Chasing Chris Campbell

by Genevieve Gannon

  I immediately bashed out a response.

  Michael, It’s not like that, I’m not with Chris. I mean, Chris is here, but he’s just part of a group. We’re not a couple. Nothing has happened between us! I know it looks bad, but believe me I didn’t just run off and hook straight up with another guy. I promise!

  Before stopping to think I clicked send. I felt sick. As the icon swirled I realised that even though I hadn’t done what Michael was accusing me of, it had been my intent. Seeing it through his eyes it looked awful.

  I stepped away from the computer and walked out onto the patio. Chris and Noah were balanced on the balcony rail, each with a beer in his hand.

  ‘There she is,’ Chris said. He put his hand around my waist.

  I pulled away, feeling guilty. ‘Um, I was just going to go for a walk,’ I said.

  ‘S’everything okay?’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ I nodded.

  I stayed away all day. I walked aimlessly for miles with only a Global Maverick guidebook and blue poncho for company. When I returned I checked my email account, hoping for confirmation from Michael that he understood. But he hadn’t written back.

  I paced, wondering if I should write to him again. We had ended things. I had ended them. But it seemed he still thought there was a chance for us. Did I lead him to believe that? In the absence of a bottle of hand sanitiser, I bit my nails.

  I won’t do anything with Chris, I told myself. Until I’d had a chance to clear the air with Michael, I mustn’t let things go any further with Chris.

  I climbed the stairs to the room where Sarah had put my bag. She was asleep in one of the twin beds. I fumbled through my daypack and pulled out some hand sanitiser. Just the smell of it instantly settled my nerves. I took a shower. My chest ached and my jaw hurt from being clenched. I couldn’t stop thinking of how Michael must be feeling, how betrayed he would have felt. Perhaps I had wanted to be with Chris. Perhaps I had chased it foolishly. But I would never have wanted to hurt Michael. I started drying my hair with a towel.

  And was it really Chris I was chasing, or something else? A goal I’d thought I was working towards with Michael and felt was slipping away?

  There was a knock at our door. I pulled my new, silk dressing gown closed and went to answer it.

  ‘Hey.’ It was Chris.

  ‘Hi,’ I said, holding the neck of my gown together.

  ‘You disappeared.’ He looked behind me into the room. Sarah was snoring.

  ‘Yeah, I was tired.’

  ‘Do you want to come back down?’

  ‘I’m not really dressed.’

  ‘Maybe you could come hang out in my room for a bit. Noah said he didn’t mind sharing with Sarah …’

  ‘Chris –’ I had to stop him before our relationship changed forever. ‘I don’t want to just be some girl you sleep with.’

  He looked surprised. Then hurt. ‘It’s not like that.’

  ‘No, I know. But it’s more complicated. Can we just leave things as they are for the moment? I really like you, I do …’ The words were tumbling out of my mouth. Half an hour earlier I wouldn’t have believed it possible for such thoughts to pass my lips. But now all I could think was Michael Michael Michael. I didn’t want to hurt him any more than I had. I couldn’t get his face out of my mind. He was the person I’d woken up next to for years. He’d held my hand when my grandmother had died, and made me minestrone when I had the flu. How could I have been so reckless?

  ‘I thought … I thought this was what you wanted.’ Chris was confused. He rubbed his chin, stroking it the way I had longed to only a few days earlier.

  ‘I, I do. I mean, can we slow it down?’ I said. ‘I’ve just come out of a five year relationship. I just … I’m a little overwhelmed.’

  ‘Okay,’ he said slowly.

  ‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ I said, stepping back into my room. ‘We’ll talk more then,’ I said as the door shut. But I wasn’t sure if he heard.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  ‘Where’s Chris?’ I asked the breakfast table. Everybody was there except him.

  ‘He took off at the crack of dawn,’ Jez said through a mouthful of toast. ‘He was pretty grumpy. Said he wanted to go for a hike.’

  ‘Oh.’ Opposing waves of relief and disappointment collided in my chest.

  ‘We’re off to the markets then the fort,’ said Sarah. ‘That’s the plan anyway.’

  I nodded. ‘I’ll catch up with you later. I have to do a few things.’

  I took a banana with me to the computer terminal in the lobby and logged in, anxious for an email from Michael. Nothing. I shot off another quick line to him.

  Believe me. I don’t want to hurt you.

  I flicked through a few other pages and sent an email to Cass. When I returned, Noah was sitting alone on the patio with a medical book.

  ‘What are you reading?’

  ‘Brushing up on anatomy.’ he said without looking up. ‘How can humans be so complicated?’

  ‘Can I have a look?’ He passed me his textbook open to an illustrated cross-section of the human heart.

  ‘It’s such an ugly looking muscle, isn’t it? I can’t imagine how it came to be the symbol for love.’

  ‘Perhaps because it’s what powers us,’ Noah said, taking his book back. ‘Like love itself, our hearts spur us on.’ He turned the page. ‘What’s the plan for today?’

  I shrugged. ‘The palace I guess.’

  ‘Everyone else has gone to the central market,’ he said apologetically.

  ‘That’s fine.’

  ‘Sarah said you should meet them there.’

  ‘No, I think I’ll explore by myself today.’

  Noah dropped the book onto his chest. ‘I’ll be here if you want someone to talk to.’

  ‘Thanks. I just need some time to think.’

  I set off alone. It started raining. I was drenched within minutes. My feet squelched in saturated shoes and my clothes were soaked through. They were wet from the inside with sweat and from the outside with rain. Despite the downpour the air was still hot. I knew that if I put on my rain poncho it would only seal in the wetness, so I trudged on in my cotton pants and T-shirt.

  I walked listlessly around the palace complex. Everything was verdant and mossy. Even the trees were upholstered with moss. As I trudged, the same, singular thought played over and over in my head: What am I doing? What am I doing?

  I thumbed my phone, sliding my fingers over the digits that made up Michael’s number. It was one of the only ones I knew by heart. I thought about calling him. But what would I say? I wanted to know he was okay, that was the first thing on my mind.

  The inside of the palace was accessible via stone gateways painted red, blue and mustardy yellow. Ornate dragons curled around their edges and guarded the roof. Bug-eyed, carved faces bared their fangs at me from above as I passed under the archways. There was a moat that had could be crossed by pretty stone bridges.

  As the sun started to go down, my phone filled with messages entreating me to meet at a restaurant called the Palace Lotus. They were from Sarah, Belinda and Noah. Not Chris. I felt miserable and lonely.

  I’ll be there in ten, I wrote back to Sarah.

  The Palace Lotus was busy. I couldn’t see any familiar faces. But I heard a voice I recognised.

  ‘Oh, hello there,’ came the tinkly feminine sound. ‘Sorry, I can’t remember your name.’

  The cogs in my heart ground to a halt. It was Briana. She was wearing a low-cut green top, the same colour as her eyes, and her hair was piled on top of her head, displaying her long, smooth neck.

  ‘Violet,’ I said, stunned.

  ‘Good to see you again.’ She pulled her lips into a tight smile.

  ‘You too,’ I muttered.

  I cornered Sarah. ‘What’s she doing here?’ I said through gritted teeth.

  Sarah whispered to me Briana had flown up to spend a few days with us. I followed her to a table where Briana sat next to Chris. I
sat opposite the two of them.

  ‘Have you got some time off work?’ I interrogated her.

  ‘Oh, I can really come and go as I please,’ she said breezily.

  Chris rolled his eyes. I gave him a cautious smile. He nodded and smiled back.

  What was I doing? What? What? What? What?

  ‘We’ve already ordered,’ said Noah. ‘Plenty of vegetarian stuff this time.’

  Bree continued her story about the celebrities who had come into her bar in Ho Chi Minh City. Chris put a hand over his mouth to hide a grin.

  ‘Do you want the last of my prawns?’ I asked him. It was a peace offering.

  ‘Sure,’ he said, taking the bowl and spooning a heap onto his plate. My heart whirred back into action. But I felt suffocated by confusion. I wanted to do what was right, but I was having trouble deciphering what that was. For a brief moment I wondered if some sort of parasite had burrowed its way into my brain. Then I shook my head. I knew what I had to do. I needed to straighten things out with Michael. Then I needed to tell Chris the truth. But Michael first.

  Three hours later, satisfied that nothing was going to happen between Chris and Briana, I went to bed. But I couldn’t sleep. I wrapped my dressing gown around myself and padded down the hall to Chris’ room. I needed to speak to him. Just to clear the air.

  I hesitated before his door and ran through what I wanted to say. Then I knocked.

  ‘It’s open.’

  I entered.

  ‘Violet.’ He sounded surprised. I walked towards the bed.

  ‘I know I said I didn’t want us to sleep together but that’s not why I’m here.’

  He started to speak. But I wouldn’t be prevented from explaining what had happened.

  ‘It’s not that I don’t want to sleep together.’ I sat on the bed. ‘It’s just that I don’t want to only sleep together. And then I got this awful email from Michael …’

  ‘Yeah, Vy …’ He started again. But I wanted to get my speech out.

  ‘I think you’re so funny, Chris. And you’re so spirited and kind hearted. It’s just –’

  ‘Vy,’ he interrupted me again.

  ‘What is it?’ I studied his face.

  He looked up into my eyes and then over my shoulder, behind my head.

  ‘What,’ I slowly turned around. Standing in the doorway was Briana. Her lip was curled into a triumphant sneer. She was wearing a short lace night dress. I could see her perfect breasts through the gauzy material. Her nipples were staring me right in the face.

  ‘I’m such an idiot.’ My hands flew to my cheeks.

  ‘Vy –’

  I pushed passed Briana and ran back to my room, slamming my door.

  ‘Vy!’ Chris shouted after me. I heard him thump down the hall. A moment later he was banging on my door.

  I could still smell his cologne. I went to the bathroom and washed my hands. I scrubbed them hard with soap.

  ‘Stupid,’ I said as I rubbed. ‘Stupid, stupid, stupid.’ Large salty tears were streaming down my face into the basin where they mingled with the suds.

  I dug in my bag for a nail brush, and scrubbed until I drew blood. I rinsed it away then buried my fingers in a towel. I sat on my bed, clutching my hands together. The towel was pink from the bloodied water.

  Chris banged on the door again and implored me to let him in.

  I hugged myself, aching through to my core, thinking that human beings seem to have been made inside out. At the centre is the hardest part, the impenetrable, unbending bone. Strapped to this frame is tough muscle and sinew. They are wrapped around organs that are pulsing, pumping, processing and filtering. All this is sealed in the thinnest protective layer of skin which can be punctured with a blunt fork or sliced open by the sharp edge of a piece of paper. It seemed to me our exterior should have been formed from bone, so that nothing could break through and bruise our gentle innards. I squeezed my fingers into the towel and watched the stains darken to red.

  He was still banging on my door.

  ‘Go away, Chris!’ I yelled.

  In the morning I went straight to the airport. I told Sarah I had picked up a few extra shifts at Glaxo and needed the cash. She hugged me with a knowing look and pretended to believe me.

  The rain was coming down as I loaded my bags into a taxi. Once inside the car, I checked my phone. It was full of messages from Chris.

  Nothing happened.

  She came uninvited.

  Vy, please. Talk to me.

  By the time I arrived at the airport the roads had started to floor. I felt under siege. We were being bombed from above by giant water cannons. My flight to Hong Kong was delayed an hour. My stomach rumbled and I wished I’d grabbed some breakfast before leaving. I’d spent my last ten dong on the cab.

  I replayed the previous night’s events over and over in my head. Had Chris known she was coming? What did he say to her after I left?

  I was finally ushered onto the plane and seated between two men on their way to represent Vietnam in the Olympics for breathing loudly. I scratched my arms, restless. My clothes were still damp and I felt sticky and gross. We were ordered to fasten our seatbelts and the plane began its sprint down the runway. We lifted, and once again I felt myself being carried away from Chris.

  The only thing that stopped me from breaking down in tears was the sight of the lunch trolley. I was starving. The flight attendant was peach-faced and sweet.

  ‘Khong co chi.’ She smiled as she put a plastic tray of brown beef curry in front of me.

  I stared at it, feeling miserable. I had forgotten to order the vegetarian meal. A whimper escaped my lips.

  ‘Excuse me,’ I looked at her pleadingly. ‘Do you have any spare vegetarian meals?’

  ‘Vegetarian? No.’ She shook her head sadly.

  ‘Is there anything at all vegetarian? Maybe something in first class? I’ll pay extra. I’m just so hungry.’

  She promised to check after she’d finished serving the curries. About ten minutes later she approached with a proud grin on her face. She was carrying a silver tray covered in tin foil. I sat up straight, excited. Maybe it would be fish, or pad thai. I was famished.

  ‘Tropical delight,’ she said, removing the covering to reveal a few fingers of fruit – slices of cantaloupe, and that green melon I’ve never learned the name of.

  ‘Oh,’ I said, deflated. ‘Thank you.’

  I nibbled at the fruit before falling into a coma-style sleep. I’m pretty sure that, had I been conscious, my neighbours would have offered me a spot on their Olympic team for the loud snoring event.

  When I landed I somehow dragged myself through immigration and then into the baggage collection area. Outside I discovered the rain had followed me from Vietnam to Hong Kong. Here it was mist-like and soft, like a watery ghost. This meant that standing under shelter didn’t protect you from the rain. It floated in sideways and saturated you from the ankles up.

  I slumped back into the terminal and stared at the flight board.

  There was a plane to Sydney in six hours. I had the money. I had most of my stuff. My room back in the Mid-Levels contained only a few extra clothes. All I would be leaving behind was the cheap furniture I had purchased for my temporary life here, a few books and a souvenir or two.

  I found a bench, where I sat and stared into space. I couldn’t move. I watched people come and go. They waved good-bye and kissed hello. There were a lot of families and babies. Mothers had brought their little ones out to the gates to greet relatives, or for a final cuddle with one who was departing. They were beautiful, cherry-cheeked Chinese babies with wild mops of jet-black hair and smiley mischievous eyes.

  I looked at the flight board. For one thousand dollars I could go home. I sent Cass a message – I’m lost.

  It was early in the morning in Melbourne. She’d probably be in class.

  What did I have to go back to? At least in Hong Kong I had a house and job. After three hours of airport meditation I’d had enou
gh. I peeled myself off the plastic seat and took the train back to my flat in the Mid-Levels.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  The flat was empty when I opened the door. I went to my room and flopped on the bed.

  Sitting on my bedside table was a parcel from Cass. The sight of her handwriting caused a pang of loneliness. My chin trembled. Perhaps I should have gone home, I thought. My phone had fallen silent after almost two days of not charging the battery, so I plugged it in. The screen glowed. There was a missed call from an unknown number. A lot of my numbers were coming up without the contact’s name because the international code confused my phone’s memory. But this number ended in 808, and I couldn’t think of anyone I knew whose number ended in something as distinctively lucky as 808.

  I tore open Cass’s parcel. Inside was a hand written letter, two jars of vegemite and a stack of home-made chocolate chip biscuits she’d carefully wrapped, but which had crumbled into sweet dust anyway. I unfolded the wrapping and ate them crumb by crumb, sucking biscuit rubble from the pads of my fingers as I read her letter. She gushed about Adnan. He wanted to be a poet but managed a shop to pay the bills. It was one of those funky inner city places that was part-cafe, part-bookstore, and Cass was spending most of her days sitting at one of his tables, reading and slowly pickling her liver with espresso martinis.

  I crawled into bed and read it again.

  I fell asleep and woke to find Cass’s crumpled letter stuck to my check and half the description of Adnan’s beautiful body tattooed to my face.

  I dragged myself to Delifrance where I consoled myself with a chocolate croissant. When that didn’t work I ordered a second one. I was halfway through it when my phone rang again. A number ending in 808 flashed up. My mouth was full of pastry and chocolate so I ignored it. Two minutes later the same number lit it up for a second time. The phone danced around on the table top insisting that I pick it up. I swallowed the last of my breakfast and put the phone to my ear.

  ‘Hello?’ My voice sounded cottony through the half-chewed pastry.

  ‘Violet?’