THE TROUBLE WITH PAPER PLANES(43)

I went into the kitchen and began to heat up her dinner. I heard her turn the shower on. She was only a few metres away from me, with a couple of thin, old walls between us.

Life has a funny way of reminding you of stuff just when you least expect it. A flashback came at me from out of nowhere, this one just as clear as the last.

Em was in the shower, and I went in to watch, leaning back against the bathroom cabinet. She grinned at me, not in the least bit surprised to see me there, and grabbed me, pulling me into the shower with her. She let me wash her, all over, with shower gel and my bare hands. We were in there so long, we used up all the hot water.

God, I missed her. I missed the way she smelled and the way she seemed to know what I was thinking even before I did. I missed how much she trusted me. I missed the little things she used to do for me, like make me coffee in the morning. Like letting me finish the crossword in the Herald in peace and quiet. Like knowing when I just needed to hold her close to me. Like the way she never went to sleep without a part of her body touching mine – a foot, a hand, a knee. It was as if she was assuring herself that I was going to stay there all night, that I wasn’t going to leave her.

And then she left me. How’s that for irony?

I looked up and it was Maia who was standing there, not Em. It was like a reminder – this was the present, that was the past. Time to put them back into their rightful places.

“Feel better?” I asked.

She nodded, but something was wrong. She didn’t look relaxed, she looked nervous. For a moment, I wondered if she had been inside my head. Had I said something aloud, something I hadn’t meant to?

Her damp hair had left watermarks on the shoulders of her shirt, and I couldn’t take my eyes off them as she sat down at the table. Determined to play it cool, I set the dinner plate down in front of her.

“Sorry,” I said with a tight smile. “I might’ve over-heated it. Just give it a minute or two.”

“Thank you,” she managed, smiling that foreign smile that didn’t belong to her.

I sat down at the table opposite her, bringing my beer with me. Something was definitely up. The question was, was I game enough to ask her what?

“I saw Emily’s things in the bathroom,” she said, before I could decide. She stared at the plate in front of her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snoop.”

I scratched my chin, waiting for her to look up at me so I could see her face properly, see what was going on inside her head. But she wasn’t obliging. It wasn’t like I’d tried to hide any of this stuff from her. Maybe I should’ve.

“It’s crazy isn’t it?” I said quietly. “After five years, you’d think it’d get easier.”

She looked up at me, and for a moment, it felt like we were connected again, just like we’d been the first time we’d met. It felt as if she had reached out and plugged into me, as if she knew how I was feeling without me having to say it. As if she knew how hard this was for me, and yet how much I wanted to do it anyway.

“I don’t know if it gets easier or not,” she said gently. “I think that maybe you just get used to carrying it around with you, like extra weight. It doesn’t get easier, so much as it gets familiar.”

That sounded like experience talking. Had she lost someone, too – is that what we had in common? Was that the thing that had drawn us together? It seemed logical to me. Kindred spirits, united by the common thread of grief. It would explain a hell of a lot.

“I can’t get rid of it,” I said finally. “I mean, she’s been gone five years and I can’t make myself get rid of anything of hers. Clothes, make-up, shoes – none of it. It’s all still here. Throwing it away just feels…” I shrugged helplessly, the words just beyond my reach. “I think the worst part is not knowing. If she were dead, we’d be able to grieve, have a funeral, get on with our lives. But just not knowing, that’s the really tough part – the questions, the second-guessing, the endless speculation… ”

Maia reached over and laid her hand on top of mine. I looked up and her eyes seemed larger, deeper, fuller. I knew then that I was right. It leaves a scar on your soul when you lose someone you love. You’re branded. It changes you in ways you never imagined it would. You can’t prepare for it, you can’t anticipate it or how you will react to it. I think that’s because you’re too scared to think about it, in case you will it into being. Instead, you try to make it through your life oblivious, living day to day, constantly moving forward.