Page 79 of Barre Fight
“No, he wanted us to build happy, meaningful lives for ourselves. That’s what he did, even after he lost everything. It wasn’t the life he expected to have, but he thought it was beautiful. That’s what he wanted for me, and that’s what I got. Look at you all.” He gestured beside him at his daughter and his beloved wife, then behind him at his two sons, who were no doubt bickering on the back deck. “Beautiful.” He smiled to himself. “Opa didn’t want you to do ballet because he wanted you to be a dancer, he wanted you to do it because he knew that dancing made your life beautiful. I think he’d tell you that if finding a new job is going to help you build a beautiful life, then do it.”
Her dad pulled a tissue from his pocket and handed it to her. For as long as she could remember, he had kept a tissue in his pocket, ready to hand over when one of them was crying or bleeding or covered in chocolate ice cream. Or in Luke’s case, on one memorable day, all three at once. Ivy dabbed at her nose and gave her parents a grateful, watery smile.
A beautiful life, she thought, as she looked out the bus window on the way back to her apartment. Back to Justin, she hoped. It was hours now since he’d gone out on his walk, and she hoped he was already back at her place. Dozing on her couch, perhaps, while he waited for her to get home. Eager to hear about lunch and tell her about how his family were doing. Ready to help her figure out what came next, if she asked him to.
Yes, she thought, smiling to herself. That would be beautiful.
ChapterTwenty-Two
Justin started when he heard the key turn in the lock, and a moment later, Ivy walked in, a stack of mail clutched in one hand. She placed it on the small table next to the door and steadied the teetering pile before setting her keys on top of it, then glanced up at the small mirror on the wall and shoved a hand into her hair, fluffing it hastily at the roots. He watched her from the couch, unable to take his eyes off her, even in this brief private moment as she tried to un-sweat her hair before seeing him.
She sighed quietly at the mirror, then turned and saw him. Their eyes met across the room and fuck, she was so beautiful. And smart and determined and fierce anda good personand he was an asshole who did not deserve her.
He’d left his parents feeling upended by something more than jetlag. It was self-loathing. He’d barely slept last night. Before dawn had even started to lighten the sky outside, he’d crept out of Ivy’s bed, leaving her there to sleep the deep slumber of a decent human being who wasn’t wracked with guilt. He’d hoped that spending the day out in the national park, walking the familiar tracks and listening to the comfortingsounds of bushland, would clear his head. His bushwalks had always been a source of refuge when the noise and pace of the city got to be too much.
But this time, the thing he was trying to escape was in his own head, and hours of walking alone hadn’t done anything to rid him of the awful thought that had taken root as he’d talked to his parents. Instead, it had taken deep, firm root, and blossomed into something hideous.
Part of him had wanted Hillstone to burn.
His whole being seemed to recoil at the hideousness of the thought. People lived in that town. People raised their kids there, built their homes there. Tried to make a living so they could stay there instead of having to move to a city where they could find more work but could barely afford to live. But there was a reason he’d fled as soon as he was old enough to live in the city alone and a reason his heart sped up uncomfortably every time he thought about going back there for a visit. It was the same reason that, on the rare occasions he actually went, he always felt like anxiety was pushing him out of his own skin.
That town had tormented him for daring to be a boy who liked to dance. Then it had punished him for refusing to quit in the face of their cruelty and small-mindedness. His classmates, his teachers, the parents—everyone except his family and Miss Mary—they’d all made his life hell. And now hell had arrived on their doorstep and he… Well, he just couldn’t bring himself to pity them.
A town wasn’t just buildings and roads. A town was people. And even though he knew it was ugly, even though he knew it made him a terrible person, Justin couldn’t deny the truth: he wasn’t sorry Hillstone likely lay in ashes today.
God, he was a terrible person. Who looked at a burned-down town and felt satisfaction? A fucking monster, that was who. The same kind of person who punched people in pubs andrefused to apologize even when it endangered his own career and made everyone else’s life harder.
He’d sat down on the couch, opened YouTube, and started watching news coverage of the fires. Maybe looking at the reality of the situation would remind him how to be a decent human being. News crews were on the ground near the fire lines, reporting from blackened forests and gesturing behind them at blocked roads that led to flattened towns and upended lives. He’d watched and watched, until he started to recognize some of the footage that was being used from one report to the next. One reporter interviewed people inside an evacuation center, families sitting on camp beds on a school basketball court, still in their pyjamas, their go bags at their feet. People who had just lost everything except their lives and whatever belongings they’d managed to fit into those bags. Justin didn’t see anyone he recognized from Hillstone, but he knew that if he kept watching, he would eventually.
“You’re home,” Ivy said, her face breaking into a smile that looked like sunshine and relief. “I mean, you’re back. You’re here.”
“How was the barbeque?” Justin put his phone down, not bothering to pause the video.
“It was good. Well, it was… complicated,” she frowned. “Gave me a lot to think about. How was your walk?”
“Good. Complicated. Gave me a lot to think about.”
She let out a soft laugh and walked into the living room, pulling her bag from her shoulder and leaving it on the armchair. She joined him on the couch, facing him with her legs crossed under her. Up close, he could see that her eyes were slightly bloodshot. From fatigue? But she’d slept so soundly last night. She hadn’t even stirred when he’d gotten out of bed.
“My parents send you their congratulations. They read all about you in the paper. And this time it was a positive story.”
Thanks to Ivy, who’d done her job so well, even though he’d fought her every step of the way. Guilt churned in his gut and the video chattered on in the background.
“My parents sent you scones. Mum bakes when she’s stressed, and the blueberry white chocolate scones are her favorite. They’ve won prizes.”
“That sounds delicious,” Ivy said with a tentative smile. She was watching him carefully, her eyes raking searchingly over his face as though she was trying to piece a story together. Adding up the information she already had. His quiet when he came home last night, his absence this morning. He shifted under her steady, observant gaze. She could always smell a story, his Ivy.
No, not his Ivy. Not anymore. Not if she knew what an asshole he truly was.
“Something’s bothering you,” she said. It was a statement, not a question.
“Well, yeah.” He gestured down at his phone, which was still showing images of the fires, high walls of angry orange flames leaping beyond the control of the crews of tiny firefighters and their hoses.
Her gaze followed his hand, then returned to his face. The smile she gave him was part understanding, part questioning. “Something else,” she said, and her tone was gentle, but again, she wasn’t asking. For a long moment, she said nothing. She just watched him as shame roiled in his stomach.
“It’s not a big deal,” he lied, getting to his feet so he could pace. No big deal, he was just a piece of shit and if she, or his parents, or Missy, ever found out just how much of a piece of shit, they’d never forgive him. He had just opened his mouth to repeat the lie, even though he knew she wouldn’t buy it, when a familiar name drifted up to him from the speaker on his phone.
“Mary Lawson, a dance teacher from Hillstone, southeast ofMudgee, lost both her home and the hall where she teaches dance classes.”
