Page 9 of The Story of Me
I shower, dress and then head out to the kitchen. Jackson is sitting on a stool at the kitchen worktop and has my coffee sitting in a takeaway cup with a lid on it in front of him. I go straight to the cupboard and pull out a real mug; I hate drinking out of those cardboard things.
“What’s going on, George? What’s all that shit over the bedroom floor?” I pause for a few seconds, considering what lie I can come up with because I know Jax will think what I’m doing is wrong. I take a deep breath, turn around and face him.
“They’re letters and stuff Sean wrote to me when we split up for four years, back when the band first made it big.” I transfer my coffee from the cardboard to the ceramic mug, and then raise my eyes to meet his.
“Why are they here?”
I swallow. I know he’s not going to be happy. Jackson has been like my therapist since I got here and he’s given me nothing but sound advice, but I didn’t tell him I was going to do this.
“I’ve never read them.” I take a sip of my coffee and wait for his reply.
“So, why read them now?”
I shrug and let out a loud sigh. “I just thought it might bring me some closure. Not closure as such, I don’t think I’ll ever achieve that, but…” I shrug and trail off. “I’m ready to read them. I want to hear his thoughts. What he was going through at that time. It’s a part of him I didn’t have, that I didn’t share, and I want it. I want any part of him I can get.” I gulp down the last of my coffee and almost choke as I try to swallow down a sob with it.
“I think you’re full of shit, George. I think you’re snooping through his things to see if he cheated on you. I think you’re looking for evidence that he might have fucked around.” He takes a long swig on his beer, draining the bottle, but keeps his eyes pinned on mine. “All these accusations that’ve been made, it must be horrible for ya. I totally get that, but don’t let them fuckers make you start doubting what you two had. That bloke worshiped the fucking ground you walked on; that was obvious to anyone who was ever in your company, and not a single one of these accusations has come to anything.” He sounds angry but in a calm way, which is quite intimidating. “Sean was a good bloke. He worked hard and he loved, no, he adored his wife. He never knocked up anyone other than you and we both know it.”
I suddenly feel ashamed, and rightly so. Just because I was a lying, cheating whore of a wife doesn’t mean Sean behaved the same way. Marley has sworn to me, over and over again, that there is just no way Sean cheated on me. That one incident in the hotel room in Spain taught them all a lesson, and all of the boys had been careful after that; one, to not mess around on their girlfriends, and two, to always use a condom. Sure, Sean had fucked a lot of women in the time we were apart, but according to Marley, he hadn’t looked at another woman since the night I fell through Lennon’s front door and landed in his lap twelve or so years ago. Marley had told me to watch the videos of all the interviews they had done over the years. That they would give me an indicator of where Sean’s head was at, but really, in all honesty, there was no need for me to do any of that, because I knew; Sean would never do what I did. Sean was a good person. I wasn’t.
“What you not telling me, George?” God, sometimes his intuition pisses me off, so I bare-face lie to him.
“Nothing.”
“Bullshit, you’re lying to me.”
Up until I was ten years old, Marley, Jackson, myself, Jodie and Jimmie had been inseparable. We lived a few streets apart, went to the same preschool, and then on to the same primary school. Our families had holidayed and taken day trips together. Then Kathy and John decided to move to Australia, but even on the half-dozen times we had met up since then, it was like we had never been apart. He knew me as well as my brothers…
“I worshiped the ground Sean walked on, but I still fucked someone else while we were married.” I pull a bottle of wine from the fridge as I speak and pour myself a glass.
“What… you did what?” I gesture towards the balcony doors; I need wine and cigarettes for this confession. Nobody but my mum, Cam and I know what had happened in Cam’s office the night of my run-in with Whorely, and now I am about to confess all to my favourite cousin. Jackson pulls the bottle of wine back out of the fridge and a glass from the cupboard, joining me out on the balcony. He pours himself a glass and watches me from over the top. I wait for him to repeat his question, but he doesn’t, and it just makes it harder for me to start talking.
“I did something I’m totally ashamed of. I did something that… still to this day, I have no idea why I did it.” I take a big gulp of my wine and light a cigarette, take a puff and begin. I start at the very beginning. I tell him about the very first time I set eyes on Sean and how I have loved him from that moment. I tell him about my sort-of breakdown when we were apart, and I tell him about how Whorely used my mum to conspire in keeping us apart. Then I tell him about Cam, all of it: Cam’s life, what happened to his dad and his wife and suddenly it occurs to me while telling my story to Jackson that Cam has been through something very similar to me. Not once since Sean’s death had I considered that fact. I carry on with my story and explain how Cam fixed me, how he brought me back to life to a certain degree, and that it wasn’t until I was back with Sean and had allowed myself to feel again that I realised just how much I did actually feel for Cam.
“If you hadn’t gotten back with Sean, d’ya think you would’ve stayed with him?”
I don’t hesitate with my answer. “Yes, absolutely. We were good together, but until I was over Sean, he never stood a chance.”
“But you were never going to be over Sean.”
I shrug. “No, I probably wasn’t, but I think I would have gotten better at coping with my feelings. And in time, I think I would have realised that I could still love Cam, while feeling what I did for Sean. It would never be the same, but it still would’ve been love, I think.” He pours us both another drink.
“Would’ve been or was?”
“What?” I understand the question perfectly. I just don’t understand the first answer that’s popped into my head.
“You loved him, Georgia. I think you knew you loved him while you were with him, but you still weren’t prepared to give up on Sean. I think you used Sean and what you felt for him as an excuse not to admit your feelings for Cam.”
I shrug again. “Maybe.” I know full well I did.
I continue on with my story and tell him about the night I fucked Cam in his office and then about buying the house. I feel sick to my stomach, admitting all of this, but at the same time, I feel so relieved to tell someone. I don’t try and justify my behaviour to Jax; I can’t. There is no justification for what I did. It was wrong, so wrong, but telling the story out loud to someone relatively impartial sort of helps me make peace with myself over my actions.
“You loved him, Georgia, don’t you see? You keep telling me how much you loved Sean, how Sean owned you completely, but he didn’t. Don’t you see that? However small a part it was or is, Cam owned a part of you, too.” I shake my head. “Was there ever anyone else, George? Did you ever come close to touching, kissing, fucking anyone else while with Sean?”
“No, of course not. I loved my husband; it was a one-off.” What the fuck sort of wife does he think I was? I’m beginning to wish I hadn’t told him anything now.
“Because Cam is the only other person you have ever loved. There is no way you would risk your marriage, your life with Sean, for someone you didn’t love. I don’t get why you’re trying so hard to deny it.”
“I’m not denying it. I have thought to myself over the years that perhaps I did love him, in a way, but it doesn’t matter now anyway. It also doesn’t change the fact that I fucked someone other than my husband. It doesn’t make it right.” I can feel anger welling in my chest, at myself and aimed at Jackson for making me think, feel and say all this aloud. I’ve buried it so far down all these years. It’s painful as guilt uses its sharp, pointy nails to drag and claw its way back up into my psyche from wherever I’ve had it so deeply buried. Tears are stinging the backs of my eyes, and I feel a little short of breath.
