Page 60 of Come Back To Me

It was wrong. I was wrong. I deserve love, but it’s going to take me a very long time to learn that.

It’s lunchtime at Bronte. The front bar is busy and I’ve not had a moment’s break since my shift started. The juicers hum and the smell of fresh fruit is so strong in the air my mouth is watering. They make us wear these waistcoats with ties. It’s unbearably hot. It’s been a week since I met with David, four days since I last spoke to Ethan. I’m feeling quite sorry for myself, a little rejected, and alone actually. Yesterday I bought a paperback from the corner shop and wandered around with it under my arm, intending to find a bench where I could read while I sunned. There were plenty of benches, plenty of sun, but I kept thinking there’d be a better option if I walked a little bit further. Before I knew it, I’d walked four miles and the sun was dipping low in the sky. I missed my chance and I never found a bench good enough.Hey, girl, hey—you’re an asshole.It’s good to know these things about yourself so you don’t go around blaming others for your fuckups.

I’d bought a bottle of wine on my way home and drank the whole thing sitting at my living room window watching the traffic. When I looked in the mirror this morning, my teeth were stained and my skin so sickly looking I’d been frightened. What was I doing to myself? Drinking bottles of wine to cope with my inner turmoil. I’ve been back home for three years and I’ve not felt the need to leave again. Perhaps my wandering days are over, or perhaps I found what I’d been looking for and then lost it. Either way, it finally feels like I have settled in the right place, the place where I started. Except now I question everything. The urge has appeared. I am considering running away again, packing up my things, and going somewhere new. But, how many times can a person start over?

“I thought you hated lunch shifts.”

I’m so deep in thought I almost drop the handful of lemons I’m holding. I clutch them to my chest and look up in alarm. David is sitting on the stool directly in front of me next to one of the regulars, an older lady we call Penny. His skin is brown like he’s been out in the sun for the last week and he’s wearing a white V-neck and ripped blue jeans. So simple and yet he looks like a rock star. I think of my sallow wine-flushed skin and panic.

“They’ve grown on me,” I say, trying to hide the tremor in my voice. “What are you doing here?”

I search the bar in front of him for papers, but there are just his hands, clasped on the bar top. I set my lemons down and reach up to touch my hair. I hadn’t bothered to do anything with it this morning, just slung it up in a messy knot on top of my head. My tie feels like it’s strangling me. This is ridiculous; my fixation on the way I look. What does it even matter? The man is here to divorce me, not ask me on a date.

David clears his throat. “I figured I was a bit of a wanker to you the other night. I threw a spanner in the works and what a cock up that was, yeah?”

I’m laughing before he’s finished. “Dude, you’ve totally been practicing,” I say in my best American accent.

He grins as he rocks on his bar stool from side to side. For a moment I’m transported back to Seattle where he used to rock like that on a different bar stool and flirt with me. I thought it was endearing the way he had the enthusiasm of a little boy, but looked like a man. We grin at each other, but then my heart starts to hurt and I don’t know what to do with my hands or face. I turn away, make a juice for a customer: guava, lychee, mint, and orange. People walk through the doors, obnoxious little hats on their heads, sunglasses whose lenses are pink, green, and silver. I watch them as to not watch David, who is distracting me and making me forget which juice goes in what drink.

“Why are you here…you’re supposed to be on tour,” I say when I’m finished. What I really want to ask is:Why are you here specifically? And how did you find me?

“This was our last stop,” he says quietly. “I decided to stick around, maybe have a Hendrick’s and tonic?”

And divorce me,I want to add. The concert was weeks ago. I wonder just how long he’s been sticking around, what he’s waiting for? Penny has noticed our exchange and angles her stool toward him. She’s nosy, she listens to all the bar gossip and then relays it to me. I smile uneasily at her. An already awkward situation and then you throw Penny in the mix. God, what a day it was already. Everyone would know by the end of the day that my husband came in to divorce me.

“Need some more juice and gin, Penny?” I ask.

She pushes her glass toward me, never removing her eyes from David.

“Do I know you?” I hear her ask him.

Someone waves me over at the end of the bar and I leave David and Penny to it.

“Don’t forget my fucking drink,” Penny calls after me in her singsong voice.

“Mine too,” David echoes.

I eye him while I make his drink, just little glances to prove to myself that he’s really there, but he catches me each time and smiles in turn. They’re not divorce smiles, which confuses me more. They’re just…genuine. I have no reason to distrust him, yet I still do.

You’re the one who can’t be trusted,I remind myself.This guy only says what he’s feeling. You tell lies about what you’re feeling and then you run away.

“It sort of feels like old times,” I say as I slide the glass toward him. To his right, Penny nods.

“Old times, huh? You know, the first time I saw you in that bar it was as if someone plugged me into an electrical socket. Everything in my head lit up. I could have written ten songs, answered the age-long question about the meaning of love, and asked you to marry me on the spot.”

“You did ask me to marry you on the spot,” I point out.

“See.”

“And you have written songs apparently making me the butt of the joke. So tell me, David Lisey, what’s the meaning of love? Enlighten me.”

For a moment I think he’s not going to answer me. He stares down into his drink thoughtfully and when he looks up, his eyes are soft, sincere.

“I’ve thought a lot about that, actually. It’s when you can’t get someone out. They crawl inside you and they just live there for the rest of your life.”

When he says that it feels like a jolt of electricity passes through me. There’s familiarity, but I haven’t thought about it that hard. Like I’ve been waiting for someone to tell me what I’m feeling.

“Like a parasite,” I say. “Draining you of…well—everything. Not pleasant.”

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