Taylor Hanson just stared at me. Holy shit.

That was pretty much all it took for the teenie version of me that still resided in some animalistic part of my brain to wake up. My rational side was insisting – though admittedly not all that vehemently – that it probably hadn’t been me specifically, but every other part of me was drowning it out.

He had looked straight at me. Me. There were easily a thousand people crammed into the UniBar, most of them female (though I had seen a few guys dotted through the crowd), and yet it was me he had zeroed in on. Nobody else.

“He keeps looking at you,” Lisbeth said in my ear as the guys launched into the next song on the set list.

“Yeah right,” I said. “There’s shitloads of other girls he could be staring at, why would he look straight at me and not any of them?”

“Because you’re gorgeous and you know it?” I scoffed at this. “You are!” Lisbeth nodded toward the stage. “Okay, yeah, he could stare at any girl in this bar. He could have any girl he wanted – there are thousands of girls in Australia who would quite happily throw themselves at his feet. But you saw what happened a couple minutes ago – he saw you, and you pretty much took his breath away. That is one hell of an achievement if you ask me.”

“Hmm,” I said noncommittally, and turned to face the stage properly. Lisbeth and I hadn’t exactly staked out the best spot in the bar – even though I was glad I had a wall at my back that I could lean against, there were quite a few people at least a head taller than me standing directly in my line of sight. I was basically relying on Lisbeth to tell me what was going on during the show. “I’m going to see if I can get a bit closer to the stage,” I said to Lisbeth. “I can’t see shit from back here. Come with me?”

“Yeah, may as well,” Lisbeth said. She raised herself up on tiptoes and scanned the crowd in front of us. “There’s a space about three rows from the stage that’s got nobody in it – I think we should aim for it.”

“You’re only saying that because you want to get close enough to eye off Zac,” I said.

Lisbeth didn’t say a word in response to this. Instead, she started to make her way through the crowd. I tightened my grip on the handle of my walking stick and followed her, sidling my way past people with an ‘excuse me’ here and a ‘thank you’ there to be polite. The crowd tonight was very laid-back, with nobody seeming to mind that Lisbeth and I had been at the back of the room since the doors had opened. For all any of them knew, we’d just been taking a break from the tightly-packed crowd before diving back in. It seemed to work in our favour, because nobody argued with us or tried to stop us moving through the crowd.

It didn’t take us very long at all to reach the spot in the crowd that Lisbeth had spotted. We had a far better view of the stage now, and I didn’t need to get up on tiptoes just to see what the hell was going on. And now that I could see properly, I realised that Lisbeth hadn’t been lying when she had said that Taylor kept looking at me – because that was exactly what he was doing. Around ten seconds after Lisbeth and I had moved from the rear wall to our new spot in the crowd, I could quite easily see Taylor take his focus off the entire crowd and start scanning the faces of everyone present (or so I figured anyway), almost as if he were looking for someone. The instant his gaze landed on me, he smiled at me – a smile I returned readily. His eyes lit right up, his smile widened, and I swore I could see the faintest hint of red creeping its way across his face. He ducked his head a little before looking away again.

“I think he likes you,” Lisbeth said during a lull in the music.

“Bullshit. He’s only met me once, and I didn’t exactly make the best impression on him. I fell on my arse practically right in front of him, remember?”

“He likes you,” Lisbeth insisted, self-assurance in her tone. “I’m positive. You saw the way his eyes lit up when he looked at you just now.” She dropped her voice into a whisper. “Ruby and Taylor, sittin’ in a tree,” she sang quietly. “F-U-C-K-” I elbowed her hard in the side before she could finish her rhyme, and she shot a wounded look at me.

“So not funny, Lis,” I said. “Lay off will you?”

“Spoilsport,” Lisbeth said, her voice barely audible. I rolled my eyes and proceeded to lose myself entirely in the music.

I have long maintained that one of the hallmarks of an amazing live show is that you’re having so much fun, you don’t notice the passage of time. It was therefore something of a surprise to check my watch after the final song, a raucous cover of the John Butler Trio’s One Way Road that had Zac on lead vocals, to find that it was a quarter to midnight. I’d been having so much fun that I hadn’t even realised it was past my bedtime. It had been a while since I’d been up this late. My feet were killing me, and I knew I would end up spending the next few days in bed, but I didn’t care a bit. It had been worth it to see my favourite band playing a show in my hometown.

“How awesome was that?” Lisbeth said happily as we followed the crowd out of the bar and into the courtyard outside. She poked my shoulder. “And you were going to spend tonight watching TV, weren’t you? Wasn’t that better than a night on the lounge in front of the idiot box?”

“Yes, okay, it was,” I agreed. “I’m going to be feeling it the next few days though.” I gave Lisbeth a small, tired smile. “Thanks for inviting me, Lis.”

Lisbeth returned my smile. “No worries, Ruby. Come on, I’ll take you home.”

“Best idea you’ve had all day,” I snarked. It was a mark of how tired I was – I wasn’t normally so sarcastic. Lisbeth thankfully didn’t say a word in response – we had been friends for so long that she knew I didn’t mean it when I got snarky around her – but merely gave me another smile, slung an arm around my shoulders and led me across the courtyard through the milling crowd.

The next morning, as soon as I woke up, I immediately regretted my night out. I was aching all over, more than I usually did of a morning. This ache was bone-deep, to the point where I was barely able to move – it had been a very long time since I had last felt so horrible, and it wasn’t a feeling I liked. Nobody in their right mind would like it.

I had been debating burying myself beneath my quilt and going back to sleep when my phone rang, the ringtone I associated with my oldest sister sounding from its speaker – Kingdom Come by The Civil Wars. It took a little bit of effort, but I managed to extricate myself from my blankets just far enough to grab my phone and answer it. “Hello?”

“Jesus Christ Rue, you sound like shit,” Taleah said, sounding a little shocked. “You okay sis?”

“I’ve been better,” I replied. The small amount of effort I had put into reaching for my phone had exhausted me, and I was on the verge of falling asleep once again. “One of my friends dragged me out to a concert last night and I’m really regretting it right now.”

“I bet you are,” Taleah said sympathetically. “I was going to ask if you wanted to come shopping with me today, but I guess you’re not much up to it.”

“Not really,” I said. “I mostly just want to sleep.”

“Do you feel up to some company anyway? I’ll bring over some really trashy movies to take your mind off everything.”

“You don’t mind?”

“Of course not. Mark’s at work all day, Brodie’s at school until three, and Zarah’s at Mum and Dad’s today. I’ve got the house to myself and I’ll be bored stiff with nothing to do.”

“Okay.” I bit back a yawn. “I think I’m going to go back to sleep until you get here – you know where I keep my spare keys, yeah?”

“I think so, yeah. See you when I get there, then?”

“Yep.” This time I didn’t even bother stifling my yawn. “See you soon.”

The next thing I was aware of was the edge of my mattress dipping down toward the floor, almost as if someone was sitting down on it. When I cracked my right eye open, it was to see Taleah sitting on my bed near my knees. She gave me a smile once she saw I was awake. “Good morning Sleeping Beauty,” she said cheerfully, at which I scowled. “Well someone’s in a pissy mood this morning.”

“I’m sick, Leah,” I reminded her. “Plus I haven’t had my breakfast or my meds yet so what the fuck do you expect?”

“Yeah, okay, don’t get narky at me. What d’you usually have for breakfast?”

“Depends on how cold it is,” I replied as I worked to sit up, moving carefully so I didn’t jar my sore joints any more than was absolutely necessary. “Usually either Weet-Bix or cornflakes.”

“Well, the thermometer in my car said it was about eighteen degrees when I got here,” Taleah said. She got back on her feet and carefully eased me back to sit against the headboard of my bed. “Cornflakes then?”

I nodded. “Can you get me some orange juice as well?” I asked, reaching for my phone as I spoke.

“Yeah, of course I can.”

While Taleah was sorting out my breakfast, I alternated my attention between catching up on Twitter on my phone and sorting out my medication. I bit back a sigh when I realised I was running low on both my antidepressants and my migraine medication, which meant a trip to the doctor was imminent so I could get new prescriptions for both. I quickly tapped out of my Twitter app and into my phone’s calendar, input a reminder for Monday so I could make an appointment, and resumed scrolling through my timeline.

“That friend of yours is an idiot,” Taleah said offhand right as I was reading a tweet from the Daily Telegraph’s account. “She knows what’s up with you, doesn’t she?”

“More than most people do,” I replied. “Okay, yeah, I feel like death warmed over this morning. But I feel like that most days anyway before I get my meds into me. And it was worth it anyway, I got to see Hanson one last time before they went on their summer break. Got to meet Taylor in Crust Pizza as well,” I added offhandedly, almost as an afterthought.

“You met Taylor Hanson?” Taleah asked as she brought my breakfast and a glass of orange juice over to me on a tray, sounding a little surprised. “How the fuck did you manage that?”

I waited until my breakfast tray was sitting on my lap before I answered my sister. “Fell on my arse while Lis and I were waiting in line to order. My phone and walking stick went flying and he found them for me. Complete fluke.”

“Lucky bitch.”

I cracked a small smile and busied myself with taking my medication.

My phone chimed just as I finished chasing the last cornflakes around my bowl with my spoon, the chirping of birds signifying that my Twitter timeline had been updated. I left my phone alone until I had drained the milk from my bowl. “Can you grab my laptop for me?” I asked as I unlocked my phone. “It’s on my desk.”

“Yeah, no worries,” Taleah said. She got up from her seat near my feet, picked up my breakfast tray, and headed off to retrieve my laptop. She was back less than a minute later, Sadie at her heels. I felt around for the power point I knew was right next to the head of my bed and plugged in my laptop before opening its lid and turning it on. “Bit early for it though, isn’t it?” she asked as she climbed up onto my bed and settled herself beside me.

“Maybe, maybe not,” I replied, going back to scrolling through my Twitter timeline while my laptop was firing up. “If I know the guys as well I should by now, seeing as I’ve been a fan of theirs for, what, fifteen years now, they made a video or something after the concert last night and stuck it up on their website. And I want to watch it before I do anything else.” I waved my phone at Taleah and went back to scrolling through Twitter.

Sure enough, I was right. Once I was caught up on Twitter, the very first thing I did was open Firefox on my laptop and click on Hanson.net in my bookmarks. Right there on the main page of the site was a post with an embedded video that, according to the timestamp right below it, had been posted at one o’clock that morning. “Nailed it,” I said triumphantly, and clicked on the header to open the video’s post.

“I want to read the blog post first before you start the video,” Taleah said, so I scrolled down the page to let her read it. It was short, only a couple of paragraphs long, and had been posted by Taylor.

Thank you to everyone who came to the show tonight at the UniBar at UOW. It was fantastic to see so many come out to our final show for 2012. Thanks also to our opener, Eliza Crossley, for getting the crowd hyped up tonight and during every show on the NSW/ACT regional tour. Eliza can be found on Triple J Unearthed if anyone is interested in checking out more of her music.

We are taking a break over Christmas and New Year’s to spend time with our families and friends at home in Newcastle. We’ll be back in 2013 – we have a lot planned for next year, so stay tuned to our Twitter and Facebook for more info. Until then, we hope you all have a great Christmas and a safe and Happy New Year.

- Taylor

Once Taleah had finished reading, I scrolled back up to the video and clicked the play button to get it started. The video started off with just a black screen that had intermittent flashes of light pulsing across it, along with the occasional explosion and the sound of passing traffic as a soundtrack. The first voice I could hear belonged to Isaac.

“Zac, come on, aren’t those illegal?”

“They’re very fucking illegal,” Taylor chimed in. “Where did you get those anyway?”

“I know someone in Canberra,” Zac replied, sounding almost nonchalant. “Tay, come on – I can’t do this at home. Let me have my fun, yeah?”

“You can’t do it here either! My neighbours like me Zac, can you just stop already?”

“Fuck, okay!” There was one last explosion and flash of light, and the camera spun around to face the side of what I thought looked like a garage. Standing in front of the camera were Isaac and Taylor, both still dressed in their stage outfits, though Taylor had unbuttoned his shirt and left it open over the singlet that he was wearing underneath. In the light that was illuminating what I figured had to be Taylor’s backyard, judging from what he had said to Zac, I could see that Taylor in particular looked incredibly worn out.

“Taylor looks absolutely exhausted,” Taleah said sympathetically as Zac joined his brothers.

“Yeah,” I agreed, about half a second before Taylor started speaking again.

“So this is it for 2012,” he said. “We’ve had one hell of a year – we’ve played to countless people all around the country, seen some incredible sights, and I think we even made Twitter go into meltdown once or twice.” All three of them laughed. “We have even more on the cards for 2013. A bunch of interstate regional tours for those of you who couldn’t get to New South Wales or Canberra to see us, a potential trip across the Ditch, and maybe – just maybe – beginning to record our next album. Don’t quote me on any of that, though.” He grinned at this.

“For now though, we’re going to spend another few days here in Wollongong so we can unwind and relax,” Isaac said, picking up the thread. “If you’re in town and you see any of us out and about, feel free to come and say hi. I promise that we don’t bite.”

“Well, we don’t bite hard,” Zac interjected, and all three of them burst out laughing again.

“We’re due to head back up to Newcastle sometime around the tenth for our Christmas break,” Isaac continued. “Thank you to everyone who came out to the UniBar over at the uni tonight for our last show of the year – we hope you all had as much fun watching as we did onstage.”

“And to the girl who nearly made Taylor here keel over from forgetting to breathe, the idiot,” Zac said as he cuffed Taylor on the back of his head, “text him or something before he goes even more ‘round the twist than he has already. His mobile number’s 0491-”

Before Zac could finish reciting Taylor’s mobile number for the entire Hanson fandom to hear, Taylor slammed a hand over his brother’s mouth. “If you’ll all excuse me, I need to go and kill Zac now,” he said. “Have a good Christmas everyone – we’ll see you all in 2013.”

“Yeah, if the world doesn’t end on the twenty-first we will!” Zac yelled from behind Taylor’s hand, his voice very muffled. There was more laughter from Taylor and Isaac, and the video ended.

Beside me, Taleah let out a laugh of her own. “So what exactly happened last night?” she asked me as I closed the new tab my bookmark had opened. “Obviously someone made an impression on Taylor, if he nearly passed out onstage.”

I swallowed hard. “Me,” I said quietly. “I think Zac was talking about me.”

---

“Merry Christmas!”

I didn’t pause my self-appointed task, that of topping and tailing the green beans my mother intended to cook as part of Christmas lunch, at the sound of my oldest brother announcing his arrival. As with every Christmas since I had been able to remember, the day was being spent with my family – my parents, my brothers and sisters, my aunt and uncle on my mother’s side of the family, my nieces and nephews, and my cousins – at the house in Woonona where I’d grown up. The house was very close to the railway line and roughly five minutes on foot from the beach, so the soundtrack of my childhood had been the rattling of passenger, freight and coal trains along the nearby train tracks, accompanied by the crashing of waves on the beach. It was a sound I missed now that I was living on my own.

“Merry Christmas Troy,” I said without looking up from the large plastic bag of beans set out on the kitchen bench in front of me. Topping and tailing was somewhat mindless work, but it kept my hands busy and my attention focused. The slightest slip of my knife, I knew very well from experience, would result in a finger cut down to the bone and a whole lot of blood, and it was not something I wanted to go through twice.

“Is that all I get?” Troy asked from behind me. “Just ‘Merry Christmas Troy’?” He sounded vaguely offended, but I knew very well that it was all an act. “Where’s my hug?”

“You’ll get your hug when I’m done topping and tailing these beans,” I informed him. “Go annoy Taleah or something, I think she’s out in the yard with Brodie and Zarah.”

“No, I believe I’ll take my hug now,” Troy said, and I put my knife down just in time for him to spin me around on my bar stool to face him. He grinned, his smile lighting up the green eyes he shared with me, our dad and our youngest sister Gabrielle. “Hey little sis.”

“Little sis?” I asked incredulously. “First of all, Troy, I’m not even three years younger than you, and second of all I’m only three inches shorter than you. If anything I should be calling you little – put me down!” I shrieked when Troy lifted me up off my bar stool and high into the air. My bare feet kicked out at him, coming dangerously close to his midsection, and he eyed me with one eyebrow raised.

“Watch where you’re putting those, Rubes,” he warned. “I might want more ankle biters one of these days.”

“Joshua Troy McCormick, put your sister down!” Mum shouted from the doorway that separated the dining room from the lounge room. “She’s not eight years old anymore!”

“Yeah Troy, I’m not eight years old anymore,” I said, parroting our mother.

“That’s quite enough from you too, Ruby,” Mum said. Troy lowered me back down onto my stool, giving me an apologetic look, and I stuck my tongue out at him.

“Sorry, Mum,” Troy said. “Just trying to have a little bit of fun. I hardly ever get to see her these days.”

“I’m only over in Fairy Meadow, Troy,” I reminded my brother. “It’s not like I pulled an act like our grandparents did and fucked off interstate.”

“Language, Ruby,” Mum scolded, though much more mildly than she might have done when I was younger. “Troy, go and ask your sisters to come inside and help with getting lunch ready – your dad will be wanting some help with the barbecue as well, if Ben isn’t already.”

“When’re Aunt Dee and Uncle Max getting here?” Troy asked before he headed off, presumably to do as he was asked.

“Your aunt said they’d be here at eleven or so,” Mum replied as she walked around to the kitchen side of the bench. “We’ll open presents once they’re here. Go on and find your sisters please.”

Once Troy was on his way to fetch Taleah and Gabrielle, Mum put her hands over mine to still their movement. “You don’t look very well, Ruby,” she said, and I looked up at her. Her grey eyes held nothing but sympathy – she knew how much I hated being sick.

“I’m fine,” I tried to assure her, but she raised an eyebrow at me. I sighed. “I’m just tired. Didn’t sleep all that well last night, my painkillers wore off early. Kept me up almost all night.”

“Why don’t you go and have a lie down?” Mum suggested. “Your sisters and I can handle all of this. You need to rest.”

“If you say so,” I said, and Mum nodded. “Okay. But you’ll let me know if you need a hand?” I asked hopefully.

“We won’t,” Mum assured me. “Once your aunt, uncle and cousins get here I’ll have more than enough hands.” She patted my right hand. “Go on, off you go. Watch Austar if you like.”

“Okay. Thanks, Mum.”

I had been lying on the lounge in my parents’ lounge room for roughly twenty minutes, flicking between Channel V, MTV Classic and MAX, when a riot of light brown curls decided to obscure my line of sight. “Gabbie,” I sighed in frustration. “I can’t see, can you move your head please?”

“Sorry Rue,” Gabrielle said apologetically, and she shifted down toward my feet. Green eyes identical to my own met mine, though my sister’s eyes peered out at me (and by extension, the world) through the lenses of what looked to me like very expensive glasses. “Didn’t see you there.”

“S’all right,” I grumbled. “Nice specs.”

“Thanks,” Gabrielle said. She grinned. “Bought them for myself for my birthday – figured that if I have to be stuck with the bastard things, I may as well look hot wearing them.”

“Don’t you have contacts?”

“Yeah, but the script’s wrong and they give me the irrits. Have you ever tried putting something in your eye intentionally?” Gabrielle shuddered. “I only wore them when I wanted to dress up or it was Formal night. And once my script changed, I just never bothered getting new ones. I like it better this way anyway.” She hitched her left shoulder up in a half-shrug. “If I see something I don’t like the look of, I can take off my glasses and voila, I don’t have to see it anymore.”

“Well if that works for you,” I said, and she nodded. “I don’t envy you much though. I’d hate to wear glasses all the time.”

“I don’t envy you much, either. How’ve you been lately anyway?”

“Honestly?” I asked, and Gabrielle nodded again. “I’ve been better. I’m thinking of going to see my doctor before TAFE goes back to see if I should get the dosage of my meds increased or change to something completely different.” I shuddered at the thought of switching to a whole new lot of medication, and the hell that I knew would follow for the next three weeks as I grew accustomed to them. “It was tough enough getting used to the ones I’m on at the moment. Switching meds and getting used to the new ones would be a bitch and a half.”

“Well you never know, it might help a lot,” Gabrielle said, the voice of reason as always. “Are you still going to be doing Library Services at TAFE?”

“Yep,” I replied. “Going for my Diploma this time. It’s one year full-time but I’ve got special permission to do it part-time over two years. So it’ll take me twice as long as everyone else in my class to do it but to be honest, my health is more important. I might even end up taking longer than that to do it if I think I need to.”

“Sounds like a plan to me.” Before either of us could say much more, I heard Mum calling Gabrielle’s name. “I think I’m being summoned,” she said apologetically. “You okay in here on your own?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I assured her. “I’ve got the TV and my phone for company. Kind of wish I’d brought my laptop but…” I shrugged as best I could while I was lying down. “I can’t be fucked driving home just to grab it, and there’s no way I’m walking all that way. I’d collapse from exhaustion before I managed to make it halfway.”

“Well, if you need anything give me a yell,” Gabrielle said as she got to her feet.

“Will do,” I said, and snapped off a salute. Gabrielle gave me a smile and wandered off out of the lounge room.

I ended up spending most of that day dozing. It wasn’t until late afternoon that I woke up completely, to find a crocheted blanket covering me from my shoulders down to my toes and one of the end tables set near my head. On the end table was what I figured was a dinner plate – it was covered with one of the enamel dishes my dad used for serving barbecued sausages or fried onions whenever we had a family barbecue, so I couldn’t tell what was beneath it without picking the dish up.

“Mum?” I called out a little cautiously, not entirely sure if there was actually anyone in the house aside from me. They could have been out in the backyard or over at the beach for all I knew.

“Oh Ruby, you’re awake,” Mum said as she came into the lounge room. “Are you feeling better?”

“Yeah,” I replied as I worked to sit up. I was still tired, but I did feel better than I had that morning. “Where’s everyone else?”

“Well…” Mum came over and sat down next to me on the lounge. “Your aunt, uncle and cousins have gone home – they left your presents for you, seeing as you weren’t awake to open them with everyone else – and Taleah and Troy have gone over to the beach with their families for a swim and a bit of beach cricket. They’ll be back for dinner later. And Gabbie and Ben are helping your dad clean up in the kitchen.” She indicated the dish sitting on the end table. “Your lunch is under there – it might need to be heated up though, I’m not entirely sure how long it’s been sitting there.”

“Oh, thanks,” I said, suddenly feeling hungry, and reached for it – the enamel dish was warm to the touch, so I figured that it hadn’t been sitting there all that long. Either that or it had, and someone had zapped it in the microwave for me. Under it was my Christmas lunch – peas, green beans, carrots, roast potato and pumpkin, sweet potato, and the all-important turkey. I let out a somewhat involuntary moan of anticipation and grabbed the knife and fork that the dinner plate had been hiding. “That’s so good,” I said happily once I’d eaten the first bite of sweet potato.

Mum smiled. “I’ll leave you to it then. Did you want any cranberry sauce?”

“Yes please,” I replied. “Mum?” I asked once I’d eaten a little more.

“Hmm?”

“Would it be all right if I stayed here tonight? I’m not sure I can make it home without falling asleep.”

“Of course you can.”

“Thanks, Mum.”

Mum’s sole response was to squeeze my left shoulder briefly before getting back to her feet and heading into the kitchen, leaving me to my late lunch.

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