by Mila Gray
My mom’s speech this morning rattles around my head. Maybe she’s right. Maybe I should have thought twice about getting involved with him, with someone who can’t, even after all this time, trust me enough to tell me what’s going on in his head, who refuses to open up to me.
I sit staring at the roses, then I get up and walk into the hallway, looking for a garbage can. Sanchez walks past as I drop the bouquet into the cleaning trolley.
‘Hey,’ he says, in alarm. ‘What are you doing?’ He retrieves the roses. ‘Why you throwing them away?’
‘They’re from Zac.’
Sanchez frowns at them, then starts dusting them off. ‘If you don’t want them, I’ll give them to Valentina.’
I shrug. She’s welcome to them.
‘What’s up?’ he asks, noticing my gloomy face.
I tell him about Walker’s reaction to the flowers, about my explanations, about his impenetrable silence, his refusal to talk. About my worry that I’ve taken on more than I can deal with. That maybe I should be dating a normal guy. Straightforward, romantic, easy. Like Zac. Maybe leave Walker behind. It looks like that’s what he wants, after all.
‘You serious?’ he asks when I’m done.
I nod.
‘Dude, this is just how relationships go. You can’t quit every time it gets rough. You know what your mom says? She says that relationships go through ups and downs and it’s how you act during the down parts that matters most.’
I fold my arms over my chest. I do not need my mom’s words thrown in my face at this moment, but Sanchez ignores me. He’s on a roll.
‘I know you like your romance, but that’s just surface shit. That ain’t what matters deep down.’ He waves the roses in my face. ‘Anyone can buy you roses – don’t let these distract you. This guy Zac, you think this means anything to him?’ Sanchez shakes his head. ‘He could afford to send you diamonds, probably. In fact, his PA or whatever you call them probably sent you these. I don’t think Zac Ridgemont was on the phone to Interflora this morning.’
Sanchez has a point. Zac did tell me that his PA does all his online shopping and orders his groceries. He seemed inordinately proud of the fact he no longer had to go to the supermarket like the rest of us mortals.
‘Sure,’ Sanchez goes on, hitting his stride, ‘Walker’s a grumpy fucking bastard most of the time, but he’s also the most stand-up guy I’ve ever known. You didn’t know him before.’ He shakes his head and sighs. ‘He’s the real deal, Didi. You aren’t going to find a more loyal guy, a more selfless guy, no matter how hard you look. And he might be a grumpy bastard on occasion, and he might not buy you flowers, but he did buy you sushi. And a bracelet with, you know, dangly things on it. That shit’s gotta count for something.’
I sink down into a plastic chair by the nurse’s station. Sanchez sits down beside me.
‘But it shouldn’t be this hard,’ I mumble, thinking of the constant ups and downs with Walker, the way he keeps shutting me out, letting me in, shutting me out. I’m exhausted by it. It’s like being stuck in a revolving doorway. I just want to get through to the lobby or walk back out onto the street. I can’t keep up with the round-and-round. It’s making me dizzy.
‘Didi,’ Sanchez says, shaking his head softly. ‘Open your eyes and look around you.’ His words echo my mother’s and make me wince. ‘Life isn’t a fucking fairy tale. You’ve seen the reality. You’re surrounded by fucking reality.’
I lower my head. With his sniper’s ability, he’s managed to hit a major nerve.
‘It is a fairy tale for some people,’ I mutter under my breath.
Sanchez bursts out laughing. ‘For who? Show me one person for who life is a fairy tale and I’ll show you a very good line in bullshit.’
‘My parents. They never argue.’
‘Yeah, well, that’s just freakish. Valentina and I argue all the time. Don’t mean I don’t love her. Man, I adore that woman, even when she’s busting my balls over something stupid like who ate all the guacamole or who let the kids stay up late and watch a horror movie.’
I laugh. Maybe he’s right. Maybe holding my parents up as the paradigm for a perfect relationship is stupid.
‘But he keeps pushing me away,’ I argue weakly.
‘Don’t let him,’ Sanchez says in a fierce tone that makes me flinch. ‘Don’t walk away. Don’t do that to him. No matter how far he pushes you. The last thing he needs is you walking away.’
Sanchez pats me on the shoulder and gets up. ‘And I’m not just saying that cos I got money riding on you two lasting until at least Christmas.’
My mouth falls open.
‘Just joking with you!’ he grins.
I watch him head back to his room, roses in hand, and my gaze lands on a poster on the wall by the elevator.
‘If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again,’ this one says.
Someone – no guesses as to whom – has taken a magic marker and scratched through the last three words, scrawling instead the words, ‘Give the fuck up.’
I slump back in my chair.
Walker
I haven’t heard from her for five days. José passes on a message from her that she’s had to go to LA for something to do with school, a conference or something, but I wonder if that’s a lie, if she’s really meeting up with Zac.
I don’t know how we got from the night of her birthday to here, and I wrack my brains, playing over that last conversation in my room. I was mad about the roses, but only because I was already worked up about the future. The roses were just the icing on the cake. Zac’s got everything, can give her everything, and the plain fact is, I can’t. So maybe she is with him in LA. Isn’t that what I want? For her to be happy? And doesn’t it make things easier if she’s decided to break things off with me?
But that doesn’t mean I can stop thinking about her. Or about the night of her birthday. She’s imprinted into my memory, a bruise that refuses to fade but that just keeps getting darker.
‘You get back to sleep last night?’ José asks, walking into the room.
I shake my head and listen to him settle the breakfast tray on the table.
The nightmares have been getting worse. Maybe there’s a link to Didi being gone. Maybe not. In the daytime my head’s all over the place, thoughts landing like flies, bothering me until I shake them off and they flit away, only to land in the same place a few seconds later. Mainly they’re thoughts about Didi – more memories than thoughts, really . . . the curve of her body pressed against mine, the sunshine sound of her laugh, the softer sound of her moaning when I made her come. I try not to dwell on that last one, but it occupies a lot of my waking moments until I interrupt it by thinking back over every conversation we’ve ever had.
But at night my thoughts aren’t about Didi. They return to that day. The day of the incident. The nightmares jolt me out of sleep and then I’m awake for the rest of the night, heart racing like I’ve taken a handful of amphetamines, the images on the backs of my eyelids flickering past like Dodds’ paintings come to life.
‘You want me to talk to the doc and get you some different meds prescribed?’ José asks.
I shake my head. José still thinks I’m taking the cocktail of colourful pills he pours into my hand each morning and night.
‘You want me to shave you?’
I shake my head. I barely have the energy to get out of bed. I hear José sigh loudly and leave the room, and I lie down and close my eyes, trying to switch off the plasma screen on the back of my eyelids.
‘Yo, Lieutenant.’
I don’t stir. It’s Sanchez. If I pretend I’m sleeping maybe he’ll go away.
‘You got to get out of bed, bro. This moping around like a girl who’s been ditched at the altar? It’s not working for you.’ He walks into the room and settles himself on the end of the bed. ‘You know, this one time Valentina didn’t speak to me for nearly a month. I can’t even remember why – I think maybe I forgot our anniversary or something �
� but my point is that she got over it. You just got to talk it out.’ He pats my leg. ‘And then make love to her. Like, plenty of times. Like maybe three times at least, before next Sunday.’
I ignore him. I don’t want to talk things out. I want things to be over.
He exhales loudly.
I’m glad he’s going to lose that damn sweepstake.
‘If you keep it up, I’m going to have to invite Angela to pay you a visit, see if she can raise your spirits.’ He chuckles. ‘I’m sure she’d love the opportunity to do that.’
My eyes flash open. I scowl in his direction.
Sanchez stands up. ‘So you going to get up? Triathlon’s in two days. We still got a chance of winning this thing.’
I stare resolutely towards the ceiling.
‘Or, you know,’ says Sanchez in a sing-song voice, ‘there’s always Angela.’
I swing my legs off the bed.
‘Atta boy!’
Didi
‘So have you decided what you’re going to do?’ Jessa asks, setting a cup of coffee down in front of me.
I shake my head and stare out of the window at the ocean, which only serves to remind me of Walker. Everything, in fact, reminds me of Walker. The other day in a bookstore I saw a signed copy of Misery and thought of him. In the paper I saw a photograph of the Brazilian soccer team and thought of Walker and his dream to sail to South America. Jessa bought me sushi. I thought of Walker. I saw a stuffed seal toy in a shop. I thought of Walker. I watched An Officer and a Gentleman. I thought of Walker. Every time I look in the mirror I think of Walker.
Six days since I last spoke to him and my skin still burns from where his hands traced patterns over my stomach and thighs. When I lie in bed and close my eyes, I can still feel the aftershocks from his touch, small electrical pulses like signal fires being lit along my neural pathways.
I miss him. I miss him like phantom limb syndrome. It hurts. I keep expecting him to be there. I’ve been so used to being with him, seeing him every day, and now I feel lost, at sea, completely disorientated without him. All the time I thought I was the one holding him in place, anchoring him, keeping him from being pulled into his dark place, he was doing something similar for me and I didn’t realize it.
‘Are you going to go?’ Jessa asks, sitting down beside me and drawing her knees to her chest.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Where’s this triathlon happening?’
‘Monterey.’
‘I think you should go,’ Jessa says. ‘See him. See how you feel when you do.’
‘I know how I’ll feel when I see him.’ How I always feel. As if I’ve been hit with a cloud-wrapped sledgehammer, as if my heart is shattering in my chest from the impact.
‘I’m scared,’ I admit to Jessa. ‘I mean, things are never going to be easy with someone like Walker, are they?’ I don’t say anything more, but I’m thinking of Jessa’s father, whose battle with post-traumatic stress disorder has caused absolute chaos in her family. Things are better now, but the things Jessa and her mother went through . . . is that what I want for myself? Not that Walker is that bad, but the potential is there, especially as he refuses to confront his issues. ‘Maybe I should just walk away completely.’
‘Is that even possible?’ she asks. ‘Can you just leave?’
I sigh. ‘I think my mom was right. I should have gone into it with my eyes open wider. Dad tried to warn me that getting involved with a marine, and a wounded one at that, was a dumb idea.’
‘Not always so dumb,’ Jessa comments, sipping her coffee. ‘Look, Didi – you don’t get to choose who you fall in love with.’
‘Who said I was in love with him?’ I counter.
She raises her eyebrows at me. ‘You’ve been staying with me for six days and you haven’t talked about anything but Walker. You’ve barely eaten. You’re not sleeping. I’d say that sounds like love.’
‘That doesn’t sound like love. That sounds like depression.’
Jessa smirks at me and I avoid her eye. She’s right, though. I am in love with him. Totally. It’s just that admitting it out loud isn’t something I want to do. What’s the point?
‘Talk to him,’ Jessa says. ‘Tell him how you feel. Isn’t that what you therapists are always preaching? Talk. Get things out in the open. Here you are accusing him of not talking to you or opening up, and you’re doing the exact same thing to him. The only way you can have a relationship with someone is if you’re honest.’
She puts her coffee cup down and takes my hand.
‘Didi, speaking from experience, when someone’s pushing you away the hardest, that’s often when they need you the most.’
I remember what José said to me about not hurting Walker, and Sanchez warning me not to walk away, too. I didn’t listen to them. But then again, Walker hasn’t tried to call me these last few days either. He obviously doesn’t want to see me or hear from me.
Jessa’s looking at me expectantly. I stare back at her, at a loss for words. I don’t know what to do.
Walker
José drives Sanchez, me and a couple of other guys to Monterey where the triathlon is taking place. It’s been a week now and still no word from Didi. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Not after pushing her away like I did.
The hurt has calcified now. I’ve buried myself in a coffin, thrown acres of dirt on top of myself, closed everyone out. I don’t feel anything any more. It makes things easier.
I’m aware Sanchez is talking to me, but the words are like further fistfuls of dirt. I stare into the darkness as the others exclaim over the views all the way along the coast road.
‘We’re here. Lieutenant, wake up.’
Sanchez prods me to my feet and helps me down off the bus. I’m finally using the stick they gave me, still getting used to it, and I take Sanchez’s arm as he guides me into the hotel, where I stand waiting to be assigned a room. The race is in the morning. I just want to go to bed.
‘Lieutenant,’ Sanchez says, ‘I would share a room with you and all, but Valentina’s coming later tonight and, you know, we haven’t had much privacy to, you know, get jiggy-jiggy these last couple of months.’
I wave him off. ‘It’s cool.’
‘I want to show her what I can do with my bionic hand.’
I wince.
‘Here’s your key,’ he says. ‘I’ll show you to your room. Help you get set up. It’s next door to ours.’
I stand up and take his elbow. We take two steps and then he stops. I trip into him.
‘Shit,’ he says.
‘What?’ I say, but as soon as I say it I know. I can smell her, feel her, sense her.
‘Hi,’ Didi says.
My body starts to hum like a tuning fork. ‘Hi,’ I say. What the hell is she doing here?
‘Can we talk?’ she says.
Sanchez, remarkably, for once stays silent. He pats me on the arm and I hear him walk away.
‘I’m sorry,’ Didi says in a rush. ‘I just needed some time.’
I nod. ‘Me too. I’m sorry.’ Calcification. A hardening of the heart.
‘Those roses didn’t mean anything.’
I nod. She takes a step nearer and my senses burst into hyper-drive. My fingers twitch and I have to fight the urge to reach for her.
‘I don’t want him,’ she says quietly. ‘You know I don’t want Zac. I want you.’
Her hand slides into mine, gently, tentatively. Her palm feels warm.
But something makes me pull my hand away and take a step backwards. I bang into something, a table. Something heavy falls to the floor and I hear Didi bend and pick it up, then put it back on the table. We’re still in the damn lobby. Anyone could be watching us.
‘Didi, I can’t see,’ I say, gesturing at my eyes. ‘I can’t do anything. I can’t drive. I can’t make a cup of fucking coffee. I can’t shave. I can’t even dress myself properly. I put antiseptic cream on my toothbrush the other day.’
She doesn’t say any
thing. Is everyone watching us? I don’t care.
‘You deserve someone who’ll take care of you,’ I say desperately. ‘Protect you, look after you.’
‘And there I was thinking we lived in the twenty-first century,’ Didi answers. She laughs under her breath. ‘I don’t need a guy to do all those things. I can take care of myself.’
It’s my turn to laugh. ‘You’re lying. You do want those things. I know you. You’re a romantic. You want someone like Zac who’ll send you flowers and take you out to dinner and open doors for you and whisk you off to Paris for the weekend. You want the knight on the white horse. You want a lobster. Someone who believes in all that stuff. And I can’t be that person. I can’t give you those things. I can’t whisk you anywhere. I can’t even walk in a straight line.’
‘Why are you doing this?’ Didi asks.
‘What?’
‘Pushing me away.’
‘I’m not. I’m just laying it on the line. What are you going to do? Give up your studies to take care of me?’
‘No!’ she exclaims. ‘As far as I was aware you don’t need taking care of. You’re perfectly capable, or you will be soon enough. And you won’t be blind forever. In fact, if you actually tried to open up to me instead of constantly shutting me out, then maybe you wouldn’t be blind by now.’ She stops, takes a deep breath as though to calm herself. ‘But if I did want to take care of you, why would you want to stop me?’ She pauses and takes another step closer. ‘That’s what people do when they love someone – they take care of them.’
She takes my hand again. It takes me a second to register what she’s said, what she means. I’m thrown for a split second, reeling. And then I recover. I snatch my hand away.
‘You don’t know what you’re saying,’ I tell her.
