The Play

by Karina Halle

  “You passed out before I could say anything,” she says.

  I eye her, suddenly afraid for her to go on. “What would you have said?” I ask her, wishing my voice didn’t sound so thin and reedy.

  She stares at me for so long that I’m almost lost to the fear, to the rejection, to the fact that I’ve been nothing but a sad, pathetic fool.

  “You know what?” I say quickly, my breath hurting my lungs. “I don’t want to know, forget it, it doesn’t matter.”

  She leans in quickly and kisses me flush on the lips. Soft, yielding, always beautiful. She rests her forehead against mine, our mouths inches away. “I would have told you that I love you too. That I’m desperately, foolishly in love with you.”

  I close my eyes, trying to keep a sob from rising out of my chest. “And now?” I whisper. “In the light of day?”

  “In the light of day I love you even more.”

  I can’t even handle it. My whole system of being wants to break down.

  “In the light of day,” she says to me, “I can see all your cracks and your darkness and your flaws and I fall in love with it all. And I hope you can fall in love with everything that I am, all that lurks in my dark, all that shines in my light. I want you to love every little piece of me, because it all belongs to you.”

  At first her words hurt, they hurt, because I’m feeling them so deep down, like a knife plunged straight into my chest. But it’s not pain it’s joy so acute that I can’t even process it. And the knife, the knife is red-hot, then warm and it’s spreading across me, better than the sweetest, most merciless drug.

  I want to cry. Yell. Shout. I’m not made for this and I’m a bottle rocket full of energy with nowhere to go.

  I can only whisper, “I love you,” even though my voice is broken, even though I feel painfully whole. “I love you,” I tell her and kiss her simultaneously.

  “I love you.”

  I kiss her cheek.

  “I love you.”

  I kiss her neck.

  “I love you.”

  I kiss the swell of her breasts.

  And then my hands are sliding down her body and I’m turning on top of her and I’m ravenous and starved for every bit of love I can possibly get.

  We move in slow motion, through honey, and it’s slow and sweet. I pull down her underwear and push inside of her and she opens up to me like she’s letting me in for the first time. Her legs wrap around my waist like she’s never going to let go.

  And I want to believe that she won’t let go.

  That she’s not leaving me in two weeks.

  I’m not sure the human heart is built to be so capable. How can it handle the joy of finally loving someone, the ecstasy of finally receiving love, while still being so fearful of the pain that’s yet to come?

  Because that pain is coming.

  How much longer can we ignore it?

  “Stay with me,” I whisper to her as I thrust in deep.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” she says breathlessly, neck arched, head back. Such a bloody goddess.

  But that’s not what I mean.

  It doesn’t take me long to come and when I do, our eyes are locked and I feel myself slipping more and more and more. Into the past. Into the future. I’m losing myself completely and I just don’t know which way I’ll end up, if I’ll even be whole in the end.

  I rest my weight on my elbows, my head down against the pillow while she gently touches my back.

  “Stay with me,” I say again, voice rough with exertion. “Don’t go home.”

  She tenses up beside me, her hands stilling at my shoulders. “Don’t go home?”

  “Quit your job. Move here. Be with me.”

  I can’t believe I’m even saying this to her but it’s too late now. She wants all of me, she’ll have all of me.

  “Lachlan,” she says warily. “I can’t just do that.”

  I pull my head back to look at her. “Why not?”

  She frowns. “Because! I…I worked hard for the job I have.”

  “You hate your job.”

  “But it’s still my job. What would I do here? I can’t get a job.”

  “You can do whatever you want.”

  “Yeah but that’s easy for you to say. I’ve spent my whole life working for what I have, aren’t I supposed to stick with it? It’s crazy to give that all up.”

  “That’s not what’s crazy. Crazy is never branching out, crazy is never living up to your potential, never discovering what it is in life that makes your heart beat just a bit faster. Kayla, who you are and who you think you should be are two very different things.”

  She looks at me pleadingly. “Then who am I?”

  “You’re you, love. And you know what you want to do. Jessica said she would help you with the writing.”

  “Yeah,” she says. “For free. Writing for free. How do I live until my portfolio or whatever gets big enough to even get me a job?”

  “I could – ”

  She pushes her finger against my mouth. “And don’t tell me that you could support me. I know you can and you would, but I wouldn’t accept it. That’s not how I’m built. I do things on my own.”

  I shake my head at her stubbornness. “I could help you be employed. You could work at the shelter, like Amara.”

  “Amara says that you can barely afford to pay her,” she tells me and that makes me grimace, because I know that’s true. “You couldn’t afford me, too.”

  “I could,” I tell her. “My flat in London, I would sell it if I had to.”

  “No, no way. No way would I let you do that for me.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m…you barely know me. I’m not worth it.”

  I sigh, my eyes pinching shut. “Please don’t say that. Don’t say that I don’t know you when all I do is feel like I’ve known you my whole bloody life. Don’t give me that and don’t tell me you’re not worth it. That’s up to me to decide, isn’t it?”

  She looks away, blinking. “I don’t want you to do anything for me.”

  “Well that’s tough luck ain’t it, love, because if you want to stay with me, I will do whatever I bloody can to make sure you can stay here. So just give me the word. Give me the damn word and you can stay here for as long as you like.”

  “It would be crazy,” she says quietly.

  “And love makes you do crazy things. Or so they say, but I’m starting to think every fucking cliché about it is true. So just own up to it. Embrace it. Be crazy and do those things that are just a little bit nuts.”

  “I…I can’t, Lachlan.”

  I groan, my hands gripping the pillow. I know I’m being completely fucking selfish asking her to give up everything to stay here with me. I know it.

  “If I could move to San Francisco,” I say slowly.

  “No way,” she says.

  “You really don’t want to be around me do you?”

  She grabs my chin and makes me look at her. “Listen to me,” she says, her eyes flashing. “You’re right in that I don’t have a lot to give up at home.”

  “I never said that.”

  “It’s true,” she says. “I do have a job I don’t like and that I fantasize about quitting. And while I do have my friends I would miss dearly, and my family who I love more than anything…I don’t know if the fear of being away from them is enough to keep me from leaving. But in no way, shape or form are you to even consider coming to California. You have your career here, an actual god damn career, and you have your dogs and your charity and you have so many good things lined up. If anything at all, I will be the one to find a way to stay here.”

  My chest aches at the possibility. “Just say the words, please. Tell me that you want to stay, that you’ll try and I promise you, I promise you, I will make it work out.”

  She searches my eyes for a moment, working it all out. I can almost see the wheels turning, weighing over each option, much like she did in the car when I invited her here in the
first place. That feels like a lifetime ago.

  “I need to think about it,” she says. “Give me another week and I’ll know for sure.”

  I rub my lips together and nod. “All right,” I tell her, kissing her on the forehead. “Thank you.”

  “Now,” she says, smacking me on the ass. “Get out of bed and get to practice. It’s already going to suck that you’re hungover, I don’t want your coach calling me and complaining.”

  I nod, that shame from last night creeping up my throat again like bile. I quickly get ready and head out the door in the nick of time. I have to stop at a corner store to get a bottle of Gatorade and some Ibuprofen and spend a few minutes trying to compose myself before I show up at practice.

  I’m expecting for everyone to know what went down. Not that the team would really care, but Alan usually lays into us for any misconduct off of the pitch. But everyone is acting as normal, except for Thierry and John of course, who regard me with concern, and no one seems to notice my banged up knuckles or the faint bruise on my jaw from where the guy’s first – and only – punch was thrown.

  That has to mean that the guy is alive and well. Still I go to Thierry during the break and pull him aside.

  “Hey, thank you for last night,” I tell him quickly, looking around us, keeping my voice low.

  He glares at me, shaking his head in disapproval. “You owe me one,” he says in his French accent. “The police showed up and John and I had to make a big elaborate story about how some guy came to our table wanting to fight.”

  “You told them it was me?”

  “No, I did not,” he says indignantly. “John gladly took the blame. He’s always looking for more street cred. You’re lucky you’re a local hero, you know that? All the witnesses blanked out, agreeing with him. Ugly fucker comes looking for trouble, John beats the shit out of him. End of story.”

  I swallow, feeling sick. “How is the guy?”

  He shrugs, taking a sip of water. “I don’t know, I wasn’t holding his hand. But he left the bar on his own two feet and before the police showed up, if that makes you feel any better. I think you got away with near murder on this one. What the hell were you thinking?”

  I give him a sharp look. “I obviously wasn’t thinking.”

  “I know, just…take it easy man. I’m sorry, I should have known better than to bring you to a bar. I thought you were doing better. You were the last time.”

  “That was months ago,” I remind him. “And I’m fine,” I add quickly. “I just have a lot going on right now. It’s tripping me up.”

  “The girl,” he muses.

  “It’s not her fault,” I say harshly. “She has nothing to do with this.”

  “But she’s what’s on your mind, what’s tripping you up. No?”

  I wiggle my jaw back and forth, trying to relieve the tension. “I’m going through some things. It won’t happen again.”

  “Well it better not, Lach,” he says to me, putting his hand on my shoulder. “Because that girl is in love with you. Believe me, you do not want to fuck that up.”

  I squint my eyes at him. “So what really happened in Paris?”

  But he just smiles at me and walks away.

  I sigh and return to the game.

  Being on the rugby pitch has always been the one place where I can put everything behind me, all my past and my future and just live in the present.

  But for the rest of practice, I’m as useless as tits on a bull. Maybe it’s the hangover but it’s most likely everything else. The great highs of this morning in bed with Kayla, hearing her say she loves me, having her tell me she might stay, combined with the lows of last night, the shame over my violent behaviour, the way that I must have made her feel. How quickly I went from “one drink will put me at ease” to not having a limit at all.

  “McGregor,” Alan yells at me as I’m leaving the pitch. “Smarten up next time. We need you sharp.”

  I nod, grunting, and head into the locker room to shower.

  I needed to smarten up and fast. For the sake of everything.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Kayla

  “Please stay with me.”

  I hear his words over and over again and each time my mind replays it, each time it brings up that look on his face, desperate, needing, my heart is torn in so many directions. How is it possible to feel so alive, so full, at knowing he wants me to stay, at even considering it, while I also want to crumble and weep because it just seems so impossible?

  I mean, how could I stay here? Is this something I really want to do?

  I know the answer to the last question but the first one needs a lot of work.

  “You going to be all right?” Lachlan asks me. His voice is so low, so quiet, that I turn away from the drawing room window and look back at him.

  He’s got his duffel bag full of rugby gear slung over his shoulder, brow furrowed in concern. After he told me that he wants me to stay, he’s been acting different around me. Like he’s afraid to say anything more, as if it will set me off and running.

  I raise my cup of coffee at him. “I’ve got this. I’ll be good.”

  “Weather isn’t very nice,” he says and I look back out the window at the rain streaming down.

  I shrug. “Perfect day to stay indoors. I’m sad I won’t see you getting all muddy in the field though.”

  “Actually we’re at the track today, conditioning,” he says. “You’re welcome to come.”

  I’m not sure that I am, not after the other night. Sometimes I worry that it was me being around his field, around his teammates, that it set him off. I shake my head and give him a small smile. “That’s okay, I have a whole day to lounge around here with the dogs and watch The Vicar of Dibley. Besides, I have to get ready for your gala hoopla and I’ll need a lot of time to get gorgeous.”

  His eyes trail up and down my body, at my lacey shorts and thin wifebeater. “You can just wear that, I wouldn’t mind.”

  “I’m not sure this outfit would help Ruff Love’s reputation. When will you be back?”

  “Half past three, I’m sure.” He licks his lips, seeming like he’s going to say something. Then he just nods at me. “I’ll see you later, love.”

  “Bye,” I say softly, watching him leave.

  Once the door shuts, I settle down on the couch, pulling a blanket over me, even though it’s not that cold. I just want the comfort.

  After a few episodes of watching Dawn French, I decide to pull out my laptop. I log onto my work email, which I admit I haven’t checked since I got here, and scroll through the emails.

  To my surprise, they’ve all been dealt with by Candace. I guess Lucy gave her my login info. Nothing is private when you work for someone else and she seems to have taken over the first week of my absence with ease.

  Actually, when I’m looking at her replies, it’s quite obvious that she’s doing my job far better than I ever could have. Probably better than I ever will.

  And that makes me sad. Like, really sad. And regretful. Not that she’s doing a better job per se, but that the work was so uninteresting to me, that I could never build up enough passion, enough feeling, to care. And if I stayed in this job, like I always expected I would, I would never reach that point where I was giving it my all. Because in the end, it didn’t really matter to me. I looked for joy and purpose outside of it.

  Now I’ve found Lachlan. And while he’s not my purpose to life, he’s bringing so much joy, love, every fucking emotion possible that I feel like I’m living in color instead of shades of black and white. What if I could find a job where I could feel a similar kind of joy for the daily work that I did? What if I could find purpose in the things I did every day, find passion that rivaled the passion I felt for him. Who says that only one aspect of your life can be fucking fantastic?

  The more I stare at the emails, the more I realize that Candace, for whatever reason, loves doing her job and even more than that, loves doing my job. And I don’t lo
ve anything about my job whatsoever. Now that I know what love is, I don’t want to be stuck where it’s absent.

  I take in a shaky breath as the realization hits me. I need to find my purpose and my passion. I need to leave my job and take a risk.

  I need to stay here, with him, and start again.

  But knowing it doesn’t make it happen and doesn’t make it easier.

  The fear will always hold you in check.

  I check my phone and calculate the time back at home. Everyone is still asleep back in San Francisco. I can’t talk to my mom and ask her what she’d think of me moving here, even though the thought of bringing it up pains me. I can’t talk to Stephanie and Nicola and tell them that I’m in love with him and that he’s in love with me and that even though he’s messed up, I still want to chance it and be with him, permanently.

  So I make myself a cup of tea, cuddle up with the dogs and stare out the rain pattered window, as you do when you’re feeling all pensive and moody.

  I guess at some point I fall asleep, because I wake up to Lachlan coming in the room and planting a kiss on my forehead.

  “Tough day?” he asks lightly.

  I glance up at him, his face flushed from running. He looks like the picture of health. It’s hard to imagine just a few days ago he was hungover and burdened by his own shame.

  “Yeah, exhausting,” I tell him, stifling a yawn. “Is it already half past three?”

  He nods. “Aye but we don’t have to be at the gala until seven. You can keep napping if you want.”

  My body does want to nap forever it seems but I’m not missing an opportunity to dress up for his main event. I even went shopping with Amara on Princes Street the other day, looking for the perfect gown. I mean, when else would I ever be able to wear such a thing? Every girl gets a Cinderella moment once in their life and this one was mine. I was going to exploit it for everything that I could.

  I get ready slowly, enjoying each moment. The dress I picked up wasn’t that expensive but it looks expensive. It’s floor-length and black, with a high neckline and a back cut down almost to my ass. There are slits up either side to show off my shoes, deciding on my hot pink platforms, just so that I don’t seem too serious about it all.