Walking the Line (11 page)

I’d never had that before. My parents
pretended like their only child didn’t exist. Too busy living an
A-list Hollywood lifestyle in their suck-up job as agents to the
stars.

Friends? Non-existent, discounting Mia, who
had lived next door until her dad quit professional tennis to open
his teaching academy in Santa Monica, and they’d moved. Mia had
been my rock for so long. And I’d almost lost her through my own
stupidity.

It had been the wake-up call I’d needed.

Time to stop drifting through life filled
with self-pity. Time to make a new start. Time to start living
again.

“Sorry,” Kye drawled, not sounding sorry in
the least as he sat next to Mia, his arm draped across her
shoulders as she snuggled into him. “So Dani, ready to find a hot
Aussie of your own Down Under?” He smirked. “Guys in Melbourne
won’t know what hits them when they get a squiz at you.”

“Squiz?” I wrinkled my nose. “I’m hoping
that’s a good thing.”

He chuckled. “Means a look at you.”

Mia tweaked his nose. “Isn’t he
adorable?”

I rolled my eyes. “You two are pathetic.”

“It’s luuuurv,” Kye said, holding Mia
tighter. “So how about it? Ready to take Melbourne by storm?”

“Academically, maybe.” Because that was my
number one priority. To make the most of the six months exchange
program I’d been offered at the prestigious Melbourne University
and start an Arts major. Thanks to Kye’s dad pulling strings at the
university, I had a chance at a new life. I wouldn’t screw it up
this time. “I can’t thank your dad enough for this
opportunity.”

“He’s the best.” The visible pride in Kye’s
eyes made me well up again. Wish I had parents who cared enough
about me to want to help my friends. “If you need anything while
you’re in Oz, don’t hesitate to ring him.”

I nodded. “That’s what he told me when I
Skyped him to say thanks for doing all this.”

“He’s a good guy.” Kye’s grin alerted me to
another of his typical teasing barbs. “Speaking of guys—”

“Not interested.” I held up my hand. “Even if
you’re personally acquainted with Jesse Spencer, Josh Helman and
Ryan Kwanten, I don’t care.” I placed a hand over my heart. “I’m
swearing off guys, even hot Aussie ones, for the next six
months.”

Mia gazed adoringly at Kye. “Never say never,
sweetie.” She pecked Kye on the cheek. “Trust me, there’s something
about Aussie guys that is irresistible.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” I said, meaning
it.

I’d spent the last three years hanging out
with the wrong guys, sleeping with some of them, getting wasted,
doing whatever it took to forget my fucked up life.

The next six months in Australia? My own
personal detox program.

No partying, no drinking, no drugs and no
men.

Mia, ever perceptive, must’ve picked up on
something in my expression, because she turned to Kye and said,
“I’d love an orange soda.”

“Coming right up.” He stood and glanced at
me. “Anything for you, Dani?”

I shook my head. “No thanks, I’m fine.”

Biggest lie ever.

“No worries, back in a sec.” He strolled
toward the monstrous kitchen that included a breakfast nook
complete with the latest video game consoles my dad loved. Kye
would be a while. Last time he’d been here and volunteered to get
us sodas, we’d found him playing some warrior shoot-out game an
hour later.

The moment he left the room, Mia fixed me
with a narrow-eyed stare. “You’re in a funk and it’s more than just
living overseas for six months.”

I sighed, wishing I could fob her off, but so
tired of living a lie let alone telling another. “I’m terrified
that even after doing all this, nothing will change and I’ll still
be the same screwed-up little girl screaming for attention.”

Voicing my greatest fear didn’t make me feel
better. It made me feel sick to my stomach.

Because it was true. What if after all this I
couldn’t change? I couldn’t forget? I couldn’t learn to live with
the mistakes of my past?

“Oh honey.” Mia leaped off the sofa to come
sit beside me on the floor. “You’re the bravest person I know.”

She took both my hands and wouldn’t let go
when I tried to extricate them. “It takes real guts to do what
you’re doing. Moving halfway across the world, making a start on a
college degree, changing your lifestyle.”

She squeezed my hands. “You’ve been through
hell and you’ve made it through. This is your chance. And I have no
doubt whatsoever you’ll make the most of every exciting new
minute.”

“Will you be resurrecting your old pom-poms
to go with that cheerleading routine?”

She laughed at my droll response. “You’re
going to be fine. Better than fine.” She released my hands to pull
me into a hug. “You’re going to kick some serious Aussie ass.”

Wish I had half her confidence because the
way I was feeling now? Like I was standing on a precipice, about to
go over the edge, with no safety net in sight.

Chapter 2

ASHTON

I knew Mum was having a bad day the moment I
neared her room and heard her grunts of frustration.

She’d always loved crossword puzzles but the
more her brain deteriorated, the harder it became for her to do the
simplest tasks, let alone find a three letter word for an
Australian native bird.

I’d almost reached the end of the long
corridor when a nurse laid a hand on my shoulder.

“Got a minute, Ashton?”

I stopped, turned and held my breath.
Whenever one of the nurses wanted to talk before I visited Mum, it
wasn’t good.

“Hey Pam. How are you?”

“Good, thanks.” The fifty-something redhead
had the kindest eyes I’d ever seen. Pale blue eyes that were
currently filled with concern. “But I wanted to have a quick word
with you today.”

The inevitable tension built in my temples
and I quashed the urge to rub them. “Mum’s okay?”

A pointless, dumb-arse question, considering
Mum hadn’t been okay in a long time. Not since I’d checked her into
this special accommodation home two years earlier because it had
become untenable to care for her at home.

The official diagnosis? Early onset dementia
courtesy of a long-term alcohol abuse problem.

My diagnosis? She’d partied too hard, done
too many drugs and drunk her life into oblivion to obscure whatever
demons dogged her as a washed-up B-grade actress.

I resented her lifestyle. I resented every
shitty thing that resulted in her being here at the age of
sixty-three.

“Judy had a rough night.” Pam hesitated,
before fixing me with a pitying stare. “She may not know you
today.”

Fuck.

We’d reached this stage already?

I’d been warned there’d be more days like
this. That as the dementia progressed, Mum’s memory would
deteriorate to the point she’d consider me a stranger.

I hadn’t expected it to happen so soon and no
way in hell I was prepared to handle it.

“Okay, thanks,” I said, hoping Pam didn’t
hear the hitch in my voice.

Not for the first time since Mum had been
diagnosed, I wanted to crumple in a heap on the floor and cry like
a baby. But considering I’d been the only man in this family for a
long time, losing my shit wasn’t an option.

I had to stand tall and do what had to be
done. And that included ensuring I made enough money to pay for
Mum’s bills. Something that was becoming increasingly difficult to
do as my commissions dried up.

I needed to keep painting. I needed to keep
tutoring at the university. And I needed to stop feeling like I was
an automaton, oblivious to everything but getting through each
day.

It was affecting my art, this emptiness
inside me. But I needed to quash emotions and stay cold inside
because if I started to feel again, I’d break down for sure.

Despite her lifestyle and her failings, Mum
had always done right by me. I had to do the same for her.

“You’re a good son.” Pam squeezed my arm.
“Come find me later if you have any questions or just want to talk,
okay?”

“Thanks.”

I knew I wouldn’t take Pam up on her offer. I
could barely hold my shit together when I left here after my
bi-weekly visits. No way could I face Pam’s kindness, especially if
Mum was as bad as expected today.

I took several deep breaths to clear the
buzzing in my head and waited until I could muster a halfway normal
expression, before knocking on Mum’s door and entering.

“How’s the crossword coming along?”

My heart twisted as her head lifted and our
gazes locked. Mine deliberately upbeat. Hers eerily blank.

“Who the fuck are you?”

And with those five words, I almost lost
it.

My hands shook so I stuffed them into my
jacket pockets as I cautiously crossed the room to sit in an
armchair opposite hers.

Keep it simple, the nurses had warned if this
happened. Don’t startle her or press her to remember. Be casual. As
for the swearing, aggression was a common reaction in progressive
dementia. But to hear the F bomb tumble from Mum’s lips was as
foreign to me as seeing her sitting in a pink toweling bathrobe at
five in the afternoon.

She’d always been glamorous, dressed to the
nines with perfect make-up from the time she rose to the time she
came home from whatever party she’d attended. Even as a kid, I had
memories of Mum’s vivid red lipstick and strawberry-scented shampoo
as she kissed me goodbye before heading to an audition, her high
heels clacking on our wooden floorboards as she left me in the care
of the teenager next door.

That glamorous woman was nowhere to be seen
now. Her blonde hair had faded to a washed out yellowy-grey. Her
brown eyes were ringed with lines and underscored by dark circles.
Her shoulders were shrunken, her back curved, her muscles flaccid
from lack of use.

My beautiful, exceptional mother was broken.
An empty shell.

And it killed me a little bit more every time
I visited.

“I’m Ashton,” I said, wishing I could
elaborate, wishing I could yell, ‘I’m your son. The one who wiped
the vomit off your face more times than I can count. Who found you
passed out on the floor and carried you to bed countless times over
the years. Who would do anything to have you back.’

But I said none of those things. Instead, I
swallowed my resentment—at the lifestyle that had put her here—and
forced a smile. “I see you’re a fan of crosswords.”

“Stupid bloody things.” She picked up the pen
she’d discarded and tapped it against the magazine. “Can you think
of a five letter word for a boy’s building toy?”

“Block,” I said, remembering the toy sets she
used to buy me when she scored a role.

I’d treasured every single one, taking my
time constructing the blocks into elaborate houses or fire-stations
or castles, knowing it could be a long time between jobs for
Mum.

Not that she didn’t try hard but she never
quite cracked it for a starring role. She’d got by with TV
commercials and bit parts in anything from soap operas to local
feature films.

Having me at forty had changed her life.

Roles were scarce for aging actresses,
especially pregnant ones. I often wondered if that had been the
start of her downward spiral. If she blamed me for ruining her
life.

If she did, she never showed it. Mum adored
me, loving me to the point of smothering. And even as she
deteriorated, partying harder to forget the fact she wasn’t working
much, I always came home to dinner on the table.

“Thanks.” She scrawled the letters into the
boxes, her hand shaky. “Could you help me do the rest?”

“Sure,” I said, taking care not to startle
her as I cautiously edged my chair next to hers. “I like
crosswords.”

Knowing I was pushing my luck, I added, “I
used to do them with my Mum.”

I waited, held my breath, hoping for some
sign she knew who I was.

“She must be a lucky lady to have a son like
you,” she said, her smile wobbly as she glanced at me with those
blank eyes that broke my heart.

“I’m the lucky one,” I said, as I settled in
to spend some time with my Mum, hoping I had the strength to do
this.

Because the way I was feeling now? As brittle
as tinder-dry bark, ready to snap and fly away on the slightest
breeze.

I had to be stronger. Strong enough for the
both of us.

Chapter 1

ANNABELLE

Being an Aussie studying in Denver was cool.
Unless your BFFs were dating hot Aussie guys and never let up on
your lack of a boyfriend.

“I don’t get it.” Mia handed me a champers,
as I thanked the gods I’d had the smarts to come to the States in
my final year of uni so I could drink legally at the ripe old age
of twenty-two. “You’ve been here a year, Annabelle, and you haven’t
hooked up.”

Dani snorted. “Not that I blame her. Half the
guys on this campus have a pole stuck so far up their asses they
can hardly walk.”

“Maybe she’s too picky?” Mia topped up Dani’s
glass. “She needs to lighten up.”

Dani sniggered. “And get laid.”

I sipped at my champagne, content to let Mia
and Dani debate my lack of male companionship. They’d been doing it
the last three weeks, ever since opening night of Ashton’s first
art show.

Dani never shut up about Ashton, her
sensitive-soul artist boyfriend. The fact she’d met him in
Melbourne, while staying in my flat, kinda irked a little. During
my three years doing a bachelor’s degree in physiotherapy at
Melbourne Uni, I’d never met a single guy I’d drool over the way
Dani did with Ash.

As for Mia, she was just as pathetic with
Kye, her sexy tennis jock boyfriend. With both guys being Aussie,
it merely exacerbated Mia and Dani’s relentless assessment of my
less than stellar love life.