Where the Air Was Thin.

Ally Mircevski writes Where the Air Was Thin, a beautiful story about nostalgia and the places that stay with us.

The air smelled of eucalyptus and dust. Above it all, the sky pressed into her chest until it felt both empty and full. (Image: Adobe Stock)

The sky was between apricot and indigo, the city softened by the golden haze of a Sunday sunset. Riley sat cross-legged on the balcony, a half-drunk mug of peppermint tea warming her hands. The ceramic was chipped, but she liked it that way — worn and lived-in. The balcony was narrow, barely big enough for two, but it had become their spot. A liminal place between inside and out, private yet tethered to the city’s hum.

Eva had kicked off her shoes and draped herself across the folding chair like a lazy cat, curls haloed by the last of the light. She stretched one leg against the railing, balancing a book she’d stopped pretending to read.

“Do you ever think about how many places we’ve already forgotten?” Eva asked suddenly.

Riley blinked. That was the thing about Eva — she could take a quiet evening and drop a thought into it like a stone into water.

“That’s a very you question,” Riley said.

Eva grinned. “What can I say? I’m full of irrelevant existential dread.”

“Is it dread if you’re that relaxed about it?” Riley asked.

“Okay, fine. Existential curiosity,” Eva said, rolling her eyes.

They laughed. They had known each other since their early twenties — not childhood friends, but the kind you meet at the right moment, puzzle pieces clicking into place.

Eva was all warmth and wit, always reading several books and leaving half-drunk cups of tea in every corner. She made questions sound like invitations, never performances.

Riley, by contrast, held everything tightly. Her mind ricocheted between memories. Lately, she had been thinking more about things she couldn’t quite name — or maybe she could, just not out loud.

“Do you ever think we left pieces of ourselves in those places?” Eva asked. “Like part of who you were at thirteen still lives in some schoolyard you haven’t seen in years?”

Riley looked down at her tea. “I don’t remember much from being thirteen,” she admitted. “But there’s this one place. We went on a school camp. I think about it at least once a month.”

Eva sat up. “Yeah?”

“It was out in the countryside, but not the postcard kind. I don’t even remember where exactly. Just that we got there on a bus, and it was only one house. One old timber house in the middle of nowhere.”

“No cabins?”

“Nope. Just this weathered house with peeling paint and a clothesline that creaked like it had a personality.”

Eva whistled. “Sounds spooky.”

“It wasn’t,” Riley said. “It’s strange how clearly I can see it now, even though I never think about it on purpose.”

She was thirteen, tall for her age, awkward in ways she hadn’t learned to mask. Her school uniform never fit quite right, her hair cut into a bob that refused to sit flat. The other girls giggled about boys and sprayed themselves with body mist that smelled like watermelon candy. Riley didn’t hate them. She just felt alien beside them.

When the bus pulled up, she thought they must have made a mistake. No signposts, no sheds, no bathroom blocks. Just the old house at the foot of a hill, flanked by gum trees rattling in the wind. The air smelled of eucalyptus and dust. Above it all, the sky pressed into her chest until it felt both empty and full.

They stayed only two nights. The teachers called it a “pastoral retreat,” meant to encourage reflection. But the social order of Year Eight arrived intact.

Riley sat on the end beside Mia Jenkins, who spent most of the meal texting on her pink flip phone. The only words she offered were “pass the butter, please.”

Eva winced. “It’s always the ones with pink phones.”

“That evening,” Riley went on, “the girls gathered by the fireplace, roasting marshmallows. Mine was blackened.”

“Riley, that smells burnt,” Emily Tran wrinkled her nose. “Are you trying to smoke us out?”

A few girls laughed. “I like them that way,” Riley muttered.

“Don’t be mean,” Katie said lightly. “She probably just likes the taste of sadness.”

Back on the balcony, Eva’s mouth fell open. “That’s so cruel.”

“Exactly,” Riley said. “And I had no idea how to respond.”

“You were thirteen,” Eva said. “You weren’t supposed to know.”

“You’d be arrested for fighting high schoolers,” Riley teased.

“Worth it,” Eva muttered.

Then came Truth or Dare. Riley, desperate not to hover on the margins, sat down. “If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?” they asked.

Her real answer was everything. But she said, “My laugh. It’s weird.”

The girls mimicked cartoonish sounds, then moved on. But that small answer lodged itself somewhere permanent.

Later, lying awake in the bunk room, Riley listened to whispers and muffled tears in the dark. She wished she could escape her own skin — become birdsong, mist, air.

The next morning changed everything.

She woke before dawn, the house groaning with silence. Barefoot, she stepped outside into air so cold, it bit her skin. Mist curled low over the grass. Without planning, she climbed the hill behind the house, damp grass brushing her legs.

At the top she sat, breath streaming out like smoke. Nothing moved. No phone, no voices, no expectations. Just sky and earth and the thrum of her heart. For the first time, she felt entirely unobserved — and entirely real.

When the sun lifted, a kangaroo appeared at the base of the hill. It paused, ears twitching, and looked straight at her. Thirty seconds, no more. Then it bounded away, and Riley felt as if her breath went with it.

She never told anyone. It didn’t feel like a story to share. It felt sacred.

Back on the balcony now, she exhaled. “I’ve tried to find it on Google Earth. The house, the hill, the driveway. But I can never place it.”

Eva was quiet. “You really loved it there.”

“Yeah,” Riley said softly. “Even if I didn’t know it at the time.”

“Some places don’t ask anything of you,” Eva murmured. “They just let you be.”

“Would you want to go back?” Eva asked.

“Yes,” Riley whispered. “But not as then. I want to go now. As me. To sit on that hill again and just… exist.”

Eva reached out and squeezed her hand. A simple gesture, grounding as the lift of morning mist.

The sun dipped behind the buildings, city sounds rising. For a moment, the balcony blurred with the memory of the hilltop. Two skies folding into one.

And Riley thought — maybe belonging wasn’t permanent. Maybe it was a series of borrowed minutes. Thin air. Sacred pauses. Places that stayed alive inside you, even when you could never find them again.