Chapter 1
Start writing here…I am at a crowded party lined with a 1950s detailed carpet, masked by the lowlight of warm yellow side table lamps. There are voices in the distance, but the soft strumming of a guitar and whispering voice of the male singer takes precedent as I romantically sway with one hand holding a glass of red wine. The room is warm despite the frost outside. The woolen assortments of scarfs, hats and coats draped across the dark fabric of the plentiful seating furniture. There is a comforting smell of beer and sweat. I am alone, the friends I have come with have dispersed to speak with old friends who’ve lost contact over the years. Talks of new jobs, new cities and new loves murmur in the atmosphere.
I catch eyes with the familiar stranger across the room. As if on queue, my stomach drops and my breath becomes tight.
We ignored each other for the next hour of the party. I continue to distract myself on the edge of the carpeted dance floor whilst old forgotten friends interrupt my internal monologue for a quick catch up. I act interested, nodding my head and congratulating or consoling them, my eyes catching quick glances of him from across the room.
He eventually makes his way over to me, as if remembering something. I take a deep breath and a long drink to prepare for his words as he slowly, hesitantly, walks. The world seems for a moment to have quietened, the soft guitar strumming resonates through me as if controlling the blood circulating my body.
“Hello,” he says. A confident lie of a smile on his face. I know him well enough to see through it, he’s as anxious as I am.
“Hey.” I take another sip as my eyes dart from his to the small curious brown stain on the carpet and back again.
We continued the dance to make small talk as I begin to relax my shoulders and sway again. I even muster a tight smile as tells an anecdote of his one young child.
“She is so trusting of me catching her now that I am afraid to take my eyes off her when she’s on the bed!” He smiles warmly at the image of his daughter, all pretences of his non-awkwardness only evident in the way he shuffles his feet and repositions the sleeves of his loose baggy t-shirt.
“That is very sweet, I am so happy for you.” I mean that. I hope he knows I do mean it despite my defensive stance. “I always knew you’d be a great dad, even if you are preparing her for a falsely comforting world”.
We smile at each other in silence, a sad tentative smile. Just for a long moment before my eyes tear up. I correct my posture, look away and quickly rake my fingers through my short hair, pushing the strands away from my assumably flushed face.
“It is warm in here ″ I awkwardly laugh, loosening the decorative red woolen scarf I am still wearing. It’s easier to breathe now. He’s still smiling that same smile, causing my chest to blotch with heat.
I take a long look around the room, looking for the close friend I arrived with. She’s standing over by the kitchen sink across the open space seemingly in a deep conversation with a mutual friend, but I catch her eye and she sends a comforting and motivating message in one short facial expression. I know her well enough to know she is extremely curious about this conversation.
“Can we dance?” he holds his hand out awkwardly.
“Umm, sure, yeah” I murmur distractedly as I try to find somewhere to place my drink. I settle for the white radiator behind the sofa to my left. He does the same. We stand in the same place, I hold my warm hand in his large one and the other on his shoulder. He respectfully and lightly places his other hand on my waist. Then we sway.
“You know I didnt think everything would turn out this way” I say. I feel more confident now, the adrenalin from the situation has passed through me and I can look into his golden brown eyes without being distracted by that curious stain on the floor.
“What do you mean?” He asks simply.
“Us, life, everything really. This world. It seemed so much more accessible when we were in University. The world was ours, don’t you remember my 5 year plan?”“Yes I remember the plan” he laughs. “Are you not happy?” I am relieved he didn’t question the ‘us’.
“Oh I am. I really am. Sometimes. I don’t know” I laugh nervously. “Don’t you ever wish you did more, conquered more? Became renowned for something?” I ask experasedly.
“No? I mean I’m pretty happy?” He poses the last sentence as a confused question, as if he isn’t quite sure what it is that I think his life is lacking. We never did quite understand each other.
“It’s been so long.” I dejectedly changed the subject.
“Yes, too long. I did actually see you on the other side of the road a few months ago. You were picking up food from that fresh market on the main street? Wearing this light blue sunhat?”
“Oh yes, that sounds like something I would do.” I laugh. “Why didn’t you say hello?”
“Oh, yeah, I was with my daughter. I turned around for a second and when I looked back you had already gone.” He says quickly.
“Right ok.” I am unsure of what to say now. There’s so much I wanted to say to him all those years after we split, but they’re not appropriate. They’re most likely things I will never have the right setting to speak freely. There’s silence once again, and I look across the room. I catch the eyes of another old forgotten friend from university, a friend that I used to be so close with. She smiles knowingly at me, it fills me with warmth as I know that our friendship didn’t end particularly on good terms. It gives me the confidence to say what I say next.
I swallow, take a breath, look back up to him and give him the most genuine expression I can allow myself to have.
“I’m sorry.” I say truthly. “For what happened, post break up. And actually the break up itself.”
“No you don’t have to-”
“No I want to. There was so much I wanted to say to you. So much I still want to, a lot I never will..” I trail off, trying to find my footing. “I wasn’t well after we broke up, and I could never express that to you and I know I gave you all those mixed signals. I just felt like anything I said to explain what was happening in my head would just come out as some confusing jumbled up words.” I laugh, “like now.”
“Hey look it was fine, ok? It was a bit confusing, you know, because you broke up with me?” He’s not smiling now, but his hand has begun to rub my side reassuringly. We have stopped swaying. I step away from him and use my hands to pointlessly gesture my next words.
“I know, but you know I didn’t want to. You know?” I stop for a second. “I wasn’t well, I was deeply unhappy. I tried to explain this to you afterwards but I know it didn’t make any sense; it was never you, ok?” My eyes are unblinking on his “It wasn’t you, it was me. I just couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think about anything consistently for the last month we were together, only you. All I could think about was you, worry about you, worry about us. Everything else, the traumatic events in the world, my family, my friends, my health, my uni degree. Nothing else mattered. You didn’t do anything, rightfully so, but every innocent action of yours just drove me more crazy. I would wake up and cry and not know why. I would lie awake next to you as you slept. I didn’t know what else to do, and I could see you were becoming more detached and unhappy and I knew I needed to end it because I couldn’t wait for you to. But I didn’t want to. I loved you, a lot. In hindsight I wasn’t sure if that was actually you or this fantasy I had made of you, I couldn’t trust anything I knew in those months. I am really sorry for how that may have confused you”.
He says nothing for a while, he wears a very familiar expression of frustration and sadness; one that I used to fear the most. My eyes well at the sight of it. “Ok, well, what could I have done?” He asks defensively. “I didn’t want us to break up, I told you that. Ok? I did try.”I smile and shake my head. It’s not the response I wanted, although I am not sure what I would have wanted to hear. I smile and shake my head at those times that I expressed (albeit not always clearly) how rejected I felt, how unhappy I was. I smile at all those times those tears streamed consistently down my cheeks, my front becoming a watered mess as I desperately searched for the warmth that was our initial relationship. I shake my head at the image of his anger and frustrations. His emotionless acceptance.
“There’s nothing you could have done.” I finally say. “I needed someone else. I loved you, oh Tom I did. I promise” I say, although I know it was obvious. At least I thought I did. “I needed someone else, ok? I needed someone that loved me, someone that wouldn’t hesitate to come to my house and demand a reconciliation at the mere thought of a breakup. Someone to shake me out of the anxious and self conscious thoughts to tell me he loved me, and that as long as I loved him back then nothing else mattered. I don’t know,” I slump slightly, “maybe those things only exist in movies, because I haven’t found him yet. But that’s what I needed. I’m sorry to bring this all up years later, I guess I just always hoped you were that guy. Convinced myself that it was all in you, all this stuff I was desperate for, but you were protecting it behind your own walls.”He looks down at both his hands grasped in mine between us. I give them a squeeze and let them go, taking a step back. I didnt realise I had grabbed them.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t do that for you”, he awkwardly scratches his neck. “I loved you too, but you were so unhappy at the end. There’s no use holding onto something that’s not working. Times like that it’s almost always better just to go separate ways and move on”.
Almost. That thought alone is what separates us. That set the fate of our relationship. I was the hopeless romantic, he the realist, If you can fit people into such narrow stereotypes.
“I know, I guess- I guess I just hoped for more. But hey,” I say, gesturing to the room, “if it didn’t happen the way it did then we wouldn’t be here right now.” I say positively, hoping he hasn’t learnt to read between the lines.
“Exactly. Hey, look,” he points across the room. “Chris has arrived, you remember Chris? I’m gonna go say hello”. He starts to make his way but stops when he notices I’ve stood still. “You coming?”
“No it’s ok, I’ll catch you up later.” I say in a larger voice, sporting a smile and a small wave. He smiles and nods, before turning around. I watch him go and hear the loud excited noises they make. I notice my glance has lingered at the back of his head so I break away, turn around and grab my drink. I hold the small amount of red wine between two hands, tentatively looking at that stain on the carpet.
Then I started to sway.
