So Much to Learn (55 page)

~*~

So, through
bits and pieces, two days and nights managed to pass without me
having a breakdown and as I awoke on Friday morning I considered
this a major accomplishment.

I sat through
my only lecture of the day making a concerted effort to actually
listen to the lecturer for a change. Adam was quieter than usual
but whether that was because I was being equally reticent or
because he was uncomfortable around me I didn't know. Or, rather, I
didn't want to know.

We walked
together as usual across the campus to the point where he went in a
separate direction for band practice and I continued home. But,
just before he left, Adam suddenly turned to me and said, quite
intensely I thought, "Don't let this stuff with your brother and
Jack be the end of the world, alright? Still go out and think of
other stuff occasionally."

Hmm, so I'm
quite transparent then. Good to know. I nodded reassuringly all the
while thinking that I was going to do no such thing but I obviously
fooled Adam because he gave me one of his trademark brilliant
smiles and loped off to meet up with his band mates.

Rather him than
me, I thought as I hitched my bag higher and continued along the
path. I had a blissfully Micky-free afternoon ahead of me while I
knew my poor friend couldn't say the same. This one major positive
I had highlighted in my life at that moment made a smile, almost as
wide as Adam's had been, stretch across my face and I was still
grinning like an idiot as I turned the corner of the library and
almost collided with two guys coming the opposite way.

"Sorry," I said
automatically and then I nearly bit right through my tongue as I
realised who I was standing in front of.

"Hey, Talia."
Tommo shot an anxious look between me and Jack. "How's things?"

No trace of a
smile was left on my face as I muttered vaguely, "Oh, you
know."

It was then
that I had the strange sensation that Jack's eyes had turned into
the metaphorical car crash. I didn't want to look, I really didn't
but the compulsion to see how bad things were was the same as
driving past a mangled wreck, if not stronger. When my eyes did
meet his I sucked in a quick, harsh, breath. Oh boy, someone call
an ambulance, this car crash was a bad one.

As if cross
with himself for letting me catch his gaze, Jack ripped his eyes
from me and stared determinedly past me, his lips pressed tightly
together into a thin line.

"Right…" Tommo
had obviously observed that little moment and he shifted his feet
awkwardly as he seemed to grasp for something to say. "I'm just
going to go…" he trailed off again and looked around, presumably
hoping to spot something he could use as an excuse to leave Jack
and me alone. Obviously not seeing anything he finished lamely
"…over there."

I barely even
registered his departure, I was too intently trying to calm my
heart rate down as I was feeling a bit dizzy at the speed the blood
seemed to be pumping around my body. Jack, damn him, obviously had
less wayward organs than me because he did notice Tom leaving and
he didn’t look happy about it.

His eyes
flicked back onto me for the briefest of seconds and then, without
having said a single word to me, he went to follow his friend. I
reacted out of pure instinct, in fact I blame my slight dizziness
for the way that I desperately threw out a hand to stop Jack
walking away from me…again.

In a move that
seemed as automatic as mine had been, Jack jerked away to avoid
contact with my hand. So it had come to that, the idea of touching
me made him flinch. Fantastic, note to self: research 'ouch' in
different languages because the English version just didn't seem to
suffice anymore.

"Please, just
wait a minute." When it looked like he still wasn't going to stop I
threw aside all thoughts of pride and said again, "Please,
Jack."

He faltered in
his stride then, extremely reluctantly, stopped. That boy really
was too nice.

He made no move to come over to me, however, so other
students, unconcerned in their own little worlds, flowed between
and around us on their way to or from classes. Now I'd stopped Jack
I had no idea what I wanted to say. But I had to say
something
! I couldn't
just make a heartfelt plea and then stand there all mute. How come
my mouth can hold a full conversation without any input from my
brain and then falter at the most crucial moments? It was
defective, I needed a new one.

"How…how are
you?" I finally managed to stutter out. I immediately felt like
slamming my head against the brick wall behind me. 'How are you?'
I'd start talking about the weather next!

Jack seemed to
find my question equally ridiculous because, through the tiniest
chink in the wall of stone he'd erected over his features, I saw a
flicker of disbelief pass over his face. Then he said in a flat,
monotone, "I'm fine."

A girl in the
process of walking past Jack gave him a strange look, obviously
wondering who he was talking to. When I licked my suddenly dry lips
and croaked back, "I'm glad," she looked at me equally bemused. I
could see that she felt the tension emanating between us and was
wondering what was going on. Still, the arctic conditions between
us must have been uncomfortable because she soon hurried away.
Never mind, the way the rumour mill works at this uni it probably
wouldn't be long before she found out about what was going on. In
fact she'd be glad of the second of awkwardness she'd felt because
she'd be able to tell her friends that she had actually seen, with
her own very eyes, Jack and I having a moment. It felt good to have
provided some service to someone, even if she was a complete
stranger.

"Are you
staying with Tommo?" I asked as the girl disappeared around the
corner.

Jack nodded
stiffly, every little bit of his body language screaming 'I want to
be anywhere but here.' Despite knowing how uncomfortable he was I
was desperate to draw out this unexpected time with him and I found
myself saying, "Did you know that Simone is with Micky?"

He nodded
again, glancing as he did so over at Tommo who was talking to a
couple of guys I'd never met before. I could tell Jack was about to
join them and that I would lose him again. Not thinking I could
bare it I blurted out, "I kissed Adam," before slapping one hand
over my mouth and feeling my insides liquefy at the total stupidity
of what I'd just said.

It was all very
well trying to get Jack's attention but, when he whipped his face
back round to me, I realised that the pain of him ignoring me was
nothing compared to the gut wrenching horror I was experiencing
then.

I couldn't look
at him; I actually, physically couldn't bring myself to look up. I
think my shame over my behaviour had manifested itself into a
locking of the muscles at my neck. It was the least I deserved.

"You know,"
Jack's voice when he finally spoke was deathly calm and sent
shivers of unease up and down my spine, "sometimes you say these
things and I wonder what is going on in your head."

"Me too."
Misery made my voice so quiet I didn't think he would have been
able to hear me but he obviously did as he strode across the gap
between us, almost skittling a couple of students who got in his
way.

"If
you
can't
figure out your own thoughts, if
you
can't understand what makes you
say the things you do then what hope does anyone else have?"
Stupid, hot tears welled in my eyes and blurred my vision so I
couldn't really make out his expression as he leant in close to me.
"Right, I'm going to give you this one last lesson and this is all
I've got left for you so listen up."

I obligingly
swallowed back my tears and listened up.

"Figure out
what you want and then just bloody go for it." Jack waited for a
moment, presumably to let the full weight of his words to sink in,
then drew away and dropped his scary intense tone when he added,
"That's it."

"But-" I began
to protest, not really feeling that was all that helpful and not
liking the finality in his tone when he'd said 'that's it'.

"No." Jack
shook his head slightly. "It's enough now." He turned and started
to walk away so I'm not quite sure if he meant me to hear him when
he said, "I've had enough."

I watched Jack
walk away and sought to find comfort in the fact that, since my
heart already felt like it was in my shoes, it couldn't actually
sink any further.

I needed to get
home before my mascara began to run in a really bad way, that much
was obvious to me, and I broke into a blind run to my car. I drove
home slowly, not overly keen to go back to the continually empty
flat but unable to really think of anywhere else I could go. God
how sad is that?

Once home, I
pulled out my law textbooks, refusing to acknowledge the similarity
between my sudden, intense bouts of studying and the hours I'd
spent with my head in textbooks helping Jack with his scholarship
test. I stopped every now and again to indulge in a bout of
completely selfish tears accompanied by a mental soundtrack of 'woe
is me!' until, by the time the evening news came on, there was a
veritable mountain of tissues next to the couch.

I didn't regret
pushing Jack away, honestly I didn't, because I knew it was for the
best but I did wish I could have explained better. And why oh why
had I told him that I'd kissed Adam? Obviously I'd become a fan of
masochism in a big way.

As some truly
awful blur-out nonsense came on I wished Matt would get in contact
with me, crap TV just wasn't the same without him. I wondered where
he'd been staying and what he'd been doing. It was so unusual for
me to be completely clueless as to his movements and, frankly, I
was becoming a little annoyed by his radio silence. I mean he
hadn't even called to yell at me for my antics on Monday night and,
while that was a relief in some ways, it was quite disconcerting in
others.

However, as if
my thoughts could summon him up, no sooner had the credits on the
first load of rubbish started to roll then there was the sound of a
key being slid into the lock and in walked my brother.

"Hey," he said
nonchalantly as if he'd just popped down to the shops for a couple
of minutes rather than being MIA for four days.

Too stunned to
say anything, and suddenly remembering our last meeting when I'd
slapped him, I nodded dumbly and looked back at the TV as if
watching some scantily clad girl squealing (which seemed to be all
that was ever on these days) fascinated me.

Matt wandered
over to the kitchen and grabbed a can of beer out of the fridge,
taking a long draught of it before looking over at me and lifting
his drink in my direction. "Tinnie?" He asked and I nodded
again.

He collected
another drink from the fridge and then collapsed down beside me on
the couch. Taking the beer from him I broke the seal, making that
satisfying scchh sound, and took a dainty sip. After a moment Matt
reached over and smacked his can against mine, eliciting a dull
clunk rather than the traditional clink expected in toasts, and
sloshing both our drinks over our fingers in the process.

"Here's to us!"
He said grandly. "You and me against the world."

I fought my annoyance at his casual attitude, I really did,
but all the pent-up emotion from the last few days just kind of
exploded and I glared at him before snapping, "Where the
hell
have you
been?"

"Geez, Talia,"
Matt sighed, obviously not that surprised at my question but not
liking it either. "I've only just got back, give me a sec to settle
in, won't you?"

"Well, I don't
know when you're going to run away again," I pointed out cattily.
"So I want to get my questions in before then."

"I didn't run
away." A hint of anger slipped into Matt's voice at this but him
being mad at me wasn't anything all that new and I ignored it.

"Well there was
definitely running and then you went away so what would you call
it?"

"A tactical
retreat." He took another long pull of his drink and added,
"Otherwise known as the only thing I could think of doing that
didn't include bodily harm."

A nicely
succinct little reminder of the events surrounding his dramatic
exit on Monday, that. I shelved some of my anger and said, in a
more conciliatory tone of voice, "Fine, please just tell me where
you've been."

"Why?" Matt
looked at me strangely. "Have you been worried about me?"

I rolled at my
eyes at his stupidity. "Of course I have, you know I have, you
moron. Storming off like that and not letting me know where you
were going, I've been going mental here."

"Good." Matt
gripped his can a little too tightly making the thin metal buckle
slightly. "You deserve a bit of worry." Before I could express my
outrage at this comment he continued, "And I've been at Kristin's
place, not that it's really any of your business."

Kristin, Kristin, Kristin... I turned the name over and over
in my head knowing that I recognised it, but unable to remember who
it was. Then, suddenly, the name fell into place and I looked at
Matt incredulously. "Kristin!" I basically squealed.
"
Kristin
Kristin?
As in
Jack's
Kristin?"

"She's not
Jack's," Matt said, fury lighting up his eyes at the mention of his
name, showing me clearly that Jack was far from forgiven. "But
yeah, she's his ex."

"Well…" I
couldn't think of anything to say, I was too shocked, but I
eventually managed to get out, "How long have you guys been – what?
- an item?"