At the End of the Rainbow

Nia Jacobsen

Description

Melbourne, Australia, 2017.Same-sex marriage is not legally recognised in Australia, but with an upcoming postal vote, change is in the air. Amidst the fierce debate, homophobia runs rampant as queer people struggle for recognition.Thomas is fresh out of university and beginning his career as a scientist. Between his struggles with general anxiety disorder and a developing crush on his devastatingly handsome colleague, Ken, Thomas has a lot to worry about.As the divisive postal vote draws closer, the pressure from Thomas's family and co-workers grows stronger. Thomas searches for acceptance and love from those around him, and most importantly, himself. But it seems like things might crumble apart before he finds his happily-ever-after.

Informations

• Publié par: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Date de parution: 30 novembre 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781398424159
• Langue: English

Extrait

At the End of the Rainbow
Nia Jacobsen
Austin Macauley Publishers
2020-11-30
At the End of the Rainbow About the Author Dedication Copyright Information © Acknowledgement Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven
About the Author
Nia Jacobsen is a queer, mentally ill university student who loves writing, her dog Jedda, and Coco Pops cereal. She enjoys baths and conversations about intersectional feminism and in her spare time likes to contemplate what the world would be like if socks didn’t exist. She grew up in Frankston, Australia, reading books and dreaming of writing one of her own someday.
Dedication
For Natalie, because I promised.
Copyright Information ©
Nia Jacobsen (2020)
The right of Nia Jacobsen to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781528931540 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781398424159 (ePub e-book)
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published (2020)
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
25 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5LQ
Acknowledgement
I would like to thank everyone for supporting me throughout this novel’s creation and all my friends who read my manuscript and gave me advice. In particular, I’d like to thank Jessicah for giving me the confidence to submit it to the publishers and for helping me when I needed it, Chris for editing my first draft, J.E.M. Hast for the illustrations on the front cover, and my mother, Judith, for teaching me how to read in the first place. I’d also like to thank the 2,374,362 people who voted ‘yes’ in the same-sex marriage postal vote. You helped in making this world a better place. Thank you.
Chapter One
My reflection looks back at me in the mirror. It looks terrified. I try to validate my feelings like my therapist taught me: deep breath in, deep breath out and sit with the fear. Dr Ng would ask me why I’m afraid. That’s easy—I’m starting a new job today. I still can’t believe I’m not at university anymore. I’ve been there so long, it almost feels wrong to be doing anything else. I know I’m good at university, but I have no idea if I’m good at my new job yet. What if I’m bad at it? What if I’m so awful at it that they can’t believe they ever made the mistake of hiring me? I adjust my tie. I’m afraid today won’t go well. I’m afraid I’ll fail. I take another deep breath and let it out. I’m spiralling. I’m supposed to talk out loud when I’m spiralling.
“It’s gonna be fine,” I tell my reflection reassuringly. “It’s only gonna be your first day once.”
Not very convincing. I push my curls back off my forehead but they just spring back into place. For the hundredth time, I regret choosing these glasses frames. Why did I think I could pull off tortoise shell? I consider putting contacts in, and then remember how much I hate them. I already have enough to deal with today without my eyes being uncomfortable. I let out a sigh and check the time.
“Shit.”
I leg it to my car, forgetting if I locked my door behind me. I am halfway down the staircase but I have to run back up to check. I did lock it. Of course I did. I always do. What a waste of time. I berate myself all the way out of the building and to my car. It’s parked in the street; my apartment block doesn’t have on-site parking, so everyone parks in the streets on either side.
I pull onto High Street and am immediately confronted by a tram. I hate trams. Everything about them. I hate the tram tracks on the road, the ugly lines dangling in the air above them, the fact that all of them seem to purposefully crawl along at a snail’s pace, inevitably in front of me when I have somewhere to be, like now. But trams are part and parcel of living in Melbourne, I suppose.
I turn on the radio to try and distract myself from the anxious feeling swimming around in my head and chest. My heart is beating loudly in my ears and I try to drown it out, but after a moment turn the radio back down because it’s too loud and that’s only making me feel worse. I switch between stations, but they’re all talking instead of playing a damn song I might know. I settle on JOY 94.9, the LGBTI radio station. They’re running some ad from one of their sponsors. The tram stops to let passengers off. My leg starts bouncing.
“Keep it together, Thomas. You’re not even at work yet.” I make a pact with myself that if I have to fall apart, I’ll do it at the end of the day, when no one can see me and I’ll have time to recover before work tomorrow.
My God, I have work tomorrow, too. All week in fact. How am I going to get through it all?
“Nope, Thomas, we’re taking this one day at a time. You just have to make it until 4 pm today. That’s it. You can do this.”
The lobby is fancy—all glass and high ceilings. It’s impressive, and I feel like an imposter. I’m convinced any second now someone is going to pop out from behind a piece of furniture, tell me this has all been an elaborate misunderstanding, and throw me out. My mouth feels dry. I eye the receptionist, as if any moment he will pick up his phone and call security to have me thrown out. I’m worried I’ve parked in the wrong spot. What if I’ve taken someone’s usual parking spot? It was too close to the building. I should have parked further away.
“Are you Thomas?”
I turn.
“Yep—ah yes.” I clear my throat.
“Wonderful. I’m Helena.” Dark lipstick, pearl earrings. She looks business-like, but friendly. I wonder if we’ll get along.
“Yes, I remember. From the, uh, interview.” She asked me the easiest questions. I still can’t believe I got this job. I applied for about 30 jobs before I found this one as a research assistant, and I couldn’t have been more thrilled to find it. It’s the jackpot of a well-paying, entry level position in an area I’m actually interested in. My parents and Dr Ng think it will be good for me. When I’m not stressing out of my mind about social interaction, I agree with them.
“That’s right. I’m the lab supervisor. I’ll give you the tour.”
“Sure.” Great start. No disasters so far. You can do this.
Helena chatters as we take the lift up to another floor. I immediately forget which one we’re on. She shows me the canteen and several offices of people whose positions I’m afraid I’m mixing up. I should have brought a notebook. No, that would look stupid. Maybe it would look well prepared! Nope, definitely stupid. I am new here, I’m sure she doesn’t expect me to remember everything correctly from my first day. We get back in the lift and go to the third floor.
“This is our bit,” Helena decrees. She shows me around the lab but doesn’t interrupt the people working there. One of them has green hair. “This is your desk. Workwise, if it’s not on here, it means it’s not your problem. My office is just over there. If you need anything, just give us a shout. We all meet in the tea-room at 10:45 for tea and biscuits. It’ll be a good chance to meet your new co-workers. We usually all go down for lunch together, too.”
“Are there, um, a lot of them?” I inquire. What a stupid thing to ask.
“Not even enough for a soccer team, disappointingly. We’ve always got to team up with the fourth floor for the company games. Absolutely rubbish at soccer, they are. Do you play?”
“No.”
“Oh well. I’ll leave you to get yourself situated. If you just finish this paperwork from HR and then read through these reports here? That’ll get you up to date and then we can go from there after break.”
“Thanks.”
Reading. That’s something safe I can do without fucking up, surely. I imagine somehow setting my table on fire with a Bunsen burner.
“You’re catastrophising, Thomas. That isn’t going to happen,” I mutter under my breath. I glance around. There isn’t even a Bunsen burner in sight.
It’s definitely the right room. I can hear people chatting inside. And a kettle boiling. I’m struggling to psych myself up enough to actually go inside.
I’ve googled how many players there are on a soccer team: eleven. There have to be fewer than eleven people in there. I could handle eleven people. I take a deep breath and turn the handle.
“Here he is!” Helena announces. I manage a weak smile, and a small wave. That’s awkward. Don’t do that. I shove my hands in my pockets. “Alright, gang, this is Thomas. Be nice to him. He’s just graduated from uni.”
“Hiya, I’m Rob.” Paisley shirt, gold bangles. She has some grey streaks through her hair. I have to pull my hand back out of my pocket to shake hers.
“Thomas,” I reply.
“Lee.” Yellow headband, braces. She looks about my age, maybe a couple of years older.
“Mish.” He’s the one with the green hair. He’s also sporting a silver chain necklace.
“My name’s Jo.” Deep voice, red boots. From her accent, I can tell she hasn’t grown up in Australia. It’s something Caribbean but I don’t know the region well enough to pick it. I let it go. The last thing I need is to embarrass myself by asking her where she’s from. What if she is Australian? How ignorant will I seem then!
“Help yourself to biscuits,” Lee urges. “Tea and coffee by the sink.”
I nod and leave them to their conversation, thrilled to have something to do. The door ope