Midnight Empire Read Online Free
Iâve met anyone really.â
They talked about small things: a dying battery in the TV remote; the whereabouts of the carâs spare key. It might have been comforting had Daniel not known it was coming, the question of why heâd gone.
âNo second thoughts then?â Hannah eventually said.
âNo,â he said.
âI know it makes you mad to be asked.â
âIt doesnât.â
âIâm just trying to make sure that you know what youâre doing.â
âWeâve talked about this,â he said.
âWeâve talked about it.â
âI donât want to be apart from you.â
âBut youâre doing it. Youâre on your adventure.â
âItâs my job, Hannah.â
âYour job.â There was an edge to her voice. âThat isnât a good reason. I just want to be sure that youâve considered what it means, why itâs right, what you are about to do.â
While he liked to pretend otherwise, he knew they werenât doing well. There were arguments (even if they didnât want to argue) and at times they resented one anotherâs company.
This was what he thought: that four years was simply a long time to spend together, that a certain amount of turbulence, of distance, was inevitable. If that was true, then they would survive. Or if something vital had gone wrong, or had been wrong from the beginning, then it wouldnât be fixed.
He thought his coming here could be part of the plan. Put a little space between them, enough to allow them to reconfigure themselves, to grow a little, to re-form at a distance. Hannah had once said that when they met theyâd been different people from who they were now. That was true enough. One of the things that heâd so far learned about life was that if you gave yourself four or five years you would be embarrassed by your former self, by your naivety, your cluelessness, by how you had behaved, what you had thought about the way things were.
He and Hannah had met when she was eighteen and he was twenty, met again when she was twenty and he twenty-two, and had gone out with each other since. Heâd tutored her in Astrophysics 1 at ANU: a lightweight subject targeting the universityâs first-year cohort, explaining the mysteries of the universe (with pictures) and taught by almost any third-year student who applied. She was an arts student, majoring in literature. She wore clothing that was a mystery to him: bright-coloured articles that he would never have been able to name. She was herself a mystery. He would watch her, study her carefully as the situation allowed, only to lose all sense of her afterwards, left with bare impressions, such as that she had brown hair. Heâd thought in that Friday afternoon class that, inexplicably, she might have liked him, but heâd been too hopeless to do anything about it. It wasnât until a party in Narrabundah, two years later, that their paths crossed again. And, as this time he was drunk, heâd had courage enough to talk to her, courage enough, even, to walk her home and to kiss her. He had been intoxicated by her then, cringeworthily so. She was beautiful. And smart. The idea that a smart and beautiful girl might one day want him had seemed a fantasy. But with Hannah, it had somehow happened, and he had never been so elated, so in love to the point of sickness. He went through every cliché, buying her gifts he couldnât afford and doing things he could never before have imagined, including a weekend trip to Byron Bay. Daniel walked Canberraâs streets and the universityâs grounds unable to believe his luck. They were delighted by each other. They were a team. She wanted him in her bed, and that was the best surprise of all.
Heâd never been happier. But all that now seemed long ago.
In the morning, a hand delivery. A white cardboard box with his name on it. Inside, a BlackBerry with a note:
They talked about small things: a dying battery in the TV remote; the whereabouts of the carâs spare key. It might have been comforting had Daniel not known it was coming, the question of why heâd gone.
âNo second thoughts then?â Hannah eventually said.
âNo,â he said.
âI know it makes you mad to be asked.â
âIt doesnât.â
âIâm just trying to make sure that you know what youâre doing.â
âWeâve talked about this,â he said.
âWeâve talked about it.â
âI donât want to be apart from you.â
âBut youâre doing it. Youâre on your adventure.â
âItâs my job, Hannah.â
âYour job.â There was an edge to her voice. âThat isnât a good reason. I just want to be sure that youâve considered what it means, why itâs right, what you are about to do.â
While he liked to pretend otherwise, he knew they werenât doing well. There were arguments (even if they didnât want to argue) and at times they resented one anotherâs company.
This was what he thought: that four years was simply a long time to spend together, that a certain amount of turbulence, of distance, was inevitable. If that was true, then they would survive. Or if something vital had gone wrong, or had been wrong from the beginning, then it wouldnât be fixed.
He thought his coming here could be part of the plan. Put a little space between them, enough to allow them to reconfigure themselves, to grow a little, to re-form at a distance. Hannah had once said that when they met theyâd been different people from who they were now. That was true enough. One of the things that heâd so far learned about life was that if you gave yourself four or five years you would be embarrassed by your former self, by your naivety, your cluelessness, by how you had behaved, what you had thought about the way things were.
He and Hannah had met when she was eighteen and he was twenty, met again when she was twenty and he twenty-two, and had gone out with each other since. Heâd tutored her in Astrophysics 1 at ANU: a lightweight subject targeting the universityâs first-year cohort, explaining the mysteries of the universe (with pictures) and taught by almost any third-year student who applied. She was an arts student, majoring in literature. She wore clothing that was a mystery to him: bright-coloured articles that he would never have been able to name. She was herself a mystery. He would watch her, study her carefully as the situation allowed, only to lose all sense of her afterwards, left with bare impressions, such as that she had brown hair. Heâd thought in that Friday afternoon class that, inexplicably, she might have liked him, but heâd been too hopeless to do anything about it. It wasnât until a party in Narrabundah, two years later, that their paths crossed again. And, as this time he was drunk, heâd had courage enough to talk to her, courage enough, even, to walk her home and to kiss her. He had been intoxicated by her then, cringeworthily so. She was beautiful. And smart. The idea that a smart and beautiful girl might one day want him had seemed a fantasy. But with Hannah, it had somehow happened, and he had never been so elated, so in love to the point of sickness. He went through every cliché, buying her gifts he couldnât afford and doing things he could never before have imagined, including a weekend trip to Byron Bay. Daniel walked Canberraâs streets and the universityâs grounds unable to believe his luck. They were delighted by each other. They were a team. She wanted him in her bed, and that was the best surprise of all.
Heâd never been happier. But all that now seemed long ago.
In the morning, a hand delivery. A white cardboard box with his name on it. Inside, a BlackBerry with a note:
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