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He let out a low whistle through tight lips. “Okay… what I wanted to say is—”
Sit still, wait, listen.
“Remember that day when I first met you?” She made a little noise she hoped was encouragement. “That look on your face… when you were trying to get your breath… bottomless fear… I knew that feeling… I’d been there. I had this immediate sense that Igotyou.” He paused and stared at his clasped hands for long moments.
“I’ve never talked about this, but after my mum died, my life fell in a huge hole. I went kind of crazy there for a while. Couldn’t focus on anything, couldn’t study, kept getting into trouble. I literally hated everyone, everything. Dad used to drop me off at school; I’d wait for roll call, then escape through a hole in the fence. They’d find me, phone Dad, give me detention, and then I’d do it again. After a while, I got involved with a bunch of older kids who were doing the same thing and one of them gave me some dope. So I smoked it. It made me feel so good, so mellow—like nothinghurtanymore.” He paused. “But then things kind of went from bad to worse; one day I was found with a stash of dope on me and got suspended.”
“How old were you then?”
“Fourteen.”
Alice groped for his hand; she couldn’t help herself. Grabbed and squeezed it. He squeezed back, gave her a fleeting, thin smile. “I had the pleasure of being dragged to counsellors, then finally a psychiatrist. In the end he diagnosed ADHD and depression. I don’t think it was ADHD. Not really, though it probably looked like it. You see, I couldn’t tell them. I couldn’t tell anyone Mum dying was my fault.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” she exclaimed. “How could it be your fault?”
“I was supposed to catch a lift home after footy with another kid. I was mucking around, no doubt trying to impress, knowing me, and the kid’s parent thought I’d gone with someone else. I phoned Mum, and she was on her way to pick me up when… when the guy ran the red light. If I’d just done what I was supposed to… she… she wouldn’t have died.”
“You could never have known that, Aaron. That’s like saying every second of every day each one of us is responsible for every single event in the whole world. Like we’re God or something. It doesn’t work that way.”
“I know that. Logically. Why do you think I studied law?” His smile was shaded with so much sorrow it tore her apart. “But deep inside—” He fisted a hand to the centre of his chest. “In here, when you’re twelve years old, you don’t understand things that way.”
He sat, rocking backward and forward gently. “Finally, Dad put me in a different school that was more supportive of my needs, I guess. He met Andrea; I made some friends—”
Alice’s lips quirked. “Carts and Dan, right?”
“Yeah.” He laughed, his face relaxing a smidge. “Jerks, both of them, but loyal mates.”
They sat quietly for a long beat. “Life gradually got better after that. I think the medication did help me focus; my grades improved. I joined a gym, started running, then entering marathons, until I gradually got off the medications when I was at uni. I felt okay. Life was good. I dated lots of… well, you know that. As long as I avoided getting close to anyone, I felt I was safe. And then you came along. And suddenly I had something more. A girl who it felt good to just hang out with, who made me laugh. Who made the best hot chocolates and beat me at Monopoly and laughed at my bad jokes and saved my bacon so many times I’ve lost count. And I cared…”
Alice sniffed. “Just notthatway.”
Aaron flashed a grin. “You were always kind of nerdy cute.”
“Thanks,” she said with heavy sarcasm.
If Aaron got it, he didn’t let on. “The problem was I had two identities; the player who had flings, one-night stands. Whatever. And then I was this other person… the one I was—am—with you.”
“And never the two shall meet, right?” She tried not to let the bitter note creep in, but her heart was dropping like a stone. He was telling her he cared about her… just not that way. Not in that special way.
Well, she could take it, she was strong enough now. “I get what you’re saying, Aaron.” She tried to pull her hand away.
He looked up at her, brows furrowed, eyes clouded, and held on tighter. “Let’s go somewhere else.”
This was getting confusing. “Where now?”
“You’ll see.” He jumped up, and with his hand still clasping hers, Alice had no choice but to follow. “Trust me.”
“Really?”
“It’s only a short drive. Come on.”
As Aaron strode purposefully along, his hand around hers, Alice’s pulse spiked, her heart thundered against her ribs. It felt like a tornado was brewing.
Was Aaron feeling it too?
She prattled on madly to hide it. “Delia came to the shop the other day. She told me all about the Lauren thing—oh, and she’s going back to work, but I don’t think she’s told her husband yet, so maybe don’t say anything.”
Aaron nodded. “Yes, it’s mayhem at work. The whole affair with Lauren is out. Apparently Miranda’s spilled everything to the press. There’s a double-page spread coming out sometime next week.”
