by Noir, Stella
“Dude, seriously”, Peter says, shaping me with his hand in the air. “You’re looking good. You’re thinner in the middle, thicker on the arms. More attractive.”
“Thanks”, I say modestly. “I’m running a bit now, I bought a punching bag. Martin helped me put it up.”
“Yes”, he nods, “I did. Those things weigh a tonne, I can tell you.”
“Martin”, Rachel says, “You’ve never really been cut out for strenuous activity have you?”
“I’m a computer geek”, Martin says. “I don’t need my body to work. Just my brain and my fingers - a bit like Charlie.”
“Fuck you, man”, Charlie says, firing a potato chip at him. “I’m looking for a job.”
“Yeah for like the last ten years.”
“Here is something I’ve never understood”, Eric says, pausing briefly to prepare the table for an outlandish statement. “Why are computer geeks always skinny?”
“Right”, Erin agrees, nodding her head.
“Every single computer geek I know, looks like Martin. Thin as a rake, milk bottle glasses, and balding.”
“Hey, I am not balding”, Martin complains. “Ethan, Am I balding?”
He tips his head towards me, trying to encourage me to join in. All eyes are on me to see if I’m going to play the game or not.
“You’re balding”, I say. “Sorry man, but your thinning out a little up top.”
“Come on man, that’s just the light. You want to see balding, check out Peter’s non-existent crop.”
“Come on man that’s just low”, Peter says. “You know I’ve got a condition.”
“A condition”, Jacklyn says, staring at him in shock. “What condition?”
“Baldness”, Brendan jumps in.
“Ethan, help me out man.”
“Your on your own, buddy”, I say.
“Oh man, you know this about me. Alopecia areata”, Peter says. “It can be a pretty aggressive disease but I’ve got a weakened form of it.”
Brendan, Erin and Eric can’t stop laughing. Peter suddenly remembers something and thrusts his hand towards me.
“Alice”, he says, and just hearing her name makes my heart leap. “Alice had a work colleague who had exactly the same. Spot baldness”, Peter insists.
“Yeah in one spot, right in the middle”, Jacklyn says.
“Oh man, I wish Alice was here. She’d back me up if she was.” Peter says. It’s a comment that makes the whole table go silent. “Shit”, Peter says when he realizes. “Sorry, Ethan. I got a bit carried away.”
“It’s ok”, I say. “Don’t worry about it.”
“I wish Alice was here too”, Jacklyn says.
“Jack, I’m not sure that’s the best-”, Peter begins.
“What? I do. I miss her. We all do. We can’t just pretend it didn’t happen. I’m sorry Ethan, I don’t want to upset you.”
“You’re fine”, I say, but I’m already feeling uncomfortable. Martin jumps in to save me.
“A toast”, he says, raising his glass. “To birthdays and absent friends.”
Later, they bring me a cake. It’s a chocolate cake with twenty eight candles making out the letter E. Rachel baked it herself and although I don’t eat much of it, the bit that I do eat tastes really good.
I get drunker than I want to and after dinner we move to the bar area to carry on. Part of me wants to go home, while another part wants to stay here and drink until I black out. When the shots come out, I try and refuse, but everyone is drunk enough now, including me, that I can’t say no. I feel guilty about having a good time after what has happened. I feel guilty about letting myself relax when I should be looking for him, when I’ve got nowhere after two whole weeks of looking.
Rachel and Claudia try to talk to me about Alice, but I fob them off with short answers and clear indications that I really don’t want to talk about it. I thank them for their concern, but don’t want to go into it with them. Other than that, other than the zoning out and the guilt and the constant reminders of Alice, and the confusion over whether I should go home or stay and get drunk, I feel like I’m having a good time.
I thank Martin for convincing me to come along with him. I thank him too for being there for me when I needed someone. The memory of it cuts through me and I have to concentrate hard not to cry. Martin isn’t the only one who sees it.
“Are you alright, dude?” Brendan asks.
I pretend I feel a little bit sick. “I need some air”, I say. “I’m going to step out for a while.”
“I’ll come with you”, Martin says, “I could do with a smoke.”
“No, it’s ok”, I say, placing my hand on his shoulder to stop him. “Just give me five minutes.”
Martin nods. “Ok”, he says, understanding what I need. “I’m coming to get you, though, if it’s more than five.”
I step outside. The cold air slaps me across the face and sobers me up a little. I decide to take a walk, just to get some energy in my legs, and take my mind off that memory. Every time I think about it, I can feel the pain in my neck as though the rope were still there wrapped around me.
As I round the corner, I see a couple arguing. I can’t hear what they are saying to each other until I get closer, but it’s clear from their actions she’s trying to get away from him. I can feel the adrenaline pumping so fast around my body I can barely breath.
“I said I’m not interested. Now fuck off back inside.”
I see him grab her by the arm and pull him towards her. “I don’t think so”, he says.
“Get the fuck off me”, she screams, punching him in the chest.
I realise I’m stood there doing nothing but looking. It’s as though the adrenaline has frozen me to the spot.
“Can I help you?” he says. It’s a while before I realise his words are directed at me.
“Let her go”, I say, coming to life.
I see Alice in his arms and I stride the short distance to him, my fists already clenched. He has enough time to push her away, but not enough to defend himself. I knock him flat to the floor with a single punch he hasn’t got time to see coming. It dazes him, but not enough to keep him on the ground. I let him get up. By now, the girl has got into her car and is reversing out behind me.
“You’re gonna pay for that”, he says, readying himself to come at me.
There is a rage inside me that is unstoppable. I’m on him again, and before he has time to react, I’ve knocked him back to the ground with a whirlwind of punches. This time I don’t let him get up. I kick him in the ribs and put my boot down twice across his face, breaking his nose into a bloody pulp.
I can’t see anything through my fogged up glasses, but patches of red and my fists pummeling so quickly against his face he doesn’t even have time to breath between impacts. Eventually, after I’ve laid into him for a good two or three minutes, I feel someone grab me from behind and pull me off him.
Brendan puts me in a headlock while Peter and Martin tend to the guy on the floor.
“Easy champ”, Brendan says. “Take it easy.”
Erin has her hand over mouth. Rachel is ashen white. Claudia and Jacklyn can’t even look.
“Fuck, Ethan”, Eric says. “What the fuck did you do?”
From behind me, I hear Martin calling for an ambulance.
Chapter Nine
Ethan
25 October 2015. Forty four days after.
The swelling on my knuckles has gone down, but the red marks are still there. I’m rubbing them when I realise Katy is trying to talk to me.
“Are you ok, Ethan?”
Like I said before, I zone out. It’s like I’m disconnecting from the world. I guess I should tell my doctor about it again.
“Yes, I’m sorry”, I say. “I was a little distracted.”
“Did you hurt your hand?”
I pull them both away out of sight, putting them into my pockets. “You know what? A little”, I say. “I did something stupid over the weeke
nd. You know I’ve got this bag strung up in the basement, I decided to go at it without any gloves on. Let me tell you all something, it’s a real stupid idea.”
Lying comes much more easily than I ever thought it would. I’m good at it. I’m good at pretending everything’s ok. Katy gives me a smile, but she matches it with a look of concern like she’s even more worried about me than usual.
There’s a new girl in the group today. Someone I haven’t seen before. Another one of us that’s had their life turned on its head without warning. Katy introduces her as Jo.
“Hi”, Jo says and gives a kind of reluctant smile and a nervous wave of her hand. Katy asks if she wants to say anything before we begin, but Jo declines.
It took me three sessions to open up, and even then they still don’t know what’s really going on with me. Most of us want to listen to other people’s problems, we don’t want to speak about our own.
We go around the group to introduce ourselves.
“Hi”, I say. “I’m Ethan. My wife was raped and murdered and I wasn’t there to protect her.”
I don’t say that last part. I just tell her my name and look to the person to my right. It’s enough, for now. It’s not much more than I’ve been left with.
Part of the reason that I keep coming back to this group is because Katy isn’t just a therapist, she’s one of the group too. She’s gone through pain in the same way all of us have and come out the otherside.
We talk about normal stuff. The weather, what we did at the weekend, anything new that’s going on in our lives. Most people think that during these kind of things, the participants spend all of their time talking about what happened to them, but that hardly ever happens. I was surprised the first time too. I expected it to be a lot less light hearted than it is. I find myself watching Jo as we talk, just to see how she reacts to it all.
She looks like a nice girl. Perhaps just out of University. Too young to have to deal with what’s going on in her life right now. She looks strong, but all of us are only strong to a certain point. You bend something the right way it’s going to snap.
They put six stitches in that boy’s forehead, three more in his lip. I broke his nose, dislocated his shoulder and fractured his eye socket. I’ve never been in a fight before in my life. I didn’t even know how to punch until I watched a youtube video. Alice would have been horrified. Martin drove me away from there as soon as it happened. I haven’t spoken to anyone else since, but I know what they’ll all think. That’s why I knew it was a bad idea.
Everyone is looking at me again. The whole group is smiling. I drift up to them, dreamily. “Huh?” I say, lazily.
Katy raises her eyebrows and I realize someone is stood behind me. I turn quickly and see Patricia holding a small cake with a candle in it. I don’t know how I’ve missed her sneak off and set it up. It’s like the conversation has jumped to a point in the future.
“Happy birthday”, she says.
“Oh, wow”, I say. “That’s so kind. How did you know?”
“It’s on your admission sheet. I hope you don’t mind?” Katy says.
“No, not at all”, I say. “This is. Unexpected.”
There is a card and a small present too. It’s a pair of running shorts and gloves for the cold weather. I’m touched by their generosity, and I tell them so. Patricia makes me put the gloves on, which I do so, forgetting about how raw the skin on my knuckles looks. I know she sees it, but she’s polite enough not to comment. They want me to put the shorts on as well, and for a while I refuse, before pulling them over my jeans just to see if they fit properly. They do.
“Now you won’t get cold over the winter”, Paul says.
“Right”, I agree. “They are just what I needed. Thank you so much.”
Paul’s in a similar situation to me, only it wasn’t his wife that got murdered, it was his daughter. She was eight years old when someone took her on her way back to school. That was two years ago and they still haven’t found her. No-one wants to tell him she’s probably dead, but I’m sure everyone thinks it. Paul’s been coming here the longest. He’s a good guy, broken apart by something terrible. He’s getting on now though, he’s pulled himself through the worst of it. At least that’s the impression he gives to the group. Inside his head it could be something different entirely.
It’s a good session. Even Jo joins in by the end of it, not to talk about what happened to her, but just to show she’s willing to participate. She laughs when everyone else laughs, she listens when someone wants to talk, especially about how they feel or what they are going through, or what difficulty they have come across that week that they are struggling to get their head around.
Sometimes I wonder what they think of me. Alice used to describe me as determined, focused and obstinate. Sometimes, if she was being intentionally negative, she’d use the word inflexible. I know what I’m like. Once I want to achieve something, everything else gets left by the wayside. If I have something in mind, I’ll dedicate myself to that one thing until I feel like I’ve got it done. That used to drive Alice mad sometimes, but it was what got us together in the first place. I didn’t give up on her.
The session ends, and everyone goes their separate ways. Jo gives me a smile and a wave before she’s out of the door and back to her own life. I find myself thinking about her on the way back home. Alice would have liked her. I do that with every new person I meet. I think about what I think of them, and then I think how Alice would have appraised them.
‘Polite’, Alice would have said. ‘Well mannered’. ‘Pretty.’
Martin’s working when I get back home. He was all set to leave on the weekend, but because of what happened he’s decided to stay a little bit longer to look out for me. I don’t even mind. I like having him around. He’s understanding, non judgemental, caring. He has the same qualities Alice had. He’s set himself up in the spare room, and has pretty much taken over the office. I don’t need it now anyway. I do my research on my laptop, and I keep everything I find in a folder I’ve buried so deep on my hard drive not even a computer whizz-kid like Martin would be able to find it.
“Hey”, he says, spinning out from under his desk to face me. “How was the session?”
“They got me cake”, I say. “And these.” I show him the gifts.
“Damn, Ethan. That’s good of them.”
I nod in agreement. “They’re good people”, I say.
“Are you ok?”
“Yeah”, I say, but I don’t feel it.
Sadness comes in waves, and sometimes it’s upon me before I get any kind of warning. I make an excuse to leave and head up to my room. Martin knows when to leave me alone.
Now that I’m not working, I sometimes find the days are hard to fill. I was given compassionate leave for three months fully paid after Alice was murdered, and although I don’t feel ready to go back, I miss having something to suck away my time.
Chapter Ten
Jo
27 October 2015. Thirty days after.
A month has passed. I’ve begun my therapy sessions, although I found I was incapable of doing anything in the first group meeting apart from nodding and smiling, and I’ve told my parents, without going into specific detail, about what happened to me that night.
Mom has not stopped fussing, constantly phoning me to check that I’m alright, that I’m at home, that I’m not planning to go out alone, and Dad has done nothing but fight for justice on my behalf, putting himself in contact with lawyers, police officers, government officials and anyone else he feels has some vague responsibility for bringing the perpetrator to justice, as though the whole thing is a game he’s determined to win.
The therapy isn’t at all like I expected. The first session was laidback and casual. There are six of us in total, two men and four women, including the leader. I thought I might have been the youngest one there, but I wasn’t. It’s obvious that we are all broken, distracted somehow, trying to heal. I’m looking forward to the nex
t session, I might be brave enough then to open up.
Alex has given me as much time as I need to come back to work. The time at home is killing me, but I know I’m not ready to step back into the office and risk another breakdown. I’ve been doing some things from home, but I’m finding it hard to concentrate. Mom set me up an appointment with her therapist - I didn’t even know she had one - but I decided not to go. I’m not ready for that yet either.
My doctor is the only other person that knows. The test results went to my GP through the internal computer system, and I was advised to see her for a follow up appointment on post trauma care.
I’m not pregnant, which is the good news. I hadn’t even considered it as a possibility, but during those days after it happened, I wasn’t thinking about anything much other than how much I hurt. The bad news is there was nothing left inside me for them to take a DNA sample. I washed it all out before they could get in there and collect it. The tests I did at the hospital where they pulled me apart and scraped cells off the wall of my vagina? Completely and utterly unnecessary.
The police call but I don’t pick it up because I think it’s Mom. I get the feeling she thinks I’m somehow spending my days being completely reckless, which was what got me into trouble in the first place. The truth is, beyond shopping for groceries at the local store, the doctor’s appointment and the one therapy session, I haven’t been more than two or three blocks from the apartment, and I haven’t been out at night at all.
To tell you the truth, I’m fucking terrified. Dad needn’t have checked the windows or the doors, because I check them frequently. I sleep with a knife under the bed and I’m even thinking about buying a gun. Anyone who knows me knows that is completely out of character, but like I said before, my life has changed and I didn’t ask for it. I’m not the same Jo anymore at all. I’d move back in with my parents, but my life is here. I don’t want them to think I’m weak either. It would just make everything worse.
I listen to the answer phone message three times.