Repeat After Me

Chapter 30

It had been a long time since I'd seen Asten at the Abandoned Spaces opening. I received a message saying. 'Please meet me at Flinders Street Station today. It's important.'

I wanted to ignore the message, but I missed him so much. I was bored and lonely and having my heart torn out seemed like a better option than sitting in my bedroom all day sulking.

I arrived at Flinders Street Station. It was looking more like normal. People were walking past. Some wore face masks. They checked their phone, checked the time, they checked each other's faces for acknowledgement. They were waiting on the Flinders Street Station steps, waiting at the tram stop, waiting for the green light, waiting for energy, waiting for a connection, waiting for something to happen. Notifications pinged on their phones. But otherwise, there was the silence of neglect and makeshift plans for the weekend, plans for university, plans to hand homework in. Plans to get through tomorrow.

'Are you Ivy?' a raspy voice asked.

I turned. There was a young woman standing there. She had shoulder-length black hair, with blonde strips at the sides, blue eyes, heavily underlined with a kohl pencil, brushed eyebrows and turbocharged pink lips. She was wearing a tight black top, baggy high-waisted jeans and white runners. She was very petite.

'Yes,' I said.

'I'm Alicia,' she said. 'Asten's girlfriend.' My heart plummeted twenty thousand feet. My nerves shredded. My voice misplaced its conditions of entry. 'I found your messages on his phone. I go through it sometimes,' she said. 'I read all of his messages to you. I needed to meet the girl he's so keen on. I can't see why.' She looked me up and down. I was wearing my lucky army jacket, and a red Stranger Things T-shirt, black jeans and black Vans. I hadn't dressed for any occasion. 'It's almost offensive,' she said, 'At least he could leave me for someone more attractive.'

'We haven't done anything,' I said.

Tears began to well in Alicia's eyes. 'You're lying,' she said. 'But it's even worse. Because he wants to. I know from his messages he wants to.'

People were starting to look at this petite young lady, standing on the footpath crying, near the busiest intersection in Melbourne.

'Let's walk,' I said, feeling uncomfortable with this very public scene. We crossed at the pedestrian lights and walked across the forecourt at Federation Square. The large TV screen was playing a standup comedy piece and people were sitting on deck chairs watching. We walked down the steps to the boulevard by the Yarra and found a park bench to sit on.

'I won't manage if he leaves me,' Alicia said. She took a pair of sunglasses out of her handbag, placed them on her face and then took them off again. 'Look at my eyes,' she said, leaning towards me. 'They're so puffy.' She took a glasses cleaner cloth out of her bag and began rubbing the lenses of her sunglasses. 'I've been crying myself to sleep for the past week. Every day I wake up and my eyes are puffy. The pharmacist said I should use anti-histamine drops, like crying is an allergy.' She paused, as if she was waiting for me to comment on the puffiness of her eyes. It was obvious she took a lot of care with her appearance. Her nails were painted black and she wore a delicate silver chain around her wrist and a black choker around her neck.

'How old are you?' she asked.

'Sixteen,' I said.

'Figures,' she said. 'Asten has always been immature. You probably help make him feel smart. He has a lot of inferiority complexes. It's his parents' fault, they pushed him too hard.' She lay the sunglasses down on her lap and took a small mirror out of her handbag, checking her eyes. 'I thought my mascara was running,' she said, almost to herself.

After confirming her mascara was still in place, she returned the mirror to her handbag and looked at me seriously. 'Asten's my rock, my anchor, you should know if you take him, I sink. I want you to know that.'

'I've been keeping my distance,' I said. 'I know he has a girlfriend. He told me.'

'He likes you. It's obvious. He mentioned you in passing one day. He mentioned your cageman work at the UUS, like it was the greatest thing he'd ever seen. I knew then. I knew right then he'd taken you there, like he'd once taken me there. I had this feeling in my gut,' she placed the palm of her hand over her belly. 'You ever loved someone so much but then you have that feeling in your gut?' she asked, rapidly. 'Like you know they're up to no good. And then you have to know more? Well that's what happened to me. I could sense it was off.'

She put her sunglasses on and took them off again and began cleaning them this time with the hem of her top. Her movements were frenetic. She crossed and uncrossed her legs. She tapped her shoe against the ground, pulled a piece of fluff off her black top and readjusted the choker on her neck. Then she began cleaning her sunglasses again with her top.

'We were so in love when we met, we were like true soulmates. I'd been through such a tough time, no one understood me until Asten. You know my mum put me on anti-depressants when I was twelve. Like who does that? And then there was that old rich guy who made me a picnic pasta salad and said I should be a model. He gave me all these gifts, but nothing was a gift, it was so I owed him.' She put her sunglasses in a glasses case in her bag.

'Asten needs to stop this street art thing,' Alicia said. 'It takes up all his time. He's kidding himself about it. He needs to find a real job or go back to university or something. Anything. That's why he likes you. You feed his delusion. He's falling for an idea of himself that you give him. He's not falling for you.'

'He's a good artist.'

'He's as good as any average artist,' Alicia said. 'I'm honest with him.'

She must be soul destroying for him, I realised.

'His messages made me want to vomit,' she said. 'He's so desperate for you. It makes me sick.' She stopped cleaning her glasses. 'And look at you,' she said, shaking her head. 'Look at the way you present yourself. It's offensive. It makes me want to top myself. I'm not going to be able to get your face out of my mind tonight. Look at how you dress. It's appalling.' Her voice was reaching new tones of frenzy.

I could see it now so clearly. She wasn't quite right. Asten was telling the truth when he said it was complicated – Alicia was strong but fragile. He was trapped. He was totally, totally trapped with this mess of a woman. He wasn't a bastard at all. He was a gentleman who didn't know how to find his way out. He was a hostage to someone's insufferable love, someone's insufferable suffering.

Bit by bit, a tiny screwdriver unscrewed the screws and changed my motherboard. My central processing unit was updated. The more Alicia cried and ranted, the more obvious it became how kind and tolerant Asten was. And I began to like him more and more and more.