Over and Done

I might as well admit it now. There is more to the world than just me. Everything is not about me. I am not the center of the universe.

But isn’t everyone selfish? Doesn’t everyone think how I think? Maybe I’m just the only one who feels guilty about it. I make myself sick from overthinking. I cause trouble because I don’t know how to handle the happiness. I ruin good things because I feel like I shouldn’t have them. Like I don’t deserve them. Peter is a good example of this. Oh Peter. He was sweet and good and absolutely adorable. But not a challenge, not complicated, not dangerous to my well being.

I like it when things are difficult. I like causing trouble. I guess I have to take into account the fact that my trouble-seeking actions bring trouble to the wrong person. Tom. Normally I would say that he can handle anything. But maybe that isn’t quite true.
--

“This better be good, mate,” I said to her as we left the library. “I’m losin hours ‘cause of yeh.” I wasn’t much inclined to treat her well after how awful she’d treated me.

“Listen, I know I don’t deserve much kindness from yeh after the way I acted,” she said. “But ef I jus explain a couple things… maybe yeh’ll understand.”

“Not sure what’s to understand, but whatever.” I was not usually so venomous, but I didn’t have any fake kindness left in me. I couldn’t even look at her and I certainly did not want to be walking down the street with her. I’d noted it an impossible amount of times: She wasn’t like us. She spoke in a quiet voice and never yelled over anyone, like Gracie would. Needles terrified her, not excited her in the sick way they excited Oli and I. She was never truly meant for Tom, we both knew that. “Well, on with it then.”

She gave me a cross look, but didn’t bother to fight with me. She just began her explanation. “I guess the real trouble started when yeh came back to Sheffield over the summer.” Recalling the beginning of my Sheffield summer was difficult in terms of recalling Evie’s involvement. She was barely a blip on the radar. “See, Tom an I were jus then back together, but as o’ways I was a bit overshadowed by yeh—always ‘Anna this blah blah blah’—“ Her bitterness was evident and I said nothing, trying my hardest to hear her out. “An I guess it were sometime after his birthday I found out I was pregnant—“

“What?” I managed to choke out, coming to a complete stop on the sidewalk.

She looked at her shoes, almost mournfully. “Just about August, I think.”

“Pregnant?” The word was brash and hollow from my lips. I stared at her stomach. If there had been a child there once, there was no longer. “Tom never told me!” The realization struck me with a jolt of anger.

She seemed even more pitiful than before, digging her long fingernails into her palm. “That’s because he didn’t know.”

A different kind of anger flared in me, my immense dislike for her turning into raw hatred. “Yeh got rid o it an didn even tell im?”

She snapped her head up and glared at me. “Ef yeh’d get down off yeh goddamn high horse for a minute and listen, yeh’d know I didn’t ‘get rid o it’. I lost it.” A shocked silence passed between us and Evie had tears in her eyes. She was vulnerable in a way I would hopefully never understand.

I was guilty for what’d I said. But I hadn’t known. How was I supposed to know? “I’m sorry.”

She just shook her head. “I guess I thought ef we could ave a good trouble free month or so, then I’d tell im and we’d be all be happily ever after or something.” She covered her eyes with one hand. “But it were always something, usually yeh, that got in the way. When Tom wouldn’t even agree to move in together… I… I realized it wouldn’t be easy.”

With useless anger, I whispered “Yeh shoulda told im.”

“I woulda. But then at near three months…” Her eyes sank back down to the ground. “Doctor said stress may’ve done it.”

It was then that I realized she blamed me. Stress, she said. In some fucked up way, this was my fault in her eyes. Bile rose up in my throat. I wanted to shake her, tell her I had nothing to do with this. But my stomach was turning over and over again, and I was sure that I’d be sick if I spoke.

“But it’s for the best,” she said coldly. “We would’ve never been happy.”

“Yeh don’t know that—Tom woulda been a damn good dad.” I was one hundred percent sure of that.

“A good dad, yeah. But not a good husband, not when e didn’t love me like e should of.”

“Ow was e supposed to love yeh any different when yeh didn’ tell im the truth?” I sneered. “Yeh’re selfish—I’m sorry for what happened to yeh, but yeh selfish an didn even think about what were best for yeh goddamn baby.” Maybe she already knew this. Hopefully she already knew this, because I shouldn’t have been the one to tell her. What was she to me? What was I to her? Obstacles. Interference. On either side. I stood in her way. I was to blame. But how? We were all but strangers. When this should have been about Tom and her, it had been made about me.

And as far back as anyone could recall I hated unnecessary attention. An embarrassed shyness crippled my social skills in the pre-Oli 05 era. Present day Anna was better, boisterous enough to speak her mind to her best friend’s cracked girlfriend. But even this sent flares of anxiousness into me. I would always feel that saying too much was dangerous. This, I was sure, was a familial trait, acquired from years of emotional repression from both parents.

My mind was crossing all over the place, taking me into dark places. I needed to get my head together. And the first piece was Tom, as usual. After a long and strangled bit of quietness, I said “Yeh’ve to tell im.”

She seemed frozen, and maybe even a little softened to me. Her mouth was hard, lips pressed together. She didn’t want to cry, though she was close to it. “What’s the point?”

“E needs to know.”

“It’s done now,” she said.

“Ef yeh don’t do it, I will.” I would not lie to Tom or at the very least I would no longer withhold any important truths from him. For a moment, she looked defiant, ready to fight me on this. But she knew the risk she ran by confiding in me. Not that I understood why it was me who got to learn about this, before anyone else. “But it’d be better ef e heard it from yeh…” And I was terrified to deliver this news. I wouldn’t know how.

“I know.”

“Yeh gotta do it… like now.” In my mostly ignorant opinion, she had already waited far too long. It had been months that she had let this secret ride. And it was going to come out with a terrible force.

“E isn’t gonna forgive me,” she stated. At least she knew Tom well enough to know that.

“No, e isn’t.” I couldn’t disagree, even for her sake. Especially not for her sake.

--

He texted me at 6:32, almost exactly seven hours after Evie had left. He said he was driving back into Birmingham, that he’d be at the flat in ten minutes and that he needed to talk. I didn’t have to ask what about. Evie did the right thing; she told him. As glad as I was that Tom would know the truth, my chest was frozen with worry and sickness for him. This was a hurt I wasn’t sure how I would fix, especially given my supposed hand in the problem. Tom was the toughest person I knew, even counting his brother and their hard living friends. He was strong, and could handle most things with a fairly level head. But toughness and strength aside, he was also the sweetest and most caring person I knew. And this was going to obliterate his feelings.

When I let him in, I was scared. The small bruises that regularly formed under his eyes were more prominent than usual, indicating his level of stress. His t-shirt was on inside out, telling me that he’d pulled it off his floor and put it on without thinking. I watched him take of his muddy Nikes and he looked as though he might shrink suddenly to the floor without warning.

“Did she tell yeh?” He asked first thing, without even looking up from the floor.

I nodded “Yeah, she did.”

“Right.”

“Tom…” I put my hand on his shoulder, but let it slip listlessly away as I realized that it didn’t help anything at all. “Do yeh want tea? I’ve jus made mine.”

“What about a beer?”

“Sure, yeah.” I sunk my teeth into the inside of my cheek and went to the kitchen. I could hear him sitting down on the creaky sofa, not saying anything. This was awful and seeing him so low was painful. “There yeh go.” I put his beer on the table in front of him and sat down directly beside him.

“Thanks.” He chugged nearly half the bottle when he took his first drink. “She told yeh… about the miscarriage…” The word as he said it was confused, like he still wasn’t sure exactly what it meant.

“Yeah.” I wanted to let him talk. Anything I had to say would be useless.

“She told yeh before she told me.”

“But she told yeh.”

“Yeah, four months after it happened.” He put his head in his hands. He was still digesting the entire situation and having a hard time of it. Not surprisingly. “Why yeh?”

“What?”

“She doesn’t even like yeh. So why’d she tell yeh?” He stared at the blank television screen.

“I… don’t know.” And I really didn’t. I had no clue why she wanted me to know. Maybe she just needed someone to confirm how awful it all was. Or maybe she just wanted me to feel awful. I was leaning towards the latter. She wanted me to know that she considered this terrible thing to be my fault, my problem.

He sipped from his bottle, with his blue eyes glassy and cold. I wondered if he cried when she told him. I wondered if he blamed me like she did. No, he wouldn’t. Would he? “Is it bad that I’m almost glad about it?”

I just shrugged and moved closer to him, so that my hip was pressed to his thigh.

He continued. “Because I couldn’t’ve married Evie,” he said, but we already knew this. She had never been the one. “But…”

“But yeh love er?” My guess was weak.

“I don’t love er.” His answer was immediate and steadfast. He was confident in this. “Not anymore.”

“Oh…”

His knuckles were turning purple from clenching the beer bottle. “Ow’d I not notice? Yeh’d think… I mean…” He struggled to think. I didn’t want to say that he was distracted at that time, attempting to play matchmaker to Oli and I. “I guess I ad other things on my mind.” For the first time, he looked at me, with a coarse smile. “She tried to blame yeh,” he said, maybe unaware that I already knew. “Tried to say somethin about ow ef I weren’t o’ways with yeh then…” He stopped. He wouldn’t say the word again. Maybe not ever.

My self-involved mind couldn’t help but want to agree. “Well, I guess I did ave yeh engrossed in all my stupid drama.”

He was still looking at me. “Don’t do that.” He looked sharp, almost like Oli did when he was angry.

“Do what?”

“Agree with er." It was as though agreeing with her was the worst thing anyone could do. "She said some nasty things to yeh didn’t she?”

“Well…” I didn’t want to be the focus. Stop, stop stop, I wanted to plead. Let me just hug you and make you feel better. Let me feel guilty in silence.

“She did. She jus needs someone to direct all that fuckin negativity towards.” Under his breath he added “cunt”. Anger was just now forming in him.

“I’m not agreein with er. I’m sayin we neglect people in favor of each other.”

“Well, aye, but it’s o’ways been that way.” He seemed okay with this affirmation, used to it by now. And as if reality was just then striking him, he said “Maybe it shouldn’t be that way?” I knew this already and when I said nothing he stared at me a little harder. “Yeh don’t really think that, do yeh?” But he knew I did and he finished his beer in one long pressed gulp. He stood up quickly, without hesitation. He didn’t even look like himself for all the frustration that lived in his expression. “Just once, I’d like yeh to ave a little goddamn faith in me.”

Struck with shock I stuttered “What?”

“Nothin.” He crossed to the kitchen to toss his bottle into the trash and I followed him there.

“No, seriously.” I frowned. “What’d yeh mean? Of course I’ve faith in yeh.”

“Forget it.” His face was serious and this was when I felt it. We were no longer children, I saw it across his face. He had grown out of his baby-faced roundness and looked so much older than I saw him in my head. He would always be fifteen years old, skating alongside me on the way home from school. Or he’d be the boy who so long ago spoke to the new girl in class, the one who’d moved with her family from Mansfield, the one that no one else would talk to.

“Tom…”

“Can we not do this?” He got into the refrigerator and pulled out another Stella Artois, a favorite of Katie and I that we kept stocked.

“Yeh said yeh wanted to talk.”

“Well I’m done talkin.”

“But—“

“Drop it, Anna.” This was in a much harsher tone than any of his previous words, and it locked my lips together tightly.

We’d been building up this tension between us for roughly six months and in this moment I felt that it was on the verge of explosion. Trouble was very near, I could feel it in my veins. Some warped precognition told me this. Things had been too good for us for too long. It was time that everything fell apart.

---

When he left half an hour later, I cried. I didn’t cry much anymore, because I had everything I thought I wanted. But I’d been given a serious slap in the face by reality, telling me that my perfect little world was a sham. I was useless to my best friend when he needed me. There was nothing I could do. After years of saying how close we were, how we’d do anything for each other, it turned out that when the worst came falling down, I was no help at all. I even made it worse.

Katie returned from work a little after nine and knew within an instant that I had been crying. “What happened?” She pulled her purple hair up into a high ponytail out of her face, as if she were preparing for some grueling duty. Through in truth, in my post-summer-breakdown days, taking care of me was quite the daunting task.

“Fuck ef I know,” I said, sniffing a little. “Do yeh got any pot?”

She nodded slowly and suspiciously. “I’ll roll a joint while you tell me why you’re crying.” She sat down and took her oak stash box from its designated spot on the coffee table. She pulled from it a bag, rolling papers and a lighter. I knew there was a reason we were roommates. She was always prepared.

“Tom an Evie broke up.”

“And you’re crying over it?” She sat up straighter, actually intrigued with the story now. “We should probably throw a party for him.”

“It’s more complicated than you’d think.”

“What’s complicated about it? She’s a bitch and he’s way too good for her.” She had a very particular opinion on the matter and it was obvious to me why.

“It’s… well, I don’t even know where to start.” It wasn’t even my place to tell this story, but Evie’d made me a part of it. “Back in October, Evie had a miscarriage.”

“What? Really? I didn’t even know she was pregnant…”

“Neither did Tom.”

Katie stopped fiddling with her papers. “Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Jesus.” She looked stunned; her lips had turned a little white. Just like me, she didn’t know how to process this information. “That’s… awful.”

“Uh huh.” I watched as she fumbled to finish her rolling. She was usually effortless at this, a pro. But Katie was confused and I just waited. It felt weird. Everything with everyone was all messed up now. She just continued to stare at the wall for a moment and then she handed the joint to me, along with the blue lighter.

As I was lighting the end, she said “We kissed.”

That was old news now. “I know.”

“It was an accident.”

“That’s what he said.”

“I didn’t know how to tell you… Sorry.” She accepted the joint as I passed it back to her.

I just laughed a little. “It’s fine. Did yeh think I’d be angry or somethin?”

“No… You’re just protective of him is all. But I don’t feel as bad about it now, knowing what she did to him.”

I sat back and pressed the joint to my lips, then blew a cloud of smoke out that hung in the air around me. I felt marginally better after the few hits I took. Self-medication at its best. But of course it wouldn’t take any of the problems away, just numb me to them.

“Is that your phone?” Katie asked, with her eyes already starting to get hazy.

I realized that my mobile was blaring Johnny Truant, Oli’s ringtone. I took one more quick hit before answering. “Ello?”

“What the fuck is wrong with my brother?”

“Uhh…”

“E locked himself in ‘is room the minute he came back an when I tried to talk to im, e told me to ask yeh.” When Oli got worried, he got angry.

“I, well…” Why did I have to be the barer of all this bad news?

“What’d yeh do to im?”

“I didn’t do anythin to im. Why’d yeh think it’d be me?” I felt a little offended.

“Because e only gets this upset over yeh.” Oli made a fair point, and seemed to be hanging it over my head.

“Well, ‘s not about me.” Not exactly. “’S about Evie.” And for the second time in fifteen minutes, I explained the situation. In order to satisfy Oli’s need for exact information, it required more details than when I’d told Katie. I even explained about the minor disagreement Tom and I had got into, over blame. Oli was livid, claiming that he would go to that ‘insane sket’s flat’ and give her a few choice words. I told him that that probably wasn’t a good idea.

“Well what the fuck are we supposed to do?” He asked, and I knew he felt as helpless as I did.

“I really don’t know.”

“Yeh’re ‘is bloody best mate, yeh’ve gotta know some way to help—e won’t come outta ‘is room, Savanna.” Oli was edging towards aggravating me.

“Well, yeh’re ‘is brother, Oliver.” I reminded him of this with an equally edgy tone.

“But I don’t know what to do…”

“Me either.”

It was hard for me to have no solutions to this problem and it made me a little frustrated. Well, maybe more than a little. I wanted to be Tom’s savior, like he was so frequently mine. I wanted to swoop in and save the day. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I only ever stood in his way. I didn’t help him half as much as I hurt him. Codependent? No. Parasite. That was me. I leeched onto him and drained the good to save it for myself. No one would agree with me on this. But I was the only one who could see exactly what I did, because I was the one that knew him best. And I knew I was bad for him.