Handle Me with Care (22 page)

‘Please don’t think I’m a bunny boiler, Evan, when I say that I saw a future with you from the night of our first date. My problem was that I had settled into a pattern of life on my own. I felt safe in my own cocoon, protecting myself again, from ever losing another man that I loved, and when you came along you upset the equilibrium I had found. You made me feel things I haven’t felt in a long time and part of me was scared. I kept telling myself not to let you slip away from me, and that’s why I came over to you that night with the cake. But when you told me your diagnosis, I didn’t have the strength to stand back and let it happen all over again. That’s why I ran. I was a coward and I’m sorry.’

When Evan’s hand lifted and covered her own, grasping it reassuringly, she realised this was the moment that would open the floodgates and let the tears flow; the moment when she realised her world hadn’t stopped when Riley had died. Her world had been on pause, and maybe she had finally found the play button again.

‘It wasn’t cowardly. After what you went through with Riley, I get it now.’

A tear popped out of the corner of Maddie’s eye and began its slow journey down her cheek, but Evan wiped it away with his thumb.

‘It wasn’t just about me getting hurt again though, Evan. I didn’t want you to have to hold me up as well as yourself. I didn’t want you to have to deal with an emotional wreck, a girl who constantly panics that she’s going to lose you.’

‘The doctors are pretty positive that I’ll be fine,’ he assured her. ‘Hell, even I’m positive that I’ll be fine, and believe me, it took a while for me to see that.’

She swiped a tear that had come from the other eye now as though racing the first one.

‘All the scans and all the tests tell us that the cancer hasn’t popped up anywhere else either,’ he said. ‘But it’s bloody scary. Cancer doesn’t discriminate. One minute it isn’t there, the next minute it is. You can do everything right – exercise, eat right, don’t smoke – and still it can get you.’

‘I’ve thought about you a lot recently,’ said Maddie. ‘I went up to Sydney for a weekend and saw my parents, and when I realised how much I’d pushed them away and how it made things so much worse for me, I hoped that you wouldn’t do the same.’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Evan, shuffling closer and looping an arm around her waist. ‘I tried to push everyone away, but they refused to let me: Jem, Holly, Ben, Jack. The lot of them. Persistent buggers, they were.’

‘I’m glad.’ She grinned. ‘Mum told me that Riley’s mum wants to get in touch with me.’

‘How do you feel about that?’

‘I haven’t seen her since Riley’s memorial. I’d probably be okay if our relationship had merely fizzled over the years, but it didn’t happen quite like that. Caitlin, his mum, said some pretty awful things to me at the memorial. She basically told me that I couldn’t be hurting as much as she was because she had lost a child. She told me that I’d move on, get over it and be happy again. She told me that I’d replace Riley someday.’

‘That must’ve been awful. Wait a minute. Don’t tell me that you believed it?’

‘I did for a long time. And I think that’s also why I panicked when you told me about the cancer. Part of me was scared to go through more pain of losing someone I cared about, the other part of me pushed away because I didn’t feel that I should be happy with someone else because it would prove Caitlin right.’

‘You know that’s nonsense though, don’t you?’

‘I do now, yes. It’s taken a long time, but I can finally hope those words were uttered under the influence of intense grief. She wants to see me apparently, has something to give to me.’

‘Oh.’

‘Exactly: “Oh.”’

‘And do you want to see her?’

Her voice went up an octave. ‘I’m angry with her, Evan. I don’t see why I should make it easy for her after the way she treated me.’ Her fists balled into little parcels of fury.

‘Okay, okay.’ He tightened the arm around her and his hand stroked the bare skin of her forearm. ‘I’m not saying you should forget everything that happened, but the point is that she’s reaching out to you now. I lost my dad when I was eight years old and it was incredibly painful. Mum dealt with it in her way, sometimes pretending she was divorced rather than widowed. Holly cried, a lot. Me, I cried in private and I used to go quiet at the strangest of times. Once I was playing cricket for school and the team were shrieking at me to run, but I was frozen on the spot. I’d spotted a dad in the crowd who was the spitting image of my dad and it got to me.’

Maddie leaned into him as they watched a jet ski take to the water.

‘Ever done that?’ Evan asked, nodding towards the sea.

She shook her head. ‘I don’t go on the water nearly enough anymore. Riley was always big into water sports and we rowed a few times, I tried water skiing, and now doughnuts of course.’ She grinned.

‘Do you mind me talking about him?’ She kept her head on Evan’s shoulder, their hands sandwiched together.

‘Not at all, he’s part of your past.’ They watched another jet ski join the first. ‘I think that different people deal with grief in different ways, Maddie. Grief is an individual journey. You’ll face yours in your way. Caitlin will face it in hers. There’s no one-size-fits-all and there’s no time limit.’

‘Are you sure you’re a primary school teacher and not a shrink?’ She lifted her head to look into his eyes, their faces closer now. The smell of the salt on his skin was intoxicating, and she couldn’t help it when her gaze drifted to the golden sand clinging to his tanned chest. He really was a beautiful man.

She pulled herself back to the moment. ‘For such a long time after Riley died, I couldn’t smile.’

‘Now I can’t imagine that.’ He tilted her chin upwards so that she had to face him again, and she couldn’t help but smile right on cue.

‘I felt as though I had no right to smile, because I felt guilty.’

His lips close, he asked, ‘Why?’

‘Because I didn’t feel like I should be happy. Riley was dead, gone, and he was everything to me. How do you pick up the pieces and carry on after that?’

‘People can, and do, every day, Maddie.’ This time he leant in and touched her lips with his own.

She closed her eyes and savoured the salt of the sea mixed with the warmth of the sun, and when she opened her eyes, he said, ‘I’m not saying it’s easy. What I’m saying is that you have to believe in the ability to move on before you ever can. Otherwise it’s just one step forwards and two steps back.’

She swallowed. The kiss had thrown her off course.

‘I tried counselling after it first happened,’ she said. ‘I talked to Ally non-stop and searched the web for support groups. I guess I was looking for a magical cure for my grief.’

‘Can I offer you a bit of advice?’

‘If I say no, will you keep quiet?’

‘Probably not,’ he teased. ‘Look, I know it’s not the same: you lost Riley; I just lost a ball.’ She appreciated the attempt at humour. ‘But Maddie, I think that with any major change in our lives you have to get on the emotional rollercoaster and take the ride. It’s a crazy ride and you don’t always know where it’ll take you.’

‘You should write a children’s book with that imagination.’

‘Don’t take the piss.’ He poked her gently in the ribs. ‘I think it’d be good to speak with Riley’s mum. I think it could help you to get some closure, you know?’

Her lips twisted as she thought. Nobody should ever have to lose a child, and she wondered whether becoming a mother one day would make her realise just how much pain Caitlin must have been in that day and still must be in now. She wondered how any mother had the strength to carry on after something like that.

‘I always fall apart around about the same time every year,’ said Maddie. ‘When the winter sets in come July, that’s when I remember. It’s not like I forget the rest of the year, but around this time it all becomes so real. There’s the smell of winter – the air that bites the minute I leave the apartment, even the warmth of my face buried in my scarf. The bleakness of winter became what I associated with the way I felt back then. This was the first time that Ally successfully persuaded me to go away somewhere, to try and get some distance.’

‘And has it worked?’

‘It was working until you showed up.’ She grinned, scraped her bottom lip with her top teeth and then remembered something he had said to her when they first stepped off the inflatable. ‘When you apologised for being a caveman, you said that you hated seeing me with Josh “again”. What did you mean?’

‘I saw you outside the fish and chip shop last night.’

She gasped and a hand flew to her lips. No wonder he had been so angry over by the doughnuts when he saw her with Josh.

‘I heard your laugh before I saw you. It got right under my skin.’

‘We’re just friends.’

‘I know that now.’ He rested his arms on the tops of his knees and looked out at the catamaran that had taken to the water.

Maddie reached up and ran a hand through his hair. It was still soft despite the salt from the sea, but it was dry now and she watched the sun catch the sprinkle of greys that hid amongst the dark.

‘What made me different from the other guys, Maddie?’

She pulled her hand back and fiddled with the shell that had fallen between them. ‘I knew you were different from the moment I saw you – even before our first date.’

He looked at her now.

‘It was when I saw you dancing with your niece, Ava, at Jem’s party. Her world stopped with you in it, and both of you were in this magical place where nobody else got a look in.’

‘She’s a pretty special little girl.’ He stood up and his mood seemed to shift down a gear when he pulled Maddie to her feet.

They stood watching each other, hands dangling by their sides, neither sure of whether to reach out for the other.

‘Do you want kids, Maddie?’

She looked up at him earnestly; it was no time to shy away from anything but the truth. ‘Yes, I do. Does that scare you?’

He didn’t answer.

‘I want a family, Evan. I’ve always wanted that traditional part of life. I can’t imagine a life without it.’

He stared at her, stroked her cheek with the back of his hand, but he wasn’t smiling.

‘What’s wrong? I didn’t scare you, did I?’

He softened. ‘No, no it’s nothing you’ve done wrong, I swear.’

‘Then what is it?’ He had that same look of apprehension that she knew she’d had on her own face that night at his apartment.

‘Maddie, I think I should go.’

‘Evan, I don’t understand. Why?’ She could feel her heart pounding, ready to sink like a helium balloon drained of all its gas. She moved towards him to close the gap, to reach out to him, but his body was rigid, his head a sudden weight on his shoulders. She hadn’t missed the watery sheen in his eyes, either, and she felt sick to the stomach.

Finally he spoke, but they weren’t words that Maddie wanted to hear.

‘I can’t give you what you want.’ He stepped forwards, bent down and kissed her on the lips, lingering as though trying to imprint the taste and feel of her on his mind forever. ‘You’ve been through enough. You deserve the world, Maddie, and you should never settle for anything less.’

‘Evan, you’re not making sense.’

His arms hung hopelessly by his sides, and he had a pained expression on his face. Right here on Catseye Beach they had both shared their pasts, their hopes for the future, and from the way Evan had looked into her eyes, Maddie had known they’d both found what they were looking for. What had changed so suddenly?

She wasn’t sure how they had missed the bruised sky that passed overhead. A few spots of rain served as a warning that the heavens weren’t far from opening, but Maddie didn’t move an inch when she felt a drop land on her eyelash and noticed another land on Evan’s cheek.

When he said goodbye and turned and walked away from her, a knot formed in her belly, growing more and more as he moved further and further away. And as she stood beneath the blackened clouds, hair in clumps around her face and rain dripping from her cheeks, she knew that he had gone, gone from her life.

Chapter Twenty-Six

As the minibus trundled its way up and down the hills towards the airport and the sun unleashed its full glare, it was as though the storms of yesterday had never happened.

‘You know what we should do next time?’ Ally asked.

‘What?’ Maddie assumed the smile that she had used so many times before to hide that anything was wrong. Last night she had hidden in a warm shower, cried all the tears she needed to before she faced the others for dinner and drinks on the balcony.

‘We should do lunch on Whitehaven Beach on those pristine white sands,’ said Ally.

Maddie nodded. ‘You’re on.’

‘Goodbye, palm trees,’ said Josh reluctantly when the minibus pulled up outside the airport.

Josh had corned Maddie when she emerged from the bathroom last night, handed her a large glass of red and told her that he was there if she needed to talk. He hadn’t told the others about their encounter with Evan, and Maddie thanked him for that. It was one of those situations that she wanted to work through in her own mind before she shared it with anyone else.

Once they were inside the airport, Maddie watched the luggage while Ally went off to see what they had in the shop, and the boys headed over to the café to buy pies and coffees to cure their hangovers.

‘I wouldn’t want to be stranded here for hours.’ Ally turned her nose up as she returned from the dinky shop in the one-roomed airport. ‘I was going to buy a book but they’ve got about five, all ridiculously expensive and all crap.’

‘I thought you’d brought your Kindle?’

‘I forgot. I can see it right there on my bed waiting to be shoved in my hand luggage.’

Maddie leafed through the remaining pages of her own book. ‘I’ve got less than fifty pages left of this one, so you can have it when I’m finished.’ She knew that it could take a while though, her mind preoccupied with Evan and what had happened yesterday. Last night she’d slept more soundly than she had expected, probably from the run back to the apartments, from the emotions of the day, but this morning her thoughts were all jumbled up again, screaming for attention.

Ally sidled up to her friend. ‘What’s going on, Maddie? You’ve been quiet ever since you came home from the beach yesterday.’

‘Nothing’s going on. I’ve had a lovely time, I’m just tired.’

Ally wasn’t convinced. ‘Are you thinking about Evan?’

‘What makes you say that?’ Her head whipped round to look at her friend.

‘No reason. So what happened with Josh, anyway? You two have spent a fair bit of time together this weekend: in the water, buying ice cream, at the fish and chip shop, riding the doughnuts.’

Maddie coloured at the thought of the doughnut ride.

‘Josh is just a friend, always will be.’ That she was sure of.

‘Josh is also gorgeous – don’t tell me you haven’t noticed.’

‘I had noticed.’ She smiled. ‘But I’m not feeling the thing.’

‘What thing?’

‘You know.’

‘No, I don’t.’

‘That giddy, head-over-heels feeling that you get when you like someone. You get goose pimples every time they accidentally brush past you, and even when you’re with them you just can’t get enough. Like you and Joel.’ Just like her and Evan yesterday until he left her so suddenly. It felt like payback for walking out of his apartment that night when she’d taken the boob cake to him.

When they boarded the plane, Maddie took the seat next to Josh. ‘Do you mind?’ she asked. ‘Ally wants to sit with Joel.’

‘No worries.’

She tightened the strap on the seatbelt and fastened it across her lap. She was glad that they could be friends, civilised. It could so easily have gone the other way.

‘Are you okay?’ he asked.

‘I’m fine, really.’

‘What’s that?’ Josh pointed to the trashy magazine perched on Maddie’s lap.

‘I swapped it with Ally for the book that I’ve just finished.’ She had pretended to finish it, anxious to avoid questions about the day before.

‘I doubt she’ll be reading a lot of your book with Joel sitting next to her.’ He nodded in their direction.

‘As long as they don’t
do it
on my book, I’ll be happy.’

People started to fidget as they were already past their departure time waiting for three remaining passengers, but then came the announcement that the cabin doors should be armed and the flight attendants passed through the cabin to check seatbelts, overhead lockers and prepare for their safety speeches.

Josh leaned closer to Maddie. ‘I’d hate to have to do the walk of shame past all the passengers tut-tutting because you’ve held up the flight.’

A flight attendant made her way down the aisle to show the guilty-as-charged latecomers to their seats.

‘Jeez, it’s a long walk of shame. You’d want to be sitting at the front wouldn’t you?’ said Josh.

Maddie couldn’t help but let a snigger escape. Josh’s arm rested against hers in the confines of economy class and as she looked up she met with the chocolate eyes of the first guilty passenger and her mouth fell open.

She knew that Josh had seen him too, but she noticed both men nod at one another as though they had a mutual understanding.

When Evan moved on past without stopping, Maddie almost reached for the paper bag in the seat pocket in front of her. The tumble drier of emotions churned over and over, and with it she fought the urge to be sick: sick that she had lost him and didn’t really know why, sick that she’d run away that night in the first place, sick that she hadn’t chased him yesterday at the beach and asked him to spell it out to her.

Josh’s hand squeezed her arm.

‘I’m fine, really.’ She closed her eyes as the plane taxied down the runway, and she was determined not to open them until they landed back in Melbourne.

*

Will and Simon had been on a total bender last night and waking them this morning was a nightmare. As a result they were late to the airport and could count themselves lucky that the plane hadn’t taken off without them.

But that had been nothing to the giant kick in the guts Evan had felt when he saw Maddie just now, and yesterday on the beach. Yesterday he’d been headed for a cool off in the surf after his run and spotted her – her hair blowing in the wind was a dead giveaway – waiting for a turn on the doughnuts. She was with the same guy whom he had seen her with outside the fish and chip shop and something inside him snapped. He hadn’t lost both balls; he was still man enough to fight for what he wanted, and what he wanted was Maddie. What he hadn’t accounted for was the story she shared with him on the beach, the story of Riley. He’d known that her boyfriend had died, but what he hadn’t known was how long she’d been carrying that grief around with her, how much it still affected her every day. And when she mentioned marriage, kids, the whole package, he realised that he had to walk away or risk hurting her all over again. She didn’t deserve that.

He sat rigid, his eyes glued to the back of her seat – probably the only advantage of being tall on an airplane was that he could see over other people – and his insides clenched when he spotted her slender wrist stretch up to adjust the overhead air vent and twizzle it her way. 

‘Can I interest you in a tea or coffee, sir?’ The flight attendant passed by Will and Simon, who both had their heads back, mouths wide open.

He shook his head. Without anyone to chat to he decided that the best thing would be to close his eyes firmly for the rest of the flight so that he couldn’t look in Maddie’s direction. He hoped that he wouldn’t hear the giggle that could warm him all the way through like a whiskey on a cold night, and he hoped that she would forgive him for this and move on.