39. ARIES
39
ARIES
O ctober first. The day we put my mother in the ground.
As the coffin is lowered, it begins to rain. Smir, as we call it in Scotland. A hazy drizzle that feels like the soul of the west coast. It cools my skin, soothing the tearing pain in my chest as I take out my wallet and pull out the folded up note Mum gave me before I went to London. It’s soft with wear, the paper splitting in the folds. I read it one last time.
Aries’ London To Do List.
1. Live
2. Dream
3. Live the Dream
4. Fall in Love.
I raise my eyes to the sky. I gave it my best shot, Mum. Ticked them all off. What’s next, eh?
The response is a resounding silence that breaks my heart.
I thought I would keep this note forever, but it feels suddenly pointless to hold onto it, and I let the piece of paper flutter into the grave until it settles on the coffin. I take a handful of dirt and throw it on top. The hole is deeper than I imagined it would be. I wouldn’t be able to climb out of it, and the inescapability of it all… of loss, of death, of burial, of the grave itself, fucking terrifies me, but I force myself to hold it together. For Mum.
Turns out, she was right. We’re exactly where we’re meant to be, when we’re meant to be there. Leaving Matt broke my heart, but it meant I got to spend time with her. By the end, she would sometimes forget who I was. She was bloated. Swollen. And yet somehow withered and hollow at the same time. Unrecognisable. But I wouldn’t have traded being able to be there for her at the end for anything in the world, as painful as it was to witness.
“Who is here for you, Aries?” she whispered to me one night, near the end, her fingertips cold and still in my palm. “Who is holding your hand?”
“You are,” I whispered back, and she only smiled, but we both knew I hadn’t answered the real question. Had it been another day, another conversation, before she’d got really sick, she would have said, “No, you wee monkey. When I’m gone, I mean. Who will be here for you then?”
But this wasn’t another day, so she only smiled and squeezed my fingers. I’d wept at her side, breaking, grieving, even while she was still alive, knowing I couldn’t make her stay. No matter how hard I held her hand, I couldn’t keep her here.
I stayed by her side until that shift in breathing occurred, and I knew the end was near. They’d warned me to listen for it; the change in the way we take in air, rattling in the throat, when our body is struggling to perform its most basic, most essential task, for the last time.
In the end, it was she who held my hand. It was only afterwards that I was alone.
Earlier today, the church was full. Mum touched a lot of lives, spreading all that positive energy all over the place. She believed that every time you made someone smile you were healing a tiny fraction of their soul. Maybe it’s true, maybe it’s nonsense. I don’t know. But either way, I’m not sure as many people would have turned up for me.
There aren’t nearly as many people here for the burial itself. They’ll all have gone ahead to the wake. Beside me, Lizzie throws a handful of dirt into the grave, and then she puts her arm around my shoulder and squeezes. She says nothing, retreating from my side as though she senses my need to be alone.
Slowly, everyone else leaves. I don’t follow, but instead wait until the very end, seeking a private moment with my mother, wondering if I did enough. If I was there enough. If, perhaps, I shouldn't have gone to London at all. But then I remember that pull… that gut instinct that had told me to take the job. That, for some reason, I was meant to go.
What was it all for?
I pull my coat tighter around me. It already feels like autumn, the leaves on the trees turning red and gold. It won't be long before they fall.
“Bye, Mum. I love you,” I whisper. Then, finally, I turn, but the cemetery isn’t empty as I expect it to be. I’m not alone. A man stands behind me on the path that runs through the neat rows of headstones. Tall, dark hair, dark coat, collar popped, hands deep in his pockets. He’s been watching… waiting.
Matt Hawkston. He’s here.
The sight of him steals my breath. His presence is a surprise, and yet… expected. As though part of me knew he’d come. Pieces of my broken heart cleave together, but somehow the fusing hurts just as much as the breaking.
His expression is serious, but there’s a flicker to his lips, his mouth, like he might have smiled if it had been appropriate. It’s just enough to let me know he’s glad to be here. Relieved to see me, even on a day like this.
I pace up the slope, and he comes down towards me, the two of us drawn together like an inevitability. We stop a few feet apart; my heart racing, breaths catching in my throat.
The intensity of his eyes, fixed on me, makes my insides begin to glow. Hope .
“I’m so sorry, Aries.”
Without realising, I’ve stepped up so close to him that I can smell him. The familiar richness of his scent. It makes me ache. “Thank you.”
“Are you all right? I mean, obviously not.” He glances to the open grave behind us, endearingly flustered as he speaks. “But… are you doing okay?”
“I suppose so. I had some time to prepare.”
We’re quiet for a few moments, the drizzle doing its slow work to soak us both, little pearls of it glistening on his coat sleeves, his shoulders. “I wasn’t sure you’d want me to come. Didn’t know if I ought to be here.”
The hesitation in his words makes me want to reach out and touch him. To tell him that, of course, I want him to be here more than anyone else. I long to feel his arms around me. To let him comfort me, hold half my pain. But I can’t. The energy between us, the memories of the things we said, of everything that happened, hang too heavy in the air. I’m not sure I can push through it. Not today.
“I’m glad you came.” It’s not enough to invite him closer, and he knows it. He swallows, pressing his lips together as his gaze dips to the ground.
“I’ll be here,” he says when he looks up again. “If you need me. I’m staying at the—”
“Hawkston?”
He nods. Only a few weeks ago, I’d have laughed at this. So obvious. So funny to stay in a hotel with your name over the door. But not now. There’s no humour in this moment, or this day, and frankly, I can’t imagine laughing ever again.
His eyes are full of care, full of pain, and I know he wants to take me in his arms just as much as I want to be held. But I hold back. I don’t know what he is to me anymore. He’s not my boss, and he’s not my friend. We haven’t spoken in weeks.
And yet, seeing him standing there, it feels like he’s the other part of my soul, offering himself up to me. So close, and yet still so far away. I can’t breech the gap between us, but I desperately long to do exactly that. “I need time.”
His hands burrow deeper into his pockets, his shoulders hunching. “Of course. Take as long as you need. I’m not going anywhere.” He frowns. “Actually, right now I’m going to go. But I won’t be far away. I’ll be—”
“At the Hawkston. I know.”
He gives me a sad little smile. “Yeah.”
The wake is held in a dingy room in the basement of a local hotel. Perhaps I should have invited Matt, but what I said was true. I do need time. I don’t know what to think or what to feel. I need to say goodbye to my mother first.
There are a hundred people here, all condoling me. I’ve heard the same phrases over and over again, so many times that they’re already rolling into one blurry memory. Meaningless noise in the background of my grief.
I’m sorry for your loss.
Your mother was a wonderful woman.
Time is a great healer.
I want to scream. My ability to accept the kind words of others has run dry. I know they mean well, but it feels like they’re handing me condolences the way parents give children sweets at a party; to numb their emotions with sugar, keeping them quiet so they don't cause a scene or make anyone else uncomfortable. I drink a couple of glasses of cheap red wine that sticks to my teeth, and make an effort to smile at a few more people, have a few more empty conversations. It’s only after an hour of the same that I realise I don’t have to stay here. I’m allowed to leave.
I say my goodbyes as calmly as I can and push through the other mourners out into the bleak, grey car park. Overhead, the clouds rumble and the heavens open, and rain pours down, as though every tear I’ve held back today is spilling from the sky, soaking me in seconds.
I run all the way home, fueled by a barrage of angry thoughts. Why did it have to be Mum? Why couldn’t Dad have been the one to die? Dad who never gave a shit. Dad who abandoned us and never cared that Mum was sick, beyond thinking of what he might get out of her death. Why couldn’t it have been him?
I don’t even have it in me to feel guilty about wishing him dead. I’d do anything to bring Mum back, but I can’t, and powerlessness rages inside me like a violent storm.
I’m splashing through the puddles in my Doc Martin boots. The only black shoes I own. Cars roar past, waves of rainwater splashing me, drenching me. But I’m past caring. I don’t even notice them.
I unlock the door to Mum’s house, and then silence engulfs me. “Mum?” I call. “Mum?”
I begin to run through the house, smashing doors open as I rocket from room to room, calling her name. I know she’s gone. I know she’s not here, but I can’t bear it. I refuse to accept it. Mum always said we make our own reality. Well, I’m making mine now. She’s here. She’s fucking here. She should be here. If she’s not… where is she?
I begin to scream, running up and down the stairs, beating my fists on the walls, smashing whatever I can lay my hands on. In the background of my mind, I know I’m losing it. But maybe if I scream enough, break enough things, the pain will go. Maybe I can purge it out of me if I make enough noise; drag it out through a raw throat.
But it doesn’t work. The pain doesn’t lessen. I’m breaking, shattering, dying with it. Even after I’m hoarse and weak and shaking, the pain is still there, tearing at my heart, weakening my limbs.
I sink onto the floor outside Mum’s bedroom, pulling my knees up to my chest as sobs wrench their way from my lungs, great spasms of pain I can’t control. I’m lost to it… lost to the grief and the pain and helplessness of it all.
How will I survive this?
A screaming sound ricochets around my skull. My mother. Dying. Dead. I put my arms around her, trying to soothe her, but she keeps screaming. I can’t do anything to stop it.
The sound stops. Begins again. Stops. Repeats, dragging me from the dreamworld.
I’m still on the floor, curled in a ball, wearing the same damp clothes from the funeral. Everything aches.
What is that noise?
The doorbell . I ease myself out of my scrunched position and make my way downstairs. Through the frosted glass of the front door, I can make out a hazy figure. Tall. Dark clothes. If it’s someone trying to sell me something, I’ll murder them right there on the doorstep.
But it’s not.
It’s Matt, all gorgeous in his peacoat, popped collar, polished dress shoes. He takes one look at me and his expression falls into something approaching horror. He steps inside and closes the door.
“Jesus, Aries.” His hands are on my shoulders, and he’s stooping down, peering into my face, his dark eyes seeking out mine. “Your clothes. They’re wet. Have you slept at all?”
I shrug, but suddenly Matt’s intent focus isn’t on me at all. It’s beyond me, staring deeper into the house, the concern on his face etching its marks deeper still.
“What happened here?”
I turn, only now noticing the mess I made last night. Everything is broken, pieces of Mum’s stuff strewn all over the floor. The crystals. The oil diffuser. “Me. I did. I—”
He folds me into the embrace I longed for yesterday, and squeezes me tight, like I’m broken too and he can put me back together.
A great rush of emotion surges upwards, scraping at my insides, tearing at my lungs. It’s striving to pour out of me, to spill itself on the floor at his feet. I can’t let it happen. It will destroy me. I can’t… I can’t… it’s too much…
I push against his embrace, loosening it. He draws back but my fingers grab at him, pulling at his shirt, his coat. Anything I can get my hands on. If I can get them off… get all his clothes off…
“Aries—”
But I don’t stop. Can’t stop. If I can have him, fuck him , I can block out everything else. My hands are round his neck, on his face, pulling him towards me. I kiss him hard, but he’s unresponsive, and when I break away, his eyes search mine for an explanation.
“Aries.” He says my name like a plea. “We can just talk—”
“I don’t want to talk. I talked to a hundred people yesterday. I don’t want to talk anymore.” I grab his coat and pull him closer, my breaths coming in rushed gasps. This isn’t me. I don’t know what I’m doing.
His eyes move frantically over me, and although he looks worried, I can see that he’s tempted. If I try a little harder, I can win him over. Drown it all out with kisses and sex and Matt. “Aries—”
“Please.” I kiss him again, his stubble rough against my skin. I try to tug his coat off his shoulders, but there’s a reluctance to his movements, like he doesn’t trust me to know what I want right now. I give up and begin to pull his shirt out of his trousers instead.
“ Please ,” I repeat, desperate. My fingers fumbling, ineffective. “Please, don’t deny me right now. I need this. I need you.”
His jaw flexes as he looks down at me, and whatever he sees in my face has him pulling me flush against him, one hand cradling the back of my skull against his chest. “I’m here for you, Aries. I’ve got you.”
And then, like he turned on the fucking tap, I cry, great wracking sobs that make my ribcage shudder, causing tears to fall that soak right through his shirt.
He holds me again, warm and tight against him, as I fall apart. And he doesn’t let go until I haven’t a tear left to cry.
Later, Matt carries me up to the bathroom and runs a hot bath. He peels off my wet clothes, easing me out of them as though he’s removing the bandages from a gaping wound, which I suppose he is. I get into the tub, and he sits on the floor beside me, running the warm water from the shower over my back.
I hug my knees up to my chest and tell him about Mum and the sickness and her dying, and how hard it was to hold it together at the wake. I even tell him how I wished that Dad had died instead, and that I’m not even ashamed of wanting it. I tighten my hold on my raised knees, curling over them as I speak. For some reason, keeping myself small makes it all seem a fraction more manageable. Like I can contain all the grieving, angry parts of me.
Matt washes my hair, massages my scalp, rinses the soap, and I’m reminded of how I put bubbles on his chin that first night in his house. How reserved he was, and it occurs to me that back then, I could never have imagined this current scenario playing out.
“Do you think you’ll forgive him? Your dad?” Matt asks as his fingers move through my hair, teasing apart the strands. His voice is hesitant, as though he might take my answer and make it mean something else in his mind.
“Maybe. But we’ll never have a relationship. And I wouldn’t want one with him anyway—he was a terrible parent.”
Matt’s gaze slides off me, brows drawn together. “Hmm.”
I watch him for a few moments, and my heart aches. “You’re not a bad father.” His eyes snap to mine, the movement as quick as a shot. “I know you think you are, but you aren’t. Not even close.”
He turns off the shower, fixes the shower head back in place, and sits back on his heels. “Thank you. I’m trying my best.” His sleeves are rolled to the elbow, and he leans over the tub, drawing spirals on my bare shoulder with a fingertip.
“Why did you come here this morning?”
“I wasn’t going to. I know you asked for time—”
“So why did you come?”
He starts to roll his eyes, smiling as his lids sink. “If I told you it was my intuition, would you believe me?”
A warmth ignites in my chest, like a solitary candle in a darkened room. “Of course.”
He snorts a laugh. “Sounds fucking weird, but I heard this voice inside my head telling me to come. So I got in the car and I drove right here. I don’t know what you’ve done to me, but I’m all in on this shit now.”
A wave of love for him rushes through me with such force, my breath catches. I want to tell him I love him, want to say the words, but I told him before and he never said them back. “I’m glad you came.”
He smiles, trailing his index finger up my neck, spreading tingles through my body. “I didn’t know whether you’d want to see me.”
“You know what my mother would say?” I ask, and he waits, quietly staring. “We’re always exactly where we should be. Exactly when we should be.”
His lips curve upwards. “She was a very smart woman, your mother.”
For the first time today, I smile too. Broad. Real. Happy . “She was.”
We’re quiet for a few minutes, and Matt lets his fingertips trail in the bath water. “If this tub wasn’t so small, I’d get in with you.”
I glance at him, then the tub, pretending to assess the dimensions. “It’s definitely too small.”
“I have a very large bathtub in London.”
My heart lurches. Is that an invitation? I glance at him, but he’s following the motion of his fingers in the water.
“There’s something I meant to tell you,” he continues. “And I know this really isn’t the moment, but if I wait, I might not say it and I’ve written this message over and over on my phone and never sent it, and I’m starting to feel like a damn, gutless fool.” His tongue swipes over his bottom lip and for every second of the pause that follows, my heart beats wildly, as though my ribs are the only thing stopping it from taking flight. “I’m in love with you.”
My heart catapults into my mouth, then slides slowly back down my throat. “Took you a while.”
“The saying of it, maybe. But not the feeling.”
Heat rises through me so intense that if we turned the lights off, I’m pretty sure I would be shining like the sun. “That makes it a wee bit better.”
“Just a wee bit,” he teases, and I laugh, but he keeps talking. “I know you have things to sort out here, but if you want to, I’d like you to come back to London. Live with me. Be with me. No rush. Take as much time as you want, but I’d really like you to make my home your home and fuck me until I can’t walk.”
I flick water at him, grinning. “So romantic.”
The side of his lips twitch up. “I just told you I love you. I love you more than I’ve ever loved a woman, and I let you leave me once. I don’t intend to do it again. I fucking love you. And I love fucking you. So please, come and live with me and let me do both until I’m old and grey. And even when I’m too old to fuck, I’ll still love you.” His finger slides across my shoulder and down my upper arm, making me hotter than the bathwater. “I’ve never met anyone like you, and I’m sure I never will again. I haven’t stopped thinking about you since you left. I’ve missed you so much, there were times I thought the pain might get the best of me. That I couldn't go on without you, because you’d clearly stolen my heart and tucked it inside that giant suitcase of yours and taken it to Scotland.” He blows out a beleaguered breath. “I love you, Aries. I’ve never loved anyone the way I love you. I don’t want to lose you. I don’t want to go through that again.”
I’ve wanted to hear these words for so long, but actually hearing them makes my throat swell. I’m going to cry. “I don’t either,” I whisper.
“So, it’s a deal? Because I’m not the only one who thought we were meant to be.” Tears sting my eyes, and even before he confirms it, I know who he means. “Your mother wrote me a letter.” He sounds serious, but his eyebrow quirks and a teasing smile touches his lips. “Said we have a connection. And that if we don’t work it out in this lifetime, we will in the next one.”
I gasp, covering my mouth with my hand, a confusing mix of happiness and sadness assailing me as I think of Mum secretly penning such a letter, refusing to hold back on her convictions, even though she must have known they’d sound outlandish to Matt. Looking out for me, right until the very end. “She did not,” I squeal.
He laughs, so loud and happy that my heart warms, the heat of it rising up my throat and melting away the lump that formed there.
“She absolutely did. And I think she might be right, so you can come home with me for this lifetime, or you can wait until the next one. I’m easy.”
“You’re easy?”
He nods. “Time is an illusion, right?”
Laughter splutters out of my mouth. “Oh, dear Lord. I need to get you out of this house before you turn into a different man entirely.”
“I think it might be too late for that. But I’d really rather we sorted our shit out this lifetime, right now, so I don’t have to wait.” He pauses and looks upwards like he’s reflecting on what he just said. “Fuck, I didn’t come here with the intention of forcing you into anything, or suggesting things while you’re… vulnerable.” He drags wet fingers through his hair, clumping the strands. “I’m making a mess of this. I don’t want to do anything if you aren’t ready—”
I cut him off with a kiss, leaning out of the bath, throwing my wet arms around him, soaking his shirt.
He chuckles into my mouth. “Is that a yes?”
“It’s a hell yes.”
Matt stays with me all night, cradling me in his arms, stroking my hair. And in the morning, we make love. Slow and passionate, and with each kiss, with each deliberate thrust of him into me, I feel my broken heart begin to heal. Afterwards, in the shower, I close my eyes and tell my mother I’m going to be all right, because there’s someone holding my hand now.
And then, even through the thrumming of the hot water around me, I swear I hear her whisper, ‘I know’.