One Day You'll Find Me

Chapter 11

TWO YEARS LATER

I was free, and it felt amazing. Leaning back against the branch, I gazed up into the clear blue sky. The breeze rustled the leaves, and the warm sun made my skin glow. Rosina and I graduated from college last week, and I was still running on the energy from that day. No more school! Of course, I would go to university later, after my gap year. I still had no idea what I wanted to do. If only I could have gone with Mum to Venice and abroad for the year. But we didn't have the finances for that. The Bigger Picture liked her work so much, they had offered her the opportunity to go to Venice for them- not just for six weeks or even a few months, but for a whole year! They also said she could travel to one other place if she wanted. As if Venice wasn't enough. She took the job. Obviously. Who wouldn't? I sighed. Here I was, sitting in a tree in Australia, while she was overseas in Venice! So not fair! I sighed again. She'd left the day after my graduation, with the promise to send a postcard as soon as she landed. It had come in the mail yesterday, a picture of a gondola beneath the Rialto bridge. It was beautiful. I'd stuck it in the space I'd cleared on my wall in preparation for all the postcards and letters Mum would send me. I secretly hoped that in one, she would write and tell me how she had confirmed to yet another lovely man she'd met that yes, she had an eighteen-year-old daughter. I hoped that she'd write and tell me how the conversation unfolded, tell me that in this man she'd found happiness. She deserved it. After all that had happened with my father, I really wanted to see her find someone who loved her.

I let my head hit the trunk as thoughts of my father darted across my mind. I hadn't seen or spoken to him for months. In a way, I felt sorry for him. He'd missed his only daughter's graduation from grade twelve because of who he'd become. I shook my head to break that line of thought.

What should I do for the year? I needed to have something I'd like to progress towards for my not-too-distant future, when I became a person with a career and a purpose and all that. But I was as blank as a piece of slate. Come to think of it, it felt like I was standing on the edge of a cliff, about to take a leap of faith in any direction I wanted. It was scary having your life open to absolutely anything, because I could choose to do literally anything. I swear people are always waiting for these kinds of moments in their lives to do what they always wanted to, but in my case? It was a pain in the butt. If only something would jump out at me though, give me a push, a hint- anything! I'd like to travel, like Jean's friend Léon, who after backpacking round the south of France, traveled Italy, Germany and Venice. I smiled. They'd eventually decided letters were too hard, and had started using the technology offered by the twenty-first century to communicate. Jean kept us up to date on Léon's adventures and said he was starting to consider changing continent. We were all obviously rooting for him to come to Australia. I wanted to meet the guy after hearing about him for years. But I needed money to travel, and I didn't have any. So I needed a job that paid well. But what, and how would I get it? Oh, the questions and possibilities flew around my head all day long, buzzing in my ear, but never did anything 'click'. I just had to hope that something would find me, eventually. It had to.

***

I stared at the tiny pile of mail on the table. Not one. There was junk mail, bills, but no letter. I rested my head in my hands, and tried not to think about it. Yet the thoughts wouldn't subside. I hadn't received any letters from my Mum for three months. In the last letter, she'd said she was leaving Venice and going to 'the other place' her company said she could go to, but she didn't actually specify where she was going. She told me not to worry if no letters came for awhile. Surely three whole months didn't fit in the category of 'awhile', right? I flicked through the mail again, to no avail. Frustrated, I threw the pile on the floor. The blue corner of an envelope peeked out from between the pages of a catalogue. I picked it up, and had to laugh. It was one of the curiously familiar letters that my Mum received every now and again, but wouldn't reveal who they were from. I dropped it on the table, and scooped up the scattered mail. I shook my head when I spied a slip from the post office telling me a parcel had arrived for me. Another thing I missed. Quickly, I shoved it in the pocket of my jeans, and flipped through everything again. Still nothing. Sighing, I went upstairs to get ready. Rosina, Tom and I were going to the movies, with the intention of watching some really lame film so we could laugh about it all evening. We'd started doing this every now and again, when one of us needed a boost, a hit of something. What better than hours of crying laughter? We were too 'off-stream' to watch normal movies. I snorted. When a classmate heard what we were doing, he'd joked that we thought it was "too mainstream" to watch normal movies, and we thought it was "too mainstream" to say "mainstream", so Tom came up with 'off-stream'. I rolled my eyes. Rosina still had hopes of something starting between Tom and me, ignoring me when I told her multiple times we were just friends. When I'd eventually talked to Ros about the awkwardness with Tom that had remained since the day we saw the fifteen mares, she didn't give me any help, just excitedly told me he liked me, as she always did. So I stopped talking to her about it, and finally plucked up the courage to talk to Tom about it. That had started off an awkward conversation, especially when he admitted to liking me, especially when I told him never in a million years would we be 'an item'. He was just my friend; always would be, and would always stay that way. We'd managed to laugh it off, and we'd become closer for it. But since then, I had a sneaking suspicion that Ros liked Tom. This, in a very idiosyncratic way, explained why she'd always jumped at the opportunity to say that Tom liked me- just so she could talk about him. But then he had liked me... I don't know what'd have happened if I'd liked him back. She was playing a game almost certain to get her hurt. Nuts.