Between Before and After (10 page)

Gavin and Finn took their time walking along the waterfront towards the house. Finn was right, things were getting out of control. Gavin slowly began to put the pieces together. The distance Max had put between them over the past couple of months, the black smudges beneath his eyes, the drinking, the ongoing nightmares, it all pointed to a downhill slide into something much more serious than just a temporary funk. The more he thought about it, the more concerned he became. It was too familiar – too similar to what they had seen Danny go through. If they couldn’t get him to talk to them, what hope did they have of getting him to talk to a professional, someone trained in this kind of thing? One thing was for sure – something had to change.

The sense of helplessness grew as they approached the house and saw Max sitting on the wooden bench at the edge of the lawn. The coffee cup was gone and in its place, he held the familiar can of beer.

“See what I mean?” Finn gritted his teeth, shooting a sidelong glance at Gavin. “It’s barely nine o’clock and he’s at it already.”

Finn picked up the pace and Gavin hurried to keep up with him. His heart sank as he squinted at Max in the morning sun.

“Just calm down,” he said, trying to keep his head. “No point in attacking him about it, that’s not going to help things.”

“Really? Well the touchy-feely shit hasn’t worked – maybe he just needs to be told straight.”

“Just take it easy.”

Finn didn’t answer and a sense of impending doom crawled its way up into Gavin’s stomach and sat there, heavy and cold.

“Since when did you crack open a beer at nine o’clock in the morning?” Finn gestured towards the beer in Max’s hand as they finally came within earshot.

Max looked up at him, clearly surprised at his tone. “Since I don’t have to go to work tomorrow. What the hell, right?”

“
What the hell
is right.” The words shot out through clenched teeth. “You need to lay off the beer, mate, at least until lunchtime.”

Max locked eyes with Finn. “So, me having a beer is pissing you off?”

“At this time of the day? Yeah, it is.”

Slowly, Max stood up. “If I want a beer, I’ll have one. I don’t really see that it’s got anything to do with you.”

Gavin felt that same sinking feeling claw its way up from his stomach to sit in his throat. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Kate sitting on the steps, watching them.

“You don’t need to drink yourself into a coma,” Finn snapped. “You just need to talk to us. We want to help, remember?”

“We had this conversation last night.”

“Yeah, we did,” Finn shot back, clearly unimpressed.

“Then you didn’t hear a word I said.”

“Oh, I heard you alright. I just think you’re failing to grasp the reality of the situation.”

“What reality? I told you last night that I’m dealing with this the best way I know how and if you disagree, then by all means – disagree. But it’s not going to change anything. Fucking deal with it.”

“
Me
fucking deal with it? That’s rich, coming from you! What you’re doing, that’s not
dealing with it
, Max – it’s sticking your head in the sand and ignoring it. How’s that working out for you?”

They continued to eyeball each other, neither giving an inch. The air was thick and uncomfortable and Gavin found himself holding his breath, waiting to see who would give in first. Finally, Max shook his head.

“This is bullshit,” he said, and started to walk away. Finn lunged forward and grabbed hold of the beer can in Max’s hand, pulling it out of his grasp.

“No –
this
is bullshit!” he hissed, his voice rising as he waved the can in Max’s face.

Max made a grab for the can, but he was too slow. Finn stood there, obviously waiting for him to retaliate further, practically inviting him to do so, but Max just shook his head. The muscle in his jaw twitched, as if he wanted to say more but couldn’t. Instead of fighting back, Max just turned and walked away. Finn hurled the can towards the boat shed, then made a move to follow him but Gavin grabbed his arm.

“Wait – just leave him, let him go.”

Finn whirled on Gavin, shaking his arm loose. “Why didn’t you back me up? Why’d you just stand there and say nothing?”

“Because I don’t think this is the right way to handle it, that’s why,” Gavin shot back. “You saw what happened – you’re just pissing him off!”

“Then what is, for fuck’s sake! What
is
the right way to handle it? We can’t just ignore it anymore!”

“No one’s ignoring it! We just need to tread carefully, that’s all I’m saying – we’re out of our depth here. We might be making things worse by just jumping in like this!”

“So what the hell do we do about it? Just let him drink himself into oblivion for the next two days? How’s that handling it?”

Gavin’s pulse raced. He felt like he was standing on the edge of a cliff, getting closer and closer to the edge. Finn was right – he didn’t think he could stand to watch Max do this over the next couple of days. He also couldn’t stand to see them both at each other’s throats. What if Max decided not to stick around, what if he took off, to parts unknown? How would they find him, how would they
help him
then?

“You let me know if you come up with any better ideas, okay?”

He watched helplessly as Finn stormed off towards the house. He was right – they did need to try something else. The question was, what? What made it worse was that he was starting to suspect Max wasn’t the only one hanging onto the ledge by his fingertips.

Finn only spared Kate the barest of glances as he passed her on the lawn.

“What’s going on?” she asked. 

“That’s the million dollar question, isn’t it?” Storming past her, he took the wooden steps two at a time.

He slammed the door after him, gaining a mild sense of satisfaction as the sound reverberated through the house. Standing in the living room, he paced like a caged animal. He hadn’t meant to snap at Kate, but he hadn’t been able to stop himself. Frustration burned a hole in his self-control.

He heard the door open and he whirled around, expecting to see Max. Instead, Kate stood in the doorway.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

She looked as though she wanted to turn and run. He didn’t blame her. In fact, he almost wished she would. He wasn’t in the mood to modify his behaviour for an audience – that boat had long since sailed.

“It’s him!” he stabbed a finger at the glass doors, but Max had disappeared. “He’s drinking already – did you see that? At this time of the bloody morning! We’ve barely finished breakfast!”

“I saw,” Kate said, shifting her weight from one foot to the other uncertainly. “But are
you
okay?”

He paced backwards and forwards a few steps, briefly wondering if he should go after him. Helplessly, he reasoned that even if he did go after him, what would he say to him that he hadn’t already said? He stopped pacing and stood with his hands on his hips, eyeballing her for a moment as if considering telling her more.

“I’m fine – why wouldn’t I be? But then, I’m not the one tucking into a beer at nine o’clock in the bloody morning, am I?”

“I’m worried about him too,” she said quietly. “We all are.”

“Yeah, we’re all worried about him but no one’s
doing
anything!”

“Finn, don’t –“

“Don’t what?” he demanded. “Don’t push him too far? Don’t be honest? Don’t
what,
Kate?”

She stared at him, clearly upset, and he hated himself for speaking to her that way. She didn’t deserve to take the brunt of his anger. It wasn’t her he was angry with.

He thought it better to remove himself from the situation before he said or did something else he might regret later.

He shrugged apologetically at her as he passed, heading for the safety of his bedroom. Once there, he pushed the door shut behind him and sank onto the bed. After opting for a front-row seat to Max’s ever-increasing journey into self-destruction last night, he was exhausted. It was soul-destroying, both mentally and physically. How much longer was this going to go on?

A soft knock on the door interrupted him and he angled his head towards it, too tired to turn around properly. Kate stood there awkwardly. She looked anxious – scared, even. His heart sighed. She didn’t deserve this. She hadn’t done anything wrong.

“I’m sorry,” he said wearily. “I didn’t mean to take it out on you. I’m just so pissed off at him.”

“You don’t have to apologise.”

He turned away from her, burying his head in his hands momentarily, trying to clear his head. He was too tired to talk about this. It was exhausting enough just thinking about it. He fully expected her to make a hasty exit. He wouldn’t have held it against her. But, yet again, she surprised him.

She chewed on her bottom lip as she walked around the bed to sit down beside him. She sat just far enough away that they weren’t touching, but close enough for him to smell her perfume. She smelled like vanilla. Was that her perfume or her shampoo? Frowning, he gave himself a mental shake.

“It hurts to see him like this,” she said. “I know he needs help, but I don’t know what to do. He doesn’t seem to want to listen. Last night was proof of that. I tried talking to him this morning but he did a pretty good job of keeping me at arm’s length. He seems to be doing that a lot lately.”

The helplessness he was feeling seemed to magnify. She stared at her hands, resting in her lap.

“I can’t believe it’s been almost three years already,” she murmured, almost to herself. “Sometimes it just seems like yesterday, and other times it feels like it’s been a lifetime. I honestly thought it’d be getting easier by now. It’s what I’ve been telling myself every year, but it’s like the light at the end of the tunnel keeps moving further and further away.”

Finn’s heart raced. It seemed like every time he allowed himself to think about her as anything other than a friend, Danny somehow wove himself back into the conversation.

“I know what you mean,” he said, staring at her hands in her lap.

The anger and helplessness he had felt only moments before steadily dissolved. He dragged his gaze from her hands up to her face and found her looking back at him. Her chocolate brown eyes were soft and warm. Inviting. His heart had almost stopped beating, as if he was in a trance, hypnotised. She drew him in with her eyes, deeper and deeper until he felt like he was falling. Slowly, he leaned towards her and he felt her responding to his unspoken intent, inclining towards him. He was afraid to breathe.

Only centimetres away from her, his eyes momentarily lingered on her lips; full, soft, slightly parted now. He wondered how they would feel on his. He waited for some sign of hesitation – just a heartbeat, no more – but he didn’t see one. Her breath was warm and sweet on his face and he closed his eyes, anticipation reaching a crescendo within him.

Suddenly, she pulled back.

His eyes shot open, heart threatening to leap out of his chest. She sat perfectly upright, staring out the window in front of them. She looked petrified.

“I’m sorry,” she said. 

What am I doing? How the hell did that happen?

It was like New Years all over again, only this time he didn’t have the luxury of alcohol to blame.

“I’m the one who should apologise – again.” He cast a furtive glance at her, his heart hammering so loudly, he could barely hear himself speak. “I just thought that – never mind. It doesn’t matter. I’m sorry.”

She hung her head, her expression immediately hidden behind a wall of auburn hair.

Fuck.

Max sat on the edge of the small wooden dinghy that was dry-docked in the boat shed and stared out across the water. The bay was like a mirror, the mountains on the opposite shore reflected in it, making it difficult to see which was real and which was the illusion. In stark contrast to the peace and tranquillity around him, his mind whirled so much he could barely think straight. The air was thick with the sound of chirping cicadas and it felt like he was hanging onto the last threads of sanity with only one hand, fighting off the incessant noise with the other.

It was a miracle the boat shed was still standing after all this time. The wooden planks were rotting from age and neglect, and you could see daylight through the walls in places. It wasn’t weatherproof in the slightest, but it didn’t need to be. The only things it contained were an old wooden dinghy, a pair of oars and various other seaside debris, namely an old deflated rugby ball, a couple of old beach toys and a cricket bat, sans wickets or ball. 

What right did Finn have to judge him – what right did any of them have to do that? None of them had any idea. It was nobody’s business how many beers he had or how fast he drank them. A sense of entitlement bolstered him. He took a mouthful from the fresh can in his hand, as if proving a point.

He tried to recall Danny’s face. He tried to remember the sound of his laughter. He struggled to remember the simple things but it all seemed hazy and unclear now. The only thing he could recall in crystal clarity was the blood. So much blood. Not red and clear, like in the movies, but dark and sticky. It clung to everything it touched, including him. He stared down at his hands, lost in the memory as his heart raced. Blood that embedded itself under his fingernails and stained his jeans and t-shirt so badly he had thrown them away, trying to rid himself of the memory. If only it was that easy.

Breathing heavily, he hunched forward, resting his elbows on his knees. The edge of the wooden dinghy became hard and uncomfortable but he wasn’t ready to head back up to the house and open himself up for more of the same just yet. He could feel himself being ripped apart, from the inside out. He had to get a handle on this.

"Hey.”

He jumped, his pulse spiking. Gavin peered around the boat shed doors that he had pegged open to catch the most of the view.

“Dude.”

“Sorry.” Gavin walked into the darkened boat shed, thick with the stench of damp, and settled himself beside Max.

They sat in silence for several uncomfortable minutes. He hoped that the fact he wasn’t making conversation would chase Gavin away, but even he knew better. Gavin wasn’t into confrontations. Ordinarily, neither was Finn, although he had seen him riled up on a couple of occasions over the years. He took another sip of beer as he mulled over Finn’s behaviour. Stubborn bastard. He shot a sidelong glance at Gavin. Maybe he was just doing a little damage control.

“I keep forgetting how quiet it is out here,” Gavin said.

“Yeah, if you can get past those bloody cicadas,” Max mumbled, scanning the horizon as he took another long swallow.

“Noisy little buggers.”

They sat a while longer, the heat of the day beginning to gain momentum, gathering around them, stifling them.

“That was pretty intense out there,” Gavin said.

Max exhaled loudly, shaking his head. “He needs to mind his own business sometimes. He’s like a dog with a bloody bone.”

“He’s just worried. We all are.”

Max gazed out over the water. He didn’t even bother to lie and tell him that they didn’t need to be, he was fine. There didn’t seem to be much point. “I’ll tell you what I told him last night – I’m dealing with it. It might not be the way that he’d deal with it, or you or anyone else, but I’m doing the best I can. If you don’t like it, then fine – don’t like it. But don’t give me shit about it because you have no idea. When you’ve walked a mile in my shoes,
then
we’ll talk.”

The stifling dampness of the air seemed to multiply. Breathing deeply became an issue as he struggled to clear his pounding head. He waited for Gavin to start telling him about everything he was doing wrong, but he was surprised when he didn’t.

“You kinda dropped off the face of the earth for a while there,” Gavin said finally. “Freaked us out a bit, y’know? You’re all over the country and the only way we know you’re okay is when you call –
if
you call.”

Max took another swig of beer. There wasn’t a question in there, just a statement of facts.

“I don’t mean to put this back on you, I know you have a lot going on, but you gotta keep in touch, okay? I mean, you could drive off the road somewhere and we wouldn’t even know where to start looking for you. That’s a pretty shit state of affairs, considering we’re meant to be mates.”

Max felt pangs of guilt, deep down inside, muffled by alcohol and depression. The reason for both came racing to mind. “Did you ever, y’know, wonder what Danny was thinking about, the second before he pulled the trigger?”

The question hung between them and time stopped for several long moments. Even the cicadas seemed to hush, drowned out by the pounding in his ears. Flashes of what he saw that day stabbed at his memory.

Sticky blood.

The pieces of Danny’s skull that had attached themselves to the wall, the mirror, the furniture – to him, when he had cradled his head on his lap.

The small entry wound in his temple he had tried to ignore, the enormous exit wound he couldn’t.

The smell – that horrific smell that still haunted his dreams. It smelt like offal, like a disgusting montage of rotting meat and urine.

Fragments of Danny’s skull, complete with strands of hair, clinging to his shoe.

He took a hurried gulp of beer, his hand trembling as he struggled to push the memories aside. He wished he could bury them forever, but these days they seemed to surface far too frequently.

“Honestly? Yeah. I used to think about it a lot,” Gavin said, his voice barely audible.

Max glanced around at him. “And?” he prompted, when no further details were forthcoming.

“And, I don’t know – I don’t have a clue. Honestly, I’m not sure I even
want
to know anymore.”

He understood the sentiment, but somewhere deep inside him, he had really wanted Gavin to say something else. Something reassuring. Something that would make sense. Something that would shine a light on the misery and show him the way back. Something he could live with.

“I just wish he’d told someone,” Gavin said. It was a sentiment they had discussed repeatedly. “That might’ve made a difference. Maybe we could’ve helped.”

They sat looking out over the bay as the sunlight caught the water, making it sparkle like a sheet of diamonds.

“He didn’t want help,” Max said.

He could feel Gavin’s eyes on him, digging deep inside his brain, trying to dredge up the images from that day.

They’re right there, right in front of you. Help yourself.

His hands trembling now, he took another long swallow of beer, trying not to choke on it as the memory of that day lodged in his throat.

Lacey put away the last of the breakfast dishes and cleaned up the kitchen counter, taking her time. Everyone seemed to have scattered, but she was secretly glad for some alone time. This year, more than previous years, she could feel the tension among them. Finn was off-kilter in some way that she couldn’t quite put her finger on, Max was on a knife-edge and Kate… well, she knew what Kate’s problem was. She had been watching her and Finn circle around each other since New Years, but there was always something in the way. At first, it was Kelly. Now, with her out of the picture, it was all up in the air. No safety net. She could imagine how hard it would be, to take that leap into another relationship, especially when that relationship was with Danny’s best friend. She twisted the damp tea towel in her hand absentmindedly, wrapping it around her wrist.  

She missed Danny. The changes in him started a couple of months before his death, when that black cloud seemed to hover over him all too frequently. Brief interludes of moodiness became long periods where she hardly recognised him. Gone was the mischievous man-child she had come to know and love. In his place was a distant loner with barely any trace of his trademark sense of humour. Kate had struggled with the changes in him, just as they all had. Why didn’t they see how desperate he was? Why didn’t they pick up on the fact that he was planning to do something stupid? Why couldn’t they stop him?

She sank to the floor, her back jammed hard up against the kitchen cupboards, holding tightly to the tea towel still wrapped around her wrist. Tears pooled in her eyes even as she fought them back. Realising with horror that she was fighting a losing battle, she drew her knees up towards her chest and gave in, sobbing silently, her eyes squeezed tightly shut.

She sat like that for several minutes, letting go of the sorrow that had built up inside her. She cried for Danny and the pain he must have been in. She cried for Nina and Jim and the son they had lost. She cried for her own baby, whom she would never hold in her arms. She cried for Max and the sorrow that hovered over him, consuming him slowly, right in front of her eyes. The pain erupted out of her, spilling into the air around her along with her tears. For a moment, she felt like a coward, hiding on the floor in the kitchen, but the shame was fleeting.

Startled, she looked up to find Max was sitting on the floor next to her. She sniffed, wiping tears off her chin as he inched closer, setting down a can of beer on the floor beside him.

“Do you want me to get Gav?” he offered gently. “He’s just outside, digging out the kayaks from under the house.”

Breaking down, she shook her head as the crying began anew.

“Aw, Lace. Come on, don’t do that,” he murmured, leaning over to pull her into an awkward embrace.

She buried her head in his shoulder, her body racked with sobbing she could no longer control.