‘You called me wanting my help. You sounded far from fine. You sounded distraught. Do you seriously think I’d have ignored that?’
No, I had to acknowledge grudgingly, noting the tight set of his jaw and the resolve in his expression before he lifted the bottle to his mouth and poured half the contents down his throat. He wouldn’t. Because, despite his many flaws, not all of his traits were unfortunate. Annoyingly, he had a decent streak a mile wide. He’d paid his mother back a hundred times over for her determination to see him succeed and the sacrifices she’d made to achieve that. He’d helped my brother out of a tight spot with his start-up and funded my mother’s counselling course.
The instance he’d picked me up from that party wasn’t the only time he’d fished me out of trouble. Once, when I was twelve, he’d sent packing the bunch of girls cornering me in the school dining room for reasons long since forgotten. On another occasion, he’d bodily removed a guy who’d been getting a little too handsy at the club in which we’d celebrated Seb’s twenty-first birthday.
‘OK, fine, you’re right,’ I said exasperatedly. ‘I was distraught and I didn’t give you a choice. But you were wrong about one thing.’
His brows snapped together. ‘What?’
‘This,’ I said, waving a hand first at myself, next at his scowl and finally around the space, ‘clearlyisall my fault.’
He rolled his eyes.
He actually rolled his eyes.
And quite suddenly I’d had enough. Of his disapproval and his arrogance. Of the constant scepticism and the capacity he had to make me wither and squirm. Of my inability to simply brush it all off. It had been going on for years and I was sick of it.
With an urgency that came out of the blue to hit me square in the gut, I needed to know exactly what Nick thought of me and why. I wanted him to explain, so I could fix it. Because deep down I loathed the tension and the animosity that existed between us. The skirmishes that characterised our simmering battle of attrition were more wounding than I’d allowed myself to acknowledge. I couldn’t stand seeing him when my brother was over from the States, or running into him as I occasionally did, and tensing right up, on edge and confused, unable to fully understand what was really behind the rock-bottom opinion he had of me.
Why did he refuse to see that I’d changed? I didn’t make itthateasy for him. I wasn’talwaysdeliberately flippant and silly. And why wouldn’t he let me apologise for the mistakes I’d made over the years? Why wouldn’t he grant me the forgiveness I badly wanted?
Despite my intention to simply rise above it all, I couldn’t. If I was being brutally honest, frustrated irritation hadn’t been the only emotion he’d roused in me over the last ten years or so. His attitude hurt. A lot. Here, now, was the opportunity to rectify any misapprehensions and get some answers. As soon as the weather improved I’d be off, and that would be that. Unaddressed, things between us would go back to the way they’d been before. And although I couldn’t work out why, I truly didn’t think I could bear it any more.
‘What exactly is your problem with me, Nick?’
He went very still, the slight narrowing of his eyes his only movement. ‘What on earth are you talking about? I have no problem with you.’
‘Come off it,’ I said, years of bottling it up unbottling as I leapt to my feet and took a step towards him. ‘Every time our paths cross you can’t help but look at me with disapproval. You practically quiver with it. You’re dismissive and disdainful. I’ve been subjected to your stony glare and rigid jaw ever since that afternoon by the pool. Over a decade ago. And I get it. I was horrible back then. Selfish and arrogant and pampered. And I know I didn’t behave any better when you offered me that loan, gift, whatever, five years later,’ I continued hotly, on a roll now. ‘But in mitigation, I was a wreck. My entire life had turned upside down. I’d just lost my home, my university place, my family, my sense of self, such as it was. I wasn’t thinking straight. I was hurting. Humiliated. I didn’t know what was what. My father had just died. My mother was no help and my brother was in the States. I didn’t know where to turn. My boyfriend had dumped me and all my friends had vanished practically overnight.’
‘Ididn’t.’
‘Youweren’t a friend.’
His jaw tightened and his frown deepened. ‘So you keep saying.’
‘You never give me a chance to apologise for the things I’ve said or the way I’ve said them,’ I said, ignoring the strange twist of my chest at whatever it was that flitted across his expression. ‘Or explain. Every time I try, you just walk away or brush it off. You’ve been aloof and distant for years, and I want to know why. I’m not the person I used to be. I’ve learned to be better. Nicer. And I am. So why do you still hate me so much?’
‘I don’t hate you,’ he said, a muscle hammering in his jaw and a dark flush tingeing his cheekbones. ‘And I don’t disapprove of you. I don’t disapprove of you at all.’
I gave him ayeah, rightlook, but wasn’t about to get into a ‘yes, you did, no, I didn’t’ kind of a back and forth. ‘Well, you make a damn good show of it,’ I said, the evidence piling up in my head demanding a voice. ‘Every time we meet and I try and say hello, you blank me. Whenever I say something—anything—you get this bored look on your face. You came to my rescue yesterday, yes, but it was clearly under duress, and at supper, you dismissed yet another attempt on my part to apologise for the things I’ve said and done. What else am I supposed to think other than that you loathe me?’
‘That’s never been my intention.’
‘Then whatwasyour intention?’
‘Why do you care?’
That stopped me in my tracks, both literally and figuratively. I froze a foot away from him, my breath catching in my throat and my head spinning.
I didn’t care.
Or did I?
If I didn’t, his attitude towards me wouldn’t have the power to hurt me. His rejection of my frequent attempts to apologise wouldn’t have stung so badly. I wouldn’t have felt the need to apologise in the first place. If I did, it would explain why I inevitably went home after encountering him feeling bruised and bewildered. Why the digs and the slights and the judgements had stuck to me like burrs.
Ididcare, I realised, feeling weak and a little light-headed. I wanted him to think better of me. I hated that he was still so wrong about me. As for thewhy, though, I hadn’t a clue. ‘I have no idea.’
‘Well, when you find out, let me know,’ he said. ‘In the meantime, I think Iwillgo and check on the generator, after all.’