‘That’s how you felt?’ He refocuses the conversation to me with effortless ease.
‘I wanted—yes. I wanted to get away.’
‘From what?’
My heart slows. It almost stops. I feel tempted to talk to him, tempted to tell him everything, and I wonder at that, because holding this inside of me is habit. It’s been a long time since I’ve spoken to anyone about anything important. I’m an expert in shallow, meaningless social engagements.
But talking to Holden is like talking to nobody, in the sense that I won’t know him in a week or two, and he won’t know me. Maybe that’s why I find this strangely seductive. Or maybe it’s because I’ve been more physically intimate with him than anyone else and there’s a sense of connection that comes from that act, whether wanted or not.
‘Everything, I guess.’
He leans forward. ‘That’s kind of vague.’
‘I know.’ I run my knife over the top of the waffle then put it down, because I’m fidgeting for the sake of it.
‘But it’s the truth,’ I say, shaking my head, my smile heavy with sadness. ‘My dad. My boyfriend. My life.’ The last word is heavy with grief, because by ‘life’ I mean ‘loss’.
‘You don’t get on with your dad?’
‘He died.’ The words are said without emotion, but that doesn’t mean I don’t feel his loss. ‘A year ago.’
‘I see.’
I like that he doesn’t offer a platitude. I realise I did when he told me about his mum, but I’m glad he leaves it be.
‘We weren’t close, in the end.’
He’s quiet, like he knows that if he doesn’t interrupt I’ll keep going.
‘He wasn’t abusive or anything. But he was—’
He’s still silent. I search for a word.
‘Self-destructive. It was hard to watch.’
He doesn’t move, except for the small, almost imperceptible, shift in his eyes.
‘How so?’
‘Oh, you know. A raging alcoholic. One beer after another after another until he could barely stand. Which made him, from time to time, mean. Angry. Unsafe.’ I shake my head, frustrated at my inability to help him coiling through me like a fresh wound. ‘It was just him and me. It’s hard as a kid not to take that on.’ I lift my shoulders. ‘Over the years I’ve come to realise it wasn’t my fault, but it felt like it, a lot of the time.’
‘Where were your grandparents?’
‘My dad was in his fifties when I was born, so they were older, you know? They died before I was ten.’ I shake my head slowly. ‘Up until then, it was okay because I had somewhere else to go, but then, nothing.’
‘And your mother?’
‘I never knew her. I gather she was a lot younger than my dad. Didn’t feel like she could cope with being a parent. She stayed around just long enough for me to be born then split in the middle of the night. He never found her again. She never reached out to me.’
There’s an eerie watchfulness in Holden’s expression. He’s so still, almost as though he’s carved from stone.
‘And that doesn’t bother you?’
‘No.’ I purse my lips. ‘She’s an abstract to me. Being a parent is about more than biology. Like your mom, I guess, she just didn’t want to be a mum, so I don’t think of her like that. She gave birth to me, full stop. Dad raised me. And he wasn’t the best dad in the world—not by a long stretch—but he loved me and he was there for me.’
His stillness persists. His eyes don’t quite meet mine. I feel as though he’s lost in thought, contemplating what I’ve said, imbuing it with more weight than I intended.
‘Anyway...’