Diary of a Resurrection (A Novella) (3 page)

I didn’t hear from you for two days.
It was longest we had gone without talking and the biggest, most painful,
silence of my life. But I didn’t break it. I never called. I never text. I
wanted to give you space. I didn’t want to be needy or annoying. I thought if I
left you, you would figure out whatever it was you had a problem with, then we
could just carry on same as before.

On the third day I cracked and called you.

You were at work and said you were too busy to chat. You
said you would meet me at my house later, eight pm.

At eight pm you weren’t there. I had my jacket on because
the summer was ending and the nights were getting chilly. I waited by the
window.

At ten pm I heard your bike roar. I had long abandoned the
window, watching TV on the sofa with my mum instead, my jacket still on. At the
rumble of your exhaust, I jumped up and came outside. You propped the bike up
at the kerb and took your helmet off, running a hand through your dark hair. It
gave my butterflies. You were so gorgeous. I remember thinking no wonder. No
wonder he is bored of me. I could never be enough.

“Sorry I’m late,” you said without a flicker of a smile or
sincerity. “Pan needed me.”

Your words hit me straight in the chest, but I swallowed
them away, telling myself they meant nothing. “Is she OK?”

You shrugged. “Work drama. I don’t know. She needed a
shoulder to cry on and all that.”

“Do you think she knows about us?” I asked.

You looked at me and crinkled your eyes. “Why would she?”

“I don’t know. You’re hardly at home, I suppose. I guess if
it were me I’d wonder where you were.”

You put your helmet in front of you and leaned your forearms
on it. “She tries to ask me stuff, but I don’t answer. I don’t answer to nobody.”

I nodded, but said nothing.

“The thing is, a while ago Pan cheated on me,” you said with
a sigh. “When I found out she went to pieces, begging me to stay with her. She
said she never wanted anyone but me. That she loved me and had nowhere else to
go. Like I said before, life with her is easy. She’s hot and I was used to
having her around, so I took her back. She knows she loves me more than I care
about her, and she’s alright with that. She has to live with the consequences
of what she did. So when I don’t let her question me, she can’t say much about
it. If she does, I remind her what she did and what she ruined. It shuts her up
quite fast. I suppose I am grateful in a way, Pan taught me that you can never
give one hundred percent of yourself to someone. It gives them too much power
and control, and then they use that power to hurt you. Pan can’t expect me to
give her very much at all, because how could I ever trust her again?”

I swallowed, starting to understand your reluctance to
commit to her, or maybe me. “So why stay with her? If she hurt you so badly?”

You looked me in the eye and, unflinching, said, “I can’t
imagine finding anything better than Pan, so I might as well stick with what
I’ve got.”

Dumbstruck, I said nothing. You knew I loved you and you had
just looked straight into my soul and told me you couldn’t imagine finding
someone better than Pan. I couldn’t believe it. Part of me wanted to shout,
what about me? I’m better. I love you. I would never hurt you. But I didn’t.
Instead I stood there and let you crush my heart with your cruel words.

“You need to learn that, Mina, to keep yourself safe.”

“What?” My voice was practically a whisper.

“You need to see that letting someone in is just pointless
because they will fuck you over in the end. Everyone does. You can’t trust
anyone or give them any sort of power. You’re better off holding pieces of you
back. It’s safer.”

I shook my head. “You’re wrong. If you love someone, you have
to be open to them. Completely open. It lets your souls twist together and you
become a part of the other. How can you do that, if you won’t give someone
everything? You’ll never be truly committed to them. You’ll never belong.”

You shrugged. “Whatever. I used to think a bit like you, but
now I understand that love isn’t what people make out.”

“Apparently not,” I said, unable to think of much else to
say. I was blown away by this stranger standing in front of me. I wondered
where you had gone to? The Drew I had fallen in love with and loved still. You
certainly were not him.

Your phone beeped with a text and I waited, wordless, while
you read it. The screen lit up your face and in it I could see anger in your
eyes. Anger at me? Perhaps.

I felt like I didn’t know you anymore. In less than a week
you had become a stranger once again. The sort of person I never thought you
were capable of being. Where were you? The sweet you? The kind you? The
affectionate you? It broke my heart to see what you were in place of that man.
That was the man I wanted. That was the man I loved.

You picked up your helmet. “I have to go.”

“Already?” I asked, despite myself. You were making me
miserable, but I still wanted to be near you.

“Someone needs my time,” was your response.

What kind of reply is that?

“Drew,” I stepped close to you. You vaguely smelt of
perfume, Pan’s I assume, and I tried to ignore it.

You paused, phone still in your hand.

“I don’t know what’s going on with you, or why you seem to
be so mad at me, but can we sort it out? I hate that things are not right
between us. If I did or said something to offend you, just tell me. I miss us,
the proper us, not this weird version.”

You looked at me, long and silent, before you held out your
arm for me. I climbed inside it like it was a rope down a well. You held me
tightly against you and I breathed you in. Your familiar smell mixed with Pan’s
perfume. It wasn’t the same, but it was enough to make me feel a little better.
In your other hand your phone beeped again. I glanced over my shoulder at it
instinctively, not really thinking what I was doing, and I saw a text on the
still-lit screen. It was from Pan:

Come home baby. I want
more.

There was a photo too. Not of Pan’s face, but her body. Her
naked body. Her perfectly slim, tanned and toned naked body in fact.

I felt sick. Sick enough to think I was about to vomit down
your back and onto your bike. Maybe I should have.

I stepped back and glared at you, then at the phone.

Your eyes narrowed for a minute, a tiny flinch, almost
imperceptible, but I saw it. Then you slid your helmet on, started the engine,
and roared away.

That goddam picture is going to haunt me for years.

After that night, I knew it was only
a matter of time before I lost you. I could feel the cracks in us becoming chasms.
I didn’t know you anymore. I was desperately trying to hold on to you with my
fingertips, hoping that at any time this new you would vanish and the old
gorgeous you would return. Deep down though, I think I knew there was no hope.
I started to wonder in the quiet moments whether this was really who you had
been all along, and if the person I had gotten to know and love was always fake.
A spider in its web, hiding, drawing me in until I was too entangled in your
invisible thread that I couldn’t climb out. Was I another of your victims, just
like Pan, under your spell?

I continued to ruminate on what broke us. I went over all the
things I had said to you. I churned them over in my head until I felt dizzy. I
couldn’t work out which part exactly had changed you.

I still called and text you. I thought that if I tried hard
enough, if I made you laugh and smile, you’d come back to me. The old you. But
for some reason, that person was gone and the new you stayed.

I called you on my break at college one Monday, I don’t know
if you remember. I asked if you wanted to go to dinner that night to an Italian
we loved. The little place with the tiny round wooden tables and the seats that
made your ass go numb. Do you remember it? They always sat us at the back, like
they knew we were a secret, and served us portions big enough to fill our
bellies for a week. I thought if we did something together, something like we
used to, you would remember and come back. You said yes, but it didn’t sound
like you wanted to.

I picked you up at eight around the corner from your house,
like I always did, because I still wasn’t allowed on the bike. I still had no
helmet or leathers and I’m pretty sure you never intended for me to have any
either. I know Pan had her own and that you took her shopping for them. I know because
you told me, and it hurt to hear it. On the way to the restaurant, you only
spoke when I asked you questions or talked about yourself. It was a one sided
conversation that revolved around you. I waited for you to ask about my day, or
college, or work even, but you didn’t. It was as if you didn’t care how my life
was going. If you’d have asked I would have told you my day had been shit. I
was failing my course because I was so unfocused. Work had piled on extra hours
that I was struggling to keep up with, but I had accepted for the money. And I
was tired and worn out from thinking about you all the goddamn time. I felt
like everything was crumbling and you didn’t seem to notice. You never even
asked. I, in the meantime, just kept asking you about things, silly things,
just to hear you speak. To try and warm you up. To thaw you out.

In the restaurant, over a shared plate of spaghetti like we
always did, you reverted back into your grumpy silence. I would catch you
looking at me, really looking at me, like you had something to say, but when
you saw me looking, you would just look away again. No words. No nothing.

Eventually I put my cutlery down. I had had enough. I was
cracking like broken glass and you were doing nothing to stop it. If anything,
you were just making it worse.

“Why did you bother coming?” I asked.

You shovelled a huge pile of food into your mouth and said,
“What?”

“Here. Why did you come here with me? It’s obvious you
didn’t want to.”

You shrugged and swallowed. There was sauce on your chin and
I didn’t tell you. I wanted you to look stupid for once.

“Of course I wanted to,” you replied. It was so insincere I
was offended.

“I don’t think so. Look at you. Your body language is so
closed to me you may as well sit at the next table. You barely speak to me.
Drew, if I am that bad, just don’t bother with me. Just leave me alone because
I cannot take this for one more fucking second. I don’t know what I did to you
but Jesus, either be happy to spend time with me or just don’t fucking bother.”

You practically threw your fork on the table and sat back in
your chair, your arms crossed, tight and sulky. “I’m bored OK. I’m fucking
bored of this.”

“Of me?”

“Of everything. Sneaking around. Having to keep everyone
else happy. Everyone wanting a piece of me. I’m tired of it.”

“Drew, are you bored of me?” I wished I hadn’t asked to be
honest, but I suppose I needed to hear the words.

You watched me, maybe trying to work out how I was going to
react.

“Yes,” you said finally, with a sigh that was so deep it seemed
to come from your bones. Your eyes softened and you really did look like the
most tired man in the universe. “Yes, Mina, I am bored of you and whatever this
is that we have been doing. It isn’t satisfying me anymore. It’s not your
fault, Min, you’re a lovely girl and a very special person to me, I just get
bored easily.”

You could have stabbed me in the face with your fork at the
moment and it hurt less than your words. I sat there, fuming, with my heart
breaking all at once, which can make you feel pretty discombobulated actually.
I didn’t know whether to speak, or aim for a dignified silence. Whether to stay
or leave. Whether to hurt you, or cry.

Everything was such a fucking mess.

I folded up my napkin, trying so hard to stop my hands
shaking. I was going to cry, I knew that much. I was probably going to cry so
much that my tears would eventually turn to blood. But not in front of you. I
was determined to not give you that satisfaction. You had my heart already, you
would not have my pain too.

“Why did you do this to me, Drew?”

You were pale and looked like you felt sick. For a second I
found myself thinking, good you motherfucker. I hope you choke on it.

You swallowed and said, “Do what?”

“Why did you single me out and spend time with me? Why did
you make me feel so special and amazing? Why did you come into my life and let
me fall in love with you, if you knew all along you were going to get bored of
me?”

You shrugged. “I liked you, Mina. You’re special.”

“Not special enough.” As I said it, I felt my chin wobble. I
had about five seconds before I literally exploded into tears. “Thanks, Drew.
Thanks for being everything I hoped you weren’t.” I stood up and grabbed my
bag. I didn’t care about the bill or that you had no way to get home, I just
needed to get away from you.

“Min, don’t just storm off.” You caught my hand as I marched
past you. “It’s not a big deal.”

I couldn’t hold it back then. I was too far gone. Too far
down the dark tunnel that was about to take me months to climb back out of. I
didn’t want your skin on mine. I didn’t even want to share air with you.

“Not a big deal?” Tears were cascading down my cheeks; later
I would find mascara tracks on my face that I didn’t wash off for two days. I
left them there, like debris from a blast. “You just broke my fucking heart
into tiny pieces, Drew. Fuck you. Fuck you all the way to hell.”

And I left. I didn’t look back. I didn’t want to see your
face. I knew that if you looked hurt or upset, I might have waivered. I prayed
you wouldn’t follow me, because I couldn’t take it. I was too weak, maybe that
was the problem from the start.

I ran to my car, started it and drove away, not able to see
because my eyes were overflowing. I was probably swerving all over the road, I
don’t remember. I don’t remember any of the drive home.

What I do remember is my mum finding me in my car outside at
four am, still crying. Crying so hard my throat was raw. It was sore for two
weeks afterwards. I remember her taking the keys from the ignition and helping
me. She put me in my bed, fully clothed, and stroked my hair. She made me hot
sweet tea that I never touched. I don’t remember what she said to me or what I
said to her because everything was muted except the raw pain that was ripping me
apart inside. My stomach ached so much all I could do was curl in a ball. My
eyes burnt. My hands ached from being clenched into such tight fists. I felt
like my brain was collapsing in on itself as I pushed my face deeper and deeper
into my pillows, hoping to bury myself alive.

I think my mum stayed with me until the sun rose, stroking
my hair. I have never felt pain like it, and I hope I never do again. And the
worst part is that you didn’t deserve even a single tear, you asshole, but you
got ten thousand.