The Persistence of Memory

Chapter Twenty One

Her voice sounds sad and heavy and it makes me turn my head to look up at her.  Is she sad about Roisin or because she just told me goodbye.

I can't tell but the look in her eyes is odd. Like there's something behind it, something she wants me to know but isn't sure if she should say it.  I wish she would fucking say it.  Maybe I'd have a single clue about what is going on here if she said it.

"Yeah, I probably should," I mutter before turning my head back round to gaze into the fire. The flames are graceful and slow-moving, and they comfort my eyes, which suddenly feel very heavy. 

She's right though, of course.  I should go home. Roisin would feel better if I was there. She needed me. Just like I needed her back then.  I should also go 'home' home and see Niamh and Ror, uncle Liam and aunt Breda — maybe even Mairead.  But there were lots of things I needed to do and should do.  It's just that throughout my life I'd never really been able to reconcile the things that I needed to do and should do with what I actually did. 

I should have asked her out that day in the cafe, but I didn't.  I should have asked Evelyn, who ran the art class, for Eloise's number so I could fix the things I hadn't done that day in the cafe, but I didn't.  I should have kept my mouth shut that day and not nagged my mum to take me to the fucking shops for a cone, but I hadn't done that either.  Mairead had thrown that at me for the first time when I was nine to remind me that everything was my fault.  Niamh had punched her for it but really what the fuck did I know? Maybe it was my fault.  Maybe everything was my fucking fault.

I should tell her about the first time I laid eyes on her for a start. What she had meant for me my entire adult life. How she had been a kind of counterbalance in a life full of bleak and shitty things.  I'd come to the conclusion that she'd been planted in my life at that point in my formative years in order to inspire me. To show me that perfection existed. Because surely if something as perfect as her existed then the world wasn't quite as bleak and shit as I'd always believed it to be. 

I should tell her how she'd been my muse without even realising it, without me ever really realising it.  I should tell her that I want her to leave him and come back to London with me because I can't imagine what my life would be now without her in it.

I should tell her I was in love with her. That I always had been.

Now I'm lying in her arms about to make the same mistakes all over again. But what could I do without knowing where her head really was? What should I do? It was to be her choice. She would have to choose.

Fucking hell, third chances don't happen. I never even thought I'd get a second chance.  It had occurred to me that I'd imagined her entirely. She couldn't have been like I remembered — as perfect as I remembered. I'd been wrong. I'm always fucking wrong.

She was more. More than my memory had been able to hold onto. I'd lost parts of her through the years mainly because it was impossible to remember everything about a person, even her. Even my mother was almost gone now. All that I had left was a faint memory of how she smelled, and how she used to stroke the inside of my wrist with her finger when she held my hand. If I tried really hard I could probably still remember the sound and tone of her voice.  Aunt Roisin's was similar, as was Mairead's, but my mothers had a deeper huskier tone to it that neither of theirs did.  My stomach clenches with something bitter.

Above me Eloise breathes softly and evenly, stroking her fingers through my hair. Her touch is comforting and it lulls me into an exhausted half-sleep. I feel content but after what she said I can't decide whether I should be depressed or not. Hadn't today been enough to convince her we were good together?  That I could make her happy?