Fish and Chips - Three, 3.

I can’t really remember the guy's face, instead I remember someone else’s and I put it there on his shoulders. He is sitting in the back seat, drunk. You are sober, controlled but I feel your anger simmer next to me like a hidden ember. We are driving home after a club night at the pub. He is joking, being crude and I laugh. I can feel a change in the air, resentment building, I am tired of it and continue to laugh. The car stops and you order him out, we drive away leaving him there on the side of the road. I am shocked but I say nothing. Later after we have settled to watch tv in your room, you stand up and announce you will be back later. You drive out and pick your friend up from where he is walking home and quietly deliver him back to his place. You tell me that neither of you spoke and I mustn’t say anything about it again. For the first time I realise there is an angry side of you that I have never seen before. It is so crowded, Joan Armatrading blasts across the room, I scan the room for people I know and see Brett at a table, he waves, I squeeze my way through the crowd, I am always happy to see him, we laugh and chat. I feel a hand around my arm, tight. “We are leaving” you say. I try to say goodbye, I am pulled from the room, I protest, “We just got here”. Outside I am angry, I don’t want to leave. The backhand across my cheek is a total shock, I fall down and try and stumble away, we argue more, I want to go back inside, but pride stops me, I cannot go in with marks on my face and mud on me. I let myself be pushed into the car and we are leaving. I am stunned; I cannot believe this has happened. We argue in the car, you accuse me of being a slut and tell me that you have heard a story about me from a guy who I dated a few times before I met you. The story is partly true but I am so shocked at this guy being such an arsehole and talking about me like that, that I deny it. You know I am lying and you pull over on the side of the road and hit me hard in the face. I get out of the car but when I realise that we are miles from anywhere I hesitate and you grab me and push me back into the car before you drive home in silence. I am in complete shock and am shaking uncontrollably, I try to crouch in the car until we get back to your place where I eventually meekly follow you inside and crawl into bed because it is freezing cold and I think I have no choice. In the morning when I wake up I am reeling with shock, I am horrified ashamed and terrified. I want somebody to tell me everything will be okay and when I finally brave to show my face in the kitchen I see them look at me then look away, they draw away from me as if I have a disease. Nobody speaks to me, finally later, your mother says “But what did you say to him?” I open my mouth to try to explain to her that it wasn’t justified but the accusing look in her eye makes me realise that I will get no support here. I tell you it is over once I have convinced you to drive me back to my flat. You beg my forgiveness and cry and promise me you will never ever lose your temper like that again. I can’t explain now why I believed you or why I wanted to believe you so much. You let me drag you around the shops and choose your jacket and your shoes; you want me to be proud of you. We buy some clothes that are like what I have seen my sister’s boyfriend wearing. You really don't scrub up too badly. I don’t remember how I feel, except that I am touched that you are trying so hard for me. This is my graduation. I drink and laugh and maybe I have a good time and perhaps not, I don’t remember but in the photos we are smiling. I have a clear memory of thinking that I couldn’t imagine life without football; I am all the All Whites ground. I guess when you put on your jersey and ran onto the field you were happiest. You were very good; you would just push yourself so hard and never care how much it hurt. I remember looking at you lying on my bed after a game. You are bruised all over. You are in agony. I just cannot understand how you can do this to yourself. It makes me feel distanced from you, like part of your life I cannot share; at that time we are sharing everything else. I think a lot about ending our relationship but there seem to be so many reasons not to. I look at you as you lay sleeping and you look so much older than me yet so helpless. I give in, in the end, to my need to be needed. I hate the thought of you playing against Brett’s team. I am terrified you will hurt him; you pay him out and tell me he is “a poofter”. I decide to ignore you, when we get back to the flat one afternoon he has just taken Nadia to “our” restaurant. I am shattered. I cannot let you see this, I hate myself for still caring about him when he cut me off the way he did. I don’t understand why he has to torture me by hanging around and looking at me with accusing eyes. I know I will never be good enough for him any more. I still love him and you know it. I deny it because I think I have no choice. I go to Brisbane with you for your sign on meeting. You take me into the clubhouse with you and they treat me like I am your wife, I am 18 years old. They tell us how much we will love it there. That this suburb is like a big country town so we will feel at home. We are really excited! They tell you they will organise a share house for you with some other team members and a job for you as well. It seems to good to be true. You sign for the agreed fee, and today is the first day of the rest of your life. A few weeks later Brett signs with the same club. When you hear about it you look at me with an accusation in your eyes, as if I had planned it all. ................................................................ I cannot understand why I feel the way that I do, after all of this time, surely of all the things I should feel the very first would be relief? Why do I feel as if my heart has been torn from my chest? You were no longer anything to me, or at least you should not have been. The fact you are gone should not make the slightest difference to my life, and yet I just want to cry. So what does this all mean? That I still loved you? That is almost laughable, after all that happened. I am trying so hard to understand this, so I can get past it and feel normal again. The phone just rang. The line was silent. How many times has this happened since I last knew you? I suppose a few, and every time in the back of my mind I have thought that it was you. Well it can’t have been this time, can it? I have to almost laugh at my imagination. Laugh at the conceit of me to even consider that you would have wondered what happened to me; and then cry because I always wondered what happened to you and now I know and I don’t like it.