by Lisa Swallow
Pulling me close and squeezing my rear, she tugs my ear lobe with her teeth. “I think that shirt makes you look very sexy. It’s the one I took off you the first night.”
I pull her hips towards me, hands on her backside. “Stop that, or we won’t leave the house.”
Ness giggles and she removes my hands. “I’m hungry, let’s go.”
The sun hovers around longer in the evening, and we leave the house in daylight for once. Spring’s moving towards summer, and warmer evenings.
Summer.
When Ness leaves.
The restaurant is smartly furnished with the waiting staff in perfectly coordinated uniforms. The reds and golds shine under the bright lighting, and the wall art isn’t peeling like the pictures in our usual haunts. I’m definitely underdressed compared to the beautiful girl I’m with.
“This is one country I’m definitely visiting,” says Ness, as we’re halfway through our meal, looking at the photos on the wall. “India is amazing.”
My throat constricts around my food. I don’t want to spoil this evening by talking about her plans.
“I have your present.” I produce a gift-wrapped box, that’ll shut her up.
“I said no presents.”
“Everyone says no presents.”
She crosses her arms. “I meant it.”
“Tough. I bought you something.”
Ness carefully unwraps the small box and gently removes the brooch from the tissue inside. One of those crap moments follows, when you don’t know if the person likes what you bought them, as Ness stares at the small silver butterfly with delicate filigree wings.
“Evan, that’s beautiful.” She leans across the table and kisses me, the spices on her lips heating mine.
“I know you don’t like fancy stuff, but I wanted something for you to remember me by.”
“Our butterfly days?” She carefully pins the brooch onto her dress.
I pick up the wrapping paper and fold it, pushing down the square into neat lines, not looking at Ness.
“What is it?” she asks.
“Butterfly days.”
“I don’t understand what you mean.”
My stomach has turned over repeatedly since I sat down; I’ve no idea why I suggested a meal when every time I think about next month I feel sick. But I can’t keep going with this unspoken event hanging between us. If my heart will be squeezed dry by her leaving, I’m no longer sure I can keep this relationship up. I set my fork down.
“Did you book your flights yet?”
Ness freezes; a forkful of food in front of her mouth. “Not yet.”
“You’re still going?”
Her eyes widen, recognising something in my face I’ve hidden. “You know I am.”
I scrunch the napkin on my lap. Don’t spoil this. Don’t ruin her birthday. Don’t make her cry.
NESS
I touch the butterfly pinned to my dress, the cool metal warming against my skin. A gift like the brooch speaks so much about Evan. The Evan who quotes poetry and pretends to be tongue in cheek, scared I’ll think him insincere. The guy who looks at me sometimes as if I put the stars in the sky.
Five months into our relationship and it’s as if Evan’s always been in my life. There’s a relaxed easiness with him; he lives his life and I live mine. Neither of us demands too much from the other; the boundaries around what we’re prepared to give are respected. Trust and comfort in what we have holds us together when we’re apart. When I compare this to the self-destructive and all-encompassing neediness of some, I think we’ve got things right. Apart from one thing.
Evan has never told me he loves me.
Recently, Evan confuses me; he blows hot and cold. The original, guarded Evan is sneaking back in. I’ve asked about Lucy, but she’s well, so now I’m worrying about us. The fact he’s never told me he loves me begins to eat at me for the first time.
There’s one thing I suspect is causing his mood changes and his jittery demeanour tonight suggests it’s about to hit us. I knew this conversation was coming and now we’re here. The number of times Evan cuts me short when I talk about my year away has increased. Every time we go into my bedroom, he shuts the laptop, hiding the screen saver images of exotic places.
“Are we finally going to talk about this?” I ask him.
“Maybe later.” He focuses on his food, pushing the rice around his plate.
“I want to talk about this now. I don’t want to sit through a meal with a cloud over our heads.”
Evan takes a drink. “Okay.”
“Ask me then. About my plans.”
Evan shakes his fringe away from his eyes. “When are you going?”
“May sometime. I’ve almost saved what I need, and then I’ll book the flight.” Evan’s hand grips his glass, inhales. “Why is this such a surprise?”
“You haven’t talked about your plans recently. I didn’t realise you were going so soon.”
I take the napkin from my lap and place it on the table. “You haven’t wanted to talk about any of this.”
“No. Because I don’t want you to go.”
My heart beats quicker, in anticipation of the oncoming conversation. Wow, he chooses his moments. “I’m coming back.”
“I know. But you’ll be gone for a year.”
He’s said he doesn’t want me to go. These are the words I wanted to hear, but so desperately didn’t want him to say. The pull to stay with Evan has become gravitational over the last few weeks, dragging me off course, away from my plans. Evan, the guy I’ve spent more and more time with, who’s touched my life, filled a void and overwhelmed my world. Evan who hasn’t given me the one last part of himself.
“Why?” I ask, pushing him to say more.
“Because I want you here. With me. I know it’s selfish…”
Reaching across the table, I touch his hand. For once, his fingers don’t curl around mine. A cold tingle climbs down my back. “We should talk about this.”
“Yeah.” Evan removes his hand from mine and picks his fork up, resuming his meal.
My hand rests on the table, the cold sensation spreads through me. We’ve left this too long; fooling ourselves living day to day is enough for our relationship. Letting go of the past, living for each day makes perfect sense; but even though the future may come one day at a time, it’s never far away.
* * *
NESS
Evan is quiet on the walk back to the car after our meal. The temperature cools to match the mood, and I rub my hands on my bare arms, the spring evening warmth soon disappeared. In response, Evan wraps his arm around my shoulder and pulls me to him; I sink my head against his chest, hoping he’s not going to let me go. The atmosphere in the restaurant killed the mood of the evening, now is the right time to get everything out in the open. Otherwise the unsaid will eat away at the weeks we have left.
“Can we talk about this?” I say, stopping.
Evan’s arm stiffens around me. “I told you, I don’t want you to go. I’m selfish. I shouldn’t have said anything, forget it. We don’t need to talk about this.”
Pulling from his embrace, I turn to him. “Why don’t you want me to go?”
“Because you’re a big part of my life now. Because I can’t imagine not seeing you for a year.”
He’s not saying what he needs to. I carry on, reaching his car, and rest against the door, waiting. He catches up in a few strides.
“Is that such an odd thing, Ness? When we spend so much time together?” Evan buries his hands in his pockets, his mouth thinning, and I’d do anything to replace the look with a smile.
“What do I mean to you, Evan?”
“A lot.”
I bite the inside of my lip. Evan still keeps his emotions tightly packed away, but he can’t do that anymore.
“A lot?”
Evan moves closer, reaching a hand from his pocket to my face. His thumb brushes my cheek. “Everyone has a reason for waking up in the morning, and you’
re mine.”
I turn my head and grit my teeth against what I need to say. I forced myself not to say this for months, because the words sound so needy.
“You’ve never said you love me.”
Evan drops his hand and steps back. The cold sensation in my veins returns at the look on his face. “You need me to tell you that? To say ‘I love you’?”
His surprise unbalances me. “No, not if you don’t mean it. But after all this time, it’s weird.”
Evan rakes his hand through his hair, gripping on for a few moments. “I never saw you as someone to put significance in empty words.”
“They’re only empty words if you don’t mean them.”
Evan stares. “Fine. But you’re being unfair.” The more he says without giving me what I want, the heavier my meal feels on my stomach. “I’ve said so many other things, so much more. You see into the corners of my heart and soul, and I’ve never let anybody do that.” Evan catches my hand, pulls it to him. “How many times have you felt this beating next to you, for you?”
Through his shirt, Evan’s heart thumps against my palm and in his face a deep line creases his brow. He’s hurting, the heart and soul he talks about is in his eyes.
“All the time,” I say hoarsely.
“Then why are we having this conversation? People say, ‘I love you’ all the time and it means nothing. Throw away words. They lie. Love isn’t about how much you say ‘I love you’, but about how much you prove it’s true. It’s a word, Ness. People have said the same to me before. I’ve told them I love them and they hurt me. The word is empty.”
“The word means what you want it to.”
“Which is why I’ve told you in other ways.”
I pull my hand away and step back. Unwanted tears are pushing behind my eyes and the goose bumps on my arms hurt now.
Evan drags a hand through his hair. “Okay. I love you. Is that what you need to hear? Happy now?”
The hard look on his face doesn’t match the sentiment and I don’t know what to say. Whatever words are spoken now won’t change this mess. One comment about me leaving, and the evening turns to crap. “Take me home, please.”
Evan looks at me as if I’ve accused him of cheating on me. “And you? Have you ever told me you love me?”
“No. Because you didn’t. I was scared if I told you, you wouldn’t tell me the same.” I cringe at the childishness of the conversation. Why is this such a big deal? Evan’s right, he shows me in a hundred different ways.
“Seriously, Ness? Maybe we don’t understand each other as much as I thought.”
“Maybe we don’t want to,” I whisper.
Evan’s keys jangle in his hands as he hesitates, staring into my hidden hurt. Imperceptibly, he shakes his head and crosses to the driver’s door. The silence of the drive home is filled with the drone of the engine and the air blowing from the vents. Nothing else is said.
28
NESS
The stalemate between us continues over the next few days. Evan refuses to speak to me on the drive back and I ask him to go home when we arrive at my place after the restaurant. All I get is a pissed off kiss on the cheek, and he leaves. His words tumble around my brain, the sense of what he’s saying won’t sink through the romantic cliché strangling my emotions. Evan shows me every day how he feels about me, but now he’s admitted why he refused to tell me he loves me. After so many months, isn’t it logical for the person you’re with to have told you? At least once. The hollowness of the words when he said them is worse than when he hadn’t.
Then I become irritated. He’s acting as if the words would bind him to me forever, or something. Quietly gnawing at me is the need for him not to tell me he loves me, and that’s the reason I haven’t told him. A tiny part of me wants to use him saying those words as an excuse to change my mind about leaving.
My work shifts and Evan’s schedule misalign over the next few days, then the weekend arrives and he disappears to Lancaster. Evan doesn’t return home as often as he did, once a month now. This time I expected him to forego his trip to sort through our huge, immobile issue. The feeling Lucy is the third person in our relationship returns, and I push away the hurt. His twin. A sister coping with a lifelong illness. Of course, his pull to her is greater at times. We text, but don’t talk, and the unease begins to strangle me.
Abby sits in the lounge, feet covered in huge socks and resting on the coffee table. She cradles a mug in her hands and slurps coffee as she watches TV.
“No Evan tonight?” she asks.
“No, he’s in Lancaster.”
“And there’s been no Evan here this week?” She turns her concerned face to mine. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Um. Don’t believe you. Misery face.”
Abby’s over her hedonistic phase, now settled into the ‘I came so close to failing, I’d better study’ stage. Perhaps my crap job has shown her the way not to go. Whatever the reason, we get along better now like we did before university. She’s with another guy from her department, Kyle, quieter and genuinely nice. He’s miles apart from her usual guys, and nothing too serious, which is strange for her. I don’t miss the irony in this considering the anguish I’m applying to my relationship.
“It’s fine.” I sit.
“He’s pissed off about you leaving?”
“He’s said he doesn’t want me to go.”
Abby nods slowly, like a wise woman. “Can you blame him? You two have a good thing going.”
“I have to go. To do this. For me.” The words are more forceful than I intended.
She holds her hands up in defence. “Hey, you don’t need to argue with me too. I just don’t understand your need to leave now.”
I’ve considered this. Over and over. “Because if I don’t go now, I’ll never go. Something will get in the way and stop me if I wait. This is the right time. For me.” The words sound like a prepared speech, to convince someone. Myself, maybe.
Abby moves to the TV and switches it off. “Even if you lose Evan?”
We look at each other and I see the girl I went to primary school with, the friend who helped me through my first heartbreak at fourteen. The person who knows me as well as I know myself, aware of where I’ve come from, and came from there too.
“Abby…”
“You guys are close. Like, really close. I haven’t come across two people like you. And you manage to be like that without it being intense and weird.”
“If we’re close, a year apart won’t matter.” A year apart. From Evan. Am I in denial? If I want him to tell me he loves me, how can I want to leave him too? My head spins with the contradiction whenever I consider this. And I consider the situation a lot.
Abby tips her head. “That’s naïve. Things will happen. You’ll come back a different person and he’ll be the same as when you left. He’s a guy; however much he says he loves you, I doubt he’ll stay celibate.”
I swallow the lump pushing against my throat. “He hasn’t.”
“Hasn’t what?”
“Told me he loves me. Not really.” How do I explain what happened? I can’t.
Abby’s head moves back, in the way people do when you hit them with words they don’t expect. “Seriously? Not once?”
“Not really.”
“Not even after…you know. Or when he’s drunk?”
“No.”
“But he loves you.” Abby says the words with blinding certainty, as if no doubt existed in her mind, and I wish she could extend the certainty to mine.
“Maybe.”
“Come on, you love each other. Four months in and barely an argument? Jesus, I wish a guy would look at me how he looks at you.”
“How?”
Abby stands towards me. “Like the stars would go out if you weren’t there anymore.”
I’m stupid. Really, bloody stupid.
“He never said it when you told him you do?” she asks.
I pick at my sleev
e. “I haven’t told him either.”
Abby shakes her head. “Then you’re as bad as each other.”
Sitting back next to me, Abby puts a hand on my knee. “Ness, you’re not thirteen. It’s not a competition over who says ‘I love you’ first. And if it’s going to wreck your relationship, why hang onto this?”
After weeks of keeping this in, I have to voice the truth I won’t admit. “Because if he says he loves me, I might change my mind about leaving.”
“Then you need to decide what you want, Ness.”
* * *
EVAN
I know I need to see Ness again, but my inability to say the right thing puts me off. In my time back in Lancaster, I retrace old steps and return to places from my childhood. The childhood I’m supposed to leave behind. Lucy comes too, and she’s my old Lucy. My funny twin with bright eyes and a brighter personality. I’m proud of what she’s achieved, more so than Dad. She’s reconnected with friends and made new ones. Moving away from home worked for her, as leaving town did for me. She has a boyfriend too, Julius. They share a love of photography. And cats.
As soon as I return to Lancaster, I’m greeted with a pictorial run down of their relationship. I sit with Lucy in the small garden of our childhood home, watching the birds flit around and laugh when she tells me they were ‘meant to be’ because their cats like each other. Lucy’s life has moved beyond what she wants from me, at last. She’ll never be free of her illness, but at least it’s not controlling her anymore.
“How are things with Ness?” Lucy tucks her phone into her pocket, her picture album finally exhausted.
This is twin sixth sense, when I was thinking about Ness already. “She just had a birthday.”
“Oh, I’d like to have given her a present, why didn’t you say?” Lucy pushes me.
“She doesn’t like presents.”
“I have some great pictures I took of you guys. I could frame one.”
