I spend a few minutes in front of the mirror neatening my hair and putting some make-up on—I want to look nice for Adam—before heading out to the road. On second thoughts, perhaps driving is a better idea. Who knows what time I’ll be leaving Jazzy Beanbag, and if I’ll be on my own or not. As I’ve already discovered, walking the streets alone at night isn’t the wisest thing to do.
I wait outside the door at Jazzy Beanbag for at least two full minutes trying to calm my nerves before going inside. I look around at the tables—students with their drinks, a couple sharing a snack basket, a group of ladies giggling over their salads and wine—but there’s no Adam.
SERIOUSLY?
He must have swapped shifts with someone else. Maybe that guitar teacher lady. What was her name? Mel, I think. I don’t see her anywhere either, though. Oh, crap, what if he’s with Mel right now? I know she’s older and everything—at least late twenties or early thirties—but maybe Adam likes that. Maybe after Jenna he decided he wanted someone more mature. Someone more mature than Jenna and me. Maybe that’s why he seemed awkward every time I mentioned him asking a girl out, because he’s already having a secret relationship with—
“Oh, hey, Livi.” Startled, I look to my right and find Hugo stuffing a notepad into the front of his apron as he walks over to me.
“Hi. Is Adam here?”
“Uh …” Hugo’s eyes move to the door behind the bar that leads to the kitchen. “He is. But … I’m sorry, Livi. He doesn’t want to talk to you.”
“So he’s hiding back there in the kitchen?”
“Well, not hiding. Just avoiding you.”
Which sounds like hiding to me, but I can’t exactly judge him since I’m the one at fault here. “But … he has to come out eventually, right? I mean, he has tables to serve.”
“And what are you going to do then? Interrupt him while he’s taking someone’s order? Chase him down on his way back to the kitchen?”
“If I have to.”
Hugo hesitates, then says, “Probably not the best idea to make a big scene with the guy you’re trying to apologise to.” He squeezes my arm, then turns and walks to the bar.
Fine. Fine. If Adam doesn’t want to come out here to listen to my apology, I’ll make sure he can hear it no matter where he is. I huddle in a corner until the band on stage—Lainey’s band—is finished playing their current song. Then I hurry over to Lainey’s side of the stage and stand on tiptoe to whisper my plan to her. She seems doubtful, but when I start begging, she rolls her eyes and waves the lead singer over. He’s clearly annoyed that I’m interrupting, but after I tell him my sad story, he gives in.
A minute later, I’m standing at the front of the stage behind a microphone with half the room staring at me expectantly and Hugo mouthing a horrified, What the hell are you doing? from the table he’s supposed to be taking orders from.
I nod to the guitarist, who starts strumming the music for a recent popular song I’ve sung in the shower more times than I can remember. It’s about a guy apologising to a girl for all the things he’s made more important than her after she leaves him and he realises he made a big mistake taking her for granted. It doesn’t exactly fit this situation, but it’s close enough.
I swallow and grip the microphone with my sweaty right hand. My voice isn’t terrible, but I don’t enjoy singing solo in front of other people. I close my eyes and remind myself that this isn’t about me, it’s about Adam. And then I begin singing.
My voice is wobbly and weak, and I almost let go of the mic and run, but I focus my thoughts on Adam. This is for him, and if he accepts my apology, this embarrassing performance will be worth it. I remind myself to breathe the way my choir teacher taught me to breathe, and after another few lines, my voice evens out and grows in strength. I reach the chorus, which is easier to sing, and finally I’m brave enough to open my eyes.
I scan the audience as I continue singing, but Adam isn’t anywhere. I know he can hear me, though. Why isn’t he coming out?
Another verse.
The chorus again.
And still Adam hasn’t shown himself.
I squeeze my eyes shut and belt out the bridge, pouring my heart into every word. Then it’s the final repeat of the chorus, slowing down into the last two lines. I hold the final note as the guitarist’s final strum reverberates through the room.
Then quiet.
As the clapping begins, I dare to open my eyes. My gaze combs the room, over the tables, the customers, the waiters—but I see no Adam.
I stumble away from the microphone in shock. I honestly didn’t believe for a second that he’d leave me hanging here. He was supposed to run up onto the stage and take me in his arms and kiss me. Or walk out from behind the bar so I could jump down, run over to him, and apologise over and over again as he forgives me. Or, at the very least, stand behind everyone else where only I can see him, a smile growing slowly on his face as he realises this song is for him.
But he isn’t here.
WHY ISN’T HE HERE?
Tears spill from my eyes as the door to Jazzy Beanbag swings shut behind me. Cool air soothes my burning cheeks, but the rest of my body feels the icy cold of rejection.
“So you come here,” a voice says to my left, “and make a great big public declaration of love. Everybody claps for you, giving you the attention you so eagerly desire, and I’m supposed to fall back into your arms?”
I look down the sidewalk and see Adam leaning against one of Jazzy Beanbag’s windows, his arms folded over his chest. “Adam. No, that’s not—it was for you. I was saying sorry.”
“And everybody else needed to hear that?”
“Well, no, but you wouldn’t talk to me, so—”
“Because I wasn’t ready to hear whatever your excuse is, Livi. But that didn’t matter to you, did it. No, you’d rather belt your apologies out to a crowd of strangers for a round of applause than wait until I’m ready to talk to you.”
“I … I didn’t …” I look down at my feet as another few tears course down my cheeks.
“Well,” Adam says, “since you worked so hard to get my attention, what is it you’d like to say?”
I sniff, swallow, and look up at him. “It’s all a silly mistake, Adam. The messages Carl said I sent him—the ones he showed you—they weren’t for him. They were just … it was just …” I try to figure out the best way to explain it, but there doesn’t seem to be any good way. “It sounds dumb, but that was like my online diary. I didn’t think he could get into that email account anymore, so I didn’t think he’d ever read those messages. It was my Dear Diary. Just … my thoughts and feelings about … stuff.”
“Really?” Adam doesn’t look convinced. “If that’s all it was, why didn’t you use a book like any other girl?”
“I—I don’t know. I just … opened up my email one day and … I don’t know.”
Adam shakes his head. “Maybe you believe yourself when you say you don’t know, but I don’t.”
“I …” I run my hands through my hair and tug at it. Maybe I do know. Maybe I just never admitted it to myself. “Okay,” I say, starting to pace. “Okay. Maybe at first I was doing it because, at the back of my mind, in that place where people keep their secret fantasies, I thought that perhaps somehow he’d see those emails and realise he made a mistake letting me go. And then he’d come along and sweep me off my feet and far away to a foreign castle where I’d live happily ever after like … like a princess.” I whisper the last few words because they sound like a betrayal. ‘Princess’ is Adam’s name for me, no one else’s. “But I didn’t really believe that,” I continue quickly, “and after a while, it was just like writing in a diary. That’s all it was, I promise.”
“‘Dear Carl,’” Adam recites, “‘I miss you. If I asked, would you come and rescue me?’ Yeah, that really sounds like you were talking to a diary, Liv.”
I slump against the window with a groan. That one? Carl had to show him that specific one? “Yes,
okay, I wanted to be rescued then. I’d just had drugs forced on me and my boyfriend groping me. I was dropped on the side of the road in the dark and the rain, and then I was running for my life because I thought someone was chasing me. I was feeling more miserable than I’d ever felt before, and I just wanted to GET. AWAY. It wasn’t him I was missing. More just … the idea of someone who cared enough to come and rescue me from everything.”
“And it didn’t matter that I was right here taking care of you?”
“Of course it mattered! And after I wrote those words and clicked send, they were gone from my thoughts, just like everything else I ever wrote to that email address. Type. Send. Gone. That’s what every one of those emails was about, I swear. And if you don’t believe me … well, I don’t really have anything else to say.”
Adam stares at me for a long time. The seconds tick slowly by until eventually he says, “Okay. Let’s say I believe you.”
Yes. Please. One step in the right direction.
“That isn’t the only problem.”
“It—it isn’t?”
“Livi …” He seems to be grasping for words like I was a few minutes ago. Eventually his hands fall to his sides and he says, “I don’t know if I can ever be enough for you. I’ll never be the hot guy. I’ll never be the popular guy. I’ll never be the rich guy. I’m just me, Livi. That’s all I have to offer you.”
“And that’s all I want!” I step closer to him. “Just you.”
“The thing is … I don’t know if it is. The first thing you did when you got to Cape Town was change everything about yourself so you could fit in with the popular people. You hid your violin and the books and DVDs you love. You wore clothes I’ve never seen you wear before, and you changed your hair colour because your friend said it would make you hotter. Then when things went south and you decided the glamorous life might not be so great after all, suddenly I was good enough for you to hang out with again. Fast forward a few weeks: Allegra shows up, and now the two of you are besties again, and we’re watching horrible chick flicks when I know you’d rather be watching something else. What’s next? Are you going to abandon Salima because she doesn’t fit Allegra’s definition of cool? Are you going to be out every night of the week again, stopping by my room occasionally when you have nothing better to do?”
“No! It’s not like that. She—Allegra told me all this stuff about herself that I didn’t know. She said she’s not interested in that popularity crap anymore. She wants real friends. She knows who I really am, I know who she really is, and we’re happy with that. We’re … it’s not gonna be like it was before when I was out all the time.”
“Really?”
“Really.” I move closer to him and try to take his hand, but he steps away.
“I just … I don’t know, Livi. I want to say yes to you. I want to be with you. But I can’t help thinking that this is more of an … in-the-moment thing for you. That in a month or two you’ll end up bored and want to go chasing after some hot, popular guy you saw in a club or on a beach, and then I’ll be the one left with a broken heart. Because you know that place at the back of people’s minds where they keep their secret fantasies? That’s where I kept you, Livi. And if I finally get to make that a reality, I want it to last.”
After one final pause, he steps around me and pushes through the door into Jazzy Beanbag, leaving me stunned and unable to move. “Is that a ‘no,’ then?” I whisper to the night.
I close my eyes and let tears tumble down my face. Adam’s words replay in my mind even though I don’t want to hear them again. I can’t believe he thinks I’m that shallow. That fickle. After all this time, doesn’t he know me better than that? Doesn’t he know how much he means to me?
A message dings in my pocket, and I swiftly pull my phone out, even though the logical part of my brain knows it can’t possibly be a message from Adam. It’s from my mother, telling me to let her know when she can call again. I exit my messages and see that I missed a call from her twenty minutes ago. I tap the three numbers that will take me to my voice mail and bring the phone to my ear.
“Livi, darling, I have some exciting news. Dad and I will be arriving in Cape Town early tomorrow morning. I’ll try you again just now so I can give you more details. We can’t wait to see you.”
From: Alivia Howard
Sent: Mon 28 Mar, 0:39 am
To: Sarah Henley
Subject: Trying to think of something wacky, but I’m just not feeling it
Dear Sarah
My parents swooped in this morning for an impromptu visit. I’ve been selfish and preoccupied lately, and I kinda haven’t been paying attention to what’s going on between them. Things seem to be—as surprising as it sounds—much better. They hold hands a lot, which they’ve never done before, and when they laugh they sound genuinely happy. Apparently they’ve dealt with a lot of stuff over the past few weeks. Dad’s affair was just the beginning of it. I guess they had a whole marriage of issues to work through—not that they gave me details, and that’s fine.
They’re heading off to Mauritius on Friday to spend some quality time together. Nothing work-related was allowed into their suitcases—a revolutionary concept for them. It sounds like they’ve still got issues to work through, but I think this holiday will be really good for them. Until then, they’re staying in this hotel, and, apparently, so am I. I’ll be driving through way too much traffic every morning to get to campus, and in the evening I’ll be dining in style at the Waterfront while bonding with my parents—also a revolutionary concept. (I’m glad it’s only five days. I think we may run out of things to talk about before then.)
They told me they’ve been looking for a flat in Cape Town, and they think they’ve found the perfect one in Claremont. It’s for them to stay in when they come and visit me—which they’ve decided they need to do more often after they spent far too much of my childhood ignoring me—but they want me to live in it until I graduate and get my own place. (Like I can even think of graduation right now. Passing first year is going to be hard enough, never mind second, third and fourth.) Good timing, I guess, since Adam’s about to kick me out of the Toll Road house so his friend Hugo can move in …
Missing you.
Seriously. Like, a LOT.
xx
P.S. Have you spoken to Adam in the past few days?
P.P.S. I messed up. I want to talk to you, but I’m too embarrassed to tell you about it because I know it’s all my fault.
___________________________________
Being the amazing friend she is, Sarah phones me about three minutes after I click the send button on my email—even though it’s almost 1 am and she probably only saw the email because she forgot to put her phone on silent. I burrow beneath my hotel duvet and tell Sarah everything. I cry a lot, and she tries to convince me that Adam doesn’t hate me and perhaps he simply needs some time to figure out that everything I told him was true.
When we’ve said everything we can say, and my eyes are raw and scratchy from far too much crying, we say goodnight. I sniff into my pillow and prepare for five days of not seeing Adam AT ALL—a thought that makes my already cracked heart threaten to split open.
I sneak back into the house late on Friday evening after saying goodbye to my parents. A sliver of light shines from beneath Luke’s door, but Adam’s door is open, his room dark and cold. I stand in the doorway for a minute or so, my eyes traveling over the shadowy outlines of the tattered sci fi novels lined up on one side of the desk, the computer we’ve watched so many TV series episodes on, the shirt hanging from the cupboard, the folded music stand in the corner.
Then I close myself in my bedroom, spend some time writing a note to Adam, leave it beside my bed, and fall asleep easily for the first time in a week.
***
My alarm wakes me early. I get up immediately, my heart already thudding in anticipation of Plan Steal Adam’s Heart Back. I pull my heavy winter blanket
off my bed and sneak past Adam’s closed door to the lounge with it. I spread it out on the floor, then arrange all the couch cushions around the edge. In the centre go all the goodies I got at the 24 Hour Woolworths last night: strawberries, blueberry muffins, mini yoghurts, fresh cherries—and baby tomatoes because Adam loves them. Finally, I add a packet of princess gums from the collection in my cupboard. Just for fun.
I hurry to the kitchen and turn on the oven for the croissants, then skip to the bathroom while the oven heats up. I brush my teeth and splash some water on my face, but I don’t shower or do my hair or change out of my pyjamas. Adam thinks I’m too concerned about my appearance, and I’m determined to show him I’m not. If he wants the real Livi, that’s what he’s going to get—messy hair, PJs, glasses, and no make-up. This is, I realise with a smile, pretty much how I look every evening when we watch series together.
Once the croissants are heated, I have one thing left to do. I tiptoe back to my room, grab the note I wrote last night, and stick it on Adam’s door. No, wait, he probably won’t see that. He’ll open his door and walk out. He won’t stop to examine the actual door. So I remove the note and stick it on the outside of my door. I pull it closed, then stoop down to place the paper arrows I cut out in a trail pointing to the lounge. I leave the final arrow in the lounge doorway and scamper back onto the blanket.
Then I wait.
Oh! The fireplace! I forgot about that. It’s been sunny all week, but the rain has arrived in time for the weekend. Others might be grumbling about the weather’s bad timing, but I think it’s perfect. My indoor picnic will be even cosier with a crackling fire right next to it. I just have to figure out how to get it going …