(Do I still need to do that whole apologizing thing for my craptacular updating skills, or are we past that now? ;) Hope the fact I LOVE YOU ALL makes up for it, anyhow :P)
23: The Geek Delusion
It was one of the most overused clichés in the world, but it truly was like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. All the things that had been knocking around in my brain for years had finally been channelled into coherent thoughts, and I felt free. I had shackled myself down, and I had broken out of at least a couple of the restraints which had frozen me in time.
Mum and I did lots of catching up that day, and it was a bit like we were making up for lost time. It had taken us twenty-four years to realize it, but we were finally comfortable with the fact that we didn't have to fully understand one another to be capable of loving each other.
I hadn't sat at a kitchen table and felt like I was properly part of a family in – well, ever. But somehow, I belonged at the driftwood kitchen table with my mum and Alec, who I adored because of the effort he had always made with me. While I couldn't say "oh yeah, Alec's like a father to me", I could say that he treated me like an equal and always used to ask for my opinion on things, as though it genuinely mattered to him. As a whole, we weren't the kind of family which conversation would constantly flow between, but the silence between us tonight was a satisfied, tranquil one.
'Thanks for the food, Mum, it was amazing,' I said, standing up once I was finished with my meal to gather the plates. 'I'll quickly do the dishes and then I think I might head upstairs and grab an early night.'
'Thanks, darling,' Mum responded gratefully. 'It's been a long day.'
And it really bloody well had. I couldn't believe it was only yesterday that the total screw-up of a double-date had happened. Had it truly been only twenty-four hours? I thought as I strode into the kitchen wearily.
It felt like it had been weeks since I had seen Griffin or heard his voice, but it had been barely a day. I wondered how long it would be – or how long it would feel – until he talked to me again. Never was an eternity. But I supposed that it was an eternity which I deserved.
Once I was finished doing the dishes, I trudged upstairs to the spare bedroom, which was where I slept every time I stayed over. Heading straight for the bed in the middle of the room, I lay sleepily on my front on top of the comforter. The carbs we had eaten at dinner had made me tired, which in turn reminded me of my overconsumption of pasta in Milan with Griffin and the late night walk we'd had.
Taking my phone out from the back pocket of my jeans, I saw that I had received texts from Nova and Emilie, but my heart panged a little when I saw there was absolutely no peep from Griffin. I was an idiot for expecting that there would be one from him. "Fuck you, Laina" had been pretty loud and clear when it came to him telling me exactly how he felt.
Hey, Kate said you called in sick. Hope you feel better and that we see you in the office soon xx P.S. I don't know if this is info you want, but Griffin wasn't in today, either. (Emilie, Sent 12:39)
Oh Emilie. If I was actually gay, I would have gone for that girl in a heartbeat.
I sent her back a grateful but standard text, not giving too much away and not commenting on the information she had relayed about Griffin, before I called Nova.
'Hey babycakes,' I greeted her as soon as she picked up.
Nova let out a laugh. 'What a reception! How are you, babe?'
'I'm good. I'm great. I'm wonderful, actually.' And it was true. Despite a voice in the back of my mind and in the corner of my chest pining, I was. The cloudiness that used to creep up and impair my vision whenever I used to think about Griffin and ponder prospects like a relationship wasn't present; instead, I was feeling a quiet contentment.
'You're not drunk, are you?' she asked, laughter hidden in the folds of her voice.
Shifting onto my back, I stared up at the ceiling as I tucked my hair behind my ear absentmindedly. 'I wish,' I replied with a short laugh. 'I am just feeling good though. A bit like we felt after we got that massage a couple of years ago, do you remember?'
'I remember! It felt like they'd drugged us or something, it was that good,' Nova recalled. 'I bet they were pumping something through their vents, though, or they were at least burning some dodgy weed incense. A massage couldn't possibly have made us that chill.'
'It did smell a bit like the old Mary-Jane, I won't lie,' I agreed, scrunching up my nose and grinning, even though she couldn't see me. I had paid for the two of us to get massages just before Nova's sister's wedding to make up for the fact I wouldn't be going to it – something Nova had nearly crucified me for.
'I presume the trip to your mum's is doing you good if you're feeling higher than a kite.'
'It is,' I said, lifting a strand of brown hair from near my face and twisting it round my thumb and index finger. 'I told Mum about...everything.' I couldn't think of any other word which encompassed what I confessed to my mum. It was quite literally...everything.
Nova made a soft noise of delight. 'I'm glad, Lai – I'm really glad you've got it off your chest, even just a little.'
A sigh – one which was saying, "Finally." – escaped from my lips. 'Me too, babe, me too,' I murmured, before turning the conversation to her. I had done enough talking about me for today. 'How are you? I feel really bad that I've just abandoned you and fucked off to the seaside.'
'Oh psh, don't worry, you nutter!' Nova protested. 'I've had more than enough sea in the last year. You just have a good time and relax, and I'll see you when you get back. I love you, bitch.'
'Love you too, Supernova.'
*
The winding lanes of the coastal town Mum lived in were full of dozens of independent shops and cafés instead of chains. It showcased it as being so much more full of character than where I lived in the city, where there was at least a Starbucks or two on every street corner.
The next morning was spent exploring them all - an experience I wasn't sure I liked or not, admittedly bordering on forced, but I appreciated Mum taking me round all of her favourite places. In the two years she had lived here, I had never stuck around long enough on a visit to bother checking out the shops, even on my own.
Going out together was something we never used to do when I was young, our interests too different for us to have much to talk about. It struck me as a little bit sad, though, how she had a whole new life in a place I hadn't grown up in. I had never really appreciated my mum as a person – an actual entity – of her own. She had just always seemed like a small part of my life, and maybe I was naïve to think she stopped being in existence whenever my eyes weren't trained on her.
'Why are you looking at me like that?' Mum asked, her head tilted to the side curiously.
I shook my head, blinking myself out of my thoughts. 'Just thinking.'
'About what?'
'About you,' I replied honestly.
Mum smiled wryly in response. 'I'm flattered.'
We were walking down the pier with our ice-creams in hand, despite it being well into November now, and the autumn season being in full swing. You couldn't strut down the pier without a cone, though, as much as your nose was beginning to turn pink from the cold in the air mixing with the chill from the salty sea breeze.
'Eric, stop - you're hurting me.'
I stopped in my tracks and turned my head to see where the pleading voice had come from, my eyes settling on a couple a few feet from the food hut on the pier.
They were young, and couldn't have been older than seventeen or eighteen, but I could see the discomfort screaming from the posture of the girl, whose straight, raven black hair fell to her waist and cascaded down her back. The boy she was with was gripping her upper arm tightly, and even from where I was standing, I could see his fingers digging into her green sweatshirt. Even through the thick material of it, I knew it would leave a mark on her pale skin.
The boy was whispering furiously at her, manoeuvring their bodies and forming a cage around her with his arms as he backed her right up against the edge of the pier, shielding her from view. To anyone looking at the pair of them, it would have looked romantic, even.
Looking at him at first glance, I never would have pegged him as the dickhead, wanker type. His thickly-rimmed glasses and almost baby face would have labelled him as slightly geeky, if not quirkily cute.
I supposed it was always those you would least expect, safe in the knowledge that appearances meant nothing as I marched up to the couple.
'Excuse me, what do you think you're doing?' I addressed the geeky prick.
He turned to look at me, looking startled before his expression settled into one of irritation. 'I'm sorry, what?' He sounded anything but sorry.
Peering over the space above his arm, I started talking to the dark-haired girl he was with.
'Is this your boyfriend?' I asked softly, watching her expression turn from fearful to confused, to comprehending.
When I saw her nod, something determined settled within me.
'Does he make you feel uncomfortable or scared a lot?'
She didn't answer.
Sometimes, all it took was one person to ask you one question – if it was the right question – in order to eventually get out of something which had been poisoning you from the inside for so long.
It was towards the end of that last year of university that it finally happened for me: for my professor to realize just how badly I had fallen behind. My final project was due in a week and I had barely written a sentence of it. My grades had slipped, and it looked like I was going to flunk everything. To have slaved away for almost three years of university and to simply have it all amount to nothing was the thing which would have crushed me the most. I had worked so hard.
'Oh Laina,' Professor Murphy had said softly, her eyes gentle as she gazed at me over the top of her glasses. 'What have you gotten yourself into?'
I stared back at Professor Murphy with wide eyes, my mouth slightly ajar.
For a full thirty seconds, my brain couldn't comprehend the question. The words were tangled somewhere between her lips and my ears, making absolutely no sense to me. She could have spoken to me in Mandarin in that moment, and I would have understood it to the same extent as what she had asked.
All I could think about was how Professor Murphy had given me my first ever lecture at university, and how she had supervised all my practicals in the lab in the last three years. She had watched me go from being the life and hydrocarbon-loving eighteen year old in my first year to becoming this – a girl who was on the verge of failing her degree.
As my tired, stressed-out, and strained brain started working properly again, and I realized what she had just said, my eyes began to feel tight. It felt like they were getting ready to flood - and before I knew it...I was bawling.
I couldn't breathe because of the sheer amount of helplessness blocking the passage to my lungs, a feeling which had hit me so swiftly and powerfully that I thought maybe I was going to pass out from it.
'I don't know,' I choked out, swiping at my eyes with the backs of my hands. Makeup was being smeared everywhere, exposing what was underneath. 'I don't know, Prof.'
Professor Murphy picked up the box of tissues on her desk and placed it in front of me, all the while keeping her eyes trained on my face, tears and foundation and mascara streaked all across it.
'What happened to your face, Laina?' she asked gently.
My hand froze midway to reaching for a tissue from the box of Kleenex.
'I fell.' Even I could hear how unconvincing that sounded. It was a pathetic, ridiculous excuse. I shouldn't have been making excuses for someone who had hit me across the face in the first place, regardless of how much they claimed they loved me. Because that was the situation I had gotten myself into.
I bit my lip and shook my head. 'No – I take that back. I didn't fall. It was – it was my boyfriend.'
She nodded and waited for a little while for me to continue and elaborate, which I didn't. I wouldn't be able to say any words about any of this for years to come. When Professor M realized I wasn't going to say anything more, she started to speak herself.
'Okay, Laina, this is what we're going to do,' she said matter-of-factly. 'I'm going to arrange for some campus accommodation for you until the end of the school year. I expect your dissertation to be handed in no more than three weeks from now, which means you've got two weeks longer than everyone else to get me the best bloody piece of work you can do in that time. Do you think you can do that?'
Dumbly, I nodded, knowing she had pieced it all together.
'Do you want me to inform–'
'No,' I cut in immediately, looking at her with beseeching eyes. Even though the fact Professor Murphy was going above and beyond what was required of her to help me filled me with some calm, I still felt panic at the thought of anyone being directly informed. 'Please don't tell anyone, Prof. It's something I just want to sort out – that I need to sort out on my own.'
'All right,' she agreed, albeit begrudgingly. 'Meet me back here with your stuff in an hour – if you're not back by then, I'm calling someone.'
'That's fine, I'll be here,' I assured her, standing up and taking a tissue when she offered one to me this time. Dabbing my face, I balled up the used tissue in my hand as I left her office and headed to mine and Nathan's flat, five minutes from campus. A couple of people stared as I strode through campus, but I didn't have enough energy to care.
My breathing was as shaky as my steps as I made my way to where Nathan and I lived, praying with everything I possessed that he wouldn't be home. If I slipped out without a word, I could do this. It would be the cleanest break ever.
But luck – or prayer, or whatever it was – wasn't on my side. When I unlocked the front door with quaking fingers and walked in, he was there in the living room with his laptop propped on his lap and the television on in the background.
'Hey babe,' he called from where he was sat on the sofa. 'Get over here, I missed ya.'
I didn't respond as I headed straight for our room, dragging my suitcase out from under the bed and throwing it open. Pulling open the doors to the closet we shared, I blindly yanked as many clothes as I could off hangers, tossing them into the suitcase without bothering to fold them before I went for my underwear drawer and started doing the same.
I was halfway through grabbing a couple pairs of socks when Nathan pushed the door to the bedroom fully open.
'Are you deaf? I called you when you came in.'
Trying not to flinch as he stepped closer, it was a struggle to keep breathing as I kept on ignoring him, keeping my eyes trained on the floor and trying to continue with what I was doing.
'Are. You. Deaf?' he repeated, each word like he was delivering a physical blow.
'No.'
'Oh good, I thought you'd forgotten how to speak,' Nathan responded sardonically. His eyes moved from my face to the suitcase on the bed. 'What are you doing?'
'I'm leaving,' I said quietly.
'Sorry, what was that? I couldn't hear you,' he said, pure ice trickling through his voice.
'I said I'm leaving,' I said again, more confidently this time. My hands were balled into fists, held tightly to my sides.
'What the fuck do you mean you're leaving?'
'I'm done. I'm done with this. With you. You're sick in the head, Nathan - you're sick, and you don't even care about how much you hurt me.' Swallowing when emotion made my voice turn thick, I blinked repeatedly to get rid of the water collecting in my eyes. I couldn't be emotional about this. I needed to emotionally detach myself from the situation in order to be strong enough to walk away.
Nathan opened his mouth to retort, the sneer on his face already pinching his nose in preparation for the inevitable, bitchy verbal hit. But I beat him to it.
'And if you ever touch me again – if you ever come near me again, I'm calling the police.' My voice didn't even quiver as I said it, and I had never been prouder of myself than in that moment.
I stared at him, letting the sight of Nathan in that second be seared into my mind forever, before I turned away and moved to zip up the suitcase, yanking it off the bed and not caring about the fact it collided painfully with my shins. Much worse had been inflicted on them before.
*
The raven-haired girl's face changed when I posed that question to her, and she looked from me to her boyfriend and then back again.
'Sometimes,' she whispered, the sound nearly drowned by the crashing of the English sea. 'Just sometimes.'
'It shouldn't be sometimes,' I responded gently, wanting to reach out and squeeze her hand if it weren't for the physical barrier which was her little bitch of a boyfriend. 'The answer to my question should have been never. You deserve better. You deserve so much better than someone who makes you feel small because they're an insecure, sick person.'
Geek-boy looked like he wanted to spit at me, a face which reminded me so much of Nathan that I should have been paralyzed with nostalgic feelings of fear. Instead, I shook my head, looking at him in undisguised repulsion.
'You're pathetic,' I told him, before looking at his girlfriend again. 'You deserve better,' I repeated, before taking a step back and walking towards my mum again.
I could have dragged her away with me, and insisted that she leave there and then with me and Mum. But it truly wasn't my place to do that. Raven-haired girl needed to walk away from geek-boy on her own – otherwise she would never really walk away at all.
'That was a very wise thing you did there,' Mum murmured gently as I glanced back at the young couple, whose eyes were still trained on me.
'Mm,' was my noncommittal reply.
It wasn't until I got into bed that night that I let myself think about it all properly.
As a twenty-something year old woman staring up at a ceiling in a bedroom she hadn't grown up in, it hit me that yesterday, when I had been talking about my mum giving up on someone she loved, I had been talking about me. As an angsty teen, I had felt like she was giving up on me and my potential life by so readily giving up on her marriage.
Today, I had seen myself in that girl on the pier. I had seen that she needed to give herself the best possible chance at a decent relationship – that she deserved it. And she had been a total stranger to me. It was only fair that I thought about myself the same way.
It seemed that after all these years, I had finally recognized that the person who I needed to love and stick by the most was myself.
And that what was made me realize that I was ready to give loving somebody else another chance.