“Can’t we just be good friends?” she’d said, batting her lashes.
“We’ll fucking see,” Byron muttered, as though he was planning a siege or something.
They took out a much smaller apartment on the north side of town. It was in a massive complex with a slime-green pool and a laundry room everyone avoided as much as possible. She and Byron had adopted a cat named Benson and had sex that, in hindsight, everyone around them could hear.
“Why do people keep putting party hats on our mailbox?” Byron asked.
“Littering?” Beth suggested.
Beth would have been happy to stay put in that place for at least a year, but two months after unpacking their forks, Byron’s assistant coaching career took off.
“Please don’t be mad at me,” he’d said, on literal bended knee. “But I’ve got an offer, and I think we need to move to Coopers Rest.”
As a podcaster—a job she was still too embarrassed to put on airline forms—Beth had zero reason to object. Besides, it was always cute when Byron begged.
“Whatever,” she said, tossing her hair over her shoulder. “You’re paying for the moving van, though.”
“Fine. Marry me?”
“No.”
A series of promotions had sent them on a merry roundabout across the state, first to regional towns and then into the heart of Perth. One team after another offered Byron more money, better hours, increased responsibility, and fancier titles.
It became a running joke between them. Whenever Beth saw Byron coming through the door with flowers, she’d start pulling out cardboard boxes. And then he would suggest they get married, and she’d tell him to shut up. Until one day, he’d arrived holding not only flowers but a small velvet box and a cream-coloured envelope.
“Are you having an affair?” Beth joked, petrified of what she knew was about to happen.
Byron didn’t dignify that with a response. “We’re done having this conversation. Marry me.”
The box contained a sapphire engagement ring, and inside the envelope were two first-class plane tickets that would take them to Yellowstone Park, the location of Beth’s secret dream wedding. A fact she’d only ever told her best friend, Dolly. And Dolly was there a week later when she and Byron got married under the trees, surrounded by a small group of friends. Mara and Derek Hardiman. Willow and his wife, Eden. The ceremony was officiated by Byron’s non-binary sister, Sal, who madeeveryone cry their eyes out and only said “Yee-haw, Pardner” twice.
Looking down at her sparkling sapphire ring was still surreal to Beth. Like she’d been allowed to plan her dream life.
A week after she and Byron got home from their honeymoon, she’d gotten her IUD taken out. Simon had been conceived the week after that. Apparently, her body wasn’t taking any chances that she’d change her mind. It had been an easy pregnancy for the most part. She’d worked, producing two other podcasts in addition to her fortnightly show with Dolly. She’d cooked, cleaned and gone to the gym. Had even helped Mara organise a kinky anniversary surprise for Derek. Her only doubt was the little voice whispering that she’d betrayed the woman she’d once been. The one who felt inadequate for not having a husband and a baby. The one who’d wanted to fight for women to be more than the expectations that cut through their lives like glass.
Beth hadn’t posted any social media photos of her wedding, but when Sal had—with permission—her inbox was flooded with congratulations. She hadn’t informed anyone she was pregnant, but when Dolly mentioned it in passing on the podcast, they received so many demands to talk about it that Beth caved. It was the most listened-to episode they’d ever recorded.
She’d achieved so much in her life; winning podcasting awards, doing voiceovers for national radio commercials, successfully getting Benson down from a massive tree when Byron was in Sydney for work—and she hadn’t received a fraction of the validation for any of those things that she’d gotten for marrying a man and carrying a kid.
“That’s life,” Sal told her. “People are stupid. But it’s, like, don’t let that stop you from doing what you want, hey?”
Sal, as usual, had a point.
And then Beth had had Simon. In the lead-up to giving birth, she’d been so stiff that she could barely move. Could barely lookat her naked body in the mirror either. The thought that it would soon be over, and she had a prayer of going back to normal afterward, was all that got her through.
“You’re beautiful,” Byron had said as he drove her to the hospital. “I’m in awe of you.”
“Don’t look me in the eyes! This is all your fucking fault, you stupid fucking penis-having fuck!”
“I love you, Beth.”
“Oh my fucking God, shut up!I’m dying!”
Thanks to her amazing midwives—and copious amounts of drugs—the birth was okay, but she had a few hours of existential pain before finally meeting her son. Her bright glowing star.
Then, it was all a haze of faces and congealed congratulations.
Her parents had flown to Perth from Auckland, and when her mother had leaned over, crushing Beth’s milk-filled boob and demanding to know why she wasn’t invited to the wedding, Byron had taken her mum by the elbow and quietly asked her to go get a coffee. At that moment, Beth had never felt so full of love for Byron and her baby boy. But that was her last happy moment for a long time.
