When I woke up the next morning, it was light and Rueben was gone. Logically I knew that he would have to steal back to his own bed at some stage to be there for Mischa, but my emotional state was as precarious as a glass teetering on the edge of a table, and logic didn't help the sting of being left alone.

The day was bright and clear and hopeful, everything I didn't feel. Easing out of bed, I pulled on my clothes and decided to walk barefoot to give my aching boot toes a break. Plus my scant collection of socks was currently hanging in a limp wet row outside the cabin, their tortured shapes flapping pitifully in the cheeky morning breeze as I stepped out into the sun.

Camp was serene and I left everyone to their sleep-ins, needing some quiet time myself. The concrete paths were smooth and warm beneath my soles, and I padded my way down to the lake edge where the path meandered away from camp and followed the pink curve south. I walked for an hour, trying to digest everything from the night before: reliving those days with Dom, Rueben's words about coercive control, everyone's agreement that my relationship had been unhealthy.

It hadn't felt unhealthy though, not at the time. It felt dramatic, sure, but I'd been trained by a generation of rom-coms starring women with cute names like Drew and Cameron and Kate that all relationships were meant to be filled with drama and theatrics. As I walked, I tried something new and took myself and my feelings out of my own history and summarised what I'd had with Dom in logical statements.

He put her down constantly.

He made her feel ashamed.

He wanted her to always be there for him, but never returned the favour.

He never let her meet his family and friends.

He left her.

I hadn't even touched on the pregnancy, but I could already tell that if someone, say Nev, had come to me and told me their relationship looked like this, I would have told her to run a mile. So why was it so much harder to do that for myself?

Because of love. I'd loved Dom, believed I could fix him, believed I could fix myself so he'd want me. And I wasn't wrong, was I? People were capable of change. People deserved second chances.

"That's a big frown."

Simon's voice cut through my thoughts, and I glanced up a nearby hill to see the big bearded man sitting on a bench. "I'm working some stuff through," I said, tramping up the side of the small rise and parking myself next to him.

We sat in silence for a while. The lake view was spectacular, with the sun dancing on the pink crystal surface, the rolling mountains in the distance a perfect frame for the pastels. I squinted in the sun and cast my gaze over to Simon, unnerved to see his face greasy and pallid. He'd lost weight in the last week (lucky. my automatic thought) but not in a good way. His skin hung from his bones in heavy flaps, the hollows of his cheekbones enviable only to skeletons and the heroin chic set.

It's not the grog, I realised in horror. "Simon, what have you got?"

He didn't try to pretend not to know what I was asking. Stoically he said, "Liver cancer. Well, it's probably spread a bit by now, but that's what it started as."

"How bad?"

"Bad."

"How long?"

"A couple of months."

"Fuck." We both fell quiet again, the sounds of the bush a background track to this new development, the rustling of the leaves and the calling bird songs filling the space.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be, mate. You drink the way I do, liver cancer is pretty much expected."

"Is there anything they can do?"

"No. There's a lot of maybes – maybe if they'd caught it earlier, maybe if I had any family who could donate a lobe, maybe if the goddamn world hadn't ended – but nah, the best I can hope for now is to go out without too much pain."

"Thank you for telling me," I said, placing a hand on his shoulder. My tears had started and I let them run, vaguely wondering if one could lose water weight through crying. "Can I do anything?"

"Don't tell Neveah. She won't cope."

"She'll be pissed when she finds out later."

"You can deal with her."

"Okay."

He sighed, but in a contented fashion, not like a man who wasn't likely to see in the new year. "This is nice. This whole road trip, it's the most fun I've had in a long time. It's a grand old adventure to go out on."

"We're not trying to destroy a ring, but I would have watched the movie version. Boars and booze and bogans."

"Chookies and smashed teeth."

"Wild Combi rides and being held at gunpoint."

"We'd give those furry hobbit buggers a run for their money."

"I'm glad you came." I stumbled over a thought as I wracked my brain for positives. "Hey, you know that we can go and visit you kids when we get to Melbourne. I bet they'd want a chance to say goodbye."

"Nah. Best to let all that go, love. They wouldn't forgive me, and finding out that the bottle got me in the end, well, it would be all the more reason for them to hate me and for their mother to have been right all along."

"But it could be resolution for all of you. The right ending, even if its not a happy one."

He shook his head slowly. "No. The most I want from the rest of my days is to drink some homemade cider in the Tassie hills."

The unfairness of it all caught me by the throat. "There has to be more than that, Simon. What can we do? What do you wish for?"

He chuckled. "I'm a bit old for wishes, Karla. Actually... Yeah, nah, don't worry about it."

"What?" Whatever he said, I was ready to make it happen – no matter if we didn't have electricity or money and we were stuck in the middle of nowhere.

"I wanted to do something really heroic before I shuffled off this mortal coil. Save a life or something grand, the kind of act that bards will sing about on their guitars around campfires in years to come when everyone had gotten sick of that Despacito song finally."

Visions filled my head of strategically pushing Nev out of a well-placed tree into his waiting arms. "Well, we're not in Tassie yet. I'll keep my eyes open for hero moments."

We watched a series of cumulous clouds crawl over the sky, casting rotund shadows on the lake's fuchsia surface. "Do you think we can stay another night here?" asked Simon. "I'm not actually feeling that terrific today, and sleeping in a bed last night was as close to heaven as I'll probably ever get."

"Of course."

"Plus it's beautiful here. I reckon that no matter what happens next, I could do worse than to close my eyes for the last time and picture this place."

I rested my head on his shoulder, unable to speak or I would surely sob. The tears in my eyes blurred the pink of the lake and the dusky green of the mountains into the burning blue of the sky, a watercolour of pain and beauty, made just for us.

No one questioned me when I suggested staying another night. Nev and Bailey seemed suspiciously chummy, content to put their fight on pause until they reached Melbourne and choices had to be made. Chookie, Bella and Mish were all enjoying the chance to stretch their legs, and Rueben caught me alone by the showers, saying, "I asked if Nev and Mischa wanted to have a sleepover together tonight. I thought we could have a sleepover too..."

"Yes. Please..." I murmured as he kissed the bare skin of my neck. Between the dredging up of Dom drama, the reveal of Simon's secret, and my own upcoming choice about Dean, I wanted something simple: night in Rueben's arms.

The day was idyllic; we couldn't swim in the pink lake because it was too shallow, but Bailey found a nearby dam on the map. The hours passed pleasantly as we splashed and played in the warm water, pausing for snacks and swigs of beer and wine. I wore a tee shirt over my underwear, feeling okay about my bare legs as long as my wobbly stomach was covered, and for once the sight of Nev's flawless body clad only in a skimpy tank and Brazilian bikini bottoms didn't fill me with rage or anguish.

I floated on my back at one stage, letting the dappled sunshine warm my exposed skin. Mischa swam over. "How do you do that?"

"This?" I grinned. "Here, I'll show you. Lay back – don't worry, I've got you."

With the complete trust that only kids can have in people, a trust that hasn't yet had time to be destroyed by the various assholes we meet on the road of life, Mischa flopped into my arms and I supported her head. "Okay, now take a deep breath – the air helps you float – and you have to think relaxing thoughts, so your body goes all floppy."

"Like what thoughts?"

"Like maybe about something you like doing, or a happy place. Something that makes you feel like everything is going to be okay."

Mischa's small face wrinkled, and I noticed she was developing adorable freckles from all our time in the sun. "I think now is pretty perfect."

I glanced around at my surroundings, feeling the squish of warm mud beneath my feet, seeing Simon resting contentedly in the sun with a beer, Nev and Bailey canoodling in the shallows, and Rueben standing next to a Tarzan rope on the shore, trying to tug the knot free from its hook, his broad shoulders flexing. "I think now is pretty perfect too."

As the sun began to dip behind the hills, Simon, Nev and Micha went hunting for mud crabs, while Rueben cooked a pot of rice. Bailey and I washed the last of the green veggies, and my non-binary bestie looked over at me with keen eyes. "Are you okay?"

"Yes and no," I answered honestly. "I'm processing a lot, but I feel alright, all things considered."

"You and Rueben, what's going on there?"

"I'm not sure yet. I like him, and I think he likes me too." My cheeks burned beneath their sun-warmed surface.

"Does that mean you're not going to take Dean back when you get to Tassie?"

The mention of his name threw me, and I dropped the bunch of spinach I'd been rinsing. "Not necessarily. Rueben and I don't have a future together."

"Neither do you and that asshat waiting at your parents' house."

A flood of frustration and defensiveness coursed along each of my limbs, hot and righteous. "Bailey, I know you don't understand my history properly with Dean-"

"Oh, I understand plenty. You're the one with no idea."

I swallowed heavily and tried to calm myself. "Bailey, can we please just leave this alone? This might be the last pleasant day we have together as a group before we get to Melbourne, and I don't want it ruined."

"You want to leave this alone because you know that I'm right. I'm not going to-"

"Bailes?" Nev's voice rang through the camp, excited and high. "Youse guys, come and look!"

I knew Bailey couldn't resist Nev, and they immediately dropped the conversation and the head of lettuce to dash over to Nev carrying a bucket of water containing a mix of freshwater crustaceans. Just as well. I was at my capacity for dealing with heavy topics; Bailey's assessment of my love life could wait.

The evening unspooled in an unhurried manner. We lit the fire and baked the crabs, eating salad and seafood from plastic plates, a low-carb meal even I couldn't feel guilty about. Simon produced a pack of Uno cards from a bag of scavenged board games, and we taught Mischa how to play while arguing loudly about the finer points of the rules.

Jenga came next; we stacked the oversized wooden blocks on a wobbly picnic table to add to the drama. As the pieces swayed and quivered, we danced around the table like pagans worshipping a shine, squealing and yelling in excitement whenever the stack collapsed. When Nev pulled off the impossible – whipping out a single centre piece without the tower falling – Bailey grabbed her around the waist and twirled her in a wild circle, the two lovers crowing in elations.

I suggested Monopoly next, but Bailey shot me down. "Family should never play Monopoly," they said sagely. "Things always turn ugly, someone always gets upset, and the board always gets flipped. You might as well slap everyone hard in the face and go to bed angry."

"Bailey, relax!" I confidently reached for the top hat. "Besides, we're not a family; we're a clan."

"What's the difference?" asked Nev. "I thought we were friends?"

Rolling two warm rosés deep, I saw the universe with perfect clarity. "Family are the people you're stuck with. Friends, you chose. We're something else. More than friends, thrown together by chance, but what we have is stronger than blood. We're a clan, and I love you guys."

"I love youse guys too!" Nev looped her surprisingly strong arms around Bailey and Simon, dragging them forwards for a group hug, and Rueben let himself be drawn into the circle by Mischa. We held each other, a tangle of arms and bodies, Bella yapping around our ankles, and a warmth that had nothing to do with wine unfurled in my chest.

After Nev and Mish disappeared to their cabin to begin their sleepover, debating which of the multiple bottles of nail polish that Nev was still lugging around they would paint their nails with, we began the epic game of Monopoly, which just as predicted, soon disintegrated into petty behaviour, autocratic land-lording, and a board flip that may or may not have been my doing.

With a final toast, my clan wandered off to their separate cabins, until only Rueben and I were left.

His gaze was keen. "How are you feeling after last night?"

To buy time before I answered, I drained my glass. "I'm okay. I... I'm not sure if I completely agree with how you all see my relationship, but I think I believe now that it wasn't my fault." That alone was a major paradigm shift. For years, I'd hated my belly rolls and bra overflow – in turn hated myself - because they were the root cause of all of the Dom trouble. Now, I felt released, lighter. My body was just my body – it hadn't driven him away. He just wasn't at a place where he could appreciate me.

And it made sense, in a way. Men were conditioned by years of watching nubile and slender porn actresses and teen movie stars – it wasn't their fault they only believed in one kind of beauty. Now, with that world dead and gone, a new beauty would arise, one where women would be prized for their strength, ingenuity and diplomacy. There was hope.

"Shall we?" I asked, bold and filled with need.

He rose from his chair, reaching for me. "I'm ready if you are."

"So ready."

We kissed there beside the bonfire, feeling the radiance of the flames lick against our sun-warmed skin, as a deeper, more urgent heat began to spread between us. My hands immediately reached for Rueben's fly, but he guided my hands back to his chest, subtly slowing me down.

"Take me to bed," I whispered, raking my nails softly down his back, watching him shudder at my touch.

We retreated to the cabin, the night cloaking us as we slipped through the watching trees. Something earthly and primal uncoiled in me, borne of the land beneath us, the awareness of our temporary existence, the sense that this new world demanded us to live as we'd only dared to before.

Inside the cabin, we lit candles, enough to see, not enough to feel exposed. In the dancing light, I was a vixen, delighting in the fullness of my hips, the curve of my breasts, the swell of my stomach. Rueben and I tumbled to the bed, where his kind eyes darkened with desire. "You promised me fifteen minutes," he said in a low voice.

"Give them to me."

Reflecting back, I couldn't have said if he gave me fifteen minutes or fifteen hours. We'd slipped into a timeless space, where clocks were irrelevant and only the sun and the moon kept time. Safe within the sturdy timber walls, I cried out his name, clutched at him, fisted my fingers in his hair as he brought me to the edge, and my new-found freedom sent me spinning over the top.

"My turn," I gasped, still shuddering and shaking, but needing infinitely more.

"No one is keeping score, Karla."

"It's not about keeping score," I replied, meaning what I said for the first time in my sexual history. "It's about what I want."

We spent the rest of the night in happy abandon; skin and scent, touch and tenderness, our energy intertwined as the night turned to day, and the kookaburras joyfully laughed us off to sleep.