Love Your Life(98)

“Didn’t you bump into her? She only just left.”

“No. I didn’t.” Looking shaken, he sinks onto the same leather footstool that I was whacking five minutes ago. “Sarah.” He closes his eyes. “I thought she’d disappeared. Moved to Antwerp.”

“She’s engaged. She came here to gloat, basically.”

My eyes feel hot and I blink a few times. I know he has the moral high ground right now. But don’t I have it too? Just a bit?

“Engaged.” He lifts his head a smidgen. “Well, that’s something.”

“So, you were with her in Italy.” I look away, hunching my shoulders. “Did you sleep with her right before you slept with me?”

“No!” Matt raises his head, looking appalled. “God, no! Is that what she said? We weren’t together by then. She stalked me! She just turned up on the martial-arts course. I hadn’t even told her I was doing it. I still don’t know how she found out. She wanted to get back together; I kept telling her it was over….” His eyes suddenly flash with memory. “Remember when I did my monologue about trying to escape someone? How a person wouldn’t leave me alone? That was her! That was for her!”

    I remember Matt lashing out furiously, unable to articulate his frustration. I mean, it makes sense.

“But why didn’t you tell me?” I say, feeling like a broken record. “Why didn’t you tell me any of this?”

“Because we weren’t talking about exes!” Matt lashes back hotly. “Remember? Then we got back here to the UK and I hadn’t heard from her…and you reacted so badly to Genevieve….” Matt rubs his face. “Sarah was gone. I thought she was gone.”

“But she wasn’t gone, was she?” I say slowly. “Because baggage never is gone. You can’t just pretend it is. It catches up with you.”

I’m feeling a kind of ripping sensation inside. Like all my thoughts are tearing apart, exposing how badly they were joined together in the first place. I’ve been wrong. Wrong about everything.

“God, I’m stupid,” I say in despair.

“No you’re not,” says Matt, but he sounds automatic rather than convinced.

“I am. I thought we could have a relationship without baggage. I thought it would be all light and free and wonderful. But Topher’s right, it’s impossible. When I look at you, Matt, I can see suitcases all around you.” I wait until he raises his head, then gesture with my arms. “Heavy, bulky, awkward suitcases everywhere, all in a mess, spilling out crap. Japan…Genevieve…your parents…Lyric…And you don’t take ownership of them,” I add, with rising agitation. “You don’t even look at them. You just go and putt golf balls and hope they’ll sort themselves out. But they won’t! You need to sort your life out, Matt. You need to sort out your own life.”

    There’s silence for a few seconds. Matt is staring fixedly at me, breathing hard, his face unreadable.

“Is that so?” he says at last, his voice ominous. “Is that so? You think I’m the only one who needs to sort their life out? You want to hear about your suitcases, Ava?”

“What do you mean?” I say, startled.

“You’ve got so much shit in suitcases, I don’t know where to start.” He counts off on his fingers. “Novel. Aromatherapy course. Rescue furniture. Fucking…batik. Dog who won’t do what he’s told. Unsafe windows. Unpaid bills mixed up with, I don’t know, horoscopes. Your life’s a mess. It’s a bloody mess!”

My life’s a what? Somehow, through my shock, my brain pieces together a reply.

“I have a portfolio career,” I say in my most lacerating tones. “Which might be challenging for you to comprehend, Matt. But I wouldn’t expect you to understand how I live, because you have a very closed mind.”

“Well, if you ask me, Ava, your mind’s too bloody open!” Matt explodes. “It’s open to every flotsam-and-jetsam piece of crap out there! You make a new plan every week. But you really want to achieve any one of these aims you claim to have? Then focus. Focus on one of them. Finish the aromatherapy course, find some clients, and be that. You’d be great. Or do the podcast. Or write your novel. Pick one and make it happen. Stop explaining how impossible it is, stop making endless excuses, stop faffing around…and just do it!”

    Blood is beating in my cheeks as I stare back at him. I don’t make endless excuses. Do I?

Do I?

“You’ve never…” I pause, trying to keep my voice steady. “You’ve never said that before.”

“No. Well. Sorry.”

He doesn’t sound remotely apologetic. He sounds matter-of-fact. Like he’s saying real stuff. Like he’s finally saying what he thinks instead of what he thinks I want to hear.

“That’s what you’ve thought of me all this time?” I say, my head feeling hot. “That I’m a flake?”

“I haven’t thought you’re a flake,” says Matt. “But I’ve thought it’s a shame. You could get somewhere, you know?”

The remaining piece of sculpture falls off the wall with a little crash, and we both jump, then stare at it lying on the floor.