by Gabi Moore
Why couldn’t I be a luxuriously decadent artist, too? Have raucous sex and take risks and be eccentric? Why couldn’t I write plays and act and do as I damn well pleased? I also had ideas. I also had things to say. I took another big bite before finishing the last one, and he kissed my shoulders, then my upper arm.
By the time we had woken up properly, had our breakfast, showered, made love, showered again, dressed and said goodbye, it was well past 3 o’clock in the afternoon. I floated out of his flat on a cloud, new and delicious thoughts forming in my hungover head. I didn’t know how yet, and I didn’t know what, but something wonderful was about to happen to me, I could just feel it.
I took my time walking home, and enjoyed every little scraggly flower growing between the bricks, every little wisp of wind that blew on my face. Maybe I’d write another ‘play’. Maybe I’d really have fun with it this time. I could do whatever I wanted. I could make it scary. Or funny. I could write my own Bluebeard story. But why stop there?
I turned the corner to my dorm room and stopped dead in my tracks.
Aunt Lila.
What the hell was she doing outside my room?
The instant she turned and caught sight of me, the blood felt as though it drained right out through a hole drilled at the bottom of my feet. Her face was twisted into something like rage, something like horrible fear. Something was wrong. Very wrong. She marched over to me, her face rapidly going red.
“And just where the hell have you been?” she screamed at me. Her rage was so intense I took a step back.
“I …I was out, I was with a friend, what’s the matter…?”
She was so angry it looked as though she was ready to pick me up and fling me down the road with her bare hands.
“You were out? Out? Do you not think to answer your phone?” she said, spitting each word.
Out the corner of my eye I saw the building security guard approach, a look of concern on his face. I couldn’t believe she was doing this to me. Why was she here anyway? I was almost 21 years old, I could stay out at a friend’s if I liked, surely?
“I guess I had my phone on silent…” I said quietly, as I pulled it out of my bag. The screen came alive in my hand. 45 missed calls. I quickly scrolled through them and saw something that made my heart sink.
Shit.
Messages from Tamara.
Lots of messages from Tamara.
It was Friday. I was meant to be driving her to Cambridge this morning.
Of fuck. Oh shit oh shit oh shit.
I squeezed my eyes shut to steady myself against a wave of nausea.
“I’m …I’m so sorry aunt Lila, I must have lost track of time…”
“Do you think that I have the time to come around here and look after you? Tamara Keane calls me and wants to know where you are. Nobody can reach you. I certainly don’t know what to tell her. We were just about to call the police and file a bloody missing person report!” she yelled.
Her words were like a cascade of tiny hammers to the skull. It was the same face she had given me in another life. The same expression she had laid on thick as I stumbled into the bathroom late on what my old friend had called The Jackson Pollock Night. The night where everything changed. The night where I my parents drove off into the darkness and never came back. I tried to fix my eyes somewhere, anywhere that wasn’t on her red, angry face just inches from mine. She was so mad she was shaking.
“I’m sorry,” I said lamely. I couldn’t look her in the face. The world came slowly crumbling down around me.
I hated Adam. I hated myself. I hated aunt Lila. I hated everything in this world. I couldn’t help the fat, hot tears from welling in my eyes and bursting out over my cheeks. I cried quietly as she fumed at me.
“Are you using again?” she said under her breath. ‘Using’, like I was some crack addict.
I said nothing.
“Are you even going to the classes? Are you still going to Doctor Estes?” she said, her voice rising.
Something bitter was rising in the back of my throat.
She took a step closer.
“We’ll have to have a proper chat about this later, Nyx. This is totally unacceptable. You’ve been given a second chance here and you’re screwing everyone around. How do you think it makes me look, to stick my neck out for you and then have you embarrass me like this?”
I watched the tears stain dark marks on my shirt.
“I said I was sorry. I was just having some fun. I lost track of time. I’ll apologize to Tamara…”
“Not good enough, Nyx. We need to have a serious chat, you and me,” she said.
The bitterness in the back of my throat deepened. A chat? God, I was so sick of chats. So tired of the threat dangling over me. Why didn’t she just say it? Why didn’t she just pay for me or not pay for me, and call it a day? Was she enjoying shitting all over me like this?
“Why don’t we just chat now?” I said and looked into her eyes.
She smiled an angry little smile and shook her head.
“I’ll tell you why sweetheart. Because some of us have work to do. Do you understand that concept?” she sneered.
“Don’t talk to me like that,” I said quietly. I had never spoken back to my aunt. Never. The security guard shook his head and wandered off to keep an eye on us from a distance.
“Nyx, I am the only one that has your back here,” she said. “Do you realize how lucky you are?”
“Well, if this is what luck looks like, I don’t want it,” I said quickly. She widened her eyes at me. I had never seen her like this.
“And your course?”
“What about my course?”
I stared at her defiantly. I wanted her to say it. To just be honest and say what was really going on here.
“Nyx, I will not pay for you to waste your life running around with boys and taking drugs, for God’s sake.”
“Well, then, that makes the next step pretty straight forward for us, doesn’t it?”
I had no idea where my courage was coming from, but I spoke clearly and directly. I didn’t care anymore.
When my parents died, something in me died too. And I thought I would never see it again. But Adam had shown me something special. That there was magic in things. That I could create. That I had my father’s cheekbones!
I had gotten a taste of it now, a feeling of how life felt before everything went white and numb. And now I wasn’t going to let anyone take that from me ever again. Especially not aunt Lila. Not for any price.
“Are you high right now? You’re ridiculous. We’ll discuss this when you can take the situation seriously.”
“I am taking the situation seriously. Say what you mean. You’ve been hanging the threat of this course over my head for ages now, guilting me, making me feel like shit.”
“Watch your language.”
“So why don’t you just say what you really want to say?”
“If your father could hear you talk right now he would be so disappointed,” she said coldly, shaking her head.
“You think I’m ‘guilting’ you? Don’t blame me if you feel guilty. While your parents were dying on the side of the A40, you were out partying with your chums, and that’s nobody’s fault but yours,” she hissed.
I looked at her, smarting. Suddenly, I had a bright moment of clarity. This was not the story I wanted for myself anymore. And I wasn’t going to let aunt Lila write anymore of my life for me.
“Thank you for everything you’ve done for me so far aunt Lila. I know you mean well.”
“Well of course I do. But I don’t think it’s too much to ask that you--”
“Please don’t pay for the course for me anymore. Or for anything else for that matter.”
She gave me a hard look.
“You’re willing to throw away the chance of a lifetime? Do you have any idea how expensive the yearly tuition is? What do you think you’re going to do to get by?”
I stood and looked at her. The bitt
er feeling in my throat was passing. I didn’t know what I would do, actually. I had no clue. I was literally an orphan. I had absolutely nothing. But then again, staring at aunt Lila’s hard face, nothing was beginning to look like a pretty good deal.
“My life would certainly be easier with your help, but I don’t want it if it comes with strings attached.” Though I was shaking with anger, my voice sounded smooth and calm. “I don’t know yet what I’ll do. But I know I don’t want to do this,” I said, and gestured to the space between us.
“So you’d rather whore around and waste time? Nyx, I’m not playing games with you. Don’t try me. I’ll cancel your direct debit this evening, I swear to God.”
“I wish you would already.”
“You’re crazy.”
“Yes.”
I pushed past her and hurried into my dorm room, slamming and locking the door behind me. It took a good few minutes of staring at my hands to get them to stop trembling. Then I looked at the room. I could cry later. I could think later. For now, I needed a plan.
I needed to pack my things.
Chapter Sixteen
It was a memory I thought I had forgotten. I don’t know why it suddenly came to me then, of all times, but all at once I thought of my father, the great actor Norman Westling, chasing me around the house with the brown inner tube from a roll of Christmas wrapping paper.
I couldn’t have been older than five or six. I remember squealing at the top of my lungs and racing around the house, my little heart hammering away in my chest. It had snowed that year and everything was perfect.
I don’t remember where mum was at the time. I don’t remember much, actually, but I can see clear as day the moment I ran skidding into the bedroom to hide under the bed, laughing all the while. He had pretended to be an ogre and had come after me, big cardboard tube in hand, swiping it under the bed to try and get at me. I laughed and hid and told him he’d never catch me, that I could always run away, that I could fit under the bed because I was so small and he was so big. And like it was just yesterday I remember how he laughed and said, “yes, well, you will get bigger. I’ll wait out here until you have to come out and I’ll catch you then. I’ll always find you.”
I didn’t think I ever would get bigger. But he was right. I did. And it turned out that he could always find me, too. Even now.
I walked quickly on and tried to ignore the burning tears in my eyes. Marching down the street to Adam’s house trying not to cry felt like carrying an enormous overfull jug of water without spilling a drop. Something swirled and lurched on the inside. I felt sick. Maybe aunt Lila would change her mind. Maybe we’d both cool down and realize we’d spoken in anger and …and what?
And then nothing. No, the only way was forward. I had tried to call Tamara but had just gone through to voicemail. I had sent her a message and prayed that she wouldn’t just kick me out the course herself. I had packed up all my meagre belongings into the box my new chest of drawers had come in, and it now stood waiting at the door. Waiting for what, I didn’t know. But I’d figure it out. I’d make a way, somehow. It wasn’t the end of the world. Right?
When Adam opened the door, he was in his pajamas. He frowned when he saw my tear streaked face. “Hey, what’s…?”
I collapsed into his arms and started sobbing. I hadn’t planned to but the moment I tried to speak the jar of water spilled over and I couldn’t hold in my tears anymore.
“Hey …shhhh,” he said and stroked my back. He guided me inside and I collapsed onto his sofa. He looked at me. I must have looked a mess.
“I’ve just had a big row with my aunt. She’s going to cut me off. I told her to stick it, actually, that I’m tired of her using her money to manipulate me, and tired of her using my parents’ death as a …as a…” here I couldn’t help but burst into tears again. He came and sat down beside me, his warm hand on my back again. “So now I’m on my own. She won’t pay for the course anymore, she won’t pay for anything…”
He took my head in his hands.
“Hey. Nyx, that’s crazy. I’m so proud of you,” he said, a faint smile flickering on his lips.
He was proud of me? Proud for being an unrepentant idiot? Proud for shooting myself in the foot? Suddenly, the sight of his smirking face seemed unbearable.
“Do you understand how royally screwed I am, Adam?” I yelled. I couldn’t believe he had the gall to smile at me, now of all times. He looked like he was struggling to find words.
“And Tamara! I was supposed to drive her to Cambridge, remember? I fucked up so bad. She won’t even answer my calls. She trusted me and she was just getting to like me and now she’ll kick me out for sure!”
Telling my aunt to stick her direct debit had felt like the most liberating moment of my life. So why did I feel like such shit right now? I smeared the tears from my eyes and looked at him. He was still fucking smiling.
“Are you actually joking right now? I wouldn’t have overslept and forgotten about Tamara if it wasn’t for you,” I said, and stood up off the sofa. The smile went a little sour on his lips.
“Hey, Nyx, come on now…”
“No, you come on now. This is serious. I told you I didn’t want to do this. I told you I needed to focus on school, and to clean up my act, I told you--”
“Hey, just wait a second. Who had a big row with your aunt?”
“I did.”
“And who told her to ‘stick it’?”
“Well, I did…”
“And is that what you actually wanted to do?”
“Well …yes. I do want her to stick it. I hated her hanging that over my head, of course I--”
“So then why exactly are you angry at me?”
I was angry at him. I was angry at the self-satisfied smirk on his face just at that exact moment. Angry at him wearing his stupid pajamas when my whole world was falling apart at the seams. Oh sure, it was so easy for him. Easy for him to waltz around like nothing mattered, while some of us had work to do.
The churning inside my stomach was taking shape. Maybe this was all just a huge mistake. Maybe it was The Jackson Pollock Night all over again for me. I couldn’t have anything nice, because I’d just ruined it, eventually. And Adam wasn’t some artist in shining armor …he was just some layabout in pajama bottoms and an untidy flat.
“Hey, there’s something important I wanted to tell you” he said, but I found it hard to listen. I looked around at his living room, exasperated. Then something caught my eye.
“Hey, what’s that?”
“What’s what?”
I moved over to the entrance to his bedroom and saw something strange, and yet familiar. A big shawl, draped over his bed. Where had I seen this shawl before?
“Whose …whose is this?” I asked, picking it up in my hands and holding it out to him.
“It’s Laura’s,” he said, with the most infuriatingly neutral face I’d ever seen on him.
“You remember Laura? We met her at Andrew’s house that time, you know when we--”
“Yes I remember,” I snapped. “Why is it here though?” I hated how brittle my voice sounded.
He walked over slowly, took it from my hands and, for the first time since I had met him, his face didn’t seem so magical anymore. In fact, it seemed horrible. Just a nose and a mouth and some eyes, nothing special, just looking down at the shawl.
“She must have left it here,” he said plainly.
I flopped back down onto the couch. Yes. My aunt Lila must have been right. I was crazy. I had jumped into bed with this mysterious stranger, running around like I wasn’t an abysmal failure of a human, and people had warned me, hadn’t they? And I did it anyway, thinking that something special was happening to me, that I was something special. What an idiot I’d been. This was some true tragedy right here.
“Are you guys …are you seeing her? Is that what you wanted to tell me?”
The tears were starting up again. I didn’t try to stop them this time. He sighed loud
ly and tossed the shawl down, then rubbed his face as he looked around.
“No, Nyx. It’s not like that.”
“Then how is it?”
“It’s …complicated. Laura and I go back a long way. I’ve known her for years.”
“She’s an ex?”
“Well, something like that. But it was a very long time ago now. We’re very good friends and she came to see me…”
“In your room?”
He rubbed his face again.
“Look, I know you’re upset about this aunt thing of yours but--”
“This ‘aunt thing’?!” My face felt hot.
“Nyx, please just calm down. You don’t have to worry about Laura.”
“I’m not worried about her, you can run around with whoever you want, but please don’t try bullshit me at the very least.”
I hadn’t slept. I hadn’t eaten. I was miserable. I just wanted to go home. But where was home anyway?
“You don’t mean that. Please just sit down and chill. Have some tea with me or something.”
I shook my head.
“Nyx, please, I have something important I wanted to tell you. Will you just sit down for a second?”
I looked him in the eye. I tried to find that warmth again. That deep, brown, safe feeling I had grown so used to. But it wasn’t there anymore. Had it ever been? How do you know the difference between addiction and love? No matter how much I kept looking, I couldn’t see the magic in his eyes anymore. It was dead. Gone.
“I don’t care what you have to say. I don’t even know why I came here anyway, you obviously can’t help me,” I said quietly.
He came over to me and put his hands on my shoulders, then tried to lean in for a kiss. Almost without thinking, I turned my head and squirmed away. It was an ugly fucking shawl. Gaudy and loud and cheap looking and I hated it.
“I’m going,” I said, and headed for the door. I slammed it behind me and kept walking.
No, Adam wasn’t the answer here either. I was on my own. Really on my own. And it was all slowly starting to dawn on me. I had shared parts of myself with him that I hadn’t even known existed. I had gone further with him than I thought I was allowed to go. I had never felt so …alive.