The Harder They Fall

by Debbie McGowan

  “Hmm?” George said vaguely.

  “You helped me decorate the tree.”

  “I did?”

  “At my grandma’s?”

  “Oh. Yeah. That was when we couldn’t get the lights to work.”

  “And we went and bought some spare bulbs,” Josh prompted. George nodded and smiled. He remembered now, but he wanted to hear the rest of the story. “And all the way home you kept singing ‘You Light Up My Life’, until I threatened to plug you into the mains instead. Well that, my dear friend,” Josh pointed at the tiny glass lamp, “is the only bulb left over.”

  “‘You Light Up My Life’. Man, that was so cheesy,” George laughed.

  “No.” Josh’s expression remained sincere. “Because maybe I’m finally going to get my chance.” George’s heartbeat quickened, although he couldn’t help himself and started to laugh again. Josh tried to look affronted, but failed.

  “Yes, you’re right,” he agreed. “It is cheesy.” He took the bulb and the sweet and put them back in his pocket. “What’s next?”

  George returned the sketchbook and picked up a handful of letters. “A whole lot more cheese, I’m afraid. I wrote these when I first moved to America, with no intention of you ever reading them. I nicked the idea off you, actually. I think it was Dan, or someone—whoever it was, you told them to write letters to the person who was making them feel bad, to get it out of their system.”

  “Mmm, and I nicked the idea off my grandma, although you’re also supposed to destroy the letters once you’ve written them.” He reached into his pile and pulled out a sheaf of cream writing paper. “I have some too,” he said, deadpan.

  “Should we really be doing this? Only I might have forgotten about singing you tacky love songs, but I haven’t forgotten how lonely…”

  “Yes, we must,” Josh interrupted. “As you said, these things have come between us for too long. I have matched you point for point on every painful, lonely or just downright embarrassing memory you’ve shared. I think we just have to treat this like one big and slightly bizarre game of Happy Families.”

  “But without the ‘happy’ part?”

  “We’ll get there one day,” Josh said, the words serving to reassure himself as much as George. They exchanged the letters and began to read, instantly so absorbed that they temporarily forgot they were in the company of the author.

  Dear Josh,

  So, here I am, sitting on the porch, on a wooden rocking chair and I feel like one of those old-style ranchers. It’s sunset, and the mountains - I wish you could see them. Even though I know in my heart that it will never be this way, I still can’t help myself, and imagine us sitting out here, having a beer and watching the sun go down together. And I wonder if it would have been different if I’d told you when I first fell for you, instead of pretending that I was happy being friends.

  I must admit I hoped that once I got here, it wouldn’t hurt so much, but it does. Don’t get me wrong, some days I only think about you occasionally, you know the kind of thing - I’ll be making coffee and I’ll remind myself of the way you drink it. Or like the other day, when I was in the store, and suddenly remembered the time you knocked down that big stack of Pot Noodles. At least that one still makes me laugh, even now.

  Today though, I just couldn’t get you off my mind. Everything I did reminded me of you and it made me feel so miserable and homesick, but I know I can’t come back. Right now I don’t think I’ll ever be able to face seeing you again, especially if you’ve found someone you like, or maybe even love, but I can’t think about it. It might seem selfish, but I hope you never do fall in love, because it can tear you apart. I should know.

  The sun’s nearly gone now, so I’ll have to stop writing. Maybe I’ll go post this letter tomorrow, but then again I’m still a coward. And I still love you.

  Forever,

  George

  Dear George,

  Six weeks ago today.

  We were all standing there at the departure gate, watching you board that plane and leave for the very last time.

  Six weeks.

  It seems like a lifetime. Ellie cried all the way home. Well we all did.

  Except me.

  I couldn’t cry, and not because I didn’t feel like it. Because I was afraid the tears would never stop. How do I live with knowing that I am the reason you left? If I’d said yes when you asked me to go with you, would it have made you stay? Oh George, I really wanted you to stay. I needed you to, and now you’re gone.

  The others won’t talk to me about it, which is probably because they think I don’t care, but the truth is I care so much. You’re the only one I’ve ever trusted. Much as I love Ellie, she has let me down so many times. She doesn’t realise how much it hurts me, and I can forgive her, of course I can. But you have always been here for me and I miss you. You might find that hard to believe, when I don’t tell you honestly how I feel. Well, I’ll tell you now. I love you, George. I always will.

  Be happy.

  Josh

  Dear Josh,

  You’ve no idea how wonderful it was to have you all come over to visit. It’s a shame you couldn’t stay longer. I hope you’ll be able to do it again soon, or part of me does. The problem is that seeing you has only made me miss you more. I was kind of getting to grips with it before (as in I only thought about you ten times a day instead of a hundred!), now it’s back again to the way it was. It actually makes me feel physically sick and I can’t eat or sleep, which is definitely not like me. One of the guys who works in the stables even said I looked a bit scrawny the other day, so yes, I’ve got it bad again.

  I asked Ellie if you get my letters (not the ones like this) and she said you do. I’m kinda glad about that. I worry you’ll forget all about me, and I’m sorry if you hate getting them. It does hurt that you never reply, even though I totally understand why. You don’t want to give me the wrong idea. I promise you, Josh, I get the idea perfectly well. I don’t like it, but I know I make you uncomfortable. You don’t want a relationship. It’s OK.

  Actually, it’s not OK. I don’t know why I wrote that. It’s not OK at all. I’ve never even looked at anyone else since I told you I was in love with you. It doesn’t matter to me these days. Even if it did it would make no difference, with all these dusty old STRAIGHT cowboys. I say this as if I know you’re gay, and I honestly have no idea if you are or you’re not. The only thing I know for sure is that I’m still in love with you and it sucks.

  Forever,

  George

  Dear George,

  Since we got back, I’ve been thinking about you all the time, and how happy you looked out on the ranch, riding the horses. My mind keeps returning to when Maggy was put to sleep and how devastated you were. I wanted to hug you and make the pain go away, but I just didn’t know how. When I saw you out there, you looked like a real pro, so proud and so confident. I realised you didn’t need me anymore, and that’s been pretty hard to come to terms with. I don’t think I ever will, if I’m honest.

  I got two letters from you at once last week. Are you ever going to rebuild that stupid house? I do read your letters. I keep every single one of them, even though you don’t put anything in them that I want to read. And I pretend to the others and to myself that I find them annoying.

  Don’t stop writing to me, George.

  And don’t you ever rebuild that house.

  I’m ready for you to come home now.

  Love as always,

  Josh

  Dear Josh,

  I’ve taken to torturing myself lately. Not in a physical way, although I was reading a report in the paper the other day about some study they’ve done - you’ve probably read it already and know exactly what I’m on about - I can hear you now, going ‘Ah yes. That was conducted by so-and-so, in such-and-such-a-year’. Anyway, it was a study into S&M where they said people who are into that sort of thing only do it to cope with mental pain, so maybe it’s not such a bad idea after all. I’m kiddi
ng, of course! About the S&M at any rate.

  What it is, is this: when I can’t get you out of my mind, I tell myself that you’ve forgotten all about me. You see, I used to convince myself that even though we were thousands of miles apart, I was in your thoughts, like you are in mine. Yes, I knew it was make-believe, but it made me feel better to know that I wasn’t suffering alone.

  These days it’s more like toothache. You get a real bad one and you press on it. The pain gets worse, but then the endorphins kick in and it stops hurting so much. Believing you don’t care - it’s just like pushing on a toothache. For a while anyway, but I’ll take any relief I can get.

  I got internet now, so I guess you’ll soon be getting your letters by e-mail, not that it will make any difference. You don’t read them anyway, but you know I have to keep on sending them. At least you’d know if I died! That’s my other torture device by the way. Would you come to my funeral? Would you even grieve for me? I don’t suppose I’ll ever know.

  Forever,

  George

  Dear George,

  I left my favourite pen at your house. I can’t believe I did that. It’s the one you bought me for my twenty-first birthday, you know the one. It’s blue and gold, with my initials engraved into the clip. I treasure that pen, even though it ruined a brand new shirt a while back, but I still kept it in my pocket.

  It’s silly, but it made me feel like you were closer somehow.

  Your last letter was a bit abrupt. I wondered if you’d found the pen and thought I’d left it deliberately, but I swear I didn’t. I keep thinking maybe I should drop you a line, ask you to keep hold of it for me if you find it, but I never know what to say. These letters I write help a little, knowing as I do that I can’t tell you how I really feel.

  The absolute honest truth, George, and it’s going to sound so corny, but there must have been some kind of spark that ignited between us at the sixth form ball. I’ve loved you ever since, so why haven’t I told you? That’s probably what you’re asking yourself, or you would be if you were reading this letter. I can never give you what you want. That’s the bottom line.

  I don’t know if you remember, but when we were in third year, Dan caught me staring at you in the showers after PE and called me queer. We weren’t friends with him then, and I didn’t have a clue what it meant, although obviously I found out eventually. I still can’t forgive him, especially as his idiot mates found it so hilarious. They didn’t let it go for weeks. To his credit, Dan never called me it again, and I’m pretty sure he won’t have any recollection of it ever happening.

  Anyway, my point is this: I was staring at you, but not for the reason Dan thought. This whole sexual intimacy thing is lost on me even now, at the ripe old age of twenty-eight. But I saw it in you, that look of longing in your eyes, surrounded by naked bodies. I kind of envy you for that.

  So there it is. You are the first (and only) person I’ve loved, and the first person I psycho-analysed, albeit accidentally. When you told me you were going, you accused me of not caring about your feelings. That’s all I’ve ever cared about. I only wish you knew.

  Always yours,

  Josh

  Dear Josh,

  I’m glad to say that my depression has lifted now. Seeing you guys again was great, especially because you all had to stay for another two weeks. I don’t imagine your patients would agree, but ‘this patient’ was glad of the therapy.

  Thank you for being here and listening, even if you did it with your therapist’s hat on. Is that how you cope? I guess it’s a lot like Kris’s job really, pretending to be someone you’re not and delivering scripted lines. That’s a really cynical view, I know, but that’s how it seems to me.

  We had a ‘horse whisperer’ come to the ranch last week. She was totally awesome to watch and I learnt so much from her. Some of the guys didn’t take too well to having a woman tell them how to handle the horses, but we’re used to Ellie bossing us about, so I had no problem at all! So this horse whisperer (her name was Mary-Ellen, believe it or not) tells me I’m a natural and it’s not that I’m afraid of them, but that I’m responding to their fear. She talked me through some relaxation exercises that help to keep you calm.

  It’s awesome stuff, man!

  See, we got this new stallion (he’s enormous in every sense of the word!) and no-one can get near him. He kicked Ray (one of the guys) in the ribs when they were getting him off the truck and then he bolted. And guess who reined him in. Yep! I can’t believe I did it. Ray says that makes me a proper cowboy. Yeeha!

  I’m glad the stallion’s not staying though. Once he’s done the business he’s going back to the stud farm, and the doc said Ray’s ribs are nearly fixed too. I think you probably met him in passing - he’s a great guy and totally up-front about everything. He’s the only one here who knows I’m gay, or the only one I’ve mentioned it to. I told him all about you too (not the bit about my unrequited love - it’s one thing admitting to bat for the other side, another entirely to act like a girl, or that’s how they see it here).

  Anyways, it’s almost dark again, so I’m signing off.

  Forever,

  George

  George had finished reading a couple of minutes earlier and was going through his photograph collection while he waited for Josh to finish also. There were hundreds of snapshots, bent and tattered from being tossed about in the back of trucks, or dumped uncaringly in cargo holds, so much so that they were jumbled and no longer in any discernible order, but the one that had wriggled its way to the top of the pile was the one that was the most telling of all, now he’d read the letters. It was taken right after Josh graduated with his Masters and it was of the two of them, standing back to back, Josh wearing his cloak, George wearing the mortar board that went with it. They had their heads tilted back against each other and they were laughing. He smiled at the memory of those innocent times, before he’d told Josh he was in love with him. Today, for the first time, he knew he had done the right thing.

  Josh had come to the end of the letters, but had returned to the first one and was re-reading it.

  “I’m going to make more coffee,” George said.

  “I’ll come with you.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Yes George, I am completely serious. I think we’ve wasted enough time and right now I want to spend every minute with you.”

  “OK. If you say so.”

  Well this was new: Josh being clingy and affectionate? It would take some major getting used to, George mused, as he carried the cups to the kitchen, with Josh following closely behind, still engrossed in the letters.

  “I want to do this,” he said, pointing at a paragraph. George considered pretending he didn’t know what ‘this’ was, but it would have been a lie.

  “Then we should.”

  “Not necessarily in Colorado.”

  “Will South Wales do?”

  “Nicely. Hmm, sunset, mountains, cabins with balconies—great, so long as it doesn’t rain the entire week.” Josh continued to thumb through the rest of the letters, his brow squeezed pensively. “This bit with the horse whisperer? It’s the only time you actually sounded like you were enjoying yourself.”

  “Yeah. It was amazing. I didn’t realise how easy it was to tune into animals, or get them to tune into you. Horses are really responsive like that. You just kind of get into this zone where suddenly you know exactly how they feel and what they’re going to do next. The first time I did it was so weird, like magic, although it’s really only about correctly interpreting their posture and movement.”

  “Body language—same as with people,” Josh said. He had been watching George closely and his eyes had lit up with a joy that wasn’t there when he talked about any of the other work he’d ever done, including counselling. But now George was aware that it was he who was being read instead of his letters, and he turned the tables.

  “Tell me about that spark.”

  “You already know. You just read i
t.”

  “Tell me anyway.” George leaned against the cupboard and looked at him expectantly.

  Josh closed his eyes and concentrated, trying to visualise, smell, hear everything about that moment. He had repressed it so long ago and so thoroughly that it took time to recapture, reforming itself gradually and with an entirely imagined grainy film effect.

  “OK,” he said, “this is how I remember it. You were buying a round of drinks and I was sitting at a table with Ellie. She was stressing out about us losing our chairs, even though we all had allocated seats from the sit-down meal. You brought the drinks on a tray and nearly tripped with it. I got up to try and help, but it was too late. My drink slid right off the tray and all over me. You blushed and screwed your eyes tight shut. When you opened them again you realised I was staring at you and you smiled, and I couldn’t look away. It was like you’d changed into someone new, right there before me, and I couldn’t take my eyes off you. It made me feel dizzy, sick—I’m getting the same butterflies now, just thinking about it.”