Free The Break by Deb Fitzpatrick

variously coloured wetsuits at Edge Point moved rhythmically with the water’s push and pull, Cray one of them, though she couldn’t tell which of the small shining figures was his.
    She rang her parents, to tell them about the house, about Greys Bay; to say hello, really.
    â€˜Rosie! Where are you? How are you!’
    â€˜I’m talking on our new phone, in our new house, Mum — we’ve just moved in. How are you two?’
    â€˜Oh, fine, fine! It’s lovely to hear from you. How’s Ray? And tell me about this house.’
    Rosie gave her the run-down excitedly, was pleased her mum wanted to know all the details, to take the guided tour: ‘You walk in the front door and off to your left is the laundry, then you come into the kitchen …’
    Her mum sounded pleased. Rosie tried to describe the view, and their verandah overlooking it.
    â€˜You’ll have to come down sometime, you and Dad. When we’ve sorted everything out.’
    Afterwards, Rosie was relieved, and felt terrible for the dark things she’d thought about everyone when she and Cray had been leaving Freo; felt like maybe it was her making a big deal of it all along, not them, that she’d got her parents’ expectations way out of proportion. And everyone else’s. Then she remembered the rock on Zoe’s finger, Marty’s twenty-five-year mortgage, and she wasn’t so sure.
    â€˜Life’s so complicated,’ Rosie sighed to Cray, the soles of her feet feeling raspy-dry against the sheets. She was too lazy to think more specifically about the problem, about
what
was complicated. Often she just couldn’t be bothered unravellingher feelings — it was hard work. And it saved her from getting depressed, if she didn’t think too deeply about whatever it was.
    â€˜Life’s not complicated at all,’ Cray said gently, turning to her, lying beside him. ‘It’s we who make it complicated. We fill it with
pieces of crap
.’
    They looked at each other.
    He shook his head. ‘God knows why, but we all bloody do it.’
    Rosie farted appallingly. It sounded like a trail bike accelerating. It required emergency action. She pulled the sheets back and flapped a magazine wildly at her bum.
    â€˜Rosie!’
    She looked over at him. ‘What?’
    His eyes widened. ‘
What?
’
    Rosie nestled down into the bed, opened her book.
    Cray tried to organise some words around his indignation. ‘That act of atrocity, that’s what! That …
fart
! I should call Amnesty International — for bloody domestic torture!’
    Rosie grinned. ‘Don’t know what you’re talking about, Cray.’
    As the smell crept out of the bedding, Cray said, trying not to breathe in, ‘We’re making a bit of headway in simplifying our life, I reckon.’
    She looked at him and smiled. They were.

8
    Rosie woke with the dust from the move settled on her face, encrusting her eyes, filling her sinuses. She turned to Cray sleepily, peering out of the one eye that would open. Cray was sitting up in bed, his torso bare. ‘You’ll get cold,’ she said, trying to pull him back.
    But she saw him looking out at the gathering and ungathering of the water, and she sat up and looked, too, despite the autumn chill to the air.
    The water came in, pummelled the rocks and sand, then retreated. It seemed to woo the land, with an intensity of lines and heaves and movement that didn’t exist further out, closer to the horizon. Why is it, she thought, that where the two meet, water and land, there’s this struggle?
    She flopped back, closed her eyes against the crisp blue day and tugged at Cray. He flattened his cold fingers on her stomach.
    â€˜No-o-o-o!’ Her eyes peeled open. ‘I’ve changed my mind. Go away!’
    Cray rolled on top of her, squashing the air out of her. They lay there a moment, feeling the warmth of one