Take Me Away Page 13

  "Case, honey, I'm going away for a bit. You need to sort your shit out."

  "I know, Lena."

  "I'm not kidding. Obviously I'd rather be here for it... but I'm going on the research trip of a lifetime."

  "I know! I'll be fine. I'll email."

  "Okay. Promise?"

  "Promise. I think Hague is angry I'm monopolising your final moments..."

  "We had a lot of final moments last night..."

  "Oh ew. Gross. I do not need to know."

  Lena grins and pulls me into a bear hug, which is a challenge with her tiny body but she manages fairly well. Girl has some muscle tone I otherwise didn't know about. We're standing on a dock in Fremantle next to the research ship she will be living on for the next two months.

  For once Lena is dressed sensibly in a t-shirt and shorts, not one pretty dress or sassy onesie in her bag. Hague is hovering behind us looking anxious and like he's going to throw her over his shoulder and run off at any moment. Zeke is throwing pebbles and bits of concrete at the seagulls while Penelope scolds him and Anthony is cornering KayT and trying to chat her up, as usual. KayT's lady-friend, Hope, is standing off to one side looking like she hoped the Doctor would come down with the Tardis and take her away.

  "Out of my way, Casey." Hague picks me up around my waist and deposits me a couple of metres away before wrapping his arms around Lena, shooting significant looks at the rest of the male crew she'd be onboard with. I watched a few of them and am not worried. They have nothing on Hague. Though I guess, it will be a telling two months for their relationship. Neither have ever been in relationships where forced separation has been more than a day or two. Lena once broke up with an ex because he was going away for three weeks to Hawaii with his parents. Admittedly the guy was a jerk, but still I felt it was a little harsh on her part. 'I'm just not cut out for long distance relationships,' she said. 'Lena... it's three weeks.' 'Huh. Well. There you are.' And that was that.

  Lena's boat fords out of the Port of Fremantle and into the open ocean. She is gloriously happy. I am happy for her but my own situation weighs on my mind. I am sick of my own drama - can I not even be pleased for a friend without obsessing? This is the moment I know I have to make a decision either way. Which way... that is a question answered only by looking into Levi's unseeing but intensely feeling eyes.

  – – – * * * – – –

  "Hi."

  "You came back." His smile is brilliant. Unashamedly brilliant. I am dying on the inside for what I am about to do. It could be the biggest mistake of my life.

  "Levi, I have some things to say." He pauses at my tone and for a long moment it feels like he is considering closing the door in my face. Like he doesn't want to hear it. Like he dreads the words I might utter.

  Finally, after a more piercing stare than someone with sight could ever muster he nods, "So do I. Let's sit outside, in the sun."

  "Okay." I head through the house and into the backyard. Midget is lying in the sun and wags her tail once, lazily, as she recognises me. I don't merit a greeting up close, apparently. Levi walks close behind me. When I am slow to maneuver around a couch, his hand brushes the small of my back. The tingles travel up my spine, into my brain, weakening my resolve.

  Is it possible to love someone more than anything in the world, but know that they are the worst thing possible for you? Sometimes I think that there really is someone perched up there, high above our heads, pulling the strings. Instead of some benevolent father-god figure, however, it is more of a Peeves like character inciting chaos for their own twisted entertainment. Lassoing tornados on one continent with a rope made from the debris of an entire city and pulling gossamer threads on another, attached to base of our desires, manipulating and playing us. Creating and destroying in an instant the stories we believe we weave for ourselves. A broken tale of love like Levi's and mine is dime a dozen, but for me, it's one of the most real things I've ever experienced.

  The walk to the backyard is long and weighted with significance. Deserving of a slow motion sequence. It is the final gavel drop on what may be the great love of my life.

  "Why are you fighting for me?" I ask, once we're both seated cross-legged on the lawn, facing each other. I stare at him and wait for an answer, one he is terribly slow in giving, but one which, when the words begin to flow, is both beautiful and heart wrenching.

  "Because I think we never should have finished what we started. Not like that. I can't imagine the hurt you felt after that night, but I think you fail to fathom the confusion and the sense of impending loss I felt every day you were with me.

  "I know that to you it wouldn't have seemed that way... but for me it was always a matter of time before you bored of my dependence. My utter lack of ability to do even simple things for myself.

  "When I lost my sight... I wanted to die. I wanted to be run over by a bus or to jump of a cliff. It was the end of days for me. I got the greatest support possible - therapy and all that bullshit. The love and support of my family was immense and I appreciated it, I really did. I learned how to adapt to being blind - learned to read braille and my other senses developed, but every single moment I was plagued by an imagination, by memories so strong with the physicality and beauty of life that I would never get back again.

  "I felt my friends and family drift away from me, alienated by the anger welling up inside me, impossible to hide every moment of every day. And good riddance - at the time I didn't need them. They were just another way that life was going to hurt me. I couldn't share in the same things as them. I would sit there listening as they would play video games I used to love or talk about girls walking by and then they would realise that I was there and they'd awkwardly stop. It was humiliating. So as soon as I was able to live alone, I moved here.

  "You saw how I was living - like a hermit in the middle of the city. I would talk to my cousin and my nurse regularly. No one else. My cousin's wife stopped coming after a few months of my angry, self-indulgent bullshit and I don't blame her. I was a fucking twat.

  "Then you came along. That day when I was walking on the beach... I never told you why I was there, did I?"

  I shake my head but don't say anything. This flow of words is teaching me a lot of what I already knew about Levi, but also a whole world more pain and longing than I could ever have imagined. In his own stoic, angry way Levi is incredible. He stands alone as life flows around him but he doesn't give in to his disability. He fights constantly to keep his life independent and free of ball and chain that is his blindness. He amazes me.

  "I was there with my cousin. He'd convinced me to come out for the day with his wife and daughter but it was so intense. I did my duty, played sandcastles with the kid and went in the water. Whatever. It was the closest thing I was happy in a while, actually. I really was enjoying myself but I was so unused to company for more than a little while I excused myself and Midget and I went for a little wander.

  "Then you ran into me. Your angry words and the gasp of humiliation when you realised I was... blind, sent me off the edge of the very finely balanced blade I live on. It brought my mood plummeting back down to earth. Reminded me that I would never have a family of my own. Never have a girlfriend. Never know a relationship with a person where my disability did not stand ugly and prominent between us. It was a dark moment."

  I shiver, bathed in the warm sunlight, and the humiliation I felt so intensely from that day wells up in me. He knows, somehow, even though I don't say anything. Levi shakes his head, very slightly, with the tiniest of smiles playing on the corner of his mouth. Telling me things are okay. That I am forgiven.

  "Then the second time you helped me when I was getting beat on by those kids. Fucking assholes. I knew it was you. That angry voice and the smell of your perfume. Amazing. I couldn't believe it... especially when you showed up at my door. I was so angry at you for persisting with finding me or... I don't even know, really. Persisting with whatever we were at that point, for some weird reason. I thought
you had a crazy blind guy fetish but you were even more awkward than me, if that's possible.

  "Our friendship grew and grew. That first time that you let me look at your face, it was like... God. It was like everything beautiful in the world in a single moment transferring from your skin to mine. I let you closer than anyone but I didn't let you close enough.

  "That defensive armour around whatever place houses love inside me was still there. That is what showed up after Penelope's dinner party. The part of my brain that was convinced I could never have something as pure and incredible as the feelings associated with loving you. The feeling that you would eventually leave me, hurt me, forced me to make the first move. And it is something I have regretted every moment of every day since.

  "The truth is I want you more than I've ever wanted anything. I would give up sight for you if I was offered a choice between miraculously having it back and giving up you again. Amber made me understand what an incredible chance you took on me. How you liked me, how you wanted me for who I was, even though I was a bit of a grumpy git." He shrugs, stays quiet for a moment then opens his mouth again. No words come out. He closes it again and I realise it's my turn.

  I am quiet for a long time. That is not the declaration or the tale I expected. What happened to stoic Levi, who never spoke of his feelings? What happened to Levi who got angry before I could even figure out what had happened? Suddenly, after the silence stretches out - "Why are you here? Are you here to let me down gently? Demand I get out of your life? I have to warn you, Casey, that I cannot just be your friend. It's all or nothing. I've figured that much out."

  "I know we can't be friends. We both fucked up too much for that." These are the first words I utter and they feel clumsy in the air. Like I took a poignant moment and threw it away, replacing it with something awkward and shy and stupid. I shake my head with frustration, wondering why these things can't come more easily for me. We are both as ridiculous as each other. Levi, with his broken wing and me with my complete ineptness at life.

  I rock forward onto my knees, close in front of him. The space between us is negligible. It is electric. His body stills, a piece of grass he'd plucked moments earlier rests quietly between his fingertips. I reach out, take his glasses off and look into his unseeing eyes. He flinches slightly as I touch initially, but stills when he realises what I am doing. Levi's eyes are unfocused and the left one always looks slightly in a different direction to the right, somewhere passed my shoulder. This doesn't bother me anymore. It hasn't for a very long time. All I see is a man with beautiful hazel eyes, flecked with green and gold and brown, useless for seeing the world but a window to the soul all the same. Fleetingly I touch my fingertips to his beard roughened cheek before pulling back.

  "Levi, what colour do you see in your mind when you think of me?"

  "Green. Brilliant turquoise green. Like the ocean and the forest and everything natural and beautiful. I thought I was losing the colours, but I was really losing myself. You are turquoise with splashes of everything, Casey. You smell like spring flowers and summer warmth. You smell like the orange leaves in autumn and hot tea in winter. You smell like glittering golden happiness and quiet, pale love."

  "I like that." Quiet, pale love. I whisper it in my mind. Not love with fireworks and explosions, but love with simplicity and gentleness. Unassuming love. Forgiving love. Love that works through problems and doesn't explode when things get tough.

  "Quiet, pale love." I say, "I like that a lot."

  "I like you a lot." He says simply, rolling the grass between his thumb and forefinger before dropping it amongst the legion of little grass soldiers, its peers.

  "You're making this very difficult." I run a hand through my hair, like I always do when I'm in a pickle.

  "Good. I want to. I don't want you to walk away." He reaches out in my direction and his hand finds my knee. Delicately, barely touching my skin, he traces my leg as far as he can reach. It feels like a breeze passing over my skin. It feels very, very good. But teasing. His hand stops in its journey about five inches from the top of my leg, just pausing there. My insides burn, wanting it to move further up. I suddenly remember to breathe and the air I've been holding in bursts out in one noisy pant. The slightest of smiles plays on Levi's mouth. He is a devious sort.

  I pull back quickly and put a little space between us before I completely lose my wits, although a very instinctive part of me wants that very much.

  "Levi... I've never been very lucky in love. Through no fault of my own, and no fault of any man. I'm awkward and uncomfortable with intimacy. I am friends with a lot of guys because that's the easiest path to take. I convince myself that it's okay that I'm not in a relationship because look - plenty of people like me well enough. I know I'm not unattractive. In fact I think I can impartially say that I'm quite good looking. So it's okay, the right guy will come along. I know he will.

  "That is what I have been telling myself since I was about sixteen and I genuinely wanted to feel a deeper connection with someone. Sure, I've had casual relationships. Even a couple of slightly less casual ones. But nothing to write home about. And indeed I didn't. Mum never met any of my... boyfriends. Until you.

  "I knew you were damaged and alone since that second time I met you, sprawled on the ground in that puddle. The first time, that day at the beach... I've never been so humiliated. I was so ashamed of myself and helping you when those kids were being little pricks was like miracle. I never thought I'd see you again. I never thought I'd get the chance to apologise. Then I picked up that picture you dropped in the puddle. I will never forget those words. They are imprinted on my memory.

  "Day sixteen of the blindness. It's like a plague - every night I dream in colour, but it fades. I think that soon I will forget what colours are, I will forget the the ripple of light reflecting off water. I will forget the myriad of greens all around. Every night I dream of the colours and the shapes of my life that used to be. Now, in the darkness of day, I try to picture things as I would have seen them. It gets harder and harder. This photo is the last my sister took of me, I remember the day quite clearly - I think about it all the time, I don't want to lose the best moments of my life to the darkness. I want to remember. I want to keep the colours close to me. I want to remember...

  "It was the saddest thing I'd ever read. The moment that I read it that I knew I needed to help you see the colours again. This decision wasn't conscious and it felt futile at the time. How was I ever supposed to find you? All I knew was your first name. Levi. Nothing else.

  "Then another miracle of miracles, Lena's cousin living across the road from you and her happening to see you on the street. These coincidences and chance encounters building up... they drove me to your front door. At first, I only wanted your friendship, Levi. I wanted you to be happy, as your friend.

  "Then you touched me and it all changed. When you ran your thumb across my lips that first time I lost my mind. I knew for sure the night we got off-guts and were dancing in your living room - especially the next day when I was so stung by your rejection.

  "It was difficult for me, though, because you were so damaged. You would hurt me and reject me at every turn. I grew tired of constantly proving that I wouldn't leave. You were so desperate to prove me wrong and eventually that moment, the moment where the final straw breaks the camel's back occurred. The night at Pene's. Even then I was willing to give you a final chance when I came to your home the next day. But once again you pushed me away. Not even opening the door... I gave you up.

  "When I was overseas I tried to forget you. I'm not going to lie, I wanted to get rid of you from my mind. I tried to purge your touch from my body. It was in vain. Do you remember that day we went to Fremantle and we were in the markets listening to the Aboriginal guy playing his digereedoo? I'm not sure if you realised at the time but I took this picture of you. It was like all of your happiness, all of your mystery, everything that I knew you to be and everything you wanted to be was evident in that p
icture. I took it with me. It rested in the back of my travel journey for the entire trip and sometimes when I was sitting on a bus or a plane I would look at it and imagine that things were different - that you weren't so angry at the world and at me, that we could be together.

  "Then I came home and everyone was so happy to see me and I was happy to see them too, but you were missing. It was so evident inside me that you were missing and that made me upset and angry because I never wanted to depend on anyone but myself for happiness. No one should. Happiness is something which should come from within, you need to fight for it and you need to share it generously. I tried to teach you this but there was too much hurt within you to battle through. No relationship will ever be healthy for you unless you rid yourself of this demon and accept that you lead a different life to most people, not worse, just different.

  – – – * * * – – –

  "Can you tell me that you've changed, Levi? Can you sit there and tell me that you've figured things out within yourself?"

  I stop talking because I've said more than I ever intended. The words had just come pouring out. I'd had a long time to ponder them. His reply is silence for a very long time and I let it sit there in the air, because my own thoughts are in such a turmoil a that I need these moments to figure my own stuff out.

  "No. I can't tell you that. No one will ever be able to tell you that. I sure as hell know you can't sit there and say for sure you're not going to get sick of me next week or next year or in five or ten years’ time. Nothing is ever guaranteed. All I can say is that you're in my head, Casey. And you've been in my head since the first time I met you when you ran into me with that goddamn ice cream.

  "I didn't know it would turn into this - how could I? But here I am declaring that you are the only one I want to be with right now and that you're the only one I want to be with in the imaginable future. I am literally addicted to you and this time I want to do things right. I don't want to push you away and I don't want to hurt you but I also don't want to be hurt, so I pose to you the same question. Can you sit there and tell me you're not going to grow tired of my disability?"