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.