“Robert, please.” My eyes fill up with liquid, and I feel a pang of pain in my chest. I gasp and push my hand to the spot, trying to rub away the ache.
“What? What happened? Are you okay?” he asks frantically.
“I’m fine, just a small chest pain. It’s gone now.”
He sits back, wiping his hand across his mouth. “Shit, I’m doing it again, aren’t I?”
“No, just – just don’t make a big drama. Just accept that this is how it has to be,” I say past the tears. When I look him in the eye, I see that he’s crying, too, and it’s a strange feeling to have made a man like Robert cry.
“I’m going to prove to you that I can be what you need.”
“Don’t…”
“No. I’m going to,” he interrupts me adamantly, wiping at his eyes.
“It’s over, Robert,” I say, trying to make the words sound final. Dragging this out is only going to hurt the both of us.
“It will never be over between us, Lana. You’ll realise that soon enough.”
Unable to listen to him any longer, I climb out of bed, pull on some clothes, and go downstairs to make breakfast. He doesn’t follow me, but about fifteen minutes later I hear the front door open and shut, signalling his departure. Perhaps he decided to go into work today after all.
Sitting by the kitchen window and looking out into the large back garden, I wipe away another tear, hoping there won’t be too many more to follow.
The next couple of days are the most torturous of my life. Everything bad that came before pales in comparison. Robert, a man I once thought immune to emotion, looks at me like a kicked puppy every time we’re in the same room together. He has this thing he does where he laces his hands together, as though to keep from pulling me into his embrace.
At one point I feel like taking the coward’s way out and going home early, but I don’t want to waste my final weeks with Sasha. Once I return to Ireland, we won’t get to see each other for who knows how long. She’ll remain in London, and I’ll be in Dublin studying.
It’s agony still living in this house with Robert, but I’m determined to see out the next three weeks.
On Friday afternoon I’m making my way upstairs to my room and Robert is on his way down. As we pass by each other, he grabs my hand and squeezes it. I pause and close my eyes, taking deep breaths to keep from breaking down.
He draws our clasped fingers up to his mouth and kisses my knuckles. “Do you know how it feels having to see such beauty and not be able to touch it?” he asks, staring intensely into my eyes.
“Stop this. You’re being foolish,” I say, trying to pull my hand from his.
“I’m a fool for you,” he counters.
“Robert, I have to go,” I whisper, my voice almost cracking.
His lips curve down in a frown as he drops his hand from mine and lets me pass, standing in place and watching as I walk away. I hardly leave my room for the rest of the evening, too scared I’ll bump into him again.
The next day Sasha gets an apology phone call from her dad. He tells her that he’s found it in himself to accept who she is and move on with things. She says that’s very magnanimous of him, her sarcasm wholly justified. In the end they tentatively agree not to fight anymore, but I have a feeling it’ll be a long time before they become close like Sasha is with her mum. If ever.
On Sunday it’s the day of the Olympics closing ceremony. I’ve always found big events stressful, so I make sure I’m well rested and able to take on the crowd. I’ve been keeping up my regime perfectly, and every day my body is getting healthier. However, nobody ever told me how badly a broken heart can affect you. How it constantly feels like there’s a knife stuck in the centre of your chest, how your lungs feel like they can’t get enough air to breathe.
I hope in vain that emotional distress won’t lead to physical sickness. The key is not to let it fester, but I’m still trying to figure out how to achieve that. I hope it will fade. It has to. When I was ten and my grandfather passed away, I didn’t think I’d ever heal from the pain. He’d been the closest thing to a dad in my life. But then, as the weeks passed and then months, the ache went away.
If I’m lucky, my love for Robert will go away, too.
Sasha finally took the plunge and asked out the barista girl, whose name is Poppy, and as it happens she said yes to the date. I was so happy to hear that. I’m glad Sasha’s bringing her to the closing ceremony, as it will pad out the numbers and not make things so agonising between Robert and me.
It’s almost like we’re both subconsciously torturing ourselves, knowing things are over between us, yet not being able to take the final step and ensure we don’t see one another every day. Robert could easily rent an apartment somewhere and I could easily go home early, but we don’t take those options. Perhaps because severing the ties completely will hurt more than the current liminal space we occupy.
I get home from the pharmacy, where I’d been collecting a prescription, and hurry to my room to get ready for the evening ahead. Upon opening the door I get a distinct case of deja vu, because Robert is sitting on the floor by the window again, reading my copy of Homer’s Odyssey.
“Something wrong with your room?” I ask casually, my heart thumping fast as I put my medicine away in a drawer and slip off my shoes.
His eyes flick to me briefly before returning to the book. “I like it in here.”