The Things I Know(83)
‘I feel so torn. I hate feeling like this.’
Having expected, hoped even, that he might rush in with words of reassurance and reconciliation, his fractured speech and awkward whispers suggested he was hesitant, unsure, and it snipped the last of the fragile stays that kept her heart strings connected to the man she loved.
‘Welcome to my world,’ she offered a little bluntly, as anger now fanned the hurt and her defence mechanism kicked in.
‘My mum is an alcoholic and she’s a danger to herself and she hasn’t got anyone else.’
‘She has her sisters!’
He gave a dry laugh. ‘They’re fucking useless!’ he snapped, and she knew this frustration was not necessarily directed at her. ‘They drink and they encourage her to drink and they talk utter nonsense the whole time, just burbling away with their soundtrack of anecdotes and shit memories, washed down with milky tea and wine. I can’t . . . I can’t rely on them. There’s only me.’
‘So’ – she tried to think ahead – ‘so why don’t you get a nurse? Or send her to a facility – rehab?’
‘She won’t go! How can I make her? And we had a nurse who walked out after a week because my mum was just too much.’
‘Well, that’s her fault. She’s keeping you hostage, keeping you away from me, and I honestly . . .’ She swallowed. ‘I honestly thought you’d put your foot down and not let this happen. You need to think about what you really want and be brave, Gray.’
‘Be brave?’ He gave a dry laugh. ‘You say that so easily, Thomasina, and yet you haven’t been brave! You stay at the farm and give a million reasons about duty, but you’re not so different. You’ve never really tried to break free, and I get why – it’s safe. It’s the same when you talk about further surgery, which would make you feel better, give you confidence, and yet you hide behind excuses about the pain, and I think actually you use your disfigurement to keep people away so you don’t have to feel so guilty about hiding.’
His words hurt, largely for the element of truth they carried. ‘You have no fucking idea, Grayson! None at all! You have no idea what it’s like being me and, apart from anything else, I can’t just up sticks and go! Financially, things are hard; my choices are limited.’
‘Maybe I don’t have any idea, but if we have any kind of future together we need to be able to say everything.’
With anger colouring her immediate reaction, she snorted in derision at the likelihood of that ever happening, not now. ‘Yeah, and you know what, not calling or contacting me, going silent, is not the best way to achieve that!’ she yelled.
They were quiet for a beat or two. This felt like the beginning of the end, and it was painful. Buddy put his head on his paws as if he didn’t like the sound of their row, not one bit.
It was Grayson who spoke first, his tone now softer, and with the loss of his hard edge came another wave of regret and longing for all that this relationship had promised and just how happy that promise had made her.
‘I don’t want to argue with you. But I need you to put yourself in my shoes, Thomasina. If this was your mum or Pops, if you felt you had no choice, would you leave them?’
‘I don’t know,’ she answered truthfully, calming now and weighed down by the reality of their situation. It felt hopeless.
‘If they had absolutely no one else who was going to take care of them, keep them from harm, if they had always stuck around for you, would you walk when they were most vulnerable?’
She thought of the day Jonathan left and that sensation in her throat as though she were being strangled, as if her brother’s adventure came at the cost of her own aspirations. She stayed silent and they both drew breath until Grayson again broke the ice.
‘I’m lying here staring at the blobs on the ceiling. When I was a kid I used to imagine they were mountain peaks where tiny, tiny people anchored ropes and hammered nails just to get a foothold. I understood this need to gain purchase. That was my whole life, trying to keep upright. But here I am in my mid-twenties and it feels just the same. I feel as if I’m sliding backwards into that life of nothingness, back into the hamster wheel where I ran for years, grabbing for anything solid, stationary, to hold on to, but it was always just out of reach . . .’ She heard him swallow. ‘And then you came along and you changed everything.’
‘Yes.’ She spoke calmly but resolutely. ‘Well, you’re not a kid any more, Grayson. And I might not ever have climbed a mountain, but I know that to do so takes courage. It’s not only about anchoring ropes and hammering in nails to get a foothold; it’s about the belief that you can do it, or are at least trying to.’
She knew this applied to her too. It was all about finding the courage to make the change.
‘And you’re right, Thomasina, beautiful, beautiful Thomasina: you deserve more. You deserve better than to be caught up in this bloody pantomime. The truth is, I don’t know how to break free. I don’t know if I can. But truthfully’ – he took a second – ‘I don’t know if you can either.’
She wiped her nose on her sleeve and tried to control the tears that threatened. It was one thing to imagine the two of them ending, but quite another to feel it. Despite her mantra that it was for the best, trying to mirror Pops’s bravery, the words made no allowance for the fact that it hurt. It hurt a lot. ‘I . . . I want to, Grayson, more than you know. I want to, and I have to believe I will. I just need to find a way.’ She looked down at Buddy, her boy, who now placed his big paw on her thigh. ‘And I want you to know that I will always be grateful for how wonderful you made me feel. You made me feel beautiful for the first time ever, and that has changed me. I wish you well, and nothing but good things, because that’s what you deserve. Because you are wonderful.’ Her voice cracked and she bowed her head, letting fat tears run down her cheeks and over the misshapen mouth that he had kissed. ‘Never forget that. And the time we had together was the very best in my whole life. You made me feel like a different person, a person I want to be – a person who can achieve more. These are the things I know. I love you. I do. I love you. Goodbye, Grayson Potts.’