Chapter 3
Harrison welcomed the burn in his muscles as he closed in on his seventeenth kilometre. The setting sun had lent an ethereal glow to the sky and he focused on the play of colours as he crested the final hill before gaining speed as he ran down the far side. For thirteen years he’d been wearing a path along the same street and this long descent had always been his favourite part. Plunging headlong down the steep footpath, the trees and houses rushing past him on either side. No matter how far he’d gone, he always felt an extra shot of adrenaline surge through his veins right here, where his legs seemed ready to launch him into the sky.
When he’d first started running, he imagined one day he’d go fast enough to leave himself behind. All memory of who he was. Where he’d come from. Everything that happened to him before he came to Australia. There were days when freedom seemed to beckon just out of reach, always a few more strides away.
He never had managed to outrun his past. But the exertion helped clear his head, if only because the physical pain it brought crowded everything else out. It made life bearable and, over the years, he’d learnt to let that be enough.
The footpath levelled out as he reached the bottom of the hill and slowed to a sedate jog. One more kilometre and he’d be at his aunty and uncle’s house. A quick check of his watch showed he’d made good time. He’d have more than half an hour to cool down and shower before dinner. He always kept a change of clothes in his old bedroom for days like this, when he knew the long run would be better for him than driving. His uncle never minded giving him a lift home.
Bypassing the front door, he let himself in through the side gate and headed straight for the backyard. His uncle, Jeff, was outside watering his beloved hydrangeas. The older man had always taken pride in his garden and Harrison had spent many a Sunday afternoon as a teenager helping him out here. He’d never developed the green thumb his uncle had, but contributing had helped him feel like less of a burden.
“It’s a bit hot to be running, isn’t it?” Jeff commented when he caught sight of him.
“You’re not wrong.” Pulling off his cap, Harrison ran one hand through his sweat-soaked hair. “But I had some excess energy to burn off.” Once he’d reached his uncle’s side he bent forward with his head down. “Would you mind?”
Jeff changed the setting on the hose to a steady stream and doused Harrison’s head with the cool water for a few seconds before turning it back to his plants.
Harrison shook the water from his hair as he stood up, grateful for the cool liquid running down the back of his neck. “Thanks.”
“How’s your week been?” Jeff asked.
“Green enough,” Harrison assured him. “Yours?”
“Same.”
He and his uncle had been using the same colour code since he was fourteen. Green, blue, red—each one associated with a different state of mind. It had made communicating easier at a time when doing so had seemed impossibly hard. Now it was mostly habit.
“The end of the school year is still a few months away,” Jeff continued, “but I’m up to here in marking.” He drew a line across his neck, as if the workload itself was threatening to behead him. “Christmas holidays can’t come fast enough.”
“Are the kids giving you hell?” Harrison asked, though he knew Jeff wouldn’t have it any other way. He’d always loved being a high school teacher.
“No, they’re fine.” Jeff shook his head. “After you, kiddo, I can take anything those kids throw at me. It’s the paperwork that’s going to bore me to death,” he said with an easy smile. “Now get inside and have a shower. You’re stinking up the place and I don’t want my plants to take fright and die.”
With a quick salute, Harrison headed into the house.
An hour later, they were sitting at the dinner table when Harrison noticed Aunty Celeste spying on him out of the corner of her eye. “I was chatting to Terry down at the butcher’s shop the other day,” she said, the picture of innocence as she scooped up the last forkful of peas from her plate. “You went to high school with his grandson, didn’t you?”
Harrison was saved from giving a real answer by the piece of steak he was chewing and responded with a simple nod.
“He’s been living in Canberra for the last few years with his boyfriend.” Excitement lit her face in a way only the juiciest of local gossip could manage. “Apparently, they broke up and he’s moved back down here to Melbourne.”
He’d swallowed now and would have to say something. “That’s nice.”
“Isn’t it?” She beamed with delight at his response. Maybe he should have been less enthusiastic, though he wasn’t sure how that was possible. “I thought you might want to give him a call to welcome him home. You could invite him out for a beer or something.”
“That could be awkward, since I don’t drink.”
She gave him an exasperated look that told him to quit being obtuse. “Order a lemonade. Buy him a beer.”
“I’m not sure it’s a good idea,” he told her. “We never got along at school.” Eddie had been a vicious bully who spat in his face and called him a fag when he came out in senior year, only to follow him out of the closet less than a year after graduation.
“High school was a long time ago,” Celeste reminded him. “People change as they get older.”
Harrison put his cutlery together on the plate and sat back in his chair. “I know. It’s just,” he tried to put it politely, “he’s not my type.”
“It might help if I knew whoisyour type,” Celeste said pointedly. “It’s been so long since you brought someone home to meet us, I have no idea anymore.”
Jeff snorted in amusement. “Your aunty’s sussed out every single, gay man within a fifty kilometre radius,” he said with a grin. “She’s determined to present you with a boyfriend for your next birthday.”
