Girl in a Rock Show

In the end both of us stopped when the other said 'when'. I felt the weight of the world on me, wondering what had gone wrong, my heart completely ripped in two.

I needed to pick myself up, quickly, for Kim's sake and my own. She was a defiant toddler at the best of times, and her three-nage years were difficult. Fortunately, both Beatrix's parents and mine stepped up even more than they'd already had, helping me and Kim where possible. So did Miriam, or Aunty Mim, as she'd call herself with Kim. And my sister, who enjoyed the role as Aunt Jodie. Beatrix and I talked, making some amends, agreeing perhaps the time spent apart might do us good and help bring us closer again. You know, absence makes the heart grow fonder and all...well, that was our theory anyhow. The fire was still alight so perhaps it could have worked...

...But then she was off again, on tour. With their angsty mix of pop and punk, Beatrix's band, or Christina's band as the case was, achieved some success with their album and national tour, and made a festival tour of the USA, riding the wave of Emo hard-core music. And a small tour of Europe too. Our communication was poor, infrequent and mostly by email, and I had no idea whether we were still together or not.

Then suddenly Beatrix quit the band, citing 'creative differences' where she wanted to move away from the Emo scene that Christina was so heavily invested in. Beatrix moved back to Brisbane to be close to Kimberly, who she missed completely and felt guilty for leaving. She felt a lot better and became very involved with both of us again, over compensating for her guilt. She told me about her fans, where she even received fan mail, which would have been super cute if she also hadn't confessed straight up she'd begun seeing someone else; a keyboardist in another local band.

But I too fucked-up in the previous few months, accepting the advances of the mother of one of Kim's playmates from her childcare centre. Her name was Bianca, and she was very attractive, with long black hair, big brown eyes and golden-brown skin. In her mid-thirties and recently separated, she worked in the business faculty at university. Things began innocently enough, chatting when dropping our girls off, and then we ran into each other at the university café, and soon we began meeting for coffee at morning tea time most days, and one day she asked if I'd meet her for lunch. Instead of lunch she drove me back to her place. I could have said no. I should have said no. But I gave into temptation. I was in my early twenties, for fuck's sake, and Bianca was hot. No excuses, but Beatrix had been absent for more than six months, and I didn't even know if we were still even in a relationship. My fling with Bianca, because a fling is all it was, lasted more than a year.

I confessed about Bianca, who I was still seeing at the time, and Beatrix and I both felt confused about each other's confessions, both simultaneously feeling guilty and hurt. We decided to try and maintain a friendship and share parenting duties without other complications, for Kim's sake.

After Bianca, I had several more short-lived flings and romances, where sometimes I think I was searching for the feeling of intense love I'd shared with Beatrix, but not finding it anywhere. I broke the heart of at least one gorgeous young lady, Alice, who was Kim's swimming instructor. Alice and I dated for three months when she told me she'd fallen in love with me. I couldn't say it back, because though I liked her a lot, the intense feelings I wanted to feel weren't there. I made her cry and we broke up.

I was young and dumb, and after Alice I decided casual dating was all I wanted, going wild, taking what I could get, where I could, which wasn't all that much when most of my spare time was dedicated to Kim. But I avoided asking Beatrix to give things another shot, because she'd formed another band and her music career was going up again. I was scared that if we got back together I'd lose her again.

Throughout all this, my oldest and dearest friend in the world, Kirsten Belmont, who I'd known pretty much since I was born, remained a key constant in my life. Kirsten was both sporty and academic at school, much like me. She was highly intelligent, with a gift and love for mathematics, but back at school she'd often dumbed herself down simply to fit in, going wild at parties and trying to be someone she wasn't. I'd always knew she was bluffing because we'd been life-long great mates and knew one another better than most. We were, in effect, like sister and brother; absolute besties, and we spoke to one another almost every other day, where she always offered me her ear and listened well. And after all my dramas with Beatrix, Kirsten occasionally offered me her shoulder to cry on too. And sometimes I even needed it.

Kirsten had her own issues to deal with. She was literally a mathematical genius, able to do complex sums in her head faster than you could plug the numbers into a calculator, and at age twenty-two she started a PhD in physics at university. One of her advisors was a visiting Dutch professor, and early on she'd attended an international conference to present previous research she'd been involved with, when she fell pregnant to the old bastard, who'd taken advantage of her intellectual crush on him. She'd forgotten her pill and script, and he claimed he'd had the snip, and they began a secret relationship. When Kirsten told the professor, who was in his mid-fifties, she was pregnant, he denied it could be his and wanted nothing more to do with her and their unborn son, Leo. But he was the only man she was sleeping with. Unbeknownst to Kirsten, he was still married with a family back in The Netherlands, where he'd previously assured her he was long divorced.

Kirsten's dreams were thrown into chaos, and I was the one she turned to for advice, support and help, which I provided for her unconditionally over the years. After all, she'd regularly listened to my shit when I needed someone to talk to during Beatrix's and my dark days, and long afterwards. By the time Kirsten began to lean on me, I'd been a single father for a little while and so knew a thing or two about what she was going through. She quit her PhD and dream of becoming a particle physicist, completing a Graduate Diploma of Education instead, and becoming a maths and physics teacher like her mother and father.

As single parents who were also best friends, Kirsten and me spent more and more time in each other's company, and one day, when we were around twenty-four, I joked about 'our happy little family' and then how we should just stop mucking about and be the couple we'd kind of become, since we spent so much time together.

We were having lunch at the time, at a family friendly pub near the South Bank Parklands after taking our kids to the waterpark there, and six year-old Kim was helping one year-old Leo in a high-chair, spooning mash-potato into him, and us four looking everything like a happy family. Kirsten and I'd just clinked our schooner glasses together when I commented, and she initially laughed at my joke, almost spilling her beer, then saying we were practically a married couple anyway, so why not. We both laughed but after a few moments she went serious and told me it was something she'd occasionally wondered about, but was worried how I'd react if she brought it up with me.

Then and there we decided to give coupledom a go, agreeing if it seemed awkward or weird, we'd back off and go back to how we were. But we discovered we actually made a great couple, with hardly any real changes to our situation, except when we began sleeping together, where we were more than happy to discover we were compatible in the bedroom too. We knew we loved one another anyhow, being best of friends since forever, and we confessed our love easily and freely, with no doubts or inhibitions. It was truly fantastic. Within a few months we moved in together, and within a year we properly combined our little families by getting married. And when we were thirty, we intentionally combined our DNA, having a child together, Charlie.

The funny thing is, back when Kirsten and I were little kids, playing in her toy kitchen, making tea-parties for her dolls, we'd often said we'd marry each other one day, not understanding in the slightest what marriage entailed back then. We'd remained close friends all through primary and high school, but never dated. We'd joked about dating one another, sure, but we feared what our mother's would think if we didn't take it seriously enough, or if we broke up, because our Mum's were such close friends. But even they used to joke about us marrying one day, and they'd told everyone at our wedding reception how they'd discussed it many a time as we grew up, before showing cute photos of us playing together as children. We'd been part of one another's lives for our entire lives, and our mother's described our love as a fairy tale.

However, Kirsten and I will honestly admit we'd never experienced the intense, burning love and desire with one another, unlike what Beatrix and I experienced, but instead we've long had the deep love of best friends who'd do anything for one another. We work well together, being a natural team, and have a lot in common too. We're steady, where Kirsten's my rock and I know she'd say I was hers. I couldn't imagine life without her.

Thus, Kirsten knows me better than anyone, and consequently, she knows all about Beatrix's and my history, including all my feelings of intense burning love and heartbreak, because I've told her everything in explicit detail, many, many times in the past, back before we became a couple. And this is why Kirsten still sees the spark smouldering under the surface between Beatrix and me. A spark that's surely there, but one Beatrix and I know mustn't ignite. Because we're loyal to our respective partners and families, who we love completely...

...Fuck, things shouldn't be complicated...

The silence between Beatrix and me is borderline awkward, and I pick up my coffee and take a sip. It's lukewarm and tastes like shit, so I put it back down.

"This coffee's shit, ay?" she says, small talking again, unnecessarily so. But she's got a smirk now. Her gorgeous little smirk.

"Yeah. But what do ya expect from the airport?"

Beatrix smiles warmly. "Hey, Brett."

"Hey, Trix?"

"I know Kimmy's gonna be okay. I'm just being a worried mother, that's all."

"I know. She's your precious little girl and always will be." After a moment I pull my phone out, checking the time. "Hey, look, I have to get going. I'm taking Charlie to play with one of his school mates and hope to get back before Kirsten has to take Leo to his cricket match."

Beatrix nods at my mention of Kirsten. If they don't have a friendship anymore, there is some kind of understanding between the two. "Yeah, I have to get back too. Anyway, the airport carpark's gonna empty my bank account if we stay any longer methinks."

"I'll walk with you, since we're going the same way and all."

We walk back through the airport terminal; two anonymous people among thousands of travellers rushing about for flights, walking side by side, chatting about why Beatrix is taking time out from her music career. She tells me she needs a break and plans to concentrate on her art, which she's also made into a successful little side business over the years.

Despite our casual conversation, I'm always conscious when in her company we're two people who share an intense emotional connection that once upon a time flared so suddenly, unexpectedly, beautifully, wonderfully. And who'd created another human in the process. A wonderful, intelligent, smart, talented, beautiful human, who'd grown into an independent and confidant woman, and who was now on her way to Europe. It wasn't easy but it's been a privilege and I wouldn't have wanted it any other way.

"I'm parked up on level four," she tells me when we reach the carpark.

"I'm on two. I'll take the stairs."

We stand in front of the lifts and she looks at me for a moment and smiles. It's always a little awkward like this when we part. But we always hug, which fans the spark within, just a little. They're always decent hugs too; heart felt hugs. Bloody wonderful hugs. And this is what we do, give each other a proper goodbye hug. But not too long, the spark flaring a little in our hearts before we pull apart.

She says to me, "I'll see you back here in six weeks I s'pose."

I'd dearly love to tell her I look forward to seeing her, but I don't. Rather, I say, "I know you'll call me before then, worrying about Kimberly."

She chuckles. "You know me too well."

"Hey, Trix."

"Hey, Brett?"

"You take care."

"You too." She smiles warmly, slightly nodding her head. She hesitates, not turning to leave, and I see she wants to reach her hand out to me, and again my hand twitches, wanting to reach back. Wanting connection. But neither of us make the move. We have our families to return to. Then she turns, entering the lift, presses the button for level four and turns back to me, catching my eye, giving me a little wave and a half-smile as the lift door closes.

I'm conscious of my beating heart.

I take the stairs two at a time and find my Hilux. I sit in the driver's seat for a moment, pausing in thought and emotion, hands on the steering wheel, staring at the dashboard but going nowhere fast. I let out a sigh, nodding to myself, accepting we can't control everything. Accepting we've done well.

How did we get so old and so fucking responsible, I wonder with a sigh. Remember, no fucken regrets, Brett.

"Easier said than done, old mate," I whisper, answering my own thoughts.

Finally, with a little smile on my lips, I connect the Bluetooth of my phone to the ute's stereo, selecting a song from my Spotify playlist, then turn the volume up as I drive away.

A familiar guitar fading in, riffing, hi-hat cymbals kicking in lightly, base kick-drum beating now, then Dave Grohl's vocals, all combined and giving me goose-bumps.

Hello...I've waited here for you...Everlong...

By the time I'm out of the carpark, motoring along Airport Drive in the bright morning sun with my driver's side window down, I'm singing at the top of my voice. "...And I wonder...when I sing along with you, if everything could feel this real forever...if everything could ever be this good again...the only thing I'll ever ask of you, you've got to promise not to stop when I say when...she sang..."