So Much to Learn (57 page)

"Come on,
I
know what you want and I've only had the last couple of
minutes, you've had weeks to figure this out. Forget that I hate
it, forget that he's going away, forget your jumped up notions of
what's right for him and just say what you want."

"Fine!" There
comes a time when the bough can't bend anymore and it snaps. "I
want him. I want Jack. I don't want him to go, I don't want you to
be mad at him or me anymore." I leapt off the bed and started to
pace because a thrilling, restless energy was spreading throughout
my limbs and there was no way I could stay sitting. "I want to
apologise and have him forgive me and I want to be with him without
the guilt. I want to stop crying all the time and I want to feel
secure enough in myself and in him that I don't have these stupid
fits of irrationality. Oh God!" I stopped dead and stared at Matt,
my eyes wide. "I love him."

"No
kidding."

"But it doesn't
matter because I can't tell him that I do. That would be too
selfish for words." I put my head in my hands and sank back down
onto the bed with a frustrated groan.

"That's never
stopped you before." Wow, blunt really was becoming my brother's
speciality. "Be selfish because you know the one thing that selfish
people get? What they want." I suddenly felt his hands grip my
shoulders and I dropped my hands to look at him. "Let Jack take
responsibility for himself, he might hate you for making his
leaving harder but he might not. I might hate you for screwing up
my friendship with him, but I might not. Are you prepared to find
out?"

I pushed his
hands off my shoulder with a sigh. "He's not talking to me, he made
it pretty clear last time we met that he'd had enough of me. He's
not going to let me get near him to make my big gesture."

"You are so
frickin' thick sometimes," Matt sighed, getting off my bed and
walking towards the door. "Who are the only people bar you and me
who Jack would do anything for?"

"Our parents,"
I answered without hesitation.

"And what’s
next weekend?" He asked.

"Their wedding
anniversary...oh!" Yeah, now I really did feel thick. My mum had
given me a massive hint and now even my oblivious brother had
figured out what the anniversary party meant for me and Jack. He
would go to it, I had no doubt of that, there was no way he would
let my parents down, especially as he was getting ready to go away.
I was confused, though, Matt seemed to have done a radical about
face. "But what about you and him?" I called out as he exited my
room. "What happened to 'I'll never forgive him' and all that?
Because I don't understand why you're telling me to give Jack and
me a go if you're then just going to mess it all up."

Matt reappeared
back in my doorway, his expression fierce. "He messed up," he said
seriously. "Maybe you did too but this is about him and me. I have
no idea whether I can forgive him but I'm game to face him and find
out. Are you?"

"Yes," I said
with conviction.

I guess it was
like Jack had said. I'd figured out what I wanted, now I just
needed to bloody go for it!

The next week
passed unbelievably slowly. There was no time marching on for me,
on the contrary, time was behaving like a sulky teenager and
dragging its feet towards the Saturday night when all the nonsense
of the past two months was going to come to a head. My stomach was
constantly tied in knots as I grappled with writing the speech. I
knew that Jack would have to listen to me, that he couldn't run
away if I was speaking to everyone and not just him, but it had to
be right and that was proving to be more of a challenge then any
piece of schoolwork I’d ever attempted.

Around this
battle other issues flowed, such as beginning to study for exams,
trying to keep my friendship with Simone alive and stopping myself
from killing Matt. Because, you see, after our good long
conversation on the Friday, Matt became unbearable. He slouched
around the flat in a filthy mood, refusing to help with chores,
refusing to explain what his problem was, basically refusing
everything. As far as I could determine through his sulks, Matt was
ripping himself apart trying to figure out whether he should
forgive Jack or not. It seemed to me that the answer was obvious,
but I guess I just had to accept that boys are slower than girls
and he needed time to sort things out in his head.

Despite knowing
what he was going through, I've never exactly been known as someone
who has a particularly long temper and I got fed up with his
behaviour after all of two hours. Suffice it to say the
relationship between Matt and me was pretty tenuous.

Simone was
proving much easier to deal with. As promised, she’d called and
we’d had a good long talk, just like we used to before we turned
our backs on each other. Upon my telling her of my grand idea for
the anniversary party, she had embarked on a campaign to find me
the perfect dress. All throughout the day I could expect calls from
her bombarding me with questions such as 'corset or empire waist?'
or 'teal green or emerald green' until I was tempted just to turn
my darn phone off. But I never did. Fashion was her thing and I'd
have been an idiot not to take advantage of that. Not to mention,
it was the first tentative step towards getting our friendship back
on track and, although I was still hurt and confused by her
decision to turn to Micky, I was more than willing to travel down
the path to renew our friendship.

Things with Adam were easier as well. Lectures with him became
fun again and it wasn't long before I was able to spend an evening
with him on the very couch I'd thrown myself at him on without a
hint of weirdness. Continuing with this theme of forgiveness and
friendship I invited Haley out to the movies with me one night and
had a surprisingly good time. We may have had different tastes and
opinions on a lot of things but when she finally relaxed around me
it also turned out there were plenty of things that we
were
in agreement on and
this made all the difference.

As the week
progressed and I began to reconnect with my other friends, I
realised that my problems with Jack had overshadowed everything
else in my life. By having a firm plan about what to do with
regards to him I was less edgy and prickly with other people, which
I, and probably they as well, was very pleased about.

This is not to
say that everything was suddenly coming up roses. I wasn't suddenly
all bouncy and full of life or anything sickening like that. In
fact, as I was expending all my energy into fixing relationships
with people and figuring out how to win Jack back, I was lethargic
and anxious most of the time. My skin went pale and kind of pasty
while my hair became lank and droopy. I wasn't exactly a pretty
picture which was another reason I was so glad Simone was going to
such effort to make sure I looked nice on the night itself; the
Saturday which had been affectionately named J-day by all
involved.

My parents,
never ones to be left out, got in on the preparation act. Every
phone conversation with them was a buzz of discussions and planning
about the night; when the speech should be made, where I was going
to stand, who was going to be in charge to make sure that Jack was
present and listening, and so on. Maybe it wasn't the traditional
way these things were supposed to work, ie the off-the-cuff speech
and the effortless falling into each other's arms, but I did like
that everyone I cared about was involved in letting me tell Jack
how I felt about him. It was what was going to happen after the
speech that truly scared me. I didn't know if I could take another
dismissal from Jack so soon after my previous ones, and I was
scared shitless of hurting him even more.

Although I had
promised to myself that I would let Jack be so he could sort out
his feelings, by Wednesday the nerves got to be too much and,
before I could stop myself, I found my hand picking up the phone
and dialling Tommo's number. I couldn't call Jack's mobile as I
knew he would take one look at the caller ID and refuse to answer.
Maybe this way I could take him unawares.

"Hello?"

My heart sank
as I recognised Tommo's voice on the other end of the line, but I
rallied to be able to say in a friendly-enough tone, "Hey Tommo,
how's things?"

"Talia!" His
voice was a sort of manly shriek. "Hi! Fine! Me, that is and, you
know, everything. How are you? I mean you and Matt, I mean-"

"Tommo? Take a
deep breath for me," I said calmingly wondering what on Earth his
problem was, he was usually so chilled.

He laughed
uneasily and then said, in his normal voice, "Sorry about that, you
took me a bit by surprise is all. So how are things really? I mean
with Matt home and everything?"

I couldn't
figure out why he was so keen to know but I replied that things
were fine, that we were slowly but surely getting ourselves back to
the way things had been before. Before he could ask any more
questions I hurriedly continued, "Listen, is Jack there? Because I
really need to talk to him, I have some pretty important stuff I
want to say."

"Oh." Tommo
faltered and then he said in a loud, clear voice, "So Matt’s home
and things are getting better between the two of you? Things are
good? That's great. And you want to talk to Jack? Because you have
some important stuff you want to say to him?"

"Tommo, why are
you repeating everything I'm…oh." I sighed. "Just put Jack on the
phone, please," I said tiredly.

There was a
short pause and then Tommo said awkwardly, "I can't he's in the
shower…no I mean he's out…but I don't know where."

I laughed a
short laugh which contained absolutely no humour in it
whatsoever.

"Fine, could
you just tell him that I'm sorry and that…nothing, forget it, just
that I hope that he's alright and sorry again."

"No worries,
Talia. And, hey, I'm sorry too, you know, about all this stuff. I
hope it works out."

"Me too." I
smiled slightly at his sweetness, but my smile slid away quickly as
I remembered Jack was standing just at the other end of the line
but refusing to speak to me. Honestly, who was being immature
now?

I hung up the
phone and redoubled my efforts to keep myself busy until Saturday,
it looked like it truly did all come down to J-day.

~*~

Saturday
morning dawned clear and bright. My childhood bedroom was almost
glowing with the strength of the early morning sun and, as I threw
off my bedclothes, I felt that the air was nice and warm. It was
surely a good omen, I decided as I stretched out my legs and stared
up at the ceiling I had awoken under so many times before.

Matt, Kristin
and I had driven up to Bridunna the night before, ostensibly
because Mum and Dad needed help setting everything up, but mainly
because both Matt and I were going stir-crazy hanging around the
flat. Rather than being annoyed at Kristin's presence on the long
drive up, I was immeasurably glad she had gone with us because she
was a calming influence on Matt.

He still hadn't got around to talking to Jack which pissed me
off because Jack was surely more likely to listen to me if he knew
that Matt had forgiven him. Then again if Matt
didn't
forgive him maybe it was lucky
I was going to get in first.

I could hear
the sounds of trucks and voices outside my window and assumed the
huge tent/marquee thing had arrived and was being erected. I knew I
should get up and go and help out wherever I could, probably taking
cups of tea to the men working, but I hugged a few precious minutes
to myself.

Like when
people say you're dying and your life flashes before your eyes, the
last couple of months flashed before mine as I lay there. I
remembered the crushing embarrassment of finding out my boyfriend
had been sleeping with someone else, my innocent affection towards
Jack as he agreed to help me out and my slow spiral downward as I
opened myself up to him and then slammed myself shut again.

I wondered when I'd first fallen in love with Jack. Come to
that I was still struggling to figure out exactly what love was.
I'd felt love before obviously, I loved my parents and Matt, I
loved Simone and, even before the lessons had begun, I'd loved Jack
in a way. But when had I first felt that strange tugging in my
chest? When had I started every day and gone to bed every night
with him on my mind? When he'd told me that he loved me? No, much
earlier than that. The first time I'd had sex with him? No, I
realised, it was even before that. Maybe when he'd first kissed me
on the roof, our hair stirred by the wind, his hands tight around
me? Nope, my mind insisted, you've got to go further back than
that. Our first date? Our first embrace? Our first meaningful look?
No, no, no. Did it go back beyond that fateful Wednesday night
then? Did I have to start trawling through my childhood memories to
find the key to the all consuming need I had to be with Jack, to
comfort Jack, to be there for Jack, to
love
Jack? Did it go all the way back
to the first time we met when, instead of saying hi and racing off
to join Matt like all of my big brother's other friends did when
meeting me, he had smiled solemnly and shook my hand?

But then again maybe, I had a sudden epiphany, it didn't
matter
when
I'd
fallen in love with him, only that I
had
.

And, like a
crackle of electricity had just whizzed through me, I suddenly
realised what my speech was going to be about that night. All my
carefully planned words had suddenly become redundant! I threw
myself out of bed and grabbed the stack of little white cards that
I had written my intended speech on and, ripping them neatly in
two, I flung open the window and hurled the pieces out of it.
Ignoring the astonished workmen who looked up at me, presumably
wondering why a girl with crazy bed hair had just blatantly thrown
litter at them, I let out a whoop of excitement.