The Rest of Forever (Completed)

Part 5

Two weeks with no contact from him and I'm a wreck, barely human. Outwardly I go through the motions of my sad, empty life, but inside I'm dying. Everywhere I go I see him, a symphony of parts—his hands, his nose or lips or ear. Every time a stranger looks back at me, frowning eyes that aren't bronze; aren't bronze at all. I thought I'd plumbed the depths over the years, that the gnawing ache inside me was something I'd learnt to live with, just an old wound that festered and occasionally flared. I know now my suffering hadn't even begun.

I used to think "lovesick" was just an expression, until I cried so hard I retched. Kneeling on the cold tile floor of my bathroom, tears running down my face and my sides sore from sobbing, watching the remnants of the only pitiful meal I'd eaten in two days float in the bowl before me, I prayed for the first time in my life.

I don't know who or what I was praying to, but I clasped my hands and I begged for peace. For one day without hurting, for one night of dreamless sleep, for even an hour free from hating myself for everything I'd done wrong. If not peace, then numbness. I longed for shock to take over, to go onto autopilot, to shut down and stop feeling, because feeling hurt too damn much. I'm not some angsty teenager and I wasn't thriving off this, I was dying—just not quickly enough.

Then the call came.

I noticed the red light blinking on my answer machine when I got in from work on Friday, but it could have been there for days for all I'd paid attention. I hit play, finger hovering over the delete button in case it was a telemarketer—or worse, Mum, wondering why I hadn't called. Curt's gruff tones rasped out and I almost hit the button in shock. Scalded, I backed away and listened to the message. A party, he said, for his and Paul's one-year anniversary. I had to be there, Paul was keen that I go. It was to take place the next night at the usual bar.

I shuffled to the kitchen, found a bottle of vodka, and proceeded to get very, very drunk.

I wake up on Saturday afternoon feeling like something took up roost in my mouth and a brass band is practicing in my head. There's no way I'm going to that party—no way. How the hell can I sit there and make merry and celebrate the fact that the man I love is in love with someone else? Why the hell would Paul be sadistic enough to put me through it?

I crawl out of bed and stumble through the detritus of the previous night littered across my lounge, wincing in the bright sunlight streaming through the uncovered windows. I stub my toe and send a bottle skidding across the carpet, step carefully over my teenage photo albums, vowing to box them up and ship them to Mum's as soon as possible, and hobble into the kitchen, where I consume about three gallons of water and my patented cocktail of over the counter painkillers, guaranteed to eliminate even the fiercest hangover.

I drag my sorry, self-pitying arse into the shower and stand limply under the hot jets, letting the water slowly rehydrate and revive me. My stomach growls queasily but holds, no doubt because there's nothing in it to throw up, the twinge in my abdominal muscles informing me I already took care of that at some unspecified point in the early hours.

When I finally start feeling more human I scour my skin until it's pink and glowing, wash my hair and brush the fuzz off my teeth. I towel myself roughly, smearing a hand through the condensation fogging the mirror to confirm that yes, I do look like shit warmed up, and pull on a pair of black boxers.

Stepping into my ruined lounge, I note with grim satisfaction the gathering clouds blotting the spring sunshine outside. Melodramatically pleased the weather at least is sympathetic to my plight, I expend the effort to clear up, grimacing as the glass bottles tinkle against each other in the bin. Screw the planet, the world doesn't care for me so why the hell should I care for it? Recycling is for optimists.

As my pounding headache recedes into a dull background ache, another sensation crowds in, tightening my gut: remorse. I have no right to make Paul feel guilty for loving someone else, I threw that privilege away years ago. When had he ever been anything but happy for me when I ditched him to go get my brains fucked out by some gorgeous, anonymous stranger? At least to my face he's always been nothing but a caring, supportive friend. Now the tables are turned I seem incapable of being anything other than a jealous, glowering prick. I'm the ugly sister.

No wonder he doesn't love me anymore. Hell, it's a miracle he even likes me these days. I'm not even sure I like myself.

I can do this, I tell myself as I open my wardrobe and eye my clothes. If he wants me there then the least I can do is show up. I fight down the rising bile which has nothing to do with the faint remnants of my hangover and select a pair of indigo jeans and my favourite dove-grey shirt, the one that makes my hair look blacker; my eyes bluer. I feel like I'm donning a suit of armour as I dress, numbing myself with the familiar routine. Just another night out.

I exhale deliberately as I study my reflection in the long mirror of the wardrobe door, smoothing my hands over my flat stomach, down the soft brushed cotton shirt. God, how long has it been since I've been laid? I've been back here six months, which makes it... eight, no nine, maybe? The last encounter so memorable I have absolutely no recollection of it. After a while, they all faded into one meaningless, hurried fuck.

I don't know at what point exactly I knew I was sick of it. At first I'd mistaken the hollow feeling inside me for boredom, a craving for more—something different, perhaps. I quickly learnt I wasn't kinky. My body has no tolerance for pain. I tried groups, role-play, giving and taking. Poppers, paddles, porn... they all left me empty inside. Every experience felt like I was grasping for something, but I never knew what it was I was reaching for. I was a blind man, lost in the darkness.

Then a stranger folded me up in his strong arms and held me.

He hadn't been anything special. Late thirties, heavyset and hairy like a big ole poppa bear. He'd been propped at a bar, mindless of the buzzing atmosphere around him, steadily drinking himself stupid. Something about him called to me, in the blurred edges of his downturned grey eyes, the way his full lips dipped at the corners. He was so sad, so alone. I reached out to him, wanting to touch the pain I could see so clearly written across his face and ease it, if only for an hour. He looked too strong and sweet to be so vulnerable and so unhappy.

His house was in the suburbs, a neat, boxy little thing. I glanced at the photos on the walls, the dresser, the windowsill, of him and another smiling, burly man, wrapped in each other's arms. They looked so perfect together, so confident nothing would tear them apart. I didn't ask and he didn't tell.

I gave him what he needed and sank bonelessly into his black and tan sheets, letting the sweat cool on my skin before I would have dressed and left. I was too shocked to respond when his thick arm slid around my waist, pulling me into his broad chest. The mat of springy hair rubbed against my frozen back as my limbs locked. His lips grazed my nape, hot breath tickling my shoulder as he spooned against me. "Five minutes?" he asked, the barest hint of a plea in his voice. I tried to relax my neck enough to rest my head fully on the pillow beside his as the calloused pad of his thumb scraped against my belly in rhythmic strokes.

Unconsciously I folded my arm over his and gripped his wrist, holding him in place. He huffed contentedly and I felt his big body relax and settle as mine thrummed with anxiety and a desperate, painful longing. Fresh sweat broke out across my skin and I trembled in his arms as I finally realised what it was I'd been looking for. I tried to lose myself in his comforting embrace, but at every part where our skin connected I was reminded anew that he wasn't the one that I wanted. Paul was all I could think about, his presence as tangible as if he were stood at the bedside, looking down on me. Pathetic.

From that moment on, I was done. The sweaty nightclub encounters, long since dissatisfying, now made me nauseated and left me emptier than I was before they were even initiated. My need for Paul manifested itself in physical symptoms, every cell in my body screaming for him until I couldn't take it anymore: I had to come back, I had to find him and I had to find out if there was any hope for me, for us.

And now I know. There isn't.

*****

Impatient to know what happens next? The Rest of Forever is available free from most ebook retailers.