Authors: Kirsten Rees
“Get started on breakfast.” he cut me off grinning.
I bit my lip to stop from smiling back at the challenging expression on his face.
A few minutes later I was standing in front of fridge looking out various ingrediants to make us breakfast. It was the least I could do since I realised he had no idea where I lived to have taken me home. I remembered drinking several vodkas in a row rather too quickly after our chat with that girl Alicia. As the hours had passed I carried on drinking, partly because Joseph kept topping up everyone’s glasses but also sipping from a glass meant I had less opportunity to talk and instead listened to everyone else talking.
The night came back to me in flashes, I hadn’t done anything crazy or fallen over as far as I could tell from the lack of bruises.
I liked his flat, it had character and a real lived in feel to it. The main living area was open plan with the kitchen and dining space. To the left there was a large open archway which led in to a long corridor which led off in to his bedroom, the bathroom and various cupboards. He had books everywhere, fiction, non-fiction, some for studying and many, many others purely for the pleasure of reading.
I heard the door of the bathroom open and looked up to see Alex walking out in a flurry of steam wearing only a fluffy towel wrapped around his middle. I was momentarily speechless as I watched him walk the fifteen yards to his bedroom. His toned physique was impressive and his hard muscles rippled under his skin as he moved. I knew I shouldn’t be staring but thankfully he seemed to be oblivious.
Haha he was most certainly not oblivious to her eyes on him. In fact he had enjoyed that moment. As vain as it sounds Alex had been secretly hoping it would make her feel something more than friendship for him. He looked after himself and worked out, not least the amount of time he’d spent in the bathroom moisturizing and deciding on a great scent for effect!
Inexplicably I hadn’t been afraid of Chris and yet I was terrified to think of Alex in that way. How could I have it so backwards? Chris had made me bleed, brought tears to my eyes and had broken me down but I had got back up again. No matter what he did to me I had never been afraid of him. And even afterwards, it wasn’t that I was worried about bumping into him out of fear that he might hurt me but more my own feelings that scared me. I didn’t know how I would react if I saw him again - if I’d give in to his reasoning just as I had so many times before.
With Alex, every second I’m with him I’m aware of these feelings I do not understand. I like our comfortable friendship. I want to have him for my own but I can’t. I would rather live my life alone until my end. I wonder sometimes if it’s normal that nearly every guy I’ve been with started out nice in the beginning but ended up awful – did I turn them? Have I driven them to drink, to drugs, to violence and into the arms of other women and even men in one case? Or am I just one of those women who go for the wrong guy over and over but doesn’t realise until it’s too late?
Once we finished breakfast, we washed and dried the dishes together and then I watched the clock until it didn’t seem like I was running out before my food had even digested.
There was a package addressed to me sitting in my mail box. The edges were a little bashed as if the postman had struggled to push it through the letterbox. I carried it up the stair to my flat and curled up in a chair before starting to peel at the sticky tape. It was well sealed and it soon became a struggle between me and the damn tape. Finally the last piece ripped from the brown paper and I unraveled the package. A white rectangle fell to the floor and I found myself holding a book and a large bar of chocolate. And so of course I knew it was from Kara. It was a large bar of our favourite chocolate that we sometimes used to share. I turned to the front cover to find it was by my favourite author Paulo Coelho. I sat staring at the white thing on the floor, it was obviously a letter which made me uncomfortable. I hadn’t responded to her last three emails and now she had written an actual letter to me. It was so unexpected, it was as close to physically turning up in my doorstep as she could right at this moment. I gently lifted the envelope and tore along the edge to avoid paper cuts. It looked like several pages folded together.
Dear Nina,
I’m not going to tell you how much this cost me for delivery as I wouldn’t want you to read this because you felt guilty about not replying to my emails. No, I want you to read this because you consider me a friend and friends are there for each other - read each other’s words, listen to each other’s stories, cheer each other up and don’t let the other go!
I miss you and I hope you are well, - with the wonders of technology today I will always be here for you even when you are too busy to reply! And since you haven’t been in touch I couldn’t tell you my news.
I am engaged!
I know it probably seems crazy but this is right and Graeme and I are so happy. We’re coming home to get married so I will see you in a few months (yes a few months, we didn’t want to wait!) so we can get our dress fittings together since of course you will be my maid of honour – don’t look so surprised, why would I ask anyone but the girl who knows me better than anyone (even my fiancé!) and would do anything for me and who I love like a sister.
Please say you will?
Love and happy thoughts,
Kara xx
The ink ran on the page before I even realised I had tears running down my face. I had missed her so much, but I couldn’t bear for her to know that I wasn’t the same person she had first met all those years ago.
15. Family
I’ve been living my life with everything crammed into a big metaphorical box but there is only so much room and eventually it will all come tumbling out. Some of the relationships and friendships I have had have felt like the person has been helping me keep that lid closed. But with Alex somehow it’s different, instead of forcing it shut and trying to forget my past, he’s helping me to embrace it. As if I have the strength to lift the lid slowly and take out every memory and regret one at a time and accept that I am not simply the sum of my mistakes.
We humans can be pretty resilient. I know the story of Pandora and the box containing only hope when all else escaped. When there is nothing left and despite all the pain there is still that small glimmer of hope. Hope that one day I could be healed, that I could stop holding everything in and let myself feel something again.
“You are good with people, you should find a career that involves helping them and maybe you would get some fulfillment out of it. And since you think you’re so ‘damned to hell’, it wouldn’t hurt to have a little altruism on the old heavenly C.V.!” said Alex one day.
I was surprised to hear him say that, I’d never mentioned thinking I was damned. Clearly it was written all over me.
“You’re a good person Nina, a good person that bad things have clearly happened to. I know you won’t open up to me about your past and that is fine with me but if or when you are ready I will be here to listen. I care a lot for you and I know you have a good heart.” he continued.
I tried to believe the words in the forefront of my mind, but the logical part of my brain was battling against the dark recesses closing in.
“You have a big heart, it would be nice to know if there's even a little piece of it for me.” he said but it a wasn’t a question since he continued. “Maybe I should try being a little more open with you first. When I was fifteen my older brother William took his own life.”
I sat in shock, partly because there really is nothing you can say that will make any difference when someone says such a thing. Also in part because I couldn’t believe how cruel the world would be to bring me in to his life after he had lost his brother. Or perhaps that was why he was drawn to me, maybe he knew somehow.
“He overdosed on alcohol and prescription medication my parents didn’t even know he was on. He was only twenty-one, he had a girlfriend who cared for him and we come from a good family. He didn’t leave an explanation just a short note saying he was sorry and he loved us all. He had done all his washing and ironing, his flat was spotless and completely packed up into boxes.” he said.
It felt like he was talking about me and my heart climbed in to my throat. I wanted to look at the floor, but this wasn’t about me. He was opening up to me about his life and I wanted to listen so I pulled my eyes from the ground and looked at him.
“He’d done his best to make sure everything was neat and organised. He even returned DVDs and various other things belonging to his friends and took the time to say goodbye to everyone without any of us even realising what he was doing. He left an entire box of his things for me, CDs and DVDs I loved, books I hadn’t read but he knew I’d like and a huge world map with coloured dots stuck all over it - red on places he’d been and green where he had once planned to go. I’ve changed quite a few of the green over to red since then.” said Alex.
My eyes followed his gesture to look at the map, anything was better than looking him in the eye. I remembered being in a similar situation with Conor all those years before and clenched my hands tightly in my lap. I was scared to move, scared to look at him because I didn’t know what to say or how to respond to his words. I tried to think of it as a sad story rather than understanding this was his life he was revealing to me.
“When I stopped being angry I realised he did what he could to show he loved us in the only way he knew how. He was ill and back then they didn’t send you for therapy sessions after a visit to the doctor. When my Mum dragged him to a doctor, they called it a phase and said he’d grow out of it. After that he kept his problems from us.” he said.
“I’m so sorry.” I said.
Alex took a deep breath and dragged his eyes from the map back to me again. “After a while we moved us away, my Dad couldn’t bear the gossip back where we’d lived. I know some people thought my brother was selfish, but he had no control over his actions and I understand that now. Until the last few years he was full of life and so passionate about it. Depression changed him, my Dad rarely speaks about the suicide but he talks about Will and everything that he achieved in his life.” he said.
“He sounds like an amazing person.” I replied.
“He was, he had a true adventurer’s soul and he just burned out too early. My Mum is always saying she is so proud to have brought me and my brother into the world. I think since it all happened they feel like they have to make an extra effort to make sure I’m happy and know that I’m loved. It may sound crazy but sometimes I feel like part of him is living on through me and that makes me want to live my life to the full. I don’t agree with what he did obviously, but I’m not going to vilify my brother for one decision when he spent his life otherwise making great choices.” he said.
Alex hadn’t cried a single tear over his brother in years. He’d stopped the day he’d forgiven him, until then he had only cried in anger at Will for giving up or because he got to live and his brother didn’t. But wiping the tears from his cheek now, he wasn’t angry. Nina was one of the few people he had confessed to about his, other than the people who were in his life at the time.
We spent the afternoon together and he showed me photos of his brother, they looked different but I could see the resemblance in their eyes and the way they smiled.
“It felt like I hadn’t done enough to be the one that got to be okay when he had done so much in his life. I was going to spend the rest of my life making up for that. Losing him made me feel like I had to live for both of us. But I’ve spent so much time trying to see the whole world and do all the crazy things he talked about when he was alive that I’ve ended up living the life he should have lived.” he said
We talked about our families and I told him about my Father leaving us and rather than just mentioning how it had affected my family, for the time I opened up about how I felt.
“I think you should meet with your Father again. I know it’s not what you want to hear, I know you want me to take your side and I do. I don’t think you should talk to him for his sake or because life is short or because people will tell you that family is important and forgiveness is a good thing.” He said.
“Then why? He already explained why he left and it’s as good a reason as any I guess. What else is there to know?” I replied.
“I would give anything to have even one last conversation with my brother, it’s taken me a long time to stop being angry with him and I'm not sure I will ever make peace with what he did. I know if I had the chance to talk to him I would take it. But that’s not why I think you should talk to him. Your Father fought through his addiction and it’s made him look at things differently. He might not deserve your forgiveness and you may choose not to give it but at least hear him out. You’ve spent most of your life thinking that your Father didn’t love you, and now you have the chance to know the truth - not knowing or believing a lie is worse than pushing people away. If he spends the rest of his days trying to make things up to you and your brothers then it’s more than some Fathers give their whole lives.” said Alex.
Begrudgingly I had to admit he was right. My Father wasn’t a ‘bad’ man, he left because he didn’t think he could give the love he thought we deserved and believed we were better off without him. I knew that feeling intimately. Was I more like him than I realised? I had never felt like I fitted in with my Mother and two brothers, perhaps it was because I took after my Father.