Gravitate (12 page)

No wonder
he couldn’t tell me his secret.
His words of warning came back
to me, echoing around my brain.
You don’t k
now what I am.
I’d thought he
meant that he wasn’t a student.
Now I could see just ho
w significant those words were.
He didn’t get
older – how was that possible?

I thought back to how he had told me he’d fought his feelings for me – how he wasn’t meant to fall in love with me, how it went against eve
rything he’d ever known before.
He said he couldn’t give me the future I deserved and now, I could partly see
what he meant.
He
wouldn’t grow old like I would.
In fact, he hadn’t aged since before I was
born.
The thought turned my blood cold and it fel
t like ice pumped in my veins.

I couldn’t
stay sat on the swing forever.
At some point, I woul
d have to go home and face him.
My deceitfulness in obtaining this information paled in comparison to his co
ntinued deceit.
I doubted
that the Browns knew the truth.
He had probably stopped seeing
them so they wouldn’t find out.
I wondered if there would come a time
when he would stop seeing me.

The rain had lesse
ned now, to a constant drizzle.
I didn’t care that I was soaked thro
ugh. Nothing mattered anymore.
I hadn’t felt as isol
ated since my parents had died.
I felt like Marty had helped me rebuild my life, only for it to come crash
ing back down around me again.

It was getting dark by the time I got
up from the swing.
I felt cold to the very core of my bones; I wasn’t sure if that was because of the weather, or
the dull ache inside my heart.
I didn’t want to be stranded in the park after night fell, but I also didn’t want to go home and face up to
the facts.
Wearily,
I trudged back to the bus stop.
There
was nobody else waiting there.
The bus turned up within a few minutes and despite not wanting to go home, I was relieved to see its lights, knowing at least I would be out of the rain and warming up for a few minutes.

I tried to keep
my mind blank on the way home.
Thinking about what I’d discovered made me feel like crying all over again, for now I knew Marty had been right when he said he di
dn’t see a happy ending for us.
I couldn’t
see a happy ending now either.
The rain grew heavier, as though the sky was
crying the tears I was hiding.
After leaving the bus, I ran back to the house, still ending up
drenched by the time I arrived.
I didn’t even have time to get my key in the lock before the front door opened and I saw Marty’s distraught face.

“Claudia, I was so worried.” Marty pulled me close, and even though I wanted to melt into his arms, I resi
sted the warmth of his embrace.
“What’s wrong? Where have you been?” His concern shone through his words and a fresh wave of te
ars threatened to overwhelm me.
I had to be blunt.

“I went to see the Browns. Molly and Derek.”

He didn’t reply, but hi
s face said everything for him.
It was his tu
rn for the world to crash down.
He, however, regained his composure instantaneously.

“Have you discovered
something I couldn’t tell you?
Do you want me to leave?”

I
looked at him for a heartbeat. It was all I needed.

“No.
I don’t want you to leave,” I whispered.

“Get in the house then, get on some dry clothes and let’s talk about this.”

He
half carried me into the house.
I felt sick with relief at seeing him and exhausted from
crying, running and not eating.
Once the front door was firmly shut, he carried me upst
airs and ran a hot bath for me.
I sat shiverin
g on the floor of the bathroom.
Marty didn’t talk, but
he
kept sighing.

“Have I upset you?” My voice was just a whisper above the noise of the bath filling.

“You? No, never. I’m upset with myself.
Anythi
ng could have happened to you.
I should have
protected you from all of this.
You know things you shouldn’t.
An
d I’m to blame for all of this.
I was going out of my mind worrying about you, I had no idea where you’d gon
e, or what had happened to you.
I didn’t know what to do – I didn’t know where to start looking for you.” He turned off the bath
taps and turned around to me. “Your bath is ready.
Get yourself warmed up and I’ll get some
food ready.” He left me alone.

I peeled off my wet clothes, leaving them slumped in a pile on the floor and slid into the warm water.  My toes ac
hed at the temperature change.
I dunked my head fully into the bath, letting the foamy bubbles slide over my fa
ce, covering the outside world.
After too little time, I ran out of breath and was forced back up t
o the surface, back to reality.
I was slowly beginning to r
each a comfortable temperature.
My mum’s wedding ring, sitting daintily on my finger, glinted in the re
flected light from the bubbles.
I wondered what she w
ould have done in my situation.
Would sh
e give up on the man she loved? Try to find an easier life?
Or would she risk everything for love?

Reluctantly, I pulled myself out of the bath,
not bothering to wash my hair.
I grabbed the fluffy towels that Marty had left on the heated towel rail f
or me, and headed into my room.
I saw no point in getting a fresh set of day clothes dirty, so I put on pyjamas and as I was still cold, I added
my dressing gown and slippers.
It wasn’t a sexy combination of clothes, but sex wasn’t on the menu fo
r us – as I knew all too well.

I padded down the stairs, with a ne
rvous fluttering in my stomach.
I knew Marty had said he’d not been upset with me, but he was incredibly perceptive at saying wh
at he thought I wanted to hear.
I could hear h
im moving about in the kitchen.
A pan banged as it was placed on the stove and a wooden spoon s
craped as it stirred something.
There was no point delaying m
y arrival any longer.
I took a deep breath and walked into the kitchen.

Marty smiled when he saw me.
I saw he’d set the table for two and lit candl
es in the middle of the table.
A bottle of red wine and two gla
sses sat on the table waiting.
He motioned for me to sit down.

“Are you feeling better?”

“Yes, thank you, I’m not really dressed for dinner, though,” I smiled.

“You look amazing.
You always look amazing to me.
Le
t me pour you a glass of wine.
Dinn
er will be a few minutes yet.”
He skilfully opened the wine and poured a large glass for me, to which I raised one of my eyebrows. “For the shock you had.”

“I wondered if you were trying to get me drunk so I would forget what I found out today.” I meant it as a joke.

“I could make you forget without the use of wine,” he responded quickly and then checked himself, “not that I ever would again, not on you.”

“What?”

“I’ll explain it another time,” he replied, as he sat down opposite me.

“You can’t leave it like that!
You can’t say something about making me forget and th
en not tell me what you mean.”
I wasn’t about to let this one go.

“I’ll try to explain after we’ve talked about what you uncovered today.”

“You promise me?”

“I do.
I promise, a
s long as you eat dinner first.
I can’t have you fainting.”

“
No, we don’t want that.”
I had a gulp of my wine, to steady my nerves,
before I told him about my day.
“Well, I decided that I would try to get to the bottom of your secret, so I rang up the hospice and pretended to be a relative of Mr Hollins.” I sudden
ly felt terrible.
“Did he, um, how was he today, by the way?”

“H
e passed away in the afternoon. It was very peaceful.”

“I’m so sorry.
I feel awful for his real relatives.” I was mortified at my own selfishness.

“He didn’t have any.
His wife died last
year and they had no children. No surviving siblings.
That was why I especially want
ed to be with him at the end.”

“I’m such a horrible person.
I don’t understand how someone as kind as you would want to be with a selfish person like me.”

“You’re not selfish, you’re just focused on what
is important to you right now.
And I’m glad that I’m the thing that is important to you.” His smile reached his eyes, wh
ich glinted in the candlelight.
“So, you rang up, and what did you find out?”

“That your receptionist couldn’t remember what hospital you’d come from, which I thought was bizarre, but she could remember the name of a lady who had given a reference for you and she men
tioned where Molly Brown lived.
I looked up the address in the phone book, got a bus
over there and talked to her.
It was only when she mentioned how long it had been since she got married, that I knew something was wrong,” I pa
used, unsure of how to proceed.
I looked down at the table, and t
ook another large swig of wine.
It was going to my head but, at this point, I didn’t care.

“Please, tell me what happened.” When I didn’t look up, Marty continued s
peaking, “Claudia, look at me. I’m not angry.
I
’m pleased you know something.
I’m not pleased that you were upset, but I’m so re
lieved that you’re still here.
You could have left, or ordered me to leave, and I would have comp
letely respected your decision. But you chose for me to stay.
That means everything to me.”

I took another sip of wine and a deep breath.

“At first, I thought you must have been pretending to be someone else – an older man, as Molly and Derek said they
knew you over twenty years ago.
Then, Molly showed me a photo from the past with you in.
” For once, I didn’t look away.
He returned my gaze.

“I
see.” He was calm, collected.
I guessed that he’d been expecting this.

“You h
adn’t aged. They had.
You
looked identical to yesterday.
How is that possible, Marty?” I hadn’t realised I’d been leaning across the table, but now I was w
ithin touching distance of him.
The space between us quivered with energy.

“I don’t age.
I’ve looked like this
for as long as I can remember.”
He got
up and went over to the stove.
I was amazed that he could think abo
ut cooking at a time like this.

“You d
on’t remember your childhood?”
I instantly recalled the photo albums stacked with pictures of my changing image, from baby to grown up – some of the more embarrassing photos I would have been happy not to remember.

“I didn’t have a childhood.”
He remained at
the stove, his back facing me.

“What do you mean? Marty, please look at me.”
I waited, but he didn’t turn around. “Plea
se, Marty, you’re scaring me.”
This time, he did return to me, kneeling next to my chair and pulling me into a powerful embrace.

“I don’t want to scare you, I never want that.” He softly
stroked my hair as he held me.
“It’s hard to explain, but I
wasn’t ever a baby or a child.
I was always this.”

“How is that possible?” My voice came out as a squeak.

“In the same way that it’s possible for me to have never aged.”