I paused. This was where he was supposed to backtrack. Blush. Wave his hands. Anything to reassure me that he hadn’t just insinuated that I had some kind of problem.
But he did not.
He let the silence hang between us. That look didn’t leave his face. Heat grew in my neck and my cheeks and my eyes. I turned away to give my expression a break.
“Okay, I see I’m not changing your mind,” I said as lightly as possible, calculating how quickly I could turn the conversation to me getting back to town. I stood up. Perhaps in a minute I could fake an important email on my phone. “But thank you for raising it. If I’d needed it, I’m sure I would have appreciated it. You’re a very kind person.”
He sighed.
“After what you told me in the pub, I thought you could do with hearing from someone who’s been there—”
My whole body went cold. I knew I’d done something that night.
“What did I tell you?”
His eyes searched my face, slightly confused.
“About what happened at your old workplace.”
Panic spread through my chest.
You told him? Idiot! Stupid idiotic girl!
All that time I’d spent worried about my neighbour and that hallucination in my basement. I should have been worrying about—
I turned away and bit the inside of my cheek, to focus, to calm down.
I heard Rowan getting up behind me.
“I just… after what happened with that guy and how things ended up, I thought if I could just stop it happening again…”
I spun round a little faster than I’d wanted. “Nothing is happening.”
It came out harsh and sharp which annoyed me further. I wanted to stay calm, otherwise I’d be proving his point. But then the way he was pushing me—and he was pushing me—how else was I supposed to react? This was gaslighting! Or something like it. When someone drives you crazy, so they can point at you and say, ‘Look how crazy she is!’ I couldn’t let that happen. I had to fix this.
I took a breath and fought to calm myself, despite the rising pitch in my head.
“It was nothing. I probably made it sound worse than it is. You know how people are when they’re drunk. Mountains and molehills and that. I’m fine. Really.”
He put his hands on his hips, unconvinced.
“Really? You snap at nothing. You bristle at your own shadow. Dave says he saw you look pure murder at his boy the other day.”
“What?” Then I remembered the teenagers at the memorial. I rolled my eyes and performed a thin high laugh. “Those kids just surprised me, and I felt…” I shrugged, playing things down, scrabbling about for something to take the attention off me. “You don’t understand. You probably never get hassled by anyone. Big tough-looking person like you. They’d never jump out and try to humiliate you.”
Rowan pulled a face. “I find looking like this tends to bring its own trouble. There’s always some arsehole who wants to fight you.”
I fought the grimace in my face. “I get that. I’m just saying I feel like”—breathe, Tamsin, breathe—“I’d get a lot less hassle if I was bigger, stronger looking. That’s all. No need to interrogate it.”
Rowan shook his head. “I don’t think there’s a magical state of existence where you’d get hassled by no one, where you’d not meet any arseholes, where some insecure stupid kid won’t try to spook you to look cool to his insecure stupid mates.”
“So, what am I supposed to do?” The words came out clipped and sharp again, my hands shook. “Just put up with it? Never get angry ever?”
Rowan sighed and pinched the top of his nose.
“No, no, that’s not what I’m saying. I’m not saying don’t feel angry. That’s impossible.” He looked out over the view again as if for inspiration. “I learnt the hard way that the only way to win when you’re seeing red is to walk away. Or if you can’t do that, punch a wall instead of a face. Doesn’t matter what anyone thinks of you or how angry they made you or how stupid or weak you think you look. Because the only other outcomes are leaving in the back of a police car or in an ambulance. It’s not like the movies. There won’t be a slow clap. No one’s going to think you’re cool. Well… some idiots might. But no one who’s got any sense is going to look at you and say, ‘Wow, that person knows how to handle themselves.’ They’re just going to think you are dangerous and unstable and they will be right. Because that’s all this is. It’s not strength. It’s weakness in disguise. It’s fear and loneliness and self-hatred, and bouncing between all of that while you spin out of control.” He turned his head to one side. “For what it’s worth, I think you’re a decent person, and I’d really hate to watch another decent person lose themselves.” He nodded. “I’m sorry if I overstepped.”
I crossed my arms and looked at the ground, my skin vibrating itself to a humming fuzz.
