So Much to Learn (45 page)

In the face of
his defeat I went on the attack walking a few steps after him as he
strode towards his room. "So you're not even going to try and
convince me that nothing happened?" I asked. "You have nothing to
say about it?"

"What's the
point?" Jack shot back. "It seems that it doesn't matter what I do
you won't trust me. You run hot and cold on me so I never know
where I am with you. Whatever, it doesn't matter, you're never
going to trust me and I think I'm reaching the stage where I can't
be bothered expending the energy trying to convince you
anymore."

Ow, ow, ow. It
all hurt too much. I wanted to tell him that he was wrong, that I
did trust him but I really had no proof. All my actions indicated
that I was using him in the worst way and was ever on the alert to
catch him doing the same to me.

As Jack reached
his room, however, I had to call out, "Jack."

"What?" He
snapped, clearly entirely out of patience with me by that
stage.

"You can't stay
here, you have to go down to the pub, remember?" My voice was
apologetic as I added, "And please let me be there when you tell
Matt, we'll do it tomorrow, yeah?"

"Sure," Jack
said heavily, grabbing a jacket and marching past me to the flat
door, "wouldn't want anything to spoil the celebration."

I almost
laughed at that. I wasn't going to stupidly tempt fate like some
idiot in a film by saying 'Could this day get any worse?' Because I
knew, from past experience and just generally how the day had been
thus far, that the answer was yes. I'd hit rock bottom, but there
was nothing to say that I wasn't going to just keep digging.

I stood
nervously outside the door leading to Haley's flat and told myself
sternly that I had been brought up to behave better than I had
been. Quickly running a little montage of all my stroppy, pathetic
moments that I'd had recently involving Haley, and cringing majorly
at my conduct, I managed to gird my loins enough to reach up and
knock decisively on the door.

"Who is it?"
The cracked, hoarse voice of someone who had clearly been smoking
for a very long time sounded so loudly near me that I jumped and
actually looked behind me thinking that someone was behind me.
Seeing no-one I faced the door, so like my own, once more.

"Um, it's
Natalia from upstairs," I answered, surprising myself with the use
of my full name, but feeling that that creepy voice demanded the
formality. "I'm a friend of Haley's." OK, so technically a lie but
if it was in aid of apologising to her it couldn't be that wrong,
right?

There was the
sound of someone undoing deadlocks and, looking at the door
closely, I saw that there were three as opposed to the one that our
door had. The door opened a crack revealing a security chain and a
pair of pale, rheumy eyes peering out at me.

It was all a
bit creepy actually. They had a security chain? Who on earth did
they think was going to break in?

I smiled
reassuringly at the old lady looking through the gap at me. So I
was finally meeting Haley's aunt, by the looks of her she must have
been a great aunt, she appeared positively ancient.

"Hi, is it
alright if I pop in and see Haley for a moment?" I asked in my most
polite and friendly voice. You know the one, the tone you reserve
for elderly people, and it's really hard to keep the patronising
note out, isn't it?

The door was
closed slightly as she removed the chain and then she opened it
totally and appraised me frankly. It must be said that I did the
same. She was tiny and frail looking, but I was willing to bet that
she was a bit of a battleaxe. Her hands seemed like claws and were
stained brown with nicotine and her mouth was surrounded by the
purse lines long time smokers get. Of course it could just be that
she pursed her lips with disapproval a lot as she was doing at that
moment.

Fitting in with
the theme of the day, she did not look at all impressed with
me.

"She's crying
in her room. That's your fault I suppose?"

I gulped, this
woman could combat my mum in terms of disconcerting bluntness.
"Yes, probably," I admitted. "I'm here to apologise."

"Just as well,"
she grumbled, moving aside and allowing me in. "Haley's room is
over there," she added, pointing towards a closed door with a
gnarled finger.

"Thanks," I
said, squaring my shoulders and picking my way around the various
pieces of antique looking furniture in the main room which was so
similar to my flat upstairs and yet so different. You know how
doilies seem to have disappeared from mainstream use? Well, I think
I found out where they've gone. It was like Haley's aunt was
running a rescue shelter for all things old and musty.

I knocked
lightly on Haley's door, conscious of her aunt's gaze on me and
hoping Haley would open up quickly so I could escape her
disapproving glare.

"I'm fine thank
you, " Haley's weak voice filtered through the door and I felt a
flash of sympathy for her having to continually use that 'old
person' voice when at home.

"It's Talia," I
called out. "Can I come in?"

Haley made
strange noise somewhere between a squeak of surprise and a sob and
then said hesitantly, "Sure."

I opened the
door and then closed it quickly behind myself, wanting to put
something solid between me and Haley's scary aunt.

It took me a
minute for my eyes to adjust to the brightness of the room after
the frankly dank main room. Haley's room was about as far removed
from the heavy darkness of what was obviously the aunt's domain as
it was possible to be. There was a lot of white, a white chest of
drawers, a white cupboard, a white wicker chair, and a white bed
with a white doona on top of it. The walls were painted a light
green with little swirls of lighter colour through it making it
seem as if it was rolling ocean, the whole effect was actually very
pretty.

I focused back
on task quickly as Haley let out a little sniffle. She was sitting
cross legged on the bed, there was a box of tissues next to her and
a dishevelled looking bit of tissue clutched in her hand. She
looked so miserable I felt like the biggest type of rat there could
possibly be.

"Is it alright
if I sit down?" I asked, gesturing towards the bed and she nodded
and shuffled back a bit so there was room for me to join her.

Once I was
settled she threw her tissue into the bin and looked at me with a
tiny little spark of defiance I'd never seen in her wide blue eyes
before.

"I suppose Jack
sent you," she sniffed, pushing a soft wave of her light brown hair
behind one of her ears.

"No, he
didn't," I said softly. "I mean, he wanted me to apologise of
course, but I think he wanted to come down and make sure you were
alright first."

She smiled
slightly then sighed. "He's sweet. You're really lucky, you know?"
She said, envy virtually dripping out of her tone.

I nodded, I
truly was despite all the nonsense I was wrapped up in at that
moment.

"I am," I
agreed. "And I know I don't appreciate it sometimes. Look Haley
I've really got to apologise. I've been having a rotten time
recently, but that’s absolutely no excuse for going feral at
you."

Haley nodded
and then gave a little smile. "You know I'm actually kind of glad
you yelled at me finally, I was getting kind of sick of the snide
remarks."

Damn, she'd
noticed those? Then again I suppose she would have had to be pretty
obtuse to miss them. There was silence in the room as I struggled
to stop myself falling into such a great pit of guilt that I would
be useless at apologising. Haley broke it by saying suddenly, "I
just don't understand why you hate me so much! I've always gone out
of my way to be really nice to you."

Gah, this was
excruciating. As mean as I might seem, I really hated the idea of
sitting down and discussing with someone why exactly it was that I
didn't like them but that was kind of what I had to do to explain
myself.

"You
have
always been really nice to me," I agreed apologetically, "and
therein may lie the problem."

"I was
too
nice to you?"

Well may she
look totally incredulous, it does seem pretty weird…even to me.

"Maybe not that
exactly, but you treated me differently," I clarified. "When the
guys are around you're really perky and giggly but when it's just
us girls you clam up and refuse to speak to Simone and I, like
you're too good for us or something."

"But that not
it!" She protested. "I just don’t know what to say to you. You and
Simone are so cool and confident and I thought you'd rather I
pretended I wasn't there when we were together."

Cool and
confident? Boy was this girl bad at reading people!

"Well, maybe
we've managed to get stuck at cross purposes then," I said
slowly.

"Maybe," Haley
said quietly, biting her bottom lip nervously and then saying
quickly, "I never meant to make you think I was insincere or only
after the guys, I really thought we could be friends, but you acted
like I was the enemy from the get go and I didn't know how to
change your mind."

I hated to
admit it, but she was actually totally right. I'd decided pretty
much the second I met her that she was the enemy. People seem to
forget that guys aren't the only ones who get stupidly protective
over their friends and family. I'm ludicrously close to both Matt
and Jack and I must have somehow thought that she were trying to
tear us apart…or maybe it wasn't even that, I miserably admitted to
myself, maybe it was just that I didn't like another girl
encroaching on my territory.

"Oh my God!" I
suddenly exclaimed as I hit a massive realisation. "I'm like Micky.
I've been your Micky."

She smiled
slightly at that, but I wasn't trying to be funny. I really just
had had the most awful epiphany.

"You weren't as
bad as Micky," she tried to reassure me, but I was having none of
it.

"I pre-judged
you and gave you a whole lot of grief you didn't deserve, didn't
I?" I asked. "So then in principle I am, I'm a bloody Micky and I'm
really, truly sorry."

"That's OK." Haley looked a little uncomfortable at my obvious
distress. "You were right with some things. I
do
pretend to like football although
I have no idea what's going on and sometimes my clothes are
inappropriate for the weather."

"Oh, so you
do
feel the cold then?" I asked before I could stop
myself.

She didn't seem
offended, however, she just gave a little laugh and nodded. "Yeah
sometimes I'm freezing!"

"So why do you
wear what you do?"

"Because," she
suddenly covered her face with her hands and mumbled through them,
"I'm going to sound really pathetic, but it's because that's what
everyone else wears." She peeped at me over the top of her fingers.
"Awful, right?"

I shrugged,
trying to be diplomatic, "Wear whatever you like. Nobody,
especially a jeans addict like myself should pass judgement on what
you want to wear. Please don't waste time thinking that any of my
nasty opinions actually have any merit to them. You are so pretty
I'm sure you'd look just fine in a sack."

I couldn't stop
my voice from sounding a little bit grudging, but when she blushed,
I did manage to hold back a sigh at the way it made her seem sweet
and innocent rather than like she was suffering from a bad case of
sunburn like it did with me. After all, that really wasn't her
fault.

Wow, looked
like I was improving already!

"I'm not as
pretty as you," Haley said after a moment and I snorted loudly at
this obvious lie. "No, I'm serious," she protested. "You don't see
the looks guys give you, you're so confident, you don't let anyone
mess you about and they think it's hot." She flushed even deeper at
this and I rolled my eyes.

"There's a
difference between staring at someone because they've just marched
in and made a total fool of themselves and staring at someone
because they think they're attractive," I said forcefully. "You
could have any guy you want, but you’ll only flirt with the group
of guys you hang out with. As soon as anybody else comes near you
clam up. I've always thought that was because you only wanted Matt
or one of the others, but that's not it, is it?"

She hugged a
pillow to her chest and shook her head sadly. "I'm shy," she
murmured. "And maybe it seemed like I was too clingy, always coming
round and everything, but Matt and the others seemed to like me. I
didn't even care that it was probably only because they felt sorry
for me because other guys don't want anything to do with me."

Ergh! I wanted
to grab her shoulders and shake her! How could she be so blind? I
quickly felt my frustration subsiding, however, to be replaced with
sympathy and a little bit of embarrassment that I could have read
her so wrong.

"Oh, Haley," I
sighed, "we're both of us useless at this guy thing, aren't
we?"

"Not you,
you've got Jack," she said encouragingly.

Something in my
chest contracted cruelly at her words and I shook my head. "No I
don't," I told her truthfully, "I never did, not really. It wasn't
real, any of it, I kind of talked him into teaching me about being
with a guy because I was so rubbish at it."

Her eyes
widened and I could see she was trying to understand what I meant,
after all it sounded pretty weird. I wasn't in the mood to properly
explain my full pathetic exploits then, however, especially not to
someone I had only just stopped hating.

I looked down
at her bedspread in shame at what I'd done and so was surprised
when she said softly, "I don't know the full details of how you and
Jack came about, but you only have to look at him to see how much
he cares about you."