Chapter Seventeen #2
He opens the door, walks out. “Too busy for a mistress!”
“Dick!” I shout when he closes the door.
“He seemed hurt.”
I face Arthur, shake my head. “Don’t—he always gets like this when you're around or when I'm with you. He can be such a little bitch sometimes.”
“Seems jealous,” he shrugs and then nods at the box on the table. “Show me then.”
I show him, he nods and smiles and tells me everything looks nice because that’s what he does and that’s what he has always done because even though I know he doesn’t care, he doesn’t let me know that because he loved me—still probably does and if not, I’d be curious as to why—and loved the things I loved.
We sit on the couch in my house but he looks more comfortable than I do.
“I actually wanted to talk to you,” he starts. “About something but I don’t want you to flip out.”
I nod slowly, scared. “Right.”
His face turns dark, sullen, kind of. He looks like he doesn’t want to tell me so I don’t really want him to.
“I—um,” he shakes his head, squints his eyes. “I got sent something really weird in the post the other day and it just freaked me out.”
I swallow. “Like, a stalker?”
He shrugs and my stomach sinks.
“I didn’t tell Connie because it just makes me sound a bit thick—”
On instinct, I grab his hand because I think he’d want me to right now.
“Everyone we know has had a stalker at least once.”
“I know,” he sighs. “I just—put me on edge?”
I nod, my eyes scan his face.
“Are you checking if I’m high?”
“No.”
“Yes you are.”
“I—”
“Do you believe me?”
“Of course I do.”
There’s a brief moment of silence.
“Have you been sent anything?”
I shake my head because I haven’t thought about the flowers. They’ve stopped now and if I keep analysing it, I’ll have to do something about it and what, realistically, would I do? Go to the police? Fat chance they’d take someone like me seriously.
It made me sick when I found out they weren’t from Digby but at the same time, I have so much other shit that’s making me anxious that it really wasn’t my number one priority.
Like I said, getting a stalker is almost like a right of passage for people like us (unfortunately.
I wish it was something more simple like taking acid at Burning Man but here we are).
Arthur stands up, drops my hand, stares at me.
“You’re lying.”
“No, I’m not.”
He nods, so sure of himself. “You are.”
I stand up as well. “I’m not.”
“Just tell me, Phoebs.”
I throw my hands up. “It wasn’t important!”
He sighs, sniffs out a short laugh. “So you have?”
“It doesn’t matter, Arthur!”
“Yes it fucking does!” He shouts, hands in his hair.
Roll my eyes, brush past him and into the kitchen.
He follows me, grabs my arm, spins me around.
“Tell me what it was.”
And with the way I find myself swimming in the blue streaks of his eyes, he could’ve dragged The Nightmare out of me.
“It was just flowers.”
“Baby’s breath?”
Frown. “How’d you know?”
He smiles. “Because they’re your favourite.”
I pull my arm out of his grip and cross my arms. “The way you’re smiling makes me think it was you—was it?”
He rolls his eyes to the high heavens. “Get a grip.”
“Well, what the fuck do we do then? We both have stalkers.”
Tilts his head, crooked smile. “Bit romantic.”
I grit my teeth, shove his chest. “You were the one just having a go at me for not taking this seriously!” And then my voice lowers. “Should I? Be taking this seriously, I mean? Should I be scared?”
Arthur reaches for me, I let him hold my shoulders and rest his head against mine.
“No. It’s fine. I’ll take care of it.”
“And how are you going to do that?”
“I don’t know but I will. I won’t let anything happen to us—my family won’t let anything happen to you.”
I swallow, glance down at my feet. “Do you promise?”
“When have I not?”
“Was that a rhetorical question? Because I can think of at least a hundred times you haven’t.”
“You’re going to hold that against me forever, aren't you?”
“You traumatised me—really fucked me up,” I mutter for the first time ever, I think.
“You’ve been fucking me up since I was five. I’d say we’re even now.”
“That’s not a fair comparison.”
He pulls back a bit, looks me dead in the eye. “The way you loved me makes it a pretty fair one in my books.”
I watch as he blinks, his eyelashes brushing the apple of his cheeks for the shortest second. It’s so messed up, isn’t it? The way his lips are tattooed with mine. The way I want him to kiss me even though I told him off for doing so.
He smiles like he knows and I suppose he does. I don’t know myself very well. I don’t think anyone does—we don’t know ourselves the way the people who love us know. The way they see us will never match up to the way we see ourselves. He knows me the same way writers know the alphabet.
“Do you want me to kiss you?” He asks.
“If I say yes does that make me a bad person?”
He shrugs carelessly. “Maybe but I’m not one to judge, am I?”
“Okay, then.” I nod. “Go on.”
So, he does. He kisses me while we stand in my boyfriend's kitchen. And maybe you think I’m silly and stupid and a total prick because what has Digby ever done to me? But I’m not, really. I just love him more than I’ll ever love anything or anyone else.