14. What do you need?
Chapter fourteen
What do you need?
Mind racing and deafened by the silence, Greta lay in her spare room feeling bereft by Dylan’s sudden absence.
The shift in emotion, and the magnitude of what she’d allowed to happen, had become a heavy pressure within the four walls.
It was a weight surely lost on Dylan, who knew nothing about Greta.
She didn’t know that the moment their lips pressed together undid five years of agonising longing for only her wife’s mouth.
She stared at the artwork adorning the polished Venetian plastered walls, the artwork she was never really mad about but that Muriel had adored immediately when they saw it hanging in the Contemporary Six art gallery.
It hadn’t made much sense to Greta. The way Muriel had waxed lyrical over its ability to “breathe almost on its own” had made Greta internally roll her eyes, but she loved Muriel’s passion for art and aesthetics.
Guilt forced its way under her skin, under the fingernails she had dragged over Dylan’s back, making them throb and ache.
It twisted in her heart and gut, her stomach acid churning and refluxing into her throat.
There was no one she could turn to. The solitude and isolating loneliness of her grief felt raw all over again.
Her gaze drifted to the door Dylan had pressed her against, as she imagined the feeling of her legs wrapped around Dylan’s waist, the weight of her strong body pressed against her.
The sensation of her pushing over and through her slick white hot arousal.
Dylan confidently holding Greta to her body, her arms pressed into her thighs, her fingers splayed over her arse.
Her body.
Her fucking mouth.
The pricking of the guilt turned to a stabbing.
She sat up to open her chest, desperate to drag more air in and stave off a panic attack, but it was already happening.
She tried to push the thoughts of what she had just done out of her mind.
She had had sex with Dylan over a hundred times, but this…
this was too much. It was filling her, consuming her, leaving no room for her blood to flow.
The weight of it was expanding inside her, filling her lungs instead of oxygen, rendering her soul cyanosed and at risk of becoming necrotic.
Her phone rang from the other room. She couldn’t move as the riptide of panic and guilt swirled around her, dragging her under.
She forced herself to remember what she had been taught in therapy all those years ago: touch three things, say them out loud, and breathe.
For fuck’s sake, Greta, breathe.
Her phone rang again.
Fuck.
***
Greta woke at four-thirty in the morning, still in the spare room.
She hadn’t made it to her own bed, to hers and Muriel’s bed.
The sheets beneath her were damp and cold from sex and her own profuse, panic-induced sweat.
Her skin was tacky and cold. She climbed out of bed naked—her clothes still discarded in the kitchen—and wrapped a blanket around her shoulders.
Walking out into the hallway, she found everything in silence, exactly as she had left it.
Freezing and raw, feeling too many emotions to process at once, she leaned against the wall.
Violently and completely overcome, unable to hold her body upright, she slid down to the floor as the dam barely holding her emotions fractured completely.
Grief spilled from her. She cried in a way she hadn’t since she lost Muriel, confused and fucking furious at the hand she’d been dealt.
Furious that she would never be able to forget the day she’d had to say, “that’s her”, over the body of the love of her life. Her wife. Her one.
An incandescent anger roared from her at the memory of pressing her head to the chest of the woman who owned her heart—the chest she had laid on countless times when it was warm and full, only to feel it cold and empty.
The beating heart was gone. It was still there, held in place, but useless.
The chambers filled with dark clotted blood that should have been pumping rhythmically, warming her soft skin and pinking her cheeks.
Blood that should have been perfusing her incredible mind and her kind, kind heart.
The heart she dedicated to everything she did.
The heart that only ever belonged to Greta.
The guilt that the only person she wanted to hold her in that moment was Dylan consumed her. Greta sat in the hallway, legs outstretched in front of her, as racking sobs tore through her body.
***
Sitting at her kitchen table, Dylan checked her phone for—what felt like—the hundredth time.
It was eight-thirty in the morning and still nothing from Greta.
The texts Dylan had sent were still sitting in their message thread, waiting to be read.
She had rang so many times that she couldn’t bring herself to ring again for fear of drifting dangerously close to stalker territory.
Poised to send another text, Dylan’s thumb hovered over the screen.
The silence was loud, a heavy, suffocating thing that made her stomach twist and contort.
She knew she had no choice but to leave Greta so abruptly the night before, but she also knew she’d promised an explanation.
If Greta didn’t pick up, if she didn't read the messages, how could she explain? How could Greta know?
‘Morning, Dyllydals,’ Priya’s soft voice called from the front door, snapping Dylan back into the room as though a starting pistol had gone off.
‘Morning, Pri. I’m in the kitchen. Brew?’
‘Oh yes please, you big hunk of—’ Priya stopped mid-sentence as she rounded the corner. Her face fell as her gaze raked over Dylan sitting at the kitchen table. ‘Jesus, Dylan. You look terrible.’
‘Why, thank you. You can definitely come again.’ Dylan was unable to hide the anguish building in her voice.
‘Lucy was meant to be here until midnight but had to go home early. Her kid was sick, and Margs has had a really shit night…’ She trailed off as a single tear escaped and tracked its way down her cheek.
‘Oh, Dyls. I cannae stand this.’ Priya crossed the room with her arms already open.
‘It’s more than that, isn’t it?’ Dylan started to cry, shrugging and covering her face with her hands.
‘Is it that lass—that woman? Greta, is it her? What happened? Talk to me for heaven's sake… I’m right bloody here, Dylan.’ Dylan remained seated as Priya pulled her head into her chest. ‘Talk to me, hen.’
The hulking sobs now leaving Dylan’s body rendered her unable to answer. Priya didn’t press any further; she simply held her, whispering that she’d feel better for letting it all go. Dylan did just that, finally allowing the fear and the silence of the morning to flow out of her.
‘I’m sorry, Pri. I was okay until you showed up with yer kind face and bloody big mum hug,’ Dylan joked, her voice shaky. ‘I blame you.’ She sniffled.
Priya tore off some kitchen roll and handed it to Dylan. ‘Err, I would disagree that you were okay but whatever.’
‘I’ve made you snotty, sorry,’ Dylan said, staring at the wet patch on Priya’s blue tunic, while neatly folding the paper-towel in half.
‘I’ve had worse, believe me.’
They both laughed lightly as Priya pulled out the chair opposite Dylan, dragging it around to be closer, making her within touching distance.
‘Margs is still asleep,’ Dylan offered, in a valiant attempt to change the subject as she blew her nose.
‘She’s fine, I poked my head in. Do you want to talk?’
Dylan stared at her hands, her fingers pulling at the piece of paper towel, picking at the edges, the frayed pieces falling onto her jogging pants, making them look dusty.
‘I don’t think I do, Pri, but thank you. Maybe when I have slept a bit? I’m just going to hit the gym to—’
‘You are not hitting anything but your bed. You bloody silly bugger.’ Priya chided. ‘Upstairs now, I’ll bring you some sweet tea and toast before I get started with your mum.’
Dylan began to protest, but Priya waved a dismissive hand in the air while firmly reiterating her instructions, her stern motherly tone—and amplified Scottish accent—not to be argued with.
‘Thanks Pri,’ Dylan relented, too exhausted to disagree.
***
Post a hot shower, Dylan lay on her bed, bathed in the sounds of Portishead quietly playing through her speaker, while the tea and toast still sat untouched on the bedside cabinet.
On the iPad screen Priya chatted away to Margaret and set herself up for the day ahead.
Closing down the camera feed Dylan rolled onto her side, hugging her knees to her chest as exhaustion engulfed her.
She'd been awake since the day before. Overnight she had tried in vain to contact Greta, to explain, to apologise but Greta hadn’t picked up.
The messages sat in their WhatsApp thread, now read but unanswered.
The two blue ticks taunting her, using the last of her dwindling reserve.
Tiredness tugged at her eyelids as she let her phone fall from her hand.
The quiet noise of her bedroom door opening snatched her from the edge of sleep.
She rolled over. ‘I’ll eat it in a mo, Pri. I'm just a bit knackered.’
‘Priya sent me straight up. I hope that’s okay?’
‘Fuck! Greta!’ Dylan whipped her body around, leaping from the bed as she began rambling. ‘Are you… I’ve been trying to call you. You didn’t reply to my text. Are you okay?! I’m sorry. Whatever I did, I am so sorry. Was it because I left? I had to come home. My mum, she’s—’
‘I know, I know now,’ Greta said, looking as exhausted as Dylan, her voice dropping to a low, weary thrum.