Ch 8 Life in the Void
A sharp pain shoots up my foot, as I walk down the hallway. I wince and look down.
Shit.
I've stepped on a shard of glass. Even though it's been more than two weeks, and even though I've vacuumed so many times, I'm still finding tiny pieces of glass around my apartment. I look down at the ball of my foot.
This one's cut deep.
I hobble to the bathroom, pulling the glass out carefully and running cold water over my foot. As the water runs red, I try not to think about why there are bits of broken glass all over the place. I try not to think of what happened that day. I will Common Sense to take the reins, but this time, I'm a little too slow.
Call him,
whispers The Dreamer
, just call him to see if he's okay.
Call him,
says My Dick
, call him and fuck him.
I take a deep breath. He was incredibly clear. "Don't call me", he said. "Lose my number", he said.
I haven't treated him well. I see that now. In my madness, I didn't properly consider that he wasn't privy to my little arrangement --
It's love with Liza, it's fucking with Oliver
. I thought that he understood. I thought that he knew where I stood. Even though I never used words, I thought that he understood that I'm committed to Liza.
I've been thoughtless and selfish. It sickens me when I think I what I've done. This isn't me. I've never treated anyone like this before. I've spent my whole life trying to do the right thing, trying to do what's expected of me. I've spent my whole life feeling like a huge, under-cover nerd. Scared of getting into trouble. Scared of doing the wrong thing. Now, I'm just scared.
I feel alone and afraid. I can't believe the void that he's left. I'm in a black hole.
My chest feels tight, when I think of the look on his face, when he left. I try not to think about it. I use so much energy trying not to think about it, but I can't always help it. Nothing in my life, has ever felt worse, than the way I feel, when I think how I've hurt him. It wakes me, in a sweat, in the night. Twisting me. Wringing me out.
Now, I find myself staring in the mirror. I look at my face. I look just the same, but I find myself looking at my reflection and asking,
who the hell are you?
How the hell did I let everything get this out of hand?
Now, after everything that happened, I have to show him a little respect.
It's not disrespectful to check if someone's alright
, croons The Dreamer.
My phone's in my hand. I look at the screen. I call up his number and then spend a long time looking at that, too. I don't want to make things worse, but I want to know he's okay. I
need
to know he's okay.
I hit dial quickly, shocked, but not surprised, at how hard this simple action makes my heart pound. It's clattering so loudly in my chest, I can't hear the dial tone.
Call ended.
What?
I must have hung up by mistake, so I quickly press 'call' again. This time, I raise the phone to my ear carefully, breathing slowly out of my mouth, to try to calm myself down.
I hear a single dial tone, and then nothing.
Call ended.
What the fuck?
The realization hits me slowly at first, and then all at once. I feel as though the back of my knees have been kicked in, when it dawns on me,
he's blocked my number
.
That same, dreadful, dark feeling from before, threatens to overcome me again. Twisting me. Knocking the breath out of me. I quickly retreat to my room and lie on my back, on the bed. I stare at the ceiling, as I beg myself to calm down.
Well,
I think at last,
I guess he knew I'd crack eventually. Maybe he knows this side of me better than I know myself. Maybe, he always did.
I'm still feeling shaky.
Be grateful,
says Common Sense,
he's done you a favour.
I don't feel grateful though. Far from it. Instead, I'm consumed by a terrible feeling. It's hot and it's dark and so uncomfortable, it's almost physically painful. It twists in my heart like a cold, steel blade.
Think about Liza,
I tell myself. This is what I've taken to doing, when these dreadful episodes befall me.
Don't think about him, just think about Liza.
I close my eyes and think about the day that I met her. It was a day to remember. I was in second year at university. I was studying in the library, sitting at a communal desk, head down, when she walked over. I noticed her immediately. Anyone with a pulse would.
She was tall, with a body that would have been hard to forget. But that wasn't the main thing about her. No, far from it. She carried herself with a certainty that was uncommon for women, or for men, for that matter. Seeing her there in that library, with the wall of books behind her, her hair pulled back in a high ponytail and her black rimmed glasses, framing her dark, intense eyes, I was captivated.
I distinctly remember thinking;
she looks like the queen of this whole damned place.
She took a seat opposite me, as I tried not to stare. She didn't seem to notice me at all.
Maybe she has a boyfriend
, I thought.
It's not that I'm arrogant. It's just that usually, girls look a little, just a quick little flick of their eyes, at the very least. Not her though. Not even a little. I couldn't concentrate worth a shit, but I stayed in my seat, stealing surreptitious glances at her, until at last, she packed up her things and got ready to leave.
Say something, you idiot,
I berated myself.
I wanted to say something so witty and wildly intelligent, that this beautiful, terrifying creature would fall into my arms. That's a lot of pressure for anyone, especially for me, at nineteen.
Instead, I kept my head down, trying not to follow her with my eyes, as she got up, pausing briefly when she got to my side. I looked up. If I had to guess, I'd say my expression probably resembled a rather pitiful mixture of shock and alarm. Without giving any hint of the gravity of its contents, she dropped a folded, yellow Post-It note on the book that was open in front of me. I looked up at her quickly and then down at the note. I'm pretty sure I didn't look very bright, at this point.
I picked up the scrap of paper and unfolded it quickly, and nearly died of shock right there in the library, when I read it. There it was, scrawled plain as day, in her neat, girl-handwriting:
Want to fuck?
I looked around quickly, pretty sure I was being pranked. I looked up again. This time, her eyes met mine. This time, a slow smile spread across her face and something about her seemed to be saying, "I dare you."
You better believe, I shoved my books in my bag and got up at double quick speed. Ready to follow wherever she was going. Ready to follow, without any question.
I wasn't a virgin. Far from it, in fact. I'd been having sex for years, some of it actually pretty good, or at least, not half bad. For some reason though, I've always felt that something about that first time with her, changed me. Something about that afternoon, there in that dorm room with Liza, made me a man.
Afterwards, we were getting dressed. She wasn't awkward at all. She hardly seemed aware, that she'd just rocked my world.
"I, um, can I buy you a drink sometime?" I asked, as I got ready to leave.
"Ethan," she said, with a bemused little smile, "I'm not looking for anything serious." As if, a drink was some kind of commitment.
It continued that way for the rest of our varsity days. Every once in a blue moon, when I least expected it, I'd hear from her. It was always the same. It was amazing, but before I left, my offer of a drink, dinner or a movie, was always abruptly declined.
After graduating, I lost track of her for a while. Best I could tell from her very sporadic up-dates on social media, she seemed to be travelling around south east Asia, alone.
I'd just come out of an almost-serious relationship, when I saw her name in my mailbox. I wasn't as hung up on her as I had once been, but still, my heart skipped a beat when I clicked on the message and read:
I'm thirsty...I could do with a drink
So, we finally got to have that drink. Turns out, Liza was right. Right from the start, before I even took her home that night, we were serious. Almost overnight, we became Ethan-and-Liza.
It was easy, falling for her. We're such similar people. Both strong and ambitious. Both independent and fiercely competitive, but not with each other. In fact, no-one has ever had my back harder. We never fight. We don't need to. We want the same things and we see life the same way. Right from the start, we talked about a future together.
"Marriage?" she asked, not long after we started dating.
"Definitely." I said, "Kids?"
"Two," she smiled, "a boy and a girl."
I nodded in agreement, though, in truth, when I think of the future with Liza, I've always seen the two of us, and two, wild little boys.
This is what you want,
I tell myself again, as I feel myself gradually coming back to my center,
it's what you've always wanted. A wife and children. This is what everyone wants. Everyone. All three of my brothers are married. Jake and Tommy, already have kids.
This is what everyone does.
*
"It feels like it's been a while since you saw Oliver." Says Liza, a few weeks later, as she gets ready for work.
My heart lurches and I'm lost for a second, I feel a sharp pain in my chest, as I scramble to think of a response that won't invite further explanation.
A big part of me longs to tell her everything. I don't know if I can keep living with this. Every time I turn to the internet for advice, I read, "The only reason to tell someone about cheating after an affair has ended, is to alleviate your own guilt." I don't want to do that. I deserve my guilt. I know I failed Oliver. Now, I desperately, desperately want to do the right thing by Liza. I have to. I have to do that, at least.
"Uh, no," I lie, "I saw him last week. We went out for drinks. He got a promotion at work."
