Broken (13 page)

“Roll up your sleeves”, I tell her. “That looks like a nice jumper.”

She rolls her sleeves up. “You know I know absolutely nothing about bikes beyond how to ride them.”

“I can see that”, I say, cheekily. “When was the last time you took this for a spin?”

Jo picks up a spanner from the tool box, just to have something in her hand. I’ve noticed this about her. She’s fidgety. She struggles to remain empty handled, not fiddle with something if there is something close by that can be fiddled with. I watch her turn it over in her hands, gauge it, assimilate the information it gives her. After a while, she puts it back into the box.

“Ages”, she says to answer my question. “I can’t even remember.”

I take it apart as much as I can, explaining to Jo what each piece is called, what function it has, whether it’s broken or not, and how it can be fixed. The right brake cable is snapped and will need replacing by someone with a little bit more expertise than I have, but everything else looks in fairly good shape, even if it’s covered in more dirt than I’ve seen in a while. We take the wheels off, take the chain out, clean the cogs and pump the tires up. We talk about her family, her job, her apartment, Alice, medication, therapy and relationships.

“Do you think you ever will?” she asks me, an old toothbrush working the oil out from between the gear ratios. When I don’t respond straight away she looks up to me.

“You know, Alice would have never done this with me”, I say. “We were quite different people when it came down to it.”

“That’s not the question I asked”, Jo says.

I watch her wipe her hand across her face and drag grease along with it. When she sees me looking, she smiles.

“What?”

“You’ve got oil on your face”, I say. “It kind of looks cute.”

“Is that right?” Jo asks.

I nod. “Uhuh. Sort of across your cheek. A little bit on your nose. The corner of your forehead near your hairline.”

I point it all out for her, my hand moving languidly in her direction.

“Huh”, Jo says and then, “You know, you’ve got oil
all
over your forehead. I didn’t want to say, but it’s like you’ve just had a mud bath.”

My hand goes instinctively to my face, but when I take a look at the back of my hand where I’ve tried to rub it off, it’s clean.

“Come here”, Jo says. “I’ll rub it off for you.”

I can see the dirty rag in her hand and I know her game already. The moment I let her near me, she’s going to cover me in oil just to get her own back for me laughing at her. I pretend I’m being compliant, hide the rag I’ve been using to clean behind my back and move the short distance across the newspaper towards her.

When I get there, it’s clear that we both know what we are planning to do. We smile, unable to hide the excitement of the potential surprise. We are kneeling in front of each other, both raised off the ground a little, both with our hands behind our backs.

“Go on”, I say. “I thought you were going to-.”

“Show me your hands”, Jo says, cutting me off before I’ve finished speaking.

I show her a hand at a time, passes the rag between them behind my back to keep it concealed. She shuffles a little closer to me when I’m done, readying herself for what I expect to be a quick lunge to cover me in whatever grease she’s managed to cover her rag in.

“Close your eyes”, she says, in a way that makes me think she’s just thought of it. “I don’t want to get soap in them.”

We’ve not been this close before, and although we’re not touching each other, we are close enough to do so. You know when you’re next to a stranger, or someone you like, and your legs or your arms are touching, you get that kind of jumpy sensation in that part of the body, as though just being aware of the connection means you somehow can’t help it from moving. I have that now, in my knees and the tips of my fingers.

It’s like we are playing the kind of game you’d encounter at a children’s birthday party, and we’re both waiting for the music to end or a sign from a parent to tell us to go.

“Ok”, I say unsure of how to get out of it, “but don’t be too rough with the sponge, I’ve got sensitive skin.”

I sort of squint up my face, but keep my eyes just about open. I play around so it’s obvious I know something is coming, opening one, closing it again, opening the other. Jo laughs. I steal the moment and quickly drag the dirty corner of my rag across the tip of her nose, my hand back behind my back so quickly she hardly has time to respond. She looks at me, touches her finger to her nose and then looks at the oil on the tip of it. When she looks back up to me, we are both smiling.

“Ok”, Jo says. “If that’s how you want to play it. I was just going to help you out and clean the oil from your face-.”

While she’s saying this, I watch her reveal the rag she is holding, and run it casually across the as yet uncleaned chain.

“What are you going to do with that?” I ask rhetorically.

“With this?” she asks innocently, the rag held up to show me. “I was just going to carry on cleaning, you know, until you decided to change this into something else.”

Her movements are deliberate and precise. I watch her fold the rag carefully with the oil on once side, gather it between her fingers, shift her weight towards me and prepare herself to strike. We are both trying not to smile, but it’s proving difficult.

“You know, I only did that because I thought-.”

I don’t have a chance to finish the sentence, before her hand is out quickly to draw the dirty rag across my cheek. Jo settles back onto her heels, her smile impossible to hide now. I run my fingers through the streak of oil on my cheek, look at the grease deliberately, and rub it together between my fingers, as though I’m trying to make sure it’s real.

“Huh”, I say. “If that’s how-.”

She cuts me off again, this time the rag making contact with my other cheek, in a slow swipe that takes in my nose and one of my eyebrows. She does it at a pace that would be easy to stop, or avoid altogether, but doing that wouldn’t be part of the game. When she’s done, she’s shaking her head and trying unsuccessfully not to laugh.

“Something funny?” I ask. “Do I have something on my face?”

Jo is going a little red. “No”, she says, her laugh swallowing the words.

I clear my throat. “You know”, I say, choosing the dirtiest part of the bike to grease up my rag.

“Oh no”, Jo says, butting in. “That’s not fair.”

I ignore her and continue, “There’s a lot of grease on this bike. This could go on for-.”

I try and catch her by surprise, but she sees it coming from a mile off, grabs my arm by the wrist and kind of pulls it away. We tussle for a little while in the air, before we both lose balance and end up sort of lying together next to each other on the floor, rags held prone and arms tangled.

The more we push each other away, the closer our faces get to each other, and it kind of happens before I’m able to stop it.

We kiss. First of all we do it lightly, our lips barely brushing together, and then again, much more passionately. Finally, we come to our senses, push each other away and stand up, each one going to a different side of the room.

“Shit, fuck, shit”, I find myself saying. “Fuck, Jo, I’m sorry. Fuck.”

I wonder if I’m apologizing to the wrong person, when my mind instantly goes to Alice.

“Lets just pretend that didn’t happen, OK?” I say, not even sure if I mean it.

Jo still hasn’t said anything. She’s turning the rag over in her hand and biting her lower lip. Mine are still tingling and I try and wipe the stolen kiss away with the back of my hand. Seconds pass, that could be whole minutes. Neither of us knows what to say. The bike sits there between us like a morbid reminder of a parallel universe we now have no chance of returning to.

Then come those famous, recognizable words. “I think you better leave.”

7
February 2016. One hundred and thirty three days after.

I haven’t seen Ethan since it happened. I don’t know how to approach it at all, so like every other problem I’ve ever had in my life, I sweep it under the carpet in the hope that blind ignorance will make it go away. The problem with this is that I know from experience that this is easily the worst thing to do, and much more importantly than that, I miss him not being around.

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.

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.”