Fierce Fragile Hearts

by Sara Barnard

  ‘Don’t apologize,’ he says. ‘You don’t need to do that. Don’t they teach you that in therapy?’

  I give his shoulder a flick. ‘Fuck off.’

  He laughs and hugs me, spontaneous and warm, his arms closing lightly around my shoulders. I let my head rest against his collarbone for the seconds we’re together. He feels so solid and I think, I could stay here.

  When we disembark half an hour later, it’s dark and we’re both hungry. He hoists me up on to his back and gives me a piggyback along the South Bank, my arms looped around his neck, jogging us both up some steps to get to the food market. He buys us both burgers and fries and we sit on the wall by the Thames to eat. The air is cool against my face and the burger is so good. I’m happy.

  ‘Do you need to get back any time soon?’ Matt asks me when we’re done.

  I shake my head.

  ‘OK, great. Then … do you want to see my flat?’ he asks.

  I feel a smile stretch across my face. ‘To see your etchings?’

  He laughs. ‘Can’t say I’ve got any etchings, but I’ll show you my guitars, if you want.’

  ‘Cool,’ I say. Super-casual. ‘Lead the way.’

  Matt lives in a room in a house on a residential street in Putney. He tells me, as we walk up the stairs, that he doesn’t really see his four other housemates much and they’re not the kind of house that socializes together.

  ‘They’re all nine-to-fivers,’ he says. ‘And I do shifts at the bar at all hours, so we don’t really run into each other. Here, this is me.’ He pushes open the door and smiles my favourite of his smiles. Soft, a little self-mocking. ‘After you.’

  His room is pretty small, about the size of my bedsit without the kitchen area. His bed takes up most of the space, with a wardrobe and a desk filling the rest of it. There are two guitars in view – one on the desk chair, one leaning against the wall – and a couple of amps piled by the door. There’s not much on the walls; some gig posters, a minimalist mosaic of album covers too small to differentiate from where I’m standing, a cartoon map of Brighton that makes me smile.

  ‘There’s not much to see,’ he says. ‘But it’ll do for now. Do you want a drink or anything?’

  I turn, smiling, and shake my head. He takes a tentative step towards me and I tilt my chin up, just slightly, so he knows it’s OK. When he kisses me, it’s gentle. One hand starting on my hip and making its way to my neck, my face. After a minute – or five, or ten, who knows? – we realize the door is still open and he shifts back, still attached to me, to close it with his foot. This would probably be a cool move, but he stumbles slightly and messes it up, his teeth knocking against mine as the door slams and he starts to fall. I grab hold of his shirt to stop myself losing my balance but it’s too late. We collapse against his bed, hard, me already laughing and him with a mortified yelp.

  ‘Shit,’ he says, rolling on to his back. ‘Smooth move, Sheffan.’

  ‘So smooth,’ I say, still laughing, pushing my hair out of my eyes and sitting up. ‘You can’t be super-cool all the time.’

  He grins at me. ‘Hey,’ he says. He reaches out to take my hand, tugging me down so I’m lying next to him. I let my body curl against his, my head resting against chest. It’s a move I’ve seen in countless film and TV scenes, but not one I’ve ever done myself. I want to say it feels natural and perfect, but it doesn’t. I’m too aware of what I’m doing, too self-conscious of the cliché. I wait for a couple of minutes, then sit back up. He glances up at me, forehead crinkling. ‘OK?’ he asks.

  I nod. I can tell he’s waiting for more, so I say, ‘Just a bit … coupley, that’s all.’

  He laughs. ‘Don’t worry. I’m not going to go all boyfriend on you.’

  ‘Better not,’ I say, trying not to show how relieved I am. ‘I’d be right out the door.’

  ‘We’re still on the same page,’ he says. ‘Right?’

  ‘Right,’ I say emphatically. ‘No labels, no bullshit.’ I let out a breath. ‘Sorry, I got paranoid. And Caddy and Roz don’t get it, and—’

  ‘Oh, that’s what this is,’ he says, smiling, shaking his head a little. ‘Kel had a “talk” with me, too. After New Year’s. He doesn’t get why anyone wouldn’t want what he wants.’

  ‘Yeah, they don’t either.’

  ‘I mean, it’s not crazy,’ he says. ‘I get the whole wanting-a-relationship thing, if you’re that kind of person. If you don’t have the sort of hang-ups we have.’

  Something stabs at my chest, a quick, defensive tug. ‘Hang-ups?’

  ‘Yeah. You’ve got your stuff and I’ve got mine. I think Kel just thinks it’s about not wanting to commit, and having freedom and stuff.’

  I frown. ‘That is what it’s about.’

  ‘Is it?’ He’s still lying down, looking up at me. ‘It’s more than that for me. I mean, that’s good, obviously. I don’t want to commit, and I do like being free. But it’s more about …’ He stops himself, his eyes sliding from mine for the first time, then back again. I see a brief flash of the kind of fear I recognize on his face, a vulnerability he usually hides.

  ‘Tell me,’ I say, softening my voice. ‘You’re right; I’ve got my stuff. Tell me yours.’

  ‘Honestly?’ he says, and I nod. ‘I don’t want to hurt anyone. I watched my dad do it, to my mum, over and over. And the crazy thing about it was that he did love her, and he did it anyway. Like he couldn’t stop himself. I couldn’t handle loving someone and hurting them like that. And I’m scared that …’ He closes his eyes for a moment too long, then opens them again. ‘I’m scared that I would. I think I would.’

  ‘I know what you mean,’ I say, and his face lifts.

  ‘You do?’

  ‘Yeah. I’d be a terrible girlfriend.’

  ‘I’d be a terrible boyfriend,’ he says. We look at each other, both of us breaking into a smile at the same time. He laughs. ‘Look at us. What a pair of fuck-ups.’

  ‘A pair of fuck-ups on the same page,’ I say. ‘That counts for something.’

  He reaches for my hand and I let him take it. When he pulls me gently down towards him I’m the one who kisses first, my hand on his chest, eyes closed. We’d kissed in the club in Brighton, in Sarah’s flat, on the London Eye, but there’s nothing like kissing on a bed in a room with the door closed and nothing but the night stretching on ahead of us. This is different. The heady inevitability of it is irresistible.

  He does something to me, there’s no question about that. I want him. I want every single inch of him. And he feels the same, I feel that too. It’s not just because he’s hard underneath his jeans, pressed against me, though that helps. It’s the way his hands cup my face. How he looks at me between kisses.

  I don’t want a boyfriend, it’s true. But I want him. I want him in a way that feels simple and horribly complicated. Sweet and dangerous.

  I breathe him in, pushing my body up against his. Our kissing gets harder, his hands slide down over my back, pulling me closer. We move without words, one, two three movements, and then we are tangled together, my legs around him, he is gripping my hip with one hand, his other arm curled around the back of my head. My arms are around him, my fingers in his hair. We are kissing, kissing, and then his hand is at the zip of my jeans, he’s easing denim down, just far enough, his fingers find me and begin to move.

  He uses the ridge of his palm and the tips of his fingers in motion, rolling his wrist, pushing with his fingertips until I’m gone, loose underneath him, all of me untied. He is over me and on me and I just want more. He is telling me I am beautiful, so beautiful. He’s saying my name. He wants me.

  He has me, and it feels like every pill I’ve ever taken, every shot of tequila, every joint, all at once. At some point I pretty much lose my lucidity, but the last thing I remember thinking is that I didn’t know it could feel like this. I did not know it could feel like this.

  We don’t sleep.

  The hours pass, a perfect blur of togetherness. Scroll
ing through his Spotify account while he plays with my hair. Sitting in his lap with his guitar against my chest, his arms around us both, strumming soft chords. Leaning out of his window, smoking a cigarette down to a nub. Dancing to Secret Nation in the tiny space between his bed and the wall, him trying to twirl me. Kissing him, long and slow. Lying on my side with his arm around me as he strokes my bare back with his free hand, tingles running down my whole body. Lying facing each other, noses almost touching, so close we only need whispers.

  Morning comes as I’m beginning to doze off. I seriously consider calling in sick to work so I can stay, but the paranoid part of me doesn’t want to risk the perfection of the night by dragging it into day. It is almost 6 a.m. when the two of us walk to the nearest tube, fingers entwined, the air cool and damp. He buys me a coffee and a croissant at the Costa by the station. By the ticket barriers he kisses me one last time, the sweetest, softest smile on his face.

  ‘I wish you could stay,’ he says.

  ‘You’d get bored of me,’ I say. I press my Oyster card against the reader and the barriers snap open.

  ‘Never,’ he says.

  When I get on the train at Victoria to take me home, I am too sleepy despite the coffee to do anything but rest my head against the window and pass out. I wake up as the train pulls into Brighton, groggy and with the beginnings of a headache. The worst part of staying up all night is when it’s not night any more, but it was worth it. It was worth every single second.

  25

  ‘Happiness is Not a Place’

  The Wind and The Wave

  At the end of January, I take a few days off work and go to Cardiff to see Brian. He pays for my train tickets, like he always does, and meets me at the station on Thursday evening with a smile.

  ‘Hey,’ he says, hugging me. ‘Croeso.’

  I hug him back. ‘You’re not actually Welsh, remember. You just live here.’

  He grins. ‘Rwy’n dy garu di.’

  ‘What?!’

  ‘Come on,’ he says, slinging an arm around my neck. ‘I’ll get us Thai food on the way home.’

  Brian lives in a flatshare with another teacher, Ben, and a school librarian, Bets. I’ve met them both a few times, which is good because it means we did the whole awkward introductions bit ages ago. Bets steals one of my spring rolls and talks enthusiastically at me about books I should read. Ben marks a stack of essays in silence, glancing up every now and then to check we’re all still there.

  On Friday, I sleep through them all leaving for work and wake up to an empty house. I go into the kitchen to find the ingredients for pancakes – each measured to exactly the right quantity – waiting on the table beside a frying pan and spatula. There’s a note held down by a spare key beside it. Morning! Brian’s handwriting. Promise I’ll make these myself tomorrow, but today here’s everything you need! Have a great day. Call me if you need anything x

  He can be pretty great, my brother.

  I spend the day wandering around the city centre until it’s time to meet Brian outside his school. We go to Cardiff Bay and the Millennium Centre, which is what we’ve done every time since I first visited him in Cardiff when I was fourteen and he was a fresher. Before my first suicide attempt, before I left Reading, before Sarah and Brighton and everything that went wrong. There’s a peace to how it all looks the same every time, even as the exhibitions and shows and tour posters change.

  The next day is all blue skies and sunshine, so Brian drives us across South Wales to the Gower Peninsula, where we spent a family holiday once when we were much younger. He takes me on a walking trail that ends up on a long sandy beach so beautiful it doesn’t feel like it belongs in the UK.

  ‘Do you remember it?’ he asks me. ‘The holiday, I mean.’

  I shake my head. ‘Not really. Probably for the best.’

  ‘It was a good holiday,’ he says. ‘We rented bikes. And we got a kite that day it was really windy, here on this beach. You don’t remember?’

  I shake my head again.

  ‘Well, it was great, anyway,’ he says. ‘That holiday was part of the reason I wanted to come to Wales to go to uni, you know. It’s why I love it here.’

  I’m not sure why he’s telling me this, what it is he expects me to say. ‘Is that why you stayed in Cardiff after you graduated, instead of going home?’

  ‘Cardiff is home,’ he says. ‘I made my home here, just like you’re doing in Brighton.’ A spaniel has come bounding over to us and Brian squats, beaming, to stroke his head. ‘Hello, mate.’

  We both fuss over the dog for a few minutes before he turns and bolts off towards his owners. It’s a relief to focus my attention somewhere else, even for a tiny slice of time, and Brian must feel the same way because when I look back at him he’s smiling, just like I am. When he sees my face, his smile widens. ‘Damn, I really do miss you,’ he says. ‘I’m glad you’re here.’

  I let him hug me, and it’s nice. ‘Me too.’

  But then he says, ‘It really was a great holiday. We did have some good times, didn’t we? Like, remember when Dad was in a good mood, sometimes he’d stop in at McDonalds on the way home from work and bring us both a McFlurry?’

  I look away, because I do remember. Smarties for me, Crunchie for Brian.

  ‘And when he used to build us those forts in the living room and we’d play pirates? You were Captain Zanne? Remember you used to wear that bandana? He got you that little telescope?’

  Oh, God. My heart gives a painful lurch. Captain Zanne. I’d forgotten all about that. ‘Shiver me timbers!’ Dad used to yell, lifting me up on to his shoulders. ‘There be treasure, Cap’n Zanne!’

  ‘Why are you doing this?’ I ask quietly.

  He’s surprised. ‘Because that stuff shouldn’t be forgotten, don’t you think? Sometimes I worry that you think it was all bad. And it wasn’t, you know?’

  ‘So what?’

  He blinks. ‘So what, what?’

  ‘So what if it wasn’t “all bad”? What point are you trying to make?’ My throat is tightening, because I’m thinking about therapy, about everything I’d learned about emotional manipulation, how it goes hand in hand with abuse. How this is my brother, who I adore, manipulating me, and he doesn’t even realize. ‘A few good times don’t make up for long-term physical and emotional abuse.’ The words land hard. I see him flinch. ‘And I shouldn’t feel guilted into feeling that way, especially not by you.’

  ‘I didn’t mean that. You know I didn’t mean that. I just … God, I’m your brother. This is my family too. I want to be able to have some memories that aren’t tainted.’

  ‘Tainted by … my trauma?’

  He throws up his hands in frustration. ‘Forget it. Just forget it, OK? I’m obviously not explaining myself well enough.’

  ‘You can have whatever memories you want,’ I say. ‘I’ll have different ones. That’s all.’

  ‘But so many of them are the same,’ he says. ‘Like, remember that time we went to see the Counting Crows? It was your first ever concert, and Dad took us both? Remember how great that was?’ His face is light with hope. ‘That’s what I mean. That kind of thing. Fun that we had together, despite all the other shit.’

  I bite my tongue, hard. Remember how great that was? I must have been about ten when we went to that gig. Dad’s favourite band, and music that formed the soundtrack to my childhood. Dad had been excited – genuinely excited – to be able to take us both, and for it to be my first gig. He’d taken us for dinner first, bought us tour merchandise – a T-shirt for Brian, a hat for me – and given me a piggyback during the show so I could see better. Of course Brian has good memories of that show. It went so smoothly. Dad didn’t even get angry, not once.

  But here’s what I remember: terror. A constant, churning terror in my stomach, from the moment we left the house to the moment we got back in it. I’d been so scared I’d do something wrong and make Dad mad. He was in such a good mood, which meant he’d be even angrier if I someho
w spoiled it. I was so on alert it was physically painful. And all at the same time, I knew I had to be happy, excited, grateful.

  If I tell Brian this, it will crush him. So I don’t. Instead, I say, ‘You know, everything you say is basically the opposite of what everyone else says.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Like, you’re all, Think about the good things. Give them another chance. Stop being so hard on them. Everyone else tells me I’m trying too hard. That they don’t deserve …’ I hesitate, my throat tightening. ‘Me.’

  When I say this, something happens to his face. Just for the briefest of seconds, but it happens, and it’s like I’m looking at Dad. He looks just like Dad. The moment passes and he’s Brian again.

  ‘Who is “everyone else”?’ he asks.

  ‘My friends. You know Rosie thinks I should sue them? Like, actually sue them?’

  At this, he laughs. ‘Well, that’s ridiculous.’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘Of course it is. Look, you’re right, they don’t deserve you. It’s right that you’re angry. But suing them? That’s crazy. Rosie’s great, but she doesn’t understand.’

  Considering this is almost exactly what I’d said to Rosie, my annoyance at Brian saying the same makes no sense. But I’m annoyed anyway. ‘She cares about me. And would it be that crazy? Don’t you think I’m owed?’

  ‘Owed what? Money?’

  ‘Yeah. Like, if I wanted to study, I’m at least a year behind everyone else because I don’t have A levels. And I don’t have A levels because my education got fucked up because I was abused. It’d cost me money to make that time up. So doesn’t that mean I am owed?’

  There’s a long silence. Eventually, he says, ‘You want to study?’

  My instinct is to say no, but I force myself to lift my chin and say, ‘Maybe.’

  ‘That’s great, Zanne.’ The sincerity hurts. I don’t want him to be nice and sincere right now. I want him to carry on being unreasonable, so I can be mad at him, and this will stop being so complicated. ‘That’s amazing. What do you want to study?’