Lean On Me (Take My Hand)

by Nicola Haken

  “Don’t feel like you need to on my account.”

  “You’re a great girl, Rachel,” he continued, ignoring me completely. “You’re fun. You’re out there. You’ve got pink hair and more colours and sparkles in your skin than a fucking rainbow. You talk like a middle-aged trucker with a pot-belly, not to mention the fact you could drink one of those guys under the table any day of…”

  “Where the fuck is this going?” I urged. “Because as much as I appreciate you comparing me to some fat, bald bloke with an alcohol problem, I’m struggling to work out how the hell you think that’s going to stop me being pissed off with you.”

  “My point is… I think you hide beneath some of that stuff. I think you’re scared to let people in… let them see you. I think you worry about what people think of you and I think your biggest fear is being seen as different.”

  “You think a lot, don’t you?” I shot back – my way of avoiding the truth. I would die before I told him every single word that just came out of his mouth was the truth.

  “Well maybe I think it because I know how you feel. I know what it’s like to worry about people judging you… about people thinking you’re weak.”

  “What the fuck ever,” I said, dismissing him. “You know being a wanker isn’t classed as an actual disability right?” I added in a more playful tone. He might have been talking shit but he was only trying to be nice. Plus, with Emily away Jared is my best friend and I didn’t like tension between us.

  “You know I’m kinda surprised you haven’t been bitchslapped in your time.”

  “Oh I have. But only once… she didn’t dare do it again once she realised I don’t bitchslap – I bitchpunch.”

  “Come here,” he said, cocking his head and signalling me to take up position on his chest once again. Supporting my weight on my arm, I hitched myself closer to him and nuzzled into his bare chest. “I didn’t mean to piss you off,” he whispered, combing through my hair with his fingers. It felt weird for only a moment before I settled into how unexpectedly comforting it was. “Forgive me?”

  “Forgiven.”

  “Go out with me?”

  “Fuck off.”

  Jared laughed and blew me a kiss. Then I adjusted my cheek on his chest and for the first time in my life I fell asleep listening to the gentle thrum of another person’s heart beneath my ear – all the while desperately hoping what happened between us tonight wouldn’t change anything.

  I love Jared. There I’ve said it. I love him. As a friend or something more… I’m not too sure yet. Either way, the thought of losing him makes my chest hurt.

  Chapter Five

  Jared

  One week into the new year and I can still taste Rachel on my lips. I can’t describe what we shared on New Years Eve but it sure as shit wasn’t just sex. Before that night, sex has always been about the end goal. Everything I did was to bring me that little bit closer to the point of no return. All I’ve ever thought about was how good it felt, how good I felt…

  But that night the only thing I could think about was how soft Rachel felt, how sweet she tasted and how fucking beautiful she was. The end goal didn’t even come into it until I was right there. The second I sunk myself into her I knew I would never want to be anywhere else. My dick had found its forever home before it’d finished taking its first thrust. All that mattered was her – her end goal was the only thing on my mind and it’s been on it ever since.

  She’s still insisting we’re ‘just friends’ even though she knows as well as I do we are so much more than that. But of course Rachel is Rachel – stubborn. Though I think she’s softening. She’s stopped telling me to ‘fuck off’ whenever I make suggestive comments or ask her if she’s ready to say yes yet. Instead I get an eye-roll or a tut. See? That’s an improvement, right?

  Me: Pub?

  It was my night off and I was bored shitless. There must be over two-hundred channels on cable and yet there wasn’t a single thing to watch.

  Rachel: Can’t. Got a date with Paul Cezanne ;-)

  Whoa… that got my attention.

  Me: Who the fuck is Paul Cezanne?

  Rachel: Aww u jealous???

  Me: Who is he?

  Rachel: Ur so cute! He’s an artist. A very old, very DEAD artist ;-)

  Relief washed through me and it wasn’t until I read her reply I realised just how tightly I was holding my phone in my palm.

  Me: Sounds fun in a boring as fuck kinda way. Not even got time for a quick one?

  Rachel: No can do. U will just have to entertain yourself tonight.

  Rachel: By the way… u should change florists. One of the flowers was dead this morning

  She got them then… all twelve of them.

  Me: Maybe it was having sympathy pains for my breaking heart ;-)

  Rachel: ur such a loser

  Me: and ur a heartless bitch with the finest pair of tits I’ve ever seen

  Rachel: I’m going now. Really got to get this assignment finished

  Me: I’m lonely. AND sexually frustrated dammit. How can u be so cold????

  Rachel: God gave you two hands. Pick one and use it

  Me: I thought you were going?

  When she still hadn’t replied ten minutes later I figured she really had gone. So, dragging my sorry arse off the sofa I grabbed my car keys and headed out to the pub by myself. How pathetic is that? Going for a drink, all alone, to my place of work no less. Rachel was right… I really am a loser.

  **********

  “She let you out?” I asked jokily, though genuinely surprised when I saw my old mate Ben sitting at the bar. We met in our first year of Uni. He dropped out after one year, I held out for two. It’s been so long since I got to hang out with any ‘guy friends’. They’re all too busy being grown ups. How boring is that, eh? Ah, who am I kidding… the past couple of weeks have left me thinking maybe I’m ready to give this being an adult thing a bash.

  “Not exactly,” he replied, looking more exhausted than I thought humanly possible. “I’ve been sent out for nappies.”

  “Well you won’t find any in here,” I teased, pulling up a stool. We may have drifted apart over the last couple of years, life taking us in different directions, but I still consider Ben my very best friend.

  “I just needed to get out. I’ll regret it when I get back and she smells beer on my breath but for now… fuck it.”

  “Problems at home?” I asked after ordering myself a beer from Tracey – the new bar girl.

  “Kerry’s pregnant,” he announced mournfully before taking a huge gulp of his beer.

  “Holy shit.” That makes four! Jesus! “Um… congratulations?”

  Suddenly this whole ‘adult’ thing wasn’t looking so appealing. I barely recognised Ben. Just a few years ago he was our ringleader. He was the beefed up player all the girls wanted, leaving me and the rest of the guys to go after his sloppy seconds. Now? His clothes had stains that no doubt came out of a baby, his hair hadn’t seen a brush in days and he had bags so heavy under his eyes it looked like someone had sewn a pair of testicles onto his lower lids while he was sleeping.

  “Don’t get me wrong I know I’ll love it and all that when it gets here. I’m just so fucking tired. The house stinks. I stink. I can’t remember the last time I watched something that didn’t have a talking fucking pig in it and we literally only started having sex again a month ago and now it’s back to sneaky wanks in the fucking shower for another year.”

  “And how does Kerry feel about it?”

  “Oh she’s thrilled. Which makes me feel like an even bigger dickhead because I just can’t seem to feel it too. I just miss her, you know. I miss talking to her, touching her, kissing her… these days I don’t get a look in because there’s always a kid attached to some part of her body.”

  “You sure that’s a good idea?” I piped up when Ben raised his empty glass to Tracey.

  “She’s already going to be pissed off with me. Might as well give her a good reason. A
nyway let’s change the subject. You still on course to be a terminal bachelor?”

  “I’m working on changing that plan. That girl I’ve been hanging out with… she’s going to be mine. She just doesn’t know it yet,” I said with a wink and a proud grin splayed across my face.

  “The chick in the wheelchair?” Ben asked - sounding almost bewildered. My back involuntarily stiffened while I pondered where this conversation would go.

  “Her name’s Rachel” I replied with a protective gruffness lacing my voice.

  “Aren’t you worried about people staring at you and shit?” I felt my hand ball into a fist by my side, but then relaxed it when I remembered I’d once thought a similar thing.

  The first night I took Emily out on a date (I can’t help smiling whenever I think of me and Emily. We were never meant to be anything other than friends and the idea I once thought we could go further makes me want to laugh out of the sheer ridiculousness of it), I made some dumbarse comment about Rachel’s bright hair and tattoos drawing even more attention to her. Yet now I look at Rachel and I’m so bloody proud of her. Sometimes I just stare at her, completely in awe of her no bullshit attitude to life.

  When I made that comment, I realise now I was projecting my own insecurities onto her. I wouldn’t be able to handle the looks Rachel gets on a daily basis, but she’s so much stronger than me.

  “Besides, how would that even work? Aren’t there laws about interfering with spastics and shit?”

  There are two reason why I didn’t floor the stupid fucker there and then. One, I was certain if I started I wouldn’t be able to stop. And two, he’s my friend and he’d been drinking and I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt that he wouldn’t have said something so fucking disgusting if he’d been sober.

  “Ben… think very fucking carefully before you say anything else,” I growled, standing from my stool.

  “Whoa… calm down, mate. I just thought… you know… isn’t it taking advantage or something?”

  “It’s her legs that don’t work. Not her mind. Now drop it.”

  “But wouldn’t it be boring? She wouldn’t even be able to ride-” Ben was lying in a crumpled heap, clutching at his bloody nose before he could finish his sentence. “What the FUCK, mate?”

  “If you ever talk about Rachel like that again I won’t be your fucking mate. Got it?”

  “Jesus, I think you broke my nose!”

  I pulled my fist up to my chest. It was still vibrating from making such harsh contact with Ben’s face.

  “Take it outside!” I heard Mick’s voice at the exact same time I felt his firm hand on my shoulder. I shrugged away from him and turned for the door without looking back to see if Ben made it to his feet.

  Sliding back into my car, I headed for the only place I feel at home lately – Rachel’s.

  **********

  “For fuck’s sake, Jared! I could’ve been naked!” Rachel scolded when I let myself into her ground-floor flat with the key Emily gave me before she left for the States.

  “Seriously? You think telling me you could’ve been naked is the way to stop me letting myself into your flat?”

  “I’m sure she gave you that key for emergencies,” she grumbled… but the small smile tugging at the corners of her lips didn’t go unnoticed. The lip ring gives her away. I don’t think she knows it moves when she smiles. “So? What are you doing here?”

  “I’ve come to make sure this Cezanne dude really isn’t someone I need to kick in the bollocks.”

  “Nope. Still an artist. Still dead,” she confirmed. I walked over to where she was sitting on the middle of the sofa in front of the coffee table. There were textbooks, replicas of paintings and sheets of paper filled with Rachel’s writing strewn all over the place.

  “So what’ve you got to do?” I asked curiously, sitting beside her and picking up a reprint of a pretty crappy looking painting.

  “Describe it,” she answered simply.

  “So like ‘this is a picture of a jug and some apples on a scrunched up tablecloth’? That seems easy.”

  “Um, not quite. You need to look further than just the items he painted. See how he used rougher brushwork and an impasto technique?” she said, hovering her finger over an apple. “And how the way he shaded just here tells us the light source is filtering in from the top left?”

  “Yeah, I’ll um… take your word for that.” My head hurt just looking at the damn picture. “Does this stuff not bore the shit out of you?”

  “God no!” Rachel enthused like I’d just said something completely ridiculous. “How can art be boring? It’s all around us… everywhere we go there is music and colour. It’s beautiful. And not just to look at, but to create…” She couldn’t have talked about a duller subject, yet my ears honed in on her every word. Every so often the tip of tongue would brush across her lower lip and images of it brushing across a whole host of other places hijacked my mind.

  “You can create it out of anything. With stories you’re restricted to words, but with art…” She sighed dreamily as if she was getting actual pleasure from explaining this to me. “If I’m feeling happy, I draw. I paint. I create things with precision and detail. But if I’m in a raging bad mood I’ll be rougher. I might use materials found around the house or in the bin…”

  “The bin?”

  “One man’s waste is another man’s treasure, Jaz,” she said playfully. “Besides, I clean it first.”

  “I never knew you were so passionate about it,” I admitted, feeling proud of the fact I’d discovered another little piece of her. “Hey, you should draw me,” I suggested.

  “Seriously?” She sounded dubious. And… rightly so.

  “Sure. I’ll get naked like the chick on Titanic and sprawl across your sofa and you-” Cushion to the face. That’s what that got me.

  “I really need to finish this,” Rachel began. “So either leave or shut the fuck up while I concentrate.”

  “Shutting up,” I declared before sinking back into the sofa.

  “How long are you going to be?” I couldn’t help asking. It’d only been five minutes and I was bored out of my mind.

  “All bloody night if you keep interrupting me.”

  “Fine. I’ll be quiet I promise.”

  “Seriously, you must be nearly done now,” I groaned after what felt like three hours. “It’s been,” I looked at the clock. Oh. “Okay so it’s been fifteen minutes but this is torture!”

  “I told you I was busy. You didn’t have to come.” Sensing I was irritating her, I gave her something to feel irritated about.

  I poked her.

  Clearly being the more mature one of the two of us, she ignored me.

  So I poked her again.

  “FINE!” she yelled, slapping her textbook closed. “You win. Jesus Christ you are such an annoying ARSEHOLE!”

  “Annoying but cute though right?”

  “Ugh,” was her response, before she picked up another cushion and went to throw it at me. Thankfully this time, my reflexes didn’t let me down and I caught it mid-air.

  “What the hell happened to your hand?” she asked, concern and curiosity flooding her voice as she lifted my hand closer to her face. My knuckles were red and beginning to swell and I didn’t notice how much they were throbbing until Rachel pointed it out.

  “Someone’s face happened,” I answered nonchalantly. I hoped she didn’t ask for details because I wasn’t prepared to give them to her.

  “Whose face? What happened?” But it’s Rachel… of course she’d want details.

  “A jerk’s face. No big deal.”

  “What jerk? And of course it’s a big deal. You’re not the type to go around punching people for no reason. What happened? Tell me.”

  “An old friend said something I didn’t like. I warned him to drop it. He didn’t. So I punched him.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Just drop it, Rach.”

  “Or what? You going to punch me
too?”

  “That’s not even funny. You know damn well I’d never hurt you.” I knew she was teasing but my mood was slipping as I recalled the things Ben had said at the pub.

  “Something’s wrong. This whole thing isn’t like you,” she said seriously, her voice cracking slightly. “What the fuck did he say?”

  “He said something about you, alright?” I snapped unintentionally. “Sorry,” I muttered. “I’m not getting into what the dickhead was saying. He was drunk and talking shit.”

  “You don’t need to tell me - I can imagine. I’ve grown up with it.” Rachel shrugged, acting completely unfazed. But I suspected that’s exactly what it was – ‘acting’.

  “Well you shouldn’t have done. It’s fucking bullshit. People are so fucking up themselves with their fucking stupid, insensitive, judgemental fucking opinions.”

  “You do realise you just said ‘fucking’ four times in one sentence? That’s not very gentlemanly of you.”

  “You’re implying there’s a lady in the room,” I joked, raising an eyebrow and feeling safe in the knowledge she’d ran out of cushions. “But seriously, how do you deal with that shit?”

  “By ignoring it. I have to. If I allowed myself to listen to it or give it a second thought, I’d spend my whole life crying.”

  Rachel crying… it’s almost unimaginable.

  “So you’re not the big tough badarse you make yourself out to be then, eh?”

  “Maybe not. But if you ever tell anyone I’ll punch you so hard in the balls you’ll be coughing up sperm for a month.” Ouch! I literally squirmed slightly in my seat. “I’m used to people judging me. But you? Well… I don’t want that for you too.”

  It took less than a second for a light bulb to switch on in my head.