Broken (9 page)

I still blame myself for what happened. I can’t not. I wasn’t there. If I had been, she would still be. It’s a simple equation. Me, here in the house equals Alice still alive. My life would be completely different if she were still here. We’d be putting up decorations, putting presents under the tree, getting all Christmassy with each other. I miss that. I don’t think about it much, but I miss it. I miss the connection, the comfort of having someone be there with me. It’s not even the sex, although there is that too. It’s more than just the sex, it’s the bits in between the sex that I find appearing like holes in the plot of a story. My story. My life essentially.

Martin is no longer with me. It’s better that way. He’s got his own life to think about without having to worry about mine. He wanted to stay until the new year but I told him I wasn’t celebrating Christmas anyway, so it didn’t matter. The house feels kind of empty without him, but like I say, it’s better this way. I’ve got my work to do, my training, it’s kind of taking over, and then there’s Jo to think about. I gave her my number, so we could hang out. Which I guess is kind of a weird progression for me. I like her, and I wanted to help, so it seemed like the right thing to do.

Her number sits there in my phone and I think about calling it a lot. I think about her a lot actually. She’s a good distraction. A good person. I want to help her because she seems just as lonely as I am. It’s difficult to connect, I get that, because I feel it. She’s definitely got friends outside the group, like I have, but I know that it’s not the same thing.

Sometimes friends just don’t understand, or they are just not the right people to try and get to understand. I wonder if she’d understand what I’m doing for Alice. I wonder if she’d understand what I’m doing for justice. I wonder if she’d want me to do it for her too.

I have gone through six names on my list. Six lives of six men in six million pieces. Christmas is coming, the new year, change. I can feel it deep within me. I can feel something on the horizon, something important. I know he’s close. I know, I’ll find him soon and I’ll finally be able to move on. I’ll kill this darkness inside me and I’ll finally be able to breathe again.

The phone ringing snaps me out of another moment of disconnection. I’m at the sink this time, my bruised face half shaved. The water in the sink has gone cold, and the shaving foam soft and watery. When I look at the display I see that it’s Jo.

1
6 December 2015. Eighty days after.

Is this one of the stupidest things I’ve ever done in my life in the pursuit of normality? If what happened hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t even think twice about it. I did. I thought more than twice about it. I thought a hundred and twice about it. I took the phone out, went to dial his number, stopped, put it back in my bag and let the day roll on around it, the thought never tucking itself away completely. It sat there at the back of my mind pawing at me like a dog trying to get into a closed door. ‘Call him’, the rational part of my brain said. ‘Don’t be stupid’, the other part said. ‘You’ve just been raped.’

I wouldn’t even know him if I hadn’t have been. Life mocks us sometimes. It stands there an innocent bystander throwing coincidence after incident as though the whole thing is a big joke at our expense.

A walk in the park. I couldn’t think of anything else that could be more appropriate to the situation. It wasn’t a date, although plenty of people went for dates in the park, it was a friend calling another, to have a chat, to disconnect, to reconnect, to feel part of something again. At least that’s what I told myself. I didn’t expect him to say yes.

Ethan has come on his bike, and I wonder briefly if it’s so he can perform a quick exit if he needs to. The panic that I felt on the way, over what it was I was doing here exactly, quickly subsides when I see his familiar smile. It’s kind of like a nervous thing I think, but it’s sweet and it makes me feel welcome and immediately at ease. Apart from the day we bumped into each other at the supermarket, when Ethan was stood for about half a minute in what looked like a kind of deep meditative state over the decision whether or not to buy on orange, this is the first time outside of the context of the group session we have found ourselves together. With those pretenses stripped away, I feel anxious, and I worry about how we should greet each other.

Ethan solves that problem immediately by putting the bike strategically between us, a kind of physical barrier to our ability to get too close to each other. I have no idea whether he does it on purpose but I silently thank him for it. When the moment has passed, and we’ve begun to walk together, he positions himself so the bike is on the side that faces away from me.

I’m conscious I’m hugging my chest, my arms folded across myself, and try my best to relax.

“Thanks for coming”, I say.

“That’s ok”, Ethan says. “You sounded pretty upset on the phone. Is everything ok?”

As if Ethan doesn’t have enough of his own problems, I’ve got to load him up with mine.

“I’m sorry, Ethan”, I say. “It’s not fair for me to put all my shit onto you. You’ve got your own stuff to deal with, it’s just, I’ve got nobody else to talk to about this. My parents don’t understand, and I still haven’t told anyone else. I know we’ve got the group and Katy, and I’ve got my therapist but it’s just, I don’t know, you seem like you’re the kind of person who understands me.”

“Hey”, Ethan says. “You know I’m happy to help. I don’t mind at all. It’s good to listen to someone else’s problems for a while-”, he pauses to flash me that grin of his again, “-therapy’s good, but its pretty one sided. I’m not sure I’ll be able to help, but I’m happy to try.”

We find a bench to sit down on, and I take a seat while Ethan props his bike up against a tree to the side. His bruises are healing, the cut too. I shift along to let him sit down, ensuring there is enough space between us.

“I’m glad you called”, Ethan says. “I’m living on my own again and I was kind of going out of my mind with boredom.”

“You haven’t gone back to work?”

“I’ve been doing stuff in the evening’s you know, but it’s kind of a personal project. I work alone.”

Ethan gives the impression he doesn’t want to talk about it, so I let the subject go. He’s enigmatic, but not in a way that worries me. After what happened, I understand his desire to keep his private life exactly that.

“I have a confession I have to make”, I say instead.

“Oh?” Ethan intones.

“I looked for you on the internet. I’m sorry”, I say, lowering my head. “I just, I wanted to know. It was wrong of me and I’m so sorry. I’ve been feeling guilty about it from the moment I looked. I thought you should know. I didn’t want there to be anything between us.”

“Oh man”, Ethan says, looking away briefly. I expect him to be angry, but when he looks back to me, that smile is back on his face, “Now you know I’m famous.”

I nod, reluctant to look up to him.

“Don’t worry”, Ethan says. “It’s kind of a normal thing to do these days, I get that. I tried to get all of that stuff taken off the internet, but I guess a lot of it slipped back on. There was so much published about what happened to Alice just after she was killed, and, you know, a lot of it was bullshit and made up and didn’t do anything but sensationalize what happened. What did you learn?”

“What happened”, I say, evenly.

“Yeah”, Ethan says, and looks away. “Shit. What happened.”

There is a moment of silence between us. I want to say something, but I know anything that I do end up saying is likely to sound inappropriate. I worry that I’ve hurt him and chastise myself silently for doing so.

“She’s not coming back”, Ethan says. “You know. Every day, I think about her and then I feel guilty if during that day time passes and I realize I haven’t thought about her once, or if I have it hasn’t been enough, I worry about that. Then sometimes I’m secretly relieved when a minute passes and I get it to myself, you know, when I can truly disconnect, because thinking about her so often is just such hard work.” He pauses to clean his glasses, to regard me with eyes I hadn’t even noticed were so expressive before, to smile that nervous smile again. “Then I feel guilty for not thinking about her. It’s like I can’t win.”

“You shouldn’t feel guilty for not thinking about her”, I say. There is little else I can think of that will help.

“Yeah, I know, but I do. That’s just the way it goes. Alice would say the same as well. It’s hard losing someone. There isn’t a manual on how to cope. We don’t cover it at school. We kind of shy away from death in our culture, especially murder.”

“You just have to take everyday as it comes”, I say. “There’s no right or wrong way to cope with it.”

“Well there’s being passive and active”, Ethan says. “You know, I was passive for a long time, expecting the world around me to change, but the day I realised it was me that had to change the world and not the other way round, was the day I started to take control again. I feel better now. Being in shape helps, you know, when I’m not falling off my bike. Having goals, stuff to focus on, distractions.”

“Do you get lonely?” I ask, shifting the conversation slightly. I know what my therapist would say about why I’ve asked, and I expect Ethan is clever enough to realize too. I watch him shift position on the bench, not necessarily squirming, but definitely stalling for time before he responds.

“I just had my wife raped and murdered”, he says. “The police still haven’t caught the man responsible, which means he’s out there somewhere ready to do it again. It’s Christmas, my family are about a thousand five hundred miles away on the East coast and hate travelling, and I live alone.”

“That was a stupid question”, I say.

Ethan laughs, which I don’t expect. “It’s alright”, he says. “I’ve had a bit of time to get used to it.”

“That doesn’t mean it’s not easy”, I say.

“Yeah. Nothing’s easy right now. It just is. I work on the achievable goals, you know, the running, the training, the little projects I have, I know I can solve them if I work hard enough at them. Loneliness?” Now he looks away for a moment. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to ever get to that point, you know. Where I feel like I’m not alone.”

I drop my head. “That doesn’t mean that you can’t”, he adds.

“It doesn’t mean that you can’t either.”

“I can’t replace Alice”, Ethan says. “Even thinking about getting close to somebody. I don’t know. It’s weird, because sometimes I feel like I need it. You know, not just sexually, but all the other shit too. Sleeping in the same bed, watching a movie, going for walks in the park.”

I realize I’m nodding. “Me too”, I say. I mean, I wanted it before. The night it happened, I was actually having a good night, I met someone and we were getting along really well. And then-.” I have to stop myself. “I’ve been single for a while. I’m one of these women that are perennially single. You know the type? Great for a night, awful for a relationship.”

“I can’t believe that’s true”, Ethan says. “Maybe you just haven’t met the right man yet. Men are fucking idiots. We do nothing to prove otherwise time and time again.”

“I think Alice must have been very lucky”, I say.

“I wish she was still around so you could tell her that. We used to argue like cats and dogs. We were perfect for each other in a way, but then, you know, we used to butt heads over a few things. Relationships are never perfect, not all the time. You might not be missing out on all that much.”

“Yeah, well, I might not get the chance to see now.”

“Oh, come on”, Ethan says, more animated than I’ve seen him.

“Plus, you know”, I add, “I’m not sure I’m ready to be intimate, not after what happened. Fuck, I feel so broken sometimes, so useless.”

“Just give it time”, Ethan says. “The things you want now are not going to be the things you want in the future. Our needs, requirements, tastes, desires, wishes, it all changes from time to time. We change too. You know, every single cell in your body gets replaced every seven years. That means every seven years we are completely different people.”

I look at him quizzically, but he knows I’m putting it on. “I have to wait seven years to get laid?”

Ethan laughs at that. “Come on”, he says, touching my arm. “Let’s take a walk. This park is beautiful and we’ve hardly seen any of it.”

The last time I got laid was when I got raped. It’s a thought that sticks with me for the rest of the day.

1
6 December 2015. Ninety four days after.

Jo and I stroll around to the duck pond, stop for a coffee at the bandstand, watch a young boy hit a baseball with his dad and sit down again on a bench near the entrance to the park.

I’ve been thinking about it since she called me, but the right moment hasn’t yet arrived. I want to tell her I can take her fear away. That I can end the problem for her, even though I’m not entirely sure I’m capable yet of doing that yet myself. I project Alice’s image on to her, and I imagine myself with her briefly, pushing the thought away for fear of letting it consume me. ‘This is not Alice and she cannot replace her’, I find myself thinking more than once.

“It’ll be ok”, I tell her. “Just try not to think about it too much. Concentrate on other things, he doesn’t deserve your energy.”

“I wish I had your strength”, Jo says. “You know, everything that you’ve gone through. My problems seem so slight in comparison. I feel like, you know, they’re not even worthy of bringing up.”

“Don’t say that, Jo. Don’t undervalue yourself. What you’ve been through, I can’t even imagine. There is no scale of how you are allowed to feel based on what’s happened to you. You’ve just got to do what you can. I’m here to help, you just-. Pick up the phone.”

“Thank you, Ethan.”

“No problem”, I say.

“I’ve had a really nice day.”

“Yeah, me too.”

It’s true. I haven’t had a day like this for a long time. I feel positive about something positive.

“See you in class?” she asks. “You know it’s the last one before the break.”

“Yeah, you know, if I don’t smash myself up again.”