Page 9

What have I done?

AXEL

I spend the week trying not to feel anything.

I shut the door on my feelings and pretend they don’t exist. But I’m not terribly successful.

Each morning I wake to the same depressing feeling weighing me down. I know each day is a day I hurt Justin, and it’s hard waking up to that knowledge and carrying it around with me until nighttime when I go to bed and pray that he finds peace in sleep. Because I don’t.

As much as I don’t want to admit it, every day is another day I hurt myself too, even though I tell myself I'm doing the right thing and for the right reasons. I keep myself busy working on some designs for a couple of my clients, but I lack inspiration and I end up tossing the half-finished jobs aside. I scarcely sleep. My nights are restless, and when I'm not tossing and turning, I lie awake for long lonely hours staring at the darkness.

I’m hurting him, and I’m hurting myself. But it was going to happen anyway, wasn’t it? I'm already settled into my adult life and he's only starting to find his way. There'll be so much change for him in the next few years, he'll go in his own direction. How could he possibly know what he wants, who he wants, when he's so young? So it's better to call it quits now, rather than later, when I’d have been even more emotionally invested.

That’s what I tell myself, but as each day passes and I don’t feel any better, it becomes harder and harder to convince myself.

I know I’ve lost something - someone - special.

******

I suppose it was inevitable that I would run into Justin somewhere. The summer holidays are still in full swing, so he wouldn’t have gone home yet, and the local community is serviced by one small village shopping centre.

It happens the day my cousin is visiting and insists I accompany her shopping. We’ve stopped at a boutique homewares store, when I notice him. He’s standing outside a shop on the other side of the road, but even from here there is no mistaking the look of deep sadness on his face. It hurts seeing it, knowing I’m responsible. And since his misery only mirrors my own, I feel mine even more.

Just then his grandmother comes out of the shop, and I see his mask go on. A perfectly neutral, perfectly bland expression sweeps over his face, as he slides on a pair of dark sunglasses concealing the heartbreaking emotion so clearly visible moments ago when he thought no-one was watching. As the two of them walk away down the street towards the junction, I feel the weight of regret in my chest. A drummer beats a steady tattoo in my head, and for a moment the bottom falls out of my stomach. I feel sick to my core.

Melinda finishes her perusal of the beach themed homewares on offer and putting her arm around my waist, gives an affectionate squeeze.

“Come on, let’s look in some of the other shops,” she says, not noticing my sudden attack of feelings. “I love all this beachy stuff but I don’t know if it’d really go in our house.”

Melinda grew up on the beaches like me, but she married a guy from out west and moved out there years ago.

“Could be a small reminder of what you’re missing?” I suggest,forcing my lips into a smile that I know doesn't reach my eyes. It's the best I can do though.

“Yeah,” she says and pulls a glum face. I know it’s fake. She loves her husband and the connectedness of his big family and she doesn’t regret moving at all.

She takes my hand and drags me towards the village centre where there are other homewares stores waiting to sell their goods to tourists whose normal thrift has relaxed in the happy vibes of a beachside holiday. I try to focus on my cousin and her shopping, but it’s difficult, because I’m silently wallowing.

As we approach the crossroads, my heart sinks even lower. Justin has crossed over and is walking up the street towards us, alone. He doesn’t appear to have seen us yet, and like a coward I look around to see if there’s a shop we can disappear into. There isn’t.

He's not really paying attention to where he is and I think he’s going to walk right past us, when suddenly he notices us, and stops dead in his tracks. For a moment there’s nothing else in the world. Just him and me, and all the said and unsaid things between us. And four years. Four fucking years.

“Hey,” I say, in a voice half-choked by unwanted emotions.

I can't see his eyes behind his dark sunglasses, but then he looks down... at my hand still clasped in Melinda’s.

He makes a strange sound, somewhere between a sob and a choke, turns away and walks off without saying anything. I watch him as he goes, but he never looks back.

Melinda and I resume walking the other way towards the centre of town.

After a few minutes, she says, “What was that about?”

“What do you mean?” I stall, not wanting to open this Pandora’s box of emotions, the lid of which I’d been trying to keep firmly sealed.

“Don’t play dumb,” she insists. “You know exactly what I mean. That guy. What was that about?”

“Oh, nothing. Just a guy I had a thing with, but I called it off. Guess he’s not very happy with me.” I make a pretense of being dismissive.

“You called it off?” Melinda snorts in disbelief. “I would have guessed it was the other way round.”

I stare at her. “What do you mean?”

“I saw how you looked at him, cuz. I’ve never seen you look at a guy like that. Not ever.”

Fuck. She's right. I haven't felt like this over anyone before. Suddenly I can’t hold myself up, the walls that have been shielding me from my emotions crumbling. I stumble. Seeing my distress, Melinda pulls me down onto a bench seat at the side of the road.

“It was something,” I whisper, head bowed.

She continues holding my hand while I try to pull myself together, then she gently asks, “What happened, Axel? If it really was you that called it off, why’d you do it? You obviously didn’t want to.”

“He’s only eighteen,” I struggle to speak though the tears choking me. “That’s a hell of an age gap.”

“Not so much as you get older,” she points out.

“Maybe,” I say doubtfully, “but who knows their mind at eighteen?”

“Some of us do,” she insists, reminding me that she met Damien when she was sixteen, and here they are still together ten years later and happily married.

I think about that for a moment.

“There’s also the fact he’s only just turned eighteen, and I’m twenty-two. Aren’t there laws against that sort of thing?”

“Well… I don’t know. There used to be. I remember having this discussion with one of my friends back when we were in high school,” Melinda says thoughtfully, “but it might have changed now. A lot has changed.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Anyway, you know, it doesn’t have to stop you,” Melinda adds.

“What doesn’t?”

“The age thing. Does he see it as a problem?”

“Ah. I don’t know. We never talked about it.”

“Oh, well, there’s your first mistake. You’re not going to keep a relationship together if you don’t talk about the important things, especially the hard stuff.”

I sigh. Maybe I’ve been an idiot. Maybe I didn’t need to screw up the first really good thing I’ve had in a long time, maybe ever.

“It’s too late now. I’m pretty sure he hates me. You saw how he blew me off just then.”

“I think he’s hurting,” she says in an infuriatingly reasonable tone. “Who wears dark glasses on a day like this?”

“Um, lots of dudes do, it looks cool?” I suggest, since now I think about it, it’s not glary enough to actually need sunglasses. The weather turned colder overnight as a southerly change came through, bringing with it a heavy cloud cover.

"Is he that sort of guy?" she asks. "Into appearances?"

"No, not really. I guess I don't know him that well, but I don't think so. He's a genuine sort of guy."

"There you go then," she nods her head, knowingly. "There's another kind of person who wears sunglasses when they don't need to."

I tilt my head, waiting for her to go on.

“Someone who doesn’t want anyone to see their eyes,” she states emphatically. “The eyes are the mirror to the soul and all that. Or maybe he’s been crying.”

That gives me pause. Maybe she's right. Maybe there's a chance I haven't totally screwed this up.

“Can we drop this now?” I don’t want to keep talking about it. She’s given me plenty to think about.

She shrugs. And stays silent. And starts looking around for another shop to visit. I trail along with her, but I'm not thinking about shopping.

I can’t help thinking about the haunted look on Justin's face when he was standing across the street thinking himself unobserved.

Now I need to go away and decide what to do about it.