Letter

I was utterly focused and strangely energized as I got out of bed immediately and reached for my dressing gown and laptop. Seated at the kitchen bench and ignoring the cold I sat down to write. I would make her sorry for crushing my happiness. I would make him sorry for disrespecting me. I would make him sorry.

Natasha had given me the idea when she went on and on down the phone, telling me she’d been having sex with Alex. I knew that the truth would cut her far more deeply than any of her lies could hurt me.

I laid out every torturous detail of my interactions with Alex from the time we first met, so that the email would scream truth in every line. In half an hour I would send that email to them both and blast apart that relationship forever. And if my email did not make them sorry enough I would send it to people connected to them. I did not even hesitate for Ben's sake; that little boy I had never met but somehow loved. They’ll all be better off in the long-term, I thought.

Half an hour passed though and my bomb was still in the very early stages of preparation. I decided to continue writing until I had something worth sending.

The more time I spent writing, the calmer I became. Time, and something of a revival of the great affection I felt for Alex, cleared my head. Hours, and two and a half pages had passed, and yet I had only just reached our first kiss for I was writing in such detail. There were so many things I needed to do though before a weekend rehearsal was to begin at one o’clock. I would have to send the letter in it’s current state.

Sanity prevailed and I decided to give Alex one last chance. After all, taking away his girlfriend, house, son and potentially job all in one whack was hardly a small matter. It would genuinely be his last chance though.

Recognising now that calling his mobile was useless, and beyond caring whether I spoke to Natasha, I called his home phone. Alex answered.

“Oh Lily, I’m so glad you called.”

“What do you mean you’re so glad I called? Why didn’t you answer this morning?”

“Natasha's got my phone and she’s gone out. I’ve been in bed all morning; I’ve got tonsillitis. Listen buddy I’m sorry about last night.”

“But did you get my voicemails? I tried to call you.”

“Oh shit, you sent Natasha a voicemail? What did you say?”

“No I sent you a voicemail! I thought it was you texting me! I got a text from you this morning saying, ‘I love her’!”

“Oh buddy I’ve been in bed all morning, Natasha must’ve sent it.”

“And then I tried to call you and I left you a voicemail that was like three minutes long. I don’t know what I said, I don’t know, I just wanted you to talk to me. Oh shit, Alex, it’s bad.”

Alex was sorry for last night; he’d been so tired, he explained, and he’d been coming down with tonsillitis. As soon as he’d got home he’d crashed.

“But you replied to my text message last night.”

“What? No, I crashed. That must have been Natasha too.”

“Did you at least see the text messages Natasha and I sent to each other? I forwarded them to you.”

“No, I didn’t look at them.”

Alex did not want to hear them, but I forced him to listen to Natasha's messages down the phone.

Alex was sorry, but he couldn’t bear to live without Ben. He would live with Natasha. He couldn’t survive even one night away from Ben, he said.

“But will you pretend to have a relationship with Natasha now?”, I asked.

There was a pause.

“I’d rather not discuss that with you.”

The vice around my heart tightened.

We talked for as many minutes as I could possibly spare. He told me he could never call me from his own phone again because Natasha would only let him back home on the condition that he would never see me again. She would check the phone bill and knew both of my phone numbers by heart. She had told him to suspend his gym membership so that he would never see me there. Alex warned me that if he ever called me from his own phone again it was because Natasha was listening. He would call me Lillian to tip me off. If he sent me a text he would begin it with a question mark so that I would know it was from him.

I wanted to know when we could next see each other but he couldn’t answer. He suggested that we could still go away for weekends sometimes and that next year he would organize a boys’ trip to New Zealand so that he could come and see me. I told him that I deserved more, and we left the conversation with what I thought was a mutual understanding that we had reached the end of the road.

Morning

Saturday morning began far earlier than I had expected. I opened my swollen eyelids to see who was texting me at 7:02am on a Saturday and why.

“I. .-love her” said the message. It was from Alex.

“Fuck him”, I thought, and closed my dry red eyes to try to get more sleep. It was easy to think these things at 7:02am on a Saturday morning when you feel as though you’re knocking on death’s door. My heart was racing though. Within minutes I reached again for my phone.
The call rang until it reached voicemail.

I spoke for at least three minutes. I was calm. Grief and anger were dulled and confusion was taking it’s turn in the spotlight. I asked questions. I put forward my opinion.

“What’s going on Alex? I can’t believe how much and how quickly things have changed. I can understand why you’d go back to her ‘cause I know you can’t survive without Ben. But I can’t understand why you won’t talk to me about it and now why you’re saying you love her when you told me you haven’t loved her in three years. Please just explain Alex.”

I couldn’t even be bothered being angry over the message, which was really an unprovoked kick while I was down.

Again, he texted me.

“Look please don’t call or text. I do love my girlfriend and want to stay with her. Sorry.”

As sleep faded, the edge of my anger and disgust returned. A text again? Weak as piss. The man was weak as piss. He texts me at 7am and then asks me not to call or text?! He can’t even answer his phone after all that has happened? After I stayed with him when the waters threatened to rise and swallow him? Weak and stupid. Stupid not to treat better the woman who could break him.

I called again. I was genuinely willing to be calm if he answered the phone; I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

The call went to voicemail.

“Hi Alex, I would have thought that you’d at least want to talk to me to make sure I kept my mouth shut.”

Soon I received a text.

“Like I said last night it is over. Natasha knows everything and is taking me back. I am in love with her. Sorry.”

How dare he lie to me! Natasha knows everything, does she? There is NO WAY Natasha would take you back if she knew everything. Natasha thinks we only had sex once. It’s time to enlighten her.

This time I did not bother to call.

“u hav half an hour 2 make peace with me”, said the text message I sent to Alex at 8:04am.

Crazy

That evening I went to the movies with my cousin, Anna. The movie was appalling. I couldn’t stop wondering if I would see Alex that night; doubts were creeping in as I hadn’t heard from him all day. After the film I drove Anna home to her flat in Elsternwick – conveniently close to Elwood, where I hoped to see Alex.

I phoned him to see what the deal was, guessing that he had probably left the football already.
As with every other intensely painful conversation I’ve had in my life, I can’t remember what was said the way I usually can.

He was in a taxi. He was tired. No he didn’t want to see me. He had sent the message that afternoon. No he wouldn’t explain. No he hadn’t seen Natasha's texts to me, or mine to her. He just wanted to go home. Home? Home. No he wouldn’t see me. No he wouldn’t explain…

“Natasha's asked me to come home because she’s scared.”
“Of what?” I scoffed.
“Of you.”
“WHAT?!” I could hear a psycho in my voice that had never been there before. Natasha never had reason to fear me until the moment she dragged me down to her level. I couldn’t bare for Alex to think that I was the psycho and that she, Natasha, was the innocent victim.

Natasha, who threw beer bottles, and dangled her son before his father like bait, and called me to torture me with lies about their sex life, and who tore up photos and threw clothes in the pool and ran off with Ben to Mt Eliza and kicked and screamed in front of Alex's clients.

Then I was furious at myself for sounding so psycho. The subsequent anger didn’t help me sound like any less of a head-case. Tears streamed faster than ever and I begged Alex just to see me and talk to me.

He would not. He just wanted to go home.

After we hung up the phone I bawled, sitting there in the car in the dark. I let the snot run down my chin and my face screw up and I writhed like a dying animal, while simultaneously forwarding him the text messages Natasha and I had sent each other that afternoon, desperate to show him that I was not the crazy liar.

Somehow my despair was not quite deep enough to stop me seeking out a friend though. I called Ellen, who lived two blocks away from where I was parked, woke her up and begged her to let me come see her. I was so desperate for someone to wrap me in their arms. I was desperate for Alex to wrap me in his arms, but Ellen would do for now.

I left Ellen after about half an hour. It was enough. My grief subsided. But anger followed.
Revolting thoughts ran through my head. The kinds of thoughts I would have only believed Natasha capable of, but which I had somehow now inherited.

I was so angry with myself for being taken in by such a weak, shallow, WEAK man. The word wouldn’t leave my mind. He was disgusting to me. Three nights! he had managed to stay away before crawling back. He was going back to his loveless life because it was the easy option in the short-term, and because it was cheaper.

“I can’t believe u ended us with a txt & won’t even face me once now. U r answering 2 her blackmail once agen & letting her use ur son as bait”

“Please try to understand I have a family. I’m sorry lily.”

I was angry at myself, but I was angrier at Alex and Natasha. I thought about going to their house and yelling for Alex to come out and face me. And in my head I saw Natasha come out instead, since Alex was such a coward, and I saw myself punching her collagen-injected face and tearing at her bleached-blonde hair. Then I thought, “no – revenge is a dish best served cold”, and I saw myself wordlessly shoving a positive pregnancy test in front of her face, and gleefully watching her try to comprehend what it meant. I even drove to a chemist on Centre Rd on the off-chance that it would be open 24 hours. It was not.

Ideas flashed through my head. I considered calling the police, to make an anonymous “tip-off” that Natasha was a child-abuser.

In the end I went home, and decided that there lay the fundamental difference between the two of us. Anyone is capable of thinking such things, but most people don’t act out all their thoughts.