Page 62 of Italy and Forever

He noticed her looking at her clothes, strewn on the floor by the door, and he collected them for her while she sipped from the glass.

‘Is this a request for me to go?’ she asked and he stared at her for a moment, finally hearing the hurt under that dry tone.

‘No,’ he answered. ‘I just thought you’d like your clothes.’

‘Oh, thank you.’

He swallowed and continued with the question he’d been weighing up asking. ‘Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?’

‘Ah,’ she said, her shoulders hunching. She picked up her bra, but set it down again with a frown.

Leaping up, he fetched his biggest, softest T-shirt and slipped it over her head, enjoying the way she tipped her face up in thanks.

‘I might not give this back,’ she said.

‘I was prepared to make that sacrifice before I gave it to you,’ he said as he lowered himself onto the edge of the bed, still not sure how much space she needed.

‘You’re really making me think I don’t know shit about men,’ she declared suddenly.

‘Well, you’re⁠—’

‘Young – I know. You keep reminding me. I’d think you were nearly ready for your seniors’ bus pass, the way you go on about eleven paltry years.’

‘It’s not just the years,’ he muttered.

He expected her to disagree, but she sighed. ‘Yeah, I’m beginning to get that.’

‘Hmm?’

‘Reshma is divorced. I didn’t know.’

‘That would explain a bit about her relationship with Will,’ he answered thoughtfully.

‘Her “situationship”,’ Ginny said drily, but something made her smile fade almost as soon as it blossomed. ‘We’re all frauds. Toni said we’re just as bad as the team at Great Heart and I’m struggling to disagree.’

‘But… there’s still you.’

She threw up her arms and shifted on the bed. ‘Oh yes, silly Ginny with her shiny ideas about love. I’m starting to realise that’s all they were: ideas. I was setting myself up to fail, by disconnecting what I wanted from reality. I think that bloody hypnotherapist was right. I’m scared no one will love me, so I created this complex delusion that would give me a convenient excuse for relationships that continually fail to make it out of infancy.’

He wanted to contradict her, but he remembered too well what she’d told him about her parents. That kind of trauma couldn’t be undone with a platitude.

‘I’m the worst of us all, pretending all this time.’

‘Ginny, I don’t believe⁠—’

She skewered him with a sharp look before he could finish. ‘Even you’ve actually loved someone before.’

He stilled, staring into his lap, chastising himself for not accepting earlier that this conversation was inevitable and he should just prepare an explanation.

‘You did love her, right? Your ex? I mean, before you… called it all off. It wouldn’t be so difficult for you to talk about it otherwise, right?’

‘I never planned to marry her,’ he said, worried by that gaze of hers that saw too much.

‘That part I know. Kira has a bigger mouth than she thinks. You were “partners”. You know in Australia, they have legal recognition of relationships like that. It sort of gives the same legal status as being married.’

‘Access to family law and inheritance without requiring the embarrassing public declarations of love and all the trumpets and confetti and the expensive meal?’

‘Are you making a statement about the modern-day role of marriage in society when I’m trying to get you to spill the truth about your ex?’