Page 36 of What It's Like in Words
I know that, it’s mine too. I—
All I wantedwas a fun, relaxing holiday.
That’s all I wanted too!
Fuck, can you stop interrupting me?Christ.
The bartender stopped singing.
I asked him to stop shouting. He said this wasn’t him shouting. You don’t want to hear me shouting, Enola.
This wasn’t working. I was losing control. I would have to tell him what was on my mind. I had never told him the real reason why we left Kenya when we did. Perhaps, if he knew, he would understand. Perhaps he would wrap a warm towel around my shoulders again.
Look, I began, finding the words. I know that I’ve been a little up and down. The other day with Louise… I told you that it was hard being back and I’m just feeling very…
My words scattered. I tried again.
There is a lot about my childhood that I don’t like to think about, and being back here has just, I guess, brought some of that back up.
He frowned, and the pinching sensation spread to my arms and legs. He asked me why we came if it was going to upset me. I said that I didn’t know that it was. He told me that he understood but that it was selfish of me to have made this his problem. I’m not your therapist, Enola. Do you understand that when I get back, I’m going to have to pick up shifts in my cousin’s bar? I’ve not done bar work since my twenties. I’ve been so stressed with writing and…Thisis why I don’t go away with partners.
I’m really sorry, I said, unable to stop my voice from shaking.
Oh, just stop that, Enola. It’s manipulative.
I reached for his arm, but he shook me off. Look, this clearly hasn’t been our day. Why don’t you just go back?
Are you serious? But it’s our last night!
Precisely.
He drained his drink and signaled for another. I didn’t want to leave, but everything I had done to try to fix things had made them worse. Okay, I said. I’ll see you back at the house? I finished my drink and walked down the dark beach.
BACK AT THE BEACHhouse, on the bed that we didn’t have sex on, I waited once again for him to come back. The rum that I had drankon an empty stomach went to my head and I pinched my skin as hard as I could to stop the room spinning.
We had argued before but never like that. He wasn’t just annoyed; he was angry. I realized then the tightrope I was walking; it felt as if any moment that wasn’t fun for him could make him angry. And yet I couldn’t feel anything but disappointment that I had let him down. I needed to see that spark in his eye. I needed him to smile at me like we had robbed a bank. I didn’t want us to get on the plane without fixing this. I couldn’t lose him. I couldn’t lose another thing that I loved. Not here, not in this place.
I heaved up from the bed, ready to return to the bar and make him listen to my apology, but when I got outside, he was standing by the gate. The ocean moon made him a silhouette, and the song from the bar spun in my head as if on a record player.
It’s you, it’s you, it’s all for you.
We stared at each other, and then he walked toward me like the soft pad of a synth. I couldn’t see his face.
Everything I do. I tell you all the time.
He pulled me to him, and I was relieved to find that his eyes were twinkling. He didn’t say it, but he was sorry. I started to cry.
Shit. I’m sorry for crying. I’m so sorry.
But this time he was kind, and he wiped a tear from my cheek. His breath smelled like whiskey. I gripped his black T-shirt. He said my name: Enola—
The sentence remained unformed. Something pivotal was happening; I could feel it.He’s going to tell me that he loves me.But he didn’t finish his thought. Or perhaps he did, but he chose not to share it. He just pulled me closer and broke my body into pieces that floated up to join the Milky Way.
DAY 8
We woke as we had done all holiday to the hush of the waves. I nestled into his curve and reached back. He moaned, awake, pushing into my hand. I smelled his breath, foul for a moment: his unedited morning.
I want you…
