Sixteen
Max told Harry on phone that he could come over to ours after confronting his mum. They hung up. Max turned around and looked at me with apprehensive eyes.
"What was happening just now? You sc-scared the hell out of-f me," Max whispered slowly. "Don't worry about the storeroom o-okay? You've just burnt the paper bags of the flours. Nothing too serious, and Jennifer was only worried about you. Me too. Tell me anything, okay? I'll help you, if I can."
"It was great actually," I said with a light smile, "I know the truth now, and I think I'll be fine."
"The truth about what? Don and Harry are brothers?" Max sat down next to me on the couch, "that's not your business to care about, Minnie. There must be some reasons why that bloke was hiding it. You know, they'll fix whatever they're dealing with. You have to stay away from Don, I can tell he is driving you crazy. Did he really cheated on you? I'll do something about it."
"My counsellor is wrong. She tried to reset things," I sighed, "I am alright now. You have ever had this feeling that you are in a jar and someone finally open the cover and you can breathe again? Don't do anything to Don."
"I don't know what you're talking about," Max said, "Talk to me, okay? We can get an appointment in the public hospital. It's, it's cheaper I think."
"I am not sick. I've never been sick. Don't you see? I can talk to people again, and I am going to be okay." I walked to the kitchen.
"Did you see yourself just now? It was like you tried killing yourself back in the bathroom again, Minnie!" Max exclaimed, eyes goggling at me like I was going to explode, "you were yelling like possessed, and you were kicking at people and only Harry could hold you down. And what happened in the storeroom? "
"I'm fine now," I concluded, annoyed, "Max, I just need to go back to school, find Miss Johnson on Monday."
"What were you thinking just now? I need to know that." Max looked like he was exploding.
I felt I was asked this question a lot, so I chose to not answer. I hugged Max for a long time. I went into my room when he made dinner. I sat on the floor. Max wanted me to leave the door open. I remembered Don, and all his secrets, and Harry, and Zara. I thought about Miss Johnson.
I took out my phone, found her number. I deleted it. I did not think about Don. I forced myself to think about Harry, and I didn't want to stop thinking, and caring, about him then.
Harry arrived with a weary face. He looked way older. Battled and baffled. He had longer hair now, I realised. Max didn't ask anything because he didn't really know any. He should remain this way, and he stayed in the living room.
We were sitting in my room. It was astonishing to remember how Harry and I used to cuddle on the bed, thinking about the impossibilities and he would fall asleep next to me hours later. Harry thanked me for getting him some water.
"How are you feeling?" I asked, sitting across him. I got up and closed the door.
Harry shook his head, drinking his water.
"How are you feeling?" Harry asked. He didn't stop holding my hand when I sat down.
"Harry you have to talk to me," I said.
"I hate you," Harry said.
"Oh," I sat further away from him sincerely, "I should probably leave you alone?"
"It's true," Harry shielded his eyes with his hand, "Don is my half-brother, and he pretended he wasn't the entire time. He said he only annoyed me because he didn't want me to know about it, he only wanted my mum. But later he saw you and Max being close, was touched, and he wanted a brother to toy around, and started being nice to me. But you know the worst part? It wasn't how mum admitted it. When the two of them looked at me, both of them knew exactly what was going on and the pity in their eyes just...I'm the left out in one fine picture. And you knew it too."
"I didn't, maybe I did," I replied, "But I was told not to tell anyone, and I wasn't sure, and you know how things were in my head. Sometimes at night, I thought of Don and Zara's eyes."
"Why didn't you tell me at the beginning?" Harry finally looked up at me.
"I was scared," I closed my eyes, tried to remember why, "I was told this was not true. I didn't want to hurt you. I must not tell anyone about it. I am always scared but not knowing why. It's strange, isn't it?"
Harry ran his hands over his blonde hair. I wanted to touch his arm and tell him to close his eyes and I didn't. That wasn't right anymore, was that? I rubbed away the tiny drop of tear in the corner of my eye before Harry looked at me.
I wanted to weep for game my head played with me. I felt like winning.
Harry sat on my bed, opened the window and started smoking. Grey smoke clouded what was left out of the frame, "Why did you cheat on me with him before? Did you know about this by that time? I kept thinking, maybe like, you didn't really like him, maybe you were making a mistake. But it wasn't like that."
"No," I mumbled, "I'm not sure how to define cheating though. It's unjustified. Reasons and causes. Future and consequence. Why should there be a reason behind an action? How does it explain anything? Why can't there by no questions and answers?"
"For one thing I would never cheat on you," Harry said, "though I slept with Anne once."
I looked at him, awed.
"There was one night when Max was very drunk, he was right in the backroom." Harry shrugged indifferently, "she left before I even woke up in the upper room of the bar. We never talked about it. Are you going to spill anything to anyone soon?"
"I won't," I promised, thinking about it, "but I told myself this when I guessed about Don and Zara. Don loves you, and I can't live without him."
"You can't live without the feelings and those words he gave you," Harry said in the room of sickening cigarette smell, "and intimacy, not exactly love. I thought so when you left me, but I hung out with other girls, I knew I need you more than I want you. I always want you to be happy, like Max does. You understand me and grandpa, you're the only one - I know that. I'm sorry I can't give you those like Don can."
I wasn't sure about that, but I said, "Don't be. It's not just those things between me and Don, though I don't know what the rest is."
We sat here, I played Caro mio ben for nineteen times. Harry didn't speak, and I didn't neither. It was a majestic quietness that filled us, but it wasn't sad or bad like those among stray people. We were together and we were not. We were alone in our places on the bed, but we weren't empty nor apart.
Back to the beginning, he was this one with nice manner and perfected perfects to everyone, and I was the one hiding history and stories. Now our eyes were both naked, and we saw better and further.
"Do you want to kiss me?" I asked. Harry did, just a little peck. I couldn't be sure about anything I felt, but I was happy when he did.
"You're the winning award liar," Harry said later after his second cigarette.
I hugged my knees, "They are the same things, aren't they? Just different sides of the same story. One is flat while the other is protective."
"What am I going to do next?" he asked. "I don't want Don to be anywhere close to me. He has my mum now."
"Move in."
Harry stared at me with wide eyes.
"You can move in if you don't mind sleeping on the couch," I said, "Max wouldn't mind that. No one can hurt you here," Harry didn't respond, so I continued, "I'll keep you safe."
So Harry moved in, Max was beyond delighted to hear about it. Despite the fact that Don never called me, or texted me, I felt like living in a family for the first time.
Anne came over almost every evening to help me with my studies. I had brilliant and delicious meals. I ate dinner as slowly as possible, and the four of us would talk about what happened for the day, and sometimes we played the old Pictionary Jennifer gave me. Jennifer made me go to church with her. Jennifer's daughter came back from wherever she had been. Bonn tried to talk about his not funny jokes. Harry liked the sofa, at least he said so.
I dared not to go in the storeroom. Nobody handed me any lighter or knife, I was grateful.
Sometimes I felt like I barely knew Harry. All those time when I saw him and Anne talking smoothly like there was nothing to hide. I would just stare at them from a safe distant, thinking of Max. Maybe lies, pretence, are the best, and the only, protector of some innocents. What a wise thing to say.
One night when Harry was taking out the blanket to the sofa, Kelly pounded my door fiercely. I saw her standing in front of me, her face was painted with watery make up. I invited her in, and let her cry until she told me what happened. She left Shane. Harry didn't like her in the beginning, but the three of us just sat down around the table.
"He broke up with me," she said, I put my hand over hers to calm her down, "but he has broken up with me for many times."
"Why didn't you leave?" Harry asked harshly. I glared at him, "why? You need to ask her this sooner or later."
"I couldn't. He told me to fuck off then, said I am an ugly whore."
"But you left him," Harry said quickly, "You could have gone to the police. I'm not going to beat up anyone."
"Beating up anyone is breaking the law, and Kelly you're not a whore" I said sternly, "you still don't know who is behind the shoplifting, do you?"
"I tried finding it out for you," Kelly wept again, "But he avoided me and called me a bitch just now. I couldn't go anywhere."
"Go to your mum and tell her about Shane," I suggested, "she needs to understand what you're going through."
"She wouldn't like - "
"They shouldn't intervene your past decisions, they have no right to give judgement on them. It's your life, your future, not theirs. Forget about all those ballet you do if you don't like it. You just need to know what you're doing now," I told her.
"They won't listen, they want me to do so many stuff...."
"Tell them about Shane and what happened, just do your part," I said, "That's all you can do. Don't pretend things would be alright, if they are not getting in the way expected, you make them the way you want them to."
Kelly looked at me, that made me feel uneasy. I tried to look like an adult.
"You have a bright future," I hugged her, stroking her back, "It's not imagination, it isn't like what I said last time. You move the bright future from your head to the real world. Don't listen to other's lies if you know what you're doing is right, and I tell you what? I think leaving Shane is right."
Kelly just cried for a while, and I called her mum to pick her up from ours. At the entrance of my building, I hugged her again with Kelly's mum, dressing with a Burberry coat, near.
"Just get your GCSE done," I whispered in her ear, "Show her, and Shane, what you've got in you. It doesn't matter now."
I felt like the priest in Jennifer's church, less moustache perhaps. Her mother thanked me for calling her. I stared at the back of the car as it headed straight, watching the red light spot vanished in the end of the road. As I headed back into the house, I found Harry standing behind me, looking at me with an indecipherable face. His eyes narrowed at me.
"What are you looking at?" I asked. I crossed my arms, it was a chilling night.
Harry shrugged, "You've changed."
"We all have."
Later that night, Max returned after walking Anne home. He went to bed soon because he had an early shift in the morning. He was doing extremely well in the hotel. eHer dfjdkljflkdSupposedly, he would make it to a chef soon since there were only 9 people working in the kitchen there.
I lay on my bed, door was closed with lights all turned off in the flat. Don had called twice and I missed them because of Kelly. I thought of what to say to him, and I could think of nothing. Did I love him that much? Did I even love him at all? I cared about him, but love, love, love was too complicated and difficult. Too much to be felt and understood. Loving someone and caring about someone could be two things.
I couldn't sleep throughout the night, just looking at the ceiling and the pale light. I heard the door opened, and shut my eyes quickly. A hand gently stroked my cheek, I wanted to roll around and ignore him. I, however, opened my eyes in the dark. I could barely make out the features of his face.
"I guess the worst thing about living in the same place with you is," Harry said huskily, pulling a strand of my hair to my ear, "that I have to look at you every day, knowing you are here but only think of Don."
"I don't," I replied quietly, the blonde hair became bluish. Harry looked like he wasn't from Earth. "Not all the time."
"I can't sleep," Harry said, "what do you think I've changed? I really want to know."
"You were this simple person. When you were happy, you laughed. You didn't smoke. You were always afraid of what you wanted. Now you are you."
"Mum needed the good me," Harry said flatly, twisting my curl with his finger, "I never asked her what happened with Don. She didn't want to talk about it either. She called every night to make sure I'm okay though, and I am."
I nodded, "We've changed too much, haven't we?"
"People will just keep changing. Not that we can stop. It's not bad thing, to change," Harry said, he pulled my duvet up, covering my shoulders, "Lie to me for one night, Minnie."
Harry looked out of the window, "Just one night and tell me that you love me. A favour between friends?"
I shook my head. But I did love him very much.
Harry's low chuckle was afflicting me, "I have guessed that." He kissed my forehead before leaving the room, I felt his stubbles. My eyes traced at the sofa's dark line until sleepiness invaded.
Love is so combustible at first. Like the non- stoppable fire back in the farm house. It spreads. It burns. It emphasises feelings. Our thoughts are so exaggerated that we feel incredibly invincible. Our hearts aren't.
Some mistakes can be overlooked because of love - how powerful love sounds. Some mistakes are overstated and leave burn marks. Eventually, it all will be put out, along with trust. Hope. And honesty.
Isn't that's why lies are needed? Lies are part of our language, the unwritten civilisation of all culture. Not one is invented. They are native, are born in our genes and bones. Like leukocyte. Liars and pretence are the great lovers. Like Don and I. Mum and dad, perhaps. Maybe later Anne and Max.
It didn't matter now where Tommy was. Because the most important thing was he was not here. I should have know this ages ago. I missed seeing him, but left was left. Tommy left, I hoped I could still live. I shouldn't think about dying because it made everyone happy, including myself.
And Harry. We couldn't go through love like that, because both of us could break and I wouldn't want that for him. It was more promising for us to share our own kind of compassion with each other that never would ever be understood by liars. Empathy and compassion. Sometimes I couldn't tell the difference of these two.
We never talked about Don's affair that Harry mentioned. We didn't feel the need of knowing who, or how, or when. There was nothing to think about Don, so I didn't. I knew what I had felt about him. I wasn't ashamed of it. Harry liked Minnie Daze for the person she was even though she had no idea what kind of person she had turned herself into.
Don and I were not seen by each other because of the many unexplainable assumptions and conditions - and that was why I was with Harry and he was with whoever he was with.
Here, in the ending of our relationships and many things. Flames went out. Cheating, for Don, became the escaping solution for the needs of being understood or whatever. A must more than an option somehow. It was the ultimate pill for our discoloured love. What had been its colour though?
Sometimes you just have to stick around with someone who sees you at your crappiest and still likes and wants you, because those are the warriors who would stay even when the castle falls; because whose magical beings with tricks would use up his pixies dust sooner or later.
So everyone is trying to understand everyone. I didn't think I would ever be able to understand what being understood was, neither would I understand what understanding someone meant. I honestly didn't think Harry and Don understand those too.
The week after what happened at Jen's was out, Miss Johnson was sick. For the entire week, I tried to find her, on phone, text messages. She never replied, I wondered why.
Eventually when April arrived and the weather was warm and cheerful, I found the OPEN sign in front of her office. I departed with Kelly after school, who was doing extremely well after breaking up with Shane. She scored the highest in the essay about Roman Fever, while I was the lowest of the class. No one really cared about what everyone said anymore. Listening was part of being deceived.
I wondered why I was always preaching myself, but then I wasn't. I was thinking a lot, a lot - a lot that I couldn't control how things were going in my head; just like hundreds of cars all going different directions and I was trying to catch them by foot.
I went straight inside the room, no knocking, and sat down in front of the jaded face. Her hair was longer than ever, eyes were, however, less sharp.
"You forgot about your manner," she said quietly in a dull voice.
"You forgot about how to live in the real world," I replied, the photo on the desk was replaced by a pile of files and papers.
"How are things progressing?" she asked, "with you and your secrets? I was sick for the past week, couldn't catch up with you."
"Do you know that Don knew the truth?"
"Did he?"
"You talked about how important it was to not tell the truth, why being so calm now?" I asked flatly, "and I was right about Don and Zara."
"Keeping secret is hard, and I have expected that coming," Miss Johnson put down her pen, "I just thought my method could help you to release your stress, and keep you untroubled."
"Of course, it doesn't work that way though" I said, "I'm not sick, am I? You made me..." I didn't continue. So she knew it from the start.
Miss Johnson didn't reply at once, just looking away from me, "we all did something horrible sometimes. We don't judge what is good and wrong. We stay in the shades between black and white, try to do everything out of love. Following our instincts becomes all we hold onto. Thing seems evil, but it doesn't mean they are bad. It hurts others, but it makes us who we are. We're told to think before we act, how many of us can do that? Love wins over judgements."
"Not everyone is like that," I said.
She covered her eyes, "I grew up by his side, and I fell in love with him. That's natural! I would go anywhere with him. Moving from London to here, following him, guarding him. He made mistakes, he fell for you. And I needed to correct him, no matter what it takes. He doesn't understand though.
"I didn't know what I was thinking. I'm more than sorry about the many ways I used on you. I am! He doesn't want people to know about his mum, he told me that. And what has he honestly told you or shared with you? And you guessed it right, I couldn't let it happen. We're human and we make mist...that's the name we give to our hurt, vexed experience, right? We act, and we think, and we regret. It's a cycle."
"Even including cheating and lying, and hurting peopple" I said. I saw her beautiful face staining with tears. She was the childhood friend who Don plaited for, and he was the loved one for her. I was the outcast.
Harry and I were the same suddenly. Maybe always.
"I'm sorry," Miss Johnson sobbed, "I'm really sorry for making things worse. Don told me about the storeroom, and I did something even more horrible. I couldn't tell you, I... I just want to protect what I love."
I looked at Miss Johnson for a moment. People are my age always wonder about what love is and experiment it because of the endless curiosity that cannot be tamed. I did too. I wondered what had Miss Johnson came up with all these years. What was her interpretation of love? And I thought of my mother - when she was my age, how did my mum view and deal with the mystery of love?
I closed my eyes and breathed. Max told me this morning that it was always okay to think and think. Think slowly, I told myself, and I did it as slowly as I could.
"We all have beautiful first love who is going to be part of us, Don's part in my life is forever," Miss Johnson stared at the desk, "we grow up, something doesn't leave, do they?"
I left the room. That boy in the photo was Don, he liked drawing snail. I cried in Harry's cottage before going back home. I watered the flowers too. Why does love turn into a war after we grew up? What made people start confessing now? Why now?
"Someone gave you a letter," Max said, getting into the house with a paper box, "along with a box. It's a vase."
I helped him to put the vase onto the table, "Who was it?"
"You read the letter and you tell me," Max said, "Where's Harry?"
"At Jen's, he's still trying to convince Jennifer that I'm fine. Jen wants to me to see a therapist." I said, holding the letter, "everyone thinks that I'm mad."
Max didn't reply, just smiled at me briefly. When he went into the bathroom, I took out the vase. It was in pink with blue dots. I replaced the water bottle with it. I unfolded the letter. The unneeded truth was always hidden in letters.
Dear Minnie,
I don't think you have expected this letter of confession. You must be very disappointed with my family, with how I managed my life. I hated you, so much. You hurt Harry, then you hurt Don. You took them away one by one.
Both of them, I don't know how exactly you knew about it, are my sons. My life was less complicated when I was younger. You must wonder the rest of the story. I hated you for spilling the story this way, but maybe it is the best. I don't know how I was going to tell Harry anyway.
I knew Simon for my entire life. We were happy, best friends. Soul mates, even. It turned like he loved me. I was young, drunk, and I spent a night at his when his parents were out. You could imagine the rest, and there was Don. I left him the child. I ran away. I was scared. I was seventeen that time, and he was eighteen. Responsibility wasn't the first thing in my mind. His family was rich. I left, my parents couldn't find me. Only Simon knew where I was, and he kept it secret. I went to Yorkshire, went to Wales, to Scotland, and arrived here.
Every day was suffering. I slept on the street, and got low paid. I never talked to Simon again, but he wrote me letters, and I let him know where I was. Some months after I arrived here, there came Kevin. He was perfect and hard working. I was in love, and I had Harry, got married.
Call me selfish, I tried to forget about Don. Simon told me everything about my baby. Those days were terrible, looking at Kevin and Harry, thinking about the child of Simon. Then Don came, finding me.
He made me cry for countless times, telling me everything. He just wanted a mum. I was guilty, and I tried go on with my life. I saw him and Harry making choices about you, and the other girl Don told me about. Erica. It hurt me more than you can imagine.
But thank you, for letting the truth out. I would never have the courage to tell Harry. He understands now. I know he wouldn't like Don, but time will change them. That is what I am counting on. I hope it would. I'm sorry for being mean to you, but I wanted the best for my kids. Now you know the truth. Please forgive me, my family, and Don. Harry said you never had a vase, I hope you'd like this one. Thank you for letting Harry stay at yours.
Yours,
Zara
Eventually, I put the vase, and the letter, back into the paper box and put it into the upper cupboard. I had never taken it out since then.
"You're really thirsty or you can't sleep?" I heard Harry's voice from my back. I drank a glass of water before turning to look at him.
"I thought you'd slept," I said, the dim, bluish moonlight out of the window rested on Harry's face. His head was on his hands, the second handed duvet (Bonn gave Harry) was covering him.
"Well I can't," Harry said.
I crinkled, "did you smoke just now?"
"Just a little bit," he said lightly, "I had the window open."
"I told you not to," I said, "Max is trying hard to quit, can't you be supportive and stop smoking in the house?"
"You smoked too, right outside at the bench when you said you were giving a book back to Kelly."
"You could see that from the window?"
"I was throwing the rubbish," Harry said "Max didn't see it."
I nodded. I was walking back into my room, then I paused. I sat on the edge of the sofa.
"Want to cover up?" Harry offered the duvet.
I would spare myself from thinking about Tommy. This could be a serene night.
It was so quiet in the living room that actually felt like falling in love, strangely not like those on the screens and in fictions about too good looking people. Love, perhaps, is okay to be not fancy nor frivolous; it doesn't even have to look pretty for it's not a show for the public's eyes and magazine covers but a bay that keeps the two loved safe. Every love story is formulaic and artless to those who doesn't read from the very first page.
Harry's and mine was the lighthearted kind of love - all happen unnoticed quietly at first, building up everything in such a lazy manner as though love itself owns thousands and thousands years of time despite how nervous we are on the inside, and the plane is getting higher and higher to the sky and people in there are scared and excited - then the fitted two people just head out and jump with hands holding and arms opened.
Harry smiled at me.
Just like that. Harry and I, the long lost past lovers - people, sometimes enemies when fighting for the bathroom or the best pillow in the house, now at peace. We were trying the impossibility of maintaining a worthy friendship, lay on the two ends of the sofa three something in the morning. I liked how he always got what he wanted now instead of letting people decide and take what was left.
"It feels like we have been friends forever," I said, "maybe I don't need a boyfriend or anything."
Harry rubbed his toes at my waist, I giggled.
"It took you long enough to realise that," Harry said, "Being us is different from having a boyfriend or girlfriend. We're on the same thing. I used to, be like, try to figure out you. We're both at the same place to start now."
"What are you going to do with Don?" I asked.
"Not doing anything," Harry said. "He called me and asked me how I felt, but I wasn't going to talk to him. I'd never be ready to talk to him. Okay, I know he cares about me, but I - no. Not after everything he'd done to you. They lied to me about it the whole time! It's not the same like you and Max."
"And your mum?"
"She said I should never fancy you in the first place," Harry replied, he took my feet, cupping them with his warm hands in the duvet, "she told me to take time with Don. It's not that easy, is it? I was stupid."
"We just don't fit the picture," I said, "but we can draw our own." I sounded very optimistic.
"You really guessed the whole truth, didn't you?" Harry asked.
"It was just a thought, but the more Miss Johnson told me it wasn't true, it became more true." I saw Harry opened his mouth. "It's her, I know. Don never said it, but she admitted it to me. A red hair woman, right? And Harry, it's okay. Don and I never really began, and we would never really, I don't know, end? I'll never talk to her again."
"But it hurts."
"Not really. It's like, like I am the penguin and he is the polar bear. We both understand how cold the world can be but we'll never truly meet ...you know Harry, there was a time that I was sure about me and him being together forever."
"You'll always want him," Harry said in a low voice.
I shook my head, "no. no. No always. I've only got here, and now, and this couch, and Max."
Our lives, cliché it was. It wasn't simple and easy, though I sometimes hoped they were.
What was I - and Harry and Don? We were twined living beings. Why twined?
Harry grinned at me lightly, and I smiled back; it was our choices, I knew. How ancient it sounded; Choices. It made sense at this moment though it probably wouldn't later. We made so many decisions that led us here, to this irreversible status. If I hadn't told that lie, or if I hadn't kissed him, or loved him - no, choices were the mighty masters. As we were.
"Did you ever hate me? Like loathing me, not those 'I hate you' when you're outside the toilet in the morning," I asked, tilted my head and looked into those marvellously bright eyes. I was very nervous for the answer.
"I like you a lot now."
"Even the part which I go insa-"
"Which you go a bit emotional and you need someone to calm you down," Harry said with a stern face. "Yes, I like that too. Because you have always stayed with me, and you let me rebuild my universe around you."
"I love you." I said quietly.
Harry sat up and leaned forward. He kissed me as lightly as the touch a feather and as burning as the boiling pot. He sat back again though I didn't want him to.
We grinned at each other and I closed my eyes to sleep. I would dream of a world that was far more wonderful than this one where love would be pure. And I would wake up and look at Harry's face some hours later, knowing how more deeply we were both loved in our little bay.