Drifting

A Gritty Tale of Love, Loss, and Finding a Voice

Ben drifts into Geraldton with nothing but a pushbike, some CDs, and the weight of his past. Haunted and aimless, he meets Kelly—a topless barmaid with a sharp mind and a stack of Salinger. She’s unlike anyone he’s known, and their connection is immediate. With Kelly, Ben begins to write, dares to dream, and glimpses a future that might be more than survival.

But Kelly has her own buried truths. As their bond deepens, secrets surface and fate intervenes. Ben must confront not only Kelly’s hidden world but the pain he’s carried for too long. In the end, what remains is love, memory, and the unshakable need to move forward.

Order Drifting now and discover Sean O'Leary’s stirring story of redemption and resilience.

Excerpt from the book

Geraldton. Western Australia. Australia. Population, 20,000. Stardate … 20 August 2008. The motel with the horseracing tiles in the kitchen. Brown, semi-shagpile carpet from long, long ago. A little down on my luck. Bussed in from Port Hedland, rock-hard mining town, where I worked – correction; where I was a wage slave in a very average pub.

I arrived in the early hours of the morning and had made arrangements to pick up the key outside the motel room door, under a rock or something. When I got there, the key was in the door and a note on the kitchen table to ‘fix us up’ in the morning, meaning cash type money had to be given. I was waiting on the severance pay from my last job, due in exactly two hours. My pay normally went into my bank account at 4am. Yeah, I’m into the habit of accessing the funds as soon as they arrive because I’m usually broke and hanging out for cigarettes. Thank God these towns have service stations or roadhouses because I was starving too.

I had a shit-fight with the bus driver when he pulled into Port Hedland. I had a bike with me and when I booked the ticket the guy said there was no need to take the front wheel off the bike, which is what you usually have to do, so they can store it more easily. So of course, when the driver gets off the bus he says, ‘Take the front wheel off.’ I tell him what the guy said and he says to me, ‘I’m the bloody bastard that has to stow the shit thing away. Take the bloody wheel off.’ And it’s a scheduled meal break stop so the whole busload had a laugh at me, and to make matters worse, I don’t have a spanner or whatever the hell it is you use so I have to ask Mr Happy – the driver – for one and he goes through this big shrug of the shoulders and rolls his eyes at a couple of young girls and I’m public enemy number one. Shit. When I got off the bus at 2am in Geraldton I was the only one getting off so I made a big deal of taking my time but the driver practically buckled the back wheel of the bike getting it out so 2–0 to the bus driver.

Anyway at 4am, I walk down from the motel, which is perched on a hill at the entrance to Geraldton, and check my account. Only $20 in it. So, I withdraw the twenty, cursing the bastards that they haven’t put the pay into my account. I buy a packet of Longbeach forties cigarettes, and a box of Nutrigrain cereal and milk. I should be kept in coffee sachets by the motel, which begs the question, how in the hell do I pay them? I work it out walking up the hill. It’s Saturday morning, so the guy who does the pay at the pub where I worked won’t be in. I’ll have to wait until Monday to abuse him and tell him to get that $800 into my account. I’ll find a pawn shop and put the bike in over the weekend. It’s nearly brand new so I should get $100 to keep me going and I’ll tell the owner of the motel what happened. Give him my old boss’s phone number at the pub to confirm the cash is coming. What a way to live. Bloody hell.