CHAPTER 8 — BOOK III
The Long Walks
The walks lengthened without anyone suggesting that they should.
What had begun as a way to fill unstructured days turned into something closer to ritual. They walked when thinking required movement, when words felt easier side by side than face to face. The city revealed itself slowly at that pace, offering different details depending on how long they stayed with it.
From Bondi Beach, they followed the coast south, letting the path pull them forward. The ocean shifted colour by the hour, sometimes gentle enough to invite conversation, sometimes loud enough to demand silence. By the time they reached Coogee, their legs burned pleasantly and their thoughts had loosened.
Other days they stayed closer to home.
Nielsen Park became familiar in the way places did when they were returned to often enough. The water there was calmer, contained, framed by trees that filtered the light rather than blocking it. They sat on benches without checking the time, watching ferries slide across the harbour with quiet purpose.
At Parsley Bay, they crossed the suspension bridge slowly, feeling the slight sway beneath their steps. Embong paused halfway once, resting his hands on the railing.
“You alright?” Geoffrey asked.
Embong nodded. “Just noticing it.”
They continued.
Sometimes they walked toward Watsons Bay, cutting through Christensen Park, letting the air change as the harbour opened wider. The city fell away in those stretches. What remained was movement and breath and the shared understanding that not every walk needed a destination.
Geoffrey would later understand that not every love was meant to remain. Some were complete without continuity, without shared futures or acknowledgements. They existed to steady a moment, to shape a choice, and then to release it. His mother had been loved that way once, and the knowledge did not diminish what followed. It clarified it.
Fireworks punctuated some nights—New Year’s Eve, festivals, occasions that demanded spectacle. They watched from a distance when it suited them, never pressing forward into the crowds. The bursts of light reflected briefly on the water, then disappeared, leaving the harbour unchanged.
“I don’t miss the noise,” Embong said once.
Geoffrey smiled. “Me neither.”
The walks became a way of measuring time without marking it. Seasons shifted subtly—the angle of the sun, the feel of the wind along the cliffs, the way the paths filled or emptied depending on the day. Their conversations shifted too, from speculation to observation, from plans to reflections.
They talked about work and study, about people they trusted and those they did not. They talked about nothing, letting the rhythm of their steps fill the gaps. Walking side by side removed the pressure to respond quickly. Silence did not interrupt connection; it supported it.
What Geoffrey noticed most was how these walks steadied them. They returned home clearer, not because problems had been solved, but because they had been placed at the right distance.
They were not running from anything.
They were moving with it.
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