by A. S. Kelly
“Come back whenever you want, son. I’ll be here,” her husband says to Evan.
“Sure,” he responds, just as he always does when he tells me he’s going to do something that will never happen.
“Are you okay to drive? Ryan would be happy to take you home,” Karen continues.
“Oh, I’m absolutely fine. I didn’t drink that much.”
Evan lets a few coughs slip. He’ll pay for those at home.
“Ryan, walk Chris out to her car.”
“But it’s two steps away, out in the driveway!” He complains.
“I didn’t bring you up to be so rude.”
Ryan scoffs, but opens the front door, gesturing us outside. I wave goodbye to the O’Connors and step outside. The cool night air immediately makes me shiver.
“I’ll wait for you in the car,” Evan says, leaving us alone.
Shit.
“Well, thanks for tonight.”
“I didn’t even invite you.”
“Sure,” I respond, exasperated.
Why does he always have to be such a dick?
“You don’t need to accompany me over to my car, I know how to walk by myself.”
“Haven’t you drunk a bit too much, like the other night?”
“I’m fine, Ryan. Anyway – it’s none of your business.”
“You have your son with you.”
“I’m perfectly capable of looking after my own son.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“Goodnight, Ryan.”
I storm towards the car and get in. I start up the engine and pull out of their driveway.
“Please, try not to hit that wheelie bin, or we’ll never get out alive.”
“Shut up, you’re distracting me.”
Evan holds up his hands and nods at Ryan. I pull out onto the road and head home, finally starting to relax a little. It’s not that the evening wasn’t enjoyable – just that being near Ryan always makes me feel a frustration that I never feel otherwise, something that only arseholes like him can bring out in me.
I switch on the radio and play the first station I find.
“So…this Ryan…”
“Drop it.”
“You really don’t like him, do you?”
“Not at all.”
“Mmm…shame.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, from the way he was looking at your arse, I’d say he likes you.”
“Evan!”
He shrugs.
“He’s annoying, self-centred, and…rude. Obnoxious, too. I can’t stand him.”
“Okay, okay, calm down.”
“Was he really looking at my arse?”
“Uh-huh.”
“But was he judging it, or admiring it?”
“I’d say he looked like he couldn’t wait to—”
“Evan! This is me we’re talking about here!”
“You asked.”
“You didn’t have to go into detail.”
I’m a terrible mother.
We sink into silence until we’re parked in front of our house. When we get inside, I kick off my shoes and take off my jacket, heading straight for the fridge.
“Do you think that’s a good idea?” Evan asks from behind my back, arms crossed.
“I just need another half a glass.”
“Mmm…”
“What?”
“You don’t like him – do you?”
“Absolutely not,” I nearly shout, slamming down the bottle. “Come on, Evan.”
“What?”
“Have you seen me?” I ask, suddenly insecure.
“I see you every day.”
“I’m a mess. Some days I ask myself how I’ve managed to bring up a son like you without messing you up, too.”
“Maybe because you’re a beautiful mess.”
I smile at him, gratefully.
“You’re only saying that because you’re my son.”
“I’m saying it because I know what I see and I know who you are, Mum.”
I hug him tightly. “Thank you, darling.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Do you fancy watching one of those terrifying Netflix shows?” I ask him hopefully.
“But you don’t like them.”
“But you do, and I want to stay up with you for a while.”
“I have school tomorrow.”
I take a look at the time. “It’s eleven. Come on, just for half an hour – one episode.”
“I’ll grab the popcorn.”
As I watch him look for the bag, pour the popcorn into a bowl, and get himself a drink, I tell myself that it’s fine like this – we don’t need anyone else. And I definitely don’t need to lose my mind over a bastard like him.
No, absolutely not. I’m fine. We’re fine.
So why is it that, when I get into bed at night, my last thought is of two strong arms wrapping themselves around me?
24
Ryan
I’ve been driving for half an hour without knowing where I’m going. I couldn’t go home, not after tonight. I couldn’t face the silence in my apartment, the empty loneliness. I find myself at his door without even knowing why. Surely he’s the last person I want to see?
“Ryan? What the hell are you doing here so late?” he asks me, standing in the doorway.
“I…I don’t know.”
He looks at me for a while, then stands back to let me in.
It’s the first time I’ve set foot in his apartment, and I have to say, it suits him down to a T. Elegant, luxurious, and full of stuff that he’ll never use.
“Can I get you a coffee or something?”
I shake my head and stay standing in the middle of the living room. Nick throws himself back down onto the sofa and turns off the TV.
“What’s happened?”
I take a deep breath.
“You were right.”
“Right about what?”
“That she wouldn’t have done it.”
“Ryan…”
“You warned me, you told me to think it through, not to make any rash decisions. Why?”
“I don’t get where these questions are coming from, after all these years…”
“I want to know if I was the only idiot who had no idea.”
“You’re not an idiot.”
“I am, though. I was stupid, I believed in feelings, in love – in ‘forever’.”
“She wasn’t the right woman.”
“And you knew that.”
“I didn’t know anything, Ryan. You were in love, you wanted everything right away. You were young – you both were…”
“And now, she…”
“I know.”
I slump down next to him on the sofa.
“Why not with me?”
He sighs. “I don’t have an answer for you.”
“She had everything she wanted – and all I wanted was…her.”
“Ryan, please…”
I let my head fall into my hands.
“The only thing she didn’t want was me.”
“I’m sorry. For everything. I swear to you that I never meant…”
“You’ve already said that, Nick. But I can’t help but think that, if you weren’t the bastard that you are, maybe she could’ve reconsidered. Maybe we could’ve worked through our problems, maybe after…”
“She would never have gone back to you, and you know that.”
His words rip through me, like shards of glass tearing through my heart.
“You’re just trying to clear your conscience.”
“How would that help? You hate me anyway.”
“Oh, come on, Nick.” I get to my feet and start pacing nervously around the room. “Do you really think I hate you?”
“Well, it’s what you’ve been telling me for years, every time we see each other.”
I shake my head. “I only hate myself.”
“What do you have to do with it?”
“I was an idiot. I gave everything up for her. I’m…a failure.”
“No, you’re not.” He stands up too. “Look, you’re still here. Still in the team, Ryan…”
“I can’t…”
“What?”
“I can’t be me anymore.”
He looks at me, confused.
“I can’t be that person anymore.”
“People change – life changes us. So does disappointment.”
“I didn’t want to turn out like…this. But now I can’t do anything else. It’s like I’m stuck, on a loop, and I can’t find a way out.”
“You’ll find it at the right moment.”
“Look at Ian…what has he become?”
Nick smiles at me. “He’s become you.”
“It’s like a sick fucking joke.”
He shrugs. “He found the right life with the right person.”
“Don’t tell me you believe in all that bullshit.”
“I didn’t believe in it, then I saw them together…And maybe, for some people, it works. But that doesn’t mean it’s for everyone.”
I nod and sit back down.
“That doesn’t mean it can’t happen for you, though. If you let yourself get close to people, if you try to let down your guard a little.”
“Then what? What would happen?”
“Then who knows? Maybe life will surprise you.”
I drop my head back against the sofa and cover my eyes with my hands.
“If you’ve come here asking me all these questions, it means you’re doubting something.”
“I’m here because I didn’t know where else to go.”
“Okay.”
“And don’t you dare breathe a word of this conversation to anyone. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“It’s between us. Like when we set fire to the garage and Ian got in trouble for it.”
I laugh, despite myself.
“Has something made you change your mind, Ryan?”
I don’t answer him.
I close my eyes and lose myself in my thoughts. In her smile, her jokes, her piercing tongue.
The way she took my father’s hand.
The colour of her eyes, which I’d like to paint across the walls of my house.
The heat of her hand. Her perfume.
Just her, and everything she is. Something I should try not to think about – or someone else is going to get hurt.
25
Ryan
After training, I popped into the local Supervalu to grab something for dinner. I don’t love ready-meals, but I’m not a great cook, and I can’t be bothered to try. I’m not like Ian, who has a bigger kitchen than my mum, where he loves cooking meals for everyone. I’ve never been interested in learning how to cook well – I’ve always got by, and I’m still alive, so I don’t see the point in improving now.
I put the shopping bag into the boot of my car and jump into the driver’s seat, pulling out of the car park and onto the main road. I stop at the red light and glance over to my right, where I see Christine dragging a bin out onto the pavement.
The cars behind me start beeping, trying to tell me that the light’s turned green. I quickly move into first gear and drive off, deciding not to think about it, to just leave it be and escape as quickly as I can.
I drive along for about two hundred metres, and nearly crash straight into an oncoming car on the other side of the road.
Fuck.
I pull into the first free parking space along the pavement and slam my hands against the steering wheel like a madman. I decide to get out of the car.
I turn back towards her café, just in time to see her dragging out a second bin. I go over to her, and wordlessly take the bin from her, pulling it over to the corner of the street.
Then I turn back to face her.
“There’s another one,” she says, not looking at me. “It has to go to that area over there, for glass recycling.”
I head towards the entrance and grab the last bin, dragging it effortlessly over to the area she’d pointed out. It’s only about two hundred metres away – nothing for someone like me – but I know that for a woman so small it wouldn’t have been easy.
I stop next to the glass container as she catches up to me, almost running.
“Bloody hell, you have long legs,” she comments. “One of your steps is like two of mine.”
I stifle a laugh as she opens the bin and starts plucking out the bottles to throw them into the container. Without a word, and without her asking, I start grabbing bottles too.
When we’ve finished, I grab the bin and drag it back down the street, walking more slowly this time. Once we reach the café, I wipe my hands on my jeans, as she takes the bin back inside.
“Well, thanks,” she says, uncomfortable.
“You’re welcome.”
“Everyone’s gone home already,” she adds, trying to make conversation. “Normally they give me a hand.”
I nod.
“Can I offer you a drink? To say thanks.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
We stand there in silence for a few moments, then she says: “Okay. Well…see you around,” and disappears inside.
I try to move, to walk away and keep minding my own business, but my feet are glued to the pavement, and my eyes are glued to the windows of that damn café.
I decide to hurt myself – that real kind of pain that chews you up inside, that stops the blood from flowing through your veins. The kind that wakes you up every night, aware of the permanent emptiness of your bed. But I’m going to dive into the pain anyway, because – as far as I can tell – nothing can be as bad as the endless pain you feel when you’re alone.
I watch her move around: lifting chairs onto tables, cleaning the counter, sweeping the floor.
And she’s dancing. Fuck. She’s just dancing, as if she were weightless, as if she’s being carried away by the music floating through the café.
I watch her.
I stare at her.
I feel her.
Her sadness, her longing to stay standing when the world is trying to pull her down. Her strength, which she keeps clutched tightly to her chest, for fear that it could slip away at any minute, leaving her empty-handed.
She’s trying, and I understand her; I don’t know how, but I know exactly how she feels. I feel the same things. That longing to leave everything behind and tell the world to just fuck off. The way that keeping up tires you out, just like trying to remember where or who the fuck you are. The way that some days, the only thing you’re aware of is how you’re not how you should be, not like everyone else. The way the world keeps turning, even when you’re stuck still. Life is moving on for everyone, despite its changes, but you just can’t move forward.
You just don’t feel like…you.
I know I shouldn’t, but I push the door open, and slowly close the gap between us – because even if I don’t feel myself, I can feel her.
I don’t know if she’s noticed me, because she doesn’t turn, doesn’t stop: she keeps doing what she was doing.
She lines up the mugs on top of the coffee machine, and I sit down on a stool opposite her. She doesn’t lift her gaze, doesn’t speak to me. She reaches under the counter and produces a bottle of beer, opens it and then hands it to me. I accept, taking a few sips – maybe a few too many – while she perches on the wooden counter, drinking her wine.
This is crazy. It makes no sense, there’s no logic. But it’s fucking enjoyable.
Her, me, and nothing to talk about.
The music keeps playing, filling the silence and masking our breathing, so light and quick.
She pours herself another glass as I finish off my beer.
But it’s not enough,
Fuck, no.
And she understands this, bending under the counter once more and handing me another bottle. I’ve not eaten anything since this morning, and I can feel the alcohol straight away, loosening my mind and my sen
ses beyond my control.
Her perfume gets into my head. It’s the same scent as the other night in her car, mixed with the overwhelming smell of alcohol, food, cake, and coffee: a concoction of smells and flavours that I want to taste from her skin. With my mouth, my tongue. It’s a desire that I’m trying to tame, but it’s exploding through my body, like the fragments of a hand grenade.
The shards are everywhere.
They’re scratching, burning. They really fucking hurt.
But I don’t get rid of them. I want to feel them, lodged into my skin. I want to feel them all over.
I get off the stool and, without knowing what the hell I’m doing, I go behind the counter and step closer to her.
I place my hands down on the wood, next to her thighs. She looks down at them, then slowly lifts her gaze to reach mine; I lose myself in the vastness of her eyes, and one of the shards starts to lodge itself dangerously close to my heart.
I slide my hands down her legs, my control gone by now.
I’m touching her.
And I really want to.
I’m trembling – fuck, I’m trembling – as if this contact had reawakened something within me that had been lost. But someone else has found it.
I watch her straighten up, and I place my hand at the small of her back. I pull her towards me, and she sighs onto my lips.
Her scent draws me in, like a drug, and I lean into her neck. I exhale into her skin, and watch her lean her head back, waiting for me to make the first move.
She must be drunk. Otherwise she’d never let me get so close to her, smell her. She’d never let herself give in to the longing she feels in her veins – and in my trousers.
I pull her into me and lean in.
My dick presses into her, hard and urgent.
She reaches her hands to my shoulders, sliding her fingers along my neck, up to my face. Then she looks at me. Really looks at me.
Her eyes are huge, shining. Full of life, expectation. Eyes that dream of a future together.
It’s intimate. Too much.
It’s impossible.
I suddenly pull away, as if she’d hit me, staggering, disorientated. And I know the alcohol has nothing to do with it.
She looks at me, her brow furrowed, confused and offended by my gesture. But I can’t do anything else.
I take a few steps backwards, terrified by our closeness, by the longing that still pulls me towards her.
