ChloeHartAuthor
I'd settled into a fragile new normal since Dad left, trying to untangle the knotted lies he'd left behind, untruths that had torn our family apart. I held my life together with equal parts denial and hope, convinced my final year of school would slip by quietly, without any more surprises.
Instead, my life became one chaotic mishap after another. For a while, it seemed as if life had broken me into a thousand pieces - some sharp, some dull - and I wondered if I would ever be able to put myself back together, at least into something less flawed and hurt.
Then, a week before school began, Mum casually dropped a name I'd never heard before, Matteo. He was our neighbour's grandson from Canada, and he would be starting school in the new year and boarding at Darling Point Secondary College.
The people who change your life arrive when you least expect them.