"I am so sick of crapping over holes," I grumbled to Bailey as we walked into the bush together.

"You should poop at the rest stops," said Bailey, referencing the roadside toilet blocks that featured drop toilets.

"I can't crap on cue."

"Then stop bitching."

"Thanks for the understanding."

I walked away from Bailey, looking for somewhere bullant-free to squat. Bailey followed me. "Karla, are you okay?"

I wasn't. I was wobbly and irritable and empty. I hadn't pooped at the rest stops because I hadn't had anything to process. Even the complaining about toilets was just for show – I'd used disordered eating in the past to lose weight, so I knew that I had to keep up the pretence of eating or people would tell me, 'Oh, but you have to eat!'

If I eat, I don't lose weight. It wasn't fair, but that was the truth. 'Eating moderately' had never worked for me. I might not have gained weight, but I didn't lose any either. The only way to shed fat was to punish my body, to starve and purge, to hate myself enough to deny myself everything.

Oh, the irony. People saw a fat girl eating and they disapproved. Saw a fat girl starving herself, they objected. So the solution was to pretend I was eating healthily and in a way that society deemed appropriate, while secretly starving myself.

"I'm fine," was all I said to Bailey. I waved a roll of toilet paper at them. "Do you want to watch?"

"No, I just wanted to check in. I know I've been... absorbed lately."

Watching Bailey blush sent a warm blast through my cold heart. "How are things with Nev going?"

"They're amazing. I know the world has changed forever, and people have died, and I shouldn't feel good about it, but I do." They smiled, pure and smitten. "I've never been this happy before. I love her."

"Slow down, Bailes," I cautioned. "Get to know her."

"I do know her. I've spent years getting to know her – and now I know her in a different way."

"Biblically?" I asked, injecting innocence into my voice.

"Don't be uncouth," said Bailey, rolling their grey eyes to the swiftly darkening sky. "Yes, I'm getting to know her body, but we're talking, really talking. About our feelings and our fears and our hopes. And everything I find out, I want to know more."

Bailey plucked a flower growing from a vine entangled around a eucalyptus trunk, the bloom an almost-erotic purple. "And even crazier – she accepts me. She doesn't care about who I am or who I'm not – she just holds me. I trust her, like I've never trusted anyone before."

"Even me?" I didn't mean to be so needy, but Bailey and I had been close friends for so long, the idea they didn't trust me was awful.

Bailey replied, "It's not the same and you know it. I trust you as my friend – I trust her with my heart."

Trust. There was that word again. My vision started to cloud over, hunger and fatigue working hard to put me on my arse, so I quickly said, "I'm happy if you are, Bailey. Now, get out of here, because I don't trust that you'll ever be able to look me in the eyes again if you witness what I'm about to do." I lifted the toilet paper as a reminder of my supposedly imminent defecation.

Bailey slapped their long fingers over their eyes. "Okay, I'll see you back there. Have fun."

I waited until they were out of sight among the thick trees, then slumped to the ground, weak and shaky. The sky grew darker as I vagued out, and when I finally felt strong enough to push to my feet and make my way back to the campsite, it was night.

After meeting Farmer Paul on the road, we'd decided to camp away from the freeway along the riverbank. We'd found a thick patch of bush divided by a path that led through to an idyllic billabong campsite, so pristine and Australian with its tall trees and clear water, I felt a rush of Aussie pride.

My legs wobbly, I attempted to walk gracefully towards the campfire beside the river, hoping the flickering light would help obscure my unsteadiness.

As I collapsed gratefully to a log seat, Rueben glanced over. "You were gone a while."

"Timing my bowl movements?" I quipped.

He shook his head. "Just wanted to make sure you're okay."

"I'm fine." Swallowing back annoyance, I said, "Who can even tell what time it is? All we know now is dark and light."

Simon looked up. "It's 7:35."

"How do you know that?"

He raised the book he was reading, the title he'd stolen from the camping supplies store. "According to this, the sun sets at 6:56 at this time of year around here, and that was about forty minutes ago."

"Wow. Impressive."

He grinned as he lifted his arm and showed us his watch. "Also, this is self-winding."

"Omg." I threw an empty box of crackers at him.

Nev and Bailey were intertwined on a log on the other side of the fire, while Bella napped contentedly beside them. Rueben sat alone. "Where's Mischa?" I asked.

"Bed. She's knackered."

"I bet." In that moment, I wanted nothing more than to follow her example and go crawl into my tent, but I was owed a story and I planned to collect. "So, Simon... Who hurt you?"

I was trying to be funny, but it came out bitchy. Bailey frowned at me, but Simon just stood, saying, "If I'm going to tell this tale, no one get to be sober. Here."

He passed around a tequila bottle, and after a silent exchange of glances between the rest of us, everyone took a small swig. I barely allowed the liquid to touch my lips; tequila and an empty stomach were a bad mix, but I was more concerned about the caloric count of the alcohol.

Simon took the largest glug from the bottle neck, then wiped his lips. "The thing about my story, yeah, someone hurt me, but it's mostly about how I hurt everyone else."

"You know you don't have to share anything you're not comfortable with, right, Simon?" said Rueben gently.

"I know, mate, appreciate the words but this isn't the first time I've told my story. Every time I start at a new AA meeting, or a therapy group, or with a psychologist, I have to share. I've got it down to a fine art, actually."

The fire popped and I flinched, then berated myself for how jumpy I'd become. If this kept going, I'd end up with heart failure, and there weren't any working defibrillators left on the planet.

Simon said, "I married my high school girlfriend, the love of my life. I couldn't wait to start a family – I used to dream about a little girl and a little boy that looked like us, to love and raise. We were trying for a baby, or at least I thought we were, when I found out she was on the pill and hadn't told me. I confronted her, and she said she was leaving me."

"Why?" asked Nev.

"She'd been cheating on me with a guy she knew from work. His name was Simon too, if you can believe it." He chuckled bitterly. "When she told me, I said, 'Well, at least you didn't have to worry about calling out the wrong name in bed.' She left that night, and I went down a real dark tunnel.

"She married him, only a few months later. Next thing, she's pregnant. And then pregnant again. He got my family, my wife, my life. She took it all away from me and left me alone. I started driving past their house at night, just to look in, see how the kids were growing up, torturing myself."

His hands clenched. "She reported me to the cops for harassment, took out an order against me. I realised I had to get out of town so I left Perth and moved to Melbourne, but I couldn't fly away from the hurt and living in a new place was lonely.

"So, I started hanging out the pub, drinking every night. I met a bloke who got me into filming. I had nothing else to do with my time, so I started to make a name for myself as the man who'd work all hours, any location. My career took off, but every night I'd go back to my place and sit in the dark and drink until I fell asleep. Couldn't drop off without it, or I'd just lie there picturing my ex and her perfect family."

Somewhere behind me, there was a snap and a snuffle. I spun on my seat and peered into the darkness. "What?" asked Rueben.

"Nothing," I said, trying not to be paranoid. Stuff lives in the bush: wombats, echidnas, bats. Stop panicking.

Simon picked up the story. "One day, I was working with a production company and I got chatting with their secretary. She looked at bit like my ex, same dark hair, brown eyes, sharp chin. I asked her out for a drink and she said yes.

"Mary saved me." He smiled sadly. "For whatever she did later to me, in those months, she saved my life. We dated, she told me how her mum died when she was a teenager, and her grandad was getting on, and all he wanted was to hold a great-grandchild in her arms. I told her how I'd always wanted to have kids, I couldn't wait to be a dad. We were a perfect match, and two months later, she was pregnant."

In a weary tone, he said, "Everyone gave us grief about it. Too soon, you barely know each other. We ignored them. We were happy.

"Our first bub came along, Maisie, and she was bloody beautiful. I thought the sun shone out of that child, even when her nappy leaked or she spewed all over me."

In the dim light, his face was aglow, recalling his first born. "Alan was next, tiny little tacker, born too early, but we got him through. We were a family, and I wanted so much to stay happy."

"But I kept waking up at night, sweating and shaking. I'd get these nightmares about Mary leaving, just like my first wife, leaving me on my own." He shook the bottle. "So, I'd drink. I'd drink to go to sleep, and I'd drink when I woke up. I functioned – I was good at my job, played with my kids, helped around the house, but I couldn't do it sober or my brain would start to yell all this garbage at me and I couldn't think straight."

While he spoke, I let my gaze drift over to Rueben. Dammit. I still found him attractive. I'd hoped that might have faded, but something still thrummed low and insistent inside me when his eyes locked on mine. I held his stare for a moment, then turned back to Simon. "Mary didn't like you drinking?"

"She never said anything. I thought I was doing a pretty good job of hiding it – I got pulled over by the coppers once after I'd just finished off a bucket of beers at a work lunch, and I blew 0.0. I'm a machine, I remember thinking. That my body could just process the grog, that I was a better drinker than everyone else, and that I could maybe even drink more and it would be fine.

"It was winter when the kids were eight and ten, and Mary had gone interstate to visit her cousin. Without her around, I let myself go, drank a bit more than I normally did." He caught himself, corrected. "Nah, not a bit more. I wrote myself off. It felt great, for the first time in years, to not be scared or sad. Then I ran out of grog."

His jaw locked in pain, Simon paused. "I adored my kids. I would never have hurt them, so what I did, I did because I was stupid, not because I didn't love them. They weren't old enough to be left alone, and it was nearly nine at night, too late to ask someone else to come by and sit with them. The bottle shop closed at nine, and I was desperate, so I threw them both in the car and told them we were going for ice cream."

"That's the last thing I remember from that night. I woke up two days later in hospital with a broken nose, head trauma, and the police standing over me." His eyes closed, a barrier against the memory. "They told me I'd had an accident. I started crying, screaming. 'What about my kids? Are they okay?' It was the worst moment of my life. I thought I'd killed them, that's why the coppers were there. They had to sedate me or I'd split my stitches."

"Were... Were the kids alive?" Bailey asked the question.

"Yeah. No thanks to me. Alan's arm was broken, and Maisie... She got this big scar on her face where she hit the dash." Tears dripped down his pitted cheeks and into his thick beard.

"Simon... I'm so sorry." I wasn't sure what else to say. I couldn't say it wasn't his fault because it was.

"Mary came to the hospital the next day. The cops had already laid charges by then, and I was looking at jail time. When I saw my wife, I honestly thought she'd come to save me again." He wiped his face and sniffed roughly. "It didn't go down that way."

"What happened?"

"She said that she was done. I begged, pleaded, cried. She didn't budge. 'One mistake,' I said. 'I've been a good husband, a good father, a good provider.' Her face was like a mask, as if I hadn't spent a decade with her and she was just saying goodbye to a stranger.

"She took the kids, moved into her grandfather's place. I wasn't allowed to see them because of the accident. A judge said that if I wanted to see them again, I'd have to get sober first. So I did."

My eyebrows raised reflexively. I'd only ever known Simon as perpetually intoxicated.

"I went to groups, to AA, sat in church basements, had a shrink tell me all about how I was narcissistic and self-sabotaging. For six months, I was dry. I was suicidal, suffering from extreme insomnia, but I was sober.

"The judge signed me off for a supervised visit – supervised. I couldn't even see my kids without someone watching. God, the shame just about ended me. Mary wasn't going to agree, but I wrote to her that my court date was coming up and I'd probably go to jail. It might be my last chance to see them for god knows how long."

He swallowed, shameful. "We met at a playground, and the court-mandated supervisor had to just about drag them out of the car. They didn't want to see me. Alan, he was scared, just cried the whole time, and Maisie... The scar hadn't healed well. I'd never thought a kid could be so angry, but she gave it to me. Told me she wished I'd died that day. Said she never wanted to see me again. Said I'd ruined her face and her life. So that was that."

The fire crackled, filling in the silence that had fallen over us. "What happened?" asked Bailey. "Did you go to jail?"

"No, I got a suspended sentence. Although it didn't seem like a good thing at the time. I wanted to be punished. I deserved it. I moved to Sydney, worked, started drinking again. There didn't seem to be much of a point in staying sober. I never drove a car again."

"Did you try and see your kids again?" Nev's voice was soft, and I saw that she was crying silently.

"Not really. Mary told me if I tried to see them, she'd have me charged, but I sent them money, Christmas presents, birthday gifts. I'd make videos of myself to send them, about my life, what I was filming, where I was staying. I don't know if she ever showed them. When Maisie graduated high school, I wrote and asked if I could attend, but no one answered. I flew down to Melbourne, stood behind a tree and watched her cross the stage like a stalker. She... She still had the scar. I left before anyone saw me.

"A few years ago, Alan rocked up on my doorstep." Simon's face twisted in grief. "I didn't know he was coming, and I was drunk as a skunk. He took one look at me and left. Said he'd hoped after ten years, I might have changed, but he was better off with no dad, than an alco dad."

"Oh, Simon..." I wanted to hug him, but he'd never been much for cuddles. I crossed and sat near him on his log.

He sniffed again. "I didn't tell you all this because I want your pity. I told you this so you'd understand. Trust is precious. My first wife broke my trust, I broke the trust of Mary and the kids, but worst of all, I don't trust myself anymore.

"But I do trust you lot." He nodded at each of us in turn. "Yeah, I still drink, yeah, I'm a waste of a human, but I've never stopped loving my kids, and I trust you people. We are a family. Not a normal family, but family nonetheless."

Bailey sat on his other side, and Nev stood behind Simon. Rueben edged closer, keeping several noted inches between us. Simultaneously, we all leaned in and hugged him. "We love you, Simon," said Bailey, their voice thick with tears.

He grunted, overwhelmed. When we pulled apart, I asked, "Do you know where your daughter and son live in Melbourne? Maybe you can visit while we're there?"

"They're probably at their mother's place. Mary inherited her grandfather's house, a big property at St Kilda. Hard to miss, just across the road from Lunar Park and the beach, big purple joint with gargoyles on the gates."

"St Kilda? That's really close to Port Melbourne!" I started to get excited but Simon waved me down.

"My kids think I'm a waste. I'm not going to hassle them into seeing me to try and convince them of anything different."

I opened my mouth to protest, but Bailey shot me a look and I realised this wasn't my call to make. "I trust you with my life, Simon," I said, laying a hand on his back. "Thanks for sharing."

"For what it's worth," said Rueben, standing and moving back to his log, "I think it sounds like you had a bad run with therapists. You don't seem narcissistic to me, and I think some decent cognitive behavioural therapy would help with your feelings of shame and abandonment."

I raised my eyebrows quizzically. "You sound like a shrink yourself."

"That's because I am. I'm a qualified psychologist."

"Wait, no you're not." My brain raced and reviewed everything he'd ever told me. "You said you're not a doctor."

"I said I wasn't a GP."

"You're an executive – not a therapist."

"I'm an organisational psychologist," he said, a smile tugging at his lips. "I use psychological principles and research methods to solve problems in the workplace. I don't practice or see patients anymore, but I'm still qualified."

Flummoxed, I drank from my water bottle, trying to analyse what this new information meant, if anything.

"What?" Rueben asked.

"Well, you haven't lied to us exactly, but it doesn't feel like you've been honest."

"None of you ever asked about my uni degree." Defensively, he said, "I don't talk about being a psychologist because once people know, they worry that you're always analysing them."

"Are you?"

"Sometimes," he admitted. "Simon, I can't treat you, but I'm happy to chat anytime."

"Thanks, mate," said Simon gruffly.

Nev wondered out loud, "Hey, do you know much about bipolar? My cousin was diagnosed last year, and I have no idea what it even means."

"Your Queensland cousin or the Frankston cousin?" asked Bailey.

"One of the Geelong cousins, actually."

The conversation wandered off into different directions, and I wandered off to bed without saying goodnight, unable to put my finger on why I felt so unsettled.

Chapter question: your partner drives drunk with your children in the car and nearly kills them - do you forgive them?