by Ford, Mia
He rolls his eyes, clearly not wanting to let me through the precious threshold into the house. He isn’t quite so charitable now that it isn’t Christmas anymore so it’ll take him more to let me inside. But thankfully he does. He steps aside and points towards the kitchen. As soon as I get inside a horrible sense washes over me. There is something really wrong here, it doesn’t feel right. I’m cold from the bottom of my toes to the top of my head. I glance towards the stairs, wondering if Paisley is up there somewhere, and I continue to get into the kitchen.
Adam sits at the table with a mug clutched between his fingers, a stern expression on his face. This only confirms my fear that something isn’t right. It scares the living hell out of me.
“Alright, Adam?” I try to keep my tone bright and breezy, but the strain remains there. “You okay?”
“Hmm, yeah, I’m alright.” He sounds distracted. Almost pissed off. “How are you?”
“I’m okay thank you. Had a stressful day at work, but I’m better now.”
“You were in the office on the weekend? You haven’t done that for a long while.”
“No… I just have a lot going on at the moment, so I needed to be there.”
The truth is I just couldn’t stand being at home while Paisley is in trouble, so I went in to distract myself. It didn’t work, of course, all I did was think about her, but I had to try.
“I see… well, I have had a bit of a bad day myself.” My heart leaps. He might be about to tell me. “I thought that me and Sian were going to have our very first argument today, but thankfully we didn’t.”
Urgh, is that it? That sounds like the least stressful day ever. I almost want to roll my eyes. “Oh right.”
“Yeah, but it was just a misunderstanding and it’s all sorted out now.”
“I see.” I glance around and check that there isn’t anyone else around. “And your family, are they okay?”
His eyes flash. “What do you mean by that?” he demands, much too fiercely.
“I just mean… I don’t know, there’s a strange atmosphere here, don’t you think?”
“I don’t know what you mean…” He tenses up but then he gives it up and relaxes a bit. “I think my dad is just stressed with something work related at the moment. It’s hard on everyone.”
“Oh right.” I gulp and nod, despite the fact that I don’t quite believe him. I can kinda tell that he’s hiding something from me. “Your mom must be really struggling with that. I haven’t even seen her yet. Is she okay?”
“Hmm, yeah. She’s napping I think. Trying to keep out of the way.”
“Hmm and… Paisley?” Her name feels like sawdust in my mouth. It just reminds me of how much of a horrible liar I am when it comes to the situation. Urgh, it’s so damn wrong. “Is she… okay?”
Adam gives me a funny look, making me fear yet again that he knows about me and Paisley. I avert my eyes unable to keep them locked on his in case he sees right through me, but I can feel his eyes still piercing through me. He’s trying to make me crack and I refuse to do so. Not here, not like this.
“Paisley isn’t here anymore,” he eventually says ominously. “So, this isn’t bothering her.”
“She’s… she’s gone…?” Shit, is he playing with me or is this for real?
“You seem awfully interested in her,” he replies accusatively. “Why is that?”
A heat creeps up through my body, the walls close in around me. “Not interested, just wondering.”
Adam rises from his seat and he walks around me. It feels a bit like some crazy scene from a mafia movie where I am about to be killed for betraying the don. My heart thumps against my rib cage.
“Okay well then if you aren’t interested I might as well just tell you. Paisley has gone, and she won’t be coming back. She has found herself a better life away from here, so she left earlier today.”
I narrow my eyes with confusion. It feels like he’s fucking with me. He wants me to admit what’s been going on and this is his way of doing it. Paisley can’t really have gone; she wouldn’t do that to me. We are in love; we’re supposed to actually be together. She wouldn’t have just run off and left me.
“Why… why has she gone?” I need to keep playing it casual for now.
“She got offered a really incredible job, one that she’s actually been aiming for. So, she decided to just go for it. She didn’t have much time to just make the decision, so she just went for it.”
“She really has gone?” Fuck, I barely even care about giving myself away.
“Yes, she’s gone. Good for me… there is more space around here.” Adam laughs but it doesn’t have any mirth in it. “Not that I’ll be living here for much longer if things keep going well with me and Sian.”
“Yeah, yeah of course,” I reply distractedly. “Then you will leave too.”
“I’m just going to the bathroom.” He rests his hands on my shoulders. “I’ll be right back.”
As he leaves the room I dig into my pocket and grab my cell phone to call her again. This has to be a game, there is no way that Adam is telling the truth. Yes, if she got a good job offer she would want to go and I’m also sure that her parents would encourage her in their usual forceful way, but she wouldn’t go without telling me, and certainly not just as we were about to take our relationship to the next level.
I know that she’s dreading it, but we were still going to tell her family anyway.
Ring, ring… Ring, ring…
As soon as my heart calms down I realize that the ringing isn’t just coming from my phone. It’s also coming from one of the drawers. I walk towards it as if I have been mesmerized and slide it open. There it is, Paisley’s phone with lots of missed calls from me. It’s true, I don’t know how I know it’s true, but I do. I lift the phone up and clear all the calls away from me, getting rid of any evidence. Then I slam it shut again.
By the time Adam returns I am sitting back in my seat as if nothing has happened. I can tell by Adam’s face that he knows though, he can tell that I now have a real understanding… even if I don’t fully get it yet. I really hope this isn’t the end of our friendship. I can’t lose two people in one day.
“I’m supposed to be meeting Sian tonight,” he says in slow, careful words. “Would you like to come and meet her?” This is a test; I can already sense it. He wants to know if we are still going to have a friendship.
“Yes.” I nod determinedly. This is the last thing in the world that I feel like doing, but I know it’s compulsory.
“Great, that sounds awesome.” As Adam’s face breaks out in to a grin, it’s genuine. He knows now that we can somehow navigate our friendship once more. “I will let her know. Then we should go out. Are you happy dressed as you are?” He runs his eyes up and down me. “We aren’t going anywhere nice, so you might be okay.”
“I’m happy as I am.” Aside from the fact that I can hardly breathe, my whole world is falling down around me, and I’m going to have to be fake for far longer than I have ever wanted to be in my life. “Let’s do it.”
* * *
As I lie in my bed later on that night, I rack my brains trying to make some sense of the situation. It’s chaotic, painful, messy, and every time I try to unravel the web surrounding me, new threads of confusion pull me in. It doesn’t help that I have had to spend the whole evening with a very loved up Adam, and Sian who I didn’t know until today. I have had to be so fake, so nice, which has been exhausting… but not enough to send me to sleep.
“Why did you leave, Paisley?” I ask the air. “What the hell is going on? Was it the secrecy? Did you know that it wouldn’t work after we told your parents? Did you want a way out?”
A horrible thought strikes me. What if she wasn’t as in to me as I am her? Maybe she got in over her head, but it was too much for her in the end. Maybe she left to escape me. I haven’t noticed any sign of her pulling away but that might be because I’ve been so excited about being with her. My love for her allowed me
to get swept away and now I’m left here with a shattered heart and nothing but memories.
I did think that telling her family might tear us apart… I just didn’t think that would happen before we even got to that place. I had no idea that she would run away first.
I sigh and turn over on to my side, my whole body sinking lower and lower into depression.
“Do you want me to come and find you, Paisley? Is this a Romeo and Juliet story where you want me to come and get you? Or is the fact that you left your cell phone behind a sign that you don’t want me to look for you? I don’t want to spend a lot of time hunting you down, risking my friendship with Adam, if you don’t want me. I can’t go all the way from the guy who was never going to settle down to that guy. The creepy stalker guy.”
I twist back around onto my back and return my gaze to the ceiling. I honestly feel like the world I have planned my life around is crumbling and I don’t have anything left. I don’t know what to do now, where I am supposed to turn, how I can build myself back up again. I have to admit that love is brutal. It’s a cruel mistress that came for me, claimed me, promised me the world then stripped it all away from me again.
I don’t feel angry, I’m not even sad, although I’m sure those emotions will come at some point. Right now, I’m just numb. There is a big empty space in my chest where my heart should be. It’s a surprise that I’m even still alive since I can’t even feel it beating anymore. I’m lost. With no answers, no sign of it coming, no explanation, no closure, I’m just floating aimlessly through the air, searching for my answer.
“I think I’m going to have to wait for a sign, Paisley, some sort of clue that you want me. I don’t want to ruin things for you again if you don’t. So, for now, I will just wait in limbo, hoping that I eventually get something.” I huff, already hating that idea despite the fact that it’s the only logical one. “It will kill me but since you are the one who has left I think it needs to come from you if you want me back… and if you do then I will not let anything hold me back again because believe me, this fear of losing you for good is worse than any ass kicking could ever be. I can now see that the secrecy was dumb. Nothing is worth this. Nothing.”
16
Paisley
Three years later…
Three years… Three long years. It’s a long time to be away from a place. Long enough to make me feel like a stranger in the place I once called home. I suppose it doesn’t help that I was away for college, then I returned for a brief, magical but heart wrenching time, just to be taken away again.
Plus, due to my circumstances, I have been forced to grow up a lot. I’m not the girl I once was.
I was supposed to come back sooner than this. Much sooner. As soon as I was dropped off at Aunt Lily’s place I dreamed of an escape. I childishly believed that I would run back into Josiah’s arms and we would live happily ever after. I cannot believe how dumb I was back then. I want to go back and shake myself.
It started off with a difficult pregnancy, that was the first thing that got me. That morning sickness, combined with all the stress, made me really ill. I couldn’t get out of bed, I was dizzy all the time, all I wanted to do was sleep. I didn’t even realize how much time was passing during that period, it was all just a blur of being sick. Aunt Lily was good to me then. In a brisk, mostly unfeeling way, just like my dad, but she took care of me. All the way until my son was born actually. She was a rock for me until the end.
When Freddie was born, I started to feel much better. It was definitely the pregnancy destroying me. But it was all worth it to have my gorgeous little boy in my arms who immediately looked a lot like his father. I couldn’t wait then to get back to Josiah, to show him what we shared… but having a newborn is tiring, much more tiring than I thought it would be. I couldn’t think about anything else other than diaper changes and night feeds. I kept telling myself that we would go home and meet Josiah when it got a little bit easier. Aunt Lily lives in the middle of nowhere, there isn’t even a bus stop nearby. I knew that Aunt Lily had her instructions from Dad, so she couldn’t help me… so I just wanted to wait until I was ready to leave.
And that day would have come eventually had it not been for my family coming to visit. They came to meet Freddie at long last when he was almost four months old, and Adam brought bad news with him. It proved to me that he had already guessed about me and Josiah and he was warning me off. He told me that Josiah had a new girlfriend and even showed me a picture of them together. It killed me, absolutely floored me, but it was probably good to hear it. It showed me that it was okay for me to just stay where I was, so I didn’t have to fight the exhaustion any longer. I didn’t have to keep pretending I wanted to go back home.
If Josiah was able to move past me that quickly, then he didn’t love me, and we weren’t ever right together. I was just naïve because he was the first person that I have ever been in love with. If he wanted to be with another woman living up to his play boy name, then he didn’t deserve me, and he didn’t deserve Freddie.
I don’t still live at Aunt Lily’s farm; I have now moved somewhere quite close to here. Just half an hour away. I moved for a job, I finally got a chance to work in a place which I can use my education at last and it also has a creche, so I can stay close to my son. I now have the perfect life, but I’ve never come back here. On the rare occasions my family wants to come and visit me and Freddie, they come out to me.
But I have used up all my excuses and I have to be here. I cannot avoid it because today is the day that Adam gets married to Sian and I have to be here for it. Freddie isn’t invited, of course, my parents told me leaving on the lie that I got a job, which is now the truth, and they don’t want to be embarrassed by me, but luckily, I have a good child minder who I can trust with my boy all day long. I use Kate to look after my boy a lot.
I miss him though, he’s like an extra limb and I’m missing him right now like crazy. Especially as I’m all exposed, getting stared at and whispered about by all the people who used to be in my life. People who I used to know, who have no idea about my life now, it’s very uncomfortable.
I have my nicest dress on, my hair is all styled in the prettiest way possible, I have the best make up on that I have ever worn, but I feel all raw and exposed. I keep my eyes downwards, my heart pounding in my throat, desperately hoping that I can get through this whole damn day without seeing Josiah.
I don’t suppose I will, he’s Adam’s best man, but I might be able to get away with not speaking to him. I have been trying to gear myself up all month long for the thought of seeing him with another woman – because let’s be honest, he is bound to have another woman – but I’m not ready. I will never be ready.
Fucking hell. Hold it together, I scold myself as tears fill my eyes. Just hold it together for now.
“Come on.” Mom pulls on my arm and brings me into the church. “It’s time.”
She says it like it’s my doom, which is exactly how I feel. God knows what will happen when I go in.
The church is decorated beautifully, which isn’t much of a surprise. From what I know of Sian, she has excellent taste and a really good eye for color. She’s kind of the opposite of Adam in a lot of ways, and her fashionable flair is just one of these ways. I think she does like me, not that we have had a lot of time together, but I’m sure she’s confused by my situation. Most people are. Especially if she has only heard things from Adam’s point of view. I mean, why won’t I just tell everyone who my baby’s father is? If only they knew, they would all fully understand why I have had to keep Freddie to myself for all this time. It would cause too much chaos.
Mom takes me to the front of the church to take our seats. Adam is already proudly standing at the front of the church with a big smile on his face, eagerly awaiting his bride. Much as I’m ecstatic for him, I can’t return that smile because my heart is too busy hammering like crazy in my chest. I know that if I look to the side of Adam, he will be there. The one person I cannot see
ever again. The very reason I avoided the house today.
I can sense him, I know he’s around, but I won’t look. There are plenty of other things I can see. The flowers, the other guests, my brother, the organist… and soon there will be the bride to look at. It’s just plain rude not to look at the bride on her wedding day, this is her turn to shine and I fully intend to give Sian all my attention.
Is he looking at me? I suddenly wonder. Does he want to know why I left? Is he angry?
But then I remind myself that he mustn’t care because he moved on quickly. I try to wear that like a shield, armor to protect myself from the inevitable moment when I’m forced to face him, but there are too many cracks in my protection. It doesn’t matter how much I have built myself up, who I have become, around Josiah I am still that fifteen-year-old girl with an intense crush on someone who is too good for me.
“I need to get out of here,” I gush to Mom. It’s too restrictive in here, the air is thick, I can’t breathe. The pull is too intense, my eyes are absolutely desperate to see him, and I know I will give in soon.
“What are you talking about?” Mom grabs my arm. “The wedding is about to begin.”
“I need to call Kate, to check in on Freddie. I need to check that he’s okay.”
“You only just called her ten minutes ago. Your boy is fine. You don’t need to worry.”
The thing with Mom is I know she dotes on Freddie. She absolutely adores him in her own little way. I know she wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to him. I think she even loves him more than me and Adam. She just gets this look in her eyes when she’s with him. If she says that he’s okay, then he must be okay.
“Yeah. Alright.” I try to steady my breathing. “I’m sorry, I just…”
“I know it isn’t easy to be away from your child, but it is only for a while.”
It doesn’t feel like a while; it feels like forever. The wedding, then the reception, then the cab ride home. But I don’t have any choice. I have to be here for my brother. It’s the only way.
