Chapter 20 #3
A quiet, honest confession slips out. ‘What if I don’t know who I am, beneath all of that? What if I’m only other people’s
pieces?’
And what if there’s nothing that really makes me happy without the people around me to show it to? What if my achievements only exist against other people’s benchmarks? What if I’m left with nothing, without the people I love?
The duvet whispers as he leans forward to flatten my collar, and I hold my breath the whole time. ‘I can say with absolute
certainty that you are more than that.’ He pulls back and offers me a smile. This one’s new; almost melancholic, but lined
with tenderness, too. ‘I think it’s true that you carry more of other people’s shit than most. But if you aren’t sure of who
you are without that shit, without other people’s eyes on you, and their expectations, then maybe now’s the time to try figuring some of
that out. What you like, what you want, what you feel. When you go home, you can go into your new life knowing exactly who
you are. That can’t be a bad thing.’
‘Maybe.’ I let out a sigh that sends strands of my hair fluttering. ‘I’ll be fine.’
‘And so will Tahlia.’ Blue eyes lock with mine. ‘There’s only one way for her to find out if she really will be okay on her
own.’
I whip the duvet off my side and sit up, cross-legged. ‘Baptism by fire isn’t my preferred method of experiencing new situations.’
‘I’m shocked.’ His tone drips with sarcasm, but his eyes are earnest when he looks up at me. ‘She might not know it yet, but
when she’s moved away, she’ll be even more grateful for the way you’ve always taken care of her.’
‘She’s never had to be grateful. I was only doing what I was meant to. I’m sure you’d do the same, if Ava needed you.’
‘I hope I would.’
He pulls the rest of the duvet off him and sits up too, long legs in front of him and bent at the knee. It makes his boxer
briefs ride up, exposing a tattoo on his thigh I’ve not noticed before. I don’t think I’ve ever let myself look at him this
closely until now. And I am close. My eyes draw to the slight straining of his underwear, evidence that our unexpected wake-up call actually happened,
and my mouth goes dry.
‘Your new rules said I’m not allowed to look at you,’ he says evenly, hips shifting. I move my gaze to my knee. ‘But we never went over what you’re allowed to do.’
‘I’m sorry. I wo—’
‘Do whatever you want, I don’t mind. Look, touch, dream.’ He meets my eye for a moment, and I swear he’s in my brain, because
he says, ‘Overthink about me. I know you’re good at that.’
My heart pounds, and I search for a way to distract myself. ‘What’s this?’ I ask quickly, pointing at the tattoo on his thigh.
‘It’s my favourite, actually.’ He pulls the rest of the material up a little, so the full tattoo is visible; an abstract line
drawing of two interlocked hands. It feels sentimental for a man who once told me that at least half of his tattoos were obtained
while under the influence.
‘How come?’
He expels a slow breath. ‘It’s kind of morbid.’ He tugs the material higher to expose more skin, and when my breath catches,
he laughs quietly. ‘Relax. I’m not about to flash you.’
But there, on his hip, is a scar, maybe a little more than ten centimetres long, stretching vertically down his thigh. ‘This
is from my hip replacement from the first time I had cancer.’ He says it so smoothly. It’s almost jarring how quickly he can
bounce between topics so unaffectedly. ‘At first, I planned to get the tattoo to cover it once the scar had healed enough,
but I decided to move it at the last minute. I felt like I should keep the scar as it was, as a reminder.’
Perhaps he’s not so unaffected, after all. I think he holds some of his feelings close to his chest, where they’re safe.
‘I don’t think it’s morbid.’ I’m unable to reconcile the version of Max he’s telling me about; the one whose heart stopped
beating once and was so sick he needed this surgery to survive, with the version of him I’ve experienced in the past few weeks.
Ferociously, stubbornly here.
He releases the material and leans back on his hands.
‘That’s not the morbid part. When I woke up after I’d been, you know,’ he taps his chest twice, ‘zapped back to the mortal realm, I was holding my family’s hands.
I couldn’t talk, so all I did was squeeze.
’ The smile’s frozen on his face as he drifts away, his gaze set on something I can’t see.
A weight presses down on my sternum, and I resist the urge to take the hand closest to me and squeeze it too.
‘I guess that tattoo is a reminder of that feeling. How grateful I was to be there, with those three, even if I couldn’t say it. ’
Vulnerability spills out of him every so often, like waves unloading debris on a beach. But then the tide pulls it back, and
before long the imprint on the sand is gone too, no proof it ever existed.
When he looks at me again, he’s another person; back to the Max who kisses people in oceans and sends my heart rate skittering
with a smirk. ‘Like I said. Morbid. So if you ever wanted to show me your own hip, it would actually be charity for me.’
It’s clear he’s done talking about this, so all I say is, ‘Hips really get you going?’
‘Only the right one, obviously,’ he replies. Then he pokes where the scar is and squints off into the distance. ‘It’s going
to rain today.’
‘Did you get a barometer installed in there during surgery or something?’
For a moment, I wonder if I shouldn’t have joked about this, and my stomach tightens as I brace myself for a chiding, but
he flings his head back with a laugh, and I bite down a smile.
‘A miniature meteorologist, actually. She whispers detailed weather reports in my ear every morning.’
‘She?’
‘A man could never be trusted to hold so much power.’ There’s something boyish to this grin. It’s the kind of smile that should
be punctuated by dimples. ‘Whenever the weather’s dodgy, my hip socket starts to ache because of the change in pressure. I
always know when to bring the washing in from the garden, when I’m home. It’s actually very convenient.’
‘Convenient apart from the bit where you’re in pain.’
He swings his legs off the bed and stands with his back to me, stretching his arms until his fingertips graze the ceiling.
‘I know pain. This is just an ache. It’s nothing I can’t handle.’
‘I don’t think your discomfort should ever be something you just handle.’
He looks over his shoulder at me. ‘In an ideal world, sure. But when there’s a constant threat of discomfort you figure out
pretty quickly what’s normal, and you adapt. I’ve had years to fine-tune this.’
I nod, my cheeks heating, however mild the reprimand was. ‘Sorry. I wasn’t trying to tell you how to feel about your own health.’
‘It’s fine.’ As he moves to the door, he adds, ‘I have therapy today, by the way. We had to reschedule this week.’
‘Oh. I’ll stay out of your hair.’
He looks back at me again, and his face softens slightly. ‘If you come back just after ten, the coffee in the pot will still
be good.’
‘Are you coming for my job?’
He grimaces in an unheard-of display of self-deprecation. ‘Okay, when I say “good”, it’s more of a poetic interpretation.
You can be the judge.’ Before he leaves the room, he asks, ‘What new thing are you planning to do today?’
‘Rock climbing.’
He nods. ‘See you there.’