Read Online The Way It Never Was by Lucy Austin - Free Book Online Page A

might add – but with half a pint of tepid boxed wine inside of me, he seemed like a sex god. Okay, he still had that ponytail but surely that - and the kissing technique - was something I could work on, right?
    After that, Joe was all I thought about, day in day out. At work, I’d absent-mindedly make coffees for those wanting cold drinks and juices for people wanting smoothies. Bumbling my way through the day, I would count down the hours until I saw him back at the hostel, only for him to give me another kiss tasting of beer and fags, and regale me with funny stories about bungee jumps or skydiving that went on for hours. And that’s how it continued: Me, working my butt off at the café and cleaning the hostel at the weekends – him, with a daily routine that consisted of going to the beer garden at the pub, then coming back to the hostel via the kebab shop to see who had thrown a sickie that day.
    However, while I was busy asking people if they wanted sugar in their cappuccino, Joe seemed to be in no hurry to find work, as he was in between banking contracts and was waiting for a new one to start. I went along with it, suppressing my irritation at him only knowing the day of the week by the drinks deals at the bar, or telling me that money didn’t matter while sponging off the rest of us.
    In the months that we lived and worked in Sydney, I want to say that I made the most of memorable events and sightseeing, but to be honest I totally took it for granted. I figured there would always be another opportunity, another chance, another outing, so never mind New Year by the Opera House, coffee in The Rocks quarter, the Crowded House Concert or the ferry trip over to Watsons Bay. Even on sunny days, I was happy to stay in the hostel with Joe doing whatever he wanted to do, namely watching action films with lots of sequels, or sitting on the balcony and listening to him play over and over the same two rifts of ‘Free Falling’.
    Instead of taking my general apathy as a huge warning sign, with no one really knowing me that well to tell me off, I dared to go there, my attitude being, ‘see what happens’. Low and behold, I found myself completely and utterly infatuated. Quite frankly, I was miserable with it.
    Looking back, there were obvious warning signs that the relationship wasn’t really definable in any way shape or form and wasn’t based in reality. There were conversations, where under the influence of lukewarm chardonnay, I would offer to stay out there while he worked out his contract, only for him to immediately dismiss the idea as though it was the stupidest thing he’d ever heard.
    ‘Err, no Kate. My destiny is set, you know that,’ he’d say, employing this kind of Paolo Coelho speak that dominated every conversation at the hostel, what with that dog-eared copy of the The Alchemist that was making the rounds. This book prompted one and all to talk about ‘dreams’, ‘treasure’, ‘paths’ and ‘signs’ – or in my case, it made you interpret quotes about wanting things and the universe conspiring you to achieve it, as though it was personally aimed at you. It turns out the universe was doing no such thing.
    After a year of communal living and more lost flip flops than I knew what to do with, I decided that enough was enough and I had to go and see some more of Australia. Even though I had secured myself some time off work, Joe didn’t want to come, nor did he stop me from going. In fact, he positively encouraged it, which only served to make me even more heavy hearted and distracted. Meanwhile, Anna stayed behind at the hostel, as did Liv, as they were busy squirrelling away their pennies and giving each other filthy looks on a daily basis.
    At first, it was okay being away from Sydney as I loved the whole feeling of moving from A to B, physically putting some distance between me and hostel life. It wasn’t long though before I was going backwards in my head, because there is something