Ian
The images from the other night keep tormenting me: Riley on the dance floor, Riley pushed up against that guy. His slimy hands on her hips. Me punching him, attempting to murder him, the guys pulling me away from him, Riley hunched over in a corner.
And then her, just a breath away from me. Her chest against mine. Her lips calling out to me. Her heat mixing with mine. The desire to feel her under my skin.
I fought against myself trying to quieten the longing with training, the team, my family but it was useless. Nothing helps.
I was outside the theatre for a while, maybe a half an hour, undecided if I wanted to go in or not. I just couldn’t separate the present from the past, push it aside. I couldn’t ignore that feeling, of being sucked into her eyes and all that’s hidden there. To forget these years, that night and the sensation of having something in my hands that was worth risking everything for.
I know that it’s wrong, that letting her get close to me is dangerous, that she’ll drag me into a downward spiral of remorse and bad decisions, but I need to do something. I need to make sure that she’s really okay and not playing hide and seek with her emotions, because that’s what it feels like.
Despite the fact that I’ve tried whole-heartedly to avoid getting involved, I’m up to my neck in it. Again.
I see her everywhere. She is everywhere, or maybe she’s in the place she’s always been. From the first night I made the wrong decision in my life, setting off a series of other equally bad decisions, to where I am now, who I am and who she is today.
What we’ve become.
Seeing her with someone else…No. It’s not up for discussion. There won’t be anyone else in her life. No one other than me.
And this time, I’m going all the way.
She opens the door, walking down the stairs distractedly, trying to get her jacket on without watching her feet and her heel trips up on the last step. I run to help her and she lands in my arms. It looks like something from a film, a real-life romcom where the main character is a bit clumsy and the hero is always on standby, ready to save the day; but this isn’t a film.
This is my fucking life – and I’m about to dive head-first into a disaster with no way out.
She stands up and for a second, we make eye contact.
“Are you alright?” I ask her, when she lowers her gaze and I start breathing again.
“It’s nothing.”
“Does it hurt?” I point to her ankle which she doesn’t appear to be putting any weight on.
“What are you doing here?” she changes the subject.
“About the other night…I’m sorry.”
She nods.
“I shouldn’t have attacked you like I did.”
She gives a little smile that fills me with hope.
“I overreacted too.”
“I saw you there with that guy. I thought that he…”
“It doesn’t matter.”
We close off in a moment of silence, the embarrassing kind where it feels like you’ve gone through everything you had to say too quickly and you look around for some kind of emergency exit.
“Were you just going somewhere?” I say first.
“I’m on my break. I was going to get some coffee.”
“Can I come with you?”
Thrown off by my request, she hesitates for a moment but then shrugs. We start walking in silence, shoulder to shoulder up Parnell Street. At the first traffic light, we stop and she lets out a little groan of pain.
