Robert
When my phone rings noisily, I’m jolted awake into a room filled with sunshine. I squint down at the caller display, thinking it might be Analie to let me know she’s okay, but it’s just Aaron.
“Hey,” I say croakily. “What time is it?”
“10 am, you lazy son of a bitch,” he laughs.
“Fuck,” I say, rubbing my eyes with my free hand. I’m groggy and dry-mouthed and my heart is racing from the shock of being woken from such a deep sleep.
“Were you up late last night?” Aaron asks.
“Something like that.”
“Anyone I know?” I can hear the smile on his lips.
“Definitely not!”
He laughs. “That’s probably a good thing. So, I’m on my way to yours. I dropped Nicole at the airport.”
“Did you have a good night?”
“She’s going overseas and I probably won’t see her for two weeks…what do you think?”
“I think you probably feel like your dick is going to fall off.”
“Pretty damn close.”
“So, what do you want to do today?” I ask, even though all I want to do at this point is bury my head under the pillow and go back to sleep.
“I don’t know…grab some lunch and shoot some pool, or would you rather hang out with the rich and beautiful.”
I sigh. Aaron is in some ways very similar to Analie. He’s not afraid to say things that he knows are going to get under my skin. He knows that the people I socialize here aren’t the kind I would ever have called friends before. All my relationships are kept on the surface. I pretend to be a different person with my so-called friends because it’s an easier skin to live in than my own, and when things start to get complicated I can just walk away. It may sound dishonest and disingenuous and I don’t like that because I’m not that person. In my heart I crave good friendships, but how can I foster them when I cannot open up and accept what I am…what I did. It hurts that Aaron seems to be insinuating that I’m insincere. “You know I don’t give a shit about those people,” I say. I need my brother to understand that.
“I know, brother. Look, I’ll be there in twenty minutes. Go take a shower and have a cup of coffee and we’ll talk more when I arrive.”
“Okay.” I disconnect the call and do as he says, spending five minutes under the rainfall shower, letting the water wash away the fog of tiredness. Then I make a coffee and take it to back to my room to drink while I’m getting ready. By the time I’m done, there’s a buzz at my door and I let prop my front door open for when Aaron emerges from the elevator. When he arrives I notice the difference in him straight away. He looks lighter somehow, with a bounce in his step and a flush to his cheeks that I haven’t seen in a long time.
“You’ve got the good sex glow,” I tell him. Aaron grins and I shake my head in mock disgust. “Can you keep all your smugness to yourself today, please?”
“Why. You not getting any good sex yourself, Robert?”
“Nobody’s saying that. I just don’t want to hear all about how birds are suddenly appearing and stars are falling from the sky.”
“Ah, The Carpenters. The soundtrack to our childhood!”
“The good old days,” I say, not really meaning it. “Do you want a coffee?”
“Yeah. I’m going to need some caffeine myself to stay awake today.”
I take a mug from a cupboard and make Aaron a coffee just the way he likes it. As he sits at the counter sipping it carefully, I look down at my phone.
Nothing.
Analie still hasn’t called. I don’t want to look desperate but I can’t think straight from worrying about her. I tell Aaron I need to make a call and go to my office for some privacy while I dial her number. It rings out, going to a voicemail message that I practically know by heart and I want to throw my phone across the room with frustration.
I go back to the kitchen and Aaron looks at me quizzically. “What’s going on with you?” he asks. “You didn’t sound yourself on the phone last week and now…” He waves his hand in my general direction. “Now you look tense and distracted.”
“I’m fine,” I say, then I take a deep breath because I don’t feel fine at all. Aaron has come all this way to see me and pretending with him too seems so damn hard. Aaron has always had my back and he’s a good listener when I ever broke my resolve and shared anything vaguely resembling feelings. “Look, to be honest…” I trail off not really knowing where to start.
Aaron waits and when I don’t continue he cocks his head to the side. “You know I’ll always be in your corner, right? Whatever it is.”
“Yeah, I know.”
He sighs and shakes his head. “I keep waiting for you to get it together, Robert, but I don’t see it. How long are you just going to keep existing like this? This isn’t living.”
My throat tightens and I turn my back, resting my hands on the cool countertop. I wanted to tell Aaron about Analie but I definitely didn’t want to get into the deep and meaningfuls about the past. “I’m fine,” I say again but it sounds so weak Aaron makes a disbelieving noise behind me.
“You know, just because you keep saying that, doesn’t mean that it’s true. I can see you’re not fine and I can hear you’re not fine, so cut the bullshit.”
“What do you want me to say?” I ask, turning to face him again.
“Just tell me what’s going on in your life that’s making you look like you’re carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders.”
“I met someone,” I say. Maybe if I tell him some things about the present, he’ll leave the past alone.
“Oh,” Aaron says. “And she’s got you looking like someone died?”
“No…yes. I don’t know.”
“She messing with your head?”
I shake my head. “No…at least, it’s not really that straightforward.
“How is it then?” Aaron rests his coffee mug on the counter.
“She’s a really great person…it’s just…”
“Just what?”
“It’s complicated.”
Aaron laughs gently. “When is it not? Look at me and Rebecca. She lives in London for fuck sake and it’s taken us a whole lot of messing about to get to a place where we’ve decided to give things a chance.”
“But you want to, don’t you? I can see the difference in you.”
“Yeah I want to,” he says. “And you don’t?”
I exhale, frustrated with myself and the questioning. “I don’t know. Everything seems so complicated.”
“Like what?”
I shove my hands in my pockets and think about how to explain what is going on with me and Analie. “I met her at a charity event. She’s a psychologist who treats burns victims.”
Aaron nods, a knowing look passing over his face. “And it’s bringing up bad memories for you?”
“No…yes. It’s complicated.”
“We back there again?” Aaron huffs.
“Yes, okay? It’s bringing back bad memories. She was burned as a child and…I feel bad for saying this but every time I look at her, all I can see is the accident again.”
“Ah,” Aaron shifts on his stool and looks at me pointedly. “You know I’ve kept my mouth shut about all that for a long time because I wanted to give you the space to work through things on your own. But you know what? Now I think I made a mistake. I’ve kept quiet and you haven’t worked through anything. You’re wasting your life, Robert. And for what. Because of something that happened so many years ago. This isn’t what Bethany would have wanted for you. If she was looking down at us right now I think she’d be mad as hell that you’re wasting your life.”
His words stab me so painfully it’s like a physical wound. I don’t want to hear anything about Bethany. Not now, not ever, and especially not his opinions on what she’d be thinking right now. The dead don’t fucking think, do they? They rot in the ground and everyone left behind gets to drown in their grief and suffer through their loss. And it never gets any easier, no matter what the platitudes profess. Time doesn’t make any fucking difference.
I look right into my brother’s eyes. “Don’t keep saying her name, Aaron.”
He takes a deep breath and rests his hands flat on the counter-top. The sun is streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows and in the harsh light, I can see some flecks of grey in his hair and some fine lines around his eyes. We’re getting older, a sudden realization that fills me with dread. Time is creeping forward and I’m getting left behind. I’ve been simply existing for so long I’d barely noticed but now I see we’re on the precipice of middle age and I have nothing to show for it. Nothing that matters anyway.
“It shouldn’t be this hard, Robert,” he says quietly, worry etching his brow. “It’s been so many years. Haven’t you mourned enough? Haven’t you punished yourself enough?”
His low and careful tone does nothing to soothe the rage I feel at his words. “ENOUGH,” I bellow. “You think that time is a healer? You think if enough time passes that I’m simply going to wake up one day and step back into my old life…be my old self again? It doesn’t work like that. It doesn’t matter how much time passes. It doesn’t matter what I do or who I meet, nothing takes it away, Aaron. NOTHING!”
My fists are clenched at my sides, shoulders high and tight and I know my face must look fierce because Aaron looks away. I can’t take his pity. This isn’t what I need from his visit. Who the fuck does he think he is, coming into my life and digging around in my wounds?
I can’t stand here anymore and witness the compassion in his expression…the pity. I turn and stride towards the window, taking deep breaths to calm myself. Outside the world functions, oblivious to my pain. Mothers push their babies to the park, traffic passes by with any number of destinations in mind. A solitary bird glides on the updraft, so still, it looks as though it’s suspended from an invisible string. Hanging there like that, it looks a lot like I feel inside; life up in the air, dangling over the line between a kind of fake normality and something so dark it makes me shiver.
Aaron’s stool scrapes the floor behind me and I listen to his feet tap against the floor as he comes to stand next to me. We stare outside for at least a minute as I wait, tense, for his next round of wise words, but they don’t come. Instead, he says, “I’m sorry, Robert. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
And somehow his apology feels worse. “It’s okay,” I say without turning to look at him. “Look, I need to go somewhere. Will you come with me and we’ll go grab some lunch after?”
“Sure,” he says, smiling briefly. It doesn’t meet his eyes.
“Okay, I’ll grab my stuff.” I head to my room, finding a dark grey coat and boots in my closet. My keys, phone, and wallet are on my nightstand, next to the bed that’s still rumpled from my time with Analie. An image of her lying back with her hair spread out around her in soft waves flashes into my mind, accompanied by an aching feeling of loss.
Whatever happened to make Analie run, I’m determined to find out.