Reverb

by Lisa Swallow

  But the thought churns my insides as I grasp onto the place I built with Avery, wishing to hell I knew the right thing to do.

  Tegan said follow my heart, but when my heart doesn’t know which direction to go in, what do I do?

  “Do you need anything, Hannah?” I ask.

  “Another glass of wine,” she replies with a small laugh.

  Before I can respond that’s not what I meant, she disappears into the kitchen. I follow, the now familiar scent of the orange cleaning spray she continuously uses reaching me. Hannah stands by the kitchen counter, pouring wine. When she looks up, in her eyes I see the loss of the day we parted, the confused girl whose life is out of her control, fighting the tears as her trembling fingers circle the bottle.

  “You were at the hospital a long time today,” I say.

  Her face pales. “They might have a donor.”

  “That’s fantastic news!” I say, relief surging into the situation,

  “It means he’s going to start chemo in preparation. He’ll get really sick again.” She takes a shaky breath. “It’s horrible, Bryn. Last time…” Hannah can’t finish her words, holds her hand over her mouth as her eyes fill with tears.

  “Hannah.” I cross and touch her face, the way I’ve resisted for the last few weeks. Her cheek is hot and wet from the tears, and she looks back with the confusion.

  “Don’t, Bryn.”

  “Tell me what to do. Tell me how I can fix this.”

  “You can’t.”

  “Then I can stay. I can be here for you.”

  “But how long for?” She takes my hand from her cheek so I place my other on her instead.

  “However long you both want me.”

  “You’re not mine to take,” she whispers.

  This is the answer. Hannah and Connor need me. “I could be. If you want me.”

  Her eyes widen. “No, I’m not asking that of you. Look at what I’ve done, how I’ve treated you.”

  “I want to be here for you and Connor. I’m fucking confused but a part of me knows this is right.” Perhaps Avery is right. I’m unable to let go because this is where I should be.

  “Bryn, no.”

  “Sometimes, I think this is the world’s way of saying we belong,” I whisper.

  In the moment, we grasp at the light in the darkness around, and I follow the need to comfort Hannah. We’ve avoided touching each other, despite wanting to hug her when I see her struggling, but her body language clearly said no. This close, I see her more clearly than I have for months and I’m looking into the eyes of the woman I wanted last year. I drop my gaze to her mouth. If this feels natural, then this is the direction I need to take.

  Hesitantly, I place my lips on Hannah’s. For a moment, she doesn’t respond then she circles her hands around my neck and pushes her mouth against mine.

  What the fuck am I doing?

  The familiarity of Hannah’s lips has gone, the scent of her hair, and feel of her skin, alien.

  She isn’t Avery.

  Our mouths only meet for a second; I pull her hands away and step back, disgusted with and confused by what I almost did. Hannah touches her mouth, bewilderment in her shining eyes, and I will her not to cry.

  “You don’t belong with me, Bryn,” she says quietly and steps back. “Once you did, but we’re not there anymore. I had my chance. I had years to ask you to be mine, and I never did.”

  “If you need me, we can try.”

  Hannah shakes her head. “Listen to what you’re saying. You’re asking if I need you, not that you want me. You don’t look at me the same as last year. You wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for Connor. This isn’t about us.”

  I inhale as I attempt to pull myself back to the truth Hannah pushes on us.

  “You can still give yourself to Connor without giving yourself to me,” she says. “We’re not a package. I know things are tough with your girlfriend in England because you’re here, but don’t throw her away.”

  I hold my fingers against my mouth. I’m fucking this up. All of it.

  “Just promise me this won’t change your mind about Connor,” says Hannah.

  “No. Never. I will always give him everything he needs, do whatever he wants.”

  “Then you need to talk to him, explain you’re his dad, but you won’t be with us forever. You have to tell him you’ll leave again. It’s unfair. You’ve had everybody stuck in a cruel limbo while we wait for you to make up your mind.”

  Hannah’s right. This is guilt. Obligation. My stupid idea I can walk back in and put everything upright – the last eight years, Connor, me, and Hannah. I don’t want her, and I’ve been too numb to recognise what I want; a future I control and a life lived for myself, not others.

  I curl my arms around Hannah, holding her head against my chest, in a gesture of comfort as if she were one of my sisters. “I’ll be here for Connor until he’s well. Because he will get well. Then we can decide what to do.”

  Hannah wriggles away. “But speak to Avery. Reassure her. Don’t lose another girl.”

  I leave Hannah in the kitchen and head to the small room that’s my home currently. I sit on the edge of the bed, mind in turmoil. Do I love Avery enough? I just tried to kiss another woman. A woman I’m living with and who I care about.

  Unable to cope with the emotional shitstorm growing between us, I’ve shut Avery out of my heart and mind in the last few weeks. I’m hollow, but now I realise part of the emptiness isn’t the lost years without Connor, but the lost weeks without the woman who’d settled into my heart and made it home.

  Hannah is right. I have to step away from the limbo I’m in and think things through instead of ignoring them.

  If I want Avery, I have to let her know before it’s too late, and finally I have to allow myself to let go of Hannah.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  AVERY

  My first term as a teacher is over, apart from the end of term Christmas performance. I threw myself into helping organise, partly to embed myself in the school community and partly to use up the hours I once spent with Bryn with rehearsals instead.

  I don’t want to spend days alone at Bryn’s apartment. I need to find my own place soon anyway. A couple of weeks of listening to us going downhill, after ending each call confused and hurt further, I woke one morning and decided enough was enough. I had to let go. The images of Bryn and Hannah in bed as I lay alone at night intensify, the leaden sickness in my stomach following me to work. At least, with the exhaustion of wrangling several dozen primary school kids into some semblance of an in tune, co-ordinated performance, I don’t have time to dwell in the day; the grief eats me at night instead. Weekdays I’m too exhausted to socialise, trapped in my merry-go-round of work and sleep.

  We haven’t spoken for a week. To begin with, Bryn left me messages, insisting we needed to talk. He sent me flowers, emails, joking threats he’d come and get me, but I ignored them all. The only thing I want to hear is that he’s planning to come back. It doesn’t have to be next week, but I need to hear that he will.

  He’s still in Australia after almost two months; that speaks louder than anything else.

  There were some pictures recently of Bryn and Hannah and a question mark over where I was. The photos are taken near a hospital. Connor must be in treatment. Guilt creeps in; he hasn’t come back because Connor is in hospital now. Too late. Bryn has already given up on us, his arm around Hannah in a few of the photos. Kathleen, a school colleague, broaches the subject but I smile through my pain and refuse to speak about it.

  The school hall is filled with plastic chairs, the walls decorated in tinsel and Christmas garlands that have seen better days, a tall Christmas tree in one corner. As the chairs fill with chattering parents, I hover backstage as nervous as the kids. Some mums help with costumes and make-up, while I repeatedly check the music tracks are lined up properly, so the correct children have the correct song to sing when it’s their class’s turn.

  “Miss
Paige, will you stand by me?”

  Dean, a boy from the Year Four class looks up at me, pale faced, ridiculous in his half-sewn Christmas tree costume, a red bauble hanging until it almost touches his nose.

  “What do you mean, Dean?” I ask.

  “I don’t want to do this, but my dad came ‘specially.”

  “You don’t have to sing if you don’t want to. Just stand on stage.”

  His bottom lip trembles and from the corner of my eye, I see two of his classmates giggling. I scowl at the two girls and they look away with fear at being caught.

  “Will you stand with me?” he repeats. “I don’t see my dad much but he came tonight.”

  His words delve into my subconscious, to the part of my mind Bryn still lives in, and I can’t say no.

  “Okay, I’ll stand at the edge of the stage where you can see me but you have to sing if I do.”

  “Will you sing?”

  I’ve listened to the songs on repeat for eight weeks. I know every word of every verse. “Which is your class’s song?”

  “Merry Christmas Everybody”

  I cringe at memories of singing the Slade song on drunken Christmas Eves, and bad headaches the next day. It would’ve been easier to perform a nativity. Or not. I have childhood recollections of the doll baby Jesus being dropped on his head or carried around by one leg, of Mary and Joseph refusing to hold hands in case of girl germs, next to the angels jostling for centre stage. Nope. Plus, I was always the bloody donkey or assorted farmyard animal and I wouldn’t wish that embarrassment on the children I teach.

  “Sure. That’s the last song, right?” I ask.

  Dean nods, anxious face transformed into a beaming smile, filling my heart with a contentment I’ve missed. I make a difference to these children’s lives.

  Following the longest hour and a half of my life, with minor disasters of children fighting at the back of the stage and refusing to co-operate, the music stopping mid-track for the Year Two class, and pieces of costume littering the floor, I step on stage with Dean and his classmates. For a horrible moment, I think he’s going to attempt to hold my hand, which would increase the sniggering and teasing going on behind, but he doesn’t. Following a stern look to Jared and Luke behind, I wait for the song to start.

  As I stare down at the parents in the shadows, on their plastic chairs in the school hall, my own nerves kick in. I totally forgot I hate performing or being in the spotlight and here I am with tinsel wrapped around my neck, wearing a Santa hat in front of a hall full of adults. The music starts and I freeze, convinced every member of the audience is staring at me, which is silly as they’re here to see their kids.

  One verse in, and Dean pokes me. “Miss, why aren’t you singing?”

  “Oh. Right.” I grit my teeth and join in as everybody launches into the chorus.

  And there, on stage, with the children I’ve spent the last few months with, who I’ve touched the lives of, I see my future. I may be inept socially, or lack decent co-ordination. I may give my heart to rock stars who screw it up and throw it back, but I’m doing what I wanted.

  My fear of a future disconnected from my home, my old friends and family, and the resentment that my friends had moved on before I did passes. I’m where I should be, doing what I want, because what I do matters to these kids. The Year Two teacher, Ross Taylor, has repeatedly asked me on dates that I’ve refused while I pine for Bryn. Next time he asks, I’ll say yes. No, I’ll find Ross tonight and ask him. I will move on.

  The applause from the parents, the excitement of children who are one step closer to Christmas Day, and I’m dragged into the magic of the world I helped create. I love Christmas, from decorating the tree to shopping for gifts. Now I’m beginning my Christmas with over a hundred people, proud of my achievement.

  Dazed by the noise and lights, stressed but happy, I step off the low wooden stage and head to the school kitchens, hoping the parents organising refreshments remembered wine. Sneaking down the side aisle, past the standing, cheering parents, I reach the double doors at the rear of the hall.

  And stop.

  A tall man in a leather jacket rests against the cream painted breeze blocks near the doorway, arms crossed as he smiles an all too familiar smile.

  “Giving me a run for my money, cariad,” he says.

  “Bryn?”

  “Nice performance.”

  My heart somersaults with the shock, the Christmas world around me drops away. “What are you doing here?”

  “You won’t answer my calls or messages, so I’ve come to get you.”

  The amazing man who gave me his gentle love has stepped from my unwanted daydreams to flood my body with hope. Bryn’s features are sharpened by the stress of the last months and his shining eyes, softening as he looks at me, are the same. The familiar beautiful mouth he once explored my body with is covered in a wary smile. However, something about Bryn is unfamiliar.

  “What happened to your hair?” I whisper.

  Bryn runs a hand over his buzz cut, and my early thoughts about Bryn with short hair are right. Add in the tattoos and muscles and he’ll frighten the kids. “Yeah. Did it for Connor. He cried about losing his hair so I said I’d cut mine and we could grow it back together.”

  Instant tears choke me, Bryn’s huge heart strikes again. “That’s beautiful, Bryn.”

  “Bit bloody cold now I’m back in England,” he mutters and pulls a black beanie out of his jacket pocket. “Wasn’t sure you’d like it either.”

  “It’s good to see you even without your hair. Weird though, you look very different.”

  Bryn pulls his beanie onto his head. “Shit. Please tell me I’m still a hot rock star.”

  “Yes, with the mouth of one. Shush.”

  He takes my hand and leads me through the doors into the quiet hallway. I stare at the display of animal drawings on the wall behind him, struggling for breath.

  “What do you mean? You’ve come to get me?”

  “Come back to Australia with me.”

  “Australia?” I squeak.

  He brushes my cheek with the back of his hand. “Yes. I want you with me. I missed you so fucking much, Avery.”

  “Swearing inside a school isn’t appropriate!”

  Bryn leans closer and whispers, “I like school teacher Avery. Will you tell me what to do sometime?”

  The heat in my cheeks deepens. “Stop that, you can’t walk in here and pretend nothing has happened!”

  He cups my face. “You know me; I’m joking because I’m scared what you’re going to say to me.”

  “I’m speechless currently, so you’re pretty safe for now.”

  He rubs his rough thumb over my lips. “I’m sorry for being an idiot. I didn’t realise how much I was hurting you.”

  “You left me and moved in with the love of your life and your son. How else was I supposed to react?”

  “You could’ve trusted me; you could’ve believed I loved you.”

  “And you could’ve understood that I’ve always felt like I was competing with this ideal woman from your past.”

  Bryn rests against the wall. “Is that why you stopped talking to me?”

  “You hurt me, and every time I spoke to you, it made things worse.”

  “I meant to get in touch earlier, but Connor went into hospital last week, I switched off from everything.”

  I cringe. I’m selfish. “I never asked how he is.”

  “He’s sick but going okay.”

  “That’s good.”

  Bryn nods. “Now I want to focus on you. Us. I don’t want to lose you and I’m scared I already have.” He pulls me closer and I place a hand on his chest to prevent my body meeting his and not wanting to let go again. “I love you. Come to Australia.”

  “I live here.”

  “You have a couple of weeks off. We can find somewhere to stay for Christmas. I can introduce you to Connor and Hannah, show you they’re in my life but aren’t my whole life. I can show them
how important you are to me, too.”

  “And then what? After I come back to England, what happens?”

  “I don’t know, Avery.” He catches my look. “I’m being honest. I don’t know if I’ll stay in Australia when I’m not working or come back here. I have a lot of years with Connor to make up for.”

  “I understand.” I look down at my feet, stomach sinking that Bryn has come back for me but will let me go again.

  Bryn tips my face to his. “Can you forgive me for being such an idiot?”

  “I always do, don’t I?” I say with a sigh. “I don’t know how many more times I can.”

  “I understand. I’ll make this up to you. I promise.”

  The moment he touched my face, filled my personal space with his presence, I was lost, and Bryn knows it. Leaning down, his mouth hovers close, his lips millimetres from mine. I close my eyes but that only intensifies the situation. As I open them, Bryn’s lips touch mine, sparking the connection between our hearts and souls that never breaks. Bryn kisses me softly and I relent as I meet his need. I’ve missed the taste of him, of the strength of his arms around me. My mountain of a man who I feel safe and loved with came back and, maybe foolishly, I want him to stay.

  Giggling, along with loud throat clearing, pulls me out of my place with Bryn. I stumble back and see Karen Hunter, the Year One teacher, pursed lipped. Two Year Six girls disappear back into the school hall, whispering about Miss ‘snogging somebody’ in the corridor.

  “Avery, I don’t think that’s appropriate,” Karen says sternly.

  Mortified, I nod.

  “My fault. I’m sorry. I’ll take Avery outside and make sure she’s reprimanded.”

  “Bryn!” I hiss and he laughs, guiding me to the door with his hand in the small of my back.

  As soon as we step into the cold December evening, I push him, annoyed at his continuing amusement.

  “Will you be that authoritarian when you’ve been a teacher a few years?” he asks.

  “Only to people who misbehave.”

  Bryn grabs me by the loops on my jeans and drags me into him. “I misbehave.”

  “I know you do. You’re a bad man.”

  “Jesus, I’ve been an idiot,” he mutters and backs against the building wall, pulling me with him. He shuffles down to meet my height and puts a leg either side of me, pulling so I almost trip into him.