Chapter 9

Like a bitch-slap to my hung over face, the memory of my call with Matt hit me.

It was after the tequila shots but before the dirty dancing. I was leaning against the outside wall, keeping Jake and Joel company while they smoked. We were laughing and talking about nothing and everything. The alcohol had lubricated my emotions up to the point where I was happily flirting with the boys, allowing me to believe for a little while that they actually found me attractive.

"...So, if you really think about it... Damn! I forgot what I was saying!" I cracked myself up, laughing to the cool evening air uproariously.

"Guy... Guys..." Jake seemed the most sober out of the three of us, but I was certain it was just because he talked slower. "What's that buzzing?"

We all froze, listening to the strange vibration. We posed a few drunken theories.

"Aliens."

"Earthquake."

"We've accidentally tuned into the vibrational field using the power of booze."

Finally, I twigged. "Oh! My phone!" I pulled it from the tight pocket of my back jeans, but it slipped from my inebriated fingers and fell towards the ground.

Joel caught it, swift as a panther. "Got it! Wow, Evi – six missed calls from someone called Matthew. What is he? Your boyfriend?"

"Pssh. Nah! He's just some stalker!" In the stupidest part of my brain, I wanted to appear alluring and available to the two gorgeous young men.

Joel handed back my phone. "Just as well, babe. We might have been jealous, you know."

As the iPhone landed back in my fingers, it began to buzz again. "Mate, that guy's a bit desperate, hey?" said Jake. He grabbed the phone from me and answered it.

"No! Don't!" I squealed, still giggling.

"Helloo, this is Evi's phone. She's way too busy being sexed up by two young studs to deal with any stalkers right now, so if you don't mind-"

"Jake!" I could barely breath, I was laughing so hard. "Give it to me!" I pleaded.

He twisted away from my feeble attempt to take back the phone, his blue eyes mischievous. "Yeah, baby, I'll give it to you. Hard and fast and all night loooong..."

Finally, I wrenched the phone away, and put it to my ear, upside down. "Oops... Hey, hey, hey!"

"Evianna?" Matt's soft voice sounded confused. "What's happening there? Who was that?"

"That was my new friends, Jake and Joel. They just want me for my body, but I'm okay with that." I shimmied at the boys, who wolf-whistled in return.

"Are you... Are you drunk?"

I felt judgement, and it grated against the total acceptance and hilarity I'd been revelling in all night. "So, what if I am? I'm allowed to drink. You're not my real dad, y'know." I hiccoughed, which did nothing for my credibility.

Matt paused. "So... You're drunk and messing around with other guys, when you'd told me you wanted to speak tonight. Are you trying to tell me something?"

He spoke sadly, but my fury boiled over. The happy drunk turned into a vicious one as I said, "Maybe I am, Pretty-boy. Maybe, I'm trying to tell you that I'd rather have fun with guys who actually like me, rather than talk to one who only pretended to."

"What are you talking about? I've never pretended to like you, Evianna."

I stalked away from the smoking area to the main road by the front doors of the hotel. The street was empty, so no one heard my liquored screeches. "Did you, or did you not, make a bet with the crew that you could screw me?"

There was silence for about three seconds, where I received all the confirmation I needed. "You bastard."

"Evianna, who told you about the bet?"

"Why do you want to know? So you can tell me they were lying?"

"I made a bet, yes, but it's not the whole truth-"

"So it was only partly true? Does that make it better, Matt?" At some stage, I'd started crying. In the deepest corner of my mountainous body, I'd wanted him to be innocent, wanted him to totally deny any part in such a horrendous wager. "You bet on me. I should have known. You told me the other day that you didn't take me to bed for my benefit. God, I'm such a fucking idiot!"

"Evianna, please, listen-"

"No! You shut up! You don't have any right to ask me to listen to a word you say!"

His calm voice was starting to raise in tension. "I do have the right. We've been friends for over a year now, and friends listen to each other."

"You're no friend of mine. You're the worst kind of man, Matt. Not even a man; a boy, because only a boy would make such a childish bet. Do you know how hard it is being a fat girl? Living life and never thinking that you're good enough? Every moment hating yourself? Well, congratulations, Pretty-boy! You've made my crappy existence a thousand times worse! How could I ever trust you again after this?"

I was on a roll, screaming down the phone line, pouring years of self-consciousness and frustration out on him. "You used me; you used your good looks and sweet eyes and fake words and you tried to screw me for sport. I thought you were a decent person! All your emails about your family and missing me, all total bullshit. You might be pretty, but you're ugly on the inside! You're like a beautiful gift box, filled with garbage. Something is rotted inside your heart, and I want nothing more to do with you!"

Heather pushed through the big double doors and onto the sidewalk. "Evi? What's wrong?"

"So, screw you, Matt. Go bang Taylor, because that vapid airhead matches you in every way, and she's the only one dumb enough to actually believe you're a good guy." My torrent of tears had me choking out the words, but I wasn't done. "And, another thing-"

"That'll do, thanks, drunkie." Heather plucked the phone from my hands and hung up. "What the hell was that about?"

"Nothing!" Using the sleeve of my jacket, I wiped my eyes and runny nose.

"That was Matt? What did he say?"

"He did make the bet." Saying the words out loud still made me feel as though something was ripping through my insides.

"Oh, Evi."

I couldn't handle her sympathy. I shoved my way back into the hotel and headed for the bar. Heather trailed after me and asked quietly, "Is there anything you need?"

"Yeah!" I yelled loudly. "I need another goddamn drink!"

"Got you covered, sexy lady." Joel and Jake appeared, bearing something that looked like whiskey and tasted like sump oil. The memories faded out after that.

***

I'd showered and managed to choke down the bacon and egg roll Heather had sourced, claiming that the fats in the food would help calm my stomach. My headache had faded and I was dressed, ready to go to work.

"Are you sure?" said Heather uncertainly. "You can take the day off, you know. It's not like you're actually working."

"No." I jammed my feet into my clunky boots and stood unsteadily. "I'll just sit here all day, feeling sorry for myself and hating Matt."

Cycling to the Pit felt like a new kind of hell, but I made it. Jacko gave me a knowing look as he greeted me at the gate. "Feeling a little worse for wear?"

"Ugh. Don't ask."

He bellowed in laughter. "You spend a few weeks around here, your alcohol tolerance will increase pretty quick. Come on."

Back in the Land Cruiser, back into the Pit. We pulled up beside three yellow diggers, each the size of a McDonald's restaurant.

Grinning faces peeked out from two of the machines. "Evi!"

"Boys!" I was genuinely delighted to see Joel and Jake; they were exactly the panacea I needed after the drama of Matt. "How are you holding up?"

"Whaddaya mean, darl?" Joel extended a hand as I crossed to his digger. His dark features were bright with hilarity. "We're fine."

"Yeah! That was just a normal Monday night around here," confirmed Jake, yelling from the other vehicle.

"I'm off. Be good, you two," warned Jacko, leaving me in their care.

They were good; they were total gentlemen. Every hour or so, I'd switch from the cab of one digger to the other, while the boys vied for my attention. I found out Joel used to be engaged, but she broke it off after he took the job at the Super-Pit. Jake was a trained violinist, but couldn't make a living from music, hence the switch to a career in mining.

All day, we bantered and flirted. My hang over had receded and I was feeling pretty good as knock-off rolled around. The boys walked me up to the gates.

"So, Miss Evi, are you coming out again tonight?" asked Jake.

I blanched and deflected. "Uh, thanks but you really don't have to back up two nights in a row just to impress this city girl."

"Impress you?" Joel shook his head. "We're not going out because you're here, Evi. There's just nothing else to do in this town but drink."

"You drink every night?" I said.

"Yeah, pretty much. But come on, that's normal. This is Australia!"

I wanted to argue, but I took a second to assess my own drinking habits. I drank red wine pretty much every night of the week, justifying that it was good for my heart. But, because I lived alone, I could never just have a single standard drink a night; otherwise, after three days half the bottle went down the drain and I couldn't have that. Rather than waste anything, I'd drink about three or four glasses most weeknights.

Weekends, I'd drink pretty much anything on offer; beer, vodka, cider, rum. I knew I was piling on empty calories, but drinking made me feel better about myself. I shrugged. "Yeah, it's true. But I think I might take a night off."

"No worries, love." Jake slung a long arm over my shoulder. "Wednesday, then?"

I laughed at his persistence. "Sure. Let's be the three musketeers again then."

Simultaneously, both guys stopped in their tracks, their faces pained. Unsure of what I'd said or done, I asked, "Are you guys okay?"

"Yeah... yeah..." Joel's eyes were distant, and I swore Jake looked near tears.

Rather than make things worse, I said, "Well, thanks for the day, you guys!"

They seemed to come back to themselves, waving me off, grinning again. "See you later, Evi!"

After twelve hours sleep that night, I was back to 100%. Wednesday saw me inside the administration building, where I was set to spend the day with the HR manager.

Steve was a lovely Canadian man in his forties, who spent hours chatting away with me about all his initiatives for staff engagement. I nodded and smiled and tried to keep my mind on the job. "So, what's the biggest challenge for someone working on a site like this?"

"Depression," he said, without even needing a second to think about it.

"Really? But, everyone in mining earns great money, right?"

"I wish a big pay packet was a guarantee of happiness," he said wistfully, "but it's not. People take a job in mining for the income, but what they don't think about are all the changes they'll have to make too."

"Like what?"

"Like giving up big city life or working a job that can be very isolating. Or not having a girlfriend or any prospects of one in the future." His pale brow wrinkled in concern. "A lot of the younger men have substance abuse problems, alcohol, cannabis, harder stuff too. You get reliant on what you earn, and you feel trapped by it, and the more you think you're stuck, the worse you feel."

"I had no idea..."

"Most people don't. Did you know that the number one cause of death for young men in Australia is suicide?"

"Really?"

"Yup. It's even worse in mining. There's was a big hoo-ha for a while there, because there was a run of suicides among fly-in-fly-out workers, but it's not just FIFO's who are suffering. The suicide rate is higher for young men living in remote areas, and when you add to that the fact that a mining job generally means long hours alone in the cab of a machine, it only makes things worse."

I thought about the time I'd spent in the diggers and the truck. "Too much time to think..." I mused.

"That's exactly right. You're alone for ten to twelve hours, with nothing to do but run things endlessly inside your own head. So, you have a blue with your wife or a mate, or you're worried about cash, and you spend all day thinking about it, turning molehills into mountains. Then, one day, these guys decide they've had enough and they kill themselves."

I winced. "Have you had many suicides here at the Super-Pit?"

"We've had our share." He clicked on his computer and brought up a news article with some familiar faces on it. Jake and Joel stared back at me, their arms around a third young man with rusty hair. The headline read, 'Miner suicide – found by friends.'

"Oh, god!" I clapped a hand to my mouth.

"Jason was a good kid. He was always smiling, a good listener. No one even knew he was suffering from depression until he hung himself four months ago." Steve nodded at the other two boys. "We used to call those boys the three musketeers."

Poor guys. No wonder they'd acted weirdly the day before. "How are they doing now, Jake and Joel?"

"I'm keeping an eye on them. They've been going to mandatory counselling sessions. They drink, but no more than anyone else around here. It's the culture of alcohol I'd like to change if I could in this country."

"Why?"

"Because, Australians drink a lot – more than they realise. They drink when they're happy, when they're sad, to celebrate, to commiserate, because it's the weekend, because it's Tuesday... All the alcohol doesn't help with depression, and can lead to a ton of secondary issues, like marital problems, violence and health concerns."

My heart broke for these poor mining boys; alone in their vehicles all day long, then drinking themselves into oblivion before returning to their empty homes, only to wake up and do it all over again. After I left Steve at the end of the day, I cycled slowly back to our apartment, mulling over the enormity of the problem.

Heather met me at the door. "Hey, you! I've been busy getting the crew sorted for tomorrow; they fly in first thing, and we'll meet them onsite. Do you know what you're going to say yet?"

Still contemplative, I answered, "No... I've got some stuff to think about tonight."

"Cool. Let me know if you want to talk anything over." Heather paused significantly, and it caught my attention. She blushed a little and said, "Listen, you left your laptop open today, and it kept dinging with emails, so I went over to put it to sleep and I saw one of them was from Matt."

I'd been stretching after my short ride, my arms high over my head. At the mention of his name, I froze. "Did you delete it?"

"No. Why would I?"

"Because I don't want to read a single word from that man." I stalked over to my laptop and slammed it shut.

Heather flinched, but said, "Evi, you should probably take a look. You guys still have to work together, and from what I saw the other night, you weren't exactly giving him much of a chance to explain himself."

"Why should I give him the opportunity to justify what he did? I don't even care anymore. I'm going out to meet Joel and Jake in an hour. Wanna come with?"

"Sure." She still looked worried, following me with her concerned gaze as I waddled off to shower.

***

Jake and Heather were playing pool, sassing each other loudly while everyone in the vicinity watched. Joel and I sat in a quiet corner, slightly removed from the action.

"Are you sure I can't get you a drink?" said Joel, his gorgeous dark eyes sweet and earnest.

"Nope, thanks. I need a few alcohol free days this week." I elbowed him gently in the ribs. "You know, you should try it."

He shook his head and sipped from his beer. "Nah. I need me beer. I'm not ashamed to admit it at the moment. The grog is getting me through some hard days."

"I heard about Jason. I'm so sorry."

He shrugged, his face hardening. "Whaddaya do, hey?"

I didn't push any further; sometimes, words weren't the answer. We sat silently together, his arm casually on my jeaned leg, my hand on his shoulder, giving what little comfort I could.

"You're a great chick, Evi. You know that, right?" Joel squeezed my thigh. "I don't suppose you'd want to go back to my place?"

The offer was clear, and I was incredibly attracted to Joel, with his deep features and toned body. But somehow, going to bed with the younger man would have seemed like taking advantage of him; I knew he'd lost one of his best friends and his fiancée in the same year. Sex with a body-conscious TV personality wasn't going to make his life any easier – even if I could have found the courage to get naked with him.

I shook my head gently. "Thanks, I would love that, I really would, but we've got the crew coming early tomorrow for filming, so Heather and I will have to turn in soon."

His expression fell slightly, but he rallied. "Hey, can't blame a guy for trying, can ya?"

"It's guys like you who keep me hopeful, Joel."

"Hopeful for what?"

"Better things."

We sat for a while longer, then I hugged both him and Jake before riding home with Heather. She crashed out immediately, but I knew I had to check my inbox before sleeping.

There were a few slightly insulting missives from Robbo, some junk, and one from my mum, showing pics of her and dad on their six month cruise around the world.

I found my finger hovering over Matt's email, the subject line reading, 'About the other night.' I clicked, but the pointer was slightly off to the side and the email didn't open. I took it as a sign. Closing the laptop, I crawled into bed, dreams of young mining boys dancing in my head.

Hello, pretty reader!  What did you think of the serve Evi gave Matt?  Should she read the email?  What do you think of the 100% true facts on suicide in Australia?  Do you believe alcohol causes more problems than it solves?  I'd love to hear from you :)

If you have a moment to click the star and vote, that would be amazing.  Thanks for coming on this journey with Evi - I'm excited about what's next for this curvy girl!