Prologue
I’d like to tell you a story about two lovers.
Now, before you go rolling your eyes, saying love stories are for sissies, I’ll also tell you that this story is about courage and learning to let go while putting other’s needs ahead of one’s own desires.
It’s about a boy and a girl who were raised side by side in the country, but didn’t find each other until they were in a big city.
It’s about coincidence. It’s about fate. It’s about choices. Discernment. But most of all, it’s about the power of undying love and promises of forever; because really, all the best stories are love stories, and all the great stories are about forevers. Even when sometimes, forever isn’t particularly long.
This story has already happened, so there’s no changing its outcome. Although, if anyone ever invents a time machine, they can sign me up. I want to live it over and over again, exactly the way it was. Because this story is about me and my golden boy . . . a boy who promised to find his way back to me. Forever.
SPRING, 2010
Chapter 1
HOW WOULD you spell the sound that spitting makes? Pttoohey? Tchoo? I could never work it out. But, it was a sound that caused my throat to constrict and my stomach to sour each time I heard it. So much so, that I’d close my eyes and turn my head as a revolted shudder ran through my body. It was a reaction I was unable to control, and on this particular day in my life, it was both the worst, and the best reaction I could have had…
Walking up the university’s pathway, there was a bounce to my step as I clutched my books and folder to my chest, inhaling the warmth of the aromatic October air. Spring had arrived, and I was ready to complete my degree in physiotherapy at Sydney University and embark on the next phase of my life—a phase that would see me helping people heal their bodies, instead of dealing with the sports-focused jocks who were walking ahead of me. They only cared about athletes and football stats. They drove me insane with their noise and competitive muscle flexing. But I wasn’t going to let them bother me, not when I was so close to donning that cap and gown and skipping off into the sunset to live my awesome life jock free.
Tchoo!
I knew it was probably one of the jocks responsible for that horridly disgusting and unnecessary abomination of a bodily function. Again, I reminded myself that I wouldn’t let them bother me. But, that dreaded sound turned my smile into a downward curve as bile rose up my throat. I closed my eyes, trying to control my visceral reaction by focusing on placing one foot in front of the other and pretending I wasn't disgusted to my very core.
As my foot hit the concrete, a soft squishiness beneath the sole of my favourite pair of ballet flats tilted me off balance, causing me to let out a yelp as I tipped forward. To save myself, my arms shot out, flinging my notes and books in a fluttering snowstorm of papers around me as I stumbled forward, my foot twisting, my shoe remaining stuck to the pavement. I went down like a sack of potatoes and landed on the hard concrete with a thump.
“Fucking arse!” I growled, as my nerve endings caught on fire where my knees had dragged along the rough ground.
Trying to right myself, things just got worse as pain radiated up my leg from my ankle. “Fuck my life.” I sat in the middle of the pathway with grazed knees and hands, a missing shoe, and a mess of paper around me. I was a very undignified Cinderella.
I held back a sob and ignored the sting pushing at the backs of my eyes as I tried to rectify my situation by reaching out to at least put my shoe back on. Then things just got worse.
“You can't be serious,” I moaned, as I lifted my shoe and dragged a long string of green gum along with it. Muttering to myself, I found a piece of blank paper in the mess and did my best to remove the offending goop, balling up the paper and adding it to the mess beside me. “Who the fuck spits gum on the pavement anyway?”
“Ah, that would be me,” a male voice said from beside me. “I'm so sorry. It’ll never happen again. I…I didn’t think.” I had a pretty good idea who it was and did my best to keep my head down and turned away from him. I’d avoided talking to him for this long. I didn’t want to ruin a perfect four years.
“Just leave me alone,” I said, hurrying to collect the papers around me so I could get away from him.
Leaning down to help, he tried to catch my eye. “Are you OK?”
Fighting back tears of anger, frustration and humiliation, I shook my head. “Of course I’m not OK. Just leave. You’ve done enough,” I responded, trying to pull the pages from his obscenely lovely hands. I always hated that about Tyler Lohan. No matter where he was or what he was doing, he always looked perfect, right down to his lovely fingernails.
Those long lovely fingers of his pressed into the pages and refused to let go. For a moment, we engaged in a tug of war, and when he wouldn’t concede, I glanced up to meet his eyes. “Let go.”
He grinned, recognition in his ice-blue eyes. Although at this point, I didn’t know if it was because I was in the majority of his classes for the last four years, or if he actually remembered me from high school where we shared classes for six years, or primary school...Tyler Lohan had been part of my life for as long as I could remember. Oddly, I’d never been part of his. In fact, it’s possible this was the first time we’d ever made eye contact or even spoken to each other. You see, guys like Tyler were the golden boys of this world. They didn’t mix with the awkward girls like me who woke up looking like shit and actually had to work hard to get what they had in life—their looks included. We couldn’t all be born looking like GQ models. The tamed curls I sported to my shoulders came at a price that involved a lot of time and a lot of product. Not that Tyler would ever notice…
“I know you, don’t I?” he asked, tilting his head to the side. His eyes crinkled in his adorable way while his mouth turned up a little. I hated how good-looking he was, with his natural golden tan and fashionably messy, golden hair. He could have been the next Chris Hemsworth if he gave up sports science for acting.
“I doubt it.” I spoke with little feeling, seizing the opportunity to retrieve my papers from his hand.
His grip tightened. “No. I do know you. What’s your name, sweetheart?”
“It’s none of your business, because I’m not your sweetheart.” I tugged on the papers again.
“Let me help you,” he insisted, his voice soft with a hint of amusement as I rolled my eyes and released the pages into his care. By this point, I just wanted to get off the ground and get on with my day.
He collected the rest of my papers and handed them to me with a smile. “See, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” he asked, extending a long finger to tap a loose spiral curl that hung about my face.
I flinched out of his reach and slapped the papers on top of my books before I tucked them under my arm. “You have no idea,” I replied with a roll of my eyes as I planted my feet and forced myself to stand.
Huge mistake.
"Holy cra—" Sharp pain sliced through my ankle and sent spots floating through my vision. I stumbled, almost releasing my papers and books again, but managing to maintain my balance thanks to a strong set of hands reaching out to grip my waist.
"Whoa, steady. Where does it hurt?" he asked, peering down from his great height, concern in his eyes.
"I’m fine," I lied, putting my weight on my injured foot. I winced again, but managed to grit my teeth and take a few tentative steps away from him.
“See? I’m just awesome,” I forced out, my voice shaking from the pain.
"No. You're not fine. You're limping. You're also walking away without your shoe."
Realising he was right, I stopped hobbling and turned towards him, reaching out to snatch my shoe from his hand.
"Thank you," I quipped, dropping it onto the pavement and trying to slide my foot into it.
"It won't fit," he pointed out, moving to crouch in front of me to inspect the elephant’s foot that had decided to attach itself where my foot should be. "It’s blown up like a balloon. It could be broken."
"It's fine,” I insisted.
“No. It’s not. Let me take you to the hospital to get an X-ray.”
“I have to get to class.”
He grinned but shook his head. “What you have to do is quit being so stubborn. I’m taking you to the hospital.” Without asking for permission, he leaned down and scooped me into his arms.
“Put me down, you oaf!” I hit at his chest and complained until my ears hurt from listening to my shrieking. Not one person on that university campus came to my rescue either. Not even my best friend, Janesa, who just stood by while Tyler carried me away like a Neanderthal.
“Watch your head,” the Neanderthal said as he inserted me into the passenger side of his black Navara, a petrol guzzler that was almost the size of a truck and could probably fit my Ford Ka in its tray.
“You’re an arsehole, by the way.” I scowled and folded my arms across my chest as he carefully guided my injured leg into his fancy-looking Ute. But he just smiled and went to close the door before he stopped and looked into my eyes.
“You’re wrong, you know.”
“About what? You being an arsehole?”
He shook his head; that bloody amused smile still quirking his lips. “No, although the arsehole part is debatable. You’re wrong, because I do know you. You’re Sarah Kennedy. I’ve known you all my life.”
Chapter 2
IT’S FUNNY how you can go through life, thinking and feeling completely invisible to those around you then one thing happens that lets you know that you have, and always will be, completely visible—the invisibility you experienced was entirely in your head.
That’s how I felt while Tyler drove me the short distance from Sydney Uni to the emergency room at the Royal Prince Alfred. It only took about a minute of actual driving, but finding parking was a whole other story, and in that time, he managed to regale me with a series of stories from our school years that involved me.
“I’m surprised you even knew who I was,” I said after a while.
He glanced my way, a frown creasing his brow. “It was a country school, Sarah. Everyone knew everyone. Although, I admit, it wasn’t until today that I realised you were you. I mean, you look kind of different to the Sarah at Moama Grammar.”
I ran my hand over my thick chocolate-brown curls. “That’s because I’m not the same Sarah from school.”
Tyler and I grew up in a town called Moama in country New South Wales. It’s about eight hours away from Sydney and sits along the border of our neighbouring state Victoria. We grew up on farms. My parents own a share in one of the large dairy farm conglomerates, and his run cattle. They personally own a heap of cattle stations all around the country, and are therefore filthy rich farming royalty. While others struggled, his family laughed, counting their bags of money. That’s not saying my family was ever poor, we just weren’t rolling in it. My parents worked hard to make sure they could help me enough so I wouldn’t have to work while I focused on my studies.
Growing up in a country town was exactly as you’d imagine—boring—and while Tyler seemed to flourish because he was great at sports and was the most popular boy in school, I didn’t flourish at all.
I hated every shovelful of manure and every bucket of feed. I hated going to a school that seemed to celebrate football achievements over academic greatness. Above all, I hated the country mentality. The slow pace, the dirt under our nails. It felt stagnant, and I longed for a life in a big city.
We were closer to Melbourne than we were to Sydney. It was only a couple of hours drive away, so those at our school who went on to university, generally applied down there. But Melbourne wasn’t enough in my eyes. I wanted to go to the biggest city our country had to offer. That’s why, when it was time to leave high school and apply for university, I listed those in the Sydney area as my preferences.
When I was accepted into Sydney University, my mother cried, and while I felt bad for upsetting her, inside I was overjoyed. I was finally getting out of there. I was finally going somewhere that I could just be me—just Sarah, instead of my father’s awkward daughter or my brother’s nerdy sister. I was heading into the city to become the best Sarah Kennedy I could be. And that’s what I did. I shed the old Sarah and primped and preened until I was a glossy new version of myself who could leave everything about boring, old Moama behind.
The last thing I expected on my first day was to walk in and see Tyler Lohan sitting there, chatting away with a group of guys he probably only just met. That was the thing about Tyler, he fit in anywhere without trying. Life was always so damn easy for him. Seeing him there pissed me off. I didn’t want Moama’s golden boy dominating the sunshine in Sydney too. His presence made me feel as though I’d never be free, and that Moama was going to follow me everywhere I went.
But, when he lifted his head and his eyes brushed over me, he paused slightly then moved on as if I was of no consequence.
You’d think that would disappoint me, but it didn’t at all. Actually, it caused a huge smile to spread across my lips as I walked into the lecture hall and took a seat. You see, I’d gone to great lengths to leave that Sarah behind. I’d had my braces removed, traded in my glasses after getting laser eye surgery, and I’d learned how to tame my wild curls. In short, I grew up. I became…me. Tyler Lohan hadn’t given me the time of day from kindergarten to year twelve, so I knew he wouldn’t be any different at uni. I was free.
Kind of.
In reality, his presence still irked me. University was supposed to be my world—my place to shine—yet Tyler quickly became ‘the man’…the guy everyone wanted. God, he was so fucking annoying. He was like a fucking movie star wherever he went, and it drove me nuts. Janesa believed my distaste of him was an obsession. That was wrong on so many levels. I guessed it was the fact that once again, chiselled abs and insane charisma ruled the world I’d tried to excel in. When would people get recognition for hard work? Excellent grades?
See? Not obsessed. I was just undervalued, under appreciated and…riddled with guilt because Tyler was also a reminder of what a shitty daughter I was.
Every time I looked his way, I was reminded of home and the fact that not only had I deserted my family, but I’d become a financial burden on them as well. My parents wanted me to stay and help run the farm the same way my brother did. But, I insisted on coming to Sydney and had cost them four years of rent, life expenses, and every other cost our government’s student assistance hadn’t covered. All to study a degree that would never pay them back or help them. They wanted the best for me, so had never said I couldn’t do it, but I knew in my heart that I’d disappointed them.
Got the picture? Shitty daughter. Me.
“Finally,” Tyler said, pulling into a parking spot in the hospital car park. “Stay where you are, I’ll help you out.”
“You don’t ha—”
“Stay.” He jumped out of the car and trotted around to my side. I was all set to get out on my own, but the moment I moved, the pain in my foot shot up my leg again, and I knew I needed help whether I wanted it or not.
“All right, sweetheart. Slide your arm around my neck, and I’ll carry you to the lift.”
“This is so humiliating,” I grumbled, doing as he asked, noting that he smelled as amazing as he looked. Of course he did.
His strong arms slid around my waist and beneath my thighs, lifting me from my seat before he shut the door with his knee. He moved with little effort, carrying me as if an extra sixty-five kilograms from a five-foot-nine woman was nothing on his frame. I did my best to hold on and prayed for this to be over quickly.
When we got to emergency, it looked just like any other hospital waiting area—grey-green linoleum on a concrete floor, cream-coloured walls with chips in the paint, and uncomfortable plastic chairs with that ever-present smell of antiseptic. Tyler sat me down then got the clipboard from reception I needed to fill in so I could be seen.
“Could you do me a favour and not tell anyone back home about this?” I asked as I scribbled out my details. “The last thing I need is for my parents to come up and drag me back there if it’s broken. I’ve managed to stay away from that place for four years, and I really don’t want to be forced back.”
“No problem. I don’t even talk to anyone back home, so there’s no real risk from me.”
“What? Not even your parents?” I asked.
“My parents are divorced,” he said simply, looking down at the palm of his hand and massaging it slightly.
“Whoa, I’m sorry. They always seemed so…” I stopped, not knowing if it was appropriate to comment on how in love his parents had seemed to be.
“I know.”
“What happened?” I blurted, mentally wincing the moment the question left my lips.
“Things just changed,” he said, looking away. “Mum lives about twenty minutes from here, so I see her all the time. Dad is still on the farm, I suppose.”
“You don’t talk to him?”
His features furrowed a little as he shook his head. “Like I said, things changed.”
Why is he so cagey?
I opened my mouth to say something, perhaps it was a sorry, or perhaps it was another stupid question—“Tyler?” His head swung toward the nurse walking our way. “Is everything OK?”
“Jess,” he exclaimed, practically jumping out of his seat so he could usher the pretty blonde away and talk to her privately. I rolled my eyes. Of course she’s all over Tyler. And him her.
I blatantly watched them interact, their heads bowed close together as Tyler spoke and she listened before they parted with a familiar embrace.
“Girlfriend of yours?” I asked, when he returned to sit beside me.
“Just a friend,” he stated, leaning forward with his elbows on his thighs.
“So um…how come you don’t talk to any of your old friends from high school?”
Looking over at me, he raised his brow. “Asks the girl who left town so fast the road caught fire behind her.”
A laugh escaped from within my chest. “You don’t even know that. I’ll give you that you knew my name from school, but you and I had absolutely nothing to do with each other. I don’t even think you spoke to me once in the entire thirteen years we we’re at school. So you have no idea how fast I got out of there.”
“I beg to differ. In the summer holidays before uni started, a bunch of us were at the river swimming and that friend of yours”—he paused and clicked his fingers a couple of times as he thought—“Erica. She was there with Johno, and she was saying that you took off the moment your acceptance letter turned up. And I did speak to you at school. I recall asking to borrow an eraser from you in the eighth grade in Mr Pratt’s class. You threw it at me then said you didn’t want something I’d touched back.”
“What?” I laughed at that last part. “No way I said that.”
“You bloody did. I probably still have that eraser in an old pencil case somewhere back home. It has your name on it.”
“Bullshit.” I smiled, shaking my head at his memory of me.
“I swear to you it’s the truth. I never asked to borrow something from you again.”
“Jeez, what a bitch. I’m so sorry, I don’t even remember doing that.”
He shrugged and gave me that brilliant smile of his. “It’s all good, and you weren’t a bitch, you were just different to everyone else.”
“I didn’t really fit in that well.”
“Looks like you fit in here just fine. I can’t believe I didn’t recognise you before today. Your hair is so different, and the glasses are gone.”
“Yeah, and the braces. I kind of left all that awkwardness behind me.”
“The whole reinvent yourself as a butterfly thing, huh?”
“Yeah, I suppose.”
“So, do you talk to anyone at all from back home?”
It was my turn to shrug and look down. “I do. I talk to Mum and Dad once a week. But, my brother isn’t really interested in me since I won’t be helping with the farm. And Mum and Dad are supportive and all, but I know they’d rather I was helping them too.”
“Why did you choose physiotherapy?”
“Because of my nan. She was in a lot of pain with her hip when she hurt it, and the physio made so much difference to her. I want to be someone who makes a difference I guess. Why did you choose it?”
“Because I think exercise and flexibility is the key to longevity, and I want to help people stay mobile for as long as possible.”
“I thought you were more into the sports sciences side of it?”
He shook his head and once again looked at his hand, massaging his palm. “No. I’m interested in peak fitness and all, but keeping athletes going like thoroughbred horses isn’t really my thing.”
“Huh. Just when you think you know someone, they surprise you.”
Shifting his gaze back to mine, he studied me for a moment. “Why haven’t you spoken to me this whole time?”
Lifting my shoulders, I shrugged. Mostly I was surprised. He didn’t look like the larger-than-life, attention-seeking arsehole I’d pegged him as. In fact, he looked a little…vulnerable, as if my dismissal of him had actually made a dent in his life. That can’t be further from the truth, surely. “I don’t know. You didn’t seem to recognise me, and we’ve never been friends so…”
His expression clouded before he sat back and let out a sigh. “Can I tell you something?”
“Of course.”
“I did know it was you. Before, and well, this whole time. I saw you on the first day of first year.”
“So you were lying to me just now?”
“I am an arsehole, remember?”
“You’re not an arsehole, Tyler. Arseholes don’t insist on helping people.” He turned to meet my gaze then dropped his eyes as he chewed his lip thoughtfully. “So, if you knew who I was, why haven’t you spoken to me this whole time?”
“Because I left Moama pretty fast too.”
“Did something happen? I mean, something more than your parents’ split?”
Standing, he stretched his arms above his head, and I couldn’t help but notice the little sliver of golden tan peak out between his T-shirt and navy cargo shorts. “Like I said, everything just…changed, and you, well, you remind me of before.”
I was about to respond, but he excused himself, saying he was going to find out what was taking so long. I simply nodded and thanked him, as I realised that despite appearances, we weren’t all that different. Moama held things we’d both needed to let go of. How many times had I thought ill of him for having such a perfect life? From the sounds of things, Tyler Lohan’s life hadn’t been idyllic at all. Guilt pulled at my insides. Appearances weren’t always what they first seemed.
