Chapter 18
The next morning, I woke up with a hangover.
But it wasn’t one that I knew could be fixed with a day of eating carbs and staring at the ceiling.
I stayed in my bed for as long as I could, until the need for something fatty and fried became too urgent.
I pulled on leggings – even jeans felt too restrictive.
I didn’t look at myself in the mirror but I knew what would be there – eye makeup collected under my eyes and a mat of formerly perfect waves.
I almost made it to the bottom of my staircase, but Alex was sitting on the final step.
‘Are you the Sphinx I need to riddle my way past?’ I tried for a light tone, but didn’t pull it off.
‘What happened last night?’ he asked.
I wanted to give him an answer. I’d had the most magical night of my life. ‘I don’t know,’ I said.
‘There’s something between us,’ he said. ‘I thought maybe, at the start, it was like... a meeting of minds. But it’s more than that.’
He stopped but I didn’t fill the silence. I didn’t know what to say. Both my body and brain felt numb. The deluge of emotions I’d felt last night had faded to nothingness.
‘I’ve always felt lonely with other people,’ he said. ‘Like I didn’t understand them, and they didn’t understand me. But with you... I feel the opposite of lonely. You’re smart but you wear it lightly, you’re funny and gorgeous.’
He paused again as I turned my eyes to the dark stone walls, not knowing what to do with the compliment.
‘Please look at me, Rebecca. Because I think you feel the same way about me,’ he said. ‘I mean, maybe not the gorgeous part...’
I exhaled the breath I’d held because I couldn’t help but laugh. Alex was so beautiful that it wasn’t even subjective – though I was willing to bet that the only time he ever looked in a mirror was when he was brushing his teeth. And even then, I was sure his mind would be a million miles away.
‘I do,’ I said, meeting his stare again. ‘Including the gorgeous part.’
‘I think you’re scared,’ he said with conviction – in a tone that I bet had impressed his med school interviewers and scholarship assessors.
‘You’re wrong. I’m not scared,’ I said, then swallowed. ‘I’m... bloody petrified.’
‘Why?’
‘Because of what we feel right now. This thing that feels... big and powerful,’ I said.
He nodded.
‘It hurts people,’ I said, willing myself not to cry. ‘I don’t want to feel something so strongly that I can’t... think clearly.’
‘Your parents?’ he asked after a moment.
‘Yeah.’ I sat down on a cold step above Alex. I cleared my throat.
‘My mum left my dad for another man just before I started year twelve. She was my best friend – we were really close,’ I said. ‘And then she just blew up everything because she lost her mind and... fell in love.
‘Not that any of that is the point. The point is that I felt like the most naive person in the world. I just... didn’t see it coming at all.
I knew that Mum got frustrated that Dad worked so hard and had to travel so much.
But I thought she liked that it was just the two of us together.
But, yeah, I was wrong.’ I laughed bitterly, my feet resting on the edge of a stone step worn smooth with age.
‘I asked Mum to stay. She’d always stayed home when I’d asked, whether I was sick or just overwhelmed. She would stay if I asked. Except she looked me straight in the eyes and told me that she couldn’t. Mum was the constant in my life – the person I could absolutely rely on. And then she wasn’t.’
I blinked my stinging eyes a few times and then ran my sleeve across my face when that didn’t work.
‘I know she loves me,’ I said with an involuntary sniff. ‘But it wasn’t enough. The type of love she felt for him was bigger.’
‘I can’t imagine what it must have felt like for your mum to choose to leave,’ he said.
I felt a flood of relief. He didn’t dismiss or minimise what I’d told him, or the pain I’d tried and failed to disguise.
In fact, his tone bordered on condemnation.
And I knew why. His mum had left too. But I knew that she would have done anything in the world to stay – to still be with her son.
I’d never spoken to anyone about this chapter in my family’s history.
Partly because it didn’t feel dramatic enough to make a big song and dance over.
I was the daughter of two doctors who’d lived pretty smooth lives.
So I’d had one little road bump to contend with when I was a teenager, one that happened to heaps of people. So what?
I never wanted anyone to see this dark and twisty part of my brain (or was it my heart?). I didn’t want them to judge how I felt or encourage me to take a more generous position. Alex hadn’t done that, he’d validated how I felt.
‘What was it like when you lost your mum?’ I asked.
A shadow crossed his face. He looked down and fiddled with a loose thread on his college tracksuit pants. Then he looked up, and his eyes, which looked almost inky blue in the darker light of the stairwell, met mine.
‘I made Mum a promise before she died. She wasn’t conscious or anything, but I told her that I’d fix the thing that broke her.
‘I think that if I hadn’t made that promise, a promise that felt bigger than the sadness, to focus on, I would have gone to a dark place.
But there wasn’t room for feelings when I had to top med school, then work a million hours as a registrar and get a scholarship to come here,’ he said.
‘I think having this thing to do for Mum sort of saved me. Who needs anti-depressants if you don’t have time to think? ’
I laughed even though it wasn’t really a joke.
‘I went down the medication route,’ I admitted. ‘I got anxious after Mum left. I’d always been a wound-up kid, but after she left, I started to have panic attacks. Not that I really knew what they were. Grandma Evelyn noticed, and a GP prescribed me Xanax for when things became too much.’
‘Did it help?’
‘Yeah, it did. But I was like a bingo card for side effects – I got nausea, fatigue, dizziness and blackouts. I took one of the pills the night of my year twelve formal, washed it down with a glass of champagne, and I don’t have a single memory of the night.
I’m in about a thousand of the photos that my classmates uploaded to Facebook.
Lily and Stella said I acted totally normal the whole time, but I don’t remember a thing. ’
‘That must have been really scary,’ he said.
‘It was the first time my parents had been in the same room since the split, so it’s probably a good thing that I don’t have any memories of the night,’ I said lightly.
Alex didn’t smile.
‘I learned how to stay on top of the anxiety stuff without medication after that. I worked out that if I slept enough, ate well, stayed away from Mum, made lists... I could manage it.’
There was silence between us, one that we both needed to metabolise the confessions we’d made, revealing the invisible cuts and bruises we were still nursing.
‘You outsmarted your feelings,’ he said.
‘So did you,’ I replied. ‘Except when I’m with you, I feel a bit like I did back then. Like I’m not really in control of myself.’
I paused again to gather my thoughts, which had been careening around. But I knew that Alex understood everything I was saying.
‘I grew up thinking that following your heart was the most important thing in the world. “Love your job and you’ll never work a day in your life.” “You only get one life.” Dad used to say stuff like this all the time.
He loves his work so much,’ I said. ‘But... I saw that love, love like Mum felt, and following your desire without thinking about anyone else, can hurt other people,’ I said.
‘I don’t want to feel like she did. Ever. ’
He turned his head away for a moment, his chin buried in his hand like The Thinker come to life. Then he looked back up the stairs at me.
‘I think we’re different from other people. So, let’s promise that we’ll do us differently,’ he said. ‘We won’t lose our heads. We won’t hurt each other.’
‘We’ve only got this one summer term. After it ends, we’re going to live on different sides of the world,’ I said quickly.
‘I know,’ he said.
‘How about we agree that we’re just a... summer fling. No losing our heads. No hurting each other. Just... fun,’ I said. I wanted to be with him. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to stay away from him. But I couldn’t just be with him. Not without a plan, not without some guarantees, some protection.
He smiled, lighting up his whole face. ‘Okay,’ he said.
I grinned back, then bounced my Lycra-encased bottom down one hard stair then another until I was next to him.
‘No one gets hurts. I promise,’ he said.
Our outfits were the opposite of glamorous, the dark stone staircase was the opposite of romantic.
He leaned towards me and his lips met mine.
I understood that energy followed the rules of physics.
But right then, I didn’t believe it because the release of whatever energy had built up between us over the last few days defied anything kinetic, nuclear or otherwise.
I moved into his lap, and my tongue moved into his mouth.
I felt a silent groan vibrate from his soft lips.
Something pulsed through me, the same thing I’d felt the night before – was that what proper, all-consuming desire felt like?
I’d been certain feelings like it were a fiction, the stuff of books with swooning people on the cover and movies where lovers kissed in the rain at the end.
And, as I felt his arms wrap around me with far less hesitancy, I couldn’t help but smile. From our first conversation our brains had fitted together. But now I knew that our bodies did too. And I fully intended to spend the summer making Alex’s body my specialist subject.