Repeat After Me

Chapter 56

Asten called me on Saturday. 'It's like armaggeddon around here,' he said. 'Everyone is wearing facemasks and buying toilet paper and pasta again. They're all talking about stage 4 restrictions. We should meet while we still can.'

'Okay,' I said, my heart in my throat, thrilled to have finally heard from him.

We met at St Kilda beach. It was a lovely sunny winter's afternoon. The activewear brigade were out, nestling takeaway coffee cups or pushing a baby in an Afterpay pram. Older couples were taking a stroll in long-term silence.

'Hey, nice mask,' he said, as way of a greeting. Mum had sewed my mask out of an old scrap of fabric, it was a navy blue tartan pattern.

'I hate it,' I said. 'It makes me want to stay home.'

'Yeah, me too,' he said, pulling his disposable blue mask down to under his chin. 'I feel like an idiot. How many times do you think I can reuse this thing?' I shrugged my shoulders. 'I can't read anyone's social cues, anymore,' Asten said.

Two policemen were walking our way and Asten pulled his mask back up over his lips and nose. As soon as we'd passed them, he pulled the mask under his chin again. We walked towards Elwood and found a quiet place to sit near one of the canals. I pulled my mask under my chin as well.

I had a foggy feeling of anxiety charging through my body. It was there when I awoke and I'd carried it with me all day for days. My future was feeling doomed and I was seeking certainty about something. I needed to be honest with how I felt. I grabbed his hand and held it in mine, as we sat cross-legged on the damp grass.

'I want to be with you,' I blurted out. 'You've become such a special friend. In such a terrible year, you've been the light, you've been something to look forward to. I've hated not hearing from you for days. I've felt so cut off. And ...' I took a breath, wanting to be honest, 'I don't know. I don't want to come across as needy, it's just that ... like I thought we could just be friends, I thought I was okay with that. But the thought of you being with ...' I could not even say her name. 'And not being able to contact you at all ... It made me realise that I wanted more.'

'I feel the same,' he said, his smile developing like a photographic print.

'It's like being in this lockdown is okay as long as I still get to see you,' I said. He caressed my hand.

'I think about you all the time,' Asten said. 'Even when I was with Alicia, I was thinking of you. I mean, I had to be there, it was the right thing to do, but in my head, all I was thinking about was you.'

I imagined the two of them lying on a bed together. I saw the drapery of the sheets, the contours of their bodies, the flush of her cheeks, her hair on a pillow. He was speaking words of tenderness to me but they skinned my heart with a tanning knife. His was a malignant love. He was making a declaration of his devotion to me while simulatenously giving me imagery of his girlfriend.

'I don't even want you to say her name,' I confessed.

'What do you mean?' he asked, confused.

'I don't want you to say her name,' I repeated. I was possessed with such an irrational feeling of jealousy it made me want to take a magic carpet ride back to contentment, back to a time, in pre-history, pre-Asten, where I'd never experienced jealousy. It was such a gross, callous, demeaning feeling.

Asten's eyes clouded over. He said, 'I can't offer you anything.'

'What?'

'I have no job again. They're back to skeleton staff since lockdown 2.0. I won't be able to pay the rent. If I leave Alicia, I lose everything. I have no safety net. My parents are struggling too. Being with Alicia is survival. I'm not good enough for you. I wouldn't be in a good state even if we were together. You wouldn't even want me, I'm telling you. Let's wait until the pandemic is over. Or I get more work. Or something changes.'

My feelings self-sabotaged.

'Don't look so sad,' he said. 'It is what it is.'

He'd just used the worst expression in the English language to try and pacify me, while singlehandedly breaking my heart in the same moment. It is what it is means shut up, you have no right to feel like that, get over it. It is what it is gives up responsibility for anything.

I put on my most totalitarian smile. 'I understand,' I said. He was playing the victim to the victim. He was wanting me to compromise on his compromise. He was wanting me to wait indefinitely, to keep my feelings alive, but to give me none of the privileges of having a partner. His words 'I was thinking of you all the time' actually had no meaning, they were letters arranged together like window dressing, hocus pocus vagrancy.

A gull flew past, swooped in the air and turned back towards us. It took me by surprise. I laughed. All of this was bullshit, like a magician saying look over here, while pulling out his trick, Asten was trying to alter my perception of reality. But look, that bird was free. And I was free too.

Asten was trapped by circumstance. He was a bird in a cage surviving not thriving. He was right. He couldn't offer me anything. I already had what I needed – which was freedom. There might not have been much to do. The future may have been looking bleak. But I was still free. And I had the courage to go it alone.