Chapter 13 #2
She closed the door and pressed her forehead against the frame.
She made herself a strong cup of coffee and walked out into the garden.
The grass felt damp under her bare feet.
She could hear her mother telling her how healing walking barefoot was, how you needed to ground yourself.
The sky was bright despite the thin layer of cloud that hovered.
The air was close and humid. It felt cloying.
She longed for a cool breeze to blow through, to break the stifling tension she felt surround her.
*
When Noah returned from the gym, showered and changed, it was time for lunch.
He had stopped off at the shops, a miracle in itself, and picked up some ingredients for a salad.
Helena sat at the table and watched as he assembled the food, making idle chit-chat about the gym and the supermarket, anything to avoid the elephant in the room.
By the time they had finished eating, Helena couldn’t wait any longer. She took a deep breath, prepared herself for the reaction to come and tentatively broached the subject of therapy. She told him how much it would mean to her, and how helpful she felt it would be for him.
While she spoke Noah was quiet, toying with a piece of lettuce that was left on his plate, scratching the china with the edge of his fork.
Eventually he lifted his eyes to meet hers, speaking in a tone of voice that managed to sound both bored and distinctly unimpressed at the same time. ‘Helena,’ he sighed. ‘I don’t need to see a shrink. What I need is for you to stop irritating me.’
She winced inwardly, but there was no way she was giving up that easily. ‘Even you admitted you overstepped the mark, Noah.’
He nodded. ‘I said that, sure. But that doesn’t mean I’ve got a problem. It means that you have provoked me one too many times. Your behaviour is far beyond what any reasonable person could be expected to put up with.’
Her behaviour? She could hardly believe her ears.
‘I’m serious Helena. I can’t take much more of your disrespect. A relationship works two ways. It can’t always be me giving, giving, giving and you taking. It doesn’t work like that.’
What was he talking about? If anything it was the other way around. She did everything for him, and for Raffy.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean exactly what I said.’
‘Look, Noah, I think you’re missing my point here.
I admit I can try harder not to “provoke” your temper.
’ She made quotation marks in the air around the word provoke.
‘But the fact is, your temper is out of control. You may not be able to take much more, but I can’t either.
If you aren’t careful, someone is going to end up getting hurt. ’
He scoffed. ‘That is a ridiculous over-exaggeration.’
‘Look at your hand, Noah.’ His knuckles were swollen and bruised from the impact with the wall.
‘It’s your fault,’ he said.
‘Seriously?’ She sighed, putting her head in her hands. ‘Can’t you hear how ridiculous that sounds?’
He folded his arms, hiding his damaged hand. ‘I know I got too angry, but what do you expect?’
She looked back up at him. ‘I expect you to treat me as if you love me.’
His eyes softened. ‘You know I love you.’
‘It doesn’t exactly feel like that when you push me around and swear at me.
When you look as though you’re about to punch me in the face.
All this talk of disrespect… Well I want someone who respects me, who takes care of me.
’ She was shocked that she had managed to hold her nerve long enough to say it out loud.
Noah shook his head in disbelief. ‘After everything I’ve done for you!’ He scraped his chair back and stood up. Clearly, he had had enough of this conversation. ‘Be careful Helena. Be careful what you wish for.’
Helena felt her stomach fill with dread. ‘What?’
‘If this isn’t what you want, then that’s fine by me. It would be easy for us to disappear from your life Helena. Move back to New Zealand…’
She looked up at him, trying to read him, to see if he was serious, but his expression had become hard and impenetrable. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Perhaps we aren’t that good a match, after all?’ She suspected he was testing her now, waiting to see how she would react.
‘Of course we are,’ she said, squaring her shoulders in an attempt to feel more confident before him.
‘You know we are. We are exactly right for each other.’ She had never told him about the psychic, knowing he would laugh at her.
But she knew he was the one. She just needed to get through to him.
She paused as she grasped for the right words.
‘There is a serious amount of anger and grief inside you, that’s all, understandably so…
after what happened with your dad, and Kate. I want you to get the help you need.’
‘It is not me that needs help.’ There it was again, that patronising tone that made her feel like a child that needed looking after.
‘For Christ’s sake Noah… it’s like talking to a brick wall.’
‘I’m not listening to this. I’m going into the office.’
‘But you’ve taken the day off?’ She was pleading now.
‘I’ve changed my mind.’
With that, Noah took his car keys off the side table.
Once again he stormed out of the house and slammed the front door behind him.
Within seconds she heard the engine rev, then the crunch of tyres on gravel as he turned the car around and sped off.
He probably wasn’t even going to work. God knew where he was going.
Helena felt utterly deflated. She was never going to get him anywhere near a therapist, that much was clear.
He wasn’t ready, and she couldn’t force him.
Suddenly exhausted, she cleared up the rest of their lunch and took herself upstairs to their bedroom.
She collapsed on the bed, staring blindly at the ceiling.
All the fight had drained out of her. She didn’t know what to do.
If she stayed with him, would he treat her like that again?
Perhaps if she didn’t answer back so much, things would be calmer.
But she didn’t want to be in a relationship where she could never say what was on her mind, did she?
On the other hand, if she left him, she’d never see Raffy again – and that would break her heart.
Besides, she loved Noah. She had done ever since she first met him and he plucked her out of her miserable life and gave her everything she ever dreamed of.
If she left him, where would she go? She had hardly any money of her own, and no friends, not really.
She lay like that for hours, tossing and turning, her mind whirring, unsure what her next move should be.
She still hadn’t made any kind of decision when she saw the clock and realised it was time to pick Raffy up from school.