Em is going to die alone.

‘Which is fine,’ she whispers, too quiet for anyone else in the bar to hear. And it really is fine. Being stood up for a blind date is a mercy in a way. No small talk, no awkward half-conversations, no pressure to be interesting or witty. Just the clean, simple clarity of rejection. Life will soldier on as always.

She sits alone in one of the booths on the back wall of the Royal Oak Hotel, an old relic of a pub that stands on the corner of Main Street and Royal Oak Drive. It’s a Friday night, but the weather is miserable, so the place is practically empty. There’s a cluster of twenty-something lads laughing around a table; an old couple sharing the same bottle of red (and not a single word); a long line of empty stools; and Em, a skinny nineteen-year-old woman who, yes, is going to die alone.

‘Totally fine,’ she tells herself, watching the door.

Outside, the sleepy little village of Talowin is mostly dark. The few lights still on blur together through the rain-streaked window like a smeared watercolour painting. Directly across the street is St Matthew’s, a Gothic old Anglican Church surrounded by pine trees. A single light has been left on above the door, spotlighting an empty car park. Talowin sits on the northern side of the Great Dividing Range. Tonight, beyond the edges of town, the mountains look to Em like the shoulders of cosmic giants, silhouetted against gathering storm clouds.

She adjusts her focus and looks at her reflection in the glass. You wouldn’t know it to look at her, but Em spent a full hour in front of the mirror before coming out tonight. Her look is carefully indie: scuffed sneakers, op-shop jacket, worn-out jeans, all black. The only pop of colour comes from her hair, which she recently dyed electric blue (a box job, but still pretty). All gussied up for nothing.

Em picks at a coaster and tilts her beer in slow circles, watching the foam cling to the sides of the pint glass. She forces herself to count to ten before looking at the door again. It’s still shut. That makes it official. Her date’s not coming.

She shouldn’t be surprised, but she is.

Since she found Holly online a few weeks ago, they’d exchanged maybe a hundred messages. It was small getting-to-know-you stuff mostly – nothing flirty – but when Em cautiously, kinda sorta suggested they meet up in real life, Holly didn’t hesitate. She’d written three small but wonderful words: when and where? Now, either Holly was in fact a forty-five-year-old man posing online as a twenty-one-year-old or she had changed her mind.

‘Come to her senses, more like it,’ Em whispers.

She drains her beer, sets the glass aside, and stands. It’s time to leave. Time to go home, change into pyjamas and watch an old episode of The X-Files. And she almost does leave. But a rock ballad comes on over the pub speakers: Journey’s ‘Don’t Stop Believin’’. It might be a sign from the universe: she decides to stay for one more drink. When she gets to the bar and glances at the menu, she decides to grab some dinner too, because she has to eat somewhere.

The truth is, she’s in no hurry to get home. Her mother’s out, and their big old house can get kind of creepy when she’s all alone. It’s an architectural marvel, all glass and vertical wood, perched on rolling acreage at the far end of Rothmans Road. During the day, the floor-to-ceiling windows along one side of the house give sweeping views of the ranges. But at night, all Em can see is her own reflection. It’s too easy to imagine someone on the other side of the glass, sneaking slowly closer.

The bartender is a big guy in his thirties, with a little red beard and a thinning dome on top. He’s watching the horse races on one of the big screens mounted opposite, completely disinterested. Em orders another beer and a plate of nachos. While she waits for the pour, she looks at the big mural behind the bar. It runs the entire length of one wall: a hyperreal forest landscape in psychedelic greens.

She looks at the door again.

‘Waiting for someone?’ the bartender asks.

‘I was, but I don’t think she’s coming.’ She shrugs. ‘I think I’ve been stood up.’

The bartender gestures to the door with his chin. ‘It’s not her, is it?’

For a second, Em forgets to breathe. This woman is beautiful. Dark hair, dark eyes, a light dusting of freckles on her cheeks and nose. She’s dressed in a simple white tee, tucked into tight black jeans, with a bright yellow puffer jacket. Her cheeks are flushed from the cold. There are little beads of rainwater in her hair.

Until tonight – until right now – Holly has been a photo on the internet. But here she is in real life, flesh and blood. She sweeps into the bar on long legs and shrugs the jacket from her shoulders. She looks around until their eyes meet…