You Mustn't Give Your Heart To A Wild Thing

The holidays always made me anxious; Christmas being the worst. Christmas in the Palmer household wasn’t like that in the Smiths, or the Jones’ or the Walkers; unless we were talking Johnny Walker of course. The handful of good December twenty fifths, from the very start of my life, had blurred into a mess of shadows and contours I couldn‘t quite figure out. Whilst I could recall the bad; each slice, each cut, each tear, with ease. Their clarity alarming. Christmas for me reeked of strong liquor, burnt meat and metal; which I could taste as if it were blood from my nose , my cheek, slipping between my lips.

Alex had one Christmas which fell into my latter category, but despite the fact it outweighed all of mine tenfold; my Dads death hadn’t been sudden or at his own hand, he was still like a kid come December. He still had the wide eyes and racing heart of a child at the sight of the Christmas lights that adorned Sunset Boulevard being assembled, and he still breathed the optimism and hope I’d struggled to find in that, or any of the other eleven months of the year.

‘Why aren’t you going home for Christmas?’ was a question I could answer, but only just; and to no avail with Alex. My bullshit lies didn’t wash with him, and he really didn’t understand the truth.

“How long have we been together?” Alex had my hand sandwiched between his and the gear stick; his eyes trained on the road in front of us.

“’s ‘at rhetorical?” I questioned, not wanting to admit that I didn’t know the answer. I was the girl. I should have this shit penciled in on the calendar in the kitchen, I should be marking each day we spent together with a tiny love heart in the corner of every box; beneath my scrawled Doctors appointments, to the right of my shift swaps with Lau. “’cause ye make it sound more like a statement than a…”

“We’ve been together for a while now” He pressed on, leaving my enquiry unanswered. I breathed easy as I realised that he too had no idea, and I let my eyes close briefly as my head lulled back against the seat. My car smelt of breath mints; the warmth of the heat turned up to maximum exacerbating the sugary sweetness tickling at my nostrils. “And this is the first time you’re coming home with me, to Baltimore”

“’s shockin’ right?” I teased, “That we’ve not driven all the way across the country before now”

I didn’t need to open my eyes to witness the roll of his, I just knew. He would then chase the eye roll with a small, barely there sigh and his hand would squeeze my fingers; or whatever it was holding, gently and briefly.

“ ‘m excited t’ meet ye family” I smiled small, as his grip eased. “I just hope they like me”

“Aunt Carey won’t, but she doesn’t like anyone. She has issues against pretty girls on account of the fact that her pride and joy, Dani, is more of a ’iel’ than a ‘ielle’, she’s my cousin; and shit I should be kind, but she’s like twice the size of me, she’s built like a quarterback”

A loud snort accompanied the laughter that burst from me; and had I been with anyone else my cheeks would’ve turned fire truck red instantly. But I was with Alex, and Alex had learnt almost everything about me and everything that made me with surprising ease and speed. He knew that I snorted sometimes when I found something really funny, he knew that I would recite lines I’d learnt from the movie Amelie when anyone asked if I spoke another language. He knew that I liked nothing more than trekking up to the Hollywood sign on the afternoon of a bad hangover, and he knew that my soundtrack to a bubble bath was a perfect mix of Michelle Branch and old school Blink 182.

I opened my eyes and shuffled in my seat so as to face him, pulling my hand from beneath his and resting it between my cheek and the corner of my seat; my body rested entirely on my left hip, angled toward him. And he drug his eyes from the highway for a second or two to meet mine, a cheeky smile flashing across his lips. “They’ll love you. I mean, I…”

“Ye really should keep ye eyes on the road” I interrupted quickly, fidgeting awkwardly in the plush tan coloured seat. “I’d imagine ye Mum and Dad would like ye in one piece”

“I’ve been doing just fine for thirty six hours” He breezed, ignoring my erratic cutting him short without so much as a flinch, as usual. “I don’t think I need your help this late in the game Verity”

I nodded slowly, turning my attention back to the road ahead and pulling my knees up to my chest; my arms looped tightly around them, keeping me balanced; if only in body. “I’d just feel a little safer if ye were concentratin’ on the road, instead o’ me”

He mirrored my nod and tightened his grip on the steering wheel; his knuckles turning white briefly. “Could you grab me another red bull?”

“Ye’ve just ‘ad one Alex” I noted warily, “I want ye to stay awake an’ all, but we don’t need ye buzzin’…”

“Okay” He interrupted matter-of-factly, a coy grin creasing across his lips from the right corner to the left. “Can you fetch me anything from the backseat?”

“What d’ye mean anything?” I enquired, raising an eyebrow as he stole a guilty glance in my direction. “Ye don’t know what ye…”

“You won’t let me sit here and look at you the conventional way, I get a nice peek in the rear view when you go back there, in those shorts”

I folded my arms across my chest and huffed dramatically, refusing to let on that I’d found his cad like comment just a little flattering. “It’s a jumpsuit” I argued.

“You can call them…it, whatever you want, it‘s making your butt look good either way”

I placed my hand just above his elbow gently and ran my fingertip slowly across his skin; an action that told him to refrain but drove the hairs across his arm upright in anticipation. “You uh, you might want to change before we get to Baltimore though sweetie” He stammered as I let my fingertip dance up and down his bicep.

“Ye Mum and Dad won’t appreciate them as much as you?” I joked, only a little hurt when he shrugged my touch away and fixed her arms in perfect ninety degree angles to the steering wheel.

“Mom and Dad will love them” He smiled, the blush that had appeared so rapidly, slowly slipping away from his cheeks. “It’s taking you to the emergency room with frostbite that might ruin the holiday”

“It’s cold in Baltimore?” I enquired, feeling a complete dunce as his cackle hit my ears.

“It’s cold pretty much everywhere bar that Hollywood bubble you like to call home” He laughed; deep from the belly and louder than I’d imagine such a string limbed boy to muster. “It’s December. December the twenty third to be precise”

“Ye sure ye parents don’t mind us turnin’ up on Christmas Eve” I asked at the mention of the date. “Isn’t it a bit late, won’t they be…”

“They prefer it this way” He interrupted, “They like to surround themselves with family, because, well, y’know, things are harder in the holidays…but that doesn’t mean that they want us all staying under one roof for longer than is totally necessary; Nana and Pops have been there four days already.”

I giggled softly and replaced my hand on his arm, noticing the goose bumps that had pricked up as our skin met; his clammy, mine bone dry. Every time Alex spoke of his family I found it a perfectly equal mix of adorable and unnerving. When he spoke about them it was easy, he spoke without hesitating, without thinking, without breathing; maybe as it should be I couldn’t be sure, but I knew how much there was beneath the surface. It was an iceberg. The visible ten percent looked perfect, but the remaining ninety lying just below the surface was a mystery, maybe even to Alex.

“ ‘s really ye whole family aye?”

He nodded silently, shaking me from him once again but this time catching my hand in his and lacing his fingers with my own. “It’s Christmas” He reasoned, “It’s the way it’s meant to be, it’s the way it’s always been”

It wasn’t meant to cut and most of me would agree that it didn’t, but there was a small part that recoiled, a minute part of me; somewhere deep and hidden, that ached. I knew the exact question that would pass from his lips next, what I didn’t know was exactly how to answer it; this time at least.. “Do you honestly not want to go home for Christmas?”

I wanted to be honest with him as he’d requested. I desperately wanted to have an answer, a reason, even a sarcastic comment to nod toward a simple ‘yes’ or a complicated ‘no’, but there was nothing. I didn’t want to lie, but I couldn’t be honest either.

“Look in the glove box”

It was just in front of me; a small shuffle forward, but I was frozen to the spot. Blinking wildly between Alex, the dash and back again. “The glove box?” I stammered, folding a little as Alex snaked his arm past me and clumsily pulled it open. I don’t know what I was expecting, Jake and my Mum to tumble out and landing in a pile in the seat well? The glove box acting a little like Narnia with Sheffield on the horizon?

“Here”

He dropped a thin, white envelope in my lap and moved his attention back to the road without another word. It was light as a feather; perhaps lighter, but his reaction told me it, or its contents was anything but. “I don’t believe you when you say you don’t want to see your family”

I could think of a handful of things that could’ve fit into the envelope, but only one made sense.
“I told ye, ‘ve spent more than enough Christmases with my Mum and my brother, I don’t need t’ rush home just because ‘s the holidays, I don’t need t’…”

“It’s for two days from now” Alex interrupted, tapping his fingers lightly; and carefree, against the steering wheel. “I figure you can spend some time in Baltimore, with me, like we’ve planned” He was waiting with baited breath for a reaction from me. “And then you can go home for a few days, see your Mum and Jake, and the niece I know you’ve been dying to meet”

He was thinking of me, and that was fantastic. But I’d never felt comfortable with surprises and
surprises built on good intentions were the worst. “You can’t keep yourself from the people that love you because you don’t think your family’s complete anymore”

“My family weren’t ever complete” I argued quietly, “Even when my Dad were here we were never…the family, ye know…that family that…” I couldn’t find the words to describe it. My father had been full of nothing but love; as I was sure my Mum had been at some point, but we were never a loving family. In the typical sense at least. I’d always been jealous of my friends whose families had acted as if it was them against the world. I’d always marvelled at the way Carol and…

“Maybe it’s time to start?”

&&

The aeroplane ticket was sitting ominously on the table between the pair of us and we’d barely spoken a word to each other in the hour or so that we’d been sat at the breakfast bar. I was still wearing the humongous duffle coat I’d been leant by a cousin, or aunt, or grandparent; it’s shoulders a darker brown to that of the rest from the damp snow, and Alex was still yet to remove his bobble hat, scarf or gloves. I’d always been wary of drinking too much around Alex, and this was exactly why.

“Are you going to see that guy, when you go back?”

I drug my eyes up from the bottom of my nearly empty glass and met Alexs chocolate brown orbs. He’d said ‘that guy’ as if the words stung, burnt or sliced. He’d said ‘that guy’ as if he didn’t know Olivers name.

“Of course I’m not” I whispered, “Did ye not listen to anything I said. We don‘t talk anymore”

“So you would if you guys were talking?”

I held my tongue between my teeth and kept the fact that I doubted I’d be here if Oliver and I were talking; or at least had talked, safe within the confines of my mouth. “ ‘ve no interest in seeing Oli, Alex” I mumbled, “I thought I made that clear”

I watched his face twitch uncomfortably in the dim moonlight that was bathing the kitchen through the large windows, “That’s not what you made clear, Verity” I expected him to continue, carry on, let me know what exactly I had made clear but it was obvious that he didn’t feel that was necessary. To be honest I didn’t feel it was necessary either.

Christmas lunch had come with a bottle of champagne shared between two and the traditional afternoon screening of ‘It’s a wonderful life’ was washed down with a case or two of light beer.
It was the cocktails with Alexs High School friends that had loosened my lips, and it was their prying and endless questions about home that now had Alex and I nursing a bottle of bourbon from his Dads liquor cabinet. I hadn’t given Alex the whole, uncensored story as I would St Peter if I was trying to repent, but I’d given him enough, by all means too much. He knew of Oliver, and he’d learnt of Oliver and Verity.

“Why has it taken you all of this time to tell me why you really ended up in LA?” He questioned, entwining the fingers of both his left and right hands leant on the counter top. “You told me that you came out for School, that you’d had enough of Sheffield”

“Neither of those are lies” I objected, my voice cracking a little as I noticed the smirk hidden in the right side of Alexs mouth. It wasn’t the one that would have me laughing before he’d even caused the mischief he was dreaming up, and it wasn’t one that made me feel at all comfortable. It was as if I was the puny, dorky, kid taking his place on the jungle gym, and he was the playground bully just waiting to lay one on me, right between the eyes.

“It’s not the complete truth though, is it” He sneered.

I gulped down the lump rising in my throat; an action which came with an incredibly loud sound that neither of us could ignore, and rushed my hand towards the bottle of whisky between us. It had become lukewarm in the heat of the kitchen, making it burn that little bit extra as I swallowed as much as I could stand. “You’re only here because you fucked up, and he didn’t want you after that”

I coughed, I spluttered. And I was surprised that the bottle didn’t shatter from the force with which I slammed it down onto the counter.

My eyes watered instantly, his punch had been thrown and it had landed; as expected, in the most painful spot. Tears tumbled down my cheeks like a stream, then rivers, then goddamn oceans. They slipped silently from the tip of my chin and landed with a soft, subtle, thud on the corduroy fabric of the coat. My ribcage felt like it was about to cave in from my heart raging within it. Bones shattering, snapping, splintering. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t move, but I could sure as hell tell him how wrong he was.

“ ‘m here because I wanna be ‘ere” I choked, muffling my words as I wiped clumsily at my face with my sleeve. “I didn’t leave because ‘e didn’t want me, Alex. I made him not want me so that I could leave.”

“You couldn’t make someone not want you if you tried”

It was equal parts compliment and dig and from the expression on his face he was both pained and surprised that he’d said it at all. The words were almost flattering, but his tone spoke of his distaste at such a statement being true. The tables had turned in Alexs opinion; I was now the bully waiting to pounce and he was the feeble kid praying that it wouldn’t hurt.

I didn’t want to hurt him, I just wanted him to understand.

“I shouldn’t have waited all this time to tell ye about Oli, I understand that” I stated, “and I certainly shouldn’t have sprung it on ye in the middle of a bar, after the like, fifth long island ice tea, but they were askin’ about home, and you, ye were askin’ about home….an’ Al, for a little while, years ago, Oliver was my home.”

I watched him closely as he tugged at the beanie hat placed precariously atop his head and threw it down; shaking his head from side to side as a dog does when it emerges from water. It was the first sign that he wasn’t going to do as threatened and drive us both ‘the fuck home’; tension wasn’t something that was welcomed in the Gaskarth house at Christmas.

“Is that why you’re afraid to go back?” He asked, keeping his eyes trained on mine. “Are you scared that if you see him again it’ll all go back to how it was? He’ll be home again and…”

“It’ll never be ‘ow it was”

“But you’d like it to be?”

“Stop twisting my words” I argued, exhausted. “We can’t ‘av this discussion if ye do that. I can’t be honest with ye if you don’t listen to what I’m sayin’, properly”

“You said that he was like no-one else you’d ever met, that he was intoxicating, you…”

“Intoxicating ‘s just a more subtle term for poison” I interrupted, moving my shaking hand to the bottle and taking another large swig.

“And telling me that he was like no-one else you’d ever known was another way of saying ‘you’ll never be him’ right? “

“Ye like ‘im in a hundred ways Alex. Ways that scare me sometimes, an‘ sometimes in ways I wish ye weren‘t” I whispered, my words a little distorted in the neck of the bottle as I let it linger at my lips briefly. “But ye’ve got a million other things that I love about ye, that are all yours, that are so much better. Ye won’t ever be Oliver, and that’s the best thing ye’ve got going for ye, can ye understand that? I don’t want ye to be Oliver, Alex. Because Oliver and I ended, we broke, we’re nothing anymore. I don‘t want that to happen to us”

“What’s to say that he feels the same way?” He asked, “How do I know that you guys won’t kiss and make up, and live happily ever after? Fuck, could I be more of an idiot?! I bought you a fucking ticket home to the guy you‘re in love…”

“ ’e doesn’t want me” I muttered, “Ye said it yeself”

“I don’t believe for a second that anyone wouldn’t want you”

It was another double ended sword of a compliment, and it was dealt with in much the same way. Every time Alex disclosed his shock at someones bad feelings towards me, his own, of the complete opposite were magnified. He couldn’t believe that I could make someone not want me because I had only made him want me more from the second we‘d met, he wouldn’t believe that anyone wouldn’t want me because I was all that he really wanted.

“It weren’t as simple as ‘im not wantin’ me, or me not wantin’ ‘im” I said hesitantly, each word more careful than the last. “If anything it were the opposite, we wanted each other too much for two kids so young, if we’d stayed the way we were we’d ‘av…”

“You wanted each other too much?” He interrupted, “This is supposed to make me feel better? You think telling me that…”

“If ye’d let me speak I can explain” I mumbled, “What is it they say, if ye walk into an operatin’ theatre during open heart surgery it looks like murder?”

He shrugged, nonchalant, and gave me a small nod to continue. “I’m not telling ye all of this because I want to, ‘m telling ye everythin’ because ‘m afraid what will happen if I don’t, so please ‘s hard for me, ‘ve only ever told Sam and that were because she forced me to explain why I was so screwed up when I moved ‘ere”

“Sam knows everything?”

“Sam knows everything” I smiled small, “about everything, you know that”

“You told her, but you waited to tell me? Would you have even thought to tell me if Jack and Ally hadn’t got all nosey at ‘Joes’ and started asking you about…”

“I was pregnant, an‘ he cheated. ‘s not something I like to discuss”

The words burst from my mouth and exploded into the air, receiving the same reaction, the same silent chaos as if they had been a bomb. Alex was sat bolt upright already, but I watched his entire frame tense at the words ‘cheated‘ and ‘cheat‘. In his eyes Oliver was now a shameless villain cheating on his pregnant girlfriend; there weren’t many things worse, and this was exactly why telling every minute detail was vital.

“He didn’t know I was pregnant” I assured hastily, “ no one did, for a while at least…until ‘is best mate Curtis put two an’ two together, an’ for once made four. Curt promised ‘e wouldn’ tell Ol, as long as I did…an’ as far as I know, the promise is still in tact”

Alexs eyes were wild with a dozen emotions, none of which settled for more than a couple of seconds before being replaced by the next, and his mouth had fallen open, his jaw slack and headed for the floor. There was nothing in my ears but his erratic, shallow breaths and the sound of my pounding heart. “You, you never told him?” He stammered after a minute or two.

“I’ve not yet” I whispered, “I plan on keeping’ my side o’ the promise too though, I just, I need time” To say it was refreshing to let everything out would make the whole process seem like something enjoyable, which was far from true, but I was feeling a little lighter, I was breathing a little easier. “I found out just before their first big tour, supporting a really fuckin’ good band an’ I figured I could deal with it, on my own, and he’d never need be any the wiser. I couldn’t, I couldn’t ‘av a baby… I could never leave if I ‘ad a baby with Oliver. I didn’t know how I was gonna leave as it were”

It still pained me to say it, and the words still needed to be gulped uncomfortably down my throat. “Oli an’ me ‘ad been arguing for months about me leavin’, it ‘ad got to the point where I told ‘im I weren’t goin’ just for some peace and quiet. But I was. It were the chance of a lifetime, an’ I figured if we were meant t’ be then we would be, regardless. I couldn’t stay in Sheffield forever because I were in love. I ‘ad my flight booked, my apartment was ready, an’ then…the baby”

Words simply weren’t enough at a time like this; I knew because I’d never found the right ones to tell anyone bar Sam, who‘d all but choked it out of me. I was right to not expect any from Alex.

“An‘ then he cheated on me, with the girl ‘es with now. ‘e didn’t cheat properly, like, it were just a kiss, but it were enough; I could hold it against him. Or at least I could’ve if I’d been the slightest bit angry” I admitted, “But I weren’t. ‘ow could I be knowin’ the secret I were keeping from him? I knew ‘e would do anything and everything t’ get me back, and I knew that by the time ‘e tried I wouldn’t ‘av the strength to stop it. Everythin’ would unravel, for the both of us. We’d be fine, but neither of us could afford t’ get stuck in Sheffield, with a baby, with each other. So I told him I cheated on ‘im, as revenge or some shit, I said it weren’t just a kiss. I told ‘im I slept with Nathan; a guy I knew he had a problem with, an’ I told him I didn’t regret it. I made him hate me so that ‘e would let me go”

Alex was silent; I could barely even hear him breathing and whilst his lips were pulled into a taught, straight line, it was neither a frown nor a smile. My body tensed from shoulder to tiptoe as he shuffled in his seat, my fingertips burning as his skimmed toward them, past them and to the ticket that lay between us.

“I love you too much to let you go Verity” He said, ripping the thin rectangle of card straight down the middle.