Her Heavy Cross

Chapter Twenty-Nine

We went downstairs and had breakfast. Liam surprised me with a jar of Vegemite. I clapped my hands like a child and asked if he had tried it yet. He said he had, but he preferred marmite. I scrunched my nose at him and mumbled something about "stupid pommies." I made my toast because I was a freak and liked heaps of Vegemite. Like a lot. No butter either.

Liam was shocked, "That's disgusting! You put that much on?"

I nodded. I dipped the knife in the Vegemite. I scooped out a huge helping and popped it in my mouth, licking it all off.

"Oh, my God!" Liam covered his eyes. "It's not Nutella!"

"You're right. It's better."

After breakfast, Liam asked if I wanted to take Cole for a walk. I hesitated, my thoughts instantly going to more pictures and articles. I shook away the thoughts. I'd made my choice, and I was going to go for it and see how it plays out. We got dressed and headed off.

Cole was a very well-trained dog. He walked well on the lead and mostly ignored other dogs and people. A few kids wanted to pat Cole, and Liam would get down with Cole and pat him with the kids. He got recognised only once by a bloke who drove past and yelled at him, "Oi Cross, where's your sword?" He just waved at the guy who took off laughing. Part of me wished he'd grabbed his pants and yelled 'right here' as he did in the movie the guy was quoting. But I guess the internet would have a field day with that one.

"Hey, what's it like to be a meme?" I asked.

"How do you mean?"

"Like you're online, in a forum or something, and suddenly there's some person who uses your face as a reply."

"It's not bad," he said. "They're usually pretty funny. I'd much rather see that than see made up stories about me." I nodded. "Worse are the true stories. The ones I thought were private that end up in forums. We've all done stupid things or been rude to people. Most people shake it off and try to do better next time. I have to worry if there was a camera or if the story will end up going around the internet. I'm not necessarily complaining, but it's one of the downsides of people knowing who you are."

"Yup, told ya before, your life isn't normal."

As we walked, the houses gave way to cafes and small boutiques. I window shopped my way along the street. Liam noticed and said, "If you want to go in and look, I don't mind waiting."

"Yeah, Nah, it's ok. I'm just looking." I smiled at him, "we don't have a lot of shops like this out west." I snuck my head under his arm and put my arm around his waist. He put his arm around my shoulders, kissed the top of my head, and we walked side by side a few blocks before starting to head back to Liam's house.

Although yesterday's fight was awful, I had to admit that everything felt better with Liam today. My guard was lowered, and I didn't feel fear or shame to reach out and touch him anymore. In fact, I couldn't keep my hands off him. I always wanted to hold his hand or simply sit next to him with our shoulders or our thighs touching. It was like he was the sun, and I fixed in his orbit, unable to stay away. I was already sad about having to go home tomorrow. But I did miss Perrin. An idea occurred to me, and I asked Liam what he thought about it as we neared his house.

"What are your plans for next weekend?"

"For Easter? Well, we have half of Thursday and then Friday to Monday off. Then shooting starts Tuesday, so I was planning on lazing around at home with you before the crazy hours start. How does that sound?"

"It sounds great. But..."

"But what?"

"Well, on Sunday, I usually spend the day with David, Lucy and the kids. Depending on the weather, we usually go to a park and do an Easter Egg hunt and have a BBQ." I laughed at a memory. As we went back into Liam's house, I told him about the Easter it was 38 degrees and all of the eggs melted. Poor Charlie cried because he had no eggs to eat.