Hello Stranger

“She really did understand things, Logan. She did.”

“She understood the things she knew,” I said. “But there was plenty my mum didn’t know. About me.”

“So let me know then,” she whispered. “Let me understand.”

Again, it would have been such a relief. Such a weight off my shoulders to come crashing down, shared with the woman I love. Unfortunately, a problem shared is a problem halved, and Chloe’s gorgeous shoulders were far too young, and far too happy to take on half of my burden.

I imagine my eyes must have hardened as the walls came back up around my heart. I imagine she must have seen it a clear mile away, how I tensed up to ice coldness beside her on the bed.

“Don’t,” she said, but it was too late.

I was too late.

I was still feeling sick, grief slamming to my core as I pulled myself up from the bed and put on my dressing gown. I headed out onto the landing, being careful not to even glance at Mum’s open bedroom before I took the stairs down, two steps at a time.

Chloe was in my shirt when she joined me in the kitchen, a familiar sight, and one I’d remember forever. What little of forever there was left.

“This isn’t right for me,” I told her, forcing out my words.

I was trying my best to keep it cool, my veneer of strength rising up enough to keep me steady, even though my insides were spaghetti.

“What isn’t right for you?” she asked.

I flicked the kettle on to boil, knowing full well I wasn’t up to drinking coffee, but needing the break in her stare.

“We aren’t,” I said. “I love you, and I’m grateful, but us being together… that’s no future, Chloe.”

“Stop it,” she said, and this time there was an edge to her voice I hadn’t ever heard before. Frustration. I felt it too. Only mine was directed like a mirror, right back onto myself. “I mean it, Logan. I told your mum and I’m telling you. I’m not going anywhere. I want to be here. With you.”

I knew it then – seeing her so firm in her resolve – that there was no way I could ever make her see sense for her future. She’d never walk away, not if she knew the real reason I was so keen to push her from my side. So, I didn’t reason with her. I sucked myself in and pushed myself on, for her sake and not for mine.

I was giving her the stab of the needle, to save her the infection. This was an infection that would be deep in her heart. Deep and long. More painful than any breakup I could give her, right here, right now.

“Maybe I don’t want you to be here,” I told her, hating myself at the words. “Maybe I need some time. Some space.”

“That’s not true…” she said, but there was a flash of self-doubt in there.

“She was my mother, Chloe. Do you think you can fix that? Do you really think that you holding my hand through the night is going to make up for the space I need alone?”

She didn’t answer me, and that self-doubt was more than a flash on her face this time. It was a blush, pink through the tear streaks, pounding her heart along with the grief.

I stared at her and she stared at me, and I kept it firm, kept it cold, summoning every scrap of professionalism I’d learnt through the years and keeping my damn fucking emotions under the surface where they belonged.

“Honestly, Chloe. Thank you for being there for me, but I’m through with that now.” I paused, fighting the urge to retch up the whole fucking load of the pain and fall to my knees. “It was easy to get caught up in Mum’s fluffy ideas of companionship forever, but it’s still true that you’re barely more than half my age and I barely know you. Please. Just give me some fucking space, will you?”

It broke her.

And it was all I could do to hold it together.

I felt her fracture inside, pain on top of pain. Rejection. Grief. Loss.

It took every scrap of my willpower to keep steady as her sobs rose back up in her throat.

“I just…” she tried. “I can give you some space… if that’s what you need… but how about tomorrow? How about we –”

I was shaking my head.

“This isn’t going to be fixed by tomorrow, sweetheart. How about you get yourself back to work and back to your training contract, and I’ll give you a call sometime.”

She didn’t know what to say.

Seeing her like that, the white rabbit twitching to run while her heart screamed out for her to stay, was a bludgeon to every scrap of hope I’d grabbed hold of since she danced into my world – the whirlwind in my darkness.