Persuade Me. By Ena
The modern Persuasion.
Author's Note: Chapter seven, welcome to 2014!
0-0-0-0
For a few minutes after I finish telling my story to Lou, the only sound we hear is the gravel crunching underneath our feet and the leaves rustling in the light breeze above us.
Her face has gone from one of resignation, to guilt, to disbelief and now shock.
I told her everything, from how Fred and I met, to how I ended our engagement and how horrible it had been to have to be in such close proximity over the past couple of months. She managed to absorb most of the information, but she stopped absorbing when I told her something I had never, ever revealed to anyone – not even my counsellor, not my doctor, not Aunty Agatha, nor my dad, or my sisters.
Before my trip to the psych ward, before the drugs and the incident involving drug-addled me, a knife and a bathroom, I had taken a pregnancy test. The two little lines had shown up, and for twenty-four hours after that, I thought I was going to be okay. However the blood test I got the next day revealed that although the home tests were 99% accurate, I happened to have the rotten luck of getting the 1% that gave me a false positive.
That was what really triggered the events that happened after it. I really don't blame Lou for not being able to deal with that information. Hell, I couldn't deal with that information and I lived it.
It takes a few minutes more before she starts attempting to make a noise, it's mostly unintelligible, but I get the feeling she's about to come out with something.
'I feel like I should have seen have guessed that the two of you had a history.' She mutters. I'm surprised, having tried my hardest to squash any iota of evidence of that we had a history.
My surprise must have shown, because Lou turns to me and grabs me by the shoulders.
'I didn't realise it before, but you telling me now makes everything I've noticed over the past month or so ridiculously clear. I thought that he behaved strange when we first introduced you to him, he ignored you the whole time, only mentioning later that you were at uni together for a very short time.' She pauses, clearly thinking back over the past month.
'And then there was that date you refused to go on, the one your Aunt Agony Agatha tried to set you up on. I remember Mary mentioning it, some guy named Ethan or Emmett or something, and how your aunt bought you a dress, but you told her like the day before that you weren't going to be able to go on it.'
My eyebrows rise in surprise, remembering how I had volunteered to spend an evening with a young patient who had dislocated his arm, whose mother was also trying to deal with a newborn baby with colic. The fact I had bailed on the set-up date made no difference to my life in any way. I was for all intents and purposes currently married to my job, with little to no time left to deal with people, especially people who Aunt Agatha thinks I should date.
Whilst I had been mulling over how closely she had been paying attention, Lou has moved on from Agatha's blind date attempt and has started to list off ridiculously minor things she's noticed Fred do, like how he had apparently wanted Mary to wake me up this morning to join us for their morning shenanigans and how when they arrived at the cafe and saw me, he stopped talking, when before he had been leading much of their conversation.
Since I wasn't there to witness half these things, I simply nod along as Lou decompresses all the new information and reconciles it with the old. By now we are in sight of the hotel, and I feel a sense of guilt, having pulled Lou away from the others to see what had been bothering her, and then loading her up with some of mine.
'So if you like James, then what's stopping you?' I pipe up when we reach a lull in Lou's monologue.
She peers at me from underneath her eyelashes, 'you know I have got no idea.'
0-0-0-0
Our last couple of days at Bath go smoothly, and without incident. On our last evening there, the Musgrove's and Harville's and I get dressed up and go to a restaurant right in what appears to be the local celebrity sighting hotspot. There are a few people I recognise from various galas and functions, at one point I'm almost convinced that there's an awards ceremony going on nearby, simply because of the sheer inappropriate number of famous people and tabloid photographers around.
After dinner the parents from the Harville's and Musgrove's all wave off invitations to go out to a local pub and tell us they'll see us back at the hotel in the morning. Even Mary and Charles wave of Lou and Henn's persistent pleas to stay and party – considering they've got Charlie with them, asleep on Charles' shoulder, they eventually win and follow Mr and Mrs Musgrove out.
That's left six of us, and after catching Lou's eye I can see that this works out in her favour. We decide to walk to the pub, a mere three blocks away from where we ate. I fail spectacularly at walking in heels, having never gotten up to the same standard as the others in my family. Somehow I ended up hanging onto Fred's arm as we followed the others through the dimly lit streets towards the pub. Loudly, Lou exclaimed how much fun the night was going to be, she turns and grabs James by the arm and drags him onwards.
By the time we reach the pub – an Irish one, I'm almost certain that my ankle is strained, and my heart doubly so. At every opportunity throughout the three-block journey I glanced up at his face, barely visible in the poor light. His face was stony and every time I stumbled, he hoisted me back out of the cobblestones without a word.
When we reach the entrance line, with only a dozen people before us, I drop his arm and my gaze. I'm happy that Lou's decided to go in the direction she wanted to go in, but I'm feeling more and more like a burden and that coming along was a mistake. When we get into the pub, the others head straight to the bar, leaving me standing in the entrance way, dozens of strange faces milling about. I'm glad I have my jacket on, as I was coerced into wearing a sleeveless dress for tonight. My anxiety is rising, and I feel myself begin to spiral into a panic.
Suddenly Lou's hands are on my arms and she pulls me into a loose sort of a hug, her mouth beside my ear.
'Are you okay?' she speaks into my ear, the others are collecting their drinks, and those milling about near us are engrossed in their own conversations to notice us two.
I shrug in response, hardly knowing myself how to answer that question. She grabs me by the hand and makes me follow her to the inner area of the bar where the others have claimed seats near the dance floor, a spot conveniently left open for us two, between Fred and James. Even though I wasn't there, a drink has been bought for me; it's orange, served in a martini glass with a pink frosted sugar coating on the rim. I take a sip, to find the orange liquid tastes of pineapple and berries.
I ask Lou who picked it for me; she glances at the man sitting on my other side before returning her gaze to mine. She has a small smirk on her face and she winks at me before directing her attention to James. I take a deep breath and let it slowly out of my nose, hesitant to move, blink, take a sip or even look away from my hands that are folded in my lap. A nudge on my leg distracts me from my inner monologue and I find that it's Fred who's kneed me.
He catches my eye and points subtly to the dance floor, where in my self-imposed daze of unawareness, Lou and James have started dancing ... and snogging. I have to catch myself before I burst out laughing. I've always known Lou to be as unsubtle as an explosion, but tonight she takes it to a whole new level. I still have a huge smile on my face as I look back to my drink, taking a large gulp of it and catching the eyes of the other occupants of the table.
Henn and Chris are sniggering into their own drinks and Fred is speechless, his eyebrows rose, clearly not having seen it coming. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Fred's mouth still hanging open as he watches the spectacle unfold. Part of me feels sorry for him, having not known whether or not he liked her.
That's when I start to feel bad again, just the same as I did when we walked in. I can't read minds, so I have no idea what was going on in Fred's mind. Had he liked Lou? Did I just break his heart for the second time around, by encouraging Lou to follow her own feelings?
I get goose bumps thinking about the irony of the situation if that were the case: I once broke both our hearts by not following my own true feelings, and perhaps I've broken his again by encouraging another girl to follow hers.
The sweet drink turns sour in my mouth, and I wish for my bed, not the one at the hotel, but my own bed, my own home.
I think about the logistics, we leave in the morning anyways, but I want to leave now. I'd rather be surrounded by my shallow, self-absorbed family and strangers in Milan right now that be sitting this close to the one person I never wanted to hurt. A taxi ride back to mine would be expensive, but something that I could afford, I could invent some sudden illness that calls me away, or an emergency from the clinic, perhaps receive an urgent call from Sally Smith my neighbour and some mysterious ailment affecting her sons.
In the end, I just sigh and finish my drink.
0-0-0-0
At around 2am, I declare that I'm exhausted, and will head back to the hotel. Henn declares that before I go, I have to have one more drink. Because it's late, and I'm tired, I forget that I despise tequila. Primarily because I want to get out of their sooner rather than later, I order a round of tequila shots for the three of us and the usual companions to the drink: the salt shaker and the wedge of lime.
Lou and Henn look at me like I'm crazy, which for all intents and purposes I probably am, ordering the worst drink in the world as my last drink of the night. Chris, James and Fred are standing behind us girls, watching on. Lou and Henn watch me cautiously as I lick and then salt my hand and prepare my slice of lime. I realise they probably haven't done this age-old college tradition since they spend their time being anywhere but in dingy co-ed dorms. I snigger at them as they slowly copy my movements until their set up is the same as mine.
Even in my mostly buzzed state I still manage to give them directions,
'Lick,' I point to the salt on my hand in between my thumb and pointer, 'sip', I nod to the shot in front of me, 'and suck,' I point to the lime wedge.
'Do it quickly, it tastes like shit.' I hear Fred say distantly, even though it's then that I discover that he's standing right behind me, close enough for me to feel the heat radiating off of him.
The girls are still watching me, so I know I have to do it first. In quick succession I do all three steps and spit the now chewed lime wedge into the empty shot glass.
'That's gross,' Henn remarks, right before she and her sister do it in unison. That last drink must have put me over the edge, because I laugh so hard at their disgusted expressions that I lean back on my chair and end up being caught by Fred before I fall off completely and basically end my night in his arms. Even completely slathered, that physical contact jolted something inside me.
I am returned to the upright position and then his arms release me, although I'm partially convinced his hands linger on me for a few moments. His breathy, silent laugh puffs past my ear as he lets go off me, in anyone else I would probably call it a "derisive snort", but this is Fred, and he doesn't snort. I turn and nod a silent thanks to him for catching me, which he mirrors in his welcome.
And then I leave. I kiss Lou and Henn on the cheek and tell the five of them that I'll see them in the morning. I give a fleeting look to Fred as I leave, but he's talking to the bartender and isn't looking my way, my gaze then catches Lou, and she notices where I had been looking, she winks at me and waves goodbye.
The cab ride to the hotel is short; the streets are empty aside from the taxis and the few people walking on the sidewalk. I pay the cabbie and somehow end up back into my room, and then sleep right through to the morning.
0-0-0-0
In my dreams that night there's a train, I'm inside but I can see the outside of it passing through in a rush, it doesn't stop at the stations, and there's a knocking sound coming from somewhere. I'm sitting in a compartment by myself, the window down; the persistent breeze coming in makes my hair writhe around behind my head. Suddenly the train compartment disappears but the breeze is left, and it's growing stronger, hurting my eyes, whipping my hair around my head, pulling painfully when it gets caught on an invisible something. It turns cold, bites at my cheeks and nose and then there's an arm catching my by the waist as I start to fall. The hands are warm, and the wind disappears. Then as suddenly as the weather in Bath, the dream changes; the hands are gone from my waist, the scene is changing, and I'm little again, eavesdropping outside the door to the room where my parents are arguing.
My mother is upset and angry, my father calm and attempting to make her see reason. I start to cry, then the door opens. My mother looks older, the way I imagine her to look if she lived. My dad looks the same as always.
My mother opens her mouth to speak the only bit of advice I actually remember her really giving me:
'Never commit to something important unless both your head and your heart agree.'
And that's when I wake.
0-0-0-0
The sunlight is streaming in through the gap in the curtains, and I blink, letting my eyes adjust to the increase of light. I press the home button on my phone and it tells me that it's just clicked past eight in the morning. My legs are sore from walking in heels and my head is pounding at the temples. I got six hours of sleep, but I feel like I could very easily have another twenty.
I sit up and shut out the light by using the heel of my palms over my eyes. That dream was so weird. Like a mixture of things that should mysteriously come together to make a picture that makes perfect metaphorical sense. But as I think it over, the details that were so vivid only moments ago begin to fade, the blur of the scenery outside the train becomes one of various colours of green; the door that I was standing outside just becomes a door, the voices of my parents fade, only leaving the words themselves behind. However the feel of the vicious howling wind remains, like my scars, it is no less vivid than when they were first there.
There is no wind outside though, the clouds have given way to the sun and even from behind my hands I can see that this morning will be bright and warm. With my eyes still shut I grope around the floor near the bed for my handbag, knowing that there are two capsules of paracetamol sealed in the foil packets that I so often see and use at the clinic. I find them and swallow them dry; silently willing them to work quicker than they normally do for the headache is only getting worse.
Remembering back to the events of the previous evening, I cannot believe I ordered tequila shots, and how easily I fell into old college habits, and how Lou and Henn had really never done a lick-sip-suck before.
I roll out of bed, and slope towards the bathroom, collecting my towel and clean underwear on the way. The shower is refreshing, and the headache ebbs away as the water pours over me. I put the clean underwear on and wrap my wet hair in the towel. I pull out my jeans and a singlet top, but weariness overtakes me and I cannot be bothered actually putting them on. I check my phone, to find that almost an hour has passed since I last checked, and we have three hours until our late checkout at noon. I hear a sudden knock at my door and just as I go to open it, I realise I'm only wearing my underwear and a towel. I race to the bathroom quickly, where I remember seeing a bathrobe and put it on, tightly tying a knot with the belt at my waist.
The peephole in the door is grimy, cracked and useless, so I open the door without knowing who would be on the other side.
It's Fred, looking a little worse for wear, but dressed in fresh clothes and lugging his carry case behind him, his jacket folded over his arm.
'I came to say goodbye,' he said quietly, 'Adrian and I got called into a work meeting set for noon, and if we're going to get there in time we have to leave now, Henn and Lou are still asleep, but we've said farewell to everyone else.'
I nod, awaiting him to say something else, but he doesn't. I realise I'm staring at him with my mouth open, dressed in a bathrobe, looking like a lost sheep, and that he's not saying anything.
'Have a safe drive,' my voice cracks from the previous evening's use, 'give my best to Soph and Adrian too.'
I don't say the things that I really want to say. Don't go, stay here, and stay with me. But my mouth closes and the words die in my mind.
He nods, gives me a half smile and turns on his heels and heads away.
I realise I might never see him again, with me heading off to Milan soon, and him very likely leaving to do some other engineering project and our lives could very easily never intersect ever again.
He's too far away by now to hear me say it, but I say it quietly anyways, 'I don't want it to be goodbye.'
0-0-0-0
The trip back was unmemorable; the car ride with Mary and Charles was like any other and before long I was back at my home, climbing the familiar stairs and opening the familiar front door. My mind was still burning from the previous evening's drinking efforts and the quickness of Fred's farewell at my hotel room door that morning. I sit on my grey couch and think back to the farewell I got that morning.
Part of me wishes I had followed the deep-seated instinct in me to tell Fred to shut up and grab his neck and pull his face down to mine like I used to do. Or at the very least tell him that I still loved him; but my first instinct to kiss him would kill two birds with one stone on that point. However it's all moot, with me flying out to Milan in the coming week and him being off doing his engineering thing.
I won't see him again, and perhaps it was best to accept that sooner rather than later.
