Twenty.
The seconds turned to minutes, as the minutes turned to hours, as the hours turned to days, and days turned into eternities over the next week or so. Time was creeping along painfully slowly, and between trying to just get school over and done with and doing it well, missing you, worrying that one day I'll come to the house to find Dad and or Kate, and trying to figure out how to leave Benn, I was losing it.
I kept getting these flashbacks, back to when I first remember knowing you. I remembered the smallest pieces of what happened. I remembered your hand around mine; I remembered a tear falling from your face onto mine. I remembered hearing your voice, begging me to not give up. But I couldn't piece anything together. It was like hearing voices, kind of.
I was actually losing my mind, I thought.
I was breezing through preparations for my final exams, lectures from teachers about how I'm wasting potential, and finding stupid reasons for not going out with Jacqui. I'd seen Benn once since Kayla's, and as usual our communication between seeing each other was limited. Every day felt like I was watching myself go through it, through somebody else's eyes. It was weird. I didn't want to be here, but every time I found myself getting ready to leave, and run back to the city, run back to you, I heard your voice inside my head telling me it'd be okay. And I closed my eyes, and remembered the last afternoon at your apartment. I thought of how you kissed my nose before we went to sleep, how you ran your fingers through my hair, and of how warm your skin felt against mine.
Then, I remembered the way you looked into my eyes, and told me it would be alright. And I opened my eyes, and knew it would be.
Memories of you gave me strength and faith, though with every hour, they seemed like yet another lifetime more away. And it hadn't even been a week. There was so much to come. Dad and Kate would come home eventually. I'd have to have the conversation I've feared for forever. I had to finish school. I had to figure out what I was going to do with my life.
I had to leave Benn. I'd never feel for him the things I felt for you, but on some level, he did mean a lot to me. We grew up together, for God's sake. We shared everything. Our first kiss, our first drink, our first party without adults, our first day of high school, we lost our virginities together, the list went on forever. He'd been a part of my life for so long. Someone to fall back on. A place to stay when I had nowhere to go. Someone who never asked too many questions. Someone who really cared.
It wasn't that I didn't care about him anymore. It was more that he was a symbol of my past. Something I was desperately clinging onto, yet trying to leave behind at the same time. He knew everything. He'd been there, through everything. I cared deeply for him, I really did. But I couldn't let go of the things that trapped me, if I didn't let go of him. And our relationship just seemed so futile these days. It was like we were trying to recapture the feeling of when we were kids. When we first kissed, and first fell in love. When we shared everything, and began a whole new stage of our life- together.
But we were just wasting our time now, trying to hold onto something we'd destroyed. We weren't the same people anymore. It wasn't the same circumstances anymore. It was sad, yes, because we could've had a future together. But things happened. And we'd fallen apart. I hadn't been wrong, after all, when I thought we were beyond repair. Because we were.
If I hadn't broken his heart yet, which I'm sure I'd done plenty of times, leaving him for good was sure to do it.
Shit, I thought, and turned around to face the alarm clock on my bedside table. It was Friday morning. Eight hours from now Dad and Kate would probably be home for the weekend.
&&&.
I didn't bother going to school that day. It was only a half day for seniors, to give us "extra study time"- which, really, for most seniors meant an extended Friday night of drinking and whatnot. It was tempting, I had to admit. But my place right now was home. For Mum, I thought, twisting the blue bit of hair around my finger.
I was still pacing the living room, nibbling on a small bag of chips, trying to figure out what I was going to say. But really, I didn't have a clue what Dad and Kate would do when they came home. I didn't know how angry Dad was. I had no idea as to what was going to go down tonight. Nor did I have any idea about what I was going to hear.
I hated this concept of not knowing. There wasn't a lot I couldn't in some way deal with or handle- but I needed to know. This treading around in the dark, desperately looking for something that's impossible to find, and not even knowing what you're looking for, was what drove me crazy.
I stopped in my tracks when I heard someone try to unlock the door, only to realise it wasn't locked. I took a step towards the door, but froze again when I heard voices.
"Told you she'd come back." I heard Kate say triumphantly.
"Of course she came back. She depends on me." Dad replied.
Oh, how I loathed him for that. He used the fact that I had no way of living on my own. Or so he thought. I bit my lip and nervously played with a strand of my hair, trying to contain the anger bubbling up inside me.
The door began to push open.
"George! Wait."
Dad pulled the door shut again. Properly shut this time. I raced into the spare bedroom upstairs, so I could open the window and listen more from there, without being noticed. I stumbled my way to the window, tripping over countless boxes containing God-knows-what. I quietly unlocked the window, and pulled it open.
"Well she's going to ask questions- you're going to want to know what you'll tell her."
"Why would she ask questions?"
"George! Because she's that kind of girl! And last week's events left a lot to answer." Kate was getting angry.
"Well I don't know. Does it really matter?!" Dad snapped back.
"Yeah, it does."
"Okay fine, we'll tell her our marriage was going horribly. I met you, and we fell in love, but I didn't want to leave her mother for Bec's sake."
"So you think that, in the eyes of Bec, will justify cheating?"
"Well, what will?"
He had a point there. I'm really not sure they could have cooked up anything that would have made it alright, in my eyes. Call it idealistic, but the institution of marriage, to me, means that you love each other. And you've made a commitment to love no one but each other. Maybe it wasn't all about happy endings, but I always thought if you loved someone enough to marry them, at least you'd have the courtesy and respect for them to leave them if you don't love them anymore. But apparently, not so much...
"It'll be fine. She's never asked too many questions."
Yeah, probably because I was young and in shock, and at the time, there were no questions. None that you could answer anyways, I thought, and I knew that. I realised I was just going to have to settle with not knowing. With not understanding, and with pretending not to care. I was going to have to settle with the lies I was fed, even though I couldn't bring myself to swallow them. Dad may have fooled me when I was younger, but he failed now, and worse, I failed to fool myself these days.
I heard Kate audibly sigh, as her and Dad finally entered the house. In an attempt to get out of the spare room inconspicuously and unnoticed, so I could go downstairs and pretend I hadn't been listening , I hopped over a box, tripped, and fell flat on my face. I cursed, knowing I'd have to explain the loud noise when I got downstairs.
I ended up saying I'd been sitting on my bed, and tripped and fell getting up. Dad and Kate both had more important things on their mind than the validity of my excuses. And so the charade began. A sick and twisted one, that couldn't be more deceitful if it tried, I might add.
I just asked all the questions I knew they had answers to, and quietly listened to everything they chose to explain, and anything else they decided to say. What else was I going to do? I knew they had a story, and were going to stick to it. What I asked didn't matter. I gracefully accepted their apologies. I played along nicely, feigning shock when appropriate, while keeping composed.
After all, 'all the world's a stage, and we are merely players.'
&&&.
