Under My Skin

by A. E. Dooland

  She shrugged. “Well, he might have been, and we were together for nearly five years, but he took a job in England, and I got a job with Frost, so...” She rubbed my back. “Don't worry about Bree. She's crazy about you, give it a few days to settle and then tell her you're sorry.”

  “If she'll ever talk to me again.”

  Sarah gave me a look. “What, did you like hit her or something?” At my horrified expression she said, “Okay, okay, I was just asking because you're acting like you've never had a nasty fight with anyone and you're just...” While she spoke to me, she was watching my expression, and as she said that her eyebrows went up. “Are you kidding me? You've never fought with Henry?”

  “Henry doesn't really fight.”

  Sarah was shaking her head as she thought about what I'd said. “I think you're dating a robot,” she told me. “Because the way Bree reacted tonight? That's the way Henry should have when you told him about you and Gem, and you're not even officially dating Bree.”

  I know, I thought, but my head was in too much of a tangle for me to be able to think any further about it. Bree, I thought. Bree. How could I do that to her?

  “Come on, Toyboy,” Sarah said, and gave my back a motivational pat. “You can't sit here all night. Let's get you home.” She walked me arm-in-arm back to the car and then put her hand out to me when we got there. “I'll drive,” she said. “You're a mess. I say that in the nicest possible way.”

  I wouldn't let her take the keys. “I'm going home afterwards,” I said. “I'm right to drive.”

  She gave me this appraising look. “You sure?” she asked, “I'm not going to find out on the news tomorrow that star marketing lead Min Lee drove off the end of a bridge last night, am I?”

  I rolled my eyes at her. “No.”

  “Just checking,” she said as she got into the passenger seat. “Okay.”

  We drove in silence back to her house, and I pulled up to the curb beside her driveway and stuck the car in Park. We sat there for a minute or two.

  “So... this is a bit left field, but what are you doing for Easter?” Sarah asked me, eventually. “I know Henry's going to Seoul, but what are you doing?”

  I shrugged. “I assumed I'd be working.”

  “And it doesn't matter where you do that from, right?” I shrugged again, and she grinned, leaning forward and putting both hands on my arm. “Awesome. You’re coming up to Broome with me, okay? I spoke to Rob about it already, and he's hooked on the idea of having someone to play video games with.” I must have looked a bit hesitant, because she patted me. “Oh, come on. You can't just sit around at home and feel sorry for yourself at Easter. We can eat ourselves sick on chocolate and then you can listen to me cry about how terrible I look in bathers afterwards.”

  I had to smile a bit at that. I wondered what Bree would be doing, and then I felt another stab in the chest.

  “I know it's controversial, but I'm interpreting your silence as consent and booking your flights on the same plane. I hope that's cool.”

  “I actually don't really like chocolate,” I told her, chuckling.

  She looked aghast. “Well that's it,” she said. “You're clearly not a woman. Fine, I'll just eat all the chocolate by myself and you and Rob can cane each other on... whatever game he's obsessed with at the moment. The one with guns that you need to shoot everyone else with.”

  I laughed at her. That described half the games on my shelves. Before she got out of the car, though, I remembered one of the things Bree had yelled at me and stopped her.

  She turned back to me, eyebrows up. “Hmm?”

  I struggled a bit even though I knew what I wanted to say. “Thank you.”

  She broke into a smile. “Don't think I'm too altruistic,” she said, eyebrow twitching. “I'm actually only offering because I know I'll really enjoy having you up there, and so will Rob. Drive safe.” I nodded, and she shut the door behind her and waved as I left.

  I had been feeling a little better after that. Unfortunately, that mood wore off and by the time I got home I'd already started to go over everything Bree and I had said to each other in fine detail and the knot in my stomach was back. The worst thing was how I’d last seen her: curled into a tiny little ball, sobbing her eyes out on the train. How could I do that to her? Even after what she'd said to me? She was alone, crying on a train in the dark. I couldn't have put her in any more danger.

  As soon as I'd parked under my building, I took my phone out and texted her again. “Please just tell me when you get home, so I know you're okay...”

  Again, she replied quickly. “no”

  I deserved that, I thought, sighing and slipping the phone back in my pocket as I got out of the car. When I got upstairs, I opened my door to Bree's school shoes and her schoolbag. All her stuff was still here, and as I was looking down at it, I saw her tie was around my neck. That means I have to see her again, I thought, feeling both heartened by that and really terrified at the thought of her not wanting any more contact after she'd retrieved her stuff. Really terrified, actually, terrified enough that it made my heart race. She's the only one who knows all about my gender stuff, I realised. Some of the stuff Bree knows I'd never tell anyone else. Not even Sarah.

  Fuck, what if she didn't want to see me again?

  That thought drove me to the pantry in search of wine, and when I opened it, expecting to see two empty shelves and a whole lot of bottles on the third one, I got a surprise. The top shelf had a cut loaf of fresh bread — bakery bread, I thought — a jar of Vegemite, a packet of pasta and a packet of long grain rice. There were even two apples in a bowl and a can of something beside them. I inspected it; it was pasta sauce.

  The fridge had food in it, too, and worst of all, worst of all, there was a little can of Red Bull. I could see something stuck to the back of it, so I lifted it up.

  It was a post-it note with a familiar lopsided smiley face. ‘Surprise!’ was written underneath.

  I let the fridge fall closed while I was looking at it, feeling like I’d been punched in the stomach. She'd done all this for me, I thought. Thinking of me, imagining how I'd react when I found it. And I called her a stalker and told her to stop deluding herself. After everything she'd done for me, after how good she made me feel about myself and how open and accepting she was of me, that's how I repaid her? 'Bree, I tolerate you because I don't have a choice'?

  I put my hand on my chest, over where it was aching. It's not true, Bree, I thought. It's not true. That's not how I feel about you.

  I couldn't deal with any of it, so I had a couple of codeine for the hole in my chest and I just took one of the bottles of red wine to bed with me.

  As a result, I woke up some time on Saturday with a pounding fucking headache that even two more codeine wasn't likely to make a dent in. I pulled the covers back over my head and probably would have just stayed there for the rest of the day if I hadn't been busting to go to the toilet. It was the only thing that got me out of bed, and then I spent the next two hours of the early afternoon staring at my unread work emails and not opening them.

  Instead, I found myself on Bree’s Facebook page, wondering if she’d posted something that would at least confirm she got home okay. She hadn’t. There had been no activity on her account since yesterday, and that made me worry. It was stupid, I know; Sarah was right, and Bree was right: Bree was an adult. But after what I’d done and how I’d left her, I still worried. She’d been so upset, and so tiny curled up in that little ball.

  The last photo she’d uploaded was that lovely one of her in the red t-shirt I’d bought her, and I looked at it for a while, wondering what had possessed me to be so cruel to such a sweet person who thought the world of me. She had been rude, but she’d been hurt, and rightfully so. Fuck, and I’d just gotten stuck into her. Seeing her gorgeous smiling face in the photo and remembering how destroyed she’d looked when she’d left me was too great a contrast for me to be able to deal with.

  It ended up getting on t
op of me and I texted her again, “Bree, I’m so sorry. I hope you’re alright…”

  This time, she didn't reply quickly. In fact, by dinnertime she still hadn't replied, and because I kept checking my phone while I was trying to cook dinner, I basically turned the rice into glue. Mum would have disowned me if she’d seen it. Actually, she’d probably just disown me if she found out I didn’t have a rice cooker. If she ever found out about the person who caused me to ruin the rice...

  I waited until midnight and then gave up. She was probably holding up to punish me, and I definitely deserved it, but part of me couldn't help but be really worried. I couldn't decide which scenario troubled me more: that she'd never reply because she didn't want to see me again, or that she'd never reply because something had happened to her. Only three-quarters of a bottle of red finally put me to sleep.

  I woke up the following morning... or afternoon... or whenever it was, to the sound of knocking on my door. I sat up in bed, listened, and then lay back down again. It was probably room service, because Bree wouldn't knock, and Henry only came around when he was... invited. Shit! What day was it today? Was it Sunday? I checked my phone and I had two messages. I hurriedly unlocked it, hoping desperately that maybe Bree had finally replied, but neither of them were from Bree, just Henry. Both of them asked if midday was still okay, the second one also asked if I'd gotten the first. Shit. It was nearly 12:15.

  I couldn’t be bothered, I really couldn’t. I really didn’t feel like getting into my nice clothes and putting on makeup and being a good little girlfriend… but I couldn’t just ignore him, could I? He was just being his lovely self. I tapped on the handset icon and put the phone to my ear.

  The knocking stopped. “I promise I’m not trying to beat down your door,” he answered.

  “I’m sorry, I was asleep,” I said, and then I groaned. “Fuck, Henry, I’m sorry, I totally forgot.”

  He laughed gently. “It’s okay, I don’t blame you, you have so much work at the moment. I’ll wait for you to get ready.”

  Get ‘ready’? I didn’t feel like getting out of bed. I felt so physically ill and so emotionally drained that going back to sleep seemed like the best option. I rubbed my face in one of my hands; I couldn’t face stockings. I couldn’t even face pretending that I didn’t feel really wrong in them. I had to, though, didn’t I?

  “Min? Are you okay?”

  “No,” I said, letting my nausea win. “I’m in bed. Can you just come in?”

  He paused. “Uh, sure, I’ll be right there.”

  He was, too. It took him the space of about ten seconds—it would have been five, but I heard him shout as he nearly tripped over Bree’s schoolbag in the hallway—to get into my bedroom. The look on his face as he walked up to the bed… “Min, you look…” Like a guy, I thought, you can say it. It wasn’t what he was thinking at all, though. “God, are you alright? Is everything alright?” He sat down on the edge of the bed and felt my forehead. It wouldn’t have been hot. I couldn’t pretend I was sick.

  “This is how I look without makeup,” I said miserably.

  That made him look even more worried. “Min, I’ve been with you for three years, I have happened upon you not wearing makeup before. I can pretend to be horrified if you want, but I'm not,” he told me as he stroked my cheek. He was about to say something else when he noticed the empty wine bottle on my bedside table. His eyes rested on it for a second, but he didn’t comment on it. Instead, he just watched me at length, his brow knit. “Min, I think you should take the week off work,” he said. “You’ve landed that pitch after Easter, you’ll be ready for it, you need a break.”

  “I’ve got a pitch this week, too. On Wednesday.”

  He winced. “This week? When did you find out about that?”

  “On Friday.”

  There was a little ‘ah’ moment visible on his face. “No wonder you’re so stressed out.” He bent down and kissed my forehead, looking a bit relieved. “Well, I guess there go my dinner plans for us tonight. Can I do anything for you instead?”

  I looked up at him smiling warmly down at me. He’s really handsome, I thought. Handsome and kind. It was such a pity that it was wasted on me. “You can stop being so wonderful,” I suggested. “That would help.”

  He looked surprised, and then he laughed. “Because it makes you feel guilty about being a grump?” he asked, and then leant down a placed another firm kiss on my forehead. “Sorry. That’s not how I work.” He stood up. “Let me get you a glass of water. If you’re feeling as hung-over as you look, that should get you on the road to recovery.”

  He got up and went to the kitchen, and handed me a glass of water when he got back. I accepted it from him, sitting up against the headboard and taking a few sips.

  He climbed up on the bed next to me and sat on the other side, his long legs stretched out in front of him on top of the doona. He looked down at them from a second, and then at me. “There’s food in your cupboard,” he observed.

  I’d forgotten about that. Bree. My stomach knotted at the thought of her cheerfully buying it for me. “Yeah.”

  “You don’t like Vegemite.”

  The knot tightened. “I forgot to tell Bree that,” I said. “And she’s the one that bought it.”

  He nodded once, slowly. “Okay,” he said, and then appeared to completely accept it. “Well, that’s nice of her. It’s nice to know that even when I’m not around you’re eating something other than greasy takeaway.” I finished the water, and put the glass on the bedside table, next to the empty wine bottle. He was still watching me. “Would you like me to make you something? I saw some pasta and some sauce in there. Perhaps you feel like that?”

  I shook my head. “It’s okay, Henry, I’m not hungry. Thank you, though.” He was still watching me, and it was unnerving. I felt like he could read my mind when he looked at me like that, and I didn’t want him to know what was in there. I changed the subject. “How did Alice and Zhang like the pram? You never told me. Were they fooled by the beautiful masterpiece of fake baby vomit I smeared all over the canopy?”

  It worked, and his eyes lit up as he remembered. “Oh, that’s right!” he said. “Yes, actually, and their two oldest insisted on being pushed around in it while I was there, so Zhang and I somehow ended up racing them around using the old pram. The spaceship pram would have won, but that sneaky bastard cheated. I should never have lent him Grand Theft Auto…”

  He started telling me what had happened, and I pretended to listen. No, that wasn’t true, I was listening, it was just that I kept being distracted by how indulgently he talked about the kids and their family and how animated he looked when he was telling the story.

  Halfway through it, when he was talking about how exhausted Alice was and how delighted she’d been when they'd found out they were going to have twins this time, he took my hand, absently turning it over in his as he spoke. When he saw me looking down at it, he smiled, and there was so much gentle patience in that smile.

  And, fuck, it hit me what it meant. Like a tonne of fucking bricks dropped from the Empire State Building. He had all these plans for us; he never talked about them, but I knew they were there. He wanted to give me massages and soak my swollen ankles while I was pregnant with his twins. He wanted the white picket fence in the suburbs and the seven-seater four wheel drive full of children. He wanted Christmas stockings over the fireplace, and Easter egg hunts on crisp April mornings, and preschool and theme park holidays and graduation dinners. He wanted to grow old with me on our front porch, watching the street change over the years. He gave me space and he gave me time because this is where he assumed we’d end up if he was patient: together, holding hands on our matching rocking chairs and watching our children’s cars pull up with their children inside.

  And I couldn’t do it.

  I can’t do it, I thought, feeling tears well up in my eyes as I looked at him. Henry, I can’t do this. This isn’t what I want, I can’t ever be the mother of our childre
n. I'm not a woman, I can’t ever be a mother. I would be miserable.

  No, I corrected myself: I am miserable, and I want to be happy.

  I just want to be happy.

  He stopped talking and the smile fell off his face when he saw my eyes fill with tears. He leant towards me, putting a hand on my leg over the doona. “Min? Fuck, are you alright?”

  My hand flew up to my mouth and for a second I couldn’t say anything, I could only shake my head as my eyes brimmed. “I love you,” I breathed through my fingers. “Henry, I love you.”

  He didn’t know how to take it, because I was obviously about to cry. “That’s the first time you’ve said it,” he told me eventually, looking like he was going to cry. He hugged me so tightly, and I stared over his big shoulders wishing they were smaller shoulders, softer shoulders, and knowing who I wished they belonged to. Remembering what I'd done to that person, the tears spilt down my cheeks.

  He wanted to cuddle a bit after that, and I was so not up for it. I let him anyway, feeling hollow and disconnected and like I was absolutely the worst person in the world in every possible way. He was so lovely, and so gentle. He was so wonderful to me. And I loved him, I knew I did… but not in the way he wanted me to, and I never would.

  Afterwards, Henry lay next to me, lacing our fingers together and just looking so, so happy.

  I lay beside him and ached, just ached, wishing I hadn’t said those awful things to Bree, wishing I loved him like that, wishing I could love him like that, and that I was the woman that he thought I was. But no amount of wishing, or pretending, or going through the motions was going to make any of it true. It was all crap and I just ached. I was going to have to tell him, and I didn’t know how. But I couldn't leave it like I had with Bree. I had to tell him. I tried to put the words together in my head as I lay there, but none of them seemed right. What was the right way to break someone's heart?

  “Well, I imagine you’ve got a lot of work to do,” he murmured next to my ear, interrupting my thoughts. “And I don’t want to be responsible for you not getting things done. I’ve been here for a while…”