How to Liv (28 page)

Assault?
 
My Joel isn’t violent, he’s gentle and sweet.

My Joel?
  I don’t even know who this guy is.

“Four years… for assault,” I repeated, once the words had sunk in.  My throat felt like it was closing in on me.  I felt as if I might throw up.  I couldn’t stop the tears from streaming down my face and I had trouble breathing.  The shock gave way to anger and I abruptly stood up.  Looking down on a pale and slightly shaky Joel, I yelled, “FOUR FRIGGEN YEARS!”  I started pacing.  “And you thought I had trouble letting
you
in!  Are you kidding me?  You never told me you were in fucking jail!  That’s no small secret Joel - that’s huge!”  I came to a stop in front of him and put my hands on my hips.  “You lied to me!”

“I didn’t really lie.”  He spoke with his head down.  He picked at the grass beside him.
“I just didn’t tell you.” 

“Seriously?
  That’s your defence?”

“I’m sorry.  I meant to tell you.  I was going to tell you about everything, I-”

“How do I know you’re not lying now?  You haven’t always told me the truth!  You weren’t exactly honest about Adam being your brother!”  He flinched and glanced at me quickly.  It felt good that my words were hurting him.  I wanted him to feel like me.  It was a low act, I knew that he had his reasons for telling me Adam was his brother.  It wasn’t really a lie because of the relationship they had.

No screw that!  He never even told me what those reasons were!

“You’ve never told me anything about your past!  You’ve been keeping me in the dark all along.”

“I’ve never
lied
to you.”  He spoke so quietly and I could see him withdrawing from me.  He looked small and resigned, sitting on the ground at my feet.  I felt sorry for him.  I desperately had the need to comfort him.  But I was hurting so bad I couldn’t let
him
see that.

“You promised no secrets.”  My voice was low and weak…
resigned
.

I stormed off toward the street.

“WHERE ARE YOU GOING?” Joel yelled.  I ignored him and kept walking.  “
LIV!
”

“Joel, don’t.”  I heard Raelene speak.  I turned to see that Joel was now standing with Raelene holding his bicep, stopping him from following me.  “Let me,” she said when I turned back toward the street.  Then she was running after me.  When she caught up I stopped.

“I don’t want to talk about it.  Can you please drive me home?”

“Sure.”  Her face looked pale. She took a couple of backward steps.  “I’ll go get my keys.”

I continued walking up the street until Raelene pulled her car alongside me.  I wordlessly got in.

“Sorry it took so long, I had to get a few cars moved so I could get out.  I was worried that I wasn’t going to be able to find you.”

I could feel her eyes on me and hear the concern in her voice, but I couldn’t look at her.  She took off from the curb.  She didn’t have the radio on and the silence was unbearable.  Even so, I couldn’t find the ability to speak.

When Raelene pulled up in my driveway I opened the door and mumbled
a thanks.

“Here,” she said, reaching behind the back of my seat, “I have your handbag.”

I grabbed it from her and nodded.  I hadn’t even thought about how I was going to enter my house without my keys. 
I guess I’ll get the rest of my stuff another time, my overnight bag, my dress and toiletries and… why do I even care about that stuff now?

“Thanks for thinking of that.”  I wiped some fresh tears from my eyes.  “And thanks for the lift home.”  I turned to get out of the car but Raelene stopped me with a gentle hand on my forearm.

“Please don’t walk away from him.”  Her eyes were watery when I lifted my head in her direction.

“
I don’t even know who he is!
”  I yelled.  She flinched but I wasn’t done.  “He lied and you did, too!  I thought we were friends Raelene!  I finally let people in again and this is what happens. I always get everything wrong!  I can’t trust anyone!”  I bowed my head, sobs racking me again.

“No
Liv, you’re not wrong.  I
am
your friend.  Joel should have told you.  Please don’t give up.  He’s in love with you.  You’re
it
for him.  If you just up and walk away… it’ll kill him.” 

I squeezed my eyes shut, not knowing how to respond and not wanting to look at her upset.  I loved that she cared for him so much and I knew she was only looking out for him.

“He wanted to tell you, he did.”  She blanched when I opened my eyes and gave her a hard look.  “I’m not making excuses for him… but
please,
don’t throw everything away because of this.”

We sat in silence for a bit.  As mad as I was, the thought of giving him up, of never seeing him again, it hurt like hell.  I didn’t want to throw everything away either.

“I just need some time to process.  Can you tell him to give me that?”

She nodded and gave me a small smile and I exited the car.

H
eartbroken.  Devastated.  Betrayed.  Those words didn’t even come close to how I felt at the thought of never seeing Joel again.  Since I’d left Raelene’s car hours before, I’d done nothing but lie on my couch as my world crumbled around me.

He lied to me.
  How am I supposed to know who he really is if he can’t be truthful?  He promised no secrets yet kept a huge one from me.  His promises were worthless.  Time and time again I had given him an opening, a point where he could have come clean.  Yet he didn’t.  Instead he always blamed me for pushing him away, for reading too much into things, for not trusting him.

He’d won.  It didn’t take me long to trust him wholeheartedly and as it turns out, I shouldn’t have.

I’d accepted that I wouldn’t get the ‘happily ever after’ and then he came along and showed me what I was missing.  Joel made me feel whole and then tore my heart out.  It had all been a fantasy. 

He broke my trust.

My phone rang and I wiped at my eyes to read the screen, disappointed when I saw Ally’s name instead of Joel’s.  Even though I’d told Raelene to tell him to give me space, it disappointed me that he hadn’t called.  I didn’t want to speak to him but at the same time I needed comforting and Joel was still the one I wanted to turn to for that comfort. 
How fucked up is that? What a mess!

“Hello,” I croaked out with a gravelly voice.

“Libby?  What’s wrong?  Are you sick or something?”  I couldn’t answer her.  I started crying again.  “Hey, what’s the matter?”

“Joel, he- oh god,” I continued to cry unable to speak clearly.

“Is he okay?  Has there been an accident?  Libby?”

“No.”

“Did you have a fight?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll be there soon.”

When Ally stormed into the house and found me a crumpled mess on the couch, she nudged my legs onto the floor taking a seat beside me and pulling me into her arms.  Eventually I’d cried out all of my tears and between uneven breaths I managed to tell her the whole story. 
Well, what I knew at least.

“I don’t believe it! 
Assault?  He just doesn’t seem the type.”

“I didn’t think so either.  I guess I didn’t know him like I thought I did.”

“Do you love him Libby?”  I nodded.  “Did you think he was ‘the one’?”

I did, or I
had
, but I didn’t want to confirm that so I just stared past her.

“Fight for him,” she said resolutely and I blinked at her.  “You need to find out exactly what happened.  You need to talk to him about it.  He’s probably ashamed of whatever it was.  Joel is a good guy, Lib.”

The more I thought about it over the next few days, the more I realised that he
had
tried to tell me.  I knew there was something he was keeping from me.  Hindsight made me realise there were many times he had tried to say something and so many times I’d let it go, brushed it off as nothing – the night when I cooked spaghetti for him, tight-arse Tuesday when he acted weird, even in the field that night…

There were other clues too - his half-empty house, being an apprentice so late in life, the fact that he hadn’t had a serious girlfriend – clues that should have made me more suspicious.

There had been a gap in his life because he’d been in jail.  Maybe I subconsciously knew what he was hiding was important and it might hurt me.  Maybe it was somehow my fault that he didn’t get the words out.  Maybe I should have pushed harder.

But he lied!
  As much as I loved Joel I couldn’t think of a way back from that.  As much as I wanted to forgive him and find out the story about how and why he went to jail, I had a hard time looking past the fact that he
lied
to me.  After everything I told him about Craig and Kylie and the way my sister had betrayed me. 
He promised no secrets.

I loved him more than I had
ever
loved anyone.  I desperately wanted to forgive him but I just needed time.  I also couldn’t help wonder if he was keeping more secrets from me.

I’d been to work, but was more like a zombie than a living, breathing person.  Karen, who had come bouncing into work on Monday because she had slept with that guy from the party, was sorely disappointed when I couldn’t even get excited for her.  Trevor, her first ever one night stand, and the only other person she has spent the night with besides Matt, had taken her home and given her ‘one wild night’ (her words) and all I could do was give her half smiles and nods.  I felt terrible that I was being such a bad friend but I didn’t have the energy to force myself to do better.

By Friday, I was relieved that I had a whole weekend to myself, to wallow in self-pity.  Though I’d almost not made it home, driving through the rain and not paying attention almost had me running a red light.  When I’d made it into my house I’d sighed with relief that I’d made it home alive, and then burst into tears when the thought hit me that I didn’t have anything to live for anyway.

After calming myself down, I stood on my front doorstep and lit a cigarette.  I’d lost count on how many I’d had that week. 
So much for giving up.

I stared off into the darkness.  It should have been light still but the heavy, dark clouds had blocked the late afternoon sun.  It was drab, grey - just like my life.  Like my life had been before I met Joel. 
Monochrome.  Joel had come into my life like a burst of colour and now that he wasn’t around it had changed back to bleak.

He hadn’t called me.  I’d weakened, just needing to hear his voice – I’d called him a handful of times but he’d never answered.  I was reaching breaking point.  I missed him so much.

The way I felt about Joel was unlike anything I had ever felt before.  He made me feel alive, loved, cherished, needed, happy…  I couldn’t just let that go.  I couldn’t walk away and forget it.  I’d known from very early on that I wouldn’t walk away from him in one piece.  I was no longer whole.  I needed him.  I didn’t know how to get him back, but I knew I had to try.

“I didn’t know you smoked,” a familiar voice interrupted my blank staring at the rain.  I was so out of it, it hadn’t even registered that Raelene’s car had pulled into the drive.  I blinked at her, wondering if maybe I was hallucinating.  “You must be one of those people that only
smokes when they’re unhappy, yeah?”

“Yeah,” I said with a wry smile before butting the cigarette out on the ground.

“Can we talk?” she asked, stepping out of the rain and up the last step onto my tiny porch.

“Okay.”  I turned and walked back inside my open doorway.  It may be raining but it was still a hot summer night so I left the door open after Raelene entered.

We both sat on the couch and stared at each other for a moment.  I had no idea what to say so I was relieved when she started speaking.

“When I first met Joel he’d not long been out of prison.  He was withdrawn and shy, but seeing as Adam and I were joined at the hip he had no choice but to befriend me.”  She gave me a half-hearted smile.  “Since he’s been out, he’s not dated.  He’d never had a woman sleep over at his house.  He didn’t think he was worthy of happiness, of love.  Even though Adam and I tried to convince him he was
, he just wouldn’t attempt a relationship with anyone.  Until you.  You have no idea how much of a big deal it was for him to ask you out.”

The old Libby would have questioned that.  I would have wondered if maybe Joel was settling.  That maybe he didn’t think he deserved better than me.  But the new
me, his Liv, knew that wasn’t true.  “
I wasn’t living until I met you.  I was just going through the motions…”

Raelene’s phone chimed, she read a text and grimaced.  I opened my mouth to ask her about it but she continued to talk, so I quickly shut it.

“The day after your first date, he came to our house to get advice from Adam.  He was worried you were out of his league, and scared that you wouldn’t want to know him if you knew about his time in jail.  Adam convinced him not to tell you straight away, to give it some time.  If you want to blame anyone, blame Adam.  He thought he was doing the right thing.  He convinced Joel to give it a go with you, mind you it took a few days for Joel to agree.”

That’s why he took so long to call after our first date.

“He thought if you gave him a chance he could tell you later.  Then it got, too hard.  We kept telling him he needed to come clean and he knew that he did.  He said he tried to tell you.”

“I think he did.”

“He got locked up for assault Liv, but he’s not a violent man.  It was a one off.”

“What happened?”

“I don’t think it’s my place to say.  He should be the one to tell you.”

“I wish he would.”

“Just know that what happened is in his past, it’s not who he is now.  You lit him up inside like I’d never seen before.  You’re
it
for him.  That’s why I’m worried; if he can’t have you…”

“I feel the same way about him.  He’s the one for me Raelene.  I love him.”  I started crying and Raelene moved towards me, draping an arm around my shoulders.  I savoured the contact.  “I miss him.  I’m going crazy here.”

“Then you need to tell him that,” she said softly.

“He won’t return my calls.”

“He’s not returned any of mine either,” she said, resigned.

Joel and I had a deep connection.  We were meant to be.  He wasn’t perfect, and neither was I, but we were soul mates.  And you fought for your soul mates.

“I need to see him,” I said, jumping up from the couch and running to grab my keys.

“He’s not home.  Adam just texted.  He said he waited as long as he could out the front of Joel’s place but Chels was getting tired and restless so they headed home.”

Raelene flung her arm over the back of the couch to peer at me.

“I think I know where he is.”

I ran out of there, leaving my front door wide open and Raelene sitting on my couch.  She
was right.  Who you were in your past does not define who you are today.  Whatever happened in Joel’s past had shaped him into the man he is, it played a part sure, but it wasn’t who he was anymore.  The Joel I knew now was all that mattered. 
That
Joel was the one I loved.  I just hoped that he was at his spot by the creek as it was the only place I could think of.