The Alexander Swallowtail

I was empty. Everything was falling apart. Gerard had to snatch my mother’s letters from her specialist out of my hands once again as he found me sitting quietly in his lounge room, reading through them over and over until I could begin to make sense of them, and of why she hadn’t told me earlier. Her life had been going downhill for a long time now. Her falls were signs that she was near the end. I couldn’t understand her actions, and I wasn’t sure I ever would.

I thought briefly of Kyle, and of how heartbroken he too must have felt. My mother had broken things off with him shortly before she entered the coma, according to all Mrs Way had known. I hadn’t even noticed his absence. She just wanted to be alone. I felt a slight sting knowing that Mrs Way had known my mother had been ill all along, even if she hadn’t told her the severity of it. She’d confessed to me as we sat together in my hospital room after having said a quick goodbye to my mother together, both crying our eyes out and blaming things on ourselves, that my mother had gone to her a few months ago and told her she wasn’t feeling well, that the headaches she’d been experiencing couldn’t be normal. Mrs Way had given me her letters that detailed her visits to the specialist, and explained a great deal of her nights spent not at home when I’d assumed she’d just been… out. All the tests… all the medications… and yet nothing had saved her in the end. The tumour had won, and I’d lost a mother.

“There was nothing you could do, Alison,” Gerard offered, placing the letters back into their envelope and sliding them onto the coffee table. I hated how quiet the house seemed with just the two of us there. Mr and Mrs Way were arranging my mother’s funeral, something I simply couldn’t find the courage to do, and Mikey was no doubt letting Clarissa know what had happened.

“Come, we’ll sit in my room for a while, in case you fall asleep. I don’t want you to be woken if you do.” I let Gerard pull me up, careful not to hurt me, and he helped me limp up the hallway, letting me rest most of my weight on his shoulder. I hadn’t needed crutches, but it still hurt to walk with the cuts and bruises I’d obtained from the fight I’d been in. I knew Gerard felt guilty about what had happened and wished he wouldn’t. He’d give me these sideways looks that I couldn’t decipher in my current state of mind.

“Sit down, I’ll let you get comfortable,” Gerard said as he busied himself with his TV, attempting to get a signal and eventually giving up and turning it off again. He came to sit by my side then, leaving us a little space between. A friendly space. God, I wanted it gone. I wanted him to feel something for me that was even just slightly close to what I felt for him.

“Gerard,” I spoke softly, but he shook his head to stop me before I began.

“Don’t, Alison.” His eyes met mine briefly. In them I saw a sadness I couldn’t comprehend. “Please, just don’t.” We sat there in silence for a while as we stared at the wall, my eyes drifting over his sketches and the other various things he had pinned there. “It would never work out between us. You understand that, right?”

“I can’t…”

“I need you to understand. It’s nothing on you, nothing at all. You’re wonderful.”

“Then how can you be so certain? Or were you never interested at all? Not even just a little…” Gerard sighed out loud and ran a hand through his hair. I watched his eyes intently for his reaction, for the truth of it all, but he was giving me nothing.

“I remember when our mothers would sit and chat around the kitchen table, back when they first started playing matchmakers for you and Mikey. I mean, I’d been young, but I knew what they were talking about. They’d encourage your friendship more than they’d encourage ours. I always wondered why. Were we different? Was I simply not good enough…”

“Gerard…”

“And it took a while for me to realise that they’d been right all along, and my frustration towards your blossoming friendship with Mikey had been ridiculous. You guys were the same. You both fit together so well, though I guess not in the way they’d been expecting. We all grew up. I found my own crowd. I realised why your mother in particular wouldn’t want you hanging around the likes of me. I took to drinking. I took to partying. I took to sleeping around.”

“None of those things make you a bad person, Gerard…”

“They make us different, Alison. And it’s not just that. You know it’s not just that.”

“I don’t care about any of that.”

“We can’t continue with… this…” Gerard said, placing his lips delicately against my jawbone. “I don’t wanna be responsible for ruining you.” I simply had to laugh at that.

“Ruining me? Gerard, open your eyes. Both my parents are dead. I have no real friends. You think Mikey and I are somehow made for one another? You’re wrong. He was made for Clarissa, and she for him.”

“She’s a lot like you, you know…” I paused then, because his words somehow made sense in my scrambled mind. But despite the apparent careful planning of our parents, Mikey and I hadn’t ended up together. It hadn’t even crossed my mind, or his, I imagined. We used to be close, but that was it. That was all. And I wanted that back. I wanted to be that close again someday… but not because I was in love with him.

Immediately, I felt a sinking feeling in my chest. Surely, it wasn’t that way with Gerard. I mean, sure, I liked him. I cared about him a lot. I imagined we would grow as people, learn from one another, if he’d simply let me in… But this… this wasn’t love. Love wasn’t supposed to hurt so bad. As suddenly as I’d found my courage to bring the conversation up, it had left me with a dry mouth and a confused expression showing on my face.

“I didn’t mean that you’re like… identical. Obviously. I know you don’t really get along with her…”

“Clarissa is lovely,” I said, which might have surprised myself at one point. But it was the truth, and I couldn’t deny that anymore now that the jealousy had dried up.

“Then what’s wrong? You’re so quiet all of a sudden. I didn’t want to hurt you… this is why it was never supposed to get complicated.”

“But it did,” I admitted.

“It did.”

“What do we do?” I looked up at him as he got up from his place beside me, finally stopping his pacing back and forth to kneel beside me, his fingertips dancing along the cast on my arm.

“Listen, Alison… I’m glad we got to have our time together, despite how it all began. I mean, of all the people you could have fallen on, I’m glad it was me.”

“Gerard…”

“No I mean it,” he cut me off, shaking his head. “But you have Mikey back now, and I don’t wanna get in the way of all that. You don’t need me anymore.”

“It’s not about what I need.”

“This is what you want?” I paused, unsure as to what he was referring to. “Be serious, Alison. I’m a pill-popping alcoholic with a questionable outlook on life. You don’t want that. Nobody does. And I wouldn’t blame you.”

“You don’t know what I want,” I argued.

“And nether do you. Not really. Not right now.” I looked away as tears pricked the corners of my eyes. “I’ll lay beside you tonight. I’ll take one more morning of abuse to make sure you’re safe tonight. But this has to end. I don’t feel the same way for you as you do for me.” And that was it, the one thing to finally make me bawl. Gerard held my head to his chest as he hushed me, gently rocking me backwards and forwards as he swayed his body against mine.

“Shh shh...” he gently whispered into my hair. I tried not to imagine this might be the last time I got anything close to a cuddle from him. “It had to end eventually. You know that. You deserve better than me…” I didn’t want better. I didn’t know what I wanted at that point. I gently pulled myself away from Gerard, the look on his face showing he was terrified of just how bad he’d hurt me. But I understood it couldn’t wait. I understood he had to let me know sooner rather than later that he simply didn’t feel what I felt inside. There were no sparks. It was just kissing to him all along.

---

Gerard and I stayed up watching TV together in silence until Mr and Mrs Way went to bed and Mikey was curled up in the corner of the sofa, his glasses almost falling off his nose as his mouth hung open to let out gentle breaths. I knew Gerard wanted to wait until we were up alone to sleep because he felt uncomfortable with me following him into his bedroom, with the kind of image that created. Little did they all know, the image they would conjure up in their minds of Gerard and I couldn’t have been further from the truth.

I ended up sleeping in my clothes after a small argument with Gerard had eventually persuaded him that if he wasn’t comfortable helping me out of my jeans then they were staying on. I was too sore and too tired to feel uncomfortable about it. Gerard turned off his light and joined me in bed, his arm snaking around me in a surprising manner.

“I’m gonna miss this,” he whispered after a while. “Alison?” I didn’t reply, too busy trying my very best to stop the sounds of my sobs. “I’m gonna miss you.”