Page 61 of You Can't Hurt Me

“Do you ever talk about any of this with Kath? Knowing she’s like that, shouldn’t you have involved her a bit more in the book? Given her even an illusion of being involved?”

“Probably you’re right. But it would have been painful, for both of us and after all, it ismygrief memoir.”

I say nothing and he studies my expression.

“She told you more about her theories of me? That’s what you’re still thinking about.” He exhales, pressing his fingertips into his temples. “Kath really did get to you, didn’t she?”

“I hate all this, Nate.”

“Don’t say that,” he says, gently. “Whatever doubts you have, ask me.”

My head spins, torn between all their conflicting stories. Priya, Kath, Nate, each so plausible in their own way, winning me over whenever I’m in their presence. I despise myself, needling, insecure, on the attack, his answers to my questions only creating more subterfuge, not less.

I take another sip of wine, feel the alcohol slip through my system, blurring the edges.

“Look, I really don’t know what to think, who to believe. Except, you know, who cares, really?” I throw my hands up. “What’s it got to do with me? Seriously. I’m only your fucking ghostwriter.”

He opens his mouth to object but starts to laugh instead and so do I, at the absurdity of it all. A waiter hovers next to us with plates of food. Nate leans back, folds his arms, as he arranges the small dishes of tapas between us. There is salt cod in crispy batter, deep-fried cheese laced with honey and buttery prawns, but neither of us are interested. Nate leans in, speaks softly, urgently, into the distance between us.

“Seriously though, you’re not only my ghostwriter. You know that.” He doesn’t laugh this time and I look down, break his stare. When I look up, a self-conscious grin flickers across his face.

“Have you ever thought about working in America, Anna?” he asks, his tone quiet. “I think it could be perfect for you. The next step up for your work. Another book we could work on, but this time in your name?”

I say nothing for a moment, struggle to conceal the slow fuse of my smile reflected in his. He refills my glass and I take a long sip, allow myself briefly to luxuriate in the possibilities. New York. Away from my worst fears, my past, the ultimate reinvention. Nate’s profile igniting mine. I could sell up my apartment, pay back Tony’s share with interest, even have a little extra to support him if he needs it. Escape all the secrets, live in the future and kill the past.

Doubts still needle, but I try to bat them away. Nate’s response about Columbia was pretty flawless. Emotionally genuine, logical. Maybe I am too cynical. We both have pasts that are flawed, twisty and messy. I think once more of those diary entries and wonder what right I have to judge anyone, least of all him? And he wants me to come. Isn’t this what I wanted?

I swirl my glass, watch the wine undulate like a crimson wave, silk and oil at its edges. I register how featherlight I feel, soaring outside myself, existing only in the moment.

That way he checks his watch, his sleeves rolled up, the glint of steel bracelet on his wrist, the tendons working beneath. Even though I despise myself for abandoning my resolve so quickly, something inside me contracts, quickens with anticipation.

The waiter clears our plates and late afternoon presses in on us as we exit the pub. Outside it begins to pour and I make a show of scrolling through my phone to order an Uber home. Nate shakes his head, flicks his hand in the air. I feel a twist inside, watching him walk ahead of me, bristling with innate conviction, no faltering, no flip-flopping.

“Come on, you’ll get soaked,” he calls back to me, his voice raised above the sound of the downpour. “Book a cab from my house.”

Algos feels empty and cavernous, the rain beats on the glass above us, casting liquid shadows on the walls. He opens the glass door and we stand next to each other under a strip of awning. The air is humming, charged.

“Cigarette?” he says, shaking his jacket pocket absentmindedly, searching for a lighter. I take one and we smoke in reflective silence for a moment.

“I’ve been thinking of that brother of yours,” Nate says thoughtfully. “How are things between you two?”

“Oh, same old. I’m not sure if anything will ever really change.”

“You know, your insights when we were editing together got me thinking. You were so perceptive about loss and pain. It was the kind of perception one could only really know if they went through something themselves. Perhaps...with their own family?”

“I guess I do have experience of it too. I lost my parents when I was relatively young. So, I did know what you were talking about, what you went through, to an extent.”

“Anna, that’s terrible. How? I mean both at the same time or—”

“No. Mom died of cancer when I was young and my dad from an asthma attack when I was around nineteen. Tony was there too. We tried so hard to save him...”

“I’m sure there was nothing you or your brother could have done. Had he had attacks like that before?”

“Yes, it was a pattern,” I say. His attention is like a balm, an invitation I so desperately want to take. When you experience any sort of shocking death, it creates these strange points of connection with other people’s shocking losses. You search them out for comparison, reassurance too.

Of course, I can’t tell him everything about that night. I still struggle to fit the pieces together myself, a night measured out in chaotic sensations and snatched images, nothing close to coherent memory. I remember how much I was looking forward to a night out at my best friend’s house party. How long I had spent getting ready. The red ankle boots, the midriff top, my pale bare legs. My dad took one look at me and started yelling. Why would I go out looking like a slut? That word, burnt into my memory, was the catalyst for me. At this point in the evening, Tony was only the passive observer, while I was a whirling dervish of white heat. “I’m nineteen years old. I’m an adult. Fuck off!” I screamed back at him, failing to register the rage etched on my father’s face. The rigid fury in his angled features. The scrape of my heels on the hall tiles.

The rest I remember in slow motion. The feel of my father’s hands like iron circling my ankles, dragging me down the stairs step by step. The way I struggled for breath. A taste of what was to come. His arm on me, twisting mine. The rip of pain, the pitch of my howl. It had all happened before, to me and to Tony. By then we knew my father’s temper was unpredictable and extreme. If I hadn’t riled him that evening, how differently things could have turned out, as Tony often used to remind me.

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