Now I probably sound like the crazy one.
With a sigh, I get up from the bed and head into the bathroom, my knee offering a little resistance as I get it moving again.
Is it egotistical of me to think a kiss could lure her back? Maybe. But I like her. Even if Esme had never told me a single thing about her, I’d still like her. She’s funny, she speaks her mind, and she doesn’t try to be someone she’s not. She doesn’t give a shit about my rugby career, didn’t hint that she might be interested in my money. She just treated me like any other person and that’s something I haven’t had for a long time. So yeah, I kissed her because I wanted her to keep thinking about me enough to come back.
“And now you’ve gone and fucked things up,” I grumble as I drop the condom in the bin. All those years of casual flings have obviously taught me zero restraint, and she may never come back because we were stupid and fell into bed way too soon. At best, I just made myself a rebound fuck. At worst, we’ve ruined what friendship we had with maybe fifteen minutes of sex. It was good sex—great sex—but it was too soon, way too soon. I should have been stronger and told her that we needed to wait. I’m a fucking idiot who should have listened to my head more than my dick. Those things always get you in trouble.
Blowing the air out between my lips, I turn on the shower, hoping the cool spray will get my head on straight.
She felt so unbelievably fucking good in my arms, pressed against my body, writhing and whimpering. Great, I’m getting hard just thinking about it—the way she took control, riding me and playing with her tits… wow. Just, wow. I can see that moment living in the mental spank bank for a while.
Wow.
I turn the heat down to nothing, letting the ice-cold water shock my system and force some sense into this damn head of mine.
That look on her face when we finished: instant regret. It’s enough to have me thumping my own head against the wall.
I fucked up.
I let her down.
We should have waited.
God, I’m going to miss her.
TEN
DARCY
I suppose when I really think about it, I knew Kevin wasn’t happy. He’d always been somewhat of a ‘sad sack’. Not that he was clinically depressed. No, not at all. It was just that he rarely found happiness in any given situation. I often joked that he was the Eeyore of the family because he always looked at what was missing instead of what was there. Through most of our relationship, I was the perpetual family cheerleader—Oh look, Abigail is dancing to the Wiggles; Archer can catch a ball while hopping on one foot; look how beautiful the sky is tonight; isn’t life wonderful?—I could sigh with happiness, and point, and pep everything up until I was blue in the face and it would barely muster a nod of enthusiasm.
Up until now, I’d thought it was the way he was. I mean, some people simply couldn’t see the bright side of life. But it didn’t mean they were unhappy. Just unenthusiastic. Like Daria in that show…well, it’s also called Daria; she had a single monotonous tone and acted as though she hated everything, but she was still happy in her own way, putting the world down and overanalysing things was her jam. I honestly thought Kevin was like that. After all, we are the MTV generation, known for our cynicism and ironic take on life. We invented self-deprecation. I thought he was normal. I thought we were normal—the yin and the yang, the light and the dark. I thought that was part of why we’d worked for so long… And now, well, I feel dumb. I’ve obviously been living in a bubble, refusing to see what was right in front of me, because why? Because I didn’t want to fail.
I hate failing.
When I was studying year eleven maths, I failed a class test and was mortified. I begged and begged my teacher to let me re-sit it, and he refused point-blank, saying it wouldn’t be fair to the rest of the class and I’d have to work harder next time. Well, I did work harder. I studied my arse off for that class and ended up being one of his best students. From that moment on, whenever something wasn’t working for me, I doubled down and pushed harder, and my marriage was no exception. If I noticed Kevin pulling away, playing a little hard for Team Kevin, I pulled out those pom poms until he was waving the flag for Team Family again.
Of course, he’d been less happy over these past months. No amount of cheerleading from me was going to change that. But it was expected, wasn’t it? I mean, he had cancer. Anyone would be down in the dumps over that. It was understandable. So of course, I saw his unwillingness to talk, to be touched, or be affectionate as a symptom of his illness, not a herald of the end of our relationship. I convinced myself that I was being a good wife by taking care of his immediate needs and giving him the space he needed to get well.
I didn’t think the amount of space he needed was all of it. Or that the space he wanted was actually occupied by someone else. I might hate him.
But now I know, I can see that he was right: I should have seen this coming. The signs were there all along, but I hadn’t wanted to see them. I’d made excuses and pretended they weren’t there. I had lived in denial, convincing myself we were happy when he obviously wasn’t happy at all. I feel stupid. I feel naïve. I feel thrown away, cast aside. He moved on the moment he walked away from me—probably before—and I didn’t seem to have a problem falling into bed with another man either. So now we’re over, the sexual ghosts chased away. Kevin and Darcy are no more. Kaput. Just like that.
Since that day in the parking garage, I’ve done a lot of soul-searching and self-discovery. And I’ve discovered I’m a bit of a wanton ho. Before you scoff and say, puh-lease, you should hear me out on this one. I came here messed up over one man, and I’m leaving messed up over another. If that isn’t a ho-like turnover, then I don’t know what is.
I never should have let things go as far as they did with Leo. I know I have no one to blame but myself. Leo was more than gentlemanly, asking if I was sure, and I was animal-like in my insistence that yes, I wanted to rip each other’s clothes off and bump uglies in unencumbered frenzy.
What must he think of me?
Every time I remember the way I behaved, the way I grabbed myself…oh lord…my stomach twists with embarrassment and I want to hide under a blanket and never come out. Thank God, I’m going home today. I don’t think I could face him again, knowing he saw what he saw last night. Ugh. Kill me now.
I know that to most, my actions probably aren’t a big deal, but to me, that is not how I behave in the bedroom. I mean, I’m not a limp fish, and I’m not a missionary only girl, I’m just…I’m normal. I don’t howl and talk dirty and bite and suck my own…ugh…you know what I did. I am so far out of my comfort zone, which is crazy. I came here because Nana is my comfort zone. I used to come here when I was Abby’s age to escape my overbearing mother. Back then, it felt like Nana was the only person on the planet who understood me. I’d run into her welcoming arms, stay a few hours and sometimes a few days to listen to her wise and understanding words or spend time partaking in whatever spiritual pursuit she was involved in at that time. I always loved her brand of crazy. Once I came here and she and three friends had formed a witches’ coven, complete with a cauldron, the purpose of which (see what I did there) was to put a hex on a cheating soon-to-be ex-husband. Whether it worked or not, I have no clue, although, the thought has crossed my mind to get them to reconvene and try again on my behalf. But that’s not the point; my point is that there’s always something fantastic going on with Nana. The life she leads is one of total and utter distraction. It’s why hers was the first and only place I considered running to. It’s the perfect place to escape myself, because I realise now that I’ve become a lot more like my mother than I ever thought I was. What a sobering thought.
“Why don’t you stay longer?” Nana suggests as she sits on the end of my bed and watches me fold clothes into Archer’s backpack. He literally packed nothing but his bathers and underwear, and I frown and try to untangle a John Cena action figure from a pair of Spiderman undies. I don’t even know h
ow he did this.
“To be honest with you, returning to the house is the last thing I want to do. But the kids have to finish up with school; Abby’s already missed her final exams. I’ve already been on the phone with her school getting everything rescheduled before school breaks for Christmas. I simply can’t keep them here any longer. Not to mention the fact that Archer and I don’t have any clothes.” I’ve been washing and wearing the same things over and over so I didn’t have to repeat the kimono twinning incident again.
“You can get more clothes.” Nana shrugs and reaches for the tangled toy and undies I’m holding, expertly extracting the action figure.
“I really can’t, Nana. The kids have two weeks left of school and it’s going to be the first Christmas without Kevin. I have to find a way to get through that and still keep it fun for the kids.”
“All the more reason to come back. Have Christmas here. The kids can spend the day on the beach and we can invite your sister. Maybe even your mother. I always do a big all-day party. They won’t even think about Kevin.”
“I don’t know, Nana.” Would they want that? Would it be good to have a Christmas here so it’s different from what they’re used to? From what they’re missing? I don’t know… “I just feel like I have to go back there and face my life, get the kids back into a routine...”
“Oh pish. Life doesn’t have to be about the chains that bind us, Darcy. It’s about realising that we put those chains there ourselves. We have the key to unlock and shake them away whenever we want.”
“So, you’re saying I should just throw my hands up in the air and do whatever I feel like doing?”
She smiles and nods once. “Wouldn’t we all be happier if we started doing what we wanted instead of what we should?”
“That’s a very tempting idea, but as much as I love you and I love it here, I really need to go. I can’t stay.”
She narrows her eyes and studies me for a moment. “Did something happen between you and Leo last night?”
My cheeks go bright red, and even though I answer no, she doesn’t believe me.
“Oh my, you slept with him.” She claps her hands together and beams with pride. “Well done, my beautiful girl. Well done. How was he?”
The heat of embarrassment burns its way up my neck. “It doesn’t mean anything. It just…it happened.” I take the toy and the underwear from her and throw them in the bag.
“Oh dear. Was he terrible in bed? I really thought he’d know what he was doing, what with the way he carries himself; you don’t get that with men who are just subpar between the sheets. True confidence comes when a man knows he has the ability to make a woman scream and beg for more. And I was so sure he had that in him. How incredibly disappointing. But that’s the trouble with good-looking men, I suppose.” She lets out a sigh as she shakes her head.
“What? No. He wasn’t terrible at all.”
“He was just OK? That’s almost as bad as being terrible in my opinion. If he didn’t get you off, dear, I’m going to have to have to talk to him. This just won’t do.”
“Nana!”
“Don’t worry, I’ll be tactful about it.”
“Tactful as a sledgehammer, I’m sure.”
“Well, I won’t have any male friend of mine being an average lover. I expect better for you.”
“Oh my God, you don’t need to talk to him. I’m not going to give you a blow-by-blow—which I’m sure you want—but I assure you, he was more capable and”—I clear my throat and check the doorway to make sure no children are hovering around—“he got me off just fine.”
Her eyes light up and she grins from ear to ear. “I knew it. He’s got the right kind of hips on him.” She even claps, so pleased her original assessment was right.
I pull the zip closed on Archer’s bag. “Can we drop this topic please? It doesn’t matter what kind of hips he has, because I won’t be seeing them—him—again.”
“Heavens, why? If I were you, I’d at least add a man like that to my roster. You see the abs on him? Didn’t get bodies like that much in my day. The men around my age have little ET bellies; remember that funny little alien in the movie? It’s not very sexy. But you take what you can get when you’re old as dust. As long as their maypole works and they give as good as they get I’m a happy lady.”
Does anyone else have an eighty-something grandmother who talks this openly about her sex life? No? So, it’s just me then.
“I’m glad you’re well satisfied, Nana.” It’s the most diplomatic response I can come up with. I’m still a little scarred from seeing her friend, George’s ‘maypole’ on our arrival.
She sits back and waves a dismissive hand. “Who’s ever really satisfied? We always need more. Which brings me back to you: why don’t you want to see Leo again?”
“Because I live three hours away. Because I just split with my husband. I’m not you, Nana. I can’t jump from bed to bed without consequence. I’m not looking to add another man into my life right now.”
With a slow intake of air, she presses her lips together and straightens her spine. “I think I might make some of those oat and raisin cookies the children like. For the drive home.”
“Nana,” I call out as she walks from the room. “I didn’t mean…” But she’s already gone, and I feel like shit. Nana has been nothing but good to me my entire life. Why the hell did I say that?
ELEVEN
DARCY
Pulling up outside the red brick house in Bairnsdale feels like a knife in my gut. I’ve called this place home since before Abby was born. I thought this was the dream—married, a nice house, and a couple of kids who can handle being in the same room with you. My happiness resided within those walls, and now I’m not sure where it is, or whether I’ll ever get it back. Or even if it was happiness to begin with. When I look at this house through my recently opened eyes, all I see are the false truths I let myself believe. I see the memory of a woman who bent and shifted, constantly altering herself to fit some unattainable ideal. I wonder now at what point I decided to bend and keep bending. I wanted a career in osteopathy. I wanted my own practice… I had goals. But I gave them all up, became the stay-at-home wife and mother he wanted me to be. I did everything that man asked of me. And I didn’t ask for much in return. I gave him everything, and he left me with nothing. I’ve no credentials, no work history, no way of paying my half of the mortgage. I’ll end up living with my mother, and she’ll take over and squash down the light in my children too. They’ll end up like me, forced into a box, a fucking shell of a human trying to please everyone while forgetting herself. I don’t want that for them. I don’t want that.
And now I’m hyperventilating. Great. Just fantastic. I haven’t even gotten out of the car yet.
“Are you OK, Mum?” Abby asks beside me, her young face filled with concern.
I nod. Calm the fuck down, Darcy. Your kids need you. “I’m fine, sweetheart. Just tired from the drive.”
And I’m angry.
The more I think about my life with Kevin, the more of a fool I feel for sticking it out as long as I did. He was barely even a participant. I’d been this whirlwind of activity, fabricating this image of happy perfection before me. I was holding too tight, trying too hard. I know that now. But it doesn’t make me feel any better. It just makes me feel used because I’m not even sure he wanted the life we built. He was simply…there, getting me to do everything while pleasing himself. Ugh. I feel blind and stupid, and angry, angry, angry.
Why the hell did he stay so long if he was so bloody unhappy?
Why didn’t I notice and end things myself?
Why did he get to leave me?
Why did he get to leave us?
“Are you going to turn the car off, Mum?” Abby asks while I stare at the house, lost in thought.
“I was going to put it in the garage,” I respond absentmindedly.
“Isn’t Dad’s car in there?”
“No. He isn’t back yet.”
Archer leans between the seats. “Can I press the button to open the door?”
“I don’t know,” I say, answering Abby.
Archer takes it as an answer to him and sits back with a humph.
I still don’t move.
How the hell did I let myself get here?
In the beginning, things were great between Kevin and me. They always are though, aren’t they? We kind of fell together during our first year at university, we got along and the sex was good, so that was that. Moving in together was out of necessity more than desire—his lease ended, and my roommate was moving out. Getting married was a mutual decision—we’d been at dinner with friends and they’d asked when we were going to tie the knot. Kevin looked at me, shrugged and said, “September?” I smiled and said, “September.” And three months later we were just that, married.
It had all seemed so simple with him in the early years. No big fights, no dramatic teething problems that our couple friends seemed to experience. We walked step by step through life doing what needed to be done to keep going, hurdle after hurdle. Slowly, the arguments came but it was never anything relationship ending. Perhaps due to my upbringing, I was always quick to apologise and put things right. He was quick to accept my apologies and tell me how I could do better. They say you choose your partners to mirror the parent you struggled with most because you become comfortable in that conflict. I’ve often wondered if I chose Kevin because he was a softer version of my mother, and I felt safe knowing how to navigate that kind of personality.
I know I keep focusing on the negatives of our relationship, so I probably seem like a complete doormat where Kevin is concerned. But there were good times. There were lots of good times. And there was comfort too. I did feel content with him, and I felt cared about (not for, he wasn’t that kind of person) and I think that’s why I stayed, and why I thought we were forever. My mother always said that no one was perfect and at least he wasn’t an alcoholic or a drug abuser, and I counted myself lucky because of that. He could have been worse…
Love is a Beach: a romantic comedy Page 7
