Or at least, he wasn’t saying the things authorized by his publicist.
Everyone could tell he wasn’t, and that was before he looked at the camera. He looked right at the camera, as though he’d decided to address America. Only it wasn’t America, of course it wasn’t America, he was addressing her live on television. “I’m so sorry,” he said, and just in case she was in any doubt, he said her name at the end.
He said her good name, her real name, the name she wanted to have.
“Alice,” he said.
He really did mean her. All of this was about her. How could she hold everything in when it was about her? It was like hearing someone call her name from beyond the wreckage as she stumbled around wondering if anyone out there could possibly be alive. It was like finding another survivor.
All these years, all these and she’d found another survivor. It was enough to make her stand, though she didn’t know where she was going to go. And she said things aloud, though she didn’t know who she was saying them to. She only knew it felt good to do both, to get up and answer him, despite the fact that he wasn’t there.
You didn’t hurt me. You haven’t hurt me.
Wait there, okay? I’m coming to tell you that you haven’t hurt me.
Of course she didn’t know how she was going to come and tell him that he hadn’t hurt her. But once the idea was out there, once it had hold of her, she didn’t want to let it go. She clutched it tight to her as she pulled on clothes that would look passable to outside people, and did normal things like brush her hair.
You had to brush your hair if you were going outside.
And she was going outside. She was she was she was. There could be no arguments about it. No hesitations or deliberations. She had a vehicle that she hadn’t used in two years—but it was serviced and gassed and she would drive it. And she knew where she could find him; he had left his address for her the first time he’d left.
It wasn’t far at all, from her house to his.
But by God it was far from her house to the car. That was the real problem. Somewhere in the last two years, someone had put an entire continent between her front porch and the driveway at the side of the house. More than a continent, in truth. It looked like a whole alien world when she dared to peek out the door, all mottled and jumbled and just about covered with obstacles.
Were those steps leading down from the porch? They looked like jagged teeth. She couldn’t imagine putting her feet down onto them—not even after she’d taken three deep breaths and burned his words right over the part inside her that said no. I hurt her, she thought, but it was to no avail. She could not go down those steps. They were too sharp, too apt to hurt her, too in the open. They stretched beyond the overhang of her house and right into all the air that was out here. Oh God, there was so much air.
There was so much sky. She could see it just beyond the terrible steps, hanging there like a big empty threat. Come near me and I’ll suck you right off the ground, that sky seemed to say. And she could see it too. She could see her feet leaving the ground as gravity suddenly stopped being her friend. She could see herself clinging on to the porch railing, body lifting in one long bow toward that endless nothing, arms straining uselessly to hang on.
She would never be able to hang on.
She hadn’t been able to hang on before. She’d tried, but it hadn’t worked. Her mother had still spiraled off into that hated blue, no matter how tightly she’d held her hand. She just wasn’t strong enough, that was the thing. She had never been strong enough—not just in muscle, but in will. That was why when she closed her eyes she saw her family streaming away from her like paper people.
And it was why she couldn’t do this.
She had no idea how she got to the steps. It must have been an illusion—yes, yes, it had to be an illusion. She wasn’t really doing this at all. She had not grabbed the handrail like a goddamn life preserver, and was not currently crawling down each step in the most painstaking way possible. If she accepted for even one second that she was, she wouldn’t be able to carry on doing this.
But she did.
She made it to step two and step three, just by hanging on as hard as she could. By closing her eyes and sweating and thinking of other things—like movie marathons and ridiculous meals and the words he’d sent her. Anything but how terrible this was, or how she would look should anyone chance by. They would probably think she was mad, even though she didn’t feel it. She didn’t feel as if she were doing this as a small and rather awkward child probably would.
She felt as if she were clawing her way out of a goddamn abyss. Someone had knocked her into it then counted her out. She’ll die down there, they had thought. No one could escape the pit. There were ravenous mutant zombies milling around at the bottom, and everything was all in utter darkness, and the walls were not just steep. They were mud-covered and miles long, and in order to scale them you had to jam your fists through three inches of whatever impossible metal they were made out of.
Yet somehow she was almost there. She could see the light at the top. She could feel the heat of the sun on her face, so much missed. She hadn’t realized how dark it had been down there, until she felt that pang of loss. I live thirty feet from the ocean, she thought, and yet I never go outside.
It was kind of a travesty.
But it was one that she was about to rectify. She could actually see her car from where she stood now. She could feel the scrubby grass beneath her feet. Both felt as though the world had slipped sideways, but that was fine. That was good. She could walk on a sideways world. She could walk on any world.
She just had to do it slowly—let her shaky legs unfurl one at a time, like a new fawn just learning how to move around. Then once she realized she could do it, she took another trembling step. Then another and another, one after the other in a great rush of relief and happiness. By the time she got to the car she was almost running on wings she didn’t know she had, half crying and half laughing.
She had escaped. Somehow, she had gotten out.
Starting the car seemed like nothing after that. If she crashed the thing on the way there, then so be it. If the metal broke up around her, each piece fluttering and then tearing away just like it had on the plane, she would weather it. She had weathered the very worst that could possibly happen to a person, and she had lived. She had crawled out of the abyss.
Nothing could hold her back now—not even the image that entered her head as she sped over the bridge that separated him from her. She saw something ploughing into her, saw the car turning in midair. She knew what it would be like; she could see her own hands reaching up to stop her head from touching the ceiling. The slow motion of it, the helplessness of it...all were perfectly clear to her.
But she didn’t stop.
She put her foot down instead, and headed for the edge of all the terrible things that could possibly happen. I could die, I could die, I could die, she thought, then drove on through to the other side. All the way through, and to the place that lay beyond it. The one where death held no dominion, and life wasn’t something to hide from, just in case.
There was no just in case.
There were only possibilities, endless and waiting possibilities that now stretched forever in front of her. Even if he no longer wanted her, even if this was a bad decision, even if, even if...it didn’t matter. Her face was wet and her heart was full and it didn’t matter. She could live now, without wondering what terrible thing would happen next.
She could finally live.
* * * * *
The look on his face wasn’t quite the one she’d expected. Some part of her had imagined him breaking into a smile. Another part had thought he might be angry in some weird way. No part of her had envisioned this, whatever this was. It seemed like confusion, only a type of confusion that had some terrible dark side. As if she’d died just a little while ago and he was trying to process what he was seeing. He was Jenny Hayden, unable to accept that her husba
nd had returned. And the longer she stood there in the shadows, the less he seemed able to accept it.
His voice, when he finally spoke, was very faint.
“Am I dreaming?” he asked, but she couldn’t say no.
It felt as if she were dreaming too. She was awake and this was real, and yet it had all the hallmarks. She’d come across him by accident, on a path through the woods by his home that she couldn’t have known he was on. The moon was out and its light shone down in an almost blurry, soft-focus sort of way. And finally, she had turned out to be not dead after all. She was alive and had returned to him.
What else did this dream possibly need?
She didn’t know. She’d never had one with her eyes open before. It was hard to take it in at first, but she could feel it getting easier. She could see it was getting easier for him too. After a second he seemed to realize logic could be applied—or at least asked about.
“How did you get here?”
“I drove.”
“You drove?”
“Yeah.”
“In a car?”
“Of course in a car. But only because I don’t have a hot-air balloon.”
He didn’t laugh. She wasn’t sure why she expected him to.
Though maybe hoped he would was a better way to put it.
She had hoped he would. She had hoped he might stop looking at her like that—as though she were a terrible problem he had to work out.
“And then what?”
“And then I saw the gates, and wasn’t quite brave enough to go up to them. So instead I thought I would just explore this little wooded area—it’s been a long time since I was in one.” She paused, considering whether to continue. But he already knew, so what did it matter? He had been as weird as he was going to be about it. “In fact, I never thought I’d want to be in one again.”
“That’s why I was asking, honey. That’s why I’m asking you all of this. I’m not questioning how you came to be here...I’m wondering how you managed it. How did you...how did you get down the steps of your porch? How did you drive—you gotta be terrified of driving. I would be fucking terrified.”
“I am terrified. I was terrified.”
“But you did it anyway?”
“I did it anyway.”
“And you did it because...”
“I did it because I don’t want to be like this anymore. I did it because I want to be alive and in the world, not frightened and hiding from it. And finally I did it because I’m...I’m so sorry. I don’t know why I...I didn’t mean to make you think you’d hurt me. I really wish you didn’t think you’d hurt me. I just hurt myself, that’s all. I always—”
He didn’t even wait for her to finish. She was only halfway through her big speech on how much he meant to her and how foolish she was when he took two big steps to her and just hauled her right into an embrace. Not even an embrace, really. It was more like a huge, desperate bear hug that pushed all the air out of her.
But she gladly sacrificed it. She would have sacrificed nearly anything to feel that stroking, soothing hand on the nape of her neck, and the tight, tight way he pressed the side of his face to the top of her head. It was so full of relief and love and everything good, and once he was done with that part he led her over to a crop of stones so that she could sit. He knew she needed to sit.
Probably because he’d already heard what he was about to say, in a tone so tender it was nearly unbearable. “You don’t have to be sorry, love,” he said, as he stroked hair away from her face and took her hand in his and all the other lovely things. Oh, he always made it so easy, so easy.
Did he know how easy it was with him?
She didn’t think he did, judging by his next words.
“Please don’t think you have to be sorry. It was all my mistake. I was just shocked, I should have handled it better. I’ve handled it better a thousand times in my head—with gentle questions and respect for boundaries,” he said, while she tried desperately to come up with a way to explain. To make him understand that he already did those things. She hoped at least that it was in her eyes, even if she didn’t quite get it out in the following bunch of jumbled sentences.
“You always respect my boundaries. It’s just that my boundaries are really fraught and surrounded by tigers with lasers for eyes and there’s probably a moat filled with lava and lots of unexpected scorpions springing out of the ground.”
“Yeah, the scorpions did kind of take me by surprise.”
“You could never have prepared for scorpions.”
“It’s true, I couldn’t. But even so...I don’t know why I yelled. I feel like I yelled at you,” he said, because he was an idiot. He was such an idiot. He was almost as much of an idiot as she was, in the inventing-things-that-didn’t-happen department.
“You didn’t yell at me. I yelled at you and you just had to get louder to be heard,” she said, though she could tell he still didn’t get it. He wasn’t seeing all the love she could feel just pouring right out of her body—he kept turning away and shaking his head and rolling his eyes over what a fool he’d been.
“Stop absolving me of everything. I did some stupid stuff.”
“Name one truly stupid thing you did,” she said, but only because she was sure he wouldn’t be able to come up with one. It threw her a little, when he did.
“I shouldn’t have thought you meant go forever,” he told her, and yeah, okay, he had a small point there. He probably knew her enough to know that she’d just been scared and lashing out, rather than serious. Yet still, she couldn’t quite accept the blame he seemed to be levelling at himself.
“In your defense, it did kind of sound like I meant never darken my door again.”
“Well, what about the interview? I said live on national television that I thought I’d hurt you. You can’t say that was a good idea.”
“Even though it’s partly responsible for getting me here?”
“Especially because it’s partly responsible for getting you here. You could have careened off the edge of a cliff. Do you even remember how to drive? When was the last time you actually did it? I can’t believe you even have a car that works and had gas in it, I...Christ.” He stopped, even more frustrated than he’d seemed before. And after a second of tutting at himself he explained why. “Sorry, I’m doing the thing. I’m doing the caring thing that you fucking hate. Five minutes in and I’m doing it.”
“Don’t say that. I don’t hate you caring.”
She squeezed his hand, but it didn’t seem to make a difference. He was still wrestling with some invisible problem. She could practically see its hands around his throat, as he did everything he could to fight back. He forced out words—words that he clearly felt were clumsy—stumbling and fumbling over most of them until she could hardly stand it. It was as if he were doing this in the dark.
He was being attacked by it in the dark.
“You know what I mean. I don’t mean caring, I mean...making you into a victim who can’t even drive a fucking car,” he said, and there it was as plain as day. That look on his face like someone searching blindly for something in the pitch black. He had no idea he’d already found it.
She had to show him he’d already found it.
“Stop, stop, this is...unbearable. I don’t want you to have to struggle like this to think of the right thing to say. Can’t we just...can’t we just go back to how we were at the beginning? Can’t we just watch movies and eat garbage and do all the sex?” she asked, and for a second she was hopeful. He looked at her at least, instead of staring off at some unfathomable thing that could never be solved. And when he did, his eyes were full of that warmth—that good, familiar warmth.
He even stroked her cheek with the curl of one finger.
But when he spoke, his voice was sad and wistful.
“The weird thing is...I should want that. But I don’t. I want to know you. I want to know all of you...not just the parts that are easy and fun. You were okay with the not-
easy and not-fun parts of me, when we first met. You didn’t mind reviving someone who’d tried to kill himself—because I did try. Maybe a little halfheartedly, but that was there in me. And you didn’t want that to go away. You kept asking, kept checking, kept bringing me back to life. Why shouldn’t I struggle a little to do the same for you? Why shouldn’t I want to find the right words?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know.”
She did know. She just couldn’t speak for the rising emotion in her throat and the sting behind her eyes. He wanted to know her. Even after all that mess, he still wanted to know her. He wasn’t searching for the right solution—he was asking for permission to try. He was asking to go out into the darkness, as though the darkness were something a person might want to make their way into.
And though that sounded crazy in her head, it was less so when he actually said it.
“One of the biggest lies out there is the one that says you have to be whole to be loved—that if you’re not it’s a miracle anyone would. But my love for you is not some flimsy miracle based on whether you’re okay or not. Love is something you deserve. More than anything, Enid, you deserve love. You deserve it so much I sometimes ache to give it to you.”
She didn’t know what to feel first—amazement and joy that he could say something so beautiful, or despair that her first instinct was to shake it off. It almost broke her in two to do it, but she had to. He had to know completely, if this was really going to work. He had to see just how beyond repair she was, no matter how much it hurt to say. Oh God, it hurt to say.
She almost couldn’t get the words out, around the glut of tears. Her voice was high and strained and full of pain.
“I don’t know if I do, though. I don’t know if I do deserve it. Why am I the one who deserves it? Other people would have done better than me with this life. They wouldn’t tell a movie star to go away. They wouldn’t pretend they’re happy with nothing. They’d live their lives to the fullest, I know they would. But they’re gone, and I’m here, and that just doesn’t seem fair. I want them to have more than that. I just want to give...I want to help...I want—”
Beyond Repair (Deeper Than Desire) Page 17