Fractures

by M R Field

  My stomach tightens. Will he kiss me?

  His face draws closer, but his lips don’t pass across my own. Instead, his forehead presses gently against mine. I close my eyes as allow the ache of my body to leave me.

  We’re forehead to forehead, breathing each other in. His chest rises and falls, and my hand reaches out and holds the side of his arm, bringing him closer.

  “Trin.” His deep voice is like a warm chocolate. “With everything that has gone on in our lives, you are the only constant I have.”

  “In what way?” I ask, nuzzling closer, needing the connection with him to anchor me.

  “That no matter how shit, confused, angry or weak I feel, I have you to guide me.” He leans back and I can see his eyes. “Let me be that constant for you.”

  My stomach melts like warm honey. I’m not going to wait any longer. I can’t. I want this more than anything.

  I raise my hands up to cup his face and smile. I lean forward and rub my nose across his, back and forth, as soft butterflies tickle my insides. “You already are. Even though I know I don’t deserve you.”

  “You’re right.” His nose moves against mine as my heart thuds. “You deserve better.”

  “Oh!” I lean back and stare at the ceiling, moving my hand to my hip in indignation. “Well, aren’t we just a bunch of sorry fools!”

  He throws his head back and laughs, and instantly I wonder why the hell we’ve been dancing around one another for so long. I can’t wait anymore. I can see from how he looks at me that he can’t either.

  My ankle shifts as it nudges something under my bed. My eyes widen as I remember what lies under there, breaking the tension that tethers Theo and I. My body flicks up in fear as my foot moves away, afraid to touch it.

  Theo frowns in confusion as he leans to the side to see why I’m turning on the freak. “Did something bite you?” he says, as he peers at the floor by my feet and then looks back at me.

  I shake my head. I turn to the other side and run my fingers along the edges of my bedspread and pinching overlap until I make peaks, even though I preferred where my hands were a few moments ago. Anything to keep me distracted.

  Some people are scared about monsters under their beds. They hold their feet in under their sheets so as not to be bitten when they cover their tiny bodies in bedding so besides their head, no flesh will show. They clench the top sheet between their fingers, holding it up to their chins so tightly that not even a crow bar could extract the white-knuckled fingers that clasp it for dear life.

  Me? The monster lurking under my bed is in the shape of a brown box. I am scared of the box under my bed containing the frayed-edged papers as another assortment of guilt is enclosed inside. My terror lay in that box. Within it are several handwritten letters, all folded up and lovingly tucked into envelopes, ready for me to read. Messages from Mum to me. Her last wishes, thoughts, and desires. All of what I haven’t been able to bring myself to read.

  With every beat of my heart, I long for her to be alive. I’ve convinced myself that reading those letters will be the final goodbye. The goodbye I robbed her of while I was a tart on a sticky dance floor. In my mind, I need to suffer and be punished. If I open those letters, then it means that she is really gone. All she will be is mist and she will gradually fade. I feel like my heart lies with that box, crushed between the pages of words too precious to hear and too sacred to disturb.

  Theo moves beside me and before I know it, a very dusty brown box is placed on my lap.

  I stiffen like my body has been thrown a fireball. I’m about to toss it across the room when I consider what lays inside.

  “It’s letters addressed to me … by my mother,” I say softly. My hand begins to wipe away the dust from the top of the box as I hold it with my other hand.

  “Have you read them?” Theo places his hand on my knee, and I realise that it’s been trembling.

  “No. I only read a little of one letter the day of her funeral, but I can’t bring myself to do it.” He squeezes my knee and I continue, “I didn’t say goodbye to her. Or kiss her and tell her that I loved her while she could still understand me. Now? They’re empty words that are carried off by the wind. She can’t hear me.”

  “You should read them. You need to.”

  “But I don’t deserve to,” I whisper.

  “We all make mistakes. But it’s the lessons we learn …”

  “Please don’t quote a self-help novel. I can’t deal with that crap right now.”

  His thumb traces my knee as he reaches forward to grab the box. “Well, we can burn them then. If you’re not going to read them, might as well …”

  “NO!” I shriek as I grab the box from him and hold it close to my chest. “Never.”

  “Good. Then we’ll take it back with us, and you can read them when you’re ready.”

  “Wait! What?” I hold it closer to my front.

  “No more regrets. You need to begin to live properly. You’re not yourself fully. But we can get back there.”

  “But the letters will hurt.” My lip trembles.

  “Sometimes a little pain is what we need to grow,” he reasons.

  “I don’t have the strength to cope. Don’t you remember that day? I was reading that letter, and you and I …”

  “Yes, I do. But still, you need to move forward.”

  “It was a shitty day. I swear it must be this room. The funeral and then when we were sixteen and in this room, and you jumped ten feet in disgust after you barged in here and kissed me.”

  “Trinity,” Theo lays his hand on top of mine as it rests on the box. He sighs and takes a moment to respond, rolling his bottom lip between his teeth. “There’s so much you don’t know.” Taking a moment, he frowns before staring at me straight on, leaving me wounded. Breathless. Desperate. “That was the worst day of my fucking life.”

  Like a punch to the heart, I suddenly feel alone.

  My Theo.

  Probably not mine after all.

  The woman and man stand in the panel, facing each other in front of the broken tree. The heat within the pulsing heart beats as he holds her face in his hands.

  TTE

  THEO

  “It’s not what you think,” I add hastily. “I have so much to tell you.”

  I watch her startled expression, her eyes widening as they fill with fear. I curl her fingers beneath mine into her letterbox. If I don’t act soon, I know she’ll start to build that fortress again to protect herself and shut me out. No more distance. Not after today, you won’t be keeping me out. You’re mine now. Destiny would not have the two of us here in this room to fuck with us yet again. Surely.

  Trin stiffens her shoulders, and shuffles back along the edge of the bed, her hand attempting to move from mine it, but I tighten my grip. “No, Trin. Please listen.”

  Glancing at the box, I move my hand to the lid and remember the last time I was here. Sometimes, the ugliest moments are the ones that we need to work out before we can move forward. Trin is long overdue for explanations, no matter how much they make my stomach churn like a meat grinder.

  “You know”—I tap my finger on the box lid—“the last time I was here, you had a letter in your hand and you were a mess.”

  “I remember,” she whispers.

  “You still need to finish it,” I add tenderly,

  “I know …” Her voice breaks.

  “Another time, when we were in here …”

  “You kissed me and lost your shit,” she interrupts, slipping her hand from mine and moving back, leaving a gulf between us.

  “We don’t have a lot of good memories in this room,” I add, trying to work out how the hell to fix the hole that I’m digging myself into. To make everything finally right.

  “You mean, when we kissed like animals and you jumped back at least a foot? Way to ruin my first kiss, by the way.” Anger simmers around her like tension-filled waves.

  “Okay,” I raise my hand, standing from the bed to step
away as the stress of that moment comes lurking again. My hand curls into my hair at the front of my head, but it’s too short to pull. Old habits die hard. Years spent hiding behind my fringe, and now I almost need it. My fingers flex as I try to keep busy. “I just spent time with Ko cementing the bullshit that I learnt a long time ago. Not only was I reminded how desolate my home life was, but in actual fact, I was reminded I was never really meant to be part of it. It made me hide from you, from my friends, and even from myself. That day that you’re remembering, when I came here …” I shake my shoulders to relieve the tension that builds across my back, “… was the day that I found out that my father, Ko, wasn’t my real father.”

  “What?” Trin’s back straightens as she moves the box from her lap to her bed. She leans forward to stand, but I hold my hand out to stop her.

  “No, let me say what I need to say.” I pace, worried that I’ll jam up and not continue, but the friction of the moment pushes me to go ahead. “You know what my household was like.” I flick my hand in front of me. “I didn’t have parents like yours, who were normal. Instead, I had strict grandparents who tried to give affection, but couldn’t, and one parent who was more a boss than a father. That day …” I stop as I turn to face her, “… I had just finished my last piano exam for the semester, and my fingers were tense from playing Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto #3. I had stuffed up the final movement in the finale. Much to my father’s dismay,” I spat. “We stood afterwards in the lounge area, where he proceeded to tell me what a failure I was that the toccata climax was dismal in its intended effect and didn’t receive a perfect score.” My mouth tightens as memories of the hand cramps from that time resurface. “I don’t remember school or the things I did during that time, except practicing that song. The movements ran through my head on repeat—a never-ending torment. When I was home, I practiced. At school, I used my free time to march across the two campuses to use the piano room with special permission my father had organised,” I hissed. “I thought about that fucking song until my ears bled.”

  “I don’t understand why he took it so seriously?” Trin gently prods, folding her leg to sit it underneath her.

  “He was disappointed in me. What better way of letting me really feel that hole of disappointment than by telling me that any son of his wouldn’t make mistakes.” I stare at the carpet and close my eyes for a moment. “After he scolded me and dropped that bombshell, everything else imploded.” Holding my hand in front of me, I began to tick off the memories. “I could break it down, and it still wouldn’t make it better. My mother wanted kids, and he didn’t. My mother had an affair.” My finger ticks off my thumb. “Today, I learned my father found out about her affair and was too proud to make her leave as he loved her … until he wasn’t. Then she died in a car accident after they fought. Back then I was angry, because I’d been lied to; today I’m livid as he neglected to tell me the whole truth all those years ago.” Raising my next finger, I continue, “My real father didn’t know I existed until Ko contacted him. Apparently, the guilt was too hard to bear. Looking after someone who was a constant reminder of his failings in his marriage. It wasn’t enough that he had to make life hard—he had to just keep adding to the mix.”

  “Theo …” Trin begins, but I’m on a roll, and my tongue continues to lather the words that tumble out of my mouth.

  “Back then, my real father actually wanted to meet me and get to know me. But Ko forbade it.”

  “Why didn’t your real father at least try? Why wouldn’t Ko let him?”

  “He did try, but he was told to keep a distance to not fuck with my schooling. Can you believe that? I thought at first Ko wanted me to suffer just like he had. Once I moved to Melbourne for university, I stalked Ricardo online and went to his office. The day I stormed in, I not only marched in on him, but my siblings. They looked so similar to me. I hadn’t felt that familiar to anyone ever. Not even my mother, from the little memories I have of her. So aside from Ko burning almost all her pictures and any sources of memory of her except the photo I had kept on my bedside table, he had to take the only thing that was real to me—an actual father. For all those years.”

  “Oh, Theo.” Trin’s voice wavers as she stares up at me. “What a shitty way to tell you, especially since you have a family you didn’t know about.”

  “I couldn’t take it,” my lips twitch, my feet picking up to pace again. “So I picked up the handmade cricket bat that the man who I’d grown up thinking was my father had made and took out all the bullshit he had fed me and turned it into shatters. His worthless half-cast son was a tyrant. If he had mentioned me having sisters, I would have lost my shit on the whole house.” I stop just in front of Trin as my chest heaves. “I left his house, needing to be anywhere else. I came running to you, as you’re all I’ve ever had that feels like home. Someone who understands that I am weird, or need time to adjust. You just get me.”

  A small wounded smile breaks across her lips. “You came in like a hurricane,” she sighs.

  She’s right. I’d flown past her parents in distress and charged into Trin’s room, finding her on the floor, sorting out her latest art sketches. I’d thrown myself down at her feet, and before she could ask me what was up, I’d pulled her to me and kissed her.

  “I felt like my lips were on fire.” I reach for her face and rub my thumb across her cheek. “I never felt so alive as I did when I kissed you—until the fear crept in. After learning about my mother, Ko, and my real father, I couldn’t handle it. I thought after all this fucked up mess that the one thing that was always constant, was always there, was you—and you were too important to lose.”

  “How do you know you would’ve lost me?” She leans into my touch.

  “I couldn’t risk it. I was more frightened of losing you than anything else. I was scared shitless.” I look away, dropping my hand, almost too ashamed to admit the next part. “So I threw myself at Claire when I got back to school. I needed someone who was disposable. Who I could leave without any hard feelings.”

  Trin snorts as my eyes flick back to her. “Hard was probably what you were testing out while with her.” She smiles, but I know that smile is bullshit. Her eyes can’t hide the jealous fire that rages within. “It made me a fool, too. I hid my mother’s illness from you for a few months. That was uncalled for.”

  “We both fucked up. I was a naïve idiot, you were hurting on so many levels, and to top it off, when she hid those stupid naked photos in my folio to entice me to take her back, I never could. There was so much history between us. So much left unsaid. She wasn’t you. But she made a good point of knowing how to keep us apart.”

  “She sabotaged us, without even knowing it,” Trin concedes. “Those photos tore a hole in my heart, Theo. Seeing naked photos of someone you were intimate with is every girl’s nightmare. I felt I could never compete with her.”

  “You don’t need to. You surpass anything and everything about her.”

  “No, I don’t,” she snaps, startling me. “You kissed her”—her nose wrinkles in disgust—“repeatedly.”

  “I don’t know how to explain it without sounding like a dick. Kissing you the day of the funeral, somehow meshed together with all the bad shit that circulated in my head. I felt like I was tainted, and if I kissed you, I would ruin everything once again. My mind has a fucked up way of making me panic.”

  “Ugh,” she groans. “So I have cursed lips. Great.” Her sarcasm stings as I try to muster the last ounce of courage for what I want to say and do. “I don’t think I can handle talking about this shit anymore.”

  But I can’t leave it there. “There’s more.” She flinches, but I continue “My real father has been making random appearances in my life since I was eighteen. He’s the wealthy businessman who owns Arce’s Enterprises, and he has decided that the best way to get to know me is to ambush my career and make me design things for him.” I blow a breath out before continuing. “I’ve met his family in parts now, too. It seems that th
ey want to get to know me as well.”

  “Whoa.” Her eyes widen. “Things are a bit of a mess for you at the moment, then?”

  I sit down beside her on her bed and grab both of her hands in mine, curling them between my fingers. “In some areas, but there’s some that I want to fix. But out of all this bullshit, there are things that I marvel at. My mother wanted me. Yes, she betrayed her husband, but it was all to have a child. That speaks volumes of her love for me and that striving for what you hold most dear is worth all the shit in between. I have sisters who want to know me and a father who I can’t work out, but I now know what it feels like to be determined. I know, this time, I’m not going to lose. I want to take a chance.”

  We lean forward, and our foreheads touch. Her warmth bleeds into mine stronger than before. Take a chance on us, my mind begs. Say yes. My lips tremble as we breathe in each other. Every breath lingers between the divide of us.

  “I’m scared.” Her fingers grip mine.

  “Say you’ll give us a chance.”

  “What if we stuff up? What if we end up really hating each other?”

  I tilt my head back to watch her blue eyes blink away tears that threaten to fall. “For starters, that could never happen. Wherever this journey takes us, you are always a part of me.”

  “Was that written on a Hallmark card somewhere? Because it’s kinda cheesy.” She smiles shyly.

  “No, this is all me.” I move my hands to both sides of her face. “I meant every word, like I mean this.”

  Before she can respond, my lips touch hers and strike the dormant match. But this time, I don’t feel afraid. As my lips caress hers, the fire ignites and rises within me while our tongues fight the dance of a hundred warriors. We have fought to be in this moment. I can’t get enough of her as my touch roams her body, dodging her own desperate hands, and they wander in the same need as me. She is mine. As our lips continue to devour each other, I grip her close to me, not wanting to break contact. She is the resin that casts my fractured soul, fusing it together. Finally.