But I have to write this in the belief that you are reading. And so you’ll see the next words I write.
I’M SORRY.
I’ll give you a moment to absorb that. I’ve never said it before so it would be shock.
I’m sorry, Georgie, for all the ways we went wrong. All the ways that weren’t my fault and then all the ways that were.
I went back to counselling. I should never have stopped. And this time I’m learning that a traumatic brain injury isn’t an excuse to be bad tempered and just a total shite to the person who cared the most for me.
In the beginning, of course, I had plausible deniability for my utter berkdom. I just wasn’t the same anymore and I had no control over the anger I felt. I had no control over a lot of things and what I lacked in good sense I made up for in bad temper.
But all that time, through the coma, learning to walk again, the confusion and moodiness, the inability to work or even stay awake long enough to do anything interesting other than carp at the world, you stuck with me.
You loved me, Georgie, when I was at my most unlovable.
And berk that I was I blamed you for all of it. After all you blamed you for Jeffrey, for me not being me anymore, so piling on didn’t feel like a big deal.
But it was a big deal.
I got my legs back and there’s worse than a limp. I got my ability to think clearly back, most of the time, the headaches I can handle with meds, the fatigue I’ll have to live with. I even like what I do for work. I might not sing or write music but being a music librarian is almost as good without the sex, drugs and, well, you know.
But the thing is I never got past blaming you, so I made your life miserable.
And that’s not the worst of it. The worst of it is—I got off on it.
I didn’t understand that till now.
You took me on for better or worse and I only ever served you worse and you were too good to quit on me until I quit on you. And seriously, what kind of a pillock has an affair and waves it in his wife’s face like I did, instead of talking things out sensibly.
Strike me dead, Georgie. I’m sorry.
I don’t mean I’m sorry I ended up with brain damage. I am sorry about that. There is no reconciling it, only acceptance, and I can’t pretend I don’t still struggle with it. Every single day. In my dreams I’m still a fellow who never gets headaches, never gets confused or angry for no good reason, who is sure on his feet and has enough energy to get through the average day without a nanna nap.
And who was never an arsehole to you.
I’m sorry I couldn’t separate out my feelings and put them in the appropriate places. Jeffrey did this to me, not your friendship with him. Nothing you did made Jeff the violent, dangerous idiot he was. I’m sorry I gave up counselling. I should never have done that. What a dickhead I was.
I’m sorry I made you feel like a nurse, like the hired help. No, worse, like the house slave. I made your own home a war zone between me and my wonky brain and my thwarted ambitions. See, arsehole.
Before it all we were so good. I know that’s not a false memory. I loved you so much and we were good together. And after I needed you so much. But we were too young to know what we were up against and you were too good to walk away. And I was too messed up to let you do it easily.
We should’ve listened to my parents. Your dad would’ve been so disappointed in me. If he was still alive and sober, I think he might’ve smacked me around some. It was probably what I needed, but I was so angry I pushed everyone away, especially those whose opinions I didn’t like. Most of all you, and you only ever wanted to do the best for me.
You know you never complained and that made things worse. Looking out for your dad taught you that. Taught you to make do with a bad lot and not make a big deal out of it. You should’ve left me years ago, when I was stable, when we knew all there was to know. I’ve been such a colossal berk.
But now I sound like the old me, blaming you again. I hate how easily I can fall back into that. I’m not that man anymore. At least, I’m trying not to be. I can’t be who I was before Jeffrey, but I need to be someone much better than who I was after him.
Eugenia left me. Of course she did. I was a bastard. I deserved to be dumped. I got older but my brain is stuck at eighteen. It’s like I never grew up because I never took any responsibility.
I don’t mean I was responsible for getting attacked. I definitely don’t mean you were. I mean I was responsible for what happened afterwards and how after I got better I got bitter and let that bitterness become the whole of my life.
It’s a valid reaction. There are people in my therapy group who are like that. They’re hard to sympathise with and that took me by surprise. I want to tell them to grow up, to make lemonade. But then I realised I’m not much better and I made a terrible mess.
I always thought Jeffrey wrecked us. I know now I did it. Not intentionally of course, though it must seem that way to you.
I’m wondering if you’ve even read this far. I really can’t imagine that you’d ever want to hear from me again. I had to stop writing this and start again at least a dozen times and I still don’t know if it’s wise to post it. I say post because it’s so much more of a process than an email and I need the whole address the envelope, limp to the post office routine as a counter measure against further stupidity. Pressing send is all too easy. Like blaming you was. Like making you feel guilty for wanting something better than what we had. Like writing the words I’m sorry are.
I should’ve had the grace to leave you alone, not to pull your thoughts to all this unhappiness again. I’m more or less resolved that whatever I do will be the wrong thing. I know that’s how you used to feel with me. No win. If I don’t at least attempt to make contact with you and tell you how sorry I am that’s just shitty, but in doing so, well, in doing so, that’s just shitty too, isn’t it? Par for the course with me, right. And that’s not a question. I know the answer is yes.
If I were you, I’d be asking why I didn’t simply phone you. I could’ve done that, called you at your work, but I was scared you’d hang up on me, like I’m scared you won’t read this, and also scared you will. I’m still a mess, and really I’m learning the way I am has much less to do with having a brain injury than I thought. I didn’t miss out on becoming the world’s greatest singer/songwriter because of my injury. I didn’t get there because I gave up on myself. Like I gave up on you, on us.
Anyway, I wrote because, difficult as it is, I can express myself clearly, or at least I hope I’ve done that, not that this is a literary masterpiece by any means, but I think you’ll know what I’m trying to say.
So now I’ve gotten to the part where I need to close this missive. You know I let this sit for a week before I got to this bit. Closing is as difficult as the first sentence was to write, which will turn out to have been a stupendous waste of time if you’re not in fact still reading.
I don’t know how to tell you how sorry I am about what happened to us, about what I did to you. You were the sunshine of my life until I covered you with storm clouds and pelted all over you with ice. I thought I’d start typing and decent words would come. You know how I am that way, never short of a word on a good day, but I was very wrong. Everything I’ve written reads like bollocks. I wish I was brave enough to get on a plane and come find you and tell you all this to your face, but I’m not because, well, when was I ever brave, except when the concept was forced on me. And then I thought bravery was overrated and hashed it up by being grumpy and obnoxious. You were the brave one. You took me on when you needn’t have and you stuck with me when I deserved to be put out with the garbage.
So anyway, assuming I haven’t now bored you to death with all this, Georgie, I am most humbly sorry and most terribly guilt stricken and dear God, dear God, I’m hoping you are well and happy and making a new life full of all the things you didn’t have with me.
I want there to be someone who will love you like I wasn’t able to. I wa
nt there to be work you enjoy, not just work you could do and still have time left over to care for me. I want you to have millions of friends who make you laugh like you used to, and most of all, most of all, I want you to be happy again.
With my heart firmly in my mouth and no expectation of a reply. Please, please don’t think you have to.
Hamish.
27: Chokehold
Damon rolled over on the sofa, waking from his drugged slumber. He’d dreamt he was at the movies: champagne, a private screening, the colours so bright, the movement so quick and the sound so loud he had to shake his head to tell awake from asleep. It was his own voice he’d heard strong and certain, maybe that was what woke him. It took a moment, sitting with his head in his hands, to know he was wrong, and then he was instantly on alert.
Someone in the house was crying.
He scrambled to his feet. He had no idea what time it was, had stopped wearing his watch because it hardly mattered, one day trying to evade his thoughts eked slowly into another.
He had to stop himself calling out. He stilled and listened. The sound had stopped. Whoever it was had heard him getting up and didn’t want him knowing.
Georgia had shared her fears about Avocado going under. She was worried, had started searching for a new job. He’d done what he could, touching base with industry contacts to see if anyone had anything going. Was she more upset than she’d let on?
Taylor was off about something and not giving. She’d lah, lah, lahed every time he’d asked her in a note and she’d resisted all his forms of attack, including sitting on her and tickling her till she just about wet herself.
It could be either of them.
And it could easily turn into a game of hide and seek he could never win. Frustration, never far from his grasp, simmered in his chest, boiled in his gut. He slapped his hand down on the wall in the doorway between the kitchen and the lounge. That choking sound had come from further inside the house. He moved into the kitchen, every sense straining, picking up only stillness and peripheral noises; his own movements, birdsong, the sprinkler system from outside.
Fuck this.
There was a bowl of fruit on the counter. He swept it to the floor with a backhander, the bowl shattering, the fruit bouncing and rolling.
Running bare feet. “Damon.” Georgia in the room. “What happened?”
He frowned and pointed at her.
Her breathing was uneven. “Stand still, there’s glass everywhere.”
He needed to know right now what was wrong with her. He slammed his hand on the countertop.
She sniffed, little gasps of breath. “Don’t move while I clean this up.”
He slid a bare foot towards her, and another.
“Damon, don’t.” Her voice cracked.
He took another and met something sharp under his heel but kept moving. Her breath caught, a strangled sob, and when he opened his arms she came into them, no longer able to hold it together.
He lifted his heel, something embedded in it and stoked her hair, held her while she sobbed, convulsing. Her face was wet, her neck. This couldn’t be about her job. Jesus Christ, had someone died? She wasn’t saying anything, couldn’t catch her breath to. He scooped an arm down to her knees and lifted her, limped out to the deck where he could bleed without making too much more of a mess.
Two strides past the doorway, two left, he found the lounge and sat, holding her on his lap. She curled into his chest, clutched at his neck and he was so afraid of what was happening to her. He rocked her, breathed her, held her tight, his foot buzzing, a scream building in his head.
Taylor had been his noise, his nonstop reality show narrator. She’d filled his brain with sound: her talk, her music, her bad-tempered presence in the house, but Georgia had been his everything else. His sanity and satiety, his rest and consolation. She was the hands that soothed, the lips that whispered his name, calling him back from the blackest thoughts, the emptiest prospects. And now she was somehow broken and he could not fix her with his body alone, any more than he could stay silent.
“Georgia, tell me.” His first words, soft and unformed in his throat like porridge, like sludge in the air, too heavy, too fractured for volume.
Her hand fast to his throat. Her, “Oh no,” slipped inside a sob. Then she kissed him, lips firm, pressing ungently, stopping him from saying more while he held her too tight and tried to swallow over the soreness in his throat and the ache behind his eyes.
She twitched, shifted. He was holding her too hard. Her hand over his mouth now. “Don’t talk, don’t, please don’t. I’m sorry. I’m all right. It was a shock.” He relaxed his grip, but tried to scent her distress in the salty heat of her tears. “No one is hurt, everything is all right. I’m so sorry I panicked you.” She traced a finger over his lips, up his cheek, around his eye. “I got a letter from Hamish.” A shuddered breath Damon felt in his ribcage. “I’ve been carrying it around for a week. Too scared to open it. He wrote to apologise for…” She wiped at her face, her elbow brushing his chest. “To apologise for what went wrong between us. It was a shock. I’ll be all right, I’m fine. I’m so sorry I scared you.”
He caught her chin in his hand, brought his nose to her face. He knew his cheek would be rough on hers; he could barely remember when he’d last shaved, but he needed to feel her, to learn her distress and her hopes though his skin.
Her hands went to his neck, to his hair. “I promise you I’m okay. Our end was so bitter, I never thought I’d hear from Hamish again. I’ve been carrying the letter around since your operation. I almost threw it away. He half expected me to.” She sighed, and he could all but taste her unhappiness. “I made you speak.”
He would’ve transformed into a flying, fire-breathing dragon for fear of what was happening to her, for the visceral need that lived inside him to have her safe and happy, and that knowledge was rawer, tougher to bear than the sound of his torn voice.
“It’s too soon to know. It’s too soon.” She’d been shocked by the contents of the letter and shocked again when he spoke after days of communication that was all touch and breath, type and sound, so tender and tenuous it made him want to curl up in it and take comfort, but so emasculating, he also recoiled from it.
It wasn’t too soon. It was already over. And the time for indecision, for stalling was run to nothing.
Four more days would barely make any difference. He felt like he’d eaten a bucket of sand. The swelling should be down by now, swallowing less constrained. And Georgia, who’d been his consolation when he’d wanted nothing but to wallow in the sweaty stink of his fear, now needed her own comfort
“Don’t try to talk again. I’ll get your tablet.”
He stopped her moving. He’d had enough of the tablet, the reading software, the pad and pen, the inability to express himself directly without breaking something. He was so eaten up by foul humour had he voice he’d have rivalled Taylor for attitude. He’d have silenced the birds and shaken leaves from trees with his anger, laid cracks in the house’s foundations and had the neighbours calling the police.
And she who needed comforting was still comforting him.
She pulled from his clench. “Then let me see your foot. I forgot about it.”
His foot could rot. Turn into a stump and wither, cripple him in a new way. Why not? He was stumbling around, locked in silence and darkness, what did it matter if he stumbled some more?
She crouched beside him, her hand on his instep. “I’ll read you the letter, but not yet, not today. I need time to read it again, to let it settle. I never thought to hear the things Hamish said. Never thought we might find a place we could be civil with each other.”
It wasn’t too soon and things would not settle, not for him. He flinched when she pulled a shard of porcelain from his heel. Wanted to push her away, stop her fussing. He tapped her shoulder and shook his head. Was she even looking at him?
“I’ll get something to put on this.”
She le
ft him there, to his anger, to the septic decay in his heart. He’d struggled to know what to do, a prisoner in his own head, but he knew now. He wasn’t mythical creature enough to give her what she needed, and though he didn’t know the extent of the impact of the letter on her, he could hear it in her voice, a kind of wonder spotted with hope. It was the sound of his decision.
He let her plaster his foot. He took a call from Jamie, his lame joke of the day. He cooked, for the first time in a long time. Smoked salmon pasta, capers in cream sauce. He drifted through the next few days. He heard that hurt and pleasure in Georgia’s voice when she read him Hamish’s letter and he took her kisses, like a thief.
At night when the house slept, in the odd moments of the day when he was alone, he broke the silence. He spoke to the night air and the dew damp grass; he addressed the dining room table and the sweet smelling flowers in vases in a voice that was lace and tissue, made from ash and scoured metal, erratic like a mad kitten, composed of too many stops and starts, sudden quiets and uneven pounces.
He had a voice, but it was not Damon Donovan’s. It was not the one he wanted or needed, had trained to command attention. Damon Donovan’s voice could command a space fleet, start an interplanetary war.
This imposter would have trouble ordering a pizza.
And it was only going to get worse.
28: Death Wish
Taylor’s punch made Damon fold forward. His hand went to the wall to steady himself and he grunted in shock. Georgia wished Taylor had hit him harder.
She ducked to look at his face. “What were you doing?”
Jamie had phoned the house an hour ago in a panic. He’d lost Damon and was out of his head worried, unsure what to do. He’d called again, relieved and angry fifteen minutes ago and now he had nothing to say beyond a grimace and a head shake. He walked passed them into the kitchen. Taylor went in the opposite direction, out to the front of the house where she sat on the front steps to fume and nurse her hand.
Incapable (Love Triumphs Book 3) Page 26
