Gina and Gab still weren’t talking. Since the blow up when Gab had said she was leaving, Gina had refused to even acknowledge her. Gab actually found it a relief. She didn’t have to put up with Gina’s wheedling, her put-downs, her whining. When one of Gab’s applications for a shared apartment was accepted, it all became so real. The countdown was on. While Gab was nervous as anything, she was also so ready that nothing could stop her. She threw herself into her final months of work at the supermarket, picking up extra shifts to bump up her savings and working as much as she could over the Christmas and New Year period.

Jack cried when Gab told him that she was leaving. She assured him she would call him often, and Brian promised he’d drive Jack down to visit Gab in Melbourne. Jack was mollified by this, and adapted to the idea quickly, after the initial shock.

The evening in mid-February before she left, she rode around to Mr. C’s place to say goodbye. She’d seen him regularly throughout the year, usually at the checkout at work. Once, he’d invited her to come and talk to his current Year 12 students, giving them top maths study tips and exam preparation ideas. And a few weeks ago, Mr. C. and his wife Melinda had invited Gab around for dinner. Gab was simultaneously terrified and chuffed.

It was bizarre and intriguing seeing Mr. C. at home with his family. Gab had seen them all together before around town and at school events like the fundraising fair. But this was different. It was home.

James and Melinda Cheng had two young children, Libby and Tyler, aged five and three. Watching Mr. C. interact with his children thoughtfully, lovingly, attentively, wakened something inside Gab that she didn’t know was there. Riding home, she felt sadder than ever in her life before. She had seen something entirely new, and it brought on a deep existential pain that began somewhere just under her heart and flowed into every limb and extremity. There was a jealous grief mingled with pain; jealousy, that those children had got Mr. C. as their father, and that she hadn’t. She would have given anything to be them and not her. She tried quickly to bat that illogical, embarrassing feeling away. But it very quickly seemed to have intertwined itself with every fibre and cell of her body, as a deep, heavy longing. She couldn’t notfeel it, unless she blocked it out and went into numb-mode. Yet something about this feeling repelled the numbness, the numbness that had always been Gab’s retreat. She was waking up. And the intense pain also showed her that she was alive, that she was there somewhere after all, hidden underneath all the mess and tangle of getting through daily life with its perpetual dramas. She cared.

On the morning of her move to Melbourne, Gab knocked on the Cheng’s front door with a fluttering heart. Mr. C. was so pleased to see her take up the opportunity. He didn’t let on how much. He didn’t want to crowd Gab or intrude. Nevertheless, when he opened the door, he heartily wished her every good thing, reminding her that if she ever wanted to check in, he was only a phone call away. He’d watched her grow from a timid, acquiescent eleven-year-old, to a deeply aspirational, sensitive adult. He told her this, and he told her he was proud of her. Gab left feeling like she had been filled to overflowing with something light and warm and energising—as though she had been filled with something like life. For a few moments, it banished all second-guessing and fear.

Gab rode home and finished loading up the car with Tony. It didn’t take long. When she bade goodbye to Gina, her mother hardly blinked. Gab might as well have been off to work. But that was okay, Gab thought. She preferred that to a grovelling, wailing mess of a mother. After a phone call with Jack and Brian, Gab left with the strangest bag of mixed feelings swirling within her.