by Fiona Lowe
‘In that case, I will not bother you often.’
Tom laughed. ‘Sounds like a plan, Akim. I’ll talk to you soon.’
On the walk home he thought about Akim and wondered how many other medical students there were whose English was their second language and who might need extra tutorial time. This led to thinking about Jared who’d headed back to finish school after realising that education was the key to improving his life, but still needed a lot of support to achieve his dream. By the time Tom slipped his key into the front door, his head was filled with ideas and excitement churned his gut. He hadn’t experienced such a work-related buzz since the accident and for the very first time he could actually see a work future. One that he was driving rather than having it imposed on him. He couldn’t wait to share his thoughts and ideas with Hayley.
He stepped into the apartment and, like a punch to the chest, he remembered she’d gone. The piano was silent, her lingering perfume was now only a faint scent, and the clicks of his tongue as he navigated around the apartment reinforced to him that her clutter was long gone.
You asked her to go.
It’s for the best.
The first time he’d come home after she’d left he’d expected a rush of relief, but it hadn’t come. Neither had it come the next day and with each passing day it continued to be elusive. He didn’t understand because he knew he’d made the right decision. Made the right decision for both of them. Love didn’t survive what life threw at it. His parents were a perfect example of that.
Mick and Carol had made it work.
Mick wasn’t blind.
He dumped his stuff on the table. He’d ring Carol and tell her his ideas. Why hadn’t he thought of telling her first anyway, especially as the whole idea had been generated by his connection to Mick? Flicking open his phone, he said, ‘Carol.’
It started ringing and then a warm and familiar voice answered. ‘Tom! How lovely. I was just about to call you so how’s that for timing? I so enjoyed meeting Hayley at dinner the other night.’
A flicker of guilt washed through him that she telephoned him a lot more than he called her. He immediately told her about his idea, rather than talking about Hayley. ‘Of course, I have to sell it to Richard Hewitson, but I think I’ve some bargaining power.’
Carol laughed. ‘You’ve always had that. You were a star negotiator at fourteen. I was surprised you didn’t go into law.’ Her voice sobered. ‘Mick was so proud of you the day you got your results and we both knew that you could go to uni and do whatever you put your mind to. If he was still with us he’d be thrilled at what you achieved before the accident and even more so about what you’re doing now. So what does Hayley think?’
He closed his eyes out of habit and blew out a slow breath. ‘I haven’t told her.’
‘Oh?’ The small sound was loaded with a thousand questions.
He rubbed the back of his neck. ‘It was never going to be a long-term thing.’
‘Why on earth not?’
He sighed, wishing he’d not answered Carol’s first question about Hayley. ‘You’ve always known I don’t do relationships, Carol, and I especially don’t do them now.’
‘You’re not seriously telling me that you’ve broken up with her because you’re blind?’
Carol’s incredulity spun around him, pulling and pushing at him until he felt unsteady on his feet. ‘I appreciate your concern, but it’s my life.’
‘You don’t appreciate my concern in the least, Tom,’ she snapped, ‘so don’t give me that nonsense. I know that anything to do with feelings always makes you uncomfortable and sends you into retreat. I’ve sat back for years watching you bury yourself in work so you can hold everyone who has ever wanted to care for you at bay. I might have only met Hayley once, but I could see the love she has for you clear on her face and how happy she makes you. If you’ve let her get away then you’re not only blind, you’re bloody stupid.’
Carol had never spoken to him like that in his life and he didn’t know if he was shocked, angry or both. ‘Are you done?’
‘No. Do you love her?’
Carol’s question, so familiar to Hayley’s, hammered him. He hadn’t been able to answer it a week ago and he still couldn’t. He knew he cared for her, but love? ‘How the hell do I know if I do?’
She let out a long and exasperated sigh. ‘Do you enjoy being with her?’
‘Yes, but—’
‘No “buts”, Tom. Only “yes” or “no” answers. Is she the last person you think about when you go to sleep at night and the first person you want to see when you wake up?’
He thought of the last week when he’d hardly slept at all because he’d been constantly thinking of Hayley. He answered with a reluctant, ‘Yes.’
‘Since you broke it off with her, have you felt like you’ve been wading through mud and going through the motions of living?’
He tugged at his tie, which suddenly seemed to be choking him. ‘Yes.’
‘Did you think about telling her about your university plans before you rang me?’
Damn it.
‘Tom?’
‘Yes.’
Carol’s excruciating questions continued. ‘Does the idea of spending the rest of your life with her scare you?’
He swallowed in relief. Finally, she’d asked a question where the answer didn’t feel like it was being hauled up with a piece of his soul. ‘Yes, which is why—’
‘Tom.’ Carol invoked her best schoolteacher tone.
‘When you think about not spending the rest of your life with her, does it scare you?’
The words sounded innocent enough and his immediate answer to himself was no, but as his mouth went to form the word he heard the clicking sound of a land mine being engaged. Abject fear tore through him, sweat beaded on his brow and he threw off his jacket. The answer ripped through him with the velocity of an exploding bomb.
Yes.
Oh, hell, he loved her. He truly loved her. ‘Carol, I love her, but I can’t ask her to spend her life with me when I can’t offer her what she needs.’
‘And what does she need?’
‘A man who doesn’t need her.’
Carol gave a confused huff. ‘Coming from the most logical male I know, that answer makes no sense at all.’
His heart hammered hard and fast and despite feeling like he was being torn in two he admitted his worst fear. ‘I found myself depending on her and I’ve never depended on anyone. Not before I was blind and especially not now. She doesn’t need that in her life.’
‘No, she needs a man who loves her.’ Carol’s voice was quiet but the impact of her words was ear-shattering. ‘Tom, you’ve never been in love before and the logical people are the ones who are thrown most by love. It scares you, but know this. With love comes an amazing interdependence that strengthens individual independence. You’re stronger with her than you are without her.’
No one is completely independent of others and if they are, well, it’s a sad life and they’re not happy.
Hayley’s words that he’d so quickly discarded were almost identical to Carol’s. Carol, who’d shared her life with Mick for twenty-five years and truly knew what love was through good times and through bad.
So does Hayley. Catch up!
He tried to moisten his dry lips with his tongue, but his mouth was parched. ‘Carol, I have to go.’
He didn’t wait for her reply.
CHAPTER TWELVE
HAYLEY stared up from her computer at the freshly painted plaster and the beautifully renovated decorative cornices, and wished her heart could be restored so easily. Her little cottage glowed from its hailstorm-imposed redecoration, looking like a woman after a complete make-over. She, on the other hand, knew her hair was lank, that her comfort clothes needed a wash and that she looked a total mess. Sadder still, she was having trouble caring.
The irony of it all was that because of her therapy she was actually getting more hours of uninterrupted sleep th
an she’d had in years, but not even that was enough to remove the black rings from under her eyes or to fill in the hollows in her cheeks. The theatre staff had noticed and Theo had fussed, Evie had tried to draw her out the night she’d tried to forget everything at Pete’s, but it was when Finn Kennedy had glanced at her in ER and said, ‘You look like hell. Don’t let it affect your work,’ that she’d known she must have hit rock bottom.
She turned back to her lecture notes. Her personal life may have fallen apart, but the examiners didn’t care about that. They expected her to be an expert on all things surgical and anything less meant failing. Her fingers gripped the computer’s stylus overly hard. She would not fail. Being rejected by the man she loved was one thing. She wouldn’t allow failing to qualify as a surgeon the first time round to add to her humiliation.
You’re doing what Tom does.
What?
Burying yourself in work so you don’t have to deal with your feelings.
But what was there to deal with? She’d told Tom she loved him. He’d said, ‘Goodbye.’
The loud rap of her door knocker made her jump. She wrapped her fleecy hoodie around her, slipped her feet into her sheepskin boots and walked up the hall, still surprised that the floor no longer dipped. The knocker sounded a second time, and impatience vibrated through the house. ‘Okay, just a minute.’
She picked up her keys from a bowl by the door—a habit she’d picked up at Tom’s. She shook the thought from her brain as she slid the key into the deadlock before pulling the door open. Her mouth gaped, her throat closed and her heart cramped.
‘Hello, Hayley.’
Tom’s deep voice spun around her as he stood on her front mat, his height and breadth filling the tiny porch. His hair was dishevelled and for the first time ever he wasn’t perfectly colour-coordinated. He wore his royal blue scarf with his brown jacket and black pants. More than the usual amount of black stubble covered his cheeks, giving him a rugged and raw look at odds with the urban-chic clothes. A tingle shot through her and she jumped on it, hating that her desire for him still burned despite how much he’d hurt her. It faded away, leaving her feeling raw and wounded.
She crossed her arms to protect herself. ‘That’s an interesting combination of clothes. I see as part of your insane drive to be totally independent of anyone you’ve asked Gladys to leave as well?’ Hayley’s unexpected response to his greeting thundered into Tom, completely discombobulating him. On the drive over, as Jared had excitedly told him about his A in chemistry, Tom had silently been rehearsing everything he planned to say to her. All of it had been predicated on her saying, ‘Hello, Tom.’
He breathed in deeply, savouring the scent of the woman he loved, and tried a smile. ‘I’ve been a bit distracted this last week.’
‘How interesting for you.’
Her frigid words almost froze the Sydney winter sun. He steadied himself. ‘May I come in?’
‘Why?’
Her hurt and anger encased him like the metal bars on a cell. Did you expect this to be easy? ‘I want to talk to you.’
‘I’m not sure—’ her voice wavered slightly ‘—that I want to talk to you.’
He heard the squeak of hinges and he shot out his hand, hoping to stop the door from closing. His knuckles hit something soft.
‘Ouch.’ Her fingers closed around his hand, pushing it away. ‘Hell, Tom. First you break my heart and now you want to give me a black eye?’
His gut rolled on guilt and frustration. ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t bloody see and I thought you were closing the door on me.’ He went for contrition. ‘You know I’d never intentionally hurt you.’
‘I don’t know any such thing.’
His heart shuddered at the hardness in her voice and he sighed. ‘Fair call. I deserved that. All I’m asking is for ten minutes and after that you can throw me out.’
Please don’t.
‘Okay.’ Her voice sounded utterly resigned as if she didn’t have the energy to say no but that talking to him was something she was being forced to endure. ‘It’s ten steps down the hall.’ She didn’t offer her arm. ‘Stick to the right to avoid the hall table and there are two steps down into the kitchen. The table with chairs is on your left.’
He wanted to sit next to her without a table between them. ‘Do you have a couch we could sit on?’
‘I don’t think so, Tom.’
Undiluted fear scuttled along his veins at her in tractable manner and it took all his concentration to walk to the table without stumbling into something.
Soon after that he heard the legs of her chair scraping on the floor and he realised she was sitting adjacent to him. He folded his hands loosely on the table in front of him. Once he’d thought staying at high school was hard. Once he’d thought the battle to rise out of poverty and carve out a name for himself in neurosurgery was hard, and more recently he’d thought learning how to function as a blind person in a sighted world was the hardest thing he’d ever done. But right now, sitting next to the woman he loved, and feeling the waves of her animosity dumping all over him, he knew that all of it—every other struggle he’d ever endured—paled into insignificance. This was the fight of his life.
He felt her stillness next to him and turned to face her, remembering the soft and curvy feel of her. He stuck to his rehearsed script. ‘Hayley, this last week’s been the longest of my life. I’ve missed you so much. I’ve missed your mess, your music, the way you spread-eagle yourself across the bed and how you talk to me so passionately about your work. You filled my apartment with life and when you left, an emptiness moved in. For the first time in my life I’ve experienced real loneliness.’
‘You did ask me to leave and loneliness is easily fixed. Get a dog or ask Jared to move into the spare room. He’s good company.’
Her words shredded him like razor wire and he licked his lips. ‘Did you miss hearing the bit where I said it was you I missed?’
‘No.’ The word sounded positively breezy. ‘I heard you quite clearly.’
This wasn’t going anything like he’d planned and in desperation he abandoned his script. ‘Hayley, I love you.’
Her gasp of surprise gave him an injection of hope.
‘I don’t think you do, Tom.’
Her words crashed around him, shattering his dreams. You’re losing her. He opened his hands palms up in supplication. ‘I’m so sorry that I was slow to realise it, but you must believe me when I tell you that I do love you.’
‘I think you’ve confused love with loneliness.’ Her chair scraped back. ‘I can’t be your friend or your backup girl with benefits any more, Tom. Goodbye.’
Hope spluttered out like a candle starved of oxygen and he almost doubled over from the visceral pain. His arrogance and pride, which had stood him in such good stead in all other aspects of his life, was worth nothing here. It was as if he’d been cut adrift from everything he’d ever known and he was drowning by inches. He felt for his cane, which he’d hung over the back of his chair, and rose. Her scent twirled around him and he knew she was very close. Like a dying man, he grasped at one last straw. If he could just touch her then perhaps that would connect him to her in a way his words had so miserably fallen short. ‘Hayley?’ He reached out his hand and prayed she’d take it.
Hayley stared at Tom’s face, knowing all the contours and planes so well, having gazed at it for hours and traced it with her fingers and her lips. A face that at times could be as expressionless as granite and at other times open and responsive. Right now, it combined desperation with pleading—two emotions she’d not seen on him before. She wanted to believe what he said, believe that he truly loved her, and she wanted to take his hand, but he’d hurt her too much for her to trust him.
I love you, Hayley.
‘Tom, I don’t understand. A week ago you locked me out of your life because you believed you couldn’t protect me and that as a couple we’d fall at the first hurdle. Over the last seven days you haven’t regained yo
ur sight so how does the fact you think you love me change anything?’
His hand rested in midair, hovering between them with fingers splayed and a slight tremor at the tips. Her hand tingled and her fingers flexed, but she fisted them to keep them under control.
He cleared his throat. ‘The thought of spending the rest of my life without you scared me rigid.’
She pushed her hair out of her eyes as her heart sent new rafts of pain through her with every beat. ‘So now you love me out of fear? Great, Tom, I think that’s worse than telling me to go.’
The tremor in his hand increased and his jaw tensed as if it didn’t want to move and allow the words to come out. ‘Apart from Mick and Carol, I’ve essentially been alone my whole life and I’ve never allowed myself to need anyone because I was so focused on getting out of Derrybrook and staying out. It drove everything I did. Then you wandered into my life and turned it upside down and you opened my heart to knowing what I’d been missing all these years. Suddenly I wanted all things I’d believed I’d never have. A woman who loved me. A family.’ His voice cracked. ‘The night in the tunnel when I thought you’d been hurt and I couldn’t do a thing to help you terrified me. I never wanted to feel like that again and I asked you to go. I’m beyond sorry.’
She bit her lip against his sorrow, trying to stand firm until she knew exactly what he was really saying. ‘Sorry for what?’
His other hand ploughed through his hair as pain scored his face. ‘For retreating into a lifelong habit of locking people out and focusing on work. You’re right. I try to be insanely independent and losing my sight has only made me worse. It took meeting you to show me how wrong that choice is.’
Her hurting heart hiccoughed. Be careful. But her arm lifted and she passively slid her fingers between his.
He instantly encased her hand with both of his, gripping them like a drowning man. ‘I love you, Hayley. You make me a better person and I’m begging you for a second chance.’
A picture of a future with Tom beamed in her mind, but she stalled it. ‘Tom, I never want to relive this last week. Sighted or unsighted, no one can totally protect me, just like I can’t totally protect you. How do I know that you’re not going to retreat on me again?’