‘Have you had a nice evening?’ It felt safer to rebuff his question, to change the direction of the conversation.
‘I needed to see you, needed to talk to you. I’m a mess, Lee.’ He too ignored the direction, choosing to take his own line, putting his own needs/desires first. This should not have been a surprise.
She shook her head at his words. ‘You and me both.’
‘I know you said you didn’t want to see me, didn’t want to talk to me, and I do everything in my power to avoid you, trust me.’
‘Trust you?’ She laughed. ‘Are you for real? I can’t trust you. I could never trust you.’ Words that had danced in her thoughts for the longest time trickled from her tongue.
‘Please, Lee.’ She saw his arm shoot through the gap.His hand, those fingers, just there to be held, to knit with her own... She coiled her hands into fists and kept them that way, stiffly by her sides and out of reach.
‘There have been so many times, Lawrie, when I trusted you and you let me down. I’m done with it.’ She folded her shaking arms across her chest, her clenched hands bunched under her arms. ‘Entirely done with it.’
‘I know.’ Then came the unmistakeable sound of his crying. It was like a punch to her throat. ‘I know.’
‘I can’t do this,’ she breathed. ‘I can’t talk to you, I can’t see you and I can’t be near you. It’s toxic. Damaging. Dangerous. You’re like ...’ She struggled to find the words. ‘You’re like a weapon, something that causes destruction to my life, to me.’ Her voice broke at this truth. ‘You have had my beating heart in your hands so many times and you make it feel like the safest, warmest place to keep it, but then you throw it away, wipe your hands clean and move on, and I am left on the floor, trying to catch a breath, trying to understand that again my trust in you was misplaced and trying to pack my heart back into the place it should live. The disappointment is always overwhelming. I can’t do it anymore. I won’t do it anymore. It was okay when you were no more than a memory, to see you occasionally felt sweet, harmless, flirtatious. But to do what we did ...’ She shook her head, her hair falling over her face. ‘It was anything but harmless. Marty loves me and I love him, and we have a wonderful family. You’re poison, Lawrie, you’re dangerous ...’
‘Please ... please, Lee,’ he begged.
‘No, don’t do that. Just go away! You have to leave me alone! You have to! I told you that three years ago and I’m telling you it again now.’ Her words were harsh and yet no matter how well-intentioned, any casual observer would note that she stood still, unmoving, staring at the shadow of the boy next door instead of running as fast and as far as she was able.
‘Everything’s gone wrong!’ he whispered.
‘Again?’ She couldn’t help it, the word slipped from her thoughts straight out of her mouth.
‘Yes, again.’ He coughed to clear his throat.
‘Money?’
She saw him nod.
‘God, Lawrie.’ She rubbed her face. Pity loosened the stays of her anger. ‘Can’t you ask your mum and dad if—’
‘No! No, I can’t.’ He spoke sharply, a reminder of the hold they had on him, the spell of perfection he had woven that felt too hard to break, the consequences too great. ‘I don’t know what to do.’ He sniffed and seemed to find a level of composure. ‘I’m out of options.’
‘This is what you do: you mess up your life and then you come and dump it on me. What am I, your therapist?’
‘Kind of.’ He took a step closer still and she could smell his cologne. It made her feel weak, sick, and was at the same time something she wanted to breathe in. His voice was lower now and she was thankful for it. ‘Over the years, I’ve thought, what would Lee do, what would Lee say? And I imagine you standing in front of me, your sunny face, your optimism, your way of looking at the world in a way that I never could, the way you can always find solutions.’
‘Oh yeah, that’s me – a little ray of sunshine.’ She rubbed her forehead.
‘You’re still mad at me.’
His words made her laugh. ‘Stillmadat you? You sound like a kid who’s been found out. Mad at you doesn’t come close. I could handle it. I could handle all of it with you on the other side of the world. It was easy. Like you didn’t exist, like you’d just disappeared. I picked myself up and I carried on, Lawrie – I worked, danced in the kitchen sometimes, shopped, cooked, spent time with my family, watched telly on a Saturday night. I put you out of my head and I felt safe. And thenbam! Back you came. No warning. No contact. No idea of the tsunami that your presence would create.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘No, you’re not.’ She raised her voice, before checking her volume. ‘Because I repeat: this is what you do! It’s what you’ve always done. You pull people in with your tractor beam and then mess them up too, as if you need the company. You know, like thosedrunks at the bar who are always buying, and everyone thinks they’re generous guys! The life and soul of the party, getting the drinks in, but they are paying for so much more than that. They’re buying your time, your ear, your sympathy. That’s you.’
‘I ...’ He seemingly didn’t know how to respond.
‘It’s true. Like coming to me before you went to Australia, telling me it was me and would always be me. That you and Julie were happy, but never, ever as happy as you knew you could have been with me. Your words were like putting a small pebble in my shoe, a cut on my thumb, a doubt in my mind. Marty and I were doing fine.’ She cursed the tremor in her voice, and the tears that gathered at the back of her throat at the sound of her truth. ‘And you pulled me in, you distracted me, you made me feel ...’
‘Made you feel what?’ he asked softly.
‘Made me feel like I was sixteen again with the whole wide world at my feet. Like anything was possible. And I liked it! I broke my marriage vows, and I did it so easily, so effortlessly that it felt right. But it wasn’t right, it was wrong, and people got hurt. People who don’t even know why or how they are being hurt. Marty ...’ Again she pictured her loyal husband, sleeping on the other side of the shabby brick wall who she had let down in the worst way. And sweet Julie who she knew held everything together. ‘And it was starting to feel real, like we had turned back the clock, cheated time, like we were being given a second chance, starting out again on another incredible adventure, all underpinned by our wonderful history – as if wedeservedit because of that history, as if we didn’t have to worry about anyone else becausewecame first, you and I.Before Julie, before Marty, before anyone, it was just you and me, just like it had always been. If anything,theywere the spare pieces of the puzzle, the ones who didn’t fit!’ She stuck out her tongue to catch the salty tears that fell over her lip.
‘Just you and me,’ he whispered. She ignored him.
