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“Goddamn this is good,” I said, licking my lips.
“You’re always like this, aren’t you?”
“This cool?” I raised an eyebrow.
“You enjoy every moment.”
“Yes and no. I’ve had my bad times.”
“Have you ever really suffered?”
“Of course. Lots of times. Like everyone. It’s inevitable, Leah. And it’s not a bad thing. There’s no reason why it should be; life is like that. There are good times and bad times. I think the secret is trying to push through the bad ones and enjoy the good ones. There’s not much else.”
“Aren’t you going to tell me what happened to you?”
“Depends. What do I get in exchange?”
“From me? I doubt I’ve got anything that interests you.”
“What is that, some kind of compliment?”
“Fine, we’ll make a deal.”
I liked watching her joke around even though we both knew we were talking about something serious. I stretched my legs under the table and they almost touched hers. The Thai place was very small; there were just five wooden tables, and we were in one in the corner.
“There’s something I’ve been asking myself for months.” I rubbed my chin. “How is it possible that you’re still listening to the Beatles every day? It’s a direct connection to them, to your parents. And you’ve been doing it from the very first day, when you used to spend the whole afternoon in your room with your headphones on.”
Leah looked away, slightly nervous. “I needed it. I couldn’t…I couldn’t leave them behind; I had to take them with me. I don’t know, Axel. I don’t have a rational answer; I don’t even see the logic in half the things I feel or do. I contradict myself all the time.”
“We all do now and then.”
“I guess. I just know I need those songs, need to hear them.” She fell silent, hesitating, and added, “All of them but one.”
“Which?”
“‘Here Comes the Sun.’ Not that one.”
“Why not?”
Leah slid her finger over the veining of the wood in the table, stroking it slowly, following the trajectory of that small imperfection. She looked at me and sucked in a breath. “That’s the song that was playing when the accident happened. The song I asked my mother to put on.”
“I didn’t know, Leah.” I stretched out a hand to put it on top of hers, but she pulled hers away before I could.
“Talk to me about you, about your bad times.”
“There have been a few. The worst was when your parents died, but there were others. Moments when I felt a little lost, you know, like everyone when you don’t really know what you want to do. And then I had to figure out how to handle the frustration when I realized I didn’t want to paint; I had to make a choice… Sometimes you hope for things in life and they don’t come. Maybe it’s our fault for planning too much, for marking out paths that we never end up taking. I guess that disappoints us.”
We didn’t say anything while we finished eating. Then, unhurried, we returned to Byron Bay, and Leah asked me to drop her off on Blair’s street.
“Should I pick you up later?”
“No. I’ll walk back.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
“You got your phone on you?”
