The first chapter of 'He Would Never', by Holly Wainwright.

This is an excerpt of He Would Never by Holly Wainwright.

Prologue.

Sunday night, 11.55pm.

Green River Beach.

This would be a fitting place for Lachy Short to die.

On the edge of a splendid beach he hated with a passion.

If you believed in the afterlife, which Liss definitely did, or ghosts, which Dani most definitely did not, then Lachlan Short's troubled soul would be bound to walk this stretch of river for eternity, bitching about the absence of decent surf or a proper coffee, and picking tiny shards of crushed lilac river shells out of the soles of his calloused feet.

Some would think it was entirely appropriate for him to end his days in the place that most made him doubt his marriage, his masculinity, his very life choices: a campground.

A hell for a man who liked the finer things. Beds that weren't in close proximity to the ground. Food that couldn't be cooked on a one-ring stove or in the coals of a ban-defying fire. Drinks not served with ice scooped from a sandy esky by a sunscreen-smeared hand. No, if Lachy Short was to be doomed to camp for eternity, he would find a way back to the light.

Because, actually, he wasn't dead yet.

He was lying on the rainforest floor, somewhere between consciousness and unconsciousness, somewhere between the campground and the sand. And someone would find him soon, surely. Liss, or Dani, or Aiden, or Tia. They must all be frantic, beside themselves.

This strip of wilderness wasn't wide, but it was dense and tricky, as all the Green River Camp regulars knew. At night, you could step away to pee between trees and a thick, dark-green curtain would close in, leaving you banging into branches and tripping over roots, embarrassed at your rising panic.

The forest vibrated with a low thrum of life. Always hungry, inching forward, manoeuvring to reclaim its stolen space. Marching insects and scuttling rodents. Advancing spiders and snakes and slugs and snails. Nibbling, sucking, sliming, gnawing. The strangler vines always reaching. They'd have a thick, nobbled tendril around Lachy's ankle by morning.

It was strange that no-one was calling his name.

He was still breathing, but not so you'd notice. Shallow, now.

His loud Hawaiian-print shirt might just save him from this terrible misunderstanding. Its hibiscus-bright yellow and pink was still faintly glowing even as the campground's lanterns and fairy lights flicked off for the night, stealing the last glimmers of light.

The shirt had been ironic. Which was now, of course, extremely ironic.

At the beach, only a few steps away, the river was rising. Lapping closer to the tree line with every sweep in, every pull out. The crabs' sandball-scrawled masterpieces were being washed away, the fish heading in from deeper water to swirl around the anchors of the dormant boats.

Try to breathe with the waves. It won't be long. Can't be long.

A crunch, finally, of footfall. Getting closer. No talking. No chatter, no urgency.

A phone light, held low, sweeping left to right, right to left, below the eye line of campers on the other side of the tree curtain. Invisible to anyone hurrying to the toilet block in their pyjamas and thongs.

Who was coming? His wife? His children? They'd been on the makeshift dancefloor with him, only hours before, bumping, jumping, shrugging to the beat pounding through the trees, out to the sandy flats of the beach and tipping into the river.

The girls had jiggled through clouds of embarrassment, eyes averted, aware of the phones pointed their way by cooler kids. But his daughters would still dance with him, if he asked. They weren't too old for that.

Nor was Lyra Martin. That little idiot. It was because of her, surely, that Lachy was lying in the roots of this giant fig on the forest floor and not sinking into the double-flocked inflatable mattress inside his giant tent, beer-snoring into Liss's tolerant ear.

Lyra could have said something. Changed all of this.

The crunching. Closer. Stopping.

'Lachy. There you are.'

Someone was bending to him.

Feet in thongs by his flickering eyes. Toenails pink and shimmery in the phone's blond light.

'Thank God. We wondered how far you'd got.'

A voice as familiar as his own.

'Such a terrible mess.'

Yes, this would be a fitting place for Lachy Short to die. If you didn't like him. If you didn't trust him. If you thought he'd spent a life tainting beautiful things with his touch. If you thought he'd taken something from you, knocked you off course, tormented a person you loved. If you believed the lies spread about him tonight, last night, all weekend.

'Do you need help?'

Such a question, to a body in the woods. Asked in such a sweet tone.

There could be no answer from swollen, numb lips.

So yes, there might be people who wished to damn Lachy to eternal rest below this fig, but they would be wrong. That wasn't who he was. Not what he deserved. And there were people here, people only steps away from this mossy, ferny dump who knew that. Knew that he loved his wife. Loved his children. Knew that every decision he made was in the service of protecting them. Even the wrong ones.

Hot breath mingling with the hot breeze. So close it would ruffle the hair above his ringing ear.

'Good night, Lachy.'

The crunching. Retreating, this time.

An impossible act from a person so beloved.

A roar was building inside him. A rush of furious indignation at having been so misunderstood. A heart-fluttering terror at the idea his children might grow up thinking he was someone he was not.

All of it charging at him now. The ritual of the camping trip. A friendship grown too close. A teenage girl too sure of herself. A marriage almost done. A secret unwrapped and scattered around the campsite like bait.

And now, the worst of it. Humiliation. Betrayal. Abandonment.

Liss. Dani.

Lachy Short would never stand for this.

If only he could stand.

You can purchase He Would Never by Holly Wainwright here or at all good bookstores.

Want to know more about Holly's published books? Read these next:

• I wrote a book in a year with work, kids and COVID. Here's my very honest recap of how I did it.

• 'I wasn't entirely honest about the subject of my book. And then the messages started.'

• I Give My Marriage a Year by Holly Wainwright: Chapter One.

Feature image: Instagram @wainwrightholly.