they’ll cheat again?’
‘Yes,’ he says, without hesitation.
‘So if you do something bad when you’re young, that defines who you are for the rest of your life?’
‘Well, no.’
‘So which is it?’
He takes another sip of his tea, thinking.
‘I don’t know, sweetie. People aren’t all good or all bad. You can learn from mistakes. Or you can keep making them. You can always become a better person.’
‘That’s not very helpful.’
‘I do know I don’t like the sound of this boy.’
‘I said it was hypothetical.’
‘Well, I hypothetically don’t like him.’
I’ve introduced Dad to the idea of Alex with the worst story possible, which is incredibly stupid, but I can’t imagine Alex ever actually meeting my parents. That feels years away, if it ever were to happen at all. It’s the problem of a different Natalie. This current Natalie just needs to know what to do tonight, here, now.
When Alex messages me to say he’s outside, I hurry down the three flights of stairs as fast as I can, and then I feel ridiculous. Calm down. Don’t be the girl who trips and dies because she’s rushing to see a boy who took two days to text her and who once cheated on his ex.
I walk out of the apartment building and over to his car, trying to look casual.
‘Hi,’ he says, smiling when I open the door.
‘Hi,’ I say, getting in the car.
God, he’s cute. I wish I didn’t think that every time I saw his face, but it’s involuntary now. Alex. Cute. Alex. Cute.
He takes a deep breath. ‘Let’s start over.’
‘From when?’ I say.
‘From before the movies.’
‘But after Queenscliff?’
‘Yes.’
So we’re keeping the kissing but erasing my knowledge of the cheating? I frown, and the car falls quiet. For once, I don’t feel the need the fill the silence. This is his silence to deal with, his problem.
‘It wasn’t cheating cheating,’ he blurts out.
‘I thought we were starting over.’
‘I know, I know. I just feel like you’ve heard about one of the worst things I’ve ever done, and we’re not going to get past it.’
‘I think the less we talk about your ex the better.’
‘It wasn’t Vanessa’s fault.’
‘Okay, that’s the opposite of what I just said.’
‘I know, I just want you to know I’m not blaming her or anything.’
On the one hand I’m pleased he said this, because the idea of him bad-mouthing Vanessa after he cheated on her would make me furious, but on the other hand, it also doesn’t make me feel any less insecure about him maybe still being in love with her. I flashback to watching her sitting on his shoulders and feel a stab of jealousy at the ease of their bodies together.
‘Clearly, you two still get along, so there’s no reason for me to be mad about it if she’s not.’
‘I wasn’t always a good boyfriend to her.’
‘Obviously, because you cheated on her.’
‘I feel like the word cheated is being overemphasised.’
‘In what way?’
‘Look, I was seventeen, I wasn’t even sure if we were together anymore, I was drunk and sad, and I kissed a stranger at a party for a minute.’
‘You said it was two minutes before. Now it’s one minute.’
‘It was a very, very short amount of time.’
‘Did Vanessa consider it cheating?’
‘Yes.’
‘Was she upset?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, there you go.’
‘I’m not saying I wasn’t in the wrong. I’m just saying what happened. It wasn’t something that I’d planned. And I told Vanessa about it straight away.’
‘So it was spontaneous? The kind of thing you might do again at any moment?’
‘No!’
I don’t know how mad I can be with him about this. Am I just a horrible, judgmental person, hassling him about something that is largely none of my business? Or am I doing the right thing, the smart thing, finding out everything I can before I get too attached? Surely things shouldn’t be this messy after one date. We’re barely a week in. I should be asking him his favourite colour or favourite TV series or favourite something. We should be exchanging boring facts. Not traumatic secrets.
‘Look, I don’t know how to talk about this stuff,’ Alex says. There’s real panic on his face. This is hard for him.
‘You don’t owe me an explanation,’ I say. This is all Zach’s fault. Damn him and his big mouth and his need to ruin my life.
‘I would have told you about it. Probably not on our first date, but at some point,’ he says.
‘Well, I know now.’ I wish I didn’t.
‘I just don’t want you to think of me as the