The Persistence of Memory

Chapter Twenty Three

There are moments when I'm certain I hate her.

A hate so fierce and violent that it shakes my whole body. I want her to hurt. Like I hurt. But then I realise that the idea of her hurting makes me feel physically ill and so I know I can't possibly hate her. It's just that I want to. Things would be a lot fucking easier if I hated her. And since the line between love and hate are apparently so close together you'd think there would be something I could grab hold of to pull me over the fucking line.

I want to rip my heart out and toss it in the fucking bin. But then I remember she'd done that already. Three days ago.

She loved her husband. Of course she did.

I'm exhausted. Every single bit of me is fucking exhausted. It feels like my whole life I've been holding on hard to something whilst being pulled by a strong current. Then three days ago it was as though the water went completely still and now I don't have the energy to hold on anymore.

What is there to hold on to anyway? Where do I go now? I want to take every memory I have of her and drown it; tie something heavy to them and watch them sink. Preferably to the bottom of a dark freezing lake. Then I could finally move on and be someone else. I could be me without the memory of her. Whoever that was.

I've always believed it's possible for an entire life to change by just a single experience, an event or even a person. In fact, in my opinion, external factors were the only things that could change you. Things changed you a little as you went along, moulding you, altering you in ways. Some of them even come to define you.

I'd been lots of things. I'd been the boy whose mum was shot in front of him, I'd been the guy who'd been in love with the same girl for 13 years, I'd been the guy who'd won the Morley, I'd been the award-winning artist who'd punched a journalist.

Three days ago I had become something else again. Something I'd been before in fact. I'd become something she didn't want. She'd redefined me.

So I'd gone and done the same with her.

The mug of steaming black coffee appears at my side along with a seeded bagel which makes my stomach turn.

"You need to eat something," he tells me.

I nod but continue staring straight ahead, reaching around slowly to lift the coffee. It shoots straight through my body; syrupy black sweetness. Pat makes a good coffee. Almost as good as Eloise's. Almost.

He passes me and walks closer to the thing on the wall, his head dipped in focus. As soon as I'd got home I'd gone to work on it. Transforming it, redefining it. I'm convinced that aside from the film, it's the best thing I've ever done.

On the bottom right corner, I'd written my name and the title. My not so subtle message to her.

"It looks incredible, mate," he says finally. "Was wondering what the fuck you were doing to it. Thought you'd ruined it to be honest. But you didn't. It's genius." He tilts his head to the side and stares harder.

I nod again. Not sure it's genius. Not sure it even works entirely but I love it. Like you love her. I feel hypnotized by it and completely attached to it. I suspected from the beginning it was going to be hard to part with it and I was right. It's literally the only thing I've ever made that I don't want to part with.

It doesn't belong to me though. It never had. It belonged to her. But then, everything I'd ever made in some way belonged to her.

"It's done," I announce. I pull myself up slowly from my cross-legged position on the floor, the joints in my knees and back cracking loudly as I stand.