I turned around to see him, weak in the knees.
I don’t know what I expected. I don’t know if I thought he’d see me in that dress with my eyes made up and suddenly I wouldn’t look like a little girl to him even if I still was. He noticed. I know he did. I know because Axel’s always been transparent. But he didn’t seem surprised.
He put away the bottles and gave me a kiss on the cheek.
“Babe, can you put down one more setting?”
I hated him. I hated that babe that he used with me like I was some kid, in that tone that must have been nothing like the way he talked when he was with a girl he liked. So tender, so older brother–sounding…so everything I wanted it not to be.
A while later, everyone else showed up. Jake, Tom, Gavin, and two brunettes.
I hardly opened my mouth during dinner. Not that I had the chance to, because Axel, Oliver, and their friends talked about their stuff the whole time, stories from their past, stuff they’d done the weekend before, what they were thinking about doing next weekend, stuff that only concerned them and that I didn’t have any idea of. I was playing with my food when Axel spoke to me.
“You starting classes this month?”
“Yeah, in a few weeks.”
The girl next to me said something I didn’t manage to hear, and he cracked up laughing and looked away. I concentrated on my dish again, trying to ignore Axel’s smile as he looked at Zoe. Next to her, I felt small and irrelevant, as if he could see right through me. And I was for the rest of the night, while they all drank and talked and saw off the new year clinking their glasses, and I sat there with nothing to drink but water.
The knot in my stomach got worse when Axel finished his third drink and started flirting with Zoe. He danced with her when a song came on the stereo, sliding his hands down her curvy body, squeezing her against him and laughing with shiny eyes, whispering words in her ear.
“Leah, are you okay?” Oliver was looking at me.
“A little tired,” I lied.
“Go to bed if you want. We’ll turn down the music.”
“No need. Good night.”
I kissed my brother on the cheek and said goodbye to the rest of them without even really looking at them, then climbed the stairs and went to my bedroom. I turned on the lamp on the nightstand and pulled my dress over my head, leaving it wrinkled at the foot of the bed. Sitting at my desk, I took off my makeup with a damp rag. I looked at the black streaks covering it when I finished, and thought how those dark marks were a perfect representation of my night. All of it was my fault, for thinking he’d notice me. All I had gotten was a glance. One. Not much better than that fraternal babe. Any token gesture from Axel was enough to hold in my memory, to grab on to…
I put on my pajamas and got into bed.
I couldn’t sleep. I listened to music for hours, tossing and turning, thinking about him and how I’d felt like a child, regretting not going with my parents to that party in Brisbane where at least I could have avoided bothering my brother.
I don’t know what time it was when I heard the first knock on the wall, followed by laughter. I gulped when I heard Axel’s voice from the next room before she hushed him and there were no more sounds for a few minutes. Then her moans and the soft knocking of the bedstead against the wall filled the room.
I wanted to vomit, and I closed my eyes.
Him ramming her. More moans.
Pain. And a piece. A broken shard. Another one.
I hid my head beneath my pillow to cry.
That was how I found out there are hearts that break a little at a time on eternal nights to be forgotten, during years of invisibility, days of imagining the impossible.
33
_________
Axel
I looked at her, lying on the board. I watched how she caught a wave and moved through it with her body leaning forward and her legs flexed, keeping her balance as she climbed the wall.
I smiled when she fell and swam over.
“No one would guess you haven’t practiced in a year.”
Leah looked at me gratefully and climbed her board. We stayed there in silence, looking at the morning breaking over the horizon. There weren’t many waves.
“Why now? Why at dawn?”
“Don’t you think surfing’s a great way to start the day?”
“I guess. When did you start?”
“I don’t know. I’m lying. I do. It was because of your father. You want to hear the story?”
She hesitated but eventually agreed.
“It was years ago. I was kind of disappointed in myself. You know what that’s like, Leah? The feeling you’ve failed, that no matter how hard you try, you’re not finding what you need. Anyway, he came to see me one afternoon. I had just bought the house, and I don’t know if you know this, but I did it because I fell in love with it, or worse, I fell in love with the idea of all the things I was going to do here. But…it didn’t work out that way. Douglas brought a few beers and we sat on the porch. Then he asked me a question I didn’t want to hear.”
“If you had been painting…” She guessed in a whisper.
“I said no, I hadn’t. Someday, Leah…someday I’ll explain to you why and maybe then you’ll learn to treasure who you are.” I sighed. “I told him what was going on and Douglas understood; he always did. That night he helped me to put the easel up in the closet and put away all the paintings I had scattered around the living room. I cleared off my desk and decided to devote myself to something else. We went on talking for a while. About everything and nothing, about life; you know how your father was. When he left, I stayed out on the porch all night, counting the stars and drinking and thinking…”
“This is going to hurt…” Leah murmured.
“Yeah. Because that night, I understood there was no point in being unhappy. And at some point, however much it hurts you to go on living, you’re going to understand that too. I realized that I had to enjoy every day. I thought the best way to start was focusing on what I liked the most: surfing, the sea, the sun. Then I would make it up as I went along. But I would choose pleasure, little things, music, calm. I would choose the things that fulfilled me.”
“But nothing fulfills me, Axel.”
“That’s not true. Lots of things fulfill you, but they’re all related to your past, your parents, and you don’t want to go back there, so you avoid them, but weirdly…weirdly you’re still stuck in that moment. Doesn’t that strike you as ironic?”
Leah looked out at the waves while the early morning sun caressed her skin and created shadows and bright spots on the canvas of her face. I felt that tingling again in my fingertips. Again, I thought someone should draw her at that very instant: sitting on her surfboard, back straight, face sad.
“I guess you’re right. But I can’t…”
“With time you will, Leah. Trust me.”
“How? It always hurts. Always.”
“There are three ways to live life. There are people who just think about the future. You’ve probably known lots of them, those people who spend the whole day worried about things that haven’t happened yet, the illnesses they might suffer one day and so on. They always have goals, but they almost enjoy reaching them more than whatever it was they had to do to get there. They save money, and that’s a good thing, but they do it for that big trip we’re going to take someday or the home we’re going to buy when we retire.”