Bad Days

by A. S. Kelly

  “Hey, how’s it going?”

  Keith approaches the counter where I confess, I was a bit lost.

  “Fine, thanks.”

  “Listen, I was thinking…Today is Wednesday, we don’t close very late…what do you say we go get something afterwards? Most likely things will be closed but at least we should be able to get a donut and a cup of coffee.”

  Keith is always nice and kind. He smiles, a bit embarrassed as he speaks, and I can’t help but make a comparison about how his eyes aren’t as big and magnetic as Jason’s are. That his dimples that are barely visible are nothing like the ones that appear on Jason’s face when he laughs out loud, that his touch, here on my shoulder, isn’t vaguely comparable to the electric shocks I get when Jason touches me and that his voice, although rough and modulated, is not sexy and scratchy like Jason’s is.

  I can’t avoid thinking what is obvious: Keith is not Jason. That no one ever will be. But Jason is far away in London, and is probably setting up the basis for his career. He left without saying goodbye, not feeling the need to share his news with me and that must mean we are not as close as we once were.

  Jason is my big weakness and I’ll never be able to go on if I don’t lock up the very idea of him and what never was between us.

  “Okay,” I say impulsively.

  “Okay?” Rain echoes me, coming over to check out what’s going on.

  “Perfect.” Keith smiles again. “Until then,” he says, going back to work with a smile on his face, while I get that familiar sense of anxiety in my throat.

  “What are you doing, Alex?”

  “Just living, Rain.”

  Rain goes silent with my answer. She isn’t able to respond and maybe I was a bit too harsh with her, I have to admit it. But first she tells me to live my life and not be afraid, she introduces me to Keith and talks my ear off about taking chances and not thinking about the consequences. Now she almost seems angry about it.

  Well now, I think the situation calls for a little clarity here, or am I mistaken?

  The night ends quickly. At eleven fifteen everyone has already gone home and Keith hands me my jacket from behind the counter. “Ready?”

  I nod because if I spoke, I’d say No, Keith, I am not nor will I ever be ready for you or anyone else.

  “I’ll have her home soon,” he says sweetly as Rain just barely nods.

  Keith opens the door for me and lets me go out first. I smile at him and move through the door looking back, and that’s where I run into someone who should not be there.

  “Alex? Where are you going?” Jason asks me, as his forehead wrinkles as soon as he sees over my shoulder.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m back.”

  “But you just left this morning…”

  “Evidently I was in a hurry to get back and it would seem I was right to do so.”

  Jason and Keith exchange a glance that only promises trouble so I decide to end this as quickly as possible.

  “Keith and I were just going for a coffee, so if you don’t mind…” I say, inviting him to make way for us.

  “And if I do mind?” he asks with a challenging air in Keith’s direction.

  “Friend, what’s the problem? We’re just going—”

  “Ah, you want to know what problem I have? Just one: you, shithead, and your fucking arm around her shoulder.”

  I close my eyes. Deep breaths. I check the pulse in my heartbeat and it’s rising rapidly. I tell myself to calm down, that this is not the moment to have an attack, here at the door in front of Keith and, damn it, in front of Jay, but my heart is accelerating and won’t slow down.

  “Alex, is everything okay?” Keith asks me, whispering in my ear. His tone is calm and he’s almost able to placate these emotions but then I open my eyes and see his and I’m lost, letting myself be overcome by him again, by my stupid heart and this stupid love.

  “Alex?” Jason is speaking to me, Keith is speaking and maybe someone else too, trying to calm everyone down.

  I can hear them as if they were a hundred meters away and I’m not able to interact with them, to respond to tell them to knock it off or go to hell because I’m not some toy for them to play with.

  “Alex, speak to me…” Jason takes my hand, worried while Keith squeezes my shoulder.

  “Take your hand off of her, now.”

  “I don’t see why I should.”

  “Because you’re scaring her you asshole!”

  “Hey.” Keith squeezes me again. “You are the only one here who is scaring her. Get out of here, Jay.”

  “I’m not moving.”

  “Then I’ll help you.”

  “Stop it!” It’s my voice and I can feel it coming out directly from my throat. “Both of you,” I continue, leaving Jay’s hand and gently moving Keith’s hand from my shoulder.

  “Alex, are you alright?”

  “Can’t you see that she’s not okay, asshole? It’s all your fault.”

  “She was fine before you showed up trying to mark territory that doesn’t belong to you.”

  Jason breaks out laughing but it stops suddenly.

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about, friend. You don’t know anything about me or about her. You don’t know jack shit!”

  “I said enough!” I yell, looking Jason right in the eyes, before walking past him and going to the street where I see Aaron and Liam taking their luggage from a taxi.

  “Alex, please don’t go away like this!” Jason follows me and stops my hand that’s ready to open the taxi door.

  So I stop, take a deep breath and let him have it.

  “You have no rights on me! I am not yours and never have been!” I yell on the verge of tears. “And I never will be!”

  He lets my hand go and takes a few steps backwards. His face is a mask of sadness, resentment and remorse.

  There was a time when I thought I was his business, that I belonged to him, that I was a part of his world. But that time has passed, it flew away with him the day he decided to let me leave.

  Jason and my time is over, there is no way to get it back and bring old things to light now.

  “I came back for you,” he says, continuing to look at me. “We didn’t go to the meeting, we gave it up. Each one for his own reason. And you are my reason, Alex.”

  “What?”

  “I won’t do something like that again, I swear. I’ll never go anyplace else. I want to stay with you, to take care of you and…”

  “Do you not understand me? I don’t want that! I don’t want someone to take care of me or someone who wants to save me. I just….I just want…”

  I sit on the sidewalk and Jason motions the taxi driver to go. Then he kneels down in front of me and takes my face in his hands.

  “Alex, look at me.”

  I raise my eyes to his and now they are sweet and full of love.

  “I can’t save you, it’s true. But I can love you. That I can do.” He smiles and I melt in his arms.

  “Let me love you.”

  And as I sob, I rest my head against his chest, drowning his sweatshirt and in defeat I say to his shoulder: “It’s the same thing.”

  17

  JASON

  We go back home and I take off her shoes and jacket and help her lie down in my bed, and she permits me to do it.

  Every time I brush her skin it leaves me breathless because I’m so charged on emotion, fear and anguish because just touching her makes me think of all I’d like to do with her but can’t.

  I tucked her in and stayed next to her, watching her and smiling because that’s all I’m allowed to do.

  “I can’t do it,” she says in a whisper, turning on her side to be able to look at me.

  “What can’t you do?” I ask, running my hands through her hair that’s spread out on the pillow.

  “I can’t love, Jason. I can’t love you…I can’t give you what you want.”

  “And what is that?”

/>   “Well, you know…not everything.”

  I’d like to tell her that it’s enough for me that she’s here and that she will stay here and that she loves me, even half as much as I do. That she smiles at me and she’ll let me watch her sleep, walk, eat, drink, talk, cry, laugh and breathe.

  Live.

  I’d like to tell her all of this, but in truth, I do understand what she’s trying to tell me and I’m not ready to deal with it all right now.

  “Jason…” She looks at me with eyes full of terror and I’d like to just hold her to me and let her understand that it’s all okay, whatever she wants to give me is alright.

  It will be enough.

  I swear.

  “You can’t love me. I don’t know anything about love. I wouldn’t know how to make you happy, how to…”

  “Stop talking smack.”

  “I’m not made for love.”

  “It’s true,” I tell her, continuing to run my hands in her hair, remaining at the safety distance from her skin that I’d like to kiss and taste until she tells me to stop.

  “You weren’t made for love, you were made for me.”

  I lean in closer with the fear that I could ruin this intimate moment with too reckless a gesture.

  A tear runs down her face and I rub it off and bring it to my lips. If it’s the only contact I can have, I’ll make it last.

  “Do you…want to lie down next to me?” she asks, biting her lip and I could die on the spot, at her feet. I could just die wanting to hold her and transmit everything I am not able to say in words.

  I get up and take off my shoes and sweatshirt. I go to unbutton my jeans but I can see the fear in her eyes, so I rethink that one and just sit down next to her.

  “Make me some space,” I ask her and she moves back, a bit too much to be honest, almost falling off the other side. So I lift the covers, I grab her waist with an arm and pull her back to me, touching her lightly with my fingers.

  “Relax, everything is okay. I’m not going to let anything happen to you, Alex,” I promise her again, even if I know full well it’s a promise I can’t keep.

  She nods and relaxes just a bit, and lets me put my hand under her shirt and gently rub her side.

  It is contact, real, intimate and sweet that opens a hole in my heart that’s as big as Ireland itself.

  I give her a little push with my hand to draw her in closer and she lets me, sighing heavily.

  “I swear to you that I am not going to hurt you.”

  “I know,” she replies, bringing her forehead to mine, touching me lightly.

  Then she lifts a hand and touches my bare chest. The first time her fingers touch my chest, she winces and I kiss her forehead to calm her down.

  Small steps, I tell myself. Tiny, almost invisible steps. She tries again, this time more convinced. She opens her palm and puts it right over my heart and I almost faint with the desire to taste her.

  She leaves her hand there without moving it. I lift my hand to hers and rest it on top. I hold my breath and my heart feels like it’s about to explode in my chest because I’m so afraid of making her anxious.

  “It’s yours, Alex,” I whisper into her lips.

  Then I move her hand and show her what I’ve had hidden under a bandage for five years. I pull it off in a second and show her the part of myself that’s been hidden from everything that must now come to light.

  I show her what I decided to do the day I decided to leave her.

  I show her her name, tattooed on my chest, in my heart and right inside my stupid soul.

  Four simple letters, my only weakness from now on, will now be my strength for all of my fucking life.

  Alex.

  —

  ALEX

  “It’s always been yours,” he says in a hot whisper onto my lips, showing me my name on his chest.

  “Then why did you let me go?”

  “I was trying to protect you.”

  “By leaving me?”

  “Yes. I wanted to protect you from me. I know that seems incomprehensible to you, but I wanted to keep you safe. I thought by staying away from you there wouldn’t be a risk of you—”

  “Dying?” I finish the phrase for him.

  Many people feel uncomfortable with the word death, but I’m not one of them.

  He closes his eyes and exhales sharply.

  “I couldn’t lose you too.”

  I believe him because I know it’s true.

  “You thought you’d keep me safe that way? Without you? Oh Jason, it wasn’t your fault and you know that. It just happened and would have happened eventually no matter what.”

  “I would have wanted to be by your side, Alex, you can’t imagine how much. But I couldn’t stand it, I wasn’t able to. When I saw you laid out in that hospital bed, it was too painful. I couldn’t stay there knowing that I could hurt you again. I feel like shit for leaving you in that moment that you needed me.”

  I touch his face lightly where a hint of beard is starting to shadow, making him even more sexy. I swallow and move in closer and our lips almost touch.

  He opens his eyes: panic and disorientation. He’s scared, he’s shaking next to me and he’s completely paralyzed.

  He could never do this.

  So I let my hand fall and I distance myself from him, turning on my back. I stare at the ceiling and count my heartbeat as the tears come flowing.

  “Alex, don’t cry. What did I do? Did I pressure you somehow? Did I make you nervous? Did I…”

  I raise a hand to ask him to be quiet because I can’t stand what he’s saying. I take a deep breath a few times before facing him.

  “Jason, I am sick and will always be. I do not have a life like yours or other people’s. I can’t…I can’t do it and you do not want this for yourself.”

  “What? No, Alex, no!” He tries to grab me by the shoulders but I wriggle away from him.

  “You cannot want this. To face all of this all over again.”

  “You don’t know what I want, you don’t know what I have here, in my head and in my heart,” he concludes, touching his heart.

  “Maybe now that we’ve seen each other, you think you feel something for me, you think you want this, that you can do it…”

  “I don’t think it, Alex. I know it.”

  “I can’t do this to you,” I say between my sobs. “Not to you. I can’t force you to stay by my side, like this, in this way…we could never have….everything. I could never give you a family, you know that, right? Jason, you’d never be happy with me.”

  He holds me to him and this time I don’t pull back. I rest my head on his chest and listen to his heart racing.

  His, not mine.

  I count the beats that are going as fast as those of my own heart. He kisses me on the head and holds me tighter still.

  “You are giving me what I’ve always wanted, Alex. Don’t you understand? I want you. You are my family, you always have been. I gave you up once and look how I ended up. I wasn’t able to feel anything, I couldn’t even feel my own heartbeat anymore. I was….incomplete. You are my missing piece, you’re part of me. I’m sorry I let you down, for having let you believe that you weren’t enough for me to put aside my own pain to have you with me.

  “I have no intention of going back now, to a life without you in it. I can’t live without you,” he whispers, touching my face with his. “I’m not willing to lose you again, not now that I’ve finally held you in my arms, the only place you should be from now on. I’m here, I’m ready. We’ll face everything here together, step by step.

  “I beg you to let me stay here, by your side, that’s all I’m asking you. In whatever way you’ll have me, It’ll be enough for me.”

  His words are the ones I’ve always wanted to hear. A hidden desire, kept back by my own fears of ruining his life.

  Afraid to feel alive and crude but not being able to separate it from desire, hope and wanting him. To want this man, really, in my life and in my
world, in every part of me.

  I don’t say anything, but I stay there, in his strong arms which have held me before but never like this, never with such confidence.

  And I understand that I need this security, I need his arms around me when I feel like I’m falling apart. I need his smile because it gives me unforgettable moments that no one will ever be able to take away from me, not even this illness of mine.

  I need Jason, my friend and my only love.

  I need him and it terrifies me because I know one day I could leave him and I won’t be there with him to help him pick up the pieces.

  18

  JASON

  “Good morning.” I wake her with a delicate kiss on the forehead, hoping not to scare her.

  I didn’t sleep much last night, was too busy watching over her resting, making sure her breathing was regular, keeping an ear to her chest to make sure her heart continued beating.

  I don’t think there’s a more melodious, reassuring song in the world.

  Good Lord, she’s alive.

  Is it going to be like this every day?

  “Hi.” She smiles at me, and I think yes, I could do this every day, or as long as she’ll want me to be by her side.

  “Breakfast is ready, everyone’s downstairs. Let’s go, I’ll give you a ride to work.”

  “I can take the bus.”

  “Bullshit.” I cut her off right away. “I would never permit my girlfriend to take an hour-long bus ride to work when I can get her there in half the time in my car.”

  “What? What does that mean?”

  “What you just heard me say, Alex.” I smile at her. “It means we are together.”

  “Well…I don’t want to be with anybody.”

  “I am not anybody.”

  She pulls herself up and sits on the bed. Her hair is a mess and her face is still laden with sleep. She looks simply fantastic.

  “Well then, I don’t want to stay with you,” she says, crossing her arms over her chest.