13 Feb 2022

I’d known this boy for 48 hours… How did this feel so good? So right!? 

We learned the names of each other’s families, spoke about our dreams and travel plans, traversed stories of past relationships and our favourite things. I pinched myself at how we were so perfectly suited. 

How was this boy real? 

‘Tess! This is Will!’, I introduced him to one of my friends at the bar. 

‘Zoe, it’s James’, he corrected me. 

F*@#!

The three of us laughed awkwardly. I was mortified. The first two days of knowing him, ‘James’ was ‘Will’ in my head. My little brother is also called James, so my subconscious decided to give him another name because it felt weird. I sheepishly apologised and, fortunately, we just laughed it off. 

One week. One house. Five girls. Five bottles of gin. Done with the crippling pressure cooker of Year 12, we jumped on a plane and headed to Byron Bay. Little did I know that I was about to live out my very own rom-com story.

After fawning over the little beachy shack that was to be our accommodation for the week, we pulled ourselves together for a supermarket shop. My friend met up with her boyfriend, Ben, who was also in Byron on schoolies with a group of his mates. One of them, James, tagged along.

I had met James a week earlier at Ben's place, and was completely taken aback. Emotionally intelligent, a good conversationalist, kind, interesting and interested, a vegetarian who drove a van, played guitar, had big blonde curls, was school captain, had really good mates: I was crushing hard.  

Here he was again at the supermarket. We had a bit of a chat and said see you later. We’d all be going to Ben's DJ set that night. 

Over dinner, Amy told me that James had pulled her aside at the supermarket earlier and asked whether I was seeing anyone. I had some major butterflies in my tum. 🦋 He was interested??!

That night was a bit of an ecstatic blur. On the way to the bar, we stopped and danced to Jack Botts busking on the street; hearts and smiles full. I was so scared I’d be the most awkward, idiotic mess in front of James, but as soon as we saw one another across the room (classic, I know), everything was great.  

‘Let’s go for a swim!’ 

I insisted we go for a swim after the bar closed. Dodging countless other drunk 18-year-olds we moseyed down the beach, stripping to our undies and running into the water. It was a full moon and we kissed under the stars - very rom-com of us. It was one of those moments in life where you have to stop, pinch yourself and check whether anything is real.

The rest of the week passed like a fever-dream. Lounging on the deck and reading in the sun. Putting sunscreen on each other’s backs. Getting food and running into every single person from our schools. Having an outdoor shower after our midnight swims. Talking until 5 am every night, realising only when the birds outside began singing. Going out and dancing for hours. Market roaming. Running a bath in the middle of the night just because we could. Listening to Tom Misch on repeat. Playing our favourite music for each other.

Our mates laughed at how fast we became obsessed with one another. Glued at the hip for a week, James’s mates joked that they hadn’t seen him the entire time.

Never have I connected to someone so quickly, so deeply and so completely. 

We cried on the last day, unsure of whether we’d see each other again. James was flying off to Europe for three months and I was moving down the coast for the summer. 

As soon as the two of us got home, we caught up a few times before his flight, confirming that it wasn’t just the high of being in Byron Bay, on schoolies, but that we were very much in love (although neither of us admitted it yet). 

That whole summer we spoke over the phone every day, James recounting his adventures across Europe while I told him stories from the beach and the pub where I was working. 

Fast forward to a few months after we'd met, and we were travelling around Australia together, sharing 2m2 living in the back of the car. People would ask whether we were high school sweethearts, travelling together having both just finished school. 

‘No, we met on schoolies.’ This was always met with a shocked look and a laugh. 

‘Love…. On Schoolies?’

Yep. Love on Schoolies. It can happen! 

Written By Zoe Parsons