Time Changes

Part Twenty

Despite his thoughts racing, the following day he travelled back to Australia, as was planned, wondering if ignoring this was the right thing.

Alexis was beginning to find the heat exhausting. She had been in Rio for almost six months, and for all that time the temperature had barely dropped below twenty five degrees, and she was fed up with sweating. She was also lonely, but that was what happened when love broke down, especially when it was with one of the group you’d latched on to. She’d managed to organise a few meals and drinks with some of the clinic staff, and that was fun, she’d recently been told of a British ex pat community, people living and working in the city, and she was determined to catch up with them. But she was just so beaten by the heat.

The phone rang several times before she woke from her slumber on the sofa, with a tired sounding voice she answered, "hello?"

"Alexis?" The voice made her instant alert, eyes open, sat bolt upright, but she was unable to speak, stunned into silence. "Lex, I need to speak to you."

She took several deep breaths, then finally managed, “What do you want Peter?"

                "Did you phone me? My PA said...well, was it you?" The silence was all the answer he needed. "I saw your Dad last week; I didn’t know he’d been ill."

Lex stood, phone pinned to her ear and started to pace, “It was a shock."

He sighed, "are you ok?"

Sighing she stood with her forehead against the window, looking out to the Atlantic Ocean, "Yeah, it’s been stressful, and a lot of travelling. But he’s doing well. I’m glad I was there."

The conversation was stilted and she knew he could tell that.

"God Lex, when did things get this hard between us? Can’t we even be friends?"

“We were never going to be friends Peter, you know that.” Then she sighed again, “

“We can try!”

Lex was finding this so hard, "Did my Dad warn you off me?"

It was time for his silence to speak volumes, eventually he managed, "He did remind me that you were a lot younger than me, and you may be easily led."

"That’s why you disappeared? Before my birthday?"

He hesitated, this was neither the time nor the place to get into this, "we can’t discuss this on the phone Alexis, we need to be together to sort this out." He sighed, "We’re not the best discussing things when we are together, on the phone it’s even worse. That’s why we’re in this situation. I’m not prepared for there to be any more mistakes between us."
                “I don’t think that’s a good idea. We have to just get on with things.”

Peter laughed, “I need you in my life in ANY context Alexis, I keep making wrong decisions without you, and about you. I need you to help me do the right thing, because since Stockholm I’ve become someone I don’t recognise.”

She chuckled. Touché! Instead she sat at the dining table and smiled, “what have you done now Peter?”

Peter was sat on the veranda of the beachfront house, it was a beautiful September morning, the sun was low across the sea, and already surfers were dotted along the coast. He thought of Megan who he’d not seen since he got back, but he was scared of. He knew he had to act on that, sort it out.

                “I’m in Australia.” He offered.

                “Really? That’s cool.”

He laughed, “been teaching at the Uni here for a few months, which in itself is not a problem. But I’m staying with another lecturer, Megan.”

                “You’re seeing each other?” He could hear the hurt that she’d deny was in her voice and it pained him.

                “Sort of, it was never meant to be more than a fling.” When she laughed the pain got worse, “now I feel even worse. We literally slept together, there was nothing more to it, and it was what she wanted too.” Again she laughed, sarcastically. “Alexis, I wanted more than that with you, I wanted to take you to Paris, swim on the most exotic beaches, make love in the snow. Megan was good company...shit! I’m not making this sound any better, am I?”

                “What’s gone wrong?” she asked, ending his misery by wanting to talk, by not judging him anymore.

He sighed with relief, “I overheard her talking on the phone. She thinks I’m wealthy, and she wants to get pregnant or maybe pretend, to rip me off.”

                “Shit! That’s full on devious!”

Peter closed his eyes, “we share a college house, we work near each other. It’s awkward!”

                “Not as awkward as a baby...and a debt!”

He laughed, “Just like you, infinitely practical”

She was on a roll, “you have no obligation to her, she’s hardly going to stalk you or murder you if you escape her clutches. Move! Blame it on the environment...distance from college? Anything!”

He laughed, “why didn’t I think of that?”

                “Because men, in the whole are dumb!”