It's Not You It's Me

It was a recipe shower, as it turned out, and I still have all the recipes in the scrapbook they gave me today. I don’t use the Miss Tenningtons’ mutton one very much—never, in fact—but the caramel fudge one from Mrs Holland comes in quite handy on rainy Sundays.

Jas and I became even more involved in building life after our fake marriage. We played croquet every second Saturday, and even started going to bingo on the second Tuesday night of each month. After our first night at bingo we made a pact.

We would draw the line at bowls.

Bowls, we decided, would be taking it too far. Apart from the white uniform being expensive, and a little more than unflattering, we agreed that it was probably best to save something for our own retirement.

As we got to know the people in the building better, little treats started to turn up on our doorstep. Lemon butter. Lime butter. Passionfruit butter.

There was a lot of butter.

Pumpkin scones, fruit scones and plain scones were also popular.

We’d do little things in return. Change lightbulbs. Open tough jars. Things like that. Whatever we could, really. But while things were tottering along beautifully with everyone else, it was at this time, around the six-month mark, that Jas started to act a little oddly.

I’d always thought it was strange that he never brought any friends back to the apartment. In fact, a few weeks after he’d moved in I’d noticed this and thought that maybe he was worried that it wouldn’t be OK with me. So I mentioned it, asked if he wanted to have a house-warming or something and invite all his friends along. He just shook his head. He was busy, he said. With his work. Now, I knew that he didn’t get on with his family very well, that they didn’t agree with what he was doing—studying music—but there must be people he socialised with, and why he didn’t want them in the apartment was a mystery.

As for me, I had people over by the dozen. My mother, my aunt Kath, friends from work, the odd love interest—whoever.

I didn’t give up on the friends thing with Jas, though. I would ask again, every so often, just in case he changed his mind. Or, that is, I kept asking until things went a bit strange. Because all of a sudden Jas started bringing people home. Every weekend. Always different ones.

And all girls.

The first time, I didn’t think much of it. I got up on a Saturday morning, half dressed, and went into the kitchen to find some tall blonde girl there I didn’t know. I knew Jas had been out the night before with some people from uni, but I didn’t know he’d brought someone home. I said hi, made a hasty cup of tea and scooted back to my room with the paper. When I emerged an hour or so later she was gone, and Jas didn’t seem to want to say anything about it.

The next week, it was the same.

There was a girl there Saturday morning.

And a different girl there Sunday morning.

All blonde and all tall. Well, maybe there was one bordering on brunette and one you might have called strawberry blonde…but always a different girl.

The weekend after that there weren’t any girls. Not here, anyway, because Jas didn’t even bother to come home.

Things went on like this for weeks. Girls arrived, then disappeared mysteriously early in the morning of the next day. For the short periods of time it was just us in the apartment Jas hid in his room, working furiously. He avoided me. He avoided everyone. He stopped going to croquet, he stopped going to bingo, he even looked as if he’d stopped eating, he got so thin. The ladies pressed new recipes on me, fattening recipes for lasagne and roasts and bread and butter pudding with butterscotch sauce.

I went through stages. At first I was worried—this wasn’t like Jas, not like the Jas I knew, anyway. Why was he suddenly so withdrawn when we’d been getting along so well? I tried to talk to him, but he dodged the questions, avoided me, simply didn’t come home. It carried on and on in the same way. The girls kept coming and would leave around midday. I’d stay holed up in my room until they left.

It was embarrassing, having to go out into the kitchen when there was a 99.9 per cent chance there’d be a half-naked girl in there who always looked too good for that time of the morning. And generally with a smile that even lemon-scented Jif and the scratchy side of the kitchen sponge wouldn’t be able to wipe off her face.

I just didn’t feel comfortable.

After weeks and weeks of this, I started to get a bit shitty. I was sick and tired of being a prisoner in my own room every weekend morning. And things had heated up. Girls came over during the week. And when, one Saturday, a few of my CDs went missing, I moved up from shitty to simply furious. I didn’t talk to Jas for the rest of the week and decided that if things kept up like this he was out.

But things didn’t stay like that at all. Because after that Saturday the girl thing stopped just as abruptly as it had started. Jas didn’t go out with the friends from uni any more, either. The friends I’d never met.

During the week that it all came to a halt Jas took me out for dinner and apologised awkwardly. He said he’d been stressed, that he’d gone a bit crazy, hadn’t known what he was doing, but now knew he’d been acting like an idiot. He promised it wouldn’t happen again.

I didn’t know where to look. I mumbled something in reply and that was that. After that evening we didn’t talk about it again. And a few weeks later things returned to almost normal between us.

For a while, anyway. Because as time passed I started to realise something about myself. A thing that came as a bit of a shock.

I knew I’d overreacted a touch about Jas having all the girls over—and I’d felt as guilty as hell when I’d found the ‘missing’ CDs under my bed a few weeks after Jas had hit the emergency stop button on the chick conveyer belt. In fact, I’d worried and fretted and carried on about the girl thing so much I was behind on my sculpting. Uni was suffering too. I’d already had one extension on an assignment I couldn’t seem to get started, and it didn’t look like as if it was going to be handed in any time soon. I’d simply spent hour after hour during those weeks sitting in the boat shed doing nothing. Staring at the walls. Staring at the floor. Staring at the ceiling.

And I was still doing it. The staring thing. Especially if I could hear the piano.

It wasn’t just that, either. There was the weekend thing too. The thing where I’d wake up at five-thirty or so every Saturday and Sunday morning like clockwork and lie there, wondering if there was a girl in Jas’s room. Praying that there wouldn’t be and being overjoyed when it was true.

I kept on like this for months.

And by the end of the year, just a few weeks before we were due to move out, I was so far behind on my work I realised I was never going to catch up in time to hold my exhibition. Not that I even wanted to any more. Because I’d been slowly realising that there was something wrong with it all. Something not quite right.

I couldn’t relate to what I was doing, where I was going with my sculpture—couldn’t get involved. Up at the apartment I’d hear Jas working away, completely absorbed in his songwriting, frustrating me with every note he played on the piano. I would have given anything, anything to be able to block out the world around me like Jas and my mother seemed to be able to do for hours at a time.

Things had only got worse on the uni front as well. I’d received a conceded pass on my assignment, and was now trying to convince myself that the saying ‘third time lucky’ might just be true, because it certainly didn’t seem as if I was going to pass on this, my second, attempt. It was the worst of times. And then, as if all of the above wasn’t enough to be getting on with, I worked something out.

I’d been sitting there in the boat shed, doing little or nothing as per usual—unless you could call kicking around the bits of scrap metal on the floor doing something—when it came to me. I could hear Jas playing and singing. A new piece I hadn’t heard before, or couldn’t remember. It was perfect, whatever it was, and I knew he must have written it himself. It suited his voice, which I noticed instantly, because a lot of things other people wrote didn’t. He had a strange voice, low and raspy. Very distinctive.

Halfway through his song I became startled and coughed. I’d forgotten something. To breathe, in fact. And I needed to desperately. I felt something strange and brought one hand up to my chest. My heart was going thumpa-thumpa-thump. That’s when it came to me.

I was completely, desperately, totally, devotedly, idiotically in love with Jasper Ash.

I was in love with Jas.

Why I hadn’t realised it before was beyond me. It was so obvious.

The feelings I’d found so hard to control when he’d had girl after girl over for the night. The waking up early every weekend morning. The sitting and listening when I should have been working. The…oh, everything.

It was cringeworthy.

So that’s what I did. I sat for a bit longer. But this time, instead of staring at the walls, staring at the floor, staring at the ceiling, I cringed. Long and hard. And when I was done I wondered just what I was going to do about this. This…love thing. The L thing. It didn’t take me long to realise there wasn’t much I could do.

It was pointless.

In two weeks’ time, Jas and I would be packing our belongings into boxes. In three weeks’ time we’d be moving out. Jas to Sydney and me to my mother’s place in Byron Bay. And there wasn’t any way I could change that. Not my plans anyway, because my mother needed me. She was sick. And I was going to go and look after her.

There wasn’t any way Jas could change his plans to move to Sydney either, because he’d made this great contact. Some guy in the music industry who might be able to get him started in the business. So that was that. To say anything now would be pointless.

Futile.

Basically, an all-round waste of time.

Chapter Three

So, I shut up about it. I hid my feelings.

Oh, probably not very well. I have to say that much. I was probably as transparent as the thinnest of thin rice paper. I probably mooned around the apartment like a lovesick cow. But Jas didn’t seem to notice, or if he did he didn’t say anything, and things continued as usual.

Until our third last day together.

We’d been fairly busy up until then. Of course everyone in the building had to leave, so we’d spent the last few weeks running around and helping out with the odd spot of packing. Wrapping up endless china cups and knickknacks for the arthritic Miss Tenningtons—why old ladies always seem to own about a hundred china cups and saucers in rose patterns that never match is beyond me—and waving people off as their families came and transported them to, usually, nursing homes.

By our third last day together, our third last day in the apartment, just about everyone we were close to had gone. There was only a handful of people left in the entire building. It was quiet. Too quiet. Even the building seemed to know it was coming to the end of its days, because the day before the lift had stuck between floors—thankfully, there was no one in it—and had refused to budge for twelve hours. It had taken five workmen to get it started again.

It was almost midnight when I got home on that third last day. I’d just finished my last shift at my crappy waitressing job, and though I should have been ecstatic I wasn’t. The day before I’d been notified that I had officially failed my Modern History subject. Again. I had a million boxes to pack. I had to move. My mother was sick. All my friends from my days at Magnolia Lodge were being packed off to nursing homes around the country that they didn’t want to go to. My sculpture had died a slow and painful death. Life wasn’t exactly great.

When I got up to the apartment and opened the door I was surprised to find it was dark inside, even though Jas had said he’d definitely be up late packing. Just as I was about to turn the light on there was a noise—a chair scraping against the balcony tiles. I dropped my hand from the light switch and looked out to see Jas stand up.

‘Hey,’ I called out, wary, a part of me already sensing something was wrong.

‘Come and take a seat,’ Jas said.

I crossed the floor, dropping my bag and keys on the dining table on the way.

‘What’s up?’ I tried to read Jas’s expression as I sat down in the iron chair he’d pulled out for me. Before he could answer, something distracted me. I sniffed. Sniffed again. Spotted the small plastic bag on the balcony ledge, then the papers and the lighter. ‘Is that…?’

Jas made a face. ‘Was. Sorry.’

My eyebrows lifted. I hadn’t seen Jas smoke before. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Don’t know how to tell you this, Charlie…’

‘What? What is it?’ I started to get scared. ‘Is it Mum?’

‘No. No, nothing like that. It’s Mr Nelson.’

‘Mr Nelson? What’s wrong with him?’

Jas paused. ‘He died this afternoon, Charlie.’

The information didn’t really register at first. I’d waved at Mr Nelson that morning as he stood on his balcony, and only a few days ago I’d run over to his apartment to give him an old toiletries bag I didn’t need any more. He’d mentioned he needed one. And Jas—Jas had been over there all the time. He and Mr Nelson got on like a house on fire—they were always up to something. Usually no good. Their favourite pastime was swapping dirty jokes. Preferably dirty jokes about blondes. What was it with blondes?

‘It was a stroke.’

I didn’t say anything. There wasn’t anything to say. No protests to make. I simply stared up at him blankly, then back down again at the balcony floor.

Jas kneeled down in front of me and put his hands on my knees. ‘Can I get you something? A drink? Water?’

I tried to say no, but nothing came out.

‘Charlie?’

I shook my head, unable to meet his eyes.

Jas stood up and pulled out another of the chairs to sit beside me.

And then we sat.

We sat there for ages on that balcony. Just sat. Saying nothing. Watching the shadows move around on the lawn and the ferries travel up and down the river.

At about twelve-thirty a.m. I got up. ‘I’m going to have a shower,’ I said.

I showered until I’d used all the hot water up. Then I stood there for a bit longer as the water got colder and colder, until it was freezing, almost punishing myself. I don’t know why. Now, I think maybe the sensation of the too-cold water made me feel something other than the numbness I’d felt since I’d walked through the door and heard the news.

When I finally emerged from the bathroom, Jas wasn’t on the balcony any more. I walked into the kitchen to see if he was there, which he wasn’t, then went back to the bathroom, still drying off my hair. ‘Jas?’

‘In here.’ The voice came from his bedroom.

I hung my towel over the bathroom door before going over and pushing his door open slightly. He was lying on the bed. Face up. ‘You OK?’

‘Yeah. Just tired.’

I went in and lay down beside him on my stomach, my chin resting on my hands.

It was then that we talked about Mr Nelson. I can’t remember exactly what we spoke about, but I remember we talked for hours. In the end, not just about him, about…everything.

And I must have fallen asleep right where I was, because I remember waking up halfway through the night and looking for my bedside clock to check the time. This confused me because, of course, not being in my bedroom, it wasn’t there. I must have woken Jas up then, because he rolled over and his arm landed on top of me. Now we were both on our sides.

Kind of close.

Actually, from my point of view, more like kind of achingly close.

I stayed as still as I could. I didn’t move in case he moved. I didn’t dare.

Then, slowly, it dawned on me that I wasn’t going to be able to control myself. Or my arm, anyway. Because my arm, independent of my sanity, started to snake up and under his arm and over his back. And with a little levering we were closer still. Close enough to…

…kiss.

Which is what I started to do to him. Very softly at first, so soft that he didn’t even wake up. But that didn’t last very long. Because, like I said before, I couldn’t control myself. I couldn’t help it. It just…happened.

As I leaned in even closer, my heart was thumpa-thumping again, like it had done in the boat shed all those weeks ago, and I remember this strange feeling washing over me. Half of me was petrified of what Jas would do when he woke up, the other half was so excited I didn’t think I would be able to wait until he did. It was excruciating.

And then he woke up.

His eyes flicked partly open and his body jerked, startled. I knew then that this was it. Whatever happened next was how it was. How he really felt. There was a sickening moment as Jas started to pull away…

But then he leaned in. Even closer. And he started to kiss me back.

It was—well, even now I can’t explain it. I’ve never been kissed like that before, or again. I don’t think I ever wanted anything that badly, so for it to actually happen—I wasn’t even sure I was really awake. The one thing I could tell, though, was that he wanted it to happen too. Because the moment he’d opened his eyes and realised what was going on he’d seemed relieved for a split second. As if he’d been waiting. Biding his time the same as I had.

We kissed for what seemed like for ever. Until I decided it wasn’t enough.

Still painfully nervous, I inched my way on top of him. And I mean inched. I was so scared. Scared that this bliss would stop at any moment. But we kept kissing. And I kept inching. Finally I was there. At the summit. I had climbed Mount Everest. If I’d had a flag, I would’ve stuck it in.

Charlie was here.

I became gamer then, spurred on by my victory. I ran my hands underneath his T-shirt and then, in one swift movement, pulled it over his head. His chest was just beautiful. And, yes, I know everything I’m saying is so cliché and next I’ll probably be using awful words like ‘glistening love cavern’, ‘glowing milky-white orbs’ and ‘throbbing, pulsating manhood’, but that’s how it was. I mean, after all the lusting I’d been doing over the past month or so, Jas could have had a full third nipple and I would have waxed lyrical about its lickability or something.

And, oh God, as if things weren’t good enough already, he then ran his hands up over my thighs and onto my hips, pushing my white cotton nightie up in the process.

I thought I would die.

But not before I’d remembered my manners and thanked my fairy godmother for giving me the foresight to shave my legs that morning and not to wear my rotten old men’s pyjamas with the easy-access fly panel that was, well, a bit rude at times.

He rested his hands on my hips then, on top of my undies, and I prayed, prayed, prayed as hard as I could, to the goddess Hussy, that he would just rip them off. But he didn’t. His hands slid down again onto my thighs.

I started to get impatient then. Why don’t men ever know there’s a time for foreplay and a time to get straight down to business? I’ll never understand it. I didn’t want to get bossy, though, so I decided to get even gamer instead. I wiggled my hips down, down his body, until…

Eureka!

I found what I wanted. What I needed. And, my, it was glorious. Truly glorious—there are, after all, benefits to a guy being six-foot-four. It was everything I’d been dreaming of in that boat shed and more. So, Charlie, I told myself. This is it. Really it. Not that silly flag stuff on Mount Everest, but country-conquering territory.

Slowly, slowly, I snuck my hand into his boxers. I wanted so badly just to grab it, but I didn’t. I like to think I’m a lady! Instead, I prolonged the agony. I ran my hand over his hip and down onto his leg. Over his stomach and…oh, everywhere. Everywhere but. And when I couldn’t wait any longer I went for it. But then something went wrong.

I stopped, confused. It was, um, shrinking. And, frankly, that wasn’t something on my agenda. It wasn’t something that was supposed to happen.

Oh, fuck.

‘Charlie—don’t.’ Jas had frozen. ‘Just get off me,’ he added, scrambling up, pulling my hand out of his boxers.

I moved just as fast off the top of him and onto the other side of the bed.

And inside my head I swore and swore and swore.

The one thing I was grateful for was that it was dark in the bedroom, like the balcony had been before. This was a good thing, because for that awful, quiet moment before anything was said I knew that I just never wanted to see Jas again. I wanted the bed to engulf me. For me to sink right in, where no one would ever find me. To never have to hear what he was about to say.

I waited, all the time just dying inside. Withering away. And those words kept repeating and repeating themselves in my head. Charlie—don’t. Get off me. Charlie—don’t. Get off me.

At first, sitting on the other side of the bed, Jas didn’t say anything. Then he sort of groaned, and that was it. But it was a telling groan. Or at least I thought it was. A ‘how embarrassing, my flatmate’s just jumped me’ kind of groan. Charlie—don’t. Get off me. Charlie—don’t. Get off me.

And then it started. ‘Charlie, I…’

Charlie—don’t. Get off me. Charlie—don’t. Get off me. I couldn’t bear it any longer. ‘Just say it. And quickly.’

He stopped. Ran both his hands through his hair. ‘Don’t know what to say…’

‘How about “you’re repulsive, Charlie”? Oh, too late. You already covered that. No words required.’

He reached over somewhere beside the bed then. I watched his hand.

Oh, no. No!

The light turned on.

As if it wasn’t bad enough just to hear what he was going to say, I had to hear it in the light. Where every expression could be read. Where he’d be able to see each word stab right through my heart. And it was so bright, that light. Worse even than the lights in dressing rooms when you’re trying on swimsuits after a sucking-coffee-through-double-choc-coated-Tim-Tams/triple-helping-of-sticky-date-pudding Winter.

‘How can you say that? That you’re repulsive?’ He looked at me as if I was crazy.

‘You obviously think so.’

He stretched his hand out to touch me on the arm.

‘Don’t.’ I pulled away.

‘You know that’s not what I meant. It’s not you. Not you at all. It’s me.’

I laughed then. Really laughed. ‘That’s original. It’s not you, it’s me. I’ve never heard that one before.’

He swung his legs over the side of the bed so that his back was to me. ‘No, I mean it. It is me.’ There was a lengthy pause. ‘I just can’t.’

‘Yeah. Right. With me, you mean. What you mean is, it’s me. Not you. Me. Me!’ The fact that he couldn’t just admit the truth drove me past crazy.

‘I…’ He ran his hands through his hair again. Hard. I flinched, wondering how much hair he’d just pulled out. ‘Just can’t. Not now. Not with you.’

I sat there, winded by those final three words. Final in every sense. Not with you. So it was me. And there it was, out in the open. Strangely enough, it didn’t make me feel any better. ‘But all those girls…’ I thought to myself, then realised the words had actually come out of my mouth. I shut it tight, but couldn’t shut out my remembering their oh-so-similar morning smiles. Their different faces. Names. Amanda. Rachel. Kirsty. Sophie. Rebecca. Theresa. What was so different about them? I became acutely aware of the bed beneath me. The bed in which, not so long ago, they’d all…

Ugh.

Something inside me started to bubble after this. I sat there for a bit longer as it churned away in my stomach. And then I worked out what it was. It was anger. It was easier to be angry than to feel embarrassed—less painful. Soon enough, it worked its way out. ‘Well, I’m sorry I’m not good enough,’ I spat, hitting the mattress with one hand.