Many Miles Apart

45. Zoe

I spent the rest of Sunday in a sort of trance. I knew that Alfie was back in Brighton. I knew that he hadn't done anything. I knew that I'd ruined our relationship. And I knew that I was too scared to speak to him. But I refused to let myself think about it. I didn't want to. I wasn't strong enough to properly realise what I'd agreed to. I was a mess of emotion, so I tried to hide it, and tried to go about life like I used to. I got up at a normal time and tidied the house. I got dressed, did my makeup and hair as I normally would, in an attempt to make myself feel more alive. I ate, sorted through my emails, I even got out my camera and tried to film something. I had to get back to it sooner or later, but there was no expression in my words, and I knew that it was rubbish so ditched the idea.
But it was once I was lying in bed that I couldn't fight it. All of the emotion that I'd bottled up flooded out of the cage it was locked in, and I ended up crying myself to sleep. Again.

I woke up and rolled over, a groggy, exhausted feeling settling in my head. The pillow under my cheek was still damp, and escaped strands of hair were stuck to the dried tears on my face. My body felt glued to the bed, but however hard I tried, I clearly wasn't going back to sleep.
Slowly, I opened my heavy lids and looked over at the clock on my bedside. The numbers were blurred, but once my eyes had adjusted I could see that the clock read 6:12. I groaned and buried my head back in the pillow, but my mind was awake, and there was no use trying to get back to sleep.
After a few minutes of lying in bed doing nothing, I was ready to get up, although I still couldn't seem to shake the groggy feeling.
Climbing out from under the covers, I was hit with a wall of emotion. It was overwhelming, and once again it stripped me of any strength and left me feeling raw. But this time there was more. This time there was the sense that there was something that I had to do. Something that I needed to fix.
Trying to push the hurt back into the dark chamber that it escaped from, I dragged my stiff body off of the mattress and trudged downstairs, not even bothering to open the curtains or straighten the duvet.
I poured myself some lucky charms, sloshing the milk into the bowl, a bit splashing onto the kitchen surface. I sat down, spoon in hand, and dug it into the cereal, but I couldn't bring myself to eat it. I wasn't hungry.
After a few minutes of swirling the chunks around in front of me, watching the colours seep into the liquid, I gave up on trying to eat and dropped the bowl in the sink, food still in it.
The nagging feeling stayed.
I tried to ignore it, busying myself finding things to do, but I'd run out after yesterday. Either way, my mind wasn't taken off of the feeling that I needed to sort something.
I logged onto my laptop and headed straight for my blog, deleting the post without reading any of the comments. I didn't want to. But the sensation still stayed, and I knew that the damage was done. It didn't make me feel any better, the feeling just got stronger.
The birds were singing in the garden, their sweet tune drifting through the open window, and I could smell the familiar salty scent in the air. It reminded me of Alfie, the times that we walked along the beach, hand in hand, the sound of the sea lapping onto the shore as we ran between the waves, splashing each other until we were soaked through, not caring even though it was the middle of winter. It reminded me of how we'd sit in the garden in spring, listening to the birds, my head resting on his shoulder. I missed it, I missed him, but I was scared.
Without thinking, I suddenly found myself with my mobile in my hand, and his number up on the screen. I stared at the digits, the familiar sequence that used to pop up so often, but I hadn't seen for a while. I hadn't let myself see.
But could I do it? Could I speak to him? Could I agree to see him after all this time?
As I thought about it I knew that this was what I needed to do. The thing that I had to fix- this was how I would do it. I had to.
I nearly locked the phone, but thought better of it, and, in a mad second of impulse, my finger hit the call button, and then I waited.
Everything seemed to go still, and time appeared to stop as I sat there, device to my ear. Every passing moment, every sound made me desperate to hang up, to take the easy way out, but somehow I forced myself to stay.
The call connected. I froze. Part of me didn't expect him to pick up. But he did. And the second I heard his voice I knew exactly what I had to say.
"Hello?", came down the receiver. I couldn't tell his tone of voice from that one work, but I imagined that he couldn't feel as bad as I did right now.
"Alfie?", I whispered, a sick feeling rising in my throat that I had to swallow down. I wanted to cry, and for once I didn't even try to stop the water from running down my cheeks.
"Zoe?", he chocked back. His voice sounded grainy, and I could hear the sound of the waves, but the thing that got to me the most was the way that he spoke. He sounded so hurt, so torn apart that he might just break right there while we spoke.
I suddenly saw just how much this had hurt him too, how much he didn't want this. It pained me so much to hear that this had caused him so much hurt.
"I'm so sorry", I said. It was all I could say.

By the end of the call, I couldn't feel anything anymore. I didn't want to. The symptoms that would be associated with sadness; shock, pain were there, the tears, the feeling of extreme sickness, the heaviness weighing on my limbs like rocks, but inside I felt numb. Empty. After all of this time, all of this pain and heartbreak, all of the denial that I'd been through. All of the tears and days spent doing nothing but sleeping had ended in this. Nothingness.
I was almost angry with myself for not feeling anything. It seemed in a strange way almost like a letdown, all of the hurt leading to this.
The weight of what was coming hadn't hit me yet. I was going to see Alfie. Today. After all this time. And he was innocent. And I'd hurt him. And he'd been through so much, and I wouldn't even let him try to make it better.
I was suddenly overcome by a wave of fatigue, and all I wanted was to sleep. Any traces of wakefulness from earlier had vanished, and all I wanted was to sleep. I trudged upstairs, still shell shocked, still partially blinded by a constant flow of tears that rained down my cheeks. I was so tired, and each of my limbs ached as I dragged my lifeless body up the stairs.
I reached my bedroom, the sheets still twisted in a heap from where I'd been lying just an hour ago, but never had it looked so inviting.
Still in my pyjamas, I crawled back under the covers, tugging at the duvet until it flattened out enough to cover me, and shut my eyes.
The second the world went dark, I was hit in the stomach with what felt like a killer blow. The weight of what was happening finally caught up with me as it crashed down on my shoulders, crushing me under its heaviness like I was an ant under its shoe. Squirming against the sea of emotions, I tried to fight off the thoughts but they wouldn't shift. It hurt so much but I couldn't stop it. I just wanted the pain to end. But it wouldn't.
Luckily for me, sleep came quicker this time, inviting me under the clouds of ignorance. It swept me under its cloak, tugging me into a place where the pain would finally end, even if, when I woke, it would be so much worse.