Jenna
Iknow I'll never forget the taxi ride to the airport.
The way Marty interlaces his fingers with mine and holds our hands against his solid thigh. The way I feel each pad of his fingertips on my skin, and how sweaty our palms get but neither of us lets go. The way he looks out of the window for long minutes until something seems to snap his attention back to me, and he studies me in such a desperate way I wonder what it was that prompted him to look. The way, as our car weaves across the island, I put more and more of my body weight against him until my head is resting on his shoulder and the peace I feel doing that is almost reason enough for me to tell him I didn't mean it, I take it back, we should try and make it work, now. The way that, conversely but comfortingly, I have moments of calm, knowing any other outcome would have me worried, panicked, fearful, more uncertain. The way I use these moments of calm to commit today’s date to memory, hoping he’s done the same. The way I hope there is traffic around every corner to slow us down, only for my heart to break all over again when there isn't.
Then there’s the way I ask him not to come inside the airport with me, to instead take the taxi straight back. The way he protests a few times, but when I turn my head and kiss his neck and he feels new tears there, he stops. The way neither of us say another word to each other the whole journey. The way that both shatters my heart but at the same time, somehow, starts the slow process of sticking fragments of it back together, albeit in a completely different arrangement to how my heart was before I met him.
Once we are at the airport, the heat and the crowds confronting me as my door opens, I let out a heavy breath before swinging my legs out of the car.
But I'm stopped by Marty who keeps my hand firmly in his, pinning it down to his leg.
“Promise me this is not goodbye forever,” he says. “Because I just can't believe that it is.”
“I don't wantyouto promisemethat, Marty,” I clarify.
“Promise me,” he says and the tinge of aggression and pure passion in his voice dissolves my insides.
“I promise you,” I say.
“And...”
“And everything will be okay,” I say with much less hesitation. In fact, this is what makes me climb into his lap and kiss him long and hard, while other doors slam shut and car horns beep and people wheeling their suitcases make noises outside. When I know I’ll never be ready to stop this kiss, I break it, lifting my lips to wrap them around the bump on his nose, grazing it with my teeth.
“I promise everything will be okay,” I say, my lips moving against his skin. “I love you.”
“I love you,” he says into my neck and then I slide off his legs and move to the door, my limbs as heavy and stiff as stone.
I gift myself one last look at him before I close the door, reach for my suitcase, and walk away.
Chapter Forty-Four
Marty
Imanage to sit in the taxi the whole way back and not cry. I manage to walk out of the car and climb the path up to my villa without shedding a tear. I manage to unlock the door, make my way through the villa, ignoring my parents' voices, not looking up when Maeve stands to greet me, and still not sob. I get all the way into my room, gently close the door behind me, and collapse into bed and then I finally give myself permission to cry. Permission to sob, permission to moan, permission to howl out my pain.
But the tears don’t come. It hurts too much.
I curl into a ball, make a fist, lodge it between my teeth and do the one thing that I have been so scared to do since Arnie died. I stay still and feel my pain and my sorrow. I don't try to stop the chaos I feel.
And it fucking hurts.
It’s instant vindication for my past decisions. Of course, I chose to drink and fuck and get high rather than feel this. It’s understandable I filled my life with noise rather than the emptiness of nothing that only exists because someone you love can no longer fill it with their laughter, their words, their body.
But with the pain, there is something else, although it is formless and nameless. It's not a comfort as such, just a tender, almost hopeful, awakening as I realise it's happening. I’m still here. The pain feels all-consuming, but it hasn't actually consumed me. Not in this moment.
Maybe, everything really will be okay.
I don't hear a knock if there is one. I don't hear her steps or words if there are any. The first sign of my mother is her hands placing a glass of water and a strip of paracetamol tablets on my bedside table. Then the bed dips as she sits beside me, and I feel her hand come up to my shoulder.
“Marty, sweetheart,” she says.
“Ma,” I say as I push up. “She's gone. She's gone, and I don't know if I'll ever see her again.”
“Oh, Marty, my wee boy,” she says, and she pulls me in, holds me close. “I'm so sorry she's gone. But it will all be okay. I promise, it will all be okay.”
And I don't know if it's because those are the last words I heard Jenna say or if it's because it's her, my mother, the one I know will always love me, will always be there for me no matter what, but I finally start crying, sobbing, really heaving the pain out of my body, and I let her words and her embrace be a balm to my crushed heart.
The First 365 Sunsets
