Authors: C. K. Kelly Martin
“We
can
see each other while she’s here,” I interrupt. “I just don’t want to throw what
we’re doing in her face by having you pull into her driveway at midnight. She’s
done so much for me. How would it look if I’m suddenly…” I toss up my hand to
motion to his naked body in bed next to mine.
Liam sighs and
clenches his jaw. He wanted easy and this isn’t.
“Look, you
probably haven’t told anyone about me either, have you?” I ask. “We’re doing
this quietly.”
“Quietly isn’t
the same as it being a secret,” Liam points out.
“But you still
don’t want people to know, do you? Otherwise why wouldn’t you say anything
about me?” It’s not that I want him to broadcast the news to the world; I’m
only trying to prove my point.
“Because it’s my
business and mine alone,” Liam says with an acidity that makes me flinch.
“Because I’ve had enough of people raking over the details of my life as though
they’re entitled to them because my job involves being on television.”
I feel the color
drain from my face as I say, “Then I don’t understand why you can’t sympathize
with me wanting to keep some things from other people too.”
Liam hangs his
head and rubs his temples. “I do. But I also know what it feels like to be lied
to.”
He’s making me
feel worse by the second and I flop onto my stomach, fold an arm under my head
and stare at him with the one eye not obscured by the pillow underneath me.
“You win,” I say. “And you make me feel like I shouldn’t be here at all.” That
I’m the one who’s lying and cheating. A profound sadness fills my chest. That
feeling lived inside my bones every second of every day for months on end, but
it still lurks, waiting to rise up and take me over.
So much for no
one being thrown off.
Liam’s hand
reaches for my shoulder and glides down my back, where it rests as he says, “Don’t
say that. You know I want you here.” He shakes his head. “I’m sorry, Leah. I’m
dragging all the shit I was talking about earlier into this. I do understand
why you wouldn’t want other people knowing exactly what you’re up to. We’ll
sort something out, right?”
I shut my eyes,
wondering why it all has to be so complicated and what I even really want from
this. It’s like what Liam said to me that time in the elevator about not
wanting to talk me into something; I don’t want to make him do anything he
doesn’t want to do. And we’re only playing anyway so what can twelve days
matter? Bastien’s the one I’ll never stop thinking about.
But then Liam
peels back the sheet. With deliberate slowness he leans over to drop delicate
kisses on my shoulder and along my spine, like he’s forging a path he’s in no
hurry to reach the end of. The kisses coast lower, between the folds of my
skin, pausing there with his lips and tongue until I can’t hold the
conversation—or the sadness it sparked—in my head any longer. “You’re such a
slut,” I joke in a throaty voice as he rolls me over.
Liam laughs
under his breath, his fingers parting my thighs. He stares up at me from
between my legs with a look that makes me hold my breath. Then he lowers his
mouth to me and makes me forget everything except what he’s doing.
But by the time
he takes me home over an hour later we have a plan. The two of us have grown
accustomed to seeing each other at night, but there’s no reason we can’t shake
things up a little. We decide to temporarily switch our meetings to afternoons,
when I’ll be able to walk down to Liam’s apartment while Abigail’s occupied at
work. Even if we see each other on a Sunday, after I’ve finished at O’Keefe’s,
I’ll be sure to be home earlier than usual so as not to arouse suspicion.
The alternate
arrangements sound simple enough in theory, but when Abigail lumbers through
the door on Monday morning with her suitcase and carry-on bag in tow, her
toothy smile sends Liam’s words about knowing what it’s like to be lied to
charging through my head. She releases her suitcase and hugs me. “You’re
looking healthy,” she says approvingly. I’ve put on a few pounds since she was
last here in September and assume that’s what she’s referring to, but then she
specifies, “Happier.”
I carry her suitcase
upstairs for her as she says, “You’ve sounded happier over the phone lately
too, but it’s nice to see it in your face.”
“I think being
here has helped. And the job with Marta.” I haven’t said anything to Marta or
Deirdre about keeping quiet about Liam. I’m counting on them either not having
noticed or being their usual discreet selves. Warning them off the subject
would make me feel like a complete lowlife.
“She and Deirdre
are good people,” Abigail says, leading the way to her bedroom, where I set her
suitcase down in front of her closet. “I didn’t really get to know them until
Alrick had passed away. He was wary of them. It was one of the few things that
bothered me about him. He wasn’t a small-minded person in most ways. But with
that one thing, he could never seem to understand.” Abigail sits on her bed,
reaching around her neck to unclasp her necklace and fold it into the nearest
drawer. “People are strange.”
“Complicated,” I
offer. It’s easier to fight my guilt when I’m actively being distracted by
Liam; now that I’m the focal point of Abigail’s kind brown eyes I feel
traitorous.
And yet I know I
loved Bastien. I’m really the only one who will ever know how much. Other
people might have an idea, but they don’t know, from the inside, how whole and
safe it felt to go to sleep next to him every night and how during our best
moments I felt as though we were halfway into each other’s heads, that the
physical division between us was an illusion. No one will ever know any of that
but us.
“That’s a better
word for it,” Abigail concedes.
We talk about
going out to dinner with Marta and Deirdre while she’s home and how, once
Abigail flies back to Burnaby near the end of November, the next time we see
each other will be in British Columbia at Christmas with the rest of Bastien’s
family. Though it grows colder with each passing day it’s difficult to believe
I’ll be home in less than six weeks. I’m not any more prepared for that than
Liam is.
In the meantime
I try not to let my guilty feelings affect my interaction with Abigail. During
her first few days home we probably talk as much as we spoke in an entire week
the last time she was back in September. On Abigail’s second night in town I
make chicken quesadillas and sticky buns for her and her friend Julie. When
Julie compliments the sticky buns in particular, I imagine Bastien agreeing and
lamenting how he misses them.
Them and, of
course, me. “Even though you’re sleeping with another guy,” he says in my sleep
later. With my eyes closed I can feel his body next to mine as real and solid
as the bed underneath me.
When I try to
explain about me and Liam, my explanation becomes a mangled apology and then
silence because what can I possibly have to say for myself?
“It doesn’t
matter, Leah,” Bastien whispers in my ear. “You gotta do what you gotta do.”
Then he says, “I love you, sleepy girl. Don’t wake up yet.”
I listen to
Bastien and stay with him for as long as I possibly can. Before I lost him I
wouldn’t have believed that it was possible to sense someone who has passed
from this world so strongly in the present. Some nights there’s enough love and
acceptance in my sleep to get me through days of sadness and longing. I don’t
know what I would have done without that comfort in the beginning and I still
cherish it now.
I can’t define
it. There’s no pinpointing whether it’s a memory, some kind of remnant or just
the product of my imagination’s desire, but it, along with so many other people
and things that have been on my side lately, gives me the peace of mind—once I
do wake up—to walk towards Liam’s apartment feeling freer of self-blame than I
have done in weeks.
Being with Liam in the daylight
on Wednesday afternoon feels different. Realer. Things you do late at night,
while everyone else is sleeping, could easily be a dream. Daylight doesn’t seem
quiet, secretive or easily dismissed. In the daylight we hear people talking as
they wander by on the sidewalk, not far beneath Liam’s window, birds chirping and
skateboards whizzing by. If it were summer, his apartment’s proximity to the
square would mean a continual stream of activity from morning to night, but
November’s descent into winter makes the days short and chilly. Pedestrians
become scarcer.
“Is this similar
to what it’s like in Dublin at this time of year?” I ask Liam.
“Gray and cold,”
he confirms. “Dark by half-four. Generally miserable.” He smiles magnetically,
his blue eyes dazzling in the natural light. “It drives us to drink and all
sorts of other vices.”
I kiss Liam’s
neck and tell him I heartily approve of some of his vices. His knuckles graze
my left breast through my fitted black shirt as he says, “I’ve noticed that
about you. It’s one of the reasons I’m staying later into December.”
But we actually
spend less time naked than we do playing videogames and as four o’clock nears
Liam says he’s not in a hurry to get rid of me but that if possible he likes to
have some time on his own before performances and hopes I understand. “How’s
Saturday around one?” he asks as we stand by the door ten minutes later.
“I have to be in
work at three. Can we make it a little earlier?” I’ll need to shower and dry my
hair before arriving at O’Keefe’s afterwards. That won’t leave us much time.
We settle on
noon and I’m reaching for the doorknob when Liam says, “Wait. I almost forgot.”
He heads for the
bedroom, disappearing behind the door and emerging again with a small box in
his hands. Liam passes it to me and says, “I’ve paid for six months in
advance.” I stare down at the box in my right hand, realizing it’s a new cell
phone, still in its packaging. “It’ll make it easier if we have to change plans
sometime,” he continues. “And I reckon you should have one anyway, since it’s
dark when you’re walking home from work.”
My throat
shrinks. I’ve been allowing Liam to pay for me when we go to The Rose and Crown
because he has more money than I do, but it feels strange to take anything else
from him. He’s not my boyfriend, just a guy. “Thanks,” I say, before the delay
in response can become noteworthy. “You didn’t need to do that.”
I’ll have the
phone long after he’s gone. I’ll think of him when I look at it, miss him. And
I don’t want to miss anyone else, but I guess it’s already too late for that.
“I know, I’m
just thoughtful like that,” Liam jokes with a cocky grin.
“Yeah, well,
it’s a shame about the rest of your personality,” I kid back, not missing a
beat.
Laughter escapes
from between Liam’s lips. “I guess it’s a good thing you’re not here for my
personality then.” He hooks two of his fingers down the front of my jeans and
tugs me towards him to kiss him goodbye.
I walk home with
my new phone, the trees bare and a threat of snow flurries in the air, and have
only been back at Abigail’s ten minutes when Yunhee calls on the landline to
say that she had her appointment with her surgeon at the Toronto General
Hospital earlier and he’s given her the thumbs up to travel to Ottawa.
“My mom’s
renting a car to drive up and the two of us will be leaving Friday morning, so
I was hoping you could drop by here tomorrow,” she says.
The surgeon’s
signed a form for the school, giving Yunhee a recovery time of three months
from the date of her release from the hospital. Tomorrow will be my last
opportunity to see her until the end of January. I’ll sorely miss having her in
my life for the next couple of months but at least I know she’ll be back, and
now, thanks to Liam, the two of us will be able to text in the meantime.
On Thursday I
take the train to Toronto to say goodbye to Yunhee. Vishaya’s in class and
Katie’s coming over to visit after her own classes are finished for the day.
With me around to help Yunhee with anything she needs this afternoon, Mrs. Kang
takes the opportunity to step out and pick up a few things for their trip to Ottawa
tomorrow. Yunhee looks healthy but moves cautiously, like she expects it to
hurt. She’s supposed to be up and walking around a little but not overdo it,
which she says is a hard balance to find.
“I’m freaked out
by how behind I’m going to be in my classes when I can come back at the end of
January,” she tells me as we sit on her couch together with the bubble teas I
bought us at the train station.
“It’ll be rough
but I guess the work load will be practice for law school.”
“That’s one way
to think of it, but who wants that kind of practice?” Yunhee says. “You know,
they still haven’t found the guy who did this, but I dream about him sometimes.
Really awful stuff. I have dreams where”—she taps her fingernails against her
plastic cup, her expression grim—“Chas dies, or other bad dreams, like people
chasing me. Not even
him
, but people whose faces I can’t make out in the
dark. I haven’t said anything to my mother about it, but I wonder…I don’t
know…if I’ll need some kind of post-traumatic stress counseling when I come
back.” Yunhee pensively sips her tea. “I don’t want to be the kind of person
who panics every time someone stands behind them on a subway platform. I don’t
want this to change me.”
Everything
changes us. “They do counseling at school,” I say, knowing that she’s already
aware of this. “You can go when you’re back if you think it will help.”
Yunhee nods.
“I’ll see how it goes. I hate that there’s no way to get through this recovery
quickly. I feel weak and restless at the same time.”
I swallow a
mouthful of bubble tea and stare at the friend I’m already missing. “When you
get back, whatever you need, promise me you’ll just let me know. I’ve been a
bad friend. You were there for me, as much as I’d let anyone be, after Bastien
died and I want you to know things are going to be different when you get
back.”