‘Couldn’t care less. I need you now.’
He stepped towards me and the look in his eyes was making my insides melt.
‘There’s another problem,’ I said.
‘What’s that?’ he asked as he placed his hands on my waist and guided me back up against the wall again.
‘If no one calls the lift we’re going to be stuck here forever. The emergency phone line doesn’t work. There’s no way to get it to go again.’
Luke smiled at me. ‘Stuck in here forever with you? Sounds good to me.’
He started kissing me again and I stopped caring about someone catching us half naked or even about the two of us being trapped here all night. All I could think about was how much I wanted him. As it was, we didn’t need to worry about either thing happening. He’d barely slipped a hand under my top when the lift started back up again and we quickly pulled apart and turned to face the doors.
Five seconds later, the lift reached my floor, and we stepped out to see a middle-aged couple waiting. I knew my face was flushed and my hair was probably slightly messed up, but I didn’t care. We stepped past them, and as they disappeared into the lift, we stumbled down the hall to my door, stopping every few steps to kiss again, spinning in circles as he pushed me up against one wall and then the next.
The sex itself was without a doubt the best I’d ever had in my entire life. I might have thought I was hooked on him before that, but once we slept together, I knew irrevocably that I’d found my soul mate, that if he ever left me I’d be crushed beyond repair. That no one else would ever be enough for me.
From then on, I was terrified. One wrong move and I’d lose him. I couldn’t let that happen. I had to be perfect for him. I had to be this special person that he, for some godforsaken reason, already thought I was.
So of course, that night while I lay in his arms, when he suggested that he move in with me, I said yes immediately — even though I was surprised that he’d want to move into my shoddy old apartment. I’d never seen his place; he always picked me up or else we met up at the place we were going to on our dates. But the way he spoke about his home, it sounded really nice. Just the odd comment he dropped here and there — the mention of hardwood floors in a restaurant that he said were similar to his, or a casual comment about his view of the Harbour Bridge from his living room. I wanted to ask him why, if we were to live together, it would be at my place and not his, but I also knew a question like that might make him doubt my intentions. Like I said, I needed to be the perfect girlfriend, and I was not going to come across as a gold digger, not when he was so afraid of me being after him for his money.
Thankfully, he offered an explanation himself. He’d been thinking about renovating his place for a while and this was the perfect opportunity. He’d move in with me while he got it done up, then the two of us could move back into his place and I could cancel the lease on mine. I hadn’t even realised he owned his own place, but I didn’t comment in case it came across the wrong way.
‘I’ll make a deal with you,’ he’d said then. ‘I can’t chip in on your rent while I’m living here because the renos on my place are going to have me tapped out, but when you move in with me, my place will be your place. Mi casa es su casa, babe. You won’t have to help out with the mortgage. Sound fair?’
‘No, no! I can’t let you do that. I’ll pay you rent when we move into your place.’
‘Look, we’ll work it out when the time comes, okay? But trust me, we’ll make sure it’s fair.’
I see how it sounds now. Of course, I do, I’m not a complete idiot. But at the time I was utterly blinded. He moved in within a few days and convinced me it would be better if I didn’t see his place at all until it was completely renovated. Save it for the big reveal, babe.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
It was after he moved in that things started to change. As I’d said, we already had our ups and downs with his paranoid text messages, but something different started to happen. He started having to travel for his work. He’d be gone anywhere between two and four days at a time, sometimes even longer. And when he was away, contact was sporadic. One minute I’d get a text telling me how much he missed me, how he ached to touch me, how he couldn’t stand to be apart from me for a second longer. The next he’d go two days without even responding to a single one of my texts or answering my calls. And then when I finally did hear from him again, he’d send me a simple: Hey, how’s your day going, babe? Completely ignoring any of the previous messages I’d sent him. And I’d think: What? What do you mean how’s my day going? Where the hell have you been? But I wouldn’t ask, because the one time I did try to comment on his absence his response had been swift and sharp: I’m under a lot of pressure from work. Don’t need it from home as well.
I sent him a flurry of apology messages and promised never to nag him again. When he arrived home two days later, he had a bunch of flowers for me and he kissed the top of my head and squeezed me so tight that for a second I thought he was going to crack one of my ribs, and then he cried. He actually cried into my hair. ‘I’m so sorry I was short with you, I hated the way I spoke to you in that message, I hate to be that guy.’
I squeezed him back just as tight. ‘No, no, no, you don’t need to be sorry; I’m the one who needs to be sorry.’
He continued as though I hadn’t spoken. ‘You have to understand though, when you hassle me for not replying to one of your messages right away, it makes me afraid that you’re going to get upset with me and leave me, okay? That’s the only reason I lashed out, because I was scared of losing you.’
‘Never,’ I whispered back. ‘You will never, ever lose me.’
Another time, we made plans to meet at a bar near his office for drinks on a Friday night. We were supposed to meet at five-thirty. I’d been working on a new piece that day and it was finally starting to come together. It was going to be included in an exhibition in a few weeks’ time, which was a big deal for me. So I was relieved that I was getting it to work after having felt uninspired and stressed out recently. But at four-thirty I stopped work, showered, changed and dashed out to meet Luke. I made it to the bar just on five-thirty, ordered a drink, picked a table and sat down to wait.
Twenty minutes passed and I was on my second drink and checking my phone frequently. No word from Luke. I wanted to send him a quick text, just to make sure I hadn’t got the time or the place wrong. But I didn’t want him to think I was nagging, so I held off.
By ten past six, I was getting worried when a message came through.
I’ll be there at 7.
I was annoyed. He was going to be an hour and a half late and he was only letting me know now! I could have kept working myself. Time in the zone with my art was precious. I checked myself though. He’d obviously got caught up at work. Maybe an unexpected meeting. Maybe he’d only had a second to dash out that quick message and that’s why it was so abrupt. He’d explain it all when he arrived. And in the meantime, I figured I’d have something to eat and another drink.
I’ve never been much of a drinker. The first time I tried alcohol at a party when I was sixteen, I just didn’t get it. Around me guys and girls were getting sillier and louder with every sip while I took one mouthful of beer and almost spat it straight back out. ‘How can you drink this stuff?’ I remember asking one of the girls as she stumbled past me.
‘Close your eyes and think of England,’ she slurred back at me, while her friend cackled back at her and shouted, ‘That’s for sex, you idiot!’
Anyway, I was drinking cocktails and eating bruschetta and playing Words with Friends on my phone, and I was pleasantly buzzed by the time Luke finally turned up at quarter past seven.
He kissed me on the forehead and then sat down opposite me. ‘Eating without me, babe?’
I didn’t let the slight edge to his tone bother me. ‘Just some bread while I was waiting.’
He reached for the plate and pulled it towards himself. ‘I’m starving,’ he said, pi
cking up a piece. ‘I did an epic workout at the gym just now.’
It took me a second to catch on. ‘You were at the gym?’
He swallowed his mouthful. ‘Yeah, went there straight from work. You need a drink?’
I shook my head and watched him walk away to the bar. Inside, two voices were warring in my head.
That’s rude. That’s actually really, really rude. Instead of meeting me when he was meant to, he went to the gym. That’s not okay.
Yes, but he’s been under a lot of stress at work and the gym relaxes him.
So? It was rude!
I had to say something. I knew I had to. It didn’t matter how much I loved him, or how afraid I was of losing him, I didn’t deserve to be treated that way.
But then he came back with his drink, sat down opposite, reached out for my hands, looked me in the eye and spoke gently. ‘Hey, I’m so sorry I kept you waiting tonight. I got held up at work with that dickhead Trent bailing me up about a new account. And I know I should have skipped the gym and come straight here to you, but I had all this pent-up anger after talking to Trent, and trust me, you wouldn’t have wanted to see me right then. I thought it was better if I fixed my mood before I saw you. I’d hate to take any of my work stresses out on you.’
I nodded. ‘It’s okay,’ I said.
‘No, it’s not. I shouldn’t have left you waiting for so long. It was rude.’
The clenched-up fist that had been holding onto my stomach released its grip and I smiled back at Luke. He did care about me.
The next day though, I was back to struggling with my work. I was hungover after drinking all those cocktails and I couldn’t focus like I had the day before. I was chatting with Luke on the phone about the trouble I was having and he told me he had an idea of how he could help me.
That was the night he first gave me the tablets. He said they were a natural remedy for my anxiety. They were called ‘Vit-a-Peace’ — made up of magnolia and phellodendron. All natural ingredients. Apparently, they’d help settle my nerves a bit, which would help me to get back into my work. Plus, he joked, then I wouldn’t add to his stress when he was away by texting or calling him too often.
‘It’ll help you sleep better as well,’ he said. ‘Stop you from tossing and turning all night and keeping me up.’
He said it with a bit of a laugh, but I felt instant guilt. It was the first I’d heard I was keeping him up at night, I’d always thought I slept quite well! But I was happy to take them if it meant it was going to make him happier too.
When my anxiety got worse instead of better, I didn’t put two and two together. Again, it might seem ridiculous that I couldn’t see what was right in front of me, but you have to understand I had no reason not to trust him. I had no reason to ever suspect those tablets might not be what he said they were.
The worse it got, the more tablets I took. I developed strange habits that I’d never experienced before. My skin wouldn’t stop itching no matter how hard I scratched at it, usually on my forearms. And the scratching would drive Luke to distraction, so I’d try my best to resist when he was around. At that stage I was still able to leave the apartment — although going out was getting more and more stressful — and I’d go to the chemist and try every type of cream and ointment to stop the itching, but nothing worked.
Sometimes I had blurred vision as well. And I was losing weight. Eventually I had to tell Luke the tablets were no good, that they weren’t working for me. I didn’t want him to think I was being ungrateful, or that I wasn’t willing to keep trying to fix my anxiety issues. He didn’t see how it was possible, as the tablets were all natural and only mild, but he was understanding. ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘Don’t worry, we can try something else.’
The next day he came home with new tablets called ‘Serenity’. ‘Still all natural, but these are stronger,’ he said. ‘They should help you get your anxiety back under control. I can’t believe you’re even functioning at the moment with how badly you’re sleeping.’
Again, I was confused. I couldn’t recall waking up through the night; I still thought I was sleeping fine. But Luke assured me that I was constantly sitting up in the middle of the night or mumbling in my sleep or even gasping for breath. ‘Have you had a history of sleep apnoea?’ he asked. I didn’t think I did.
I wondered if I should see a GP, get an actual prescription rather than continuing to try the natural ones. But Luke said he’d had an old girlfriend on the kinds of meds a doctor would end up giving me, and he’d hated the way she was always so doped up that she didn’t even seem to feel anything. Never happy, never sad, never angry, just coasting down the middle, he said. He felt like he could slap her across the face and she wouldn’t even react. I did think it was an odd thing to say — why would he think about slapping her? But I agreed with him. I didn’t want to end up like some sort of dazed zombie. I said I’d keep going with the natural tablets and that I’d try harder to get myself under control.
He kept promising that things would be different when his apartment was ready as well. ‘We’ll be happier there,’ he said. ‘This place is draughty and musty, and the smell of your oil paints is practically in the walls and the carpet. I don’t know how you’ve been able to stand it all this time. I’ve been struggling to cope living here from the day I moved in.’
That one took me by surprise. And if I’m honest, it hurt a little bit. I know my apartment is old and shabby, but it’s always felt like my cosy bohemian home to me. I’d always been happy here. That said, the idea of moving into a beautifully renovated apartment in Double Bay definitely appealed, and I was excited when he came home one night and said the builders had told him it should be done within two weeks.
The problem was, within that next two weeks, things got a lot worse. I was trying so hard. Taking two tablets in the morning and two at night, just as Luke instructed. Forcing myself to leave the apartment and get out into the world. Doing everything I could to ignore the voices in my head telling me I would do something embarrassing if I went out; that I would make some monumental mistake, and that mistake would lead to me losing Luke. That’s what it came down to. All my fears, all my insecurities came down to the one utter truth, the voices in my head saying: You will lose him. If you make one wrong step, one wrong move, you will lose him. Something will go very, very wrong.
And then something did go very, very wrong. My worst fears came true — I hurt Luke. I almost lost him. Of course, it was all a huge misunderstanding. At this stage, we weren’t going out very much but we had a rare dinner out together after I’d forced myself to pull it together. Snap out of it, Cadence, I’d told myself. I was scared that if all we ever did was stay in, he’d get bored and leave.
I made the booking and I let him know well in advance that we had dinner plans. I agonised over what to wear and I spent the afternoon scratching my arms to pieces as I imagined all the things that might go wrong, all the ways I could humiliate myself or Luke by doing or saying the wrong thing. What if I ordered something off the menu and mispronounced it? Something silly like quinoa or sriracha. And then what if the waitress looked down her nose at me and giggled at Luke behind my back and next thing, Luke’s run off with the beautiful anxiety-free waitress who knows how to pronounce sriracha and I’m left all alone in the world again.
To be honest, at first, I thought the dinner had gone well. It wasn’t until we were on our way back home that I found out it hadn’t, not at all.
Like that time in Grade Five at school when I ran late for band practice and the teacher said, ‘Thank you for joining us, Cadence.’ I’d beamed at her and replied, ‘You’re welcome!’ Then she’d scowled and said, ‘I didn’t actually mean thank you, you silly girl.’ It was like a slap across the face.
On this night, it was the waiter. I’d flirted with him. Of course I hadn’t meant to, but once I saw it through Luke’s eyes, I understood why he was upset. And knowing how scared he was of losing me, how paranoid he was, how low his self-e
steem was, I should have been more careful. I thought I was just being friendly. He was one of those jovial waiters who put you at ease right away, and it was just what I needed when I was feeling so nervous about the night out.
At the end of the meal I tried to pay, but Luke snatched the bill away from me. ‘I’ve got this,’ he said.
Back in the car, he gripped the steering wheel tight enough that his knuckles turned white. I put my hand on his shoulder. ‘What’s wrong? Are you feeling okay?’
‘I can’t believe you did that.’
‘Did what?’
‘Acted like that, right in front of me.’
‘Like what?’ I was entirely clueless.
‘Like a dumb slut throwing yourself at our waiter all night.’ It was just like when the band teacher had called me a silly girl: a slap to the face.
‘I wasn’t flirting!’ My voice tumbled, tripped over itself as I rushed to reassure him. ‘No way, not even a little bit! I wasn’t interested in him, I could never! Not when I have you, how could I, I mean, why would . . .’
‘Shut up.’
My mouth snapped closed. We drove home in silence and my eyes prickled with tears that I forced back. I didn’t want to annoy Luke by crying. I swallowed down the hard lump that had formed in my throat and stayed quiet and still.
We made it all the way home, through the foyer and into the lift in complete silence. I was desperate to speak up, desperate to reassure him again, to convince him that I had no interest whatsoever in that waiter. We were halfway to the fifth floor when he stepped forward and slammed his hand against the emergency stop button. I was bewildered. Why would he do that when he knew we’d be stuck here until someone else came along?
When he turned away from the control panel and looked at me, at first I was afraid of him. For just a second I thought, he’s going to hit me. But then the look in his eyes changed and the feeling passed and I couldn’t believe I’d ever considered that possibility. Instead he stepped forward, put his hands on my upper arms and squeezed them hard as he looked into my eyes and spoke.
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