21. Chapter 20
Chapter 20
Katherine
“ H ey, sweetie. How was the party?” Ella asks me as I walk into the kitchen the next morning.
“Yeah, it was good.” I lie, I don’t want to tell her I had a panic attack and I don’t want to tell her that James calmed me down like Dad used to do and then drove me home. So, it’s better to lie.
“I saw James’ truck pull out of the driveway in the early hours.”
She lifts her eyebrows as she looks at me this time and I give myself an extra minute by biting into an apple in front of me. How does this woman know everything?
She’s not giving up and stares at me like she might burn right through me. “He drove me home, that’s all,” I tell her, and it’s not a total lie this time. My voice is much calmer than I thought possible, all things considered.
Her eyes squint together for another second and then she lets it go. “ Well, I guess I need to go relieve James from the shop.”
I think for a minute whether to offer to go instead.
Not because I want to see him or anything like that. Not because I woke up in a cold sweat last night after reliving every interaction we’ve had the whole time I’ve been here. Thinking over the words he told me last night.
I never hated you.
But because I feel bad about it all and ruining his night. And maybe I think I should go say thank you or something to him before it gets weird between us again, but who am I kidding? It was never not weird between us.
I try to rationalise a lot about last night. I tell myself the only reason he helped me is because he knew if he didn’t, Ella would be mad at him. I tell myself it was all the alcohol in my system that made me think he was looking at me in the way I thought he was. A way that told me he wanted me in the same way I did him.
Maybe an extra day will mean it’s not awkward tomorrow? I have to hope that’s the case.
“Oh, darling, there’s a parcel for you as well,” Ella shouts from the front door and I run to grab it from her before waving her off as she pulls out of the driveway.
I go back to the kitchen, grab a pair of scissors and jump up on one of the chairs around the island. The box isn’t that big and Mom didn’t say she was sending anything and I definitely didn’t order anything, or did I? No, there’s a postage stamp from the U.S. on it, must be Mom.
As I open it there’s a letter lying on the top in a blue envelope. I open it and it’s not Mom’s handwriting, it's Nick’s.
Hey Katy,
How are you? Now don’t laugh at the fact I’m writing to you, Bella already did that for like an hour. I know I could just send an email but this seemed better. Something you could keep in that little box under your bed you have (we all know it exists).
I miss you. That’s probably obvious, I thought it was easy. You know, we did the whole me going to collage thing and it was okay. I missed you, but it was okay. Maybe it’s because I knew you were still in the city and that made it okay cause you were home even if I wasn’t but this is different. This is harder.
I’m sorry, I don’t want to make you feel bad or sad or worry, or anything. I just wanted you to know I’m thinking of you.
I hope everything’s going alright, you’ve only been gone two months when I sent this, so by the time you get it, I’ll miss you even more.
I’m good. I've been applying to a few video game design jobs and programs, some here, some in Spain, guess it’s best to keep my options open, you know?
Me, Bella, Mom, Dad and your mom went for dinner the other day. Don’t worry about her too much, she's got us until you come back.
Anyway, I saw this the other day in the thrift store you like and I thought of you, I hope you like it.
Love, Nick x
It’s handwritten and you can see where he’s scribbled over things, and I hug it to my chest for what I’m certain is a whole minute. I didn’t keep up my promise.
I haven’t been in touch with him as much as I should be. At first, I didn’t have anything to say to him, and now, I don’t know.
The whole thing about wanting him to be my soulmate wasn’t a lie. So, it’s hard when I’m out here looking for mine and he’s back home. If I didn’t feel the need to be with my soulmate so much, like I had to find them, maybe I’d just go home and learn to love him in a different way than I do now. But I’d always be wondering ‘what if’ and that’s not fair to him.
Or me either, I guess.
I never knew if he felt the same when we were younger but we’ve always had this… thing. The way we’d hold hands on the subway, or the way I’d lean into him when we sat on the couch together and the way his hand would rest on my knee. Just this thing . I think Dad hoped we’d be together in a way; Nick is safe, he’s home. But he’s not at the same time. And I think it’s only now that I’m here that I realize that .
Once I stop wanting to cry, I finally lift the brown paper out of the box and then I start laughing.
It’s not what I had expected, maybe a bag, some kind of jewellery, but I did not expect this.
It's a Taylor Swift Fearless Tour t-shirt from 2009, the tour we went to. The top I got then, when I was eleven, stopped fitting when I was like fifteen and I got rid of it. I hug the shirt for a moment, too.
Then I hurry to get dressed and take it with me. I pull it on with a pair of jean shorts. I take a picture making sure to get the top in it the most and send it to him with a message saying ‘I love it!! Thank you so much.’
I want to say more, I want to tell him so much, but I don’t want to put it in a text. I want to put it in a letter, too. I want him to have something to put in his metaphorical box under the bed. So I send another. ‘Look out for a letter coming your way.’ I don’t want him to think I’m dismissing the letter either.
The next day rolls around and after popping to the post office to send Nick a letter that I wrote last night, along with some of my new favourite Australian snacks, Tim Tams, I walk into the shop. I’m totally fine and calm about seeing James today.
Not.
I gave myself a pep talk before I left the house and while in the car. I also thought over every scenario with everything he might say to me today .
I lock eyes with Maddie at the register and she smiles but it’s a little hollow and I hope to god she’s not mad at me. She has every right to be, I caused a scene in front of her friends and probably embarrassed her.
“Where’s James?” I ask her. I’m not sure if I want to say thank you, or sorry, or what, but I know I’m meant to work with him today. I spent a lot of this morning thinking of a hundred things to say depending on what he was going to say or not say.
“Another personal day,” she tells me, not looking up as she logs off ready for me to take over for the day.
I watch Gregg talk with some parents at the front of the shop as I walk over to her lowering my voice. “Another?” I question. Ella hadn’t said anything about him not being there yesterday when she got back, I guess why would she.
Now, I’m starting to question why I care and why I’m bothered. I like working with Gregg, he's about the same age as Ella and it’s nice to hear stories of Ella from when she first got to Australia and the customers love him, so normally my shifts are pretty chill with him.
But I’m bothered.
I’m bothered why he’s not here.
Maddie doesn’t make eye contact with me as she speaks, literally looking anywhere but me. I hope it’s not because of the other night, I hope I haven’t ruined our friendship, but I feel as though I might have.
I feel even more deflated thinking that I’ve ruined all of that because I was angry at James, because I overreacted. Because I made James leave early.
“Yeah he had to take yesterday off too, he’s fine just…family stuff.” She keeps it short but her voice is off .
“Maddie are we…are we okay?” I feel small and like a child again and what I really want to ask is Do you hate me? Because that’s what my brain is telling me.
“Us? Oh, Kat, yeah of course we’re fine.” She runs a hand through her hair before pulling me in for a hug and all the air leaves my body at once, knowing I haven’t ruined this. She pulls back smiling at me again. “I promise we’re good, if you’re asking about the party, it’s honestly not a big deal, don’t worry about it. I’ve just been up early, nothing to do with you, promise.”
James obviously didn’t tell her about anything after I left the living room, which I’m glad for. “Okay, okay good. I’ll see you soon.”
She smiles at me again and then waves to me as she leaves.
But the strange feeling doesn't leave my stomach for most of the day. I find it hard to concentrate and find myself refolding a towel about twenty times.
Not even the cute puppy that comes in with a woman picking out a new wetsuit picks up my mood.
“Desperate times call for desperate measures,” I tell myself.
I go into autopilot as I search through the employee records on the computer. I’m sure searching for his address is all kinds of wrong, an evasion of his privacy that I’m sure he’ll remind me about later. But right now I don’t seem to care, the rational side of my brain is checked out and I can’t go another day not knowing what he’s going to say to me. It's driving me insane, the uncertainty of it all. There’s no talking myself out of it.
I text Ella that I’ll be home a bit late as I lock up the shop and wave Gregg off as he jumps in his car.
I look down at my phone's maps and think about it for the whole of two more minutes and then get into my car and head off.
I’ve been sitting in my car for maybe twenty minutes thinking over what a bad idea this is. The last time I saw James, he was driving me home after our weirdest interaction ever. Was he incredibly sweet and kind? Yes. I don’t know if that changes anything between us, but it changed something in me. I know that.
I can’t sit here and lie that much, I can’t hate him any more, not after what he did for me. He could have left me to sit and cry and panic but he didn’t. After everything I’ve said to him he sat there with me, held my hand and took me home. Not after what he said. I promised myself I wouldn’t think about it but I can’t help it.
I never hated you.
I can’t get that out of my head.
A man staggers as he opens the door. He’s old but the kind of old that comes from experience and not time. He's probably only in his fifties but wrinkles and dark circles around his eyes make him seem so much older.
“Hello, Sir.” Looking at this man I actually have no idea what I’m doing here, why I’ve gone here or what I’m going to say when I actually see him. “I’ve come to see James, I’m a… we-we work together.”
I couldn’t call us friends, could I?
Definitely not. Even if I don’t hate him any more.
Me falling over my own words doesn’t seem to bother the man who’s using the door frame to keep himself up. It’s not until then that I notice the beer bottle in his hand .
He’s looking me over as I stand there awkwardly wiping my hands over my shorts repeatedly, the thought of getting back in the car and leaving crosses my mind several times.
“James, someone here for you,” he shouts back into the house, a smile on his face now. The kind I’ve only seen on James a handful of times, the kind that reaches his eyes, making the wrinkles around his eyes more prominent.
I can feel my heart start to slow back to a normal pace again when I see James appear in the doorway, it’s a strange feeling that concerns me. The same I had last night when he was with me in the bathroom. Almost like when he’s around, I feel calmer, safer. I like it.
Jesus.
“What is it, Dad?” James asks as he comes up behind, his height even more noticeable as he towers over him.
“A girl here for you,” he says, the smile still plastered on his face.
James finally turns his attention towards me and I watch as his eyes grow wide, surprised, but he regains his usual flat face from seeing me. He doesn’t say anything to me, just turns back to his dad.
“Dad, why don’t you go back inside, I’ll be back in a minute,” he says patting his own dad on the shoulder, the parent child dynamic here seems to be backwards and some pieces fall into place.
“It was nice to meet you—” he stammers.
“Katherine,” I answer him back.
“It was nice to meet you, Katherine,” he says moving back into the house, unsteady on his feet as he goes.
“What are you doing here, Katherine?” James asks me through gritted teeth once his dad is out of ear shot, leaning up against the door frame, arms crossed over his chest.
Hostile, okay, good start. It’s as if the guy who drove me home and told me he didn’t hate me doesn’t exist at all .
I plaster a smile on my face. “Don’t you mean ‘It’s lovely to see you, Katherine,’” I say back, trying to lighten the mood.
“I don’t have time for this.” He goes to grab the door and go back inside. But then I do the one thing I know I shouldn’t. I grab his wrist, turning him back around before he can leave.
And then there it is. The burn, I’m not drunk now so I know it’s not a product of alcohol—and it’s killing me. Killing me not knowing why. God, I hate things I don’t know, and from the look on his face as he looks up from my hand to my face, he feels it too.
“I wanted to see if you were okay. You’d been gone for a couple of days, and I just,” I don’t know what I’m trying to say. Words are something I’m not lost for often, if ever, but he’s making my head foggy. Like a tide coming in and I’m drowning in it. I don’t like it. I don’t like this feeling, whatever it is.
We stand there for a moment, my hand around his wrist. He’s looking me over like he’s done a hundred times before, but this time, it feels like his eyes are burning into me. I wondered how long I can take it, how long I can take being burnt alive by his stare.
Not long.
I feel my hand start to get clammy under the end of day heat, his body heat and whatever this burning feeling is. I slip my hand from around his wrist and take a step back putting distance between us again. Like a smart Katherine should do.
“And you just care?” he asks so matter of factly with his ever present cocky smirk on his face. Now, I just kinda want to slap him. How does he do this? Make my feelings towards him flip flop so quickly. I don’t know what I was thinking, maybe that after the other night we could just be okay, that maybe I was a person to him, and not a silly girl looking for her soulmate.
The feeling spreading from my hand to my chest disappears. “Wow, here I was thinking maybe I did after the other night. I knew I’d regret this. Nothings changed.” I turn to walk back to my car. This was a mistake. The guy who sat on the floor the other night clearly wasn’t really him, he was an imposter, a nice twin, the evil ones back in play and I’m making a fool of myself.
I don’t know why I came and I knew I shouldn’t have. I don’t care, and I couldn’t possibly have been worried about him.
Or maybe I did care and that only makes me feel worse.
“Wait,” he calls out and now he’s the one with his hand around my wrist. His hand engulfs it. “I’m sorry.” He pauses like it actually pains him to say this to me, I can’t help but smile, James being uncomfortable is something I can deal with. “Thank you for checking in on me.” For once the look in his eyes seems sincere even if the words seem foreign coming from his month. “Sit?” he asks, gesturing to the bench on the porch.
I look over his face again before his hand slips down my arm grazing my hand before falling to his side. I walk over to the bench and sit down ever so reluctantly.
He doesn’t sit but leans on the railing of the porch across from me, hands either side of him on the bar running across. The early evening sun slips over his face making him almost look golden, like a beautiful statue I shouldn’t be allowed so close to. I sit with my hands in my lap looking down at them, I feel like I’ve been looking at him too much.
When I finally look up he’s already looking at me, boring into me with his eyes, the flames in my chest that extinguished themselves a minute ago fan back to life. “So, are you okay?” I finally ask, the silence eating at me a bit too much.
“Yeah.” He looks toward his front door before looking back at me. “Just had to take a couple of days to help my dad.” He pauses again also like he’s thinking over what he should say, wondering whether to say it or not. I’m surprised when he continues. “He’s… my dad. He's had a lot of drinking problems since my mum left eight years ago.”
I feel like I’ve just seen him for the first time. Like the James I’ve seen this whole time wasn’t really him in any way. I wonder if his mum left his dad for her soulmate and god my heart hurts for him. Any pieces of the puzzle in front of me that had been lost or couldn’t find their place slide into view and I feel like maybe I never had the whole picture.
“He’s been on and off the wagon for the last four years but I got an invite to my mum's wedding a couple months ago. I hid it from him but he found it before the party the other night.” His voice trails off like he thinks he doesn’t really need to say any more and the last words come out slow like he’s still processing it all.
The last bit makes me feel like shit. I went after him the other night for no good reason and that was definitely the last thing he needed considering everything he was dealing with.
I’m lost for words for the second time that day. I can’t even imagine having to look after a parent like that. When Dad died, Mom was devastated but we looked after each other and we had my nan and uncle to help. I wonder if he has any other family. I don’t say anything and I think he can tell I don’t want to say the wrong thing.
He pushes himself off the railing and sits down next to me. Not looking at me though just looking ahead, he runs his hand through his hair.
“I’m sorry,” is all I know to say. This whole thing feels weird, seeing him as an actual human not a constant annoyance. Why do I feel like sharing with him right now?
There’s a moment of silence between us and I can feel he wants to say more, tell me something else so I stay quiet and give him the chance to. I’m not ready or really willing to share with him.
“Mum left when I was seventeen.” He’s still not looking at me and I don’t push for him to. This is the most real moment I think we’ve ever had. I don't want to burst that bubble. “She met her soulmate.” It comes out his mouth like venom, like it’s poison on his lips, but it confirms my suspicions. “I haven’t seen her since, I didn’t want to and after a couple of years of her trying to get in contact, she gave up. Dad, well he fell apart, and I don’t blame him but it was hard for me too, you know? I was only a kid really.”
He looks up from his lap and sits back against the bench letting out a long heavy breath.
“I don’t know what I’m meant to do, you know? Like, do I go?” He’s talking into the air and I’m not sure if he wants me to answer.
“What?”
“I’m sorry, it’s just…” He stops himself before he says anything more. I can tell he’s finding this as strange as I am.
“There’s no one else to ask and you know I’ll tell you what I really think?”
“Yeah, pretty much.”
We both let out a little laugh. “Honestly?” He looks at me like he might just regret asking me. “If I had the chance to see my dad one last time, I’d do anything. The other night, at the party, you’re the first person to calm me like that since him.” A sad smile tugs on my lips, I have no idea why I told him that last bit, it’s like I feel the need to be as open with him as he is with me right now. “You never know when you’ll lose someone.”
He doesn’t say anything but the look of his face is the same as Halloween, the part when we weren’t trying to kill each other. His eyes are soft, the same as his lazy smile.
After a short minute, I remember something my dad would tell me when my anxiety was bad, not that I always listened. “Never let your fear make you miss out on the joy,” I say ever so slightly under my breath trying to think of the right thing to say to him.
“What?” he asks me, confused.
It’s a rare occasion that I can talk about my dad without crying and I’m happy this is one of them. As much as this is a nice moment we’re having, I can’t know he won’t use this against me at some point. “My dad used to say you should never let your fear of something keep you from experiencing the joy in things,” I tell him, turning my body slightly to face him more.
“Again, what?” he says, laughing slightly, turning towards me and all I want is to move closer. I can feel the heat from his chest radiating from him.
I let out a sigh, shaking my head but with a smile on my face. “Basically, you don’t want to not go because you’re scared of seeing your mom or worried about what might happen when you do. The worst that can happen is you have a terrible time and you can leave when you want and never see her again.” The look on his face does not fill me with hope that I am saying the right thing, but I continue anyway. “But if you don’t go, the worst that can happen is you’ll regret not going, maybe for the rest of your life. Wondering ‘what if’... You know?”
Silence surrounds us for a minute and I just look at him the same way he’s looking at me. A small smile finally starts to grow on his face and I feel my body relax at the sight.
I can’t even help myself as I smile at him. “And why don’t you take someone with you like a buffer?” My question lingers in the air as I can see him thinking over my words. My words meant maybe a friend like Maddie or one of the many girls he must be talking to. My words didn’t not mean what he asks me next.
“Would you go with me?”
“Me?” I echo. His smile fades a little and it breaks my heart in a way I don’t understand. He’s opened up to me more than I thought he would ever. “I’ll think about it,” I say finally because looking at his sad face now just makes me feel like I kicked a puppy. Standing from the bench I say, “I should get going. ”
He lets me, only standing himself when I’ve walked down the small steps leading back to the driveway. “Katherine,” he calls and I turn to see him leaning on the railing again looking at me with some stupid handsome smile on his face. “You know it’s not true right?”
“What?”
“That nothing has changed. It has, and you know it.”
Almost as if on cue, I get a call the minute I walk back in the house. I wave to Ella as I pass the kitchen, answering the call as I step into my room.
“Isabella, what are you doing up at 2 a.m?” I question before I say anything else.
I haven’t spoken to her since the quick texts we sent at Halloween and I haven’t wanted to text any of the things that happened, it seemed too long to type out and now I don’t know if half of it is even relevant after going to see James today.
“Well the other night, or day, you said you had so much to catch me up on and I can’t sleep so it seemed like the perfect time, what’s up?” There’s concern in her voice. I can hear it even though I think she’s also whispering a bit.
I give her a quick run down of Halloween night, trying to not make myself sound like a lunatic but she already knows that. I hear her take a big breath in when I tell her about Dylan. Then another when I tell her about James stepping in; I’m sure she holds her breath when I tell her about the panic attack .
I don’t tell her about the way I felt around him or the burning feeling I get when we touch. I’m not sure I can bring myself to say any of that out loud or try to explain it to her or myself.
Then I shift to what happened after work. She’s a little too quiet when I finish and I wonder if she’s fallen asleep or if we’ve been disconnected.
“You still there Bella?” I ask, ready to hang up and have to do this another time.
“I have so many questions and things to say.” She is no longer keeping herself quiet. I wait in silence as she gathers her thoughts. “Okay, so one, I’m proud of you for going to a party. Two, he was so jealous. I mean thank god he came and found you but like why did he go looking in the first place?” I’m prepared to jump in and tell her that’s ridiculous, but she continues. “And three, what did you say to the wedding invite?”
“That I’d think about it.” I hear a laugh come from her. “What? What was I meant to say?” I say, flinging myself down on my bed staring up at the ceiling.
“Oh, I don’t know, maybe, ‘yes gorgeous muscular Australian man, I’d love to spend the whole day with you while you’re in a suit.’ Maybe something like that would have been better,” she explains, doing her best impression of me, and it’s terrifyingly good. “God, he’ll look so good in a suit.”
God he will.
I let out a long sigh. “I never said I thought he was gorgeous,” I tell her knowing that she knows she’s right and I hate it just a little.
“Are we forgetting the part where I already found his Instagram?” We both laugh before she gets all serious on me again. “Katherine, you are going to call him and say yes, you’re going have a great time, and look hot in that dress I got you. ”
I don’t say anything. She’s right, I know she is, I know I’d probably have a good time now that we seem to have some kind of truce and it’s sweet that he asked me to go with him. I shouldn’t be thinking so much into it because I know he’s not going to be the one so what’s the harm in going.
Except I think I might know the harm.
The feeling I’ve been getting in my chest when I’m around him, the tight knot like I might choke, is the harm. The feeling that maybe, just maybe, I might like him, just a little, is the harm. The fact that I know it won't end well for me, like at all, is the harm. The fact that I know that there is no way on this earth after what he told me about his mom he’ll ever feel that back is the harm.
The feeling I have right now, thinking about going to this wedding with him, the giddy nervous sensation, is the harm.
My inability to be able to tell myself any of this and believe it is the harm.
I don’t know when it happened, probably when he was telling me everything today, or when he said things had changed and my heart leaped in my chest. When he was opening up to me, being a real person with me, it was probably then. But I won’t acknowledge it, it’ll go away if I do that.
Bella doesn’t take me going silent all that well. “You better not be talking yourself out of it, or I’ll fly out and make you go, because—”
“Fine,” I cut her off. “I’ll call him tomorrow, but I can’t promise I’ll look hot, you’re not here to help me.”
“Good girl, and I can still help you from a million miles away, don’t you worry your pretty little mind. Send me some pictures and I’ll tell you what will go with it, can’t have you looking like a grandma.”
“And here I was about to ask you how the internship was going.”
“Oh, well since you asked and I’m so awake now, let me fill you in on everything.”
“I’d love that,” I say, smiling, while she starts to talk.