I Love You to Death (4 page)

And once again, I wondered, when any of this was ever going to stop.

This morning though, when I finally drag myself out of bed, my computer is still on and there is one more message from Luke. He must have sent it shortly after his last email last night, but I didn’t see it.

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: I forgot

One other thing, my flatmate is organising a party in a couple of weeks.

Will you come along?

The guys from work will be there and I’d really like you to come…..

Shit. This is not good. This is definitely not good.

I know, despite what Sam’s letter said, despite what he asked me to do, this isn’t good. Because I just can’t do it.

I read his words again, trying once more to find a reason or a way out of all of this.

Dear Ash,

I know what you’re thinking. That this was your fault, that somehow, you caused this to happen. Let me say – YOU DIDN’T. I promise you, none of this is your fault - you don’t and never have caused any of it. It’s just dumb luck and wrong place, wrong time and a fucked up way of you having to go through life. I know you wouldn’t cause me to die, I know that because I love you and I know that you love me.

You are, without a doubt, the greatest thing to ever happen to me. I would never trade however long I was with you, for anything in the world, because to me, you are the world. You are my world.

I want you to be happy Ash. I want you to stop thinking you are doing this to people and I want you to go out there and live life. Be happy, travel the world, fall in love again and live. Know that no matter what, I always did and always will love you. One day I know I’ll see you again, but until then please be happy. I love you.

Sam x

But it doesn’t matter how many times I read it or try and convince myself his words are real, I’m never going to believe them.

After everything that’s happened, I just can’t.

Everything splits in two reflecting the dual nature of life

∞

Playlist
:

1. A Beautiful Lie – 30 Seconds to Mars

2. Bad – U2

3. Straight Jacket Feeling – The All-American Rejects

∞

At work I function pretty much like a normal person. I’ll smile at the customers, help decide which books they should buy and make their coffee for them. But it’s all a façade, a mask that I wear to hide the real me underneath. The me I don’t want anyone to know about, the me that hurts people. The me that even I wish would just go away.

My life has become all about hiding things, myself especially. Having one version I show to the world and one, the real one, which I keep just for me. Trying to live like that is hard, confusing and exhausting. But I don’t have a choice; I have to keep them separate. I have to make it work, so I figure I have two possible options.

The first is living but staying away from everyone. Of course running away might help, but where would I move to? I know Boston and like living here. I don’t know where else I could go. Plus the same problems would eventually arise. People meet me, people want to get to know me, and people end up dying because of me.

The other, more obvious one is death. I have considered suicide, briefly. I’m not going to lie, it scares me. I don’t want to try it for the simple reason that I don’t actually want to die. What I want is to stop everyone else dying. The problem is I can’t seem to do that, so I’m forced to resort to option one.

Option one is in many ways, harder. So I do the only thing I can, I stay afraid, I keep my distance and I bury it. I pretend and I lie to everyone around me that my life is completely normal. Even though I know, deep down I’m really only lying to myself.

∞

At work the week after the email incident with Luke, I decide it’s best if I just ignore him. I’m not sure what inspired him to contact me like that, but for his own sake it’s best if I don’t encourage it.

Under any other circumstances, his attention would be flattering. But after everything that’s happened, it’s just too dangerous. The problem is, Luke seems determined not to ignore me now. It’s like he wants to talk to me. Now it’s not just a case of me asking, "Hey Luke, want a coffee," and getting a, "Yeah sure thanks," in return.

Now it’s, "Hey Ash, how are you today, you do anything interesting last night?"

What am I supposed to say to that? No I didn’t do anything interesting. I never do anything interesting because I can’t do anything interesting by myself and I can’t ask anyone to do anything interesting with me. But of course that’s not what I say to him. Instead, I become the other me and I lie. "Yeah, hung out with a friend, watched a movie, you know."

He smiles in response and says, "Cool, maybe we should catch a movie sometime," in an off-hand way that half makes me think he doesn’t really mean it, and half makes me wonder if he does. My mask stays in place though. I smile, say nothing and go back to whatever it was I was doing.

Problem is, the mask occasionally slips and when it does, the real me gets out.

And that’s what happens today.

We have these two fish in a little tank on the counter in the shop. They’re nothing special, just regular gold fish, but I like them. I never had a pet growing up which is probably for the best when you think about it. Even though I have no real interaction with these two, I like coming in and finding them in the mornings. I feed them, maybe chat to them a little and then just get on with my day. This is pretty much what happens today. Except when I come back to the front after taking Luke his coffee, one of the fish has jumped out of the tank and is now flopping around on the counter.

"Shit," I say without thinking.

I don’t realise how loud I’ve said it until Luke comes out from the kitchen. "What’s up, everything alright Ash?"

I’m trying to pick the fish back up. It’s half jumping out of my hands, its last breath leaving its tiny body, and half slipping out. When it falls on to the floor, I bend to pick it up.

"Shit," I say again, dropping it back into the water. Luke is standing beside me now, a half smile on his face as he watches me try and rescue this stupid fish that’s apparently just decided to commit suicide. As I stand there watching the tank, one fish swimming alone in the bowl and one fish having thrown itself to its death, I can’t help but wonder if this is a sign or something. If maybe I should be seeing more here.

Which is the better option – all alone or all over?

Watching the dead fish now floating on the surface and the other fish coming up to it, as though it’s trying to ask what’s wrong, I wonder whether I should even be thinking about this at all. Should I just stop thinking and actually do something? The idea makes my head hurt and I have no idea what any of it means.

And just like that, I can feel myself slipping. Suddenly the mask I try so hard to keep in place, feels like it’s falling off. Suddenly every painful secret that I hold inside of me wants to come out, as though they’re all trying to escape like this stupid, dead fish. I can feel myself sliding and even though I’m trying desperately to hold on, today it’s just not enough.

With my hands on the counter, I lean down and press my head between them. "Shit," I mumble again.

"Hey Ash, it’s just a fish," I hear Luke say gently.

A deep breath escapes me. Of course it’s just a fish. It’s nothing more, it’s not a sign.

"Yeah I know Luke." My voice is flat and sounds foreign, even to me. "Just a stupid fish."

And that’s when I feel it. His hand. On my back. Gently rubbing it.

He doesn’t say anything, just slowly rubs circles on my back. I’m too scared to move, to even acknowledge what he’s doing. How did we go from me making him coffee, to him comforting me because of a stupid dead goldfish? This shouldn’t be happening. No one has touched me since Sam and now Luke has done it, twice. Inside, my body is rebelling, trying to tell me to get up, trying to make my head lift up off the counter and my legs walk away from him.
Move
, I’m screaming on the inside, while somehow remaining frozen in place on the outside. This isn’t good, he really shouldn’t be touching me.

Eventually it’s Luke who moves. He leans over me, scoops out the dead fish with his hand and takes it somewhere to get rid of it. I feel his whole body as it presses against mine and it’s all I can do not to explode in response.

Because when he does this, it all comes flooding back.

The longing to be touched again, to be comforted as he has unknowingly just done. No matter how much I pretend I don’t want it, I still do, I still want all of it. It’s so unbelievably painful, still so raw. But, no matter what I think I might want, it’s overridden by the fear. The fear of what could and what I know will happen in the end.

Only when he’s gone, do I get up. Only when he’s gone, do I let out the breath I didn’t realise I was holding. Only when he’s gone, do I blink away the tears that have somehow formed in my eyes. And it’s only when he’s gone, that I finally let myself register the warmth from when his body touched mine, the warmth that I want so badly and which I now realise is missing.

I move away from the counter so by the time he comes back, I’m doing something else. I’m far enough away that he can’t touch me again. Luke doesn’t say anything, just watches me for a minute as if trying to work out whether he should say something more, before turning and heading back into the kitchen.

I don’t look at him at all.

I can’t.

∞

That first touch, that unexpected but not entirely unwanted first touch. I can remember when it happened for the very first time, so clearly, even now. His name was Adam and I fell desperately in love with him. What began as a high school crush turned into so much more because for some reason, he took a chance on me. I’d never thought I stood a chance, but really in the end, it was him that didn’t. I just didn’t know it at the time.

I’d admired him from afar for so long, a typical unrequited school girl crush I had no intention of doing anything about. It wasn’t just that he was a year above me and therefore way out of my league; I was also too shy, too afraid of the rejection. Adam was the kind of guy who stood out, but who managed to do so without being a complete dick about it. He was good at sports and friendly to everyone, and although he was part of the "in crowd," he wasn’t the most popular guy in school. I’d seen him with a couple of different girls from time and time, but had never heard the rumours like I’d heard with some of the others. He just seemed to be the kind of person who everyone really liked, but who was also nice to people at the same time. I think that was part of his appeal, he was nice and he was hot, but it was like he had absolutely no idea about it. Still, I knew I was never going to be one of the people he spoke to, let alone had anything to do with.

But for reasons I still don’t understand, apparently he’d noticed me too and in the end it was Adam who made the first move. I was in the library at the time, trying to do some homework. He’d wandered over and was standing there just staring at me.

"You want some help with that?" he finally asked.

I looked up and saw him standing there, waiting for my answer. I didn’t know what to say. Of course I needed help, but did I really want to admit that to him of all people?

"Sorry, I don’t mean to be rude or anything, but the look on your face kinda suggests you might?" he continued, the start of a smile forming on his mouth as he said it.

I didn’t know if he was making fun of me or not, none of his friends were around, so I breathed out, took a chance and said, "Yeah I don’t really understand it actually."

So Adam sat down and that was the start of it. I was sixteen at the time, he was a year older and from that day on, he’d ask me if I wanted help with my homework. It started off as just help. I’d be in the library every lunch anyway and every couple of days he would come in. He just kept asking me and so I kept on saying yes.

Then one day he asked instead, "How come you’re always in here at lunch?"

I felt myself blush. I was in here every day because I had no one out there to talk to, but how could I tell him that?

"Ash?" he said gently, his fingers reaching out and lightly touching my arm.

And that was when I felt it. The fire that immediately jolted through me in response to his touch, it was like nothing I’d ever felt before, indescribable and I’m sure my face flushed even more. If he hadn’t realised earlier, he surely must know now that I liked him. But I couldn’t even tell him why I spent my lunches hidden in the library, much less admit how I felt about him, so I just shrugged in response and ducked my head, hoping he wouldn’t see my embarrassment.

He must have, but his response to it surprised me. I nearly fell off my chair when he said, "Maybe you could have lunch outside with me one day?"

When I looked up at him I could see he was serious. I didn’t know what to say. I’d never been asked out by a guy before and now I felt even shyer. But his fingers were still lightly brushing my arm and he looked sincere when he said again, "I’d really like to have a lunch with you, not just help you with your homework."

"Why?" I couldn’t help but blurt out.

He smiled at me then, his fingers gently moving over my skin. "At first it was because I thought you were cute," he said, blushing a little now too. "I used to watch you sitting in here chewing on your pencil, a look on your face like you were trying to solve all the world’s problems. But then, when I finally worked up the courage to come and talk to you, I realised it was more than that." He was definitely blushing now and it made me feel a little better, made me start to think he meant what he was saying. "Then I started to realise how much I liked hanging out with you," he continued quietly.