When Teo had told his father he'd made enough money from his channel to buy a flat in Surry Hills, Theodore Marinos Sr had taken it as a personal insult.
"You know," He'd said calmly, "When your pappoús, my father, shed his blood, sweat, and tears to bring his family to this country, it was not so his grandson could live somewhere that sells bread for fifteen dollars."
Only it sounded much worse, because he'd said it in Greek. Everything sounded worse when you said it in Greek.
Teo didn't mind though. To him, Surry Hills was alive. He liked the way it felt both bustling and laid-back, where you could get a flat white that tasted like it had been poured by Zeus himself. Sure, it had been gentrified to the absolute pinnacle, packed full of artisan bakeries and hipster cafés, but it had a blend of creative energy and everyday life, that made it hard for him to imagine living anywhere else.
The slow pace of Katoomba, the quiet mountain town he and his siblings grew up in, had felt like a noose around his neck by the time he'd fled to Sydney. His acceptance into NIDA, the National Institute of Dramatic Art, had been more than just a welcome surprise- it had been a lifeline.
He was currently sat in the very same flat that his father had been so dismissive of, eking out the last of the afternoon sun on the little balcony that gave him a pretty nice view of the CBD. He was working, of course, tongue poking out of his mouth as he concentrated on sewing the final pieces of fabric to the mariners cap he had spent most of the afternoon making. His laptop sat by his feet, still open on the script he'd been trying to write for his next video.
The working title was "A Brief History of People Ignoring Very Obvious Warning," and he was probably going to keep it as that. The content he'd added so far was pretty good, "when someone tells you there's an iceberg ahead, that is NOT a suggestion" and also, "if someone leaves a giant, wooden horse on your doorstep and says, "trust me," you really, perhaps, should not."
It was the final element that was causing the block. He'd decided that he would finish the video on the 1986 Challenger Disaster, but it was proving to be difficult, and not because of the devastating nature of the event.
It was, in fact, hitting a little too close to home.
Despite warnings from the engineers working on the rocket boosters that the temperature was too cold for the O-rings, NASA had proceeded with the launch anyway, unwilling to let the risk of catastrophic failure cause yet another delay to a project that had already been pushed back multiple times.
It was oddly similar to how he felt about Aurelia Hart.
Here, in Sydney, his life followed a precise schedule, one where he knew exactly where he was heading. There were no delays, no issues to fix, just a straightforward trajectory. Aurelia had interrupted that. He genuinely liked her – a lot - but just like the O-rings, at the moment he should have been flexible, he shattered. Rather than stop to evaluate, he'd blundered forward with his return to Australia.
As a result, just like the Challenger shuttle, his heart was exploding.
Okay, so maybe that was a slight exaggeration, but it certainly wasn't in the same hemisphere as him. It was a smouldering, evaporated wreck under a streetlight in London.
He kept replaying the moment over and over again in his mind; dusk settling over the wintery city, her face in the glow of the lights, cheeks slightly pink from the cold. They'd been so close he could count the freckles on her nose. He'd got to seventeen.
He should have kissed her, after those kids interrupted. Why didn't he kiss her?
Because, his inner voice told him, you're a fucking idiot.
Leo and Frankie had been disgusted with him. The three of them had been friends since the first day of school and had faithfully followed each other to Sydney; Teo to drama school, Leo and Frankie to UNSW.
"Let me just process this for a minute," Leo had actually put his head in his hands as Teo shared his sorry tale, "You had the opportunity to pash with Aurelia Hart, and you fucked it up?"
"Yes."
"The Aurelia Hart?" Frankie was equally dumbfounded, "The same one you had posters of all over your bedroom wall when we flat-shared after uni? You went round her flat, and instead of making a move, you ate sushi?"
"They were official merchandising posters!" He'd argued, "… And yes. But it was good sushi!"
"You're an embarrassment to Australia."
He hadn't even told them the worst part.
The thought that he might have made the wrong decision came about sixty seconds after he'd walked away from her, and by the next morning he knew it was the wrong decision. Unfortunately, the moment he realised that he needed to rectify that decision immediately had been as the plane was taxiing down the runway. So, he'd spent the next twenty three hours scribbling in his notebook, drafting exactly what he was going to say to her when he landed.
Aurelia - I'm not known for always making the best choices. When I was sixteen, I let my best friends bleach my hair with toilet cleaner. I decided to go to drama school when I probably should have chosen history. There's a Huntsman spider in my apartment that, instead of getting rid of, I've named BIG AL and I'm pretty certain he eats cat food. I don't regret any of these choices. The only choice I've ever regretted was not giving us a chance.
Even now, the page he'd written it on was folded carefully inside his bedside drawer. Unfortunately, he'd never even got the chance to tell her any of it. When he told her he'd landed, she'd sent a message about having to make a decision, and that she needed to delete his number. He'd done the same in solidarity, and quietly, effectively, obliterated his soul.
The pinging of the group chat was a welcome distraction.
Leo: Arvo beers, mate. You're coming.
Frankie: You haven't got laid since Alice, and since all this stuff over Aurelia Hart, you've been weird.
Leo: As your loyal friends, we are duty, nay, honour-bound, to get you some pu-
He set the phone down.
Alice had been his girlfriend up until eighteen months ago. They'd been together nearly three years, sharing a life in a flat not dissimilar to the one he was in right now. Alice had been great; intelligent, thoughtful ambitious, and their relationship had been easy. Teo had thought that it being easy was the same as it being right.
"You don't ever choose me," She'd said, when she left, "I always feel like I'm halfway down your list."
He'd been so confused at first,
"But… I do choose you?"
She shook her head. There was no anger or resentment, just… resignation,
"It's different," She'd said, "You choose me in the same way you choose things that make sense to you. Like what clothes to wear, or when to have a coffee. You have to choose somebody because you can't imagine not choosing them."
He hadn't understood that until now.
His phone buzzed again.
Leo: You alive?
Frankie: First round on Leo
Leo: You can get fucked
He stared at the screen, the weight of the last eight weeks since his return from London pressing down on him; regret, confusion, a dull sense of inadequacy he couldn't quite let go of. Maybe that was why a beer didn't sound so bad right about now? He'd been making excuses to avoid Leo and Frankie's repeated attempts at socialising for about a month, his head totally in the wrong place for their fuckery… but perhaps he needed the banter, the easy chaos of their friendship. Perhaps a cold pint and some fresh air would help him catch his breath and get out of his own head.
He tapped out his reply;
Teo: Fine. Let me know where.
The plan was to meet at the Baxter Inn in the CBD, because that always ended up being the plan. Leo worked at the hospital a ten minute walk away, and Frankie's finance job was even closer, so even on days like today, when only Frankie was working (Teo's job didn't count), the Baxter was their go-to spot.
Then, the thing that always happened, happened.
Frankie: The Beijing office wants me to jump on a call, I'll be late
And then,
Leo: No worries, I'm late as well
Leo never actually offered an excuse; there was just a general understanding that he would be late to most things. It was agreed to meet a couple of hours later. This was unfortunate for Teo, because he was already in the city.
Feeling marooned, with nothing but his own thoughts and a phone battery at 20%, he weighed up his options. He could indulge in a bit of overpriced shopping, or loiter in a café, but now he was out, he wanted to be out. He opted for a long wander that might, with luck, end at a snack van – he always forgot to eat when he was working. He chose the Royal Botanic Gardens, lured by the promise of fresh air and the faint hope that the plants wouldn't judge his existential crisis. He reasoned that if he was going to spiral, he might as well do it somewhere with ducks and bin chickens.
The gardens felt like an open conspiracy against the world's noise. He inhaled the eucalyptus – and -mulch perfume of the place and decided that if enlightenment for all his personal woes struck, he'd tweet about it and wait for the likes to roll in. His phone stayed silent, mercifully, and the hours stretched ahead before him, gloriously unclaimed.
It was the unmistakable chaos of a film set, cables everywhere, people in cargo shorts waving clipboards, and the low-level panic of someone missing a prop, that caught his eye. For one wild second, he wondered if he'd accidentally stumbled onto the set of his own life story but quickly dismissed it. Nobody would cast him as himself, not with his hair like this.
Curiosity won out over caution, and he hovered at the perimeter, pretending to be deeply invested in a nearby bush, and scanned the crowd with the optimism of someone who's just realised he has nowhere better to be. Eventually, he found his way to the barrier that kept the public a safe distance from the action. He leaned on the low bar, trying to look like he belonged to the rare breed of people who looked like they belonged anywhere, and watched as the cast filmed a scene. From what he could tell, somebody had just jumped into the water, and was now bobbing in the shallows, talking quietly to – was that the guy from the cop show?
The director yelled to cut, and a ladder was lowered to the actress in the water. She emerged over the lip of the wall, wearing only underwear, long, red hair-
Wait…
He squinted.
He froze.