“Yeah, it’s been a pretty good week. How are you feeling? Over that bug you had last weekend?”
“Yeah, it took a couple of days but I’m back to normal now, thank God. Work is a pain in the ass, but apart from that I’m good. I remembered the box of matches by the way, along with the other stuff. And wine – I bought a few bottles of wine. After the week I’ve had, I think I deserve it.”
She leans her head on my shoulder, and that simple gesture speaks to me so loudly, it’s as if she’s screaming in my ear.
It’s been a really long time since she’s leaned on me, either literally or figuratively. It’s usually the other way around. It makes me want to cry. She’s been my rock, my saviour, my friend, without ever asking for anything in return. I know this is how friendship works, in my head I know this. But in my heart, it’s different. I get an unexpected and sudden surge of love for her and for everything she’s been through with me. Because she
has
been though this with me, from the beginning. She’s still here, looking out for me, listening to me, guiding me.
“What’s the matter?” she asks, sitting up and putting her arm around me. “What’s wrong?”
I sniff back the tears, and try to wave her off, because there’s no way I can explain this to her. There aren’t the right words, or if there are, I don’t have them.
“It’s nothing. I’m fine.”
She’s not convinced, as I knew she wouldn’t be. Everything seems to be up in the air at the moment, and I’m getting anxious, watching and waiting to see where the chips will fall. Luke and my feelings for him are the catalyst. I know this as surely as I know there are stars in the sky.
She sticks fairly close to me for the rest of the day, and into the night. She doesn’t push, she doesn’t question, she just watches, and I know she’s doing it out of concern. It doesn’t seem to matter how many times I tell her I’m fine, she doesn’t buy it. I try to let my actions convince her, instead of my words.
Luke figures out something’s up almost immediately. He corners me in the kitchen after dinner, as I’m attempting to wash up.
“You’re pretty quiet today,” he says simply. “Everything alright?”
“I’m fine, just lots to think about. You know how it is.”
I deliberately don’t look at him, keeping my focus on the dishes I feel like I’m over-scrubbing.
“Yeah. I know how it is.”
He says it with a sigh, and I look over at him, picking up that something’s not right. He and Chris have been joined at the hip all evening, swapping stories and laughs. Now, though, he looks pensive. As soon as we make eye contact, his expression changes. In a flash, he’s smiling, and I wonder if I’m seeing things that aren’t there.
“I’ll give you a hand,” he says, picking up the nearby tea-towel and drying off a plate.
We’ve done this together a ton of times recently, but tonight feels different – I just don’t know why. He feels it too, I can see it in his face.
Something has changed.
***
We’re sitting outside on the deck later, all four of us, drinks in hand. The stars seem much brighter tonight, and conversation flows easily. The lake is dark and still, and the reflection of the night sky in its surface somehow gives the impression that we’re all floating somewhere in between. It’s a pleasant sensation, that of being untethered. I feel free, comfortable, content.
“The rain smells different here,” Luke says, after a short silence.
Chris looks over at him, beer in hand.
“How do you mean?”
“I don’t know. I can’t explain it, it just does. I know how weird that sounds. I mean, it should smell the same everywhere, right? But it doesn’t.”
“I didn’t actually realise that rain had a smell,” Ana says, shrugging.
“Did you notice anything like that when you were travelling?” Luke asks Chris.
Chris looks pensive for a moment.
“Yeah, nah.”
“Too busy chatting up the chicks,” Ana quips, taking a sip of her wine.
“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” he says, pretending to be hurt.
“Down, boy.”
“I bleed just like everyone else, y’know.”
She grins at him in response, leaning over to squeeze his cheek, but he deftly shies away from her.
I love seeing them like this. It gives me hope. I’m really going to miss him. Even though he’s finally back in the same time-zone, he’s going to be miles away, part of a world that still scares me. I feel more isolated than ever.
I excuse myself, using a toilet break to give me the time I need to get a grip. I don’t want to be the one who falls apart and ruins the party – not this time. I use the precious few minutes to give myself a stern lecture in the bathroom mirror, then splash water on my face. Patting it dry with a towel, I lean forward, scrutinising myself for the first time in a long time. Normally, I avoid the mirror. I don’t need to see that I’m a mess when I feel it so clearly. But this time, I look. I kind of wish I hadn’t.
My long auburn hair has lost its lustre and looks flat and lifeless. My skin, porcelain at the best of times, is devoid of any colour. My lips are pale, but it’s my eyes that really give the game away. They truly are a window to the soul, because they look exactly the way I thought they would – hollow. The blue is more a grey now, and it only serves to reinforce the fact that I’m not the same person I used to be. I barely recognise myself anymore. Desperate to inject some life, I pinch my cheeks, the way I’ve seen it done in the movies. No wonder everyone keeps asking if I’m okay.
“Open up, babe.”
I frown at the door. What’s she playing at?
“Ana – I’m busy in here.”
“No you’re not,” she mumbles. “Open up. I need to talk to you.”
Sighing heavily, I open the door for her. Rumbled again. The girl missed her calling – she should’ve been a detective.
She comes in and closes the door after her, leaning back against it.
“What’s going on?” she asks, crossing her arms over her ample chest. “No bullshit. I’m serious.”
I frown, about to open my mouth and ask her to explain herself, but she silences me with a look.
“Didn’t I just say I was serious?” she warns, cocking her head. “What’s up with you and Luke?”
“What do you mean?”
Has he said something? Maybe I shouldn’t have left them alone out there. Panic surges through me. I expect her to continue with the third degree, but her expression softens and she drops her arms, which makes her look much less confrontational.
“I mean, I’ve been watching you two all day. I’ve seen the way you look at him, and I’ve seen the way he looks at you when you’re not watching.” She sighs, a deep breath accompanied by a pained expression. “I just wondered if there’s something you might want to tell me.”
I don’t want to cry. It feels manipulative, not to mention weak, but I can’t help it. The tears sit just inside my lower lids, threatening to fall, and I want to tell her everything because I just don’t know what to do anymore. She pushes away from the door and wraps her arms around me.
“You like him,” she states pragmatically. “I can see that. I can also see that he likes you. When did all this happen?”
“I don’t know,” I murmur, sniffing. “It just… happened.”
She rubs my back, giving me an extra squeeze.
“God, you kids,” she mumbles. “I leave you alone for five minutes, and look what happens.”
I choke out a half-laugh, half-sob, and she lets me go, taking my hand and pulling me down onto the bathroom floor with her. I sink without any encouragement at all, and we both sit there like when we were teenagers. It’s so weird how time can fling you backwards like that.
“Believe it or not,” she says after a few moments, “this all makes sense to me.”
I frown at her, wiping my eyes.
“That first time we met, he didn’t want a bar of me. I thought he was gay, remember? But now that I think about it, he only had eyes for you. It just took me a while to figure that out.”
I shake my head.
“No, that’s not what happened.”
She silences me with a raised eyebrow.
“Believe me, that’s what happened. I know, I was there. He couldn’t take his eyes off you, but he tried to hide it. He did pretty well too, until you took off when we started talking. The look on his face that day, babe. I thought he was going to chase after you.”
My heart races. She has to be wrong. She’s exaggerating.
“I thought he was just concerned – I mean, you did the hundred yard dash in about five seconds flat – but maybe it was more than that.”
I swallow the lump in my throat, staring at her. Did I miss something, right from the beginning? I’m not sure how to feel about that. She puts her hand on my knee and squeezes gently.
“Now your turn,” she says. “Talk to me.”
I can barely breathe, and my eyes fill with tears again. Something is squeezing my chest.
“We kissed,” I whisper, because I’m too scared to say it any louder.
Her eyes widen, but she recovers quickly, nodding as if she’s not at all shocked.
“And?”
I stare at her, wide-eyed. And? Isn’t that enough?
“I mean, it’s not the end of the world, right? He’s a nice guy. Hot, too. I could think of worse people to kiss.”
“I’m married!” I splutter.
She cringes, then she leans forward, as if she’s letting me in on a secret. She takes my left hand and holds tight, as if it wasn’t already close enough in this tiny bathroom.
“No,” she says gently, covering my hand with both of hers. “You’re not. You haven’t cheated on James, far from it. You’re allowed to be happy.”
“Far from it?”
What does that even mean?
“That’s right – far from it. Do you really think he’d want you to live the rest of your life here, alone? I don’t think so. I think he’d want you to be happy. You need to let yourself be happy, and if Luke is the one who’s making you happy, you owe it both you and James to just let it play out. See what happens, live for the moment. Smile again, laugh again, be in love again. Let someone love you back.”
“I hardly know him,” I try, my head spinning. “I don’t know if –”
“I don’t care. Seriously – I don’t. Life’s short. Don’t you know that by now? Shouldn’t you know that better than anyone? What if Luke makes you happy, if you make him happy? What if he ends up being the next great love of your life? You’re twenty-seven for God’s sake. You’ve got a whole life to live –
another
life to live, because you get a second chance at this. You’re one of the lucky ones, babe. So many people don’t get another chance. You shouldn’t waste yours. It’d be a fucking crime.”
I can’t speak. I can barely breathe. Her words travel right through my ribs and lodge like pins in my heart. I never thought about it like this. I never thought about having a second chance. I always thought one life was all I had, and then it was gone.
“No one can ever take them away from you,” she says, squeezing my hand. “Ever.”
She knows. She can see it in my eyes.
The fear.
The weekend feels like it passes in a heartbeat. Chris is in fine form, and watching he and Ana bounce off each other makes my heart lighter. It’s as if slowly, ever so slowly, things are falling together again. Ana and I don’t talk about Luke again, but I can feel her watching us from a distance. I’m not sure if Luke notices. He doesn’t say anything, but then he doesn’t usually miss much, either. If he doesn’t spot the knowing glances or the encouraging smiles, he will at least have taken his cue from me. I can barely manage to string two words together. Every time he comes near me, I freeze. If we accidentally touch, whether it’s our hands touching as we pass a plate or a bottle between us, or I brush up against him as we sit, I feel it. I feel it more than I want to feel it. It’s never an innocuous gesture. My heart won’t allow it to be. It races and pounds and I feel like a teenager again. I don’t want to feel this way, I want to be the one in control, but I’m also hopelessly aware that control is an illusion. My life is testament to that.
We spend Saturday helping Luke work on the cottage, which turns out to be a lot more fun than it sounds. I haven’t really looked at it properly until now, but I can see the appeal. It’s small, but the view is to die for, and the cottage has an olde-worlde charm that I somehow missed before. He shows us his plans for the replacement front deck, complete with a swinging seat ‘to remind me of home’. He says his grandparents had one just like it. It sounds incredibly quaint and impossibly idealistic, but I understand. He’s a long way from home, and the littlest things mean the most.
Chris is more crazy than usual on Saturday night. He says he’s getting all the pent-up frustrations out of his system before he heads back to Wellington tomorrow to start his new job. We haven’t even had dinner yet, and he’s out of control. On a whim, he peels his shirt off and dives into the lake off the jetty. Ana whoops with delight, needing no further encouragement as she races over the lawn to join him, leaving her t-shirt on the grass behind her but keeping her shorts on. Its pure madness, but I love it. It reminds me so much of the good old days, but the sweet outweighs the bitter this time.
When they start pressuring Luke and I to join them, calling us names and goading us from the water, I turn to him.
“You’re not even tempted?”
“Not even a little,” he smiles.
Except it’s not his genuine smile. It’s the other one. That’s my first clue.
“Why not? I thought you liked swimming. You even like skinny-dipping, as I recall.”
The whooping and name-calling continues from the water, but Luke doesn’t budge and neither do I.
“I don’t want to put anyone off their dinner,” he says, standing up and heading inside.
It takes me a few moments, but I finally understand. Chris and Ana have given up and are playing around in the lake like a couple of kids, but it’s Luke who has my full attention. I follow him inside and find him in the kitchen, standing at the sink, leaning on the bench, head hanging low, his back to me.
It’s an incredibly powerful image, even from behind.
“They won’t care about your scars,” I say gently, so as not to scare him. I’m not even sure he knows I followed him.