‘You can’t do that to me, babe,’ he said. ‘You can’t make me feel that way. I’ve always told you how afraid I am of you messing with me, and tonight you made all my worst fears come true.’ I opened my mouth to speak but he silenced me with a look. ‘I’m serious,’ he said and his fingers dug harder into my flesh. ‘Don’t ever, ever do that to me again.’
I nodded, but didn’t speak because I didn’t want to say the wrong thing. And then he kissed me. It took me by surprise because it didn’t feel like that’s where our conversation was heading at all. I almost didn’t kiss him back because I was so blindsided, but then I pulled myself together and responded, otherwise he would have had another reason to be upset with me. I thought in a second we’d stop kissing and start trying to figure out how we were going to get out of the lift, but then he was pushing me back, pressing me up against the wall, reaching under my top, kissing me harder and harder.
I managed to break my lips away and speak. ‘Luke, wait,’ I began.
But he took hold of my chin, turned my face back and continued to kiss me. His entire body was pushed up against mine, but it was completely different to that first time we’d been in this lift together four months ago when he’d pushed me up against the wall. That time we’d both been fuelled by passion, and probably wine as well. But now I wasn’t in the mood. Two minutes prior he’d been so upset with me. In the car on the way home, all I’d wanted to do was cry. There was no way I could get my mind focused on sex right now.
I managed to turn my face away again. ‘Luke,’ I said, ‘should we . . . could we maybe wait?’
‘No,’ he whispered in my ear. ‘Want you now.’
It was a command, not a request, and I knew if I argued he’d be hurt again. I had upset him. I was going to have to do this for him to make it up to him. Close your eyes and think of England.
‘O-okay,’ I stuttered. I closed my eyes and tried to relax into it. Tried to forget about the possibility of the lift suddenly moving and the two of us getting caught by some elderly neighbour or a parent with young children. Tried to forget about the fact that only minutes ago I’d been afraid that he was actually capable of hurting me. And to be honest, he was hurting me a little now. My shoulder blades were smarting. He pushed me harder and harder against the wall, and when he reached down and started to hitch up my skirt he scratched the skin on my thighs.
He’s just being passionate, the voice inside my head told me. Extra passionate because tonight you scared him into thinking he could lose you. You can’t blame him for that.
But another voice whispered back, But why can’t he tell that you don’t want this right now? I couldn’t understand why he wasn’t reacting to the cues my body was giving him. And I couldn’t help but wonder, if I told him no, if I tried to be firm, if I said, I don’t want to do this right now, would he listen? Would he stop? I wasn’t so sure that he would.
The truth was, I didn’t want to test that theory. I didn’t want to know the answer. So, I let him yank my underwear to the side and fuck me up against the wall of the lift, and it was rough and it felt loveless. It felt like angry sex. It felt like he was making a point: I own you. You’re mine.
Afterwards, all I wanted to do was cry. But I didn’t because I couldn’t be sure how he might react if I did. So instead I bit down hard on my lip in order to squash down those feelings and I hugged him and pretended I was fine.
Eventually someone must have pressed the button to call the lift and it juddered back into life. When Luke beamed at me and took my hand, I smiled back as though everything was fine.
That night in bed, he made a suggestion. ‘Until your anxiety gets better, I think you should pull out of the Collins Street exhibition. Working on your piece is putting a major strain on you. You need to cut out the source of your stress.’
I chewed on my lip and lay very still. ‘Umm,’ I said, ‘I . . . I can’t, that’s the only income I have coming up.’
‘Don’t worry about money, I’ll cover your rent while you take the time to get better.’
‘That’s really sweet of you, but you don’t need to do that. I’m okay to keep working.’
‘I know you probably are, but this is something I want you to do for me. Seriously, you need to take the time to actually rest so you can get a handle on your mental health. I honestly don’t think tonight would have happened if you’d been back to your old self.’
I felt a sting of shame when he said that.
‘But how could you afford to cover my rent? You’re trying to pay for all your renovations at the moment.’
‘That was something I was going to talk with you about tonight, you know, before everything went wrong. I have some good news.’
‘Oh yeah?’
‘Yep. The renos are all done, babe. We’re going to move in to my place asap.’
‘Really? That’s brilliant news!’
Only it didn’t turn out that way. A couple of days later, Luke told me he was going to move in first and get everything set up ready for me. And then, after he’d moved a whole heap of our stuff out, he suggested I may as well see out the end of my lease.
‘There’s no point wasting money by breaking it early,’ he said, ‘and there’s only two months to go. That’ll give me heaps of time to make sure my place is absolutely perfect before you move in.’ He said he’d have it filled with a beautiful mix of old and new, of the familiar and the strange. He said we’d be happy there.
The other thing he said was that this would give me exactly two months to get better. ‘It’ll be good for you to have a deadline,’ he said. ‘This is your motivation to work hard to get back to your old self. By the time my place is ready for you, you’ll be strong enough to leave your apartment and live somewhere new without this big change triggering a breakdown. If you were to move right now, it might be too much for you — it could tip you over the edge.’
In the meantime, he said he’d still come back and sleep at my place all the time — when he wasn’t away travelling for work, of course. But from the point when Luke moved out, I only deteriorated more and more. I wasn’t working on my art, even though I desperately wanted to, even though I craved it. Instead I told myself that I’d made Luke a promise. He was right — I needed to take a break in order to get better.
To start with, I only left the apartment for essentials — basic groceries, that kind of thing. But each time I went out, it got harder and harder. I would imagine that people around me were whispering, pointing. I was dizzy and confused. Once I stepped out onto the road in front of a bus. The sound of the horn shook me awake and when I realised what I’d done, I was horrified. The look of anger on the driver’s face only made it worse. I’d ruined his day. I’d almost ruined his life! Imagine. Having to live with my death, all because I’d been stupid and confused enough to step right out in front of him without checking.
Before I knew it, I’d confined myself to the inside of my building. The furthest I ever got was downstairs to check the mail slots in the foyer. I thought Luke would tell me that wasn’t okay. I thought he’d push me to keep leaving the apartment, but instead he did the opposite. He told me it was probably for the best that I was staying inside.
‘Keep taking the tablets,’ he said. ‘Keep resting. You’re going to get better. Soon you’ll move into the new place with me and everything will be different.’
I missed some of my things. I understood why he had to take them, and I knew that our new place was going to be beautiful, that he was getting it just right for us. But in the meantime, I missed them. I missed the bedside table made of beech timber with the green and blue handles. Sometimes I’d fall asleep with my fingers caressing the smooth wood, tracing the circular handles. Green, blue. Green, blue. It would lull me off to safety. Once it was gone, there were nights I’d close my eyes and reach out for it and find nothing but empty space.
And I missed my oval glass dining table. It was always cool to the touch. Sometimes I’d rest my cheek against it
if I was feeling flushed and it would calm me in an instant. The blood would stop pounding against my temples. My breathing would slow. I could hear the ocean, as though I was holding a shell to my ear. In and out. In and out.
With the table gone, I’d sit on the couch to eat my meals, the plate perched on my knees. If I felt that rising heat climbing up from my chest, to my neck, to my chin . . . I’d try alternatives — the tiles in the bathroom. I would get down on belly and press my face to the floor. Or, the laminate benchtop in the kitchen — but nothing had the same effect as the table once did.
I’d spend entire days just sitting in the very centre of the bed, my knees drawn up to my chest, my arms wrapped around my legs. Every now and then I’d notice that my teeth were chattering as though I was freezing cold, when instead I was hot. Hot enough that I could feel sweat trickling down my back. Each time I’d notice, I’d force my mouth to hold still, sucking in my cheeks and biting down on the insides. But then my mind would take me somewhere else, and my teeth would start to chatter again and the cycle would repeat.
I was beginning to wonder if I’d lost the ability to function as a normal human being in the world. And I wasn’t really quite sure when that had happened.
Obviously, Luke moving out was the beginning of the end for us. I just didn’t know it. Not until a strange girl knocked on my apartment door and told me my boyfriend wasn’t my boyfriend anymore.
CHAPTER THIRTY
The first time I met Georgia — well, not met her exactly, more saw her in the lift — I was a mess. I’d tried to tell myself that enough was enough. That I couldn’t keep hiding inside, that I needed to see the sunshine. So, I took extra tablets. Luke had said they were all natural so I couldn’t see any harm in it; maybe they’d give me the extra boost I needed to push myself out the door.
Instead, they had the opposite effect. At first, I didn’t even notice there was someone else in the lift with me, I was so focused on myself. But within seconds of getting into the elevator, I panicked. I couldn’t go outside. I couldn’t leave the sanctuary of my own home. As the elevator descended it felt as though ants were crawling all over my skin. I slammed my hand against the stop button, and that’s when I realised there was someone else in there with me. I was mortified! But I was also in the throes of some sort of weird reaction to those tablets and I couldn’t calm myself down enough to explain. Thank God the lift had been fixed a couple of weeks prior, otherwise I would never have been able to get it moving again.
And then one week later she turns up at my door. I didn’t recognise her at first. And she’s shouting at me! Saying all these awful strange things about Luke, making accusations. None of it made any sense, and in the end I was afraid of her. Why on earth had I let her in? So, I got physical with her. I pushed her out of my apartment and out of my life, and the plan was to never think of her again. Unfortunately, though, Luke didn’t allow that.
When he came home from his business trip, that’s when the accident happened.
You see, I shouldn’t have lied to him. I should have called him right away and told him that a crazy woman had turned up at my door saying things about him.
‘But . . . but how did you know she was here?’ I’d asked.
That only made him angrier. How dare I question him that way. That wasn’t the point, Cadence! The point was, I should have told him, immediately.
I chanced another question. ‘Luke, who was she? The things she was saying . . . she said that . . . she said she was your girlfriend.’
That’s when he swung out. He didn’t mean it, he was lashing out in anger and he caught the side of my face by accident. As soon as it happened he had me in his arms and he was apologising and crying and holding me and swearing that it would never, ever happen again.
And then three nights later, she came back for a third visit.
But this time, she showed me things. Photos. Messages. Emails. And the look on her face when she saw my bruise — the shock and the fear, all mixed up with sympathy. And something else as well. I couldn’t put my finger on it right away, but eventually I realised what it was. It was judgement. She was judging me for the way I was excusing what Luke had done.
To be honest, it was the judgement that got to me the most. There she was, shoving her phone in my face, telling me all these stories — half of which I could hardly follow because I was struggling to keep up — but the entire time, something was happening in the back of my mind. A small argument was taking place.
She’s right you know: it’s not okay that he hit you.
Yes of course — if he did it on purpose. But this was an accident.
But how exactly was this an accident? He swung out. His fist connected with your cheekbone. If he didn’t intend on hitting you, then what was he doing?
Well, he was angry, he was upset, he was lashing out.
Lashing out at you.
No! Not intentionally.
Yes. Yes, intentionally.
But he loves me! He would never want to hurt me.
And yet he did. Think about the lift, think about the way he forced himself on you, think about the way you felt.
I don’t want to think about that! I don’t need to, it’s over, it’s in the past.
Think about what your mother would say if she could see you now. Think about the rage and the anguish that would swell inside her if she saw the bruise on your face. Tell me something — if a man ever hurt her, what would she do?
She would leave. She would never let him touch her again.
Well then, Cadence, what are you going to do?
When Luke arrived home, I have to admit I was torn. A part of me wanted to immediately give Georgia up. ‘There’s an insane woman behind our couch,’ I wanted to hiss at him, while gesticulating wildly in her direction. And then let him deal with it. ‘She’s escaped from a mental institution!’ he would say. ‘Of course none of what she says is true; of course I’m not cheating on you.’
But as much as I wanted him to reassure me, as much as I wanted him to tell me it was all lies, I knew that this time, it wouldn’t work. Georgia had proof, and what she’d said made sense. His being supposedly away so much for work gave him the perfect alibi to live a double life. I felt like a fool for believing his story about renovating his apartment, and I considered demanding that he show it to me right now. Take me there, I wanted to say, take me there and show me that it’s real, show me that you haven’t been lying to me, day after day after day.
But, deep down, I knew that was impossible. And maybe I’d known it from the moment he moved out. Maybe I’d known from the first day he gave me the tablets. Or the time he left me waiting while he went to the gym. Or the time he screwed me in the lift when he knew I didn’t want it.
Or maybe I’d known from that first day we met.
I said it, didn’t I? I said it made no sense that he would ever be interested in someone like me. I was right, wasn’t I? The thing I didn’t understand was why he had pretended. What was the point? And that scared me.
Right now, though, I had to deal with the problem at hand. I needed to distract Luke so that Georgia could escape from our apartment without being seen.
Luke kicked off his shoes and yanked off his tie. He came over and kissed me on the top of the head and looked down to see the bottle of Serenity tablets in my hand. ‘You been feeling worse than usual today?’ he asked.
‘A little, I guess. Bit of a stressful day.’ I pushed the bottle into my pocket.
‘Really, how come?’
‘Umm, I’ve just been trying some ideas for a new piece and I couldn’t get anything to work, that’s all.’
Luke’s forehead creased. ‘Uh, I thought we agreed you weren’t going to work at the moment.’
‘Yeah, I know. I wanted to play around with some art for fun, that’s all.’
‘All right, but I want you to take it easy. I mean, the fact that just trying to come up with ideas stressed you out proves that you really shouldn’t be doing
any art right now.’
‘Okay, I won’t. So how come you’re home early today?’
Luke shrugged. ‘Closed on a few big clients these last few days, figured I deserved an early mark.’
‘That’s great! Maybe we should go out? Celebrate?’
Luke tipped his head to the side and stared at me. ‘Cadence, what the fuck? You can’t go out. You know this. You haven’t left the apartment in weeks, you’re not well enough.’
I shook my head and tried to laugh it off. ‘Oh yeah, of course, sorry. I got excited, that’s all . . . confused. Well . . . I should cook for you then, right? Why don’t you take a shower? I can have a look and see what we have.’
‘That sounds more sensible.’
He headed for the bedroom and I wondered if I should make my move to get Georgia out now or wait until I heard the water running so that I knew he was actually in the shower. I moved slowly and silently across the room, keeping my back to the couch and my eyes on the bedroom door in case he suddenly reappeared. I crept around to the end of the couch and chanced a look back at where Georgia was crouched down hiding. When I saw her face, it hit me. She’d still been hoping for none of this to be true too. Like me, she wanted it to all be some ridiculous misunderstanding. But obviously listening to our conversation had cemented it for her. There were tears running down her face as she silently cried.
She made eye contact with me, and in that moment I knew — she and I were in this together. I wasn’t going to say a word to Luke tonight. I wasn’t going to accuse him of anything and I wasn’t going to try to catch him out. I was going to play along and pretend I was still completely in the dark. I needed time so I could speak to Georgia again and figure out a game plan.
I held up one finger to her and mouthed ‘wait’. She nodded.
‘Can you bring me a fresh towel?’ Luke called from the ensuite. ‘You did do the washing, didn’t you?’
‘Yep,’ I called back, trying to keep my voice level, even though I’d jumped a mile when I’d heard him call out. ‘One second.’
Ex, The Page 21