‘Hey, how are you?’
I heard him sigh.
‘I’m good now I can hear your voice. I’ve missed you.’
I took a deep breath in through my nose and exhaled, releasing the tension in my body. ‘Listen, I was talking to Mum today and she would really like to meet you. Nothing heavy. I just thought you could pick me up, come in for a few minutes, and then we could go out to eat somewhere. What do you think?’ I said as I scrunched up my face, closed my eyes, and waited for the grenade I’d just thrown to blow up messily in my face.
After a few seconds of silence, he replied. ‘That sounds great. How about this Friday?’
Sweet baby Jesus! How was that so easy?
Chapter Twenty-Three
I nervously chewed my nails as I stood on the doorstep watching Luke pull up. He looked gorgeous in a grey wool jumper and tight black jeans that clung to all my favourite places. He smiled as he walked towards me, jokingly making the action of tying an invisible noose round his neck, pulling his arm up and sticking his tongue out. I laughed as I pulled him into my arms and gave him a quick hug.
‘Don’t be nervous. It’s fine. No pressure. Just a quick hello.’
I didn’t know if I was trying to convince Luke or myself.
I found it impossible to hide my nerves. I missed out on the I don’t give a fuck gene. It must have skipped a generation. After all this time, I wanted them to like him.
As I pulled Luke by the arm, I found my dad standing behind me holding out his hand to Luke. ‘It’s nice to finally meet you,’ he said in a clipped tone.
Great start.
‘Yes, finally,’ Luke replied tersely as he shook my dad’s hand. Mum was next. She was suitably impressed when he kissed her on both cheeks and went in with a killer compliment. ‘I can see where Elle gets her good looks from,’ he smiled sarcastically but she missed it and blushed as she turned her head to me, grinning broadly.
Mum led the conversation, as usual. She played the perfect host by offering Luke a drink and various nibbly snacks. ‘Can I get you some twiglets, scotch eggs, a pickled onion?’
‘Thank you, but no. I’ve booked a table for dinner so we’ll have to get going soon.’ Mum was half way to the kitchen to open a bag of Bombay mix but visibly crumpled in her chair at his obvious brush off.
‘We can have a quick drink, can’t we?’ I asked as I stared over to him.
Do this for me.
It worked. Although he did shift uncomfortably and smile sharply, briskly nodding his head in reluctance that hopefully only I could detect. I watched him try to calm himself. I expected him to get up and sprint to the door at any minute. But he stayed, for me. I smiled at him in recognition. This man was a tortured soul, a cryptic puzzle, and my beautiful mess.
He drank his tea in record time; no doubt scalding the taste buds off his tongue in the process. He would have thought it was worth it just to get out of there. I was just relieved that they had finally met and the pressure was off. For now…
After our meal, Luke dropped me back at home. I resisted leaving the car and then he instinctively pulled me into his body. Our mouths collided as he kissed me passionately, his hand searching its way up my skirt, bunching it up towards my hips, making me laugh as I swatted it away. ‘They might be watching through the window,’ I said as he returned his hand to my thigh.
‘Bloody hell, I’m thirty-one, not seventeen,’ he said. ‘If I can’t have a sneaky feel of my girlfriend, I might as well give up now.’ I patted his hand chastely, ignoring his comment before I left him for the night. It was now sliding dangerously close to an orgasm. That wasn’t happening in front of my childhood home.
As I climbed out the car he, leant over. ‘Promise to text me the verdict.’
I offered a small smile. ‘Verdict?’ I teased.
‘Yes. I want to know if they think I’m good enough for their only daughter.’
I held back the sarcasm that threatened to bubble over. How could they have made a verdict based on a meeting that took less than six minutes?
Walking through to the living room, my parents were both sitting watching the TV. The lingering smell of coffee greeted me as I sat down on the arm of Dad’s chair. The paper he was reading stayed in front of his face. ‘So, what did you think?’ I asked tentatively.
My heart slowed down as Mum looked up from her book. ‘He seems very nice,’ her eyes returned to the novel she was pretending to read.
‘Is that it? He seems nice?’ I asked. She slammed the book shut and placed it at the side of her, running her hands over the smooth cover to distract from giving me eye contact.
‘Well, how can I say any more? He stayed for what? Ten minutes?’
Dad’s paper rustled as he dropped it down to his lap. ‘Come on now. You’ve met him. Let’s just leave it at that. It’s too late for arguing. I’m off to bed.’ I watched as he folded the paper into four, smoothing the edges with his print stained fingers, which then wrapped themselves around my ponytail, sending it swinging from side to side as he brushed past me.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said as I turned towards her. ‘He looks at you like he adores you, sweetheart, so that’s good enough for me.’ I let out a sleepy sigh and smiled at my mum’s eventual choice of words.
Before I got into bed and let sleep take me away from what was left of the day, I sent Luke a text as promised.
Me: They liked you
Luke: How could they not?
Me: Big head much?
Luke: Spend New Year’s Eve with me?
Me: I would love to!
Luke arranged for us to go out for a meal and see in the new year at a private party in town. He said some of his colleagues were going and he’d asked if we could tag along. I wasn’t sure how I felt about it after the disaster at the Council House, but I decided to go with it.
Arriving at his house early gave me the perfect opportunity to show off my new dress, which was neatly stored away in a garment bag. I hung it up and excitedly told him where it was from and how I had chosen it. Verbal diarrhoea spilled from my mouth in a nervous stream because every time I caught his eye, he quickly looked away. His hands were in the pockets of his jeans as he paced repetitively across the bedroom floor. I second-guessed that maybe he was freaked out by a woman’s dress hanging on his wardrobe door, leading him to imagine all sorts of nightmare commitment scenarios of me slowly moving in. It would start with a toothbrush and a few pairs of knickers, but would end in marriage and shirts stained with baby vomit.
I stopped talking and turned to face him, my arms defensively crossed against my chest. ‘What’s wrong?’ I noticed the headphones sitting on the back of his chair. Listening to music always made him a little quiet until he re-joined the real world after losing himself in the lyrics and melodies of his favourite songs. My arms instinctively fell to my sides as I relaxed a little.
‘I’ve changed my mind about going out tonight,’ he mumbled, looking to the floor.
‘I’ve bought a dress,’ I said defiantly.
‘You can still wear it for me,’ he smiled, finally meeting my gaze.
‘Seems a bit of a waste. All dressed up and nowhere to go,’ I huffed, pulling the dress off the wardrobe door and folding it purposefully into a crumpled mess on top of my overnight bag.
I had always hated New Year’s Eve. I chose not to go out the last few years, preferring the company of my parents to the company of grabby, drunken revellers in nightclubs. Midnight would strike and Dad would go outside and knock on the front door. Mum would let him in as the first guest of the new year. I never understood the tradition, but it happened without fail in all weathers, including the year it snowed and he slipped over and ended up with mild concussion—an eleven-hour wait in A&E and a story that they would tell for years to fill awkward silences at dinner parties. After she’d let Dad in, Mum would cut us all a slice of Christmas cake, we’d share a bottle of wine, then we’d all go off to bed. I knew how to party.
The night would seem
endless. I would daydream in my dressing gown and fluffy bear slippers about how exciting New Year would be if I were sharing it with the man of my dreams. Who would have guessed I would be spending my first New Year’s Eve as part of a couple wishing and praying for midnight to arrive so I could finally take off my make-up and go to bed?
Midnight came and went, and all was forgiven for a brief five minutes when he told me he wanted to kiss me as Big Ben chimed so we could say goodbye to the old year and welcome the new one together.
Afterwards, we sat hand in hand stretched out on the sofa. Luke searched the TV for something to catch our interest before we went to bed. He flicked through the music channels, casually moving on through favourite songs of mine. ‘Put it back. I love that song,’ I said as he returned to the channel with a deep sigh. I looked over at him. His face reflected how the song highly offended his ears to the point of making them bleed.
‘I can’t listen to this,’ he sneered as he carried on flicking through the channels.
‘Leave it just for a minute,’ I sighed in annoyance.
‘I fucking hate this song.’
Click.
He turned it off and we sat in silence. The low hum of the fridge had quickly become familiar background noise.
‘I’m going to bed,’ he said as he got up, taking a bottle of beer with him.
Happy new year to me.
Chapter Twenty-Four
We slept in the same bed but we couldn’t have been further apart. I heard him sigh. He heard me sniffle. I heard him sigh again, only louder, a clear indication that something as simple as my natural breathing pattern annoyed the crap out of him. I pretended to be asleep, closing my eyes tight and trying to relax my breathing.
How had we come to this?
He was tormented even in sleep. His arms moved involuntarily, jumping, shifting, and causing deep spasms through his body. He made muffled noises and huffed out loud breaths. It broke my heart that he couldn’t even find an escape in sleep for the myriad of antagonistic thoughts he carried around daily like a rucksack filled with rocks on his back.
When I woke up in the morning, he was sitting on the edge of the bed deep in thought, his legs crossed over each other. When he realised I was awake, he stood up and walked out of the bedroom without uttering a word to me. I heard him turn on the taps in the bathroom to fill the bath. So that was how it was going to be. Sullen pouting and regrets.
I wanted to stay in my pyjamas all day and sulk, but I didn’t want to show him that I knew we were unravelling, that our relationship was turning brittle and stale.
I shook my head in frustration. It shouldn’t have been so hard. I was exhausted. Every day I would carry the burdens of other people as part of my job. Having to carry Luke’s burdens as well was draining the life out of me. I felt empty. I had nothing left to give.
Did I love Luke? Or was I in love with the idea of being in love? I thought I was starting to experience the heady feelings of love, but the colourful bursts of joy and happiness were long gone. The only feeling that I was experiencing now was fear. Fear that I was never going to be enough for him, fear of losing him, fear of regretting our relationship, and fear of admitting that we just didn’t work together.
When he came out of the bath, he found me sitting in the same position. ‘I’m going out next Saturday, so I won’t be able to see you next week. Someone at work is leaving and I said I would go. It’s just a meal and a few drinks, but I’ll be out late.’
I let his words settle without acknowledging them. We hadn’t spent a weekend apart since the first few weeks of our relationship seven months ago. I should have been feeling hurt that he didn’t want to see me, but all I felt was a huge rush of relief.
‘That will give me a chance to catch up with the girls. We haven’t been out in so long.’
‘It’s worked out for both of us then,’ he muttered as he left the room to go downstairs, leaving me alone in the bedroom.
We lay in silence together on the sofa for the rest of the afternoon. He broke contact every few minutes to check his phone.
‘Are you waiting for a message?’
‘It’s nothing for you to worry about,’ he said as he went into the kitchen to make a coffee, taking his phone with him.
‘Are you hiding something from me?’
‘What?’
‘The messages. Constantly checking your phone every five minutes. What’s going on?’
‘What are you accusing me of? Just come the fuck out with it.’
I stayed silent, fearful of his mood and fearful of mine, the background noise of the TV providing an interlude to the awkward tension filling the room.
‘If you’re going to be like this for the rest of the day, you might as well just go.’
I agreed with him. There really was no point. My skin prickled as I heard him move behind me. ‘Jesus, Elle, it was someone from work texting me, OK. There’s a new social worker and I’m showing her the ropes until she settles in.’
‘Her?’
‘Yes, her,’ he replied staring through me. His eyes were soulless. His lip twitched as he contemplated smiling. ‘If you want to know everything about her, I can set up an interview for you?’
‘Don’t be stupid.’
‘Well, you want to know all about her. If you must know, she’s a redhead with great legs.’ His words hit me like a slap to the face. What incensed me the most was the comment he made before I slammed the door in his face and decided that I was never going to return to that house.
‘I’ve never fucked a redhead before.’
Luke didn’t stop calling me for the next few days. I didn’t have the energy to reply at first, but I eventually gave in. He started well, apologising for what he’d said about the redhead and putting it down to his medication not suiting him. He promised to go back to the doctor for a review of his treatment. He asked for an apology from me. He had a talent for turning situations around and making me feel like everything was my fault when he was quite clearly in the wrong. I didn’t feel I had anything to apologise for, which didn’t go down well, but I was past the point of caring.
I would be lying if I said I didn’t miss him. There were reminders of him everywhere, from the Pink Floyd CD he’d let me borrow when he felt it was his duty to educate me in what he perceived as good music, to the bottle of perfume sitting on my dressing table. I remembered the good times, the chase, the desire, and the intense longing for his touch on my skin.
After four days of silence from Luke and one day of a constant stream of hearts and flowers, big words and false promises, Saturday night finally rolled around. As far as I was concerned, it was a case of too little too late. I knew the pattern. Constant highs and thunderous lows.
I hadn’t been out with the girls for months. My weekends had been reserved, full of my own selfish needs for sex, intimacy, and a longing to feel desired. I craved those times. They fed my confidence and self-esteem. I felt guilty for neglecting them, but the guilt hadn’t been enough to stop me getting my weekly fix of Luke.
Until now.
We’d agreed to meet at Gem’s house to get ready so that she could stay with the kids as long as possible before her Mum babysat. I immediately noticed that Abi was unusually quiet and didn’t enter into many of our catch up conversations. We shared a bottle of wine, which helped hugely in allowing my muscles to relax. I was carrying a bucket load of tension on my shoulders. I didn’t realise how much I needed this night out.
‘I’m looking forward to tonight,’ I said.
‘I’m surprised you could tear yourself away from fucknugget on a Saturday night. I can’t remember the last time we went out together,’ Abi said.
‘Abi!’ Kate’s stern voice warned her not to go on.
‘Have you forgotten you have mates, or have you just dropped us?’
I deserved that. I knew that I had withdrawn from these amazing girls because I feared telling them the truth about my troubled relationship. I knew they wo
uld tell me to walk away, and I wasn’t ready to hear that without drowning myself in a vat of self-pity. Abi wasn’t purposely bitchy or snide. She was making a valid point in her own way. Her spidey sense was on full alert. She knew without doubt that something was incredibly wrong.
‘I haven’t dropped you.’ My eyes fell to the floor to hide the shame. How could I have neglected them? I needed them. They should have been my lifelines.
‘What’s wrong?’ Kate asked as she wrapped her arms around me. I sobbed desperately until I didn’t think I could cry anymore. Gem and Abi joined Kate as I stayed cocooned, wrapped up in a ball underneath them in an amazingly comforting collective hug. My girls. We stayed like this, reconnecting with each other for what seemed like all night, until Abi broke the silence.
‘He doesn’t make you happy, does he?’
I shook my head instinctively. ‘No. In fact, I think he’s really bad for my health.’ I tried to laugh but my half-hearted attempt to make light of the situation didn’t work as they continued to stare at me with concerned faces.
I told them everything, letting it all spill out in its natural, unfiltered glory. The moods, the highs, his dad, his reluctance to fully open up, the conversation with Emma, and the final blow of the redhead with the fantastic legs that he wanted to fuck.
‘Why are you still with him?’ Kate’s anger radiated as she passed me a glass of wine. I laughed as she told me to drink up, reminding me that it was medication for a broken heart.
‘I’ve thought about this a lot, but all I can come up with is there’s so much potential there. When he isn’t struggling, he’s sweet and charming and makes me laugh like no one else.’
‘Do the good times outweigh the bad?’ Gem asked. ‘That’s important, and partly why I’m seeking a divorce.’
I held her hand in recognition of the weight of those words. ‘Sometimes.’
Abi started to shake her head. ‘You don’t need this bullshit.’
‘It’s not bullshit. He needs help. He’s taking medication and I really think—’
‘Stop defending him!’ Abi shouted. ‘He doesn’t deserve you!’ The room fell silent as Abi and I stared into each other’s eyes. ‘I’ve held my tongue long enough now. I’ve seen you go from batshit crazy in love, or lust, or whatever it was. But now! Now you just seem miserable and exhausted. I can’t watch this anymore.’
Let Me Be Your First (Music and Letters #1) Page 15
