Broken (14 page)

Silence again.

“Jo, you’re not saying anything. Are you ok?”

“Yes”, I say finally. “Sorry. I just don’t know what to say. Or I do and I just don’t know how to say it. I’m so confused. I’m scared, Ethan. I’m scared of what I think I’m beginning to feel for you and what that means for us.”

And like that, it’s out. My skin feels hot and my heart is racing. I can’t sit still. One moment I’m stood staring at the bike, the next I’m on the edge of the sofa or lying back on the bed.

“I’m scared too”, Ethan says. “I don’t think I’ve ever been this scared in my life.”

We both laugh, because there is nothing else to do.

“I’ve been avoiding calling you”, I confess.

“I know”, Ethan says. “I figured that.”

“Do you want me to come over?”

“Yes”, Ethan says. “I want that more than anything else in the world.”

9
February. One hundred and forty nine days after.

There are things that I have seen that will stay with me for the rest of my life, but even stronger images of events I haven’t, that torment me even more. Those are the images that hide in darkened corners, showing themselves when I’m at my lowest point. They wake me in the middle of the night, my neck covered in sweat, they hunt me down and back me into a corner I have no chance of escaping from, and they laugh at me from a place I can never hope to reach. The fear twisted across Alice’s face at the moment she knew she wouldn’t survive her attack is a construct of my own, but it has a quality to it, realer than the image I have of the bloodied mess I made of Paul Hawke, the swollen and broken face of Tariq Rana or the broken tooth that lay isolated in a patch of blood that made the whole thing look like some kind of poor taste art exhibition.

I’ve done things I cannot even begin to comprehend, driven by the need to have justice dealt in the only way I saw fit. When I see Jo, and the pain that she has endured, the way she is going about rebuilding her own life, how difficult it is for her and what matters - not the justice, but the reconstructing - I can’t help but feel weak. I can’t help but admire her. She is terrified of facing her attacker. Nothing she does from this point on will change what happened to her. I can’t bring Alice back. I knew I never could, but that didn’t stop me from trying to take from someone else what they took from me. And for what? To drive myself into the ground? To collect images that won’t leave me alone? If Jo knew what I had done in my own search for justice. If she saw the bloodied messes I left in apartments all over Pittsburgh, the blood stained clothes I burned, the wounds that will take years to heal. I’m broken, I know that now. More broken than I thought it possible a person could ever be. If I didn’t have Jo, I wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t even want to be. I just hope she can fix me, and I can fix her in return.

It takes her a couple of hours to prepare herself and make the journey across to the house. We stand in my livingroom for a moment, neither one of us sure what to say. I’m nervous and I can see she is too. Looking at each other is hard. There is nervous laughter, repositioning, agonizing and awkward attempts to begin to speak. I don’t close the gap between us, even though I want to.

All week I’ve been thinking about both Alice and Jo, about what the feelings I have for one mean to the relationship I have with the other, about
that
kiss, about Alice’s and my first kiss and about my own future, with or without Jo in it. I’ve missed Jo over the last week, and having her here no with me makes me realise by just how much.

“Did you come on the bike?” I ask, just to break the tension thickening between us.

Jo smiles, but I can see she’s too distracted by what’s eating her up inside to throw the joke back at me.

“Ethan?” she says instead. “I’m not sure. You know. I feel so fucking broken, I don’t know if I can be the person that you need me to be, you know, even if that’s what-.”

She’s sat on the arm of the sofa, her arms crossed, her hands on her shoulders, completely closed in, protected. There are tears welling in her eyes and I’ve never seen them so sad when she finally looks up to me.

“Hey, you already are the person I need you to be.”

I go over, but I’m careful to keep a respectful distance.

“I don’t even know if-.”

“Look”, I say. “I like you, just as you are.”

“I like you too”, Jo says.

A broad smile creeps across my face. “Well then. I don’t know why you’re crying.”

“I’m not crying”, Jo lies, wiping tears away from her face.

“I don’t want to lose you as a friend. Let’s just start there, ok? Everything else will work itself out, as quickly or as slowly as it needs to. I’m not going anywhere and I’m certainly not in a rush. This is kind of hard for me too. It’s all kind of new.”

“I think I really like you”, Jo says, wiping tears away from her face again. “What?”

“Nothing”, I say. “I think I really like you too.”

I put my hand on Jo’s knee, and shortly afterwards, she places her hand on top of it. There is a moment of silence that passes between us while she takes my hand in hers, turns it over, examines it, draws her fingertip along the lines that cut across my palm.

“Will you hold me?” she asks, after a while. “I know it sounds stupid, but it’s been so long since someone has held me.”

“Of course”, I say. “It doesn’t sound stupid. I’d love to hold you.”

I move to take her in my arms.

“Not here”, Jo says. “I want you to lie behind me and hold me tight. In your bed.”

I know the moment is probably not right, but I can’t help myself. “Really?” I say. “And I thought you were a slow mover.”

Jo shakes her head, but doesn’t seem to mind the joke. I take her hand and lead her to my bedroom, but at the door I’m suddenly reminded of Alice. It doesn’t feel right taking another woman into our bedroom and I’m suddenly struck by a feeling that I’m betraying her. I hadn’t thought this through at all, nor expected any reminder of Alice to be so debilitating. It’s so strong, I can’t even bring myself to enter the room. Jo sees it and immediately looks guilty herself.

“We could go to Martin’s room, or even back to my house if you prefer?” she suggests. “I hadn’t thought-. Sorry, it’s stupid of me.”

“I’m sorry”, I say, shaking my head. “I don’t know if I can-.”

“Or we can wait if you like.”

I look at Jo and then back into the room. It is pretty much exactly as it was before Alice was killed. I’ve not changed a thing. Just because it hasn’t had her in it for five months, doesn’t mean it’s not still hers though. I take a deep breath.

Never before have I seen the present moment in such lucid clarity. It’s as though I’m being given a choice, that
this
moment here and now is
the
moment I will look back on as either the opportunity I was given to change my life and turned down, or the fulcrum to the rest of my life with or without Jo, but definitely without Alice.

It’s a turning point, a moment in which I have to make a choice either to stay in the past with Alice or accept the future and move on with Jo. It’s as simple as that. I step in with Jo and I’m deciding to move on. I don’t, I risk staying in the past forever.

Fuck, I’m scared. I grip Jo’s hand tighter. The room isn’t changing. It’s not moving. It never will unless I make it.

“No”, I say, surprising myself. “No.” I say again, as though if I don’t, it might be easier to take back.

“Ethan, we don’t have to-.”

I close my eyes, step through the doorway and into the room, my heart beating wildly.

“See”, I say, my hands up in the air. “Easy.”

I feel like crying. Doing this is definitely very far from easy. I want to though, and I feel like I should be able to, not just physically, but emotionally too. With freedom from guilt.

Jo watches me from outside the room for a moment, before stepping in to join me. She sits down on the edge of the bed, kind of perched there awkwardly. She holds out her hand towards me. “Come here.”

When I reach out towards her I notice my hand is shaking. She takes it and I sit alongside her.

“Just because you’re here with me, doesn’t mean you are betraying Alice”, she says, as though reading my mind. “If you don’t want to do this, just tell me. We don’t have to rush things.”

“I’m ok”, I say, my lower lip trembling. “I want to.”

Jo kicks off her shoes, lets go off my hand for a moment and slides herself onto the bed. This must be as difficult for her as it is for me, and her courage is inspiring. I kick off my shoes and do the same. For a long moment, we both lie next to each other, facing up towards the ceiling, the tips of our fingers the only parts of our bodies brushing each other. I feel like a fifteen year old about to kiss a girl for the first time. My heart is beating wildly and I can’t work out whether I want to laugh, cry, run away or stay put.

Jo turns onto her side, facing away from me, her knees bent and her hands flat out underneath her cheek. I look at the way her hair falls onto the pillow, much curlier than Alice’s ever was, the curve of her spine in the gap between her ribs and her hips, the patch of skin where her top doesn’t quite meet her pants.

I look at her for a long time like this, unable to close the gap between us, that must be less than a metre but feels like a thousand miles, until finally, as though the right moment has arrived and I just had to wait for it all along, I reach out and she pulls me into her.

Holding her closely, our bodies interlinked perfectly, the two of us as one, Jo begins to cry. It doesn’t take long for me to fall in behind her.

I’ve never cried so much in my life.

1
1 September 2016. One year after.

Every day that passes I’m eternally grateful for. Every hour more is a step further in the right direction. I’m off the medication, I’m sleeping well, I’m exercising regularly and day by day, I’m beginning to feel like a normal, capable person again. With Jo by my side, little by little, I’m turning my life around.

When I think about what has happened over the year, and what I have gone through to get here, I’m amazed I’m still here at all.

It’s been a year exactly since it happened.

I will never forget Alice, but I’ve learnt over the last year that I can never forget myself either. Martin helped me realize that, Jo too. Everyone else that has been there by my side to show me how to pull myself up and move on, scarred but not broken. Alive and definitely not dead. Worthwhile and worth fighting for.

Jo and I have now officially been together for over six months and I couldn’t be happier. Every day I spend with her I realize just how lucky I am. She’s not replaced Alice and neither do I think of her in that way. Alice and Jo both belong to completely different parts of my life, and the Ethan from before it happened, is not the Ethan that I am now.

Jo and I took our time. We had to and we still do. It’s one of the things I love about our relationship and the time that we spend together - the time itself seems completely irrelevant. We’re not in a rush to get anywhere quickly, we’re just happy we are able to enjoy the ride. It’s been an incredible ride too, and continues to be so.

A kiss one day, a cuddle the next, for long periods we would just hold hands and look at each other like fifteen year olds without a clue how to proceed, happy enough to settle for that. More excited than I can even begin to explain by it.

And then one day, when we were both ready, we knew it was the right time to take things further.

We cried when we made love for the first time, and then we held each other until we fell asleep, safe, happy, comfortable, at peace with ourselves. Absolutely, one hundred percent free.

I don’t feel guilty for the way I feel about Jo now. I did for a long time, especially when Jo and I were in the early days of our relationship but now, even on the anniversary of Alice’s death, I’m able to realize and accept that the way I feel about Feeling the way I do about Jo does not change the way I feel about Alice. Just because Alice is no longer with us, doesn’t mean I should forget about my life. It took me a long time to be comfortable with that, but I know for a fact that if it was reversed, and Alice found someone she connected with in the way I connect with Jo, I would want her to take every chance possible at her happiness.

Jo is that girl for me. She makes me want to be on this planet, by her side, with her until the day I die. I love her and the strength of that emotion takes me to places I never knew existed within me.

I place a single white rose amongst the vast amount of other flowers on Alice’s grave, crouch down on the grass dampened by last night’s rain and take as long as I need to be with her.

2
7 September 2016. One year after.

The day is almost over before I realise it. When I do, my heart leaps for a moment, as though suddenly remembering someone’s birthday I happen to be in the presence of and haven’t yet offered congratulations, before it passes again as quickly as it has arrived and my brain moves onto something else entirely. I don’t think Ethan realizes, and I don’t tell him. It’s a normal night. We’re cuddled up on the sofa. The TV’s on but neither of us are really watching it. Ethan has a book open, and I’m looking at winter holiday destinations on the internet. Soon we’ll go to bed and maybe we’ll make love.

What happened a year ago is no longer important. It’s left me. I’ve moved on. I’m no longer trapped by it.

It’s amazing how quickly we adapt. I knew this would happen eventually, as time washes all things away, I just didn’t realise it would be so quick.

I’m happy for it to no longer be an active part of my life. It is still there in the odd unexpected memory and deep emotional scar, and I still talk about it from time to time in my now occasional therapy sessions, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s all completely over. Relegated to the past and attached to someone I no longer need to be.

Jason Fleitman changed his plea in an attempt to bargain down his sentence. It worked, for us both. I didn’t have to go to court, and Jason Fleitman was given a sentence that reflected his decision to cooperate in full. He was charged with five counts of rape and sentenced to eight years in prison. My father went to every single day of the trial, the last day of which, when his anger got the better of him, he was held in contempt of court.