by Noir, Stella
Ethan, for his part, has remained distant too. He tried to call the day after it happened but I didn’t pick up the phone, scared of what doing so might mean. Scared, really, of what I might say to him. He hasn’t tried to get in contact again. I’ve done little else all week but think of what the innocence of that kiss might mean for us in the grander scheme of things. Could the rape victim really begin a relationship with the widowed man of a murdered and raped wife and child?
The more important question for me, in all of that is, could I let him get close? Could I actually be someone’s girlfriend and cope with the responsibilities that position entails?
The bike still sits where we left it, the greasy rags and the tools too. I find myself staring at it sometimes, as though the thing itself might present the answer I’m looking for, or at least tell me that what I want to do is ok.
I make a list of the things I’m scared of, and then try and follow each situation to a worst case scenario conclusion. At the top of that list is ‘being raped again’, alongside which I put ‘murdered’. Later I have ‘being rejected by Ethan’, to which I add ‘never being able to love again’.
The exercise is supposed to help me clarify my thoughts and fears, but it does nothing more than make me more upset than I am already. I tear the paper up into as many little pieces as I can and bury them in the heart of the rubbish bin.
Work is distracting but not enjoyable. I find myself spending much longer than I used to on simple tasks, and then getting disappointed with the work I end up producing. I skip all invites to social events and try as best as possible to keep myself to myself. Conversations with my parents depress me, and I try to avoid speaking to them as much as I can. My trial date is under review again, and every bone in my body wants it pushed back so far I’m long dead and buried before it gets anywhere near being dealt with.
I’m not looking forward to the group therapy session and I know that if I don’t speak to Ethan before hand, I’ll regret it.
I feel like I already know what I need to do, but the thought of that terrifies me. The only person who would understand, is the person I can’t speak to right now, but in order for me to know what’s right and what’s possible, I have to know what Ethan is thinking. I have to know if he wants the same, and whether he can be the person I need, and allow me to be the person he needs too.
I have the phone in my hands a number of times, but I never seen to be able to call. Time ticks slowly away and I have the horrible sensation that unless I act fast, I’m going to lose him.
I wish this wasn’t so fucking complicated, and I wish I didn’t feel so trapped.
Chapter Thirty Nine
Jo
9 February 2016. One hundred and thirty five days after.
Tomorrow is the group session. Either I call Ethan now and find a solution to this, or I just don’t go. I’m kicking myself for not picking up when he called, because now I know that the ball is in my court. And I hate having the ball in my court. I know too that he’ll be needing me as much as I need him, even if that’s just as a friend. What I’m doing isn’t fair. It’s immature, and childish and puerile and dangerous. I don’t want to lose Ethan as a friend. I may very well be falling in love with him, whatever that actually means. I may also be worrying about nothing. A kiss is just a kiss after all. A fucking kiss.
I lie down on my bed, take a deep breath and call him.
The phone rings three times and I have a sudden urge to hang up. Just before I do so, I hear the call connecting.
“Jo?”
“Hey, Ethan, how’s it going?” I say, sounding calmer than I imagined I would but distant too, as though speaking with a work colleague or a business acquaintance.
“Ok”, Ethan says, the catchall for a thousand different possible sensations. “How are you?”
“Ok”, I say too, keen not to give too much away.
Silence grips us for a moment, while my voice is taken away, unable to say the things I’ve called him about. Thankfully Ethan fills it.
“I was worried about you”, he says. “I wasn’t sure if you were going to call or not. Unless you’re calling to tell me our friendship is over, that is. I’ve missed you, you know.”
I imagine him smiling. Leaning casually into the corner of a chair or stretched out across his bed. I picture the contours of his face, the fullness of his lips, the sadness in his eyes.
“I’ve missed you too”, I say. “I’m sorry I haven’t called.”
“I know, you’ve been really busy”, Ethan says, making light of the situation and making me smile.
“Flat out”, I say.
“Have you fixed that bike yet?”
I have to laugh at that, getting up off the bed to take the phone into the living room, perhaps attracted there subconsciously by talk about the bike, perhaps just to release nervous energy.
“Are you kidding? I haven’t even touched it since you were here last.”
“Yeah, um, about that”, Ethan says, and it makes my heart leap for a moment. “You know how long it took me to get that grease off?”
My heart kicks into gear again, and I breathe a sigh of relief I imagine everyone in Pittsburgh hears. “I know exactly how long it took because I had to do the same”, I say.
Silence follows laughter like the calm after a storm, and I get the feeling that Ethan is building up the courage to say something that’s been on his mind for a while.
“I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you, Jo, about what happened.”
And there it is. The elephant is in the room. I don’t know what to say, and because of that, because of the ball being in my fucking court again, silence fills the space between us. I hear Ethan’s nervous breathing and then my own. Finally Ethan speaks again.
“I don’t know what’s going on”, he says. “I think, I don’t know, it’s so confusing. Can I come over, or can you come over here? I’m going out of my mind. I just need to see you, I think. Maybe if I see you i’ll know for sure.”
Silence again.
“Jo, you’re not saying anything. Are you ok?”
“Yes”, I say finally. “Sorry. I just don’t know what to say. Or I do and I just don’t know how to say it. I’m so confused. I’m scared, Ethan. I’m scared of what I think I’m beginning to feel for you and what that means for us.”
And like that, it’s out. My skin feels hot and my heart is racing. I can’t sit still. One moment I’m stood staring at the bike, the next I’m on the edge of the sofa or lying back on the bed.
“I’m scared too”, Ethan says. “I don’t think I’ve ever been this scared in my life.”
We both laugh, because there is nothing else to do.
“I’ve been avoiding calling you”, I confess.
“I know”, Ethan says. “I figured that.”
“Do you want me to come over?”
“Yes”, Ethan says. “I want that more than anything else in the world.”
Ethan
9 February. One hundred and forty nine days after.
There are things that I have seen that will stay with me for the rest of my life, but even stronger images of events I haven’t, that torment me even more. Those are the images that hide in darkened corners, showing themselves when I’m at my lowest point. They wake me in the middle of the night, my neck covered in sweat, they hunt me down and back me into a corner I have no chance of escaping from, and they laugh at me from a place I can never hope to reach. The fear twisted across Alice’s face at the moment she knew she wouldn’t survive her attack is a construct of my own, but it has a quality to it, realer than the image I have of the bloodied mess I made of Paul Hawke, the swollen and broken face of Tariq Rana or the broken tooth that lay isolated in a patch of blood that made the whole thing look like some kind of poor taste art exhibition.
I’ve done things I cannot even begin to comprehend, driven by the need to have justice dealt in the only way I saw fit. When I see Jo, and the pain that she has endured, the wa
y she is going about rebuilding her own life, how difficult it is for her and what matters - not the justice, but the reconstructing - I can’t help but feel weak. I can’t help but admire her. She is terrified of facing her attacker. Nothing she does from this point on will change what happened to her. I can’t bring Alice back. I knew I never could, but that didn’t stop me from trying to take from someone else what they took from me. And for what? To drive myself into the ground? To collect images that won’t leave me alone? If Jo knew what I had done in my own search for justice. If she saw the bloodied messes I left in apartments all over Pittsburgh, the blood stained clothes I burned, the wounds that will take years to heal. I’m broken, I know that now. More broken than I thought it possible a person could ever be. If I didn’t have Jo, I wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t even want to be. I just hope she can fix me, and I can fix her in return.
It takes her a couple of hours to prepare herself and make the journey across to the house. We stand in my livingroom for a moment, neither one of us sure what to say. I’m nervous and I can see she is too. Looking at each other is hard. There is nervous laughter, repositioning, agonizing and awkward attempts to begin to speak. I don’t close the gap between us, even though I want to.
All week I’ve been thinking about both Alice and Jo, about what the feelings I have for one mean to the relationship I have with the other, about that kiss, about Alice’s and my first kiss and about my own future, with or without Jo in it. I’ve missed Jo over the last week, and having her here no with me makes me realise by just how much.
“Did you come on the bike?” I ask, just to break the tension thickening between us.
Jo smiles, but I can see she’s too distracted by what’s eating her up inside to throw the joke back at me.
“Ethan?” she says instead. “I’m not sure. You know. I feel so fucking broken, I don’t know if I can be the person that you need me to be, you know, even if that’s what-.”
She’s sat on the arm of the sofa, her arms crossed, her hands on her shoulders, completely closed in, protected. There are tears welling in her eyes and I’ve never seen them so sad when she finally looks up to me.
“Hey, you already are the person I need you to be.”
I go over, but I’m careful to keep a respectful distance.
“I don’t even know if-.”
“Look”, I say. “I like you, just as you are.”
“I like you too”, Jo says.
A broad smile creeps across my face. “Well then. I don’t know why you’re crying.”
“I’m not crying”, Jo lies, wiping tears away from her face.
“I don’t want to lose you as a friend. Let’s just start there, ok? Everything else will work itself out, as quickly or as slowly as it needs to. I’m not going anywhere and I’m certainly not in a rush. This is kind of hard for me too. It’s all kind of new.”
“I think I really like you”, Jo says, wiping tears away from her face again. “What?”
“Nothing”, I say. “I think I really like you too.”
I put my hand on Jo’s knee, and shortly afterwards, she places her hand on top of it. There is a moment of silence that passes between us while she takes my hand in hers, turns it over, examines it, draws her fingertip along the lines that cut across my palm.
“Will you hold me?” she asks, after a while. “I know it sounds stupid, but it’s been so long since someone has held me.”
“Of course”, I say. “It doesn’t sound stupid. I’d love to hold you.”
I move to take her in my arms.
“Not here”, Jo says. “I want you to lie behind me and hold me tight. In your bed.”
I know the moment is probably not right, but I can’t help myself. “Really?” I say. “And I thought you were a slow mover.”
Jo shakes her head, but doesn’t seem to mind the joke. I take her hand and lead her to my bedroom, but at the door I’m suddenly reminded of Alice. It doesn’t feel right taking another woman into our bedroom and I’m suddenly struck by a feeling that I’m betraying her. I hadn’t thought this through at all, nor expected any reminder of Alice to be so debilitating. It’s so strong, I can’t even bring myself to enter the room. Jo sees it and immediately looks guilty herself.
“We could go to Martin’s room, or even back to my house if you prefer?” she suggests. “I hadn’t thought-. Sorry, it’s stupid of me.”
“I’m sorry”, I say, shaking my head. “I don’t know if I can-.”
“Or we can wait if you like.”
I look at Jo and then back into the room. It is pretty much exactly as it was before Alice was killed. I’ve not changed a thing. Just because it hasn’t had her in it for five months, doesn’t mean it’s not still hers though. I take a deep breath.
Never before have I seen the present moment in such lucid clarity. It’s as though I’m being given a choice, that this moment here and now is the moment I will look back on as either the opportunity I was given to change my life and turned down, or the fulcrum to the rest of my life with or without Jo, but definitely without Alice.
It’s a turning point, a moment in which I have to make a choice either to stay in the past with Alice or accept the future and move on with Jo. It’s as simple as that. I step in with Jo and I’m deciding to move on. I don’t, I risk staying in the past forever.
Fuck, I’m scared. I grip Jo’s hand tighter. The room isn’t changing. It’s not moving. It never will unless I make it.
“No”, I say, surprising myself. “No.” I say again, as though if I don’t, it might be easier to take back.
“Ethan, we don’t have to-.”
I close my eyes, step through the doorway and into the room, my heart beating wildly.
“See”, I say, my hands up in the air. “Easy.”
I feel like crying. Doing this is definitely very far from easy. I want to though, and I feel like I should be able to, not just physically, but emotionally too. With freedom from guilt.
Jo watches me from outside the room for a moment, before stepping in to join me. She sits down on the edge of the bed, kind of perched there awkwardly. She holds out her hand towards me. “Come here.”
When I reach out towards her I notice my hand is shaking. She takes it and I sit alongside her.
“Just because you’re here with me, doesn’t mean you are betraying Alice”, she says, as though reading my mind. “If you don’t want to do this, just tell me. We don’t have to rush things.”
“I’m ok”, I say, my lower lip trembling. “I want to.”
Jo kicks off her shoes, lets go off my hand for a moment and slides herself onto the bed. This must be as difficult for her as it is for me, and her courage is inspiring. I kick off my shoes and do the same. For a long moment, we both lie next to each other, facing up towards the ceiling, the tips of our fingers the only parts of our bodies brushing each other. I feel like a fifteen year old about to kiss a girl for the first time. My heart is beating wildly and I can’t work out whether I want to laugh, cry, run away or stay put.
Jo turns onto her side, facing away from me, her knees bent and her hands flat out underneath her cheek. I look at the way her hair falls onto the pillow, much curlier than Alice’s ever was, the curve of her spine in the gap between her ribs and her hips, the patch of skin where her top doesn’t quite meet her pants.
I look at her for a long time like this, unable to close the gap between us, that must be less than a metre but feels like a thousand miles, until finally, as though the right moment has arrived and I just had to wait for it all along, I reach out and she pulls me into her.
Holding her closely, our bodies interlinked perfectly, the two of us as one, Jo begins to cry. It doesn’t take long for me to fall in behind her.
I’ve never cried so much in my life.
Epilogue
Ethan
11 September 2016. One year after.
Every day that passes I’m eternally grateful for. Every hour more is a step further in th
e right direction. I’m off the medication, I’m sleeping well, I’m exercising regularly and day by day, I’m beginning to feel like a normal, capable person again. With Jo by my side, little by little, I’m turning my life around.
When I think about what has happened over the year, and what I have gone through to get here, I’m amazed I’m still here at all.
It’s been a year exactly since it happened.
I will never forget Alice, but I’ve learnt over the last year that I can never forget myself either. Martin helped me realize that, Jo too. Everyone else that has been there by my side to show me how to pull myself up and move on, scarred but not broken. Alive and definitely not dead. Worthwhile and worth fighting for.
Jo and I have now officially been together for over six months and I couldn’t be happier. Every day I spend with her I realize just how lucky I am. She’s not replaced Alice and neither do I think of her in that way. Alice and Jo both belong to completely different parts of my life, and the Ethan from before it happened, is not the Ethan that I am now.
Jo and I took our time. We had to and we still do. It’s one of the things I love about our relationship and the time that we spend together - the time itself seems completely irrelevant. We’re not in a rush to get anywhere quickly, we’re just happy we are able to enjoy the ride. It’s been an incredible ride too, and continues to be so.
A kiss one day, a cuddle the next, for long periods we would just hold hands and look at each other like fifteen year olds without a clue how to proceed, happy enough to settle for that. More excited than I can even begin to explain by it.
And then one day, when we were both ready, we knew it was the right time to take things further.
We cried when we made love for the first time, and then we held each other until we fell asleep, safe, happy, comfortable, at peace with ourselves. Absolutely, one hundred percent free.