CHAPTER 1 — BOOK III
No More Periods
The first thing Geoffrey noticed was the absence of urgency.
There was no bell to hurry him out the door, no teacher waiting to mark lateness, no corridor filling and emptying on command. Morning arrived without instruction. Time stretched, unsegmented, and for a while he did not know what to do with it.
Neither did Embong.
They still woke early out of habit, bodies trained by years of routine. Breakfast was quieter now, less rushed. There were no bags to check against timetables, no last-minute searches for ties or books. The table stayed set longer than necessary.
“Do you want to head out?” Geoffrey asked one morning, already reaching for his shoes.
Embong nodded. “Yeah. Might as well.”
Might as well became the phrase that carried them through those first months.
They walked from Vaucluse toward Bondi Junction, letting the streets decide the pace. Some days they talked about courses—what to take, what to delay, what could wait another semester. Other days they spoke about nothing at all. Silence no longer needed explanation.
Without periods to divide the day, they learned to measure time differently. By distance covered. By the slow burn in their legs on uphill stretches. By the way conversation either arrived naturally or didn’t, and how neither felt like failure.
Geoffrey enrolled in subjects without urgency, testing his interest rather than declaring a path. Embong did the same, already leaning toward hospitality and business, already careful not to overload himself. They took fewer units than their peers, watched others rush ahead, and felt no particular need to follow.
Progress, they were learning, did not always announce itself.
They found the gym and began to train lightly, not chasing numbers, just keeping the body awake. The routine helped. Movement gave shape to days that might otherwise blur together.
In the afternoons, they walked again.
Sometimes they cut through parks where children ran without direction, their noise sharp and temporary. Sometimes they reached the water and sat, watching ferries cross with purpose they did not yet share. The city felt wide in those moments—full of lives already in motion, indifferent to their uncertainty.
“Does it bother you?” Geoffrey asked once. “That we’re not… you know. Sorted.”
Embong thought about it. “Not really,” he said. “I’d rather be steady than fast.”
Geoffrey nodded. That sounded right.
There were moments when Geoffrey caught himself waiting—for instruction, for permission, for something external to declare what came next. Each time, he realised there would be no announcement. Whatever structure came now would have to be built from choice, not compliance.
That was unsettling.
It was also freeing.
They learned to plan weeks instead of terms. To take breaks without guilt. To say no without explanation. Adulthood, it turned out, was not marked by independence alone, but by the quiet responsibility of deciding how to spend a day.
The bell had stopped ringing.
And in the space it left behind, they were beginning—slowly, deliberately—to learn how to listen to themselves instead.
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