Zero regrets
Story Letter - Mindful Romantics Magazine, Issue 02
This story letter is from Declan in Everything’s Absolutely Fine. This is his perspective about the first time he meets Eliza.
A glimpse into the story behind the story…
Chapter 01
I wish we had been the ones to leave him, stranded, alone, driving off into the distance, to half way across the other side of the country, never looking back, zero regrets.
But he went first. Went to work one day and never came home.
My sister celebrated. Called him the biggest coward on the planet, and in her law student way, declared him a persona non grata.
Mum was more sanguine, trying to mediate her own feelings with my own, in case my indifference was masking a deep hurt. It wasn’t.
It was dampening a well of anger that flared up whenever I pictured his righteous face yelling at Mum for his own inadequacies.
We were better off without him. So when Mum suggested we move back to her hometown, Adelaide, for a fresh start, and because they had to sell the house, I was in.
We packed the bare minimum, waved my sister off from her dorm room and drove across the Hay Plains, arriving at our beachside apartment just as the sun was setting into the sea, a blaze of pink and purple.
Our apartment was a fifth of the size of our home in Sydney but I didn’t care if it meant that Mum could stabilise, and begin to smile more.
And me? Maybe I could reinvent myself.
Chapter 02
Two days later, I was walking down the corridors of Heathgrove High while a girl called Cassidy chirped on about how I would love this school and I would fit right in and not to worry about Mrs Pedderson, my new home group teacher, because even though it didn’t look like she cared, she did, she really did.
Mrs Pedderson waved me in, then gazed back out the window, not caring at all, as some kid out front, read out the school notices in a monotone.
It seemed like your average state high school classroom, rowdy boys at the back, gossiping girls behind me and several students listening intently to the school notices as though they would be graded on them later.
Same, same, except for one remarkable difference. The girl sitting next to me.
Auburn hair, a knee that would not stop jiggling, and eyes fixed ahead, not even a slight turn or glance my way.
When the bell rang, I had to say something so I leaned over and murmured, “Nice to meet you.”
She startled, mumbled something, then stuck out her hand and said, “I’m Eliza.”
I grinned, because this was charming and she was blushing. I took her hand and that’s when I felt it. An electric charge pass between us.
I tried to say composed. I didn’t want to startle her again and I didn’t want her to take her hand away either, because this girl, Eliza, was, I didn’t even know what she was. Beautiful, sure. But that wasn’t it.
She was something I couldn’t quite name but something I wanted to name over and over until it became something felt and real.
Because for the first time in a long while, I wanted someone to know me, not as the son of an anger-management Dad or the brother of a super-smart school Dux sister or as the championship debater, but as me. Just me.
You’re going to love Eliza and Declan’s story! Find out Eliza’s take on her first meeting with Declan. Then watch what happens next in Everything’s Absolutely Fine.
You’ve been reading the Mindful Romantics Magazine brought to you by Author-Psychologist, Jodie Benveniste.
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