Lessons in Letting Go

by Corinne Grant

  I was just about to call and apologise when he wrote back. His email was cold. It was worse than cold, it was furious and dispassionate, like he was writing to someone he barely knew. He called me ‘awful and offensive’. I was so shocked that I recoiled from the words on the computer screen. I loved Thomas, there was no way I would ever do anything to hurt him. My resolve to act like an adult disappeared. I rang him and burst into tears.

  ‘Tom, I didn’t mean to hurt you, I was just upset. You know how much I care about you, you know I would never intentionally do anything to harm you.’

  I had been beating myself up over the Bastard Man, I already felt like the lowest, most evil person in the world, I couldn’t bear the idea of Tom hating me as well.

  ‘You know what? I don’t care what your intention was, you insulted me—you insulted me completely.’

  What had I done? A part of me realised he was overreacting but I was so busy overreacting myself that I couldn’t get a grip on the situation. So I just apologised, over and over again. I didn’t know what else to do. The idea of losing Thomas’ friendship was unbearable. The dorky little kid from Corryong who wore clown jumpers, fell down escalators and was terrified of city people was essentially who I still was. The world scared me, Thomas knew that. In fact, he was the only person who knew that. Adam was my best friend but Thomas was more. Thomas was the only person who really knew that I was hopeless at getting by on my own. If it wasn’t for him, I would have floated off into space long ago. I pleaded with him to believe that I was sorry, that I didn’t mean to hurt him, that I loved him and cared about him and that I needed him to know that. Eventually he said that he believed me. But he still sounded cold.

  I hung up the phone, put my head in my hands and tried to calm down.

  I didn’t know what to do after that. For weeks I was so scared that I might offend him again that I stopped asking him direct questions and instead became thoroughly and horribly passive-aggressive. Instead of asking if he was going to a friend’s wedding, I asked what he was doing that weekend. Instead of asking if he could help me with my budget, I mentioned that I was having trouble using the template he had made for me. And instead of asking if our gang was still going on our annual holiday together, I asked if he was taking his holidays at the same time as usual. I was behaving like such a martyr that I started to irritate myself.

  ‘Corinne, if you’re trying to ask me what I’m doing for New Year then just come out and say it.’

  ‘Sorry. It’s just that we hadn’t discussed it and I didn’t know . . .’

  ‘Well you know now, okay? We’re not going away this year. Sarah wants to visit her parents in Mildura, so we’re going there instead. If you wanted to know if I was organising a trip, you should have just asked. This implication that I am somehow dishonest is really offensive.’

  ‘No! That’s not what I meant! Thomas, everything I say to you is wrong now. I don’t know how to fix this.’

  This had to be a bad dream, it just had to be. I was losing him and I didn’t know how to stop it. I could hear the anger in his voice.

  ‘So this is my fault, is it? Now you’re saying that I’m being awful to you? Why don’t you stop and think about how you sound when you talk to other people?’

  He hung up. I felt like dirt. I sat down on the couch and tried to stop shaking. Thomas thought I was a total bitch and I couldn’t convince him otherwise. The idea sickened me. I went back over the last couple of months, trying to figure out how I could change things, how I could make him calm down, how I could prove to him that I was the same person I’d always been. I started to panic when I couldn’t come up with a solution.

  A week later, I received a group email from him announcing that he and Sarah were engaged and that the wedding invitations would be sent out in due course.

  I laughed out loud when I read it. If I had been a cartoon character, I would have slapped myself on the forehead and yelled, ‘Duh!’ Now everything made sense. Thomas wasn’t angry, he was stressed. He’d probably been so nervous about proposing that he had taken it out on me. In fact, he’d probably been like this with everyone and I was being paranoid and a little bit egotistical to take it so personally. Thomas was getting married and, like the email said, I was going to be there to help him celebrate. I felt like I could breathe again.

  A few days later I saw him at a friend’s birthday party. When the bar closed, he invited everyone back to his house, making a point of asking me too. My theory had proven correct, we were back to normal. Tom and I ended up in the kitchen, talking for hours in the old familiar way we always had.

  ‘You going up to The Wrong for Christmas?’

  Thomas had nicknamed Corryong ‘the Wrong’ after I had killed the turtle. I laughed.

  ‘No, we’re spending it in Albury–Wodonga with the cousins.’

  ‘Ooooh! Fancy city folk!’

  I laughed again and punched him in the arm. I couldn’t believe it. It was as if nothing had ever happened. I had lain in bed awake countless nights, trying to figure out how I could win back Thomas’ friendship and I hadn’t been able to come up with anything. The rest of my time was spent desperately trying not to think about how I would cope without him. Now, incredibly, it was all over. There was no point in bringing any of it up, I was just so glad to have my friend back that nothing else mattered. I left the party as the birds were starting to sing, and as I walked home, I cried with joy. My life was back to normal. Everything was OK.

  Two weeks later the wedding invitations were sent out. I wasn’t invited.

  Chapter Twelve

  I was in Sydney, staying with my old friend Jamie when I found out. He owned a house with a pool and he, his girlfriend Emily and I had made the most of the last few days of summer, slobbing around the decking, dipping our toes in the water and generally avoiding the things we were supposed to be doing. I had work to do but sitting by the pool drinking beer and eating pizza seemed like much more fun.

  I looked over at Jamie: he was still far cooler than I was. He was wearing aviator sunglasses, he had some kind of weird, patchy multicoloured thing going on in his hair and his girlfriend looked like she belonged in a rock band. I was wearing a one-piece swimsuit I’d been given as a twenty-first birthday present. It was hard to believe either of them was willing to be seen in public with me. I smiled, overcome with affection for them both.

  ‘Remember when I stayed at your place in Bondi?’

  I was being sentimental, reminiscing about a time nearly ten years earlier.

  Jamie looked at me quizzically.

  ‘No. How long were you there for?’

  ‘Nine days! You don’t remember? Wow, Jamie, maybe lay off the beers.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  I started at him disbelievingly.

  ‘Yes I’m sure! I remember us both sitting on the floor in front of your little bar fridge with my hair dryer, trying to melt out a bottle of vodka that had got trapped in the ice in your freezer. You don’t remember that?’

  He stared at me blankly. I took a swig of my beer and as I did, I remembered that I hadn’t actually done that with Jamie, I’d done it with Adam when we were staying at Jamie’s place and Jamie was out of town. In effect, we’d stolen his vodka and I was just now, ten years later, incriminating myself. I sneaked a look at J. He look perturbed. I decided it was better to let him think he was suffering from alcohol-induced memory loss than to own up to my crime.

  Emily got up from the pool deck, picked up the pizza boxes and wandered back into the house. On the way she called over her shoulder, ‘Oh, hey, are you going to Thomas’ wedding?’

  The world, just for a millisecond, swerved off its axis then righted itself again, like I was experiencing a little bit of psychological vertigo. Nope. I hadn’t heard that right. She must have said ‘engagement party’. That would make sense. I’d been in Sydney for a week, the invitation was probably sitting in my letterbox at home.

  Jamie jumped in quickly, saying, ‘Yo
u won’t be here, Corinne. It’s when you’re in Perth for that gala show.’

  There was no vertigo this time; instead, everything spun rapidly. Thomas was getting married and I wasn’t invited. Being out of town didn’t make it okay, in fact it made it worse.

  ‘Jamie, you’re invited and you’ll be in Perth too.’ I said it in the calmest tone I could manage. I shook my head, smiled casually at Jamie and slipped into the pool. I just needed a moment underwater where no one could see my face.

  I felt so betrayed. Tom and I had spent hours talking at that party like everything was fine. Why hadn’t he told me then? Why had he decided to let me find out from someone else? There was absolutely no way that he couldn’t have known how much this would hurt me. After years of being best friends, years of parties and funerals and cups of tea and glasses of wine and stupid jokes and tears on shoulders, he was ending it all in the cruellest way possible. He was about to celebrate the biggest day of his life and he didn’t want me there.

  I got out of the pool and walked into the house, trying hard to look indifferent. I went to the bathroom and showered. I shut my brain down. We were all going out that night and I couldn’t afford to fall apart. I turned the shower off, dried my hair and put on my make-up, staring at my face in the mirror like it belonged to someone else. I wasn’t capable of looking into my own eyes. I froze a smile on my face, went back out to the deck and grabbed another beer. I chatted non-stop with Emily while Jamie got ready. If I was left alone with my own thoughts for even a second, I knew I would crash. I talked at Emily and then, when Jamie came out and Emily went to use the shower, I talked at him. God knows what I was saying, I just needed words to come out of my mouth.

  We ordered a taxi, we went to the club, we watched the band and I stood there and smiled and laughed and acted like nothing was wrong.

  That night I lay in the dark in Jamie’s spare room, staring at the ceiling. I wasn’t even crying, the tears simply leaked out of their own accord. Thomas had so much contempt for me that he didn’t care how much he hurt me. That was the only conclusion I could draw. The realisation made me curl in on myself like a wounded animal. There were so many people who had a reason to be angry with me: my father, the Bastard Man, the little girl in Waltons, the turtle I had murdered. All of them would have been justified in seeking their revenge. But Thomas? He must have simply woken up one day and decided I was worthless.

  I left Jamie’s house the next morning, smiling and waving like nothing was wrong. I took a cab to the airport, I flew back to Melbourne, I took another cab home and then I walked into my apartment, looked around and fell apart. I wanted to burn the place to the ground. Everything reminded me of Thomas. Here was the newly repaired antique mirror, the kitchen utensils, the framed vintage poster, the clothes, the books, the bowls and jewellery boxes and bottles of wine. I had held on to all of it because it made me feel secure, like I existed, like I mattered, like I had a place in the world. None of it was enough. None of it could make up for what I had lost.

  I looked again at everything Thomas had given me, most of it after we’d broken up. The vintage poster stood out from everything else. Something started itching at the back of my brain. He had given it to me about a year after I’d left him. He had dragged it all the way back from some Eastern European country and then had it professionally mounted. Most people brought back tea towels or key-rings from their holidays, they didn’t bring back artwork and have it custom framed for their ex-girlfriend.

  I dropped my bags and sat down on the floor, right where I was. How had I not seen this before? Maybe all of those gifts had been his way of trying to win me back. How could I have been so stupid? I should never have taken that poster from him, I should have kissed him on the forehead, told him he was wonderful and then told him to give it to someone else. But I didn’t, I took it from him. I’d taken and taken and taken and now, all these years later, he’d realised how selfish and self-absorbed I was and he hated me for it.

  I curled up in the space between the kitchen bench and the wall heater, right where Thomas had been standing when I had told him I was leaving. I wanted to stay there forever. I wanted to lie still and small and useless. I couldn’t harm anyone else if I didn’t do anything. I shifted my right hand and, as I did so, I felt something sharp dig into it. I turned it over. There was a little sliver of glass poking out of the heel of my palm. The broken mirror was still making its presence felt. If I was right, if Thomas had tried to win me back, then I was a stone-cold bitch for not seeing it, and now that he had Sarah, he could see that as well. Sarah was no doubt decent and considerate. She probably didn’t live in a house filled with dead flowers and all her socks from primary school. And she could probably look after herself and didn’t need Thomas to do it for her. No wonder he didn’t want anything to do with me; I was nothing but a leftover from a life that didn’t matter anymore.

  I pulled the splinter of glass out of my hand, dropped it back on the floor and stared at it. There were probably a hundred more shards just like it still scattered throughout the house. I’d never be able to get rid of them. I guessed that was the same way Thomas felt about me. I flicked the bit of glass so that it fell between a crack in the floorboards. Now I could see things from Thomas’ perspective and that hurt more than everything else put together. I dug the splinter of broken glass back out of the floorboards and pushed my palm down on top of it again. Broken things never really leave you. You have to leave them.

  Part 4

  Where It Was Rebuilt

  Chapter Thirteen

  I woke up just as the plane was landing. I stumbled to my feet, straightened myself up as much as possible and disembarked. I collected my luggage and slowly, carefully staggered my way into another country. I was walking through Denpasar airport like I was walking underwater, on my way to a yoga retreat in Ubud. And I was drunk. I found my driver and grinned at him lopsidedly. Just two weeks before, I had been lying on Adam’s couch crying over Thomas.

  ‘Are you sure this is all you’re upset about? I know you were close, but you just seem really, really upset.’ Adam was stroking my hair as I lay in his lap. I was sniffling and wiping my nose on my sleeve. I hesitated before answering him. I didn’t want to tell him the whole truth. I didn’t want to confess that I deserved to be hated by Thomas.

  ‘Of course I’m really upset, Adam. How would you feel if I told you that I hated you? I thought the world of Thomas and now it turns out that . . . I don’t know. It hurts. I feel like . . . there’s no words for it . . . I think it’s . . . it’s . . .’

  ‘Life.’

  Adam was staring down at me with a businesslike look on his face.

  ‘It’s life, Corinne. Shit happens and you get hurt. It happens to everyone. You’re not going to be able to find the words for it because it’s too universal for that. Ooooh!’ He looked delighted with himself. ‘I sound like Dr Phil! Might I suggest that you don’t spend the rest of your life wallowing in self-pity?’

  ‘Dr Phil doesn’t speak like that, Adam.’

  ‘Well he should. I’m sorry, sweetpea, it’s just that I can’t stand you being this miserable. Maybe you should go to Bali.’

  I wrinkled my nose. What a hideous ‘woman in her thirties trying to find herself ’ cliché. Next he would be telling me to enrol in an adult education course in leadlighting.

  ‘Go to a yoga retreat. Sit somewhere warm and meditate.’

  ‘Does it have to be Bali?’

  ‘Stop being such a snob. It’s very un-Australian not to like Bali.’

  ‘Have you been?’

  ‘Lord no! That place is for bogans.’

  A yoga retreat did sound appealing, if for no other reason than I would fit in better at a place like that than at a glamorous health resort. Those posh places were full of models and people who had paid surgeons a lot of money to make them look like models; they probably did nothing but drink vegetable juices, meditate and have daily colonic irrigations. I wanted to go somewhere whe
re I could wear tracksuit pants and stretch a bit; I didn’t want someone shoving a hose up my yoo-–hoo. And I wanted—needed— somewhere gentle. Perhaps Bali was the right place for me.

  Now that I had arrived, in the wee hours of the morning with a bottle of wine still sloshing around my brain, it felt bizarre. From the bubble of the four-wheel drive all I could see were the lights of the shop signs, all written in English: furniture shops, clothing shops, McDonald’s, McDonald’s, McDonald’s. I could have been anywhere in the world, except that here it was hot and humid and smelt just slightly greener, even at one o’clock in the morning.

  We got to the retreat and I carefully followed a staff member up and down a confusing number of steps and paths to my room. I smiled politely and said, ‘Thank you’ in the careful, over-enunciated speech of the smashed. Then I dropped my bags, pulled a Bintang out of the mini-bar and went back outside to sit on the balcony. My room was enormous, and because of the way the retreat had been designed, I couldn’t see any other buildings. I was completely alone and looking out into blackness. I had no idea what was in front of me or behind me or beside me, and all I could hear was the scurrying of a (hopefully) non-venomous animal in the foliage. I watched a gecko crawl along the railing until he leapt off into invisibility. I drank my beer and collapsed into bed. Tomorrow would be better. Tomorrow, I would be on holidays. I was glad I had drunk the extra beer; my brain was now too sluggish to think about how pathetic I was.