VINCENT

Lucky to be alive. That’s what you become when you’ve walked out of an incident that others have died in before. Well I guess now that I’m on my ‘second chance’, I might do the whole positive thing and change the negative elements about myself whilst doing the things I would never have got to do had I also perished in the bus crash. I’ll actually learn the names of my students instead of identifying them by prominent physical features e.g. – Red, Brow-boy, Nose Stud, Curly, Tiny, Fake Blonde (all in my tutorial). I will attend the gym for more than 20 minutes a fortnight. I will banish all take-away food from my diet. I will pay attention to other people’s whining. I will learn how to do something creative. I will not push arguments with Tobey so often just for my amusement. I will try to like my brothers’ wife. I will not pretend to hate musicals. I will be spontaneous.

Pre-planning to be spontaneous?

The new Vincent will be: Casual, fun and optimistic.

I’m the only one left in the waiting room. This must be what the last child chosen for a sport team must feel like. I always managed to avoid this feeling of neglect in my school years by not participating in any sport (besides swimming) at all. It was a system that worked for me.

I stand up to stretch my legs and as I reach my arms above my head I see him racing towards me. I expect him to slow down as he nears, but he doesn’t. His arms wrap around me strongly as we collide into an embrace. I reflexively glance around for watchful, sneaky eyes then I break the hug, softly pushing him away.

“Vincent, God, I had to finish up the bloody lesson I was teaching when you called. I cancelled all my students for the rest of the night. What…what happened?” I smirk at the fact that the snippets of his mixed accent poke through the Australian one when he is mad or worried. He is the unusual result of a Scottish mother and a Puerto Rican Father.

I see his eyes grow as he reaches to stroke the bandage that hides the stitches on the right side of my hairline. I slap his hand away.

“I told you on the phone.”

“I’m sorry.”

And there it is. The inevitable ‘sorry’. Why, in these situations, do people always feel the desire to apologise? What have they done wrong? That’s the thing that violently rips my patience out of my body and up through the throat – the fact that there well and truly is no one to direct the blame at. I need a place to direct my anger. The new me will be calmer.

“Sorry for what?” I question him bluntly.

“That you had to go through this.”

“Well it’s not your problem.”

“Vincent, when it comes to you, you are my problem.”

“Don’t say that. It’s bloody depressing.”

“Don’t I know it.”

We hover silently for a moment before he places a hand on my back indicating that we should start making tracks.

“How was the lesson?” I ask him when we reach the car.

He unlocks the vehicle. “Unimportant.”

“Isn’t every student supposedly important?”

“Not when they have the attitude of a hammerhead shark on its period with no food in sight.”

An unpleasant visual runs through my head and I shudder.

“You’re cold.” He misreads. “Here, take my jacket.”

“Keep it.”

He drives less carefully than I do, often forgetting to indicate when turning- one thing that makes my blood volcanic. He knows it too. I don’t let him drive me places very often.

He pulls up on the curb opposite my house.

“Want me to come in there with you, Vince?”

“What an excellent idea, Tobey. You can come in, help my mother and Nonna with the dinner dishes and you can all gush over the embroidery of the table cloths. My Dad will say, ‘Congratulations, son, you have truly found the nice, fresh Italian girl that we predicted you’ll marry. She might be a little rough around the edges and she might have a cock, but she’s perfect.’.”

“Oh I see we’re in that mood today.” He practically whispers, staring out the window like a puppy in a pet shop. You can tell what those puppies look for…someone hold and nurture them and give the love that I hardly ever show.

I grab both of his hands in my own. “Look at me.” I demand.

He hesitates before he turns his head to me, and I know that he is in constant contemplation about whether I’m worth the hassle or not.

“I only told my parents a month ago. It took three weeks for my father to talk to me. My home life is restoring so gradually, and to bring you in there now would undo everything.”

His childish blue eyes study me and I suddenly feel like a cloned lab rat. The car feels a lot smaller than before.

“Why haven’t you ever seen me dance? The state ballroom and latin championships are coming up, mayb…” He pulls from out from nowhere.

“Spontaneity? This early in the evening? Really?”

He angrily pulls his hands out of mine and quickly releases the hand-brake. His foot rests on the clutch too lightly and the car severely stalls. He bashes the wheel in frustration and his rage makes me laugh. He looks to me, deciding whether to erupt with fury or not.

“It’s not funny.” He says, even as a smile creeps across his lips. He runs his hand through his hair as he breaks into a giggle too.

I softly peck him on the mouth.

“I’ll see you after my lecture on Tuesday. I may be in a hostile mood with full thanks to some of the darling students.”

Tobey nods, content with my efforts at pre-apologizing for the mood I’m always in. It’s hard not to crack when you are constantly around someone so frustrating, yet…you choose to be there.

“Vincenze! Where have you been? I try to call the mobile but you not pick up!” Nonna exclaims as soon as she hears me enter the house. When she sees me, her eyes instantly focus on my stitches.

“What you bloody do to yourself this time?”

“I was in a little crash Nonna, nothing big.”

That was all that I needed to say. European hysteria locked into position as she clung to me. A man of twenty seven.

“Come sit down! Madonna Mia! Nutting iss safe anymore” She cries, marking the sign of the cross against herself.

“I’m just going to go the bathroom, tell Mama and Papa that I’m home.”

We both separate, doing what I said we were going to do.

I wash my face in the bathroom, cupping the fresh, icy water in my hands and slapping them against my face. After a few repeats of this I stare at myself in the mirror. The water dripping from my dark hair falls in front of my face, hitting either my cheeks or my nose.

Without warning, through the mirror, I see him standing behind me. I pivot quickly to confront him but he isn’t there. I allow myself to regain the breathing that I forgot to do in my brief moment of fear before I turn around again to re-face the mirror. The face in there isn’t mine. I stumble backwards landing on my backside then I frantically scramble away from the wretched glass until my back hits the door. Oh God Oh God Oh God! I gasp for air so heavily that my chest hurts. I feel it heave and it’s only now that I notice that I’m sweating.

I look up to the mirror and he is well and truly gone but my breathing refuses to return to regularity. I clutch at my chest with one hand and reach for my phone with the other.

I don’t even know how I manage to dial.

“I…I’m having a heart attack.” I pant uncontrollably.

“Ok, just breathe sir.”

“That’s what I’m trying to do!”

So I’m going to die at the hands of an idiot? I always knew it would come to this.

“Do you have asthma?”

“No”

“Are there pains running up either arm?”

I think. “No.”

“Does it feel as if your heart is clenching in and out?”

“No.”

My breathing begins to very gradually slow down. I’m dying…I’m calming down because I’m dying.

“But you have pains in your chest?”

“Yes.”

“Can you try breathing in deeply for me right now?”

The questions are fired at me as fast as arrows, yet they feel as if they are suspended in irritating world of slow motion.

I attempt several times to do what is asked, and eventually my inhalation almost returns to its usual consistency.

“Are you feeling any better sir? If not give us your addr…”

“Much.”

“Ok then.”

I hold my throbbing, sweaty forehead with my non-phone hand.

“So what was that then?” I inquire after a few moments pass.

“You just experienced an anxiety attack.”

I hang the phone up and threw it across the bathroom, not caring that it shatters against the white, icy tiles.

The new Vincent will not imagine dead bus drivers that he didn’t even know. I will not be as melodramatic as to assume that I am dying when scared. I will no…Fuck it...

I will change absolutely nothing.

Thanks for my reviews and criticisms! sorry this chapter is a bit longer than the others :)

Coupe-de-grace: The point of the crash being the prologue is that it is the catalyst for the characters to now be what they are. Thanks for your views though, it means heaps!

Robin Siskin: I've re-read some of the things that you mentioned and I altered them because i realised that I hated those parts too. Thanks for your review. I found your story by clicking back through the site and i thought it would be an interesting read.

xx