Unspoken Words

by K. M. Golland

  Byron’s expression was genuine. Pure. Slightly holier-than-thou.

  “Oh my God!”

  Covering my face with my hand, I peeked through my fingers, laughing. And crying. I was a looney, a crazy, messed up bag of cuckoo.

  “Elle, I can’t tell if you’re laughing or crying?”

  “Neither can I. But now I know why my parents were acting weird.”

  Byron didn’t laugh. He just sat quietly and gazed out the window, possibly welcoming the silence that settled between us, a new type of silence full of whats and what nows.

  As I was about to ask what he was thinking, I searched for Connor again. He and Lilah were now standing up, facing each other, and whatever they were talking about looked serious, especially when he placed his hand over his heart and then pointed to her.

  My chest tightened, and I wondered if perhaps Lilah had been telling the truth, that they really were happy. But then Connor was adamant they weren’t together, and I believed him. And then there was Max: a living, breathing, innocent, little thread that would always tie them together.

  It was all too confusing and complicated. And if I understood one thing and one thing only, it was that I didn’t want that confusion and complication in my life. I didn’t want to have a family with a man I didn’t love whole-heartedly, no matter how real it looked to everyone else. I didn’t want to live a grander lie than what I was already living. I’d tried that and somewhat lost myself in the process.

  “What are you thinking?” I asked.

  “I’m thinking I need to head back to Darwin and mull over some things.”

  I reached for his hand and he didn’t respond, his fingers limp on his lap. It broke my heart.

  “I think that’s a good start.”

  His eyebrow rose. “Start?”

  I shrugged. “I guess.”

  Byron finally covered my fingers with his. “Maybe these next few weeks apart will be good for us.”

  I nodded. “Yeah, maybe.”

  But I wasn’t convinced.

  The following morning, Byron left for Darwin, and when we kissed goodbye at the departure gate, our lips spoke an entirely different story than when he’d arrived. I wasn’t sure of their plot, but I knew the ending wasn’t a happily ever after for the two of us, at least not together.

  I’d gone straight home from the airport and cried in my room. My life was complete disarray. Unsettled. Unsure. To those outside looking in, my life probably resembled a pot of gold: great boyfriend, great job, happy and healthy. But on the inside, where only I was the spectator, was the aftermath of a category ten tornado, scattered pieces of my head and heart strewn all over the place. I was torn between a man who loved and wanted to spend the rest of his life with me, and a man who I loved like no other. One made me feel safe and content, and the other set every part of me alight without even trying—my kindred spirit, my soul mate—but a man I could never be with in the way I wanted to, in the way we both deserved.

  Byron Grayson flowed around my mind and settled peacefully in the corner while Connor Bourke flowed through my veins and was the air I breathed, every part of him felt in every part of me. Always there but out of reach even though I wasn’t reaching far enough.

  I knew what I had to do though. Byron and I needed time apart to wade through the intricacies that was our fragile relationship, and I also needed to focus on completing Connor’s album. That was my priority. Everything else would have to wait.

  “Ellie, dinner is ready,” Mum called out from the kitchen.

  I wiped my eyes, splashed water on my face, and left my room, ready for my family’s warranted questions.

  “How are you feeling, sweetheart?” Mum asked as I entered the kitchen, the smell of onions and potatoes teasing my hungry stomach. She rested her hand on my head and scanned my face with worrisome eyes.

  “I’ve been better.”

  Chris squatted in front of me and screwed up his face. “You’ve looked better too.”

  Mum whacked his arm with her tea towel as she walked back behind the breakfast bar to finish pouring gravy on our meals.

  “I didn’t mean it like that.” Chris opened the fridge and put back the jug of water. “I just meant she looks like shit.”

  “CHRIS!” Mum whacked him again.

  “Don’t listen to your brother, Ellie.” Dad handed me my dinner plate then rested his hand on my shoulder and squeezed gently as we walked to the dining room.

  “He’s right, though, I do look like shit, and I deserve to. I broke Byron’s heart last night.”

  We sat down around the table, and Mum passed the salt and pepper. “What happened?”

  “He proposed and I said no.”

  She shot Dad an I-told-you-so look. “Then what happened?”

  “We talked a bit then came back here. You guys had left to pick up Chris, so we just stayed in my room and watched TV until we fell asleep, me in my bed, Byron on the floor.”

  Chris set a glass of water in front of me. “You did the right thing, Elliephant. You don’t love him.”

  “But I do.”

  “Of course you do, dear.”

  “Mum! Stop mollycoddling her. It doesn’t help.”

  We all stared at Chris, eyes wide, food suspended midway to open mouths. Wow! I didn’t even know that word was part of his vocabulary.

  “Christopher Roger Mitch—”

  I laughed. “Mum, he’s right. You’re not helping.”

  “Well … I …”

  “But thank you. I love you for trying.”

  She shot Dad an I-give-up look and then spooned a heap of mashed potato into her mouth.

  “I do love him, Chris.”

  “Maybe you do, but not enough. Not as much as Connor.”

  Aggressively forking a piece of sausage, I removed it with my teeth and mumbled, “What good does it do me to love a man I can’t have?”

  Dad picked up his glass. “Why can’t you have him?”

  “Because I can’t. Because others do. And because I’m with Byron.”

  “Are you?” Chris asked. “Even after what happened?”

  I sighed. “Yes, I think so.”

  “But you don’t want to be, do you?”

  “No,” I whispered, hanging my head, fresh tears falling. “I don’t think I do. Not anymore.”

  Mum’s hand found my back and gently rubbed like only a mother could.

  “Then you need to go back to Darwin and put the Moron out of his misery,” Chris said. “Come on, Ellie, you know nothing good can come out of giving him false hope.”

  “I know that. I just can’t do it now. I need to focus on getting this album finished. That’s my priority.”

  “We understand that, sweetheart,” Mum added. “But don’t put this off either.”

  “I won’t. If the album isn’t finished in a month, I’ll deal with it all then. I promise.”

  Mum nodded.

  “So you gonna tell Connor that Moron proposed and you shot the sucker down?”

  I glared at my brother. “That’s none of your business. And it’s none of Connor’s either.”

  The next day, I received the usual early morning text message from Connor, warning of my pending pick-up time in fifteen minutes. Except, I was one step ahead of him, already out of bed, showered, dressed, and waiting on the front porch to avoid him crossing paths with my family, namely my big-mouthed brother.

  Hearing his truck turn into my street, I hurried down the path, opened the door, and climbed in when he pulled to a stop.

  “Morning,” Connor said, his eyes studying me like a book.

  I avoided eye contact and noticed Max in the back, buckled into his car seat and holding his plaster cast like a teddy bear.

  “Hi, Max.”

  He didn’t answer.

  I frowned.

  “Today’s the day,” Connor explained.

  “The day for what?”

  “For Max to say goodbye to his Iron Man arm.”

 
“Ohhhhhh.”

  “So that’s where we’re headed first. Is that okay?”

  I didn’t answer right away, because my first thought was of Lilah and whether she’d be there too.

  “She’s working,” Connor added, his ability to somehow read my mind astounding, and overly annoying.

  “Of course it’s fine.” I smiled and then turned my attention to the window.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Why are your eyes puffy?”

  “Allergies.”

  “You don’t have any.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “What are they?”

  Rotating my head like a carnival clown machine, I rolled my ‘puffy’ eyes at him. “You, for starters. I’m allergic to you.”

  “That’s not funny.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “You’ve been crying, why?”

  “Because …” I strained my brain for a plausible excuse. “Because Byron went home,” I blurted.

  “Right. I forgot. Sorry.” Connor refocussed on the road as we drove through the streets.

  “It’s fine.”

  “So when will you see him again?”

  “I don’t know. When the album is finished, I guess.”

  “We still have a lot to do, you know? It could take months.”

  “I know that.”

  “And that won’t be a problem?”

  “No. I’ll go home for a few days at some point.”

  He was silent for a moment. “You know what? I might come with you,” he said, a touch of playfulness in his tone. “I’ve always wanted to go to Darwin and Kakadu.”

  I scoffed at his lame attempt to bait me. “I still haven’t been to Kakadu,” I admitted.

  “What?” His head snapped in my direction. “You’ve lived up there all this time and you’ve never been to Kakadu?”

  “Nope. Poo-brown dirt, remember?”

  Connor burst out laughing. “I’ll take you one day.”

  I laughed too. “No, you won’t.”

  “Yes, Ellie, I will.”

  Strangely enough, I believed him. But I had to focus on now and not then, so I explained I was going to put my headphones on, listen to the music track of the song we were currently working on, and make notes until we arrived at the hospital. I had to focus and utilize every moment we had to get our work done, which was what I did until I could no longer block out Max howling “nooooo” when we pulled into the car park

  “It’s okay, buddy.” Connor got out of the car, opened Max’s door, and unlatched his seatbelt.

  “Noooooooo! It’s my Iron Man.” Max clutched his plaster-covered arm and tried to conceal it with his body.

  “It won’t hurt. I promise.”

  “It will! It will!”

  Connor picked him up and he thrashed in Connor’s arms. “Max, stop it. That cast is coming off whether you like it or not.”

  “No, Daddy, no.”

  “Don’t ‘no’ me.”

  If it weren’t a highly stressful situation, I’d think the two of them going head to head was hilarious. I mean there was Connor, a giant beast of a man, getting his arse whooped by his mini-me.

  “You find this funny?” Connor asked, still wrestling with Max.

  I bit my lip. “Yeah, kinda.”

  His eyebrow rose, his expression partly annoyed.

  “But I have an idea. Meet me at the front of the hospital and wish me luck.”

  “What? Where are you going?”

  Dashing across the road, I quickly ducked into the Newsagency next to the hospital and made my way to the kid’s section, praying I’d find what I was searching for.

  “Can I help you?” asked a staff member.

  “I hope so. Do you sell kid’s temporary stick-on tattoos?”

  “Yes, we do.”

  “Excellent! Please tell me you have … IRON MAN!” I snatched a packet of Iron Man tattoos from the shelf and bounced on the spot. “These are perfect! Thank you so much.”

  She chuckled and rang my sale through the till. “You’re welcome.”

  Rushing back out of the shop, I met up with Connor and Max at the front of the hospital, Max still struggling in Connor’s arms.

  “Hey, Max, I just bought you the coolest present.”

  He stopped thrashing and gave me his full attention.

  “It’s so cool that even I’m going to wear one.”

  Max’s inquisitive eyes found the paper bag in my hand, and he pointed to it. “What’s dat?”

  “Come here and I’ll show you,” I said, indicating Connor put him down.

  Dropping to one knee to be at the same height as Max, I went to open the bag to show him but shut it instead. “There’s just one problem … you can’t wear one with your plaster on.” I shrugged. “It won’t work.”

  He pouted.

  “Wanna know what it is?”

  Max nodded and helped me open the bag.

  “It’s a super cool Iron Man tattoo for your arm.”

  He pulled the sheet of tattoos out and held it up. “WOW! Look, Daddy, Iron Man.”

  Connor’s smile went from one ear to the other, his dimples as big as freakin’ fruit bowls. “WHOA! Can I have one too?”

  I nodded, extra enthusiastic. “Yeah, we all can. But they only stick on your skin. That’s why you need to have your cast taken off.”

  Max held out his arm, the one without plaster. “This one.”

  “No.” I laughed. “This one.”

  I held up his other arm and drawn in texta all over the plaster were many ampersands of various sizes. My heart skipped a beat, and I looked up at Connor, his misty eyes a storm of many unspoken words: love, regret, why, maybe … one day. I could read them as clearly as the lyrics to his songs.

  He took my hand in his, helped me to my feet, and traced over the heart on my wrist. “There’s always an And, Ellie.”

  Every nerve ending in my body sparked to life, my fingers trembling, my knees weak. “I know, but just … not yet.”

  Something sparked in his eyes. “Yet?”

  I pulled my hand free and stepped closer to the front door. “Are you both coming?”

  I was about to continue walking when I felt a tiny hand slide into mine. I looked down, and Max smiled up at me. My entire body heated, a sense of immense fondness fizzling my cheeks. And in that moment, I knew this boy was a thief like his dad, stealing a piece of my heart I’d never get back.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Ellie

  In the weeks that followed, I flicked on a professional switch and directed all of my energy to the album, successfully completing my part in its production, which meant a lot of time spent with Connor. It was both delightful and awful—strictly business—although the moments when we were in the studio, him seated on a stool, guitar in hands, his voice awash with emotion as he sang of wanting what he couldn’t have, those moments weren’t professional at all. They were real—his unspoken words to me and mine to him. They were everything.

  They’d also cemented what I knew I had to do—go home, back to Darwin, and sort everything out. I’d avoided it long enough and couldn’t endure another day pretending I had nothing waiting for me to face.

  “You’re leaving?” Connor asked, his voice curt.

  We were standing in his living room, his towering silhouette by the window as he stared into the backyard.

  “Yes, the songs are finished. You don’t need me anymore.”

  He glanced over his shoulder, eyes full of steam. “I’ll always need you.”

  I sighed and took a step closer. “I need to go home and sort things out. I can’t put it off any longer.”

  He turned to face me and hung his head. “I knew this day would come. Again.”

  “Again?”

  “You leaving me. I just didn’t want to believe it. I wanted to believe that you’d stay with me this time, that we’d pick up from where we left off.”

  “Damn it, Conno
r, we never could’ve just ‘picked up’ from where we left off. Too much has happened. Too much hurt.”

  He turned around, his hand fisting his t-shirt, tears welling in his eyes. “This hurts,” he said, punching at his chest. “In here. We’re both right in front of each other, and I can reach for you but not touch you or tell you all the things I want to say. You’re here, with me, but you’re not, and it hurts. It hurts more than I can stand.”

  “That’s why I have to go home. I have to clear my head and sort—”

  “YOU DON’T,” he shouted. “YOU CAN STAY.”

  “I CAN’T STAY.” Tears sprung from my eyes.

  “Yes, you can. You don’t open that door. You don’t leave. You don’t—”

  “CONNOR, HE PROPOSED!”

  Silence split the air like a sword, the slash swift, cold, and excruciating.

  “What?”

  I slumped to the couch. “He proposed the day before he left.”

  Neither of us moved nor spoke as we stared at each other until, finally, Connor choked out, “And you said yes?”

  I thought about lying, about saying, “yeah, I did” because it would allow me to walk away and stop hurting him like he said I was. I didn’t want to hurt him just like he didn’t want to hurt me, but … I couldn’t lie. I couldn’t do that again, and I didn’t want to fuel a fire I knew would burn out of control.

  “No,” I whispered, wringing my fingers.

  He nodded but looked no less relieved.

  “That’s why I have to go home and make it right.”

  “But what does that mean, Ellie, to ‘make it right’?”

  “I don’t know. All I know is that I broke Byron’s heart and I hate myself for it. He loves me, so much, and I broke him. I need to fix that.”

  “Then go.” He turned back to the window, cold and dismissive.

  I recognized the deceptive shield because I’d wielded it before.

  “Please don’t be like this,” I said, standing back up and stepping toward him.

  “Be like what, heartbroken that you’re leaving again?”

  “You make it sound like I’m never coming back.”

  Connor turned around and faced me again. “How do I know you won’t? It took you four years to come back this time, and that’s only because I tricked you into returning.”