Every Man I Fall For

I’m on my bed when the phone rings. I don’t want to get up to answer it, so I don’t. For now I’m OK just sitting on my bed and doing nothing. I’m so tired of always feeling like I have to apply a verb to every situation. Why can’t everything just be adjectives? Doing, making, feeling, loving. It’s all just so exhausting. Soft. Green. Warm. Stop.

Hello?

Yes, that would be the life for me. Adjectives.

Yes sure, I’ll just get him for you. Hold on.

Oliver adj. wispy, intangible.

There are footsteps coming up the floorboards. Creak creak. Knock knock.

“Oliver? There’s a Charlotte on the phone for you.”

I frown and stand slowly, stretching my legs. A Charlotte?

“Thanks Dad” and I take the phone and shut the door in his face. Slam. Creak creak creak. Squeal.

I’m on my bed again, and the plastic is too big in my hand, so I hold it like a small child with a toy.

“Hello? This is Oliver speaking.”

“Hi Oliver, it’s Charlie.”

I cock my head to one side, while she waits for me to recognize the name. I don’t.

“Thom’s sister.”

Oh.

“Oh.”

“Yeah, look Oliver, I just want to call on behalf of Thomas to apologise.”

I laugh quietly at that, and I realise then just how much Thom is actually like me, even if in some ways we are exactly opposite. Because sometimes I feel as if Adrian is the extension of my left hand, and he has to approve of all my actions and thoughts and feelings. I don’t know how much Charlie could be like that. I hope for his sake she’s not.

“Has he spoken to you about it?”

I start to play with the sleeve of my jumper. It’s a little too big, and I’ve always hated talking on the phone. I can hear her sigh.

“No, not exactly. But I just know, you know?”

I don’t, not exactly, but I can sort of understand. And I think of Adrian’s quick connections about the same issue and I get it.

“Yeah, I do.”

“Is it bad?”

“It’s not great, no.”

She sighs again.

“Look, Oliver, I can’t tell you everything. Thom has... reasons. Ones I can’t tell you about, but he will eventually. It’s still not an excuse, though. I’m sorry. We’ve had words.”

This time I do laugh, I really laugh. I can just imagine the ‘words’.

“Thom has told me about your methods of persuasion. That’s really sweet of you Charlie, I just…”

I’m thinking and I’m thinking and I’m trying to work out exactly how to phrase this, because these words feel like the most important ones I have said in a very long time.

“As much as I appreciate it, I really need to hear it from him. I really need to hear him say it, and mean it. I don’t… trust… easily. And he’s really, really broken it. I don’t know, it sort of feels weird even just talking about it to you because I feel like for once he needs to be himself, he needs to grow up, and I learned that lesson and he knows that and I wish he could apply it to himself. He shouldn’t be letting you fight his battles for him. For now, well, I’ve tried, and I’m done. I’m not going to be that person anymore, not until he wants it and means it.”

There’s a short silence on the other end. Then,

“I understand completely, and I’ll be sure to pass that on. Please just… don’t give up on him completely, Oliver. I think you need each other.”

It’s sort of the truth, even if I don’t want it to be.

“Charlie…”

“Yeah?”

“Can you just tell him something for me? Just before I hang up?”

“Yeah, go for it.”

“Can you tell him that I don’t know what he’s running from, or running to, but I’m running as well?”

“…Of course, Oliver. Night night.”

“Bye.”

The line is dead.

*

Thom’s not at school the next day. I don’t know what that means. At least, not until I get the text message from Adrian.

There’s a strange boy sitting on our front fence.

I skip Period 5 Biology and sign out for ‘an appointment’. Whether that appointment is with fate or ice cream, I don’t know, but my stomach is churning with anxious anticipation on the walk home. Sure enough he’s leaning against one of the higher brick posts, hood up, in a tracksuit and thongs. He looks tired.

“Well you look a little worse for wear.”
I pull my keys out of my pocket and he visibly flinches, as I throw his words back in his face. I know he’s here to grovel and I also know he wasn’t expecting me to be angry, which if anything pisses me off even more.

He sort of dejectedly trails me inside, not that I asked him to. I know I want this, but he just needs to be prepared for the shitstorm I am about to launch in his direction, because even if I’m not super strong-willed I’m not going to forget three weeks of torture with two words.

Because I am walking in to the lounge room and he has nowhere else to go, he follows me, looking around with wide eyes, and perches on the edge of the couch. I throw my schoolbag down so Adrian knows I’m here before pulling off my school tie.

“Well, just make yourself at home.”

My tone is biting, and I know I’m being a bitch, but I’m sick of it, sick of it all. I don’t want him to look so fucking fragile because he has hurt me, hurt me more than he knows but less than he should really have assumed he would, and for once I just want this to be about me.

When I turn around he’s sitting there tucked up in a little ball with his arms wrapped around his knees, and in the most comprehensive display of strength and masculinity the world has ever seen, I promptly burst in to tears. This makes him start crying as well, and somehow through the haze in my eyes and in my mind I’m stumbling past the big wooden coffee table and falling on to the couch, and he’s pulling me in to his lap and suddenly we’re in each other’s arms, and I’m not sure how this happened but I know, somewhere, that it’s necessary.

I also know, somewhere, that Adrian has come downstairs and then abruptly turned around again, but at this point it’s all just peripheral. All that matters is Thom, here, in front of me and around me, smelling like salt and washing powder and that day in his stupid pumpkin room.

Finally my sobs slow to soft hiccups, and I slowly pull away, realising embarrassingly that he stopped crying a while before I did. He’s watching me now with soft, careful eyes and the tiny tiny logical part of my brain is thinking well where the fuck did this come from but the rest of me is just so relieved that he’s here, with me, again. After a minute we both open our mouths to speak at the same time, but I let him go first while I rub at my cheeks.

“Olive.”

Jesus Christ, if he wants me to have a fucking heart attack then the nicknames and mood swings are definitely the right way of going about it.

“I owe you a very fucking thorough apology. Probably accompanied by an explanation.”

Even though I’m now all vulnerable and sniffly and have somehow managed to tuck myself in to his side I still manage a

“You reckon?”

which he chuckles softly at. I should be more annoyed with him for that. I’m not. He’s started playing with the wispy bits of hair around my temple and under any other circumstances it would be kind of cute, but given that I’m actually still confused and angry with him and with myself after all of this unexplained douchebaggery, it feels way too intimate. I subtly shrug him off. We both know. He moves his hand my shoulder.

“I don’t know where to start.”

“Try the part where you fell in love.”

He squeezes my shoulder.