Ghosts Page 7

“Well…” She started to speak, but was distracted by something behind me. I turned around, not sure what I was supposed to be looking at.

  I turned back to face her. “Well, I’m glad you came. Come have some food.” I grabbed her hand and began to lead her inside.

  “No, I can’t stay.”

  “What, why? Aggie, what’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.” She looked behind me again. This time I didn’t turn, but rather stared right into her eyes.

  “Aggie?”

  “I’ll be back, just going to get some air.”

  “I’ll come with you.”

  “No,” She responded. Her tone was suddenly sharp and curt.

  She took off out the door with remarkable speed.

  “Wait!” I called out, scrambling after her. I followed her down the alleyway next to the gallery. Aggie seemed to pick up pace, turning the corner sharply. I turned the same corner to see her darting across the street through moving traffic. When the green light appeared, I ran across to the other side, but she was nowhere to be seen.

  I woke up the next morning, a stream of sunlight peeling through the crack in the curtains. I’d drunk enough champagne that Aggie’s appearance had become a small thread in the night, and I barely remembered Henry carrying me back to the hotel room, my shoes swinging from my hand, throwing my head back, laughing at nothing.

  I always loved hotel rooms – how dark they became when the curtains were drawn, you could sleep for days and not know what was going on outside. Henry and I hadn’t pulled the curtains shut properly and I got up out of bed to fix them, so the room was shrouded in darkness once more. I climbed back into the envelope of sheets, my naked body pressed against Henry’s cool skin. He stirred as I kissed his neck, and his arms reached around, pulling me closer.

  We left the hotel in the late afternoon, and drove most of the way home in comfortable silence, Henry with one hand on my lap. The radio was playing some classical music, a familiar tune I recalled from childhood, but never knew the name of.

  “I always wished I knew more about classical music,” I said.

  Henry nodded. “This one is a good one – I played it on a high school music camp once. You should ask Aggie, she loves this piece…”

  We drove for what seemed like hours. I admired the greenery as we weaved in and out around the mountain. At last, our surroundings began to look familiar.

  We pulled into the driveway, and I breathed a sigh of relief once again that everything had gone smoothly the night before. Things seemed to be looking up for me finally. I opened the boot of the car and started towards the front door with some of our stuff, brushing past the two cars parked closely together in the driveway.

  I put our bags down in the hall, making my way into the kitchen. Henry had headed back out to the car to retrieve something he forgot, when I saw Henry’s mum Tabitha sitting at the dinner table, staring into space. Her face looked like it had turned to stone, and she didn’t flinch as I walked past her.

  “Tabitha?” I called out in concern. When she didn’t answer, I touched her shoulder lightly, and I could feel her cold skin through the fabric.

  “Aggie is gone,” she answered weakly. It was clear she was sick with worry.

  “What?”

  Henry re-entered the room behind me.

  “Since last night. She won’t answer her mobile. She always answers her mobile. She knows I worry.”

  I realised that Aggie’s bright blue Volvo was still parked in the driveway, the one that I’d squeezed past obliviously with my suitcase just moments before. On the bench, lay Aggie’s cracked mobile phone, the yellow wallet right next to it. I suddenly remembered something that Aggie had said that day at breakfast, about everything being temporary. Good vibes were only temporary, because dread was always waiting, ready to swoop in at the first sign of chaos.

  A few hours later, Henry took to his room, while the police questioned his mother downstairs. I stayed with her for a little while, before excusing myself to check on him. I found him lying on the bed, holding a leather-bound notebook in his hand. A post-it note lay discarded on the floor: Read this, help me, was scrawled hastily in black ink. The thin paper was almost torn where the ink had bled through.

  “Hey, what is that?” I sat down next to him slowly.

  Henry looked up at me, not knowing what to say. Silently, he handed the journal to me, and I began to read.

  11

  AGGIE

  4/6/13

  I can remember a time when Rhys was mad about me. Love is blind, and with Rhys, it was fast. In the early days, it was nothing but fun. We would spend most of our days and nights together, and never tire of each other’s company. I recalled realising that the constant fearful feeling I had before I met Rhys wasn’t anxiety over the catastrophe that was university or part time shift work, or my relationship with my mother… it was loneliness. I found it remarkable that I could feel so complete with another person, when I didn’t even know I was empty in the first place. So Rhys became my first real love, and I came to know what it was like to be completely adored by another person. He was the perfect, happy and warm companion that I needed in my life. And I adored being adored. One day he even suggested we get matching tattoos, and we did. They were beautiful – two guitars, that when you looked closer, were created from two intertwining bodies. He even suggested that in a few years we get our initials tattooed below the guitars, and I blissfully agreed. It was a fantastic idea.

  We went on like this, acting like ridiculous star-crossed lovers, until one day the magic stopped just as fast as it had started.

  That day, Rhys got into a punch-up with a co-worker, and if it were possible, I swear that his opponent beat the love for me right out of him. The fight was over parking spaces, and happened within the four walls of the building where they both worked. Rhys came home that day and announced rather boldly that he’d been fired, before shutting himself in the study and turning his metal music up at full volume. And for reasons I will probably never be able to explain, he never looked at me the same way again.

  When you’re in the thick of things, you often can’t see the wood for the trees. I always thought I would be different, but it turns out I am just like the rest of the world. Blinded by reality, too afraid to admit what’s really in front of me. After the fight, Rhys became constantly cold, irritable, and most of all, blatantly unimpressed with everything involving me. I became an anxious wreck, losing sleep, not eating. I began seeing a shrink, desperate to purge my mind of the thoughts that Rhys didn’t love me anymore, that Rhys was going to leave me… every thought was poisoned with fear, with thoughts of the worst. My relationship became the centre of everything in my life. I was desperate to go back to the carefree days, days where I felt needed and respected. Wanted and appreciated. Where my company didn’t make Rhys’ skin crawl. Where I was greeted with more than a grunt at the door. Where going out with me in public wasn’t such a chore. Where I didn’t always feel like I was competing for his affections. Where he didn’t casually mention getting his tattoo removed.

  How did I get that bad? I, like so many girls before, had lost myself to a man. Although of course, I promised myself I never would. For two years, I lost sleep over someone, who I realise now, probably slept soundly most nights, without so much as a thought for why I wasn’t next to him. Then last night, my fears and anxieties turned into a cold and harsh reality.

  It was straight after sex and Rhys had barely pushed himself off me, when he wondered aloud if he could ask me a question. Secretly, I was thrilled. Rhys never asked me anything anymore. My opinions and questions often hung in the air, ignored and unanswered.

  He asked me if I thought of him as the person I wanted to spend my life with. I answered yes. I was young, I was anxious about love, but I always thought the old Rhys was in there somewhere. He was just going through a rough patch in life, things were getting him down, he was doing it tough since losing his job… Excuses, always excuses, I realised. I asked
him if he felt the same, to which I received no answer.

  After a brief silence, Rhys spoke up again. This time there were no questions, he spilled out everything that was on his mind. He didn’t feel the same way about me anymore, we were young… maybe it was time to move on… I was great, I would find someone… he wasn’t the right guy for me… We were moving in different directions…

  It was the conversation I wanted to avoid for two years, ever since the ridiculous fight about the parking spaces. But deep down in my heart I knew one day it would be inevitable, and I should have seen it clearly from the start. Yet, I didn’t react in this perfectly reasonable way, and I began to cry hysterically. I tried to leave numerous times, but Rhys begged me to stay, telling me I couldn’t leave. Not that late. Not like this. I hated that he was being so kind all of a sudden. It would have been easier if he was cruel, if he’d thrown me out on the street, telling me our relationship was over, so why did I insist on hanging around? But no, he had to show me exactly what I’d be missing, the old Rhys, who often emerged when least expected. When he finally fell asleep at 2 am, exhausted from hours of hysteria, I fled the scene of the crime, racing to my car and driving home in the middle of the bitterly cold June night. I couldn’t imagine spending another minute in that house. So, I was hollow again. Back to square one. I barely slept at all that night.

  At school the next day, my students distracted me for a few hours, kept me so busy that I almost forgot the whole business had even happened. Breakups are hard – no doubt about that, but I was always on the other end, the one dealing the final devastating blow. I wanted to apologise to all the men I had hurt like this in the past, it hurt me more to know that I had inflicted this sort of heartache on somebody else. It was almost a crushing realisation when I picked up my things to leave school at the end of the day. The students were all gone, and I was alone again. What did I even have to look forward to? Go home and watch another episode of The Good Wife, with a glass of Moscato. Repeat.

  11/6/13

  This week, I am a whole new person. Last week, I barely recognised myself, but I can honestly say that the old Aggie is back. It’s amazing the difference a week can make.

  I was still feeling particularly miserable when Rhys’ housemate Erin text me out of the blue, asking if I wanted to take part in her psychic party in a few weeks time. She also asked me how I was doing, to which I replied that I was feeling over the moon, hoping she would relay the message to Rhys, knowing fully well she probably wouldn’t. I had reservations about going back to their house, but I knew I had to rescue my poor guitar, left behind in my haste the night I fled. She insisted Rhys would be out that day at a mate’s birthday drinks, one he wouldn’t miss for the world, and it would be safe for me to come around. So reluctantly, I agreed to attend, despite my misgivings about all the psychics in the Miller Creek area, and going back to that house.

  So I continued on, feeling despondent and alone, with no intention of pulling myself up by the bootstraps. But then suddenly, one afternoon this week, like a switch being flipped I realised the potential in breaking up with Rhys. Sometimes I scared myself with ‘the switch’, that my moods were as interchangeable as turning on and off a light. As I drove home from school that day, my iPod clicked over to Michael Buble’s version of Feeling Good, and a wave of calm suddenly came over me. That was the power of music for you. I pulled up at the service station, managed a brief flirtation with the guy behind the counter, and drove home feeling brand new.

  I didn’t know what it was to be honest – I supposed Mr Buble reminded me of the freedom I had just been granted. I could do almost anything I wanted, and it was absolutely liberating. I thought that was why I tried to flirt with the clerk in the petrol station, because I could. Not because he was amazingly good looking, or funny, or anything really. In the midst of my flirtations however, I bought shampoo instead of the much-needed conditioner I actually pulled over for. Needless to say, my hair didn’t get washed that night. But I couldn’t have cared less – I was free.

  So, I took advantage of this newfound freedom. I started reading about strong, influential women that I hoped to be like one day. Julie Bishop, Judi Dench, Angelina Jolie, Hillary Clinton. I found Hillary’s biography particularly enlightening. I thought about planning a trip to South-East Asia, maybe even to moving to London to teach for a while. The possibilities seemed endless.

  And then there was the Cameron Ivenhoe thing. There was always a Cameron Ivenhoe thing.

  On the weekend, Henry and I went to a show in the city, and on the drive home, I began to think back to my time when I flounced around the city with Cameron Ivenhoe. ‘Flounced’ was absolutely the right word because that’s what I did. I was eighteen years old, naïve as they came, and Cameron was my first real sexual partner. I always thought because of that, he held a special place in my heart, despite the fact that our encounters back then were utterly awkward, and he was actually, quite frankly, kind of mean. Most of the things Cameron said were intended to hurt, and mean was the adjective solely reserved for people like him.

  We crossed paths numerous times over the years, and I always remarked at the strange connection we had, despite the fact he usually made me feel ten times less intelligent than I was, with only a few words. But then, I thought it about it and I decided – I was going to have a rebound fling with Cameron Ivenhoe.

  In the past week or so, I hadn’t thought about Rhys much. I didn’t care, I no longer felt miserable, although it scared me a little to think how okay I was. Okay enough to pursue Cameron Ivenhoe again. But those scared feelings soon gave way to excitement at what I was doing.

  I deleted Cameron’s number from my phone long ago, in an attempt to exile him from my life, and Cameron being Cameron, he didn’t have Facebook. He was probably the only person in the world who was okay with being that out of touch, apart from my Grandmother. Facebook was almost a necessity in this day and age… I used it for my daily news, to keep up with friends; I even had groups at uni that would post important information in the forums about our projects. But sometimes, I longed for the days without toxic Facebook – but I knew it was no longer possible.

  I Googled Cameron’s name, and a few YouTube videos appeared. He was a musician like me, so naturally he was trying to get his name out there. The video where he sung Romeo and Juliet by The Indigo Girls was one of my favourites, although I never told anybody I watched that video over and over again, enchanted by his voice. Then, on a music teacher’s database, I found his phone number. My hands actually started trembling, and I questioned whether it was the right decision to throw myself back into his life. But I wanted to do something I’d never done before, so I took a deep breath, and texted him, ‘Hey, is this Cam?’

  I waited nervously for a reply. My friend Caitlin texted me in between, and I leapt on my phone, only to be disappointed. Eventually Cameron responded with the anticipated ‘Who is this?’

  What followed was the most boring text conversation I ever had… I didn’t know how to tell him exactly what I wanted, which was purely sex, without sounding too crude and up-front. Needless to say, my fling with Cameron Ivenhoe fell flat within about an hour. I couldn’t believe my feelings of disappointment at this – it was almost borderline sadness. I realised I had just wanted some attention, and thought Cameron was a sure thing. Maybe he had grown up and found himself a real partner instead of believing that monogamy was something people ‘shouldn’t do’. People grow up, and change. Perhaps Cameron Ivenhoe had too. I would tell this story to my friend Caitlin over dinner the next night, and laugh hysterically at how fast it had fallen flat, and my great disappointment. I was glad I was able to turn the situation into something humorous – that definitely was like the old me. I was back with a vengeance, fabulous as hell.

  14/6/13

  The first thing I saw in my Facebook newsfeed this morning was a picture of Rhys and another girl, smiling happily at the camera. His Facebook had been relatively empty since our breakup, and I
still wondered sometimes if he’d ever speak to me again, if he’d realise what a fool he’d been. I was young – I didn’t need to be tied down. I had a life to live. I had plans, things to do. However, when I saw that picture, that all changed. Suddenly, I didn’t want him to be with anyone else – I wanted him to be with me. And I hated that feeling more than anything.

  I felt so anxious that I almost vomited. I hated feeling this way, and it was like the last two weeks of feeling fabulous and free were a vague memory – I was back to square one again.

  Throughout the day, more pictures continued to surface in my newsfeed. Toxic pictures, each one making me feel that little bit worse than before. Pictures of them laughing together, pictures of them eating lasagne… and of course, she was a pretty, young thing. I realised this must be what it was like to be replaced by a newer, younger model.

  That was the thing about Facebook – I likened it to a tragic car crash situation that nobody could look away from. You know it’s bad for you, but you can’t stop looking, even if what you see might hurt you. So you just keep hurting yourself, over and over again.

  Saturday was my day to volunteer in the Cancer care ward at the hospital in the city, playing music in the waiting room. The patient’s faces were always appreciative, and it took my mind off my own situation for a few hours. In this place, I felt needed and appreciated by somebody, even if they were complete strangers.

  So I invited Caitlin and a few other friends over for drinks. I was determined to keep busy, to keep my mind off Rhys, and in the process, I became somewhat of a social butterfly. I went to dinner with friends numerous nights a week, out on coffee dates, and even agreed to attend Erin’s psychic party, under the guise of needing to pick up my abandoned guitar.