I don’t answer, lowering my head to shoulders.
“Aaron…” Liam says, lowering his voice. “How long?”
“Is this really important?” I ask with my head down. “Is my sex life really this important?”
Liam puts a hand on my arm. “We’re just worried about you, Buddy.”
“Worried because I don’t sleep around?”
“No, pal, we’re worried because you are alone.”
His words slam the doors in my mind like a sharp wind.
Alone.
I’m alone.
I’ve always been alone.
I order another round and when the waiter arrives with our beer I down mine in one gulp.
They are all still watching me.
I gather up my courage.
“More or less.”
“More or less, what?” Patrick asks with narrow eyes.
“More or less a year since I’ve been with a woman, alright?”
There, I said it.Happy now?
I haven’t had any kind of relationship with a woman in about a year. Haven’t met anyone new. No dates. No sex. No contact.
Have I had a choice? I think I have. It wasn’t like I had a plan to become chaste, I just wanted to keep my distance from having a relationship. I didn’t feel like I was able to face something so uncertain and potentially destructive. There was the car accident and all of the care and therapy that went into it after that, taking care of the pub. Yes, I have allowed myself to flirt at times, short coming-togethers, but then everything came to a halt.
“But why, Aaron?” Jay asks.
I shrug. “I’ve been busy.”
“So busy you couldn’t even pull off a one-night stand?” Patrick enquires.
“Well, I guess not everyone is like you, okay? I wasn’t interested in that kind of thing.”
I thought my friends would have gone to town making fun of me, that there would have been howls of laughter and jokes in poor taste. Instead, the only thing I see right now are worried looks.
“Come on, don’t look at me like that. It’s not a big deal.”
“We’re just worried about you.”
“No need, Liam, I’m fine.”
I was fine.
I had forgotten what it meant to hold someone in my arms and to breathe her in. I forgot what just touching a woman can do to your insides. I had forgotten that my heart was there first and that she set out to find it insistently. I had forgotten what it feels like to love or to be loved. I forgot about everything and it suited me just fine until she brought it all back to me, making me want those things that I can’t have.
She has brought light to my darkness and now I don’t know that I’ll be able to go back to living in the night. I don’t know if I want to.
And this thing is killing me slowly.
