Matt and I often had dinner when we were both in Sydney for work, knowing that it would help to clear my head. By the time I arrived, exactly twenty minutes later, I felt calmer. There were lots of reasons why Matt might not have been in the office. Maybe he’d arrived in Sydney for the meeting, realised he was exhausted after a huge weekend and decided to take a day. Or maybe he was working on a secret squirrel project that his colleagues weren’t meant to know about. Or maybe he had been doing surprise wedding preparations.
By the time I arrived and saw Matt, waiting for me at a restaurant where he’d already nabbed a table, I was convinced that I had overreacted and there was almost certainly a logical explanation.
Matt stood up when he saw me, and before he said anything my heart sank. Matt never looked worried – he existed on the emotional spectrum between joy and contentment. It took a lot to ruffle him, and right then he looked flustered.
‘Hi Becs,’ he said, but he didn’t lean forwards to kiss me, on the lips or at least on the cheek, like he normally would have. He sank down into his seat and took a sip from one of the glasses of wine that he’d already ordered for us.
I took the seat opposite him and stared at him expectantly with the same feeling of anticipatory dread I got before performance reviews, where I needed to brace myself in case I received bad news.
‘I didn’t have a meeting in Sydney. I’ve taken a few days of leave and I’m staying with one of my old uni mates who lives up here,’ he said, his face as serious as I’d ever seen it.
‘Why?’
‘I thought it might be a good idea to give you some space,’ he said.
‘Space?’
‘To work out whatever you need to work out,’ he said. ‘With Alex.’
‘There’s nothing to work out with Alex,’ I said quickly.
He raised an eyebrow. ‘I saw you guys talking at Arlo’s party. And when he was looking after you at our place. There’s somethingbetween you two,’ he said.
‘We had some stuff to talk about, sure,’ I admitted. ‘But I’ve done nothing behind your back. Yes, I should have told you about him the day he turned up at work instead of ambushingyou at breakfast the next day. But I’ve already apologised for that. We talked that through.’
There was a pause as Matt stared intently at his drink. ‘You’re right, it’s not about Alex,’ Matt said. He finally looked up at me. ‘I think he’s just another thing that you’ve been using to keep distance between us.’
