At First Sight

by Hannah Sunderland

  ‘Then I guess it’s not meant to be.’

  I pushed myself up off the bed and slipped my feet into the pumps that lay on the floor.

  ‘Where are you going?’ he asked.

  ‘There’s something I need to do. It’s all well and good being the counsellor, but right now, I need to listen to my own advice. You know, practise what you preach and all that.’ I pulled on my coat from the hook behind the door and grabbed my phone from the bed, sliding the promise ring back onto my finger.

  ‘Let me walk you – it’s dark.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I’m not going far,’ I said. ‘I need to do this on my own.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’ he asked, flinging back the duvet and letting one leg fall to the floor.

  ‘Set the bird free.’

  Joel was already there when I arrived, sitting with hunched shoulders on the bench outside the park. In the daylight, this small patch of grass was beautiful, with beds of yolk yellow daffodils and violet crocuses that never seemed to stay for long enough. But in the dark the flowers were all in shadow, their colour lost in the night. The only light came from the dim street lamp a few metres away. He hadn’t seen me yet, his eyes downturned to the phone in his hands, his face illuminated by the dimmed screen.

  When I was a few paces away, he looked up and stood.

  ‘Nell.’ He grinned, leaning in and planting a kiss worryingly close to my lips. He lingered there for a moment longer than was necessary and I felt a slight shudder run through me.

  ‘Thanks for coming. Sorry I called so late.’ I pulled away from him and sat down on the bench. Joel retook his seat and angled his knees towards me.

  ‘You know I’m a night owl, Nell,’ he said, placing his hand on my leg. I thought how different it felt to have Joel’s hand there, where Charlie’s had been less than half an hour earlier. ‘It’s nice to see that back on your finger.’ He said, taking my hand and moving the ring around with his thumb. ‘Back where it belongs.’

  ‘Joel.’ I slid my hand from his and braced myself for the words that needed saying, but how could I even start to say them? ‘I can—’

  ‘I still can’t believe you got on a plane. You must have been scared on the flight back, huh? How was it, flying alone?’

  ‘I … I didn’t fly alone. Charlie was with me.’

  Joel frowned. ‘But I thought he went home.’

  ‘He did, but not for good,’ I replied, feeling stifled and overwhelmed. ‘We went to a funeral, that’s all.’

  ‘Nice.’ He scoffed. ‘That’s his idea of a date is it?’

  The first semblance of anger formed in my stomach, jittering in the heat of my stomach acid like a corn kernel ready to pop. ‘It was more of a memorial really, for his wife.’

  ‘Christ!’ He sighed. ‘How long have you known about this?’

  ‘A while.’ I sighed. For so many years Joel had been my confidant and so I didn’t even think twice before telling him the truth about how Charlie and I met. I told him about the café, about the clock tower, about my phone call with him and his call with Ned two years earlier. It wasn’t until I’d finished that I wondered if I should have told him or not.

  ‘Wow,’ is all he could say. ‘No wonder you haven’t been around much recently.’

  ‘Listen.’ I quickly changed the subject back to what I’d come here to say. ‘I realised something tonight that I’m ashamed to say that I haven’t really thought about enough before.’

  ‘And what’s that?’ he asked, his tone and body language hopeful.

  ‘My whole life, I’ve settled for the time and attention that people felt like giving me. Mum coming back when she had free time, calling me when she felt like it. Popping in and out of my life whenever was convenient and the same can be said about when we were together.’

  ‘I’m not sure I understand,’ Joel replied, his brow deeply furrowed.

  ‘We never went anywhere, did anything. You never felt like going out so I just accepted that and stayed in with you.’

  ‘But we spent that time together, even if it was just in that shitty flat.’

  ‘No, we didn’t. You’d always be anywhere other than in the room with me. On your PlayStation with that stupid headset on or with your nose in your computer or phone. Paying attention to anything that wasn’t me.’ I took a breath and steadied myself before carrying on. ‘Being with you was like catching smoke in my hand. I thought I had you, but when I opened my fingers, you weren’t there. Tonight, I told my mum how much it has hurt over the years to think I had her, convincing myself that she was finally going to choose me and each and every time, watching her walk away. That’s exactly what I’ve been doing to you these past six months. I haven’t been fair to you.’

  ‘Hey, I wasn’t complaining.’ His eyes were strained, almost fearful.

  I looked down at my hands and squeezed my eyes shut, the image of Charlie sitting at home in my bed falling into my brain and making my heart ache. ‘I understand now how much it hurts, to love someone and to know that they can’t love you back. So …’ I took his hand, turned it over, slipped the ring from my finger and placed it in his palm. ‘I need to give this back to you. Because we’re not going to be together forever and I think that by me finally letting you go, you’ll be able to find the right person for that ring.’

  ‘Nell, please. Don’t,’ he begged, his face contorting into one I didn’t recognise. ‘Please. I love you.’

  ‘I know,’ I said, on the verge of tears. ‘And I’ll always love you too, in a way. But not in the way you need me to love you.’

  He looked down at the ring in his hand as if it were a death sentence, the black spot etched on his palm.

  ‘I’m sorry, Joel.’ I stood, feeling like I needed to leave before I changed my mind. Joel was not what I wanted, but he was easy, safe, familiar and right now, he was the life ring that I felt the need to lunge for. ‘I need to go now.’

  He was quiet for a moment before a spiteful chuckle left his lips and he looked up at me from under his lashes. ‘You’re kidding yourself with this Charlie.’

  ‘No, I’m not,’ I said.

  ‘You love him?’ he asked, silent tears glistening on his cheeks under the glow of the street lamp.

  I swallowed the lump in my throat. ‘Yes.’

  ‘But he doesn’t love you?’ I felt his words land like kicks in my solar plexus.

  ‘It’s not that he doesn’t and more that he won’t allow himself to. He’s still grieving.’

  ‘Good,’ he said, his tone cruel as he spat the words. ‘I hope that he’s the love of your life and then I hope he breaks your heart on a park bench and tells you that it’s what’s best for you.’

  Something had changed in his eyes. They’d turned cold, unrecognisable.

  ‘Goodbye, Joel,’ I said, turning away before he could see me cry.

  I swallowed the sobs that were about to burst from my throat and walked under the glow of the street lamp. It wasn’t until I was almost out of its beam that I felt something hit me in the back. I turned around as the ring clattered to the pavement and the place where it had hit me began to sing with a gentle sting. I looked back to see him standing on the other side of circle of light, his arms hanging limply at his sides. I was about to bend down to pick up the ring when he spoke again.

  ‘Leave it in the gutter. It’s where it belongs now.’ And with that, he turned and walked out of the light and into the shadow. I looked at it, glowing orange in the light and then turned and walked away from it. Maybe someone else would find it and love it. Maybe it would mean something more to them than it ever had done to me and not carry the pain with it that it carried for Joel. I was giving Joel and myself a second chance. The ring deserved that too.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  The next morning, I woke with that heavy, stinging feeling in my eyes that always comes after a night of crying. My head throbbed as if I’d necked two bottles of vodka and if that wasn’t enough to start the day off bad
ly, I then reached out a hand to find the space beside me empty.

  I got up, donned my dressing gown and went down to the kitchen, pausing to endure a scarring mental flashback just before I went through the door. Ned was sat at the dining room table, trying very hard not to look up from his magazine as I walked over to the draining board, took a mug and sat down, not in my usual chair beside him, but opposite. I poured myself a coffee from the cafetière and held it between both hands on the tabletop.

  ‘Where are the others?’ I asked.

  He stopped reading an article about Elizabeth I’s spy network and looked up at me sheepishly, not quite making eye contact, but instead looking just to my left. ‘They went on a bonding trip to get some food for dinner. Charlie’s making lasagne.’

  ‘What a happy little family we make,’ I said sarcastically. ‘Do tell me when you want me to start calling you Dad, won’t you?’

  He sighed and pushed his magazine to the side. ‘Look, Nell. Both of us thought very long and hard about acting on any feelings that we had.’

  I held up a hand in disgust. ‘Please refrain from using words like long and hard. I’m not sure if it’s even possible for us to stay friends after seeing your … thingy.’

  ‘Come on, Nell, it’s only a penis.’

  ‘Yes, but it was your penis. Ergo my distress.’

  ‘Penises aside,’ he said, frowning a little at his own words, ‘I am with you till the end. You are the best, strangest friend I have ever had and nothing is going to tear us apart, not even what you saw last night. Me and your mother have had these feelings for a while now and as I said, we thought long an—’

  ‘Ah!’ I shouted and covered my ears.

  ‘Sorry, sorry. We thought very seriously about how to handle them. But in the end, I really like her and just because you’re freaking out, doesn’t mean I’m not going to see where this goes. I am a man and your mother is an incredibly attractive woman, the likes of which a man can only dream of being with.’

  ‘Oh, sweet Jesus, please stop,’ I begged. ‘Look, if you and Mum want to date, or whatever it is you two are doing, then that’s fine. I just don’t want to see it, okay?’

  ‘Deal,’ he said reaching over the table with an outstretched hand. ‘Does this mean we’re friends again?’

  ‘Hmmm.’ I pondered. ‘We shall see.’

  A knock came at the front door and I stood, eager to get away from the conversation and the table, which I was pretty sure I was going to have to take out in the garden and set on fire, and made my way to let the weary shoppers in. But when I opened the door, I wasn’t met with the faces I was expecting.

  ‘Rachel?’ Joel’s mother stood in front of me with a worried look on her face. ‘Is everything okay?’

  ‘Nell, is Joel here?’ she asked, her eyes darting over my shoulder to see if he was behind me.

  ‘No,’ I replied. ‘Why?’

  ‘He left the house last night to come and see you, but he never came home. It’s not like him to not answer his phone when I call him. I just thought he might be here, seeing as you’ve been spending time together again recently.’

  I saw a flicker of hope in her eyes and the guilt bubbled in my stomach.

  ‘He didn’t come back here with me. We met on a bench by the park and had an argument, but I came home alone.’

  She raised a hand to her mouth and whimpered into it.

  ‘You don’t think something happened to him, do you?’

  ‘I just have a bad feeling,’ she said, her eyes moistening with worried tears. My mind was drawn back to that time spent searching the streets for Charlie back in Ireland. The unbridled panic that nothing other than finding him would cure. ‘Come in. Would you like some tea?’

  She nodded and walked through to the kitchen where Ned was already putting a fresh kettle on.

  I called around to some of our mutual friends, mostly people I hadn’t talked to since we split up, but whom Joel might have gone to for advice. None of them had seen him and every dead end caused another whimper to escape Rachel’s mouth. Charlie and Mum arrived home shortly after I finished making the calls. I rang the hospital to see if he was there, also asking if they had any unidentified people, but all were accounted for. I kept saying that I was sure he was fine, but something about the look in his mother’s eyes made me unsure.

  ‘He’s been so distant these past few weeks. But I knew that it was all going to be okay because you two were getting back together.’

  I frowned and looked to Charlie and Ned who were just as puzzled as I was. ‘Did he tell you that?’ I asked.

  She nodded. ‘He said how you two were reconciling and that you just had to end things with someone else before you could get back together, so that you didn’t hurt anyone. He was so excited, looking for flats and boxing up his things.’ She reached over and placed her hand on mine, a warm smile on her face. ‘And after everything he’d been through this year, it made me so happy to know that at least everything was right with the two of you.’

  ‘Rachel, we’re not getting back together. We never have been. He knew that,’ I said, suddenly a lot more worried. ‘The boxes were him bringing my stuff back to me.’

  ‘Oh. That’s not what he told me,’ she said wringing her fingers. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘I’m sure. What did you mean when you said with everything that had happened this year?’

  ‘With him having to shut his business down and that company that caused all that trouble, threatening that lawsuit because of those details that got out. It’s all to do with that GPDR stuff.’

  ‘What, a lawsuit?’ I asked, realising that I had only been seeing the tip of the proverbial iceberg with Joel.

  ‘Oh yes, it’s been awful. But, dear, I thought you knew.’

  It was three before Rachel left. She said she was going to go out and have a look round for him. I promised her I’d do the same and call her if I found him.

  ‘This is nothing to do with you,’ Ned said in the hallway as I closed the door. ‘With the things he did and said, throwing that ring at you.’ He tutted.

  ‘He threw something at you?’ Charlie asked, becoming imbued with a sense of masculine protectiveness.

  I ignored them both and grabbed my coat and Mum followed me out the front door. We looked for a good while before returning home with nothing to show for it.

  We were all sitting in the kitchen, nervous energy forcing us to open a bottle of wine as Charlie’s lasagne browned beneath the grill, when my phone rang. It was Rachel.

  I picked up and held the phone to my ear. ‘Hey, Rachel, did he show up?’

  ‘Nell,’ she sobbed.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked, standing and putting everyone in the room on high alert.

  ‘I just got in.’

  ‘You only just got in? Rachel, it’s almost seven o’clock.’

  ‘I know, but I couldn’t just go home and wait for him,’ she cried.

  ‘And there was no sign of him?’

  ‘I just went into his room to check it over again and I found a letter on his bed. He must have come home while I was out.’ Her voice was broken, distraught.

  ‘What did the letter say?’ At this, Charlie stood too.

  ‘I’ve already called the police, Nell. They’re sending a car out to look for him.’

  ‘What did the note say?’ I probed.

  I heard the sound of crinkling paper and then she began to read. ‘Mum, I’m sorry for leaving you. I don’t think that anyone other than you will miss me much. Everything I’ve done with my life so far has failed and I know that I am a financial and emotional burden on you. I thought I saw a way out of it, but I was wrong.

  ‘Please tell Nell that I am sorry and that I love her. Always have, always will.

  ‘I love you Mum. I’ll say hi to Dad for you.

  ‘Joel.’

  ‘Oh my God.’ I held my hand to my eyes. This was because of what I’d said last night, wasn’t it? I put the idea in his head when I was tal
king about Charlie.

  ‘Nell, I can’t lose my boy too.’

  It was me who put the idea in his head.

  ‘Rachel, I think I might know where he is. I’ll call you when I’m there.’ I hung up the phone and without a word to the others I made for the door.

  They called after me but I ignored them, not bothering to put on a coat and just running outside, Charlie on my heels.

  ‘Nell, where is he?’ he asked.

  ‘The clock tower,’ I said, breathlessly. ‘He’s at the clock tower.’

  Neither of us spoke a word; we just put our heads down and ran. The air was freezing but my skin was hot with anxiety. Charlie was faster than me and so he ploughed on, travelling further ahead but never leaving me too far behind.

  When we got there, the window to the fire escape was smashed, a large rock lying beside it.

  I dialled Rachel’s number as we both took the stairs two at a time. She answered almost immediately.

  ‘Rachel, I think I’ve found him. Call the police and tell them he’s at the town hall. He’s on top of the clock tower.’ I hung up and grabbed the handrail, pulling myself up faster. Charlie got to the top before me and ran out onto the tower before I even made it to the top step. I heard Charlie’s muffled words and I knew that we’d found him. I came to a standstill as I walked through the door. The image of Joel standing on the ledge made my stomach turn.

  ‘I should have known. Wherever she goes, you go too,’ Joel said, his eyes red and his mouth pinched in a snarl as he looked over his shoulder at me.

  ‘Joel, please, don’t do this,’ I begged.

  ‘As if you’d care.’ His face crumpled and he let out a sob. ‘You don’t love me anymore; you said so yourself.’

  ‘Of course I care, Joel.’

  ‘Hey,’ Charlie said, stepping forward, his hands outstretched to let Joel know that he wasn’t going to come too near. ‘I know that I’m probably the last person yer want t’see right now, but I’m probably the only person who knows exactly what yer goin’ through here. Yer see, I was standin’ exactly where you’re stood, literally right there, and not too long ago either.’ Joel was looking at him as if every single thing about him was repulsive and he took a micro step back towards the edge. ‘I wanted everythin’ to stop, I felt like nothin’ was worth the struggle anymore and that things were never gonna go my way again. I’d lost the love of my life and I knew that she was never coming back to me.’ His own voice broke a little and I thought that he might cry, but he held it together. ‘I still feel that pain now. But if I’d gone through with it and stepped off that ledge, then I never would have known what was comin’ next. How much better my life would be.’