Chapter 10 #3
Pretty sure she’s avoiding me, Bren says. I see her lights on in the evenings, and my mum pops over there like usual, but I’m not exactly seeking out her company. I’ve not got much to say to her.
You and me both, Nora says.
Scuff of Bren’s boot, then, along the ground. A dustbin lid scoots along the street behind him, where it’s been blown off its base.
Did she tell you why she lied, Bren asks her. Not that it matters, now.
Now that you’re marrying someone else, he does not say, but she hears it through his silence, and for a half-second, she has another urge – wants to tell him the truth about Freya and Jon, as the bin lid takes to the air.
But why would she, she wonders, except for some kind of hard-boiled revenge against her own mother?
A staunch belief in the truth, when that truth would do more harm than good?
So she crosses her arms, takes a breath, and says no.
It was just selfish, I think. She just didn’t … want me to leave.
Bren scuffs his boot again, those stains on his trousers brown-black. Petrol, she thinks, or ink; blackberry juice from the brambles they’d raid as kids, sour-sharp, the occasional sweet hit when they’d spend hours in the farmers’ fields.
He looks so lost, standing there in his stained trousers and wet shoes. So alone and, for the first time since the engagement party, almost sad.
Do you want to … come back to mine? she asks him. Robin’s there, though.
Why though. Why the note of apology in her voice.
I assumed he would be, Bren says. Which is fine. Obviously. And I’m sorry, about the other day, if I made it seem like it wasn’t. I really … want to like him.
Nora blinks. Bren’s half-honesty here has floored her, which must show on her face because he presses on, I’m your best man, right, and I promised to be here, and I’ve been thinking a lot about what we pieced together, last week, and it doesn’t change anything, I don’t think.
Those green eyes, locked onto hers. Those words reverberating through her like he’s caught her, then let go, as if she’s a guitar string.
Doesn’t change anything.
So I’m here, Bren says, hands deep in his pockets. If you still want me involved.
I want you involved, she says, with a nod. Bren keeps looking at her, rain on the ends of his hair like dew. Then he nods, too. Sits down beside her on the bus stop bench, removes his hands from his pockets.
Sorry I bolted, after the dress shop, he says. It was a weird day for me. It’s been weird since I got back, to be honest. Seeing you with this life.
He breaks off, the wind gushing round them, like the sea.
I guess your life panning out like this, he says, just reminds me that I don’t have one, here. I’m still stuck in the past, I think.
His words stain Nora’s heart, like the rainwater soaking into her shoes.
But I’m trying, he says. I’m here, aren’t I? And I’ve been fixing up my mum’s car, he says, gesturing at the oil spilled down his knees. Because that driveway is a hard place, for me, and I figured I’ve got to face into the hard things, like a normal person. Which sometimes I think I’m just not.
What? Normal?
Sometimes I think I’ve got her … tendencies, he says. My mum’s. She shuts down. I run away. Different reactions to the same issues, maybe.
You don’t have her issues, Nora says, and he says maybe not medically. I guess we’d probably know by now.
You don’t hear voices, do you?
Only the standard ones, he says, and when she looks alarmed he says he’s kidding.
Kind of. He just regrets a lot. Has this inner narrative that loops round and round, all of the time, unless he’s moving, or a forced kind of scared.
Which can shake it, for a while. Living somewhere new.
Kayaking through ravines. Leaping into canyons.
Whereas fixing the car he was cleaning, when he died, Nora guesses out loud, is actually scarier, and Bren doesn’t say anything for a really long time but then he dips his head, says right.
And Nora aches. Wants to tell him that Jon wasn’t who he thought he was. Wants him to let go. Wants to hold him, make everything better for him, like she always seemed able to when they were young.
I’m sorry … things went the way they did, she says. I wouldn’t have ignored you, if I’d got your message.
And I would’ve spoken to you, about it, Bren says, if I thought you hadn’t.
More rain. Mad winds. Raindrops smashing so hard on the ground, it looks like shattering glass.
Nora thinks of Robin at home, planning their wedding, probably cleaning, almost certainly singing, but she also thinks of how this yearning, younger part of her wants to stay here beside Bren in this storm, and she thinks about how she can’t feel both things, can’t want both things, and why – that question, yet again – why is this so hard.
I left because of my mum, Bren tells her, still watching the rain. Which was selfish, I know, but also survival. In a lot of ways.
Nora can’t bring herself to nod. Can’t quite forgive him, for that part.
But I stayed away, Bren says, because I thought I’d read us … all wrong. And I know I was only seventeen, and I know what I said probably seemed … stupid.
That you wanted me with you? she wants to say, but doesn’t, because she does not need to clarify. Does not need to remind him of what was. So she just looks at the rain like he’s doing and says no, Bren. It wasn’t stupid.
Slow breathing. Shoulders touching. Didn’t want to do anything, without you.
And then Bren does something she doesn’t expect, and threads one of his hands through hers.
It is tender, and his skin is cold. Dotted with old freckles she still knows so well.
Then he rests his head on top of hers. Moves to kiss the side of it, just lightly, but the feel of his lips in her hair ripples through her like his words from before, everything trembling and longing and wrong.
And he lingers there, with his mouth, and she lets him.
Neither of them pulling away.