Mom pulls her head back slightly and Dad forgets he’s holding a forkful of food in front of his mouth. Even Sophie looks a little shocked.
“Okay, sorry. Um, if you must know …” I take a deep breath. “Matt and I broke up.”
“What?” says Sophie.
“Oh, honey, I’m so sorry.” Mom looks appropriately devastated as she reaches across the table to clutch my hand. “What happened? When? Are you okay?”
“It’s fine. I’m fine. Really. It’s something I should have done a while ago.”
“You broke up with him?” Sophie looks surprised.
“Yes.” I try not to get upset as her words remind me of what Matt shouted in my face earlier. “Is there something wrong with that?”
“No, it’s just a little unexpected.”
I suppose it is.
“Is this something that’s … permanent?” Mom asks carefully. “Or just, like, a big fight?”
“It’s permanent,” I say firmly. “He’s possessive and controlling and I don’t want him in my life.”
Mom looks horrified. She turns to Dad and says, “How come we didn’t notice that?”
I poke the piece of chicken on my plate with my fork. “He’s good at hiding it,” I say quietly. “I mean, it took me all this time to figure out, didn’t it?”
“Well, you are kind of a pushover,” Sophie mutters at her plate.
“Excuse me? How dare you—”
“What? I just mean that—”
“Stop it,” Mom says over both of us.
“Did he hurt you?” Dad asks, his frown deepening. “You said he’s possessive and controlling. Was that just verbally, or—”
“I’m fine, Dad. I promise. Can we move on now please? Because I’d really like to. That’s why I want to go to ’Maritzburg. I just want some time out.”
Mom nods. “Of course. That sounds like a good idea. You have some friends there, don’t you?”
I nod. There are some people I could probably call friends. People Matt and I have hung out with over the past year. But no one I’d consider confiding in like I would with Livi or Adam or Julia. Mom doesn’t need to know that, though. She also doesn’t need to know that I plan to spend all my time alone in my flat working on the project I haven’t told a single person about. The project I’m finally going to see through from beginning to end.
***
I love my Pietermaritzburg flat. It’s in the back garden of a house that one of Mom’s old school friends lives in with her five hundred—excuse me, I mean seven—cats. It’s quiet, surrounded by a pretty garden, and I’m only ever visited by one cat at a time.
I stock my kitchenette with zoo biscuits, biltong from the Ashburton Butchery—voted best biltong in KZN in 2012—chocolate covered raisins, fresh lemons to add to the large amounts of iced water I plan to consume, and a small amount of real food. When Saturday morning arrives, along with the sun and the birds and the sweet scent of all the flowers filling the garden, I open up the document with those three pages I entered for the ‘Write It or Bite It’ competition, and I’m ready to go.
It takes me ten days. Ten whole days of slogging away at my tired old beast of a laptop—with regular backups in case the beast suddenly dies—but at the end of it, I’ve finally achieved something I’ve wanted to do for years.
I’ve written a book.
A first draft, of course. It’s nowhere near polished. But it’s a book! An entire, freaking novel! I grab the cat who happens to be visiting at the moment and do a happy dance in the middle of my tiny living area with the unfortunate animal. When it starts to look like it might take a swipe at my face, I drop it onto the couch, turn up the music on my laptop—which, fortunately, is connected to a set of speakers of far greater quality than those inside it—and dance from one side of my open-plan flat to the other. The cat blinks at me and I wiggle my butt in its face. Most embarrassing dance ever, but the bushes growing over the walls of this property are too thick for any neighbours to see through. I checked when I first moved in here.
I plop onto the couch with a happy sigh. That was fun, but I need to share my joy with more than a cat. I want to tell someone—and not just any someone. I want to tell Aiden. He’s the one who said I should finish a story. He’s the one who believed it could be a bestseller one day.
I check my phone to see what time it is. Monday, 9:46 pm. England is two hours behind us, so that puts it at 7:46 pm wherever Aiden is. Hmm. There’s a whole list of things he could be doing right now. Finishing dinner, working, watching TV, hanging out with Kelly. Crap, maybe he lives with Kelly. I’m not the sort of person to move in with someone before I’m married to them, but Aiden might be. Not that it should matter, though, because I’m not planning to send him a message declaring my undying love for him. I just want to share my achievement. That’s what friends do, right? They tell each other about the big things they’ve done.
I still don’t have an email address or phone number for him, so Facebook it is. I go to the app on my phone and search for Aiden’s page. I hit the ‘Message’ button, then stare at the last words we exchanged: He apologised for getting upset that I hadn’t told him about Matt and asked if I still wanted to be friends. I said yes.
I try to figure out what to say now. Going straight into ‘Hey, guess what? I wrote a book!’ doesn’t seem like the best way to start after our last interaction where I told him to have a nice flight and hung up on him. So … an apology is probably a good place to start.
Sarah: I’m sorry I was so rude to you on the phone. I’m sorry I hung up without giving you a chance to say anything. If you still want to tell me whatever it was you were going to tell me, please do.
And then I wait. I tap my finger on the side of the phone, watch other posts come up on the news feed, and resist the temptation to write another message to Aiden.
Perhaps I should have a shower. I’ve been glued to my computer all day—approaching the end of the story seemed to make my fingers fly faster and faster over the keys—and with the amount of sweat this hellish summer is making me produce, a shower is definitely in order. I leave my phone on the edge of the basin so I’ll hear if a message comes through, but it doesn’t make a single ping, ding, or trill while I’m showering.
Afterwards, I climb into bed with one of my old favourite books that’s been living in this flat for most of the past year: Harry Potter Number Three. After making sure that my phone is on the bedside table, I open to a random page and settle back against the pillows. I don’t know how much time passes—I tend to become oblivious to the world around me when I’m reading—but Harry has just found out that his broom has been smashed to pieces by the Whomping Willow when my phone makes a chirp beside me. Clearly I’m not oblivious enough to miss that. I grab the phone and open the message.
Aiden: I didn’t think I’d hear from you again.
A small “Eeeee” escapes my throat, and I have to force myself to calm down before I reply. But then I can’t think of what to type. I mean, he hasn’t explained what he was going to say on the phone, so does that mean I’ve lost my chance? Will I never know? Maybe he’s angry with me. He didn’t use any smileys, so maybe he’s about to tell me to get lost and not contact him again. I’m saved from having to figure out what his message and lack of smileys mean when he sends another message.
Aiden: So you want to know what I would have said to your ‘Are you engaged?’ question?
Sarah: Yes.
Aiden: No.
No? What does that mean? Is it ‘No, I’m not going to tell you,’ or ‘No, I’m not engaged.’?
Aiden: Kelly and I were engaged, but we broke it off about eight months ago. I’m not involved with anyone.
Seriously? That’s it? I throw my head back and groan, partly because I hit my head on the wall and partly because I’m so frustrated with myself. Why didn’t I just let him say that over the phone? Why didn’t he shout it out before I hung up?
Aiden: Who told you anyway?
Sarah: Matt.
Aiden: Cousin Matt and I communicate a maximum of about once a year, usually to leave a quick ‘Happy birthday’ message on Facebook, so it’s not surprising he missed the part where Kelly and I broke up.
Sarah: Or maybe he was trying to hurt me.
Aiden: Why would he do that?
Sarah: I was breaking up with him at the time.
There’s a minute or two of silence after that, then the next message pops up.
Aiden: I hope you didn’t do that purely because *I* said you didn’t want to be with him.
Sarah: No. I did it because *I* didn’t want to be with him.
Sarah: Remember you asked why I was crying on the plane?
Aiden: Yes.
Sarah: Matt and I had a major fight the night before I left for England. He was violent and scary. The things he said to me … they were meant to hurt me. They were meant to break my spirit. And then he didn’t contact me at all the whole time I was away, and I spent the whole time pretending it had never happened. But I had to start thinking about it once I was headed home. I had to start wondering if we were even together anymore. That’s why I didn’t tell you I had a boyfriend. I wasn’t entirely sure if I did. And I know I shouldn’t have left it up to him to decide. I should have made the decision for myself the moment he walked out of my house that night. But … I didn’t know what I wanted, and it was easier just to leave the decision up to him.
Aiden: Choosing to end a relationship can be tough, even if you know that person isn’t good for you.
Sarah: It was terrifying, but remarkably liberating :-)
Aiden: :-)
I stare at that little smiley with a great big dorky grin on my face. And then, because I clearly am a dork, I make a comment about the weather.
Sarah: Is it still super cold there?
Aiden: Uh … I’ve been colder.
Sarah: Did you have any panic attacks on the flight home?
Aiden: No more height- or flying-induced panic attacks.
Sarah: Good :-)
Sarah: Um … Can I ask you a question?
Aiden: I’m all ears. Or, in this case, eyes.
Sarah: Who was the girl you and your mom and sister were arguing about when we arrived at uShaka? The call you missed?
It takes so long for him to reply that I think he may have gone offline. But then an essay-long message pops up.
Aiden: That was Kelly. Lately she’s been sending me texts and leaving messages saying she thinks we should give our relationship another chance. I told her I’m not interested, but she obviously doesn’t believe me. The reason Mum and Emily were arguing about it is that Emily never liked Kelly. Em and I used to be really close, but I changed after I met Kelly, and not exactly for the better. Our relationship was kind of like … an emotional bungee jump. We thought we were madly in love, but in the end, we just weren’t healthy for each other. Em saw that, but Mum didn’t because she lives further away and Kelly and I didn’t visit her that often. And we were obviously on our best behaviour when we did. So Mum always thought Kelly was lovely, and she never really understood why we broke up. I guess she thinks that if I have a chance to work things out with Kelly I should. Fortunately, I know better.
Aiden: Wow, I think that’s the longest message I’ve ever written on Facebook! My thumbs thank me for using my computer instead of my phone.
I read through the message as puzzle pieces I’d forgotten about add themselves to my picture of Aiden’s life. I remember him sitting at the Häagen-Dazs table frowning at a message on his phone—which was probably from Kelly. I remember his reaction when Elize talked about Emily’s wedding being the first wedding in their family—because Aiden’s would have been first if he and Kelly hadn’t broken up. I remember him telling me happily ever afters are a myth—because he thought he was getting his happily ever after, but it didn’t happen in the end.
Sarah: I’m sorry. That all sounds quite hectic.
Aiden: Don’t be sorry. I’m certainly not! If we hadn’t broken up, we’d be married by now, and we’d both be living in some kind of nightmare. Not to mention that I must have been smoking something to think I was ready to be married at age 23.
Sarah: Were you?
Aiden: What?
Sarah: Smoking something.
Aiden: Ha ha! No :-)
Sarah: Okay. Good :-)
Aiden: Can I ask you a question now?
Sarah: Of course.
Aiden: Why did you wait so long before contacting me? I’ve been hoping every day to see a message from you. I wanted you to know the truth.
My heart grows wings and flies right out of my chest. He’s been hoping to hear from me! He actually wanted me to contact him! But instead of typing a hundred smileys followed by a hundred exclamation marks, I manage to keep my cool.
Sarah: Why didn’t you just send a message instead of waiting for me?
Aiden: It didn’t seem like you wanted to know the answer to your question. I thought I’d wait until you did.
Sarah: Well, I picked now because I wanted to tell you something. And I couldn’t just launch into it without first apologising for that phone call. And that meant admitting that I should have let you talk instead of hanging up on you.
Aiden: So the thing you wanted to tell me is …
Sarah: I wrote a book! An entire book. Not just an outline or a few scenes. A. WHOLE. BOOK.
I don’t know why he makes me wait so long for his response, because when it finally comes, it isn’t exactly a long one.
Aiden: WOOOOOOOOOOHOOO!
Sarah: :-)
Aiden: I believe I deserve to be named in the dedication. Or at least the acknowledgements. After all, I was the one who snooped through your desk, read one of your notebooks, and told you how brilliant your stories are.
Sarah: I named a character after you.
Aiden: Seriously?
Sarah: He dies halfway through the book.
Aiden: WHAT? :-(
Sarah: A very heroic death.
Aiden: I guess that’s not so bad then.
Sarah: :-)
Aiden: Except that now I KNOW WHAT HAPPENS!
Sarah: Oops … Spoiler alert.
Aiden: It’s too late for that.
Sarah: I know ;-)
Aiden: I’m so sorry, I actually have to go now. But this conversation definitely isn’t over.
My soaring heart falls back to earth, and I contemplate typing a whole row of sad faces. That would probably come across as way too needy, though, so I manage to restrain myself.
Aiden: One more question, though.
Sarah: Yeah?
Aiden: What’s your book about? (Judging from the number of notebooks in your bottom drawer, I’m guessing you had about 753 ideas to pick from.)
Sarah: 754 actually.
Aiden: Right, sorry. So … it’s about …
Sarah: You’ll have to read it to find out ;-)
TUESDAY 21 JAN
Aiden: Are you back in Durban now?
Sarah: Yes. Ten days alone in my PMB flat got a little lonely.
Aiden: It was certainly productive, though.
Sarah: That’s an understatement!
Aiden: Your parents must be very impressed.
Sarah: I haven’t told them yet. They thought I was just hanging out with friends for the past week.
Aiden: WHAT?
Aiden: You? ‘Hanging out’? You don’t seem the type ;-)
Sarah: Dumbass. I am completely capable of HANGING OUT with people I feel COMFORTABLE with.
Aiden: You know I’m just joking, right?
Sarah: :P
Aiden: ~>|
Aiden: Seriously, though, you should tell your parents. Writing a book is just as awesome as being an award-winning photographer or a popular artist. (BTW, I looked at both Julia’s and Sophie’s pages on FB and yes, they are both inc
redibly talented. But I have no doubt that one day your FB fan page will have even more fans than theirs.)
Sarah: :-)
Sarah: Anyway, I WILL tell my parents. I’m just … still thinking about things.
Aiden: Okay.
Sarah: Okay :-)
Aiden: So … I did a little research into this biltong stuff you seem so attached to.
Sarah: Oh yeah?
Aiden: Yes. Did you know it technically means ‘buttock tongue’?
I let out a snort-laugh I’m highly grateful Aiden isn’t around to hear. I lean back in my desk chair and shake my head at the computer screen.