Chapter 8
"Don't touch me!" Colin stands in my bedroom, his eyes darting, shirt torn and sweaty. "And don't look at me with your pitying looks!"
My legs tremble and my heart goes wild. I stand helpless facing something that feels overwhelming, way too big for me to handle.
"Let me help you."
"You can't help me!" he bursts out.
"You can sleep here tonight," I suggest without thinking, not sure the idea will be welcomed by my parents.
"That's the best solution you could come up with?" The scorn in his voice is jarring.
"If you want to unleash your anger on me, go ahead!" I shoot back. "But I'm not the one who beats you, not the one who did this to you, I'm the one who loves you!"
I freeze, taking in what I said. I've been hiding it from him for six months, pretending that I'm only interested in helping him with school, that I'm excited to see him succeed. For six months I have been silent, and now the truth stands between us.
"No one can love me." He stares at me with contempt. "I know what you really think—poor Colin, it's not enough that he's stupid, he's letting his father beat the crap out of him too."
"I don't think you're stupid," I murmur awkwardly.
"No, you're stupid, if you think you love me."
"I'm smarter than you'll ever be, and I'm sorry if you think my love makes me stupid." The choking in my throat grows. If you know what's good for you, you won't cry in front of him.
"What do you know about love?"
"Enough," I whisper. "Enough for both of us."
"You're embarrassing yourself," he mumbles.
“I am willing to embarrass myself if it means not hiding anymore. You can accept my suggestion to sleep here or go. Your choice."
"You don't love me." He doesn't take his eyes off me.
"Think what you want."
"You don't love me."
"Colin . . ." I whisper in embarrassment. Why doesn't he believe me?
"You don't love me!"
"I do!" I shout at him with all my might, and before I understand what is happening, he clings to me, his hands in my hair, his mouth covering my mouth and his tongue meeting mine. I can't breathe, and I'm willing to never breathe again, if it means he won't stop. I don't want him to stop kissing me. Ever.
I can do this.
Wiping the dust off one of the store shelves, I'm convincing myself everything will be all right. I'll sit in the cafe opposite the man who was supposed to be my husband and act like a grown woman.
After all, if the only reason I'm meeting him is to throw more accusations his way, what's the point? I could just as well cancel now. No, I have to see him and decide whether to let him get close to my daughter or fight him with everything I have.
You have nothing.
It's just another thing I hate about him—this insecurity, which never leaves. All that happened in the four years we were together was a show. The friends who surrounded us were never my friends. They were his party and disappeared on the day Colin disappeared. What do football players and the “Library Geek” have in common, right? It must have not surprised them that he left. They must have asked themselves behind our backs, when will it end and what does he do with her?
Hell, why am I thinking about it now? I have to relax and meet him, and get it over with. That's all.
At the entrance to the little cafe I've chosen I take a deep breath and glare at my clothes. How appropriate. I'm still the girl in jeans, t-shirt and sneakers.
I open the door and go inside, the wonderful smell of fresh coffee engulfs the place. Looking around, my heart skips a beat when I recognize the pair of familiar blue eyes fixed on me. Colin, dressed in a black polo shirt that's tight on his huge arms, doesn't take his eyes off me. I manage to make my legs move toward the table. His enormous body rises, and then freezes.
Yes, Colin, I'm not really in the mood for a hug.
"Elizabeth," he mumbles with a touch of discomfort.
"Hello, Colin," I reply coldly, sitting down on the creaking metal chair. Lifting the menu like a barrier between us, I prevent myself from looking at him for a few seconds, at least until I gather my thoughts.
He's huge. Seriously, I don't want to think about it, but every muscle in his body looks sculpted. It’s the last thing I needed. If only he had come back with a massive beer belly and balding hair. No, he had to look like this, like a guy no woman refuses.
"Do you have a girlfriend?" I'm experiencing a total failure between my brain and mouth, placing the menu on the table and staring hard at the blond who looks stunned.
"No," he replies immediately. "Not right now."
"Not right now," I reply contemptuously and cross my hands on my chest defensively. What kind of answer is that? Do you have a girlfriend or don't you? What do you mean, not right now? Are you looking for one?
"Is that what you wanted to know?" he asks indifferently.
"Just curious, not that it's any of my business," I shrug.
Excellent, keep that cool and you'll be fine.
"And you?" He gives me a question of his own.
"Boyfriend?" I snort. "Who has time?"
"I'm sure you could find the time," he replies defiantly.
"I suffer from a slight trust issue when it comes to men." I hit one under his belt. Well, so much for keeping cool.
Our waitress comes up behind me and asks what we'll drink. I order tea and Colin asks for a short espresso. She disappears as she came and leaves us to continue the battle.
"So, what's the story with the gym?" I take another look at his arms.
"It started as something that helped me release stress and gradually became serious."
"Very serious."
"Yes, very serious," He nods.
"And the clothes?" I insist on understanding where the dramatic change has come from.
"You came to talk about my wardrobe?" He shifts, looking restless.
"What happened to the jeans and t-shirts you always liked?"
"I still like 'em," It seems that he doesn't like the topic of conversation. "This is what I wear to work."
"I didn't know I fall into the 'work' category," I mutter.
"I didn't have time to change. I'll throw something comfortable on when I get home." "Are you not comfortable in that?" I interrupt his sentence unintentionally.
"I'm comfortable with these clothes, and I'm also comfortable with the sweatpants I wear to the gym, and I'm fine with jeans and a t-shirt too. I don't understand why we're discussing this."
"I'm just trying to figure out who you are," I reply without getting confused.
"Do you think my clothes will give you the answer?" his tone is borderline mocking.
"At least one thing hasn't changed," I reply. "You still like to laugh at me."
"I apologize if I offended you." His words, and the tone in which they are spoken, don't convince me. He doesn't care if I'm hurt or not.
"Is that the only thing you'll apologize for?" I drop the bomb without preparation and my body tenses.
"What am I supposed to apologize for?" His penetrating gaze turns my guts.
"Are you serious?" I open my eyes wide.
"What apology are you waiting for?" He doesn't fold, his indifference taking me out of my mind.
"You left me on our wedding day, you were not there when I had our child or when she celebrated her birthdays, or every time she was ill and I had to be absent from work, because you're a coward, irresponsible and selfish. You can choose what to apologize for, the list is long."
"Will it make you feel better about yourself?" His answer leaves me stunned.
"You're really not going to ask for my forgiveness?"
"Will it make you feel better?" He repeats his question, "Will it change the situation?"
"No." I shake my head without taking my eyes off him, "I'll still hate you every minute I'm awake."
"Exactly what I thought," he replies directly.
"Why did you come back?" I give up trying to look for something else to talk about. We should get to the core of it or we'll sit here all night.
"You know why." He leans back and runs a hand through his hair.
"Why now?" I make it difficult.
"The time was right," he answers vaguely.
"The time was right?" I snort.
"Elizabeth," he loses patience, "you asked a question and got an answer, the time was right. We can sit here till midnight or talk about our daughter, who I want to meet."
"She doesn't know who you are."
"I want to change that."
"It's not that simple."
"I didn't say it was." His phone, on the table, rings. Colin picks it up, glances at the screen and hurries to silence it, something in his face tenses. Something in his eyes turns somber and makes me shudder.
"You can answer," I motion my head at the phone vibrating between us.
"No," he answers in a cold, distant tone. "I'm here to talk about Vivian."
"I can't invite you to the house and tell her Daddy's back, not without preparation." I sniff nervously. "Not to mention the fact that my father wants to kill you."
"Your father never loved me," his tone is full of resentment. "I've never been good enough for you."
"You know something," my voice shakes with pain, "I was the only one that mattered, and I thought you were the best thing that ever happened to me. How could you do that to me?"
"It's complicated," he answers with another response that explains nothing.
"You are not serious," I laugh at him. "Complicated, Colin? Do you really think I'm an idiot? Your evading instead of answering the tough questions."
"I can't give you better answers!" he bursts out, and for a moment his blanket of indifference unravels and gives me a glimpse into his eyes, burning in frustration. That look I know, it hasn't changed.
"Where did you go? Where did you disappear to as if the earth swallowed you?"
"To Afghanistan," he mutters quietly. The words that come out of his mouth freeze my blood, and my face pales.
"You went where?" I whisper in shock. "What did you do in—”
"I enlisted." His gaze doesn't waver from me, as if waiting for my reaction. But it doesn’t come. I sit opposite him in shock.
"Please say something," he whispers after the seconds pass silently over us.
"You enlisted," I manage to answer.
"Yes, I didn't have anywhere to sleep or anything to eat, I barely had money. It looked like a good solution."
"So you enlisted." I repeat the words again. He was a soldier, in Afghanistan. The pressure in my chest increases. Our waitress returns with our drinks, placing them on the table. I don't touch my tea and Colin doesn't touch his coffee.
"Elizabeth," he doesn't take his eyes off me.
"I don't know what to say." I swallow to overcome the lump in my throat. "I don't know what to think, I feel like I don't know anything about you."
"You know all that matters. I'm here, and we have a daughter, and I love her."
"You don't know anything about love," I raise my hand in front of him, "people who love don't disappear to Afghanistan."
"Elizabeth . . ."
"I can't do this." I push my chair, which grinds loudly. "I can't."
"We didn't talk about Vivian," he tries to stop me.
"You can't cram five years into one conversation."
"How long do you need?"
"As long as it will take." I grab my bag, and leave the cafe. My footsteps pound the concrete and I fill my lungs with air as soon as I reach the corner of the street. Breathe. Slowly. You know what to do. Breathe.
My eyes are running and I struggle to remember where I parked the car. I stumble over the street, my thoughts running through my head. Afghanistan. I can barely imagine it, Colin in uniform, dusty, lying on a field bed in a desert tent. What happened to him there?
I manage to calm my pulse only slightly, reach my Toyota, open the door with trembling hands and step into it, clutching the steering wheel. He was so desperate that he thought the only solution was to go to war? How could I not see it? Blind. Just as I didn't see that he didn't love me.
The tears run down my cheeks, I drop my head to the wheel and let them come. He didn't say a word. Not when he got down on one knee that afternoon in the park, blushing like he never blushed before and said I was his everything. Not when I lay beside him in bed and I raised the pregnancy test in front of him, and in response he covered my face with kisses. Not when he pulled me into his chest on the morning of our wedding day, in our little bedroom, and whispered in my ear the last words I would hear from him for five years. If only I could make you as happy as you do me.
I hate him, the shattered dream, the lies and everything he took from me. I weep for the life that was stolen from me and the man I trusted, who enlisted and didn't look back. I've never loved anyone like I loved him, and I've never hated anyone more.
My phone rings at nine thirty in the evening, lying on the sofa in front of the TV. I picked Vivian up from my mother's house late, after taking the time to relax and suppress the signs of crying from my face. I didn't say a word about the meeting with Colin. My mother thought I had to stay at work late. Well, that's what I told her.
"Colin," I reply anxiously, what else will he tell me? Where else has he spent the last five years?
"I'm sorry I dropped it on you like that."
"It's not important." I stare at the ceiling.
"It's very important, I was not going to hurt you."
"You didn't hurt me . . ."
"We both know it's not true," he interrupts me, before I go on.
"How many years did you serve?"
In the last few hours I tried not to think about it, about him in the desert. How terrible was that? How dangerous and lonely?
"Three, and after that I lived in LA, first with a friend from the army and then alone."
"Have you dated anyone?" The dumb question still preoccupies me, as if that's what is important.
"No one serious," he answers evenly. "I always knew that the moment would come when I would leave everything and come back here, and I didn't want to leave anyone behind."
"Except me," I say in frustration.
"I was afraid you'd met someone," he confesses, and my heart misses a beat.
"Why?" He's the one who left, so what does he care who I go out with?
"Because I'm selfish. I didn't want Vivian to have another father." He moans, "God, I'm a shit person.”
"You're not," I reply out of habit. That's how it was when we were young.
You're not stupid, Colin.
You are not impervious.
I love you . . .
Damn those memories!
"Where do you live?" I continue to investigate.
"I have a house, not far from Richmond Park." I don't want to think of Richmond Park, where he proposed to me.
"Great area." I wish I could afford to live there. The area is quiet and well maintained, and the playgrounds are wonderful. But all the neighborhoods there are terribly expensive, at least by my miserable standards.
"I like the location. Did you know they cleared the lake of the swans?"
"I had no idea," I reply quietly. "I'm don’t really go there."
"Dormont Park is closer to you."
"Listen . . ." I panic at once. He knows I didn't move and knows the address and the house.
"I'm not going to show up uninvited."
"That's not what I meant," I lie.
"It is, and I can understand."
"Sorry," I hasten to apologize.
"You've changed," he mutters quietly.
I keep silent and try not to think how much I have changed. I went up two sizes in my clothes and got some scars, the ones you see and the ones that you don't. You should have married one of your cheerleaders, Colin.
"Elizabeth?" he asks quietly in a confused voice.
"You didn't really think I'd stay twenty-one forever, did you?" I mutter through my own screen of pain.
"You scare easily."
"Ever since she was born," I confess. I don't know if it's the fatigue of the day I've been through or the last few weeks, but tonight I don't have the strength to fight anymore. I don't have the strength to lie and pretend.
"Because you were alone?" He continues on the same line.
"I don't know, it could be. I might have become scared, even if you were here."
"Maybe," he mumbles again.
"She's not like me, you know?"
"No?"
"She's fearless."
"She's four and a half."
"It bothered me for a long time that I inherited these anxieties."
"No one judges you."
"You're so wrong." I take a deep breath. "Everyone judges me, my motherhood, my choices, my decisions." Sometimes it seems to me that the whole world stands by and gives me a score. Why didn't I go back to my parents' house? Why did I choose to live alone? Why did he leave me?
"No one has the right to judge your motherhood," he whispers.
"It was not supposed to be this way." I struggle with the suffocation in my throat.
"I know. Elizabeth, please let me see her," he asks again. "I don't want to go to court, I just want to know my daughter."
"You can come tomorrow at five. Stay for dinner." In a moment of weakness and fatigue I surrender to him, to the guy who broke my heart and fled to the desert. "I'll tell Viv you're a friend of mine, that's all I can offer right now."
"Thank you." His answer comes immediately.
"I'll see you tomorrow, at five." I close my eyes.
"I'll be there," he promises, and I pray that he won't disappoint me again or disappear.