Fighting Absolution

by Kate McCarthy

  I nod. Then he’s sliding in the car, the door closing behind him. The engine starts and he drives off. I watch him go and my chest aches. It aches so fucking much. He disappears down the street, brake lights red as he slows before turning the corner, the Hilux roaring as he accelerates away. Then he’s gone.

  The street becomes quiet. I hear the faint rustle of leaves in the trees, the breeze kicking up a little. It’s starting to get cool with the change of season. I rub my bare arms, knowing nothing will ever be the same between us again.

  Then, and only then, do the tears start to fall. Faster than I can wipe them away. I have never, never, felt more lost and confused than I do right now.

  34

  JAMIE

  Four weeks later …

  I roll over in my bed, punching my pillow. When did it become so annoyingly lumpy? I settle on my side and close my eyes with a huff, trying to clear my mind, but minutes later I feel it again. The phantom touch of Kyle’s arm sliding around my middle. His palm is heavy and hot on my belly, and it slides down, skimming beneath my underwear, sliding between my legs. The pads of his fingers feel rough but his touch is gentle. His warm breath tickles the back of my neck, so real I shiver, alone in my bed, squirming at the raging ache he leaves behind.

  A loud crack renders the air, thunder causing the earth to shake beneath my bed as if Mother Nature understands my frustration.

  It’s still early—around seven o’clock on a Friday evening—but I’m tired. I need sleep so bad my bones ache, but it won’t come. I rip the quilt away and scoot off the mattress. I need a pill, that’s what I need. The road trip put me off my routine. Once I settle back into my normal sleeping pattern, everything will be fine.

  I pad towards the tiny kitchen of my little open-plan unit, bypassing the breakfast table where my re-enlistment papers sit, complete but not yet signed. My eyes fall to the box beside them, and my stomach dips like I’m on the downhill slide of a rollercoaster.

  It’s taunted me for an entire week, sitting inside its brown package with expectation. The thing is, I’m late. I knew taking the morning after pill would delay my period, but not for this long. It’s been easier to bury my head in the sand rather than face reality, but I’m not sure I can put it off any longer. The not knowing is turning me into a basket case.

  My phone beeps as rain pelts hard against my windows. I peek through the blinds. It’s a heavy downpour, the rain coming in sideways. I flick the blind back in place and check my phone. It’s from Connor. He has a unit on base too.

  Connor: Party. My place. Beers and board games.

  Jamie: Pass.

  Connor: Don’t make me come drag you.

  Jamie: I have a gun and a black belt.

  Connor: Good point.

  I also have an appointment with a pregnancy test. But instead of taking it, I sit down at the table, staring at my papers. Just sign them, Jamie. The test will be negative and you can move on with your life.

  But what if it’s not?

  Then it’s not a big deal, I tell myself. These things happen all the time and they get taken care of, right? Easy. A small procedure. I’m strong enough to know I can handle it, so why has a hollow ache taken up residence inside my stomach?

  Taking care of it would be the right thing to do, but the right thing isn’t all rainbows and unicorns, is it? It can feel real shitty too.

  I pick up the pen and I hesitate. I’m not that person. Maternal. Warm. Loving. I’m just not. I wouldn’t know the first thing about caring for someone other than myself.

  Taking a deep breath, I flip to the last page of my paperwork and I sign with a bigger than usual flourish. I future date the documents for tomorrow, when I’ll hand them in for lodgement, and I’m done. I set the pen down. The army owns me for at least another three years. I should be happy. That means three more years of treating the sick and injured. Three more years of saving lives. So why is that hollow feeling stretching ahead of me like a dark, empty void?

  Fuck’s sake. Take the damn test already, Jamie.

  I push the paperwork aside and snatch up the box. I take it, along with my phone, to the bathroom.

  I set the box down on the bathroom vanity and send a message.

  Jamie: Taking the test.

  Erin: YES! I’m on standby.

  I broke down in a weak moment last week and called Erin, telling her what really happened on our road trip. She was drunk in the bathroom when she answered, slurping wine while she sat on the toilet. I told her because I wanted her reassurance that it wasn’t a big deal. It’s what I’ve been trying to tell myself every time I start to hyperventilate, but maybe it would help hearing it from someone else.

  “I’m not actually doing my business right now,” she said, slurring slightly. “I came in here to pee and stayed for the peace. Colin started on the renovations for the kitchen today and between the banging and crashing and the pile of rubble on the floor, I thought my best option was to just stay in here and drink.”

  “Well it’s a good thing you’re sitting down,” I replied, coming straight out with it. “Because I think I might be pregnant.” Stunned silence followed, the kind that made me rush to fill it. “But likely not. I’m probably not. I’ve got a test here. I haven’t taken it. I should hang up and go do that. I don’t even know why I called you. I feel a bit stupid, actually.”

  More silence.

  “Erin? Are you there?”

  “Fark,” she slurred in dramatic fashion. “Give me a minute.” She had a thousand questions, I knew it. She was just wading through all of them, picking the best ones first. She began to fire them at me, one after the other, as if we were in the final round of a television game show. “Kyle?”

  “Who else?”

  “When?”

  “The last week of our road trip.”

  “How?”

  “What do you mean how? Insert tab A into slot B, you twat.”

  She kept going without pause at my insult. “Who touched who first?”

  “Really?” I rubbed a hand across my face, cringing as I paced along the short length of my kitchen. “That’s not what’s important here.”

  Her tone turned bossy. “Answer the question.”

  “He kissed me.” I walked to my bed and turned, flopping down. “I told him I didn’t know what I’d do without him and he kissed me.”

  “Oh my god.” Erin moaned vocally and then slurped another mouthful of wine. “That’s so hot. And so romantic I could actually die.”

  I huffed out a breath, somehow finding myself agreeing with her. “It was the best kiss of my life. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Does that make me horrible for saying that? Jake was amazing. We had a … thing. A wonderful thing. But there were no expectations. We barely knew each other. Our history was a one-night stand. Not like—” I broke off, not prepared to follow that train of thought. “Kyle is my best friend.”

  “Right. And would you kiss me the way you kissed Kyle?”

  I snorted. “Umm no, but you’re a girl, right?”

  “Okay. Would you kiss Colin the way you kissed Kyle?”

  I outright laughed. “Erin! It’s Wood.” I’m pretty sure I’d feel more attraction for a cabbage.

  “How long since you’ve spoken to him?”

  I hugged an arm around myself, the phone pressed hard to my ear, my stomach a queasy lump. “Not much of late, but we’ve both been busy.”

  “I see.”

  “You don’t see, though. He might have kissed me, but I’m the one who got drunk and slept with him. I did that. Deliberately. Because I wanted to know what it was like to be with him. Just once. Except once turned into more because I’m a greedy bitch who doesn’t know when to stop. It’s like when you buy yourself a giant wheel of cheese and think you’ll just have one piece. Only you realise that piece tastes amazing and makes you feel good inside, so you have another, and another, and then you realise you’ve almost finished off the whole wheel and you start to feel sick to the stom
ach and not just because you’re a goddamn guts. Erin, I think—” I broke off, needing to catch my breath. “I crossed a line I shouldn’t have and nothing is the same between us anymore.”

  “You know what I think?”

  “What?” I asked, holding tight to my phone as I eagerly awaited her advice. I needed her to tell me what to do. I needed moral guidance to set me on the right path. Some gleaming pearls of wisdom to fix everything I broke.

  She slurped at her wine before she imparted it. “I think you should keep on eating that cheese.”

  “Erin! Not helping.”

  “Okay, I keep forgetting my opinion is only valid as long as it aligns with yours.”

  “Don’t get bitchy.”

  “Then stop being stupid.”

  “I’m not stupid. I just don’t have my head in the clouds the way you do all the time. I’m a realist. Sue me.”

  “Fine. Okay. Just forget what happened. Think platonic thoughts.”

  “Platonic thoughts. Right.” I nodded. “I can do that. Like the time Kyle tripped me up on the skywalk because I was moving too slow. Or how he threw pine cones at my head because I wouldn’t put my book down and go swimming with him. Or the time he dared me to eat a green chilli because I was dumb enough to tell him the salsa he made wasn’t spicy enough.”

  “Did you eat it?”

  “Do you even know me? Of course I ate it. Kyle had to hold my hair back while I barfed into the shrubs, bringing it right back up. FYI, it burned just as much coming back up as it did going down. I thought I was going to die.”

  “Kyle did that? He held your hair back while you barfed all over yourself like the foolish, competitive dick you are?” She literally sighed after insulting me and sipped more of her wine, smacking her lips. “He saw you at your worst, and he still kissed you. Not sure that’s platonic. Come to think of it, he probably tripped you on the skywalk by accident because he was staring at your ass. And the whole pine cone thing? He wanted your attention, and he was willing to face your wrath to get it. You need to work a little harder on this.”

  “Okay. He laughed when I fell off the jetty and into the water.”

  “Did he jump in after you?”

  “No,” I replied, indignant. “He just laughed harder and took a photo.”

  “Doesn’t count. I’d do that if it were Colin. What else?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Because you can’t think of a single platonic moment.” The triumph in her tone sounded a little too giddy, like she wanted this. “Tell me something about Kyle you like.”

  “How will that help? Won’t it just make everything worse?”

  “We need to get to the bottom of what you’re feeling. It might help shed some light on the situation.”

  “There is no situation. And it doesn’t matter what I feel, does it? Because there’s no way that—”

  “Oh my god,” she snapped. “A potential pregnancy is not a situation?”

  “What is going on in here?” I heard Wood say, his voice faint. “I can hear you all the way from the kitchen. With my drill going.”

  “Jamie might be pregnant,” Erin replied.

  “Erin!” I snapped.

  “What?” Wood sounded like he was being strangled.

  “Do you mind, Colin?” she said to him. “I’m on the toilet.” I heard the sound of a door banging shut before Erin yelled, “Bring more wine!”

  “Why would you say that?”

  “I’m drunk, Jamie. You can’t hold me accountable for what I say. Now where were we?” I heard a tapping sound, like fingernails clacking against a bathroom vanity. She was having far too much fun with this. “Oh … We were talking about what you like about Kyle.”

  “No, we were not.”

  “Don’t make me book a flight. I will come there, and we can have this conversation in person,” she warned, and she would do it. Erin didn’t deal in empty threats.

  “He’s …” I trailed off. “This feels stupid.”

  “Just do it.”

  “Okay.” I closed my eyes, picturing Kyle. He was grinning at me. It was smug, and familiar, and heartbreakingly cute. “I like his smile.”

  “Lame answer, but okay. What else?”

  “He’s photogenic.”

  “Really? I feel like you’re not taking this seriously.”

  “I am. I’m just not good at expressing what I’m feeling.”

  I took so many photos on our holiday. Kyle is in almost all of them without him even knowing. He’s a little rough around the edges, flawed in a million perfect ways, scarred, and yet so incredibly handsome and compelling at the same time. He has this beautiful light in his eyes and a smile that pulls at something inside me, making it hard to look away. And every night I try falling asleep, I find myself looking at all the images, getting stuck on my favourite one from our stop in Broome.

  We were walking along the water’s edge, barefoot on the sand, and I stopped to take a photo of the sunset over the turquoise water. Kyle stopped with me and I got him in profile, the panorama blurring behind him, bringing him into focus. There was a quiet strength inside him as he looked out past the crashing waves. The kind that said he’d seen the ugly side of life, and experienced the absolute worst of humanity, but he didn’t let it break him.

  How was I supposed to articulate all that without sounding like a complete fool?

  I set the memory of mine and Erin’s conversation aside and focus on taking the pregnancy test. I don’t bother with the instructions inside the box. I know how pregnancy tests work. I’ve even read textbooks on all the symptoms, and I have none of them. No tender breasts. No morning sickness. No weird cravings or crazy mood swings. I’m just a little late. And tired. But when is that abnormal?

  I finish peeing on the little white stick and set it on the counter. I’m washing my hands at the basin when a loud bang comes at my front door. I jolt, knocking the stick sideways. It flies off the bathroom vanity and smacks into the wall before dropping itself inside the little trash bin I keep beside the toilet.

  “Huh.” It feels like a sign.

  The knock comes again, a fist rapping hard, and someone calls out my name. Who the hell? It’s probably Connor, come to make good on his threat. I toss my phone on the bed, braless and dressed in a thin white tank top and pink cotton knickers.

  “I’m not home!” I yell and grab my robe, sliding my arms inside the sleeves as I walk to the door, tying it at the waist. I flick on the outside light and unlock the deadbolt, swinging the door wide with an irritated scowl, hoping it will scare Connor off.

  Kyle

  You big stupid idiot, I curse to myself, standing at Jamie’s door, rain pelting me in the back and legs. It runs down my face, plastering the hair to my head as I raise my fist and bang again on the door. Impatient. Edgy. My need for her palpable. I feel it in the breath pushing past my lips. The pulsing in my blood. The burning of my eyes and the racing of my heart.

  I told myself I could handle this as I drove off, leaving her at Wood and Erin’s. I could forget about being in love. The feeling would fade with time and distance. I busied myself with unpacking all the camping gear, cleaning it all off, and putting it back in storage. I returned the Hilux to the hire company, and I buried myself in work and training until I fell into bed each night, exhausted and yet somehow wide awake, staring at the ceiling.

  I tried reading books, listening to podcasts about fishing, and harassing Ryan and Fin into letting me babysit Jacob. I turned up with bags of baby clothes, fur-lined jackets for the winter, and tiny Nikes for when he takes his first steps. I even showed up with a giant box of Lego.

  “Choking hazard,” Ryan said to me, though he let me inside.

  I made my way down the hall to the kitchen where Fin was sprinkling cheese over a pan of lasagne, a glass of red wine in her left hand. “The Lego is for me, asshole,” I griped, going straight for the fridge, cold air gushing outward when I opened the door, the Lego box tucked beneath my armpit.
“Hey, Fin.”

  “Kyle.”

  “And you’re how old?” Ryan asked.

  “This old,” I said, giving him the middle finger before coming out with two chilled bottles.

  Fin gave him a look and he gave one back, both of them having a conversation with their eyes that all couples had when they were nauseatingly close. It made me want to kick something. They may as well just dump me inside a cannon and launch me into outer space. At least then I could justify the loneliness.

  I growled something and shoved one of the bottles at Ryan before moving to the living area with my beer, setting my Lego box down on the coffee table beside a teething ring, a blue sippy cup, and a little potted plant.

  Ryan sighed, a deep, heavy sound before following me into the living area. He sank onto the couch, watching as I ripped open the box, spilling packages of Lego everywhere. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “No, I don’t.” My tone was snide, but I couldn’t seem to help it. I grabbed the thick instruction booklet and opened it to the first page. “I just want to build this goddamn Death Star and drink my beer.”

  His eyes dropped to the box, which clearly stated over four thousand pieces were bagged inside. “That will take at least twenty-four hours straight.”

  “Twelve. You’re helping me.”

  “I’m not even into Star Wars.”

  “Well we can’t all be losers like you.”

  “I’ve got a better idea.” Ryan got to his feet, jerking his head towards the French doors leading outside. “Follow me.”

  We headed out onto the back deck. I took a seat while Ryan opened the drawer of their little outdoor cooking unit. He grabbed out a lighter and a packet. Pulling two cigars free, he put one to his lips and handed me the other, flicking the lighter and holding the flame out towards me. The end glowed red as I puffed, drawing the smoke inward, letting it curl around my tongue before exhaling in a scented, satisfying cloud.

  Ryan lit his own and took the seat beside me, smoke a hazy cloud around him when he spoke. “You’re in love with her, aren’t you, you great big lump.”