Softly

S

“Don’t do this to us,” he tells me, but I can only shake my head. “You know you don’t want to do this.”

I don’t think he knows what I want. I don’t think even I know what I want.

S

No matter how much effort you put into something, it must always come to an end. What goes up must come down. What starts must stop. I don’t even know where we went wrong, where we ended, but I remember where we began: at a party, when everyone else was too inebriated to talk.

Cameron was beautiful, which seems like an odd way to describe a guy, but it was true. Chiselled cheekbones, long lashes, deep soulful eyes. He looked like a tortured artist and we spent all night talking about our favourite films. The porch outside the house was wooden, and the air smoky with citronella candles.

“You know what I hate?” he asked suddenly, looking out over the scraggly garden. Whoever owned this house obviously didn’t care much for appearances. “I hate how you can’t just do what you want. There’s always conventions to follow.”

“Are you talking about laws?” I asked, not understanding as usual. “Because they’re usually there for our protection.”

He looked at me, and smiled. He smiled like he thought it was cute that I didn’t know what he was talking about.

“I mean, if I was to ask you out on a date right now, that’d be weird. Because there’s this designated courtship period, and everyone has to follow it. I have to ask for your number, and then call in three days, because any earlier than that and I’d seem desperate. And everything takes time when all I want to do is seize the day, or whatever.”

I wasn’t sure how to respond, but I couldn’t help but let my eyes meet his. I was grinning widely, and I couldn’t stop.

“I wouldn’t mind if you asked me out right now,” I said shyly, and he raised one eyebrow.

“Wouldn’t you, now?”

A wave of citrus scented air washed over us, and I closed my eyes to the burn.

“No,” I replied.

He was eloquent and nice and funny, and he liked me for who I was. We both loved the same kind of instant coffee, and he wasn’t afraid to admit he liked Pride and Prejudice.

One day we were at the library, both researching. I had an essay due soon, but I didn’t know what he was doing. The mahogany desks meant I was almost too afraid to write, in case my biro slipped.

Standing up as quietly as I could, but still disturbing everyone around me, I walked over to him, and peered over his shoulder to look at what he was writing. He hastily turned his notepad over, and took my hands in his. He arranged my arms across his shoulders.

“Hey,” he said softly.

“What are you doing?” I asked suspiciously.

“Nothing,” he said, but too quickly.

“Come on, tell me,” I pressed. “What is it, some big secret?”

“Sophie,” he said warningly, meeting my eyes and trying to look serious. I just laughed as loudly as I dared in the stifled environment.

He pursed his lips, and looked at me appraisingly.

“What,” I asked, suddenly insulted, “Don’t you feel you can tell me?”

He breathed out, and glanced around furtively. “Okay, if I show you this you have to promise not to laugh.” I wasn’t used to seeing him uncertain, and it was a strange experience. I was used to him leading the way. I didn’t know if I could take over.

“Scout’s honour,” I replied. I knew he was about to argue that I had never been a scout, but instead he just shook his head and turned his notebook back over. I peered down at the page.

Softly, it read, a poem by Cameron Meilks. I read through the poem. I read through it again. “I don’t want this to end quietly,” I murmured. I looked at Cameron, eyes wide.

“Why didn’t you tell me you wrote poetry?” I asked.

“I don’t,” he said, looking embarrassed. “Or, not really. I only do it in secret. It’s just that, I see how passionate you are about what you want to do with your life, and I wonder why I can’t feel that. You’d read history textbooks even if you didn’t have to, I think, but I’m just...” he trailed off. “I’m just drifting.”

I looked at him, and I felt like he’d put his life in my hands. “It’s good,” I said, and his face broke into a relieved smile.

“You really think so?” he asked, and I nodded. It wasn’t a lie, either.

“You’re just so brave,” he said suddenly, “You do exactly what you want all the time. You’re the bravest person I know.”

I squeezed my arms around his chest tighter, and buried my face in his neck. I wasn’t used to being called brave. Nobody called me brave. I was the academically gifted socially-retarded nice-girl who wasn’t quite sure of anything.

I could’ve gotten used to feeling like that. I thought for the first time that perhaps I was in love.

S

He’s looking at me now and there are tears in his eyes. I can feel my heart breaking, and I want nothing more than to kiss his hurt better. He’s already been angry, and in denial, and now this is the grief. I’ve heard there are stages to this kind of thing.

“Please,” he says, and he looks more vulnerable than I’ve ever seen him before.

I want this to be easier. I want to know what I’m doing. I want to know the future.

S

Life is funny. It throws you around, and across corners, and into the paths of oncoming trains. It throws you lemons and unless you have copious amounts of sugar it’s hard to make that taste any good.

It was raining, and it had come to the stage where I found his socks in my vacuum cleaner. He had his own toothbrush in my bathroom, and there were men’s pyjamas in my cupboard. We were watching a movie, turned up loud over the rain.

“That guy is just…” Cameron’s mouth continued moving but I couldn’t hear him over the rain and the TV.

“What?” I asked.

“That guy’s just doing that because he’s the guy who was rejected earlier. He just changed his haircut,” Cameron explained.

I clenched my jaw.

“I know, silly.”

I sat there seething. Did he think I was stupid or something? Did he think I couldn’t figure that out for myself?

We went out shopping later and Cameron decided what tap heads I should buy for my bathroom, because my old ones broke. He talked about how we should get a new dishwasher. He’d pay half.

Later, I went out and saw a friend who’d been overseas for a year. She was vibrant and glowing from the travel, and had obviously been smoking too much, judging from her voice.

“Sophie,” she cried huskily, hugging me so that I couldn’t breathe. “How have you been?” I filled her in on all the latest developments. I was onto honours in History. No, I didn’t know what I was going to do afterwards. Yes, Cameron and I were still going strong. No, I hadn’t seen that new TV program.

And then she was onto talking about herself, because she had more to share.

“You just have no idea what it’s like, Sophie,” she gushed, “To be away and learning new things and seeing new things every day. It’s just amazing. It really makes you re-evaluate what’s important. It makes you challenge everything, and see what will always be there for you.” Here, she cast me an appreciative glance. “You’ve been so good through all this. You were my contact to everything I’d left behind.”

I smiled at her.

Later, I sat again with Cameron, again in my apartment.

“If I went away for a year,” I said suddenly, “Would you still love me when I got back?”

Cameron stilled, and then gently turned me so that I was facing him.

“I think maybe I’ll love you forever.” There was so much emotion in his voice that it made me want to die.

“I think maybe being a poet has gotten to you,” I laughed, “That’s very dramatic.” He laughed too, and pressed a kiss to my temple. But later, I could still feel him watching me from the corner of his eye.

Discontent is something that sneaks up on you when you’re least expecting it, and sometimes there isn’t even a reason. Sometimes you can have everything in the world, and more, and it still won’t be enough. And it’s always there, at the back of your mind; it won’t go away until you’ve addressed it.

I never took that trip overseas, but that wasn’t the point.

I tried to end it with him once. I posed it hypothetically, half-jokingly, but Cameron was so afraid - so nice - that I was convinced otherwise.

“What do you think would happen if we broke up?” I asked, and Cameron dropped the frying pan onto the stove with a heavy thud. He was making stir-fry. He closed his eyes for a second, and them breathed out angrily, trying to keep his cool. He never wanted to get angry with me. Sometimes I wished he would.

“Why do you have to say things like that?” he asked.

I shrugged, already wanting out of the conversation.

“It’s nothing,” I said, “Forget I said anything.”

“How am I supposed to do that?” he asked, “Just forget? Aren’t you happy with me? Don’t you love me?” He was pushy and whinging and I wanted this to stop.

I felt my nose tingle, a sign I was about to cry.

“I’ve never been happier. I’ve never loved anything in the world more.” I wasn’t lying.

I put my head in my hands, resting on the kitchen table. I began to cry. Cameron continued making the stir-fry.

I think he was too angry to do anything else.

S

Now he sits across from me, and I don’t know what to do. He moves a hand forward, to cover mine, but I pull away. I don’t want to make this any harder than it already is.

“Why are you doing this?” he asks, and I don’t reply.

Sometimes, just when I think I’m getting close to understanding, it’s gone. Sometimes I don’t know what I want.