saturday, august 10, 2013

morning

i wake early. i can hear the recycling van trundlingup the street and the soft patter of rain against thewindow. the blinds are half up—we forgot to closethem last night. i smile to myself. i can feel himbehind me, warm and sleepy, hard. i wriggle myhips, pressing against him a little closer. it won’t takelong for him to stir, to grab hold of me, roll meover.

“rachel,” his voice says, “don’t.” i go cold. i’m notat home, this isn’t home. this is all wrong.

i roll over. scott is sitting up now. he swings hislegs over the side of the bed, his back to me. isqueeze my eyes tightly shut and try to remember,but it’s all too hazy. when i open my eyes i canthink straight because this room is the one i’vewoken up in a thousand times or more: this iswhere the bed is, this is the exact aspect—if i sit upnow i will be able to see the tops of the oak treeson the opposite side of the street; over there, on theleft, is the en suite bathroom, and to the right arethe built-in wardrobes. it’s exactly the same as theroom i shared with tom.

“rachel,” he says again, and i reach out to touchhis back, but he stands quickly and turns to face me.

he looks hollowed out, like the first time i saw himup close, in the police station—as though someonehas scraped away his insides, leaving a shell. this islike the room i shared with tom, but it is the onehe shared with megan. this room, this bed.

“i know,” i say. “i’m sorry. i’m so sorry. this waswrong.”

“yes, it was,” he says, his eyes not meeting mine.

he goes into the bathroom and shuts the door.

i lie back and close my eyes and feel myself sinkinto dread, that awful gnawing in my gut. what havei done? i remember him talking a lot when i firstarrived, a rush of words. he was angry—angry withhis mother, who never liked megan; angry with thenewspapers for what they were writing about her,the implication that she got what was coming to her;angry with the police for botching the whole thing,for failing her, failing him. we sat in the kitchendrinking beers and i listened to him talk, and whenthe beers were finished we sat outside on the patioand he stopped being angry then. we drank andwatched the trains go by and talked about nothing:

television and work and where he went to school,just like normal people. i forgot to feel what i wassupposed to be feeling, we both did, because i canremember now. i can remember him smiling at me,touching my hair.

it hits me like a wave, i can feel blood rushing tomy face. i remember admitting it to myself. thinkingthe thought and not dismissing it, embracing it. iwanted it. i wanted to be with jason. i wanted tofeel what jess felt when she sat out there with him,drinking wine in the evening. i forgot what i wassupposed to be feeling. i ignored the fact that at thevery best, jess is nothing but a figment of myimagination, and at the worst, jess is not nothing,she is megan—she is dead, a body battered and leftto rot. worse than that: i didn’t forget. i didn’t care.

i didn’t care because i’ve started to believe whatthey’re saying about her. did i, for just the briefestof moments, think she got what was coming to her,too?

scott comes out of the bathroom. he’s taken ashower, washed me off his skin. he looks better forit, but he won’t look me in the eye when he asks ifi’d like a coffee. this isn’t what i wanted: none ofthis is right. i don’t want to do this. i don’t want tolose control again.

i dress quickly and go into the bathroom, splashcold water on my face. my mascara’s run, smudgedat the corners of my eyes, and my lips are dark.

bitten. my face and neck are red where his stubblehas grazed my skin. i have a quick flashback to thenight before, his hands on me, and my stomach flips.

feeling dizzy, i sit down on the edge of the bathtub.

the bathroom is grubbier than the rest of the house:

grime around the sink, toothpaste smeared on themirror. a mug, with just one toothbrush in it.

there’s no perfume, no moisturizer, no makeup. iwonder if she took it when she left, or whether he’sthrown it all away.

back in the bedroom, i look around for evidence ofher—a robe on the back of the door, a hairbrush onthe chest of drawers, a pot of lip balm, a pair ofearrings—but there’s nothing. i cross the bedroom tothe wardrobe and am about to open it, my handresting on the handle, when i hear him call out,“there’s coffee here!” and i jump.

he hands me the mug without looking at my face,then turns away and stands with his back to me, hisgaze fixed on the tracks or something beyond. iglance to my right and notice that the photographsare gone, all of them. there’s a prickle at the backof my scalp, the hairs on my forearms raised. i sipmy coffee and struggle to swallow. none of this isright.

maybe his mother did it: cleared everything out,took the pictures away. his mother didn’t like megan,he’s said that over and over. still, who does what hedid last night? who fucks a strange woman in themarital bed when his wife has been dead less than amonth? he turns then, he looks at me, and i feel asthough he’s read my mind because he’s got astrange look on his face—contempt, or revulsion—andi’m repulsed by him, too. i put the mug down.

“i should go,” i say, and he doesn’t argue.

the rain has stopped. it’s bright outside, and i’msquinting into hazy morning sunshine. a manapproaches me—he’s right up in my face themoment i’m on the pavement. i put my hands up,turn sideways and shoulder-barge him out of theway. he’s saying something but i don’t hear what. ikeep my hands raised and my head down, so i’mbarely five feet away from her when i see anna,standing next to her car, hands on hips, watchingme. when she catches my eye she shakes her head,turns away and walks quickly towards her own frontdoor, almost but not quite breaking into a run. istand stock-still for a second, watching her slightform in black leggings and a red t-shirt. i have thekeenest sense of déjà vu. i’ve watched her run awaylike this before.

it was just after i moved out. i’d come to see tom,to pick up something i’d left behind. i don’t evenremember what it was, it wasn’t important, i justwanted to go to the house, to see him. i think it wasa sunday, and i’d moved out on the friday, so i’dbeen gone about forty-eight hours. i stood in thestreet and watched her carrying things from a carinto the house. she was moving in, two days afteri’d left, my bed not yet cold. talk about unseemlyhaste. she caught sight of me and i went towardsher. i have no idea what i was going to say toher—nothing rational, i’m sure. i was crying, iremember that. and she, like now, ran away. i didn’tknow the worst of it then—she wasn’t yet showing.

thankfully. i think it might have killed me.

standing on the platform, waiting for the train, i feeldizzy. i sit down on the bench and tell myself it’sjust a hangover—nothing to drink for five days andthen a binge, that’ll do it. but i know it’s more thanthat. it’s anna—the sight of her and the feeling i gotwhen i saw her walking away like that. fear.