The Overthinkers Page 6

  So what did it even matter if I hooked up with this guy? I mean it wasn’t hardly as bad as what Luca was doing. The deception was minor really. A blip on the radar.

  I felt a tiny bout of guilt. Luca and I had promised each other we were exclusive. At the time the idea had made me feel amazing. A million bucks. Even, like he loved me. But later, it had made me feel uncomfortable. How could we even be exclusive, if he was married? He lived with this woman, he made breakfast with her in the morning, he shared a bathroom with her, and probably his most intimate thoughts ... and yeah, he fucked her.

  But the fucking was the least intimate part. You could fuck anyone, like the “advertisement for an STD” and it meant absolutely nothing. It was all the rest of it. The sum of all of those parts, of their lives spent together, which made my skin crawl.

  Wanna fuck?

  Like clockwork the expected words appeared on my phone from the dude in his underpants. What was his name even? I hadn’t bothered to check. Clearly he didn’t have a “No Asians” policy. But I knew the type. They were into Asians – but only for the sex. Nothing more.

  The Grindr Gods had blessed me with a root that night.

  I wondered where Benji was and whether he’d found Francesca. Maybe. You always hated the qualities you despised about yourself most in other people. You recognised them. You could suss them out, smell them on the person. And they reminded you of yourself. That’s why I hated Benji’s singular obsession with Francesca. Not because it was unfounded (and it was), and desperate (it also was), and going to end in despair (another check) ... but because I acted in exactly the same way.

  Exactly. The. Same. Way.

  Obsession followed by self-destruction was what I did best.

  I’d let Luca destroy me before I walked away from the relationship. Maybe that’s because I loved him, or maybe it was because I liked the sharp pain of being hurt.

  I set the thought aside.

  Yep. Can you host?

  I wrote instead.

  I carelessly darted across Oxford Street despite the oncoming traffic, relentless in my mission of finding Francesca Moore and explaining what I’d done to her. Even though it was pretty unexplainable, even to myself. And also, kind of irreprehensible.

  As was my present behaviour.

  I was suitably unhinged now. Dangerously close to being sober, but no less unstable.

  No longer secured by my keeper, Leo, who was the unfortunate voice of reason in most scenarios, I was left to my own devices. In no uncertain terms, he’d told me to fuck off.

  It wasn’t the first time, and I was pretty sure it wouldn’t be the last. That was fine, Leo would keep. Fuck off from Leo, meant speak to you tomorrow. Don’t text me from Francesca was unchartered territory. The latter took precedence over the former in almost any given situation.

  But ... was following her based on her SnapChat location a solid approach? It felt kind of nuts. As I flung myself down Riley Street, I ran through the potential news stories in my mind. The one my dad would have read in his newsreader’s tone (and still reserved for lectures) when he was on ABC. “Carroll followed her based on her SnapChat location.” Or alternatively: “She had told Carroll not to contact her but he located her using social media.”

  It was bad.

  It was really fucking bad.

  Was I overstepping the line? I remembered this campaign from some Government body that had been on television a couple of years back – it was about men overstepping “the line” with women. But it featured scenarios that were clearly breaches: like hitting or disrespecting a woman. Obvious stuff. Stuff that I would never, ever do. But it was all the other stuff that was unclear. The grey stuff. Like following Francesca Moore right now, when she had clearly told me to steer clear.

  None of it ever made sense, and you were constantly pretty sure you were being disrespectful even if you had no intention of being disrespectful.

  And then sometimes you just were – like with Maddison ten minutes ago.

  But Francesca was just a couple of streets away ... and I just needed to explain myself in person.

  I just needed to see her for a second.

  She was at the corner of Riley Street and Kings Lane. That’s what the map had said. I told myself that if she wasn’t there, I would just go home.

  Yep, that was it.

  ... but she was

  there.

  Just around the corner. By herself. Standing near the graffitied angel wings. Scrolling through her phone. Seemingly oblivious of that evening altogether, and everything around her.

  She looked up at me as I approached, and rolled her eyes. I caught the look even in the darkness of that evening.

  I could feel my limbs getting heavier and heavier as I moved towards her. Like I might just sink into the ground. Out of shame.

  What was wrong with me?

  She sighed loudly. “What are you doing here?” she murmured in that breathy voice, that put-on tone. Like it was all rehearsed. I hated that side of her. It was so fake.

  From closer now, I realised she looked upset. Like she’d been crying. But why? I knew there was something between us.

  But that wasn’t about me. I knew that much.

  So ... I’d marched myself down here, and spent the whole while rehearsing potential news stories, when I should have been roleplaying what I would say when I got here. Now I was just kind of struck dumb. What should I say without revealing too much?

  Like, “I thought you might have seen me making out with Maddison and had the shits about it.”

  It was completely out-of-line, and presumptuous (like an assumption that I meant something to her), and also an omission of guilt (not ideal). So, what was the right amount of information to divulge in a situation like this? Was there a right amount? Or was I just bound to fuck this up?

  “I got your text,” I finally said.

  “Oh so ... don’t text me, meant follow me instead?”

  That didn’t go in the right direction.

  “I used your SnapChat location ...”

  What? Why did I even say that? It was like verbal diarrhoea of the worst kind.

  “I figured,” she responded, flicking back to her phone, casually. What was she even doing? Scrolling through Instagram?

  Just say something, I told myself. Anything. Anything is better than this.

  “I just wanted to see you.”

  It wasn’t particularly ground-breaking but it was something.

  “Why?” She didn’t look up from her phone.

  “Because I thought you might be upset ... at me ... and I didn’t want you to be.”

  Well, that was true, even though it was kind of staccato and weird in delivery. At least it had come out.

  “Because you were making out with Maddison two seconds after you told me you liked me?” she responded.

  Again, still looking at her phone.

  Okay, so I was busted. But I wasn’t completely culpable in this mess.

  “But you were with Hamish ... so I didn’t think you really cared.” Yes, I do know his name, but now is probably not the time to hold back on that.

  Finally, she looked up, and gave me an expression, like she’d swallowed something sour.

  “C’mon Benji ... are we really here?” She rolled her eyes again, like there was no point having a conversation of this nature with me. And maybe there wasn’t. Nobody ever really said what they meant. They just said half-truths, because the actual truth was kind of disturbing, and admittedly, fucked-up. No one ever wanted to put themselves in that position. So, there was always this guessing going on. Reading between the lines. Interpellation. And as a result, there was always something lost in translation.

  Not because we were speaking different languages, but because we were speaking the same one, only the wrong words were coming out.

  Besides, sometimes I wasn’t even sure what the actual truth was.

  She lifted her eyebrows, implying I should say something. Probably beca
use I had just been standing there, ruminating. Like I always did.

  Say something, you idiot.

  “Yeah, I guess we are here. I tell you I like you ... you tell me to fuck you and get it over with, like that’s normal ... and then we go to a party and you ditch me for your boyfriend, Hamish Chiel ... and yes, I do know his name. Like what am I supposed to do? Just sit there, and wait for you or something? While you’re off with Hamish Chiel ... having sex with him or something?”

  There was a lot of Hamish Chiel in that phrase, and a lot of unintentional references to sex. But she smiled for a second, like something I’d said had connected, or made her feel better. Only I didn’t know exactly what it was, and I probably would never be able to replicate it.

  But I smiled anyway, because I was a schmuck, and I couldn’t resist her uneven grin.

  “He’s not my boyfriend,” she said tucking her phone into her handbag, and heading towards me. I could smell that familiar fragrance of vanilla and fake tan – an unlikely heady smell, but it made me weak at the knees or at least my dick hard. It was everything about Francesca Moore.

  I expected her to stop, but she walked straight past me. Completely impervious to the effect she had on me.

  “You said he was a couple of hours ago in your room,” I said, as I followed her back up Riley Street.

  “Whatever, you know ... he is and he isn’t.”

  “What does that even mean?”

  Like truly, what did that even mean? She was constantly giving off a hundred different, and mixed messages. How was I supposed to interpret any of it?

  “It means ... I don’t know what it means.”

  That didn’t make sense and it did all at the same time. The terrible thing was, I didn’t even care if there was something going on with her and Hamish Chiel. I didn’t even care if she was Hamish Chiel’s side piece, or he was hers ... what I wanted, was to know that she liked me too.

  And that was kind of messed up.

  Back up on Oxford Street, the glaring lights of the Seven Eleven, revealed her face was blotchy from crying. There was even some mascara smudged on her cheeks, and the fake eyelashes she had been wearing were clumped up in strange places. But she was still so beautiful.

  So fucking beautiful.

  In a weird way. Not like Maddison. Francesca Moore’s face was slightly uneven, one eye was the tiniest bit smaller than the other, and the smaller one creased up in a different direction when she smiled. Her cheeks were a bit too puffy, and it gave her this weird chipmunk like look. But for some reason to me she was prettier than the other girls, her flaws made her strangely flawless.

  There was a magic to it all. Maybe I was just fucking nuts.

  “Why did you kiss Maddison? Do you like her too?” she asked suddenly, turning my way, and stopping on the street. I had to stop too and face her ... and give her an answer, for the unanswerable.

  I was acutely aware of the homeless person on the street. A guy with a grey beard, and a dirty beanie, and no shoes on. I could smell him too. It was acrid. It was like he too was waiting for me to make a mistake with this response. Like he was purposefully positioned there to witness my demise.

  “She kissed me,” I said. I had indeed made that articulation even in the moment, like I was storing it up for future interrogation, from others ... and myself.

  “Oh c’mon,” Francesca laughed. “You were all over her. She had her hand down your pants.”

  Okay, so potentially not so indiscernible. Major cringe.

  “You saw that?”

  “Yep.”

  “Well maybe I don’t know why I did it either. She kissed me, and it was nice ... and I just went with it, I guess. It’s not like I even like her, or anything. Not even close.”

  Would that help? I wasn’t sure. It was honest, at least.

  “Typical,” she said and glanced at the bum, like he was a participant in the conversation who might be able to shed light on the course of that evening’s haphazard events.

  “So fucking careless,” she added.

  And maybe she was right. Maybe I was careless. Maybe we were all careless. Maybe that was the problem. We didn’t give weight to anything we did. Not in the moment at least. Only in retrospect, and by then it was too late.

  “Here. Let me fix this,” I said instead, leaning across to the clumped eyelash. Suddenly it seemed imperative that I at least fixed that, because I couldn’t make anything else better. It was shit, and there was no amount of re-explaining it which would make it different.

  I peeled the eyelash off, and put it in my pocket.

  “Take the other one off too. They’re annoying me,” she said, closing her eyes.

  And that’s when I knew that was the moment I was going to remember. When she was standing there with her eyes closed, and a blotched face, one eyelash on, one off, her heady fragrance mixed in with the pungent odour of that bum. Yep, this was it. The one that I would never be able to forget.

  Because it was perfect in its imperfect way. Just like her.

  I peeled the second eyelash off and stuck it in my pocket.

  We were so used to rehearsing scenes, because we had seen them in the movies or read about them in books, that sometimes when something impromptu happened you realised it was the only important thing. Because it was original. And real.

  “C’mon let’s go,” she said to me, when she opened her dark eyes.

  By then she’d already started walking.

  “Where?” I called.

  “Do you want to come to my place?”

  Of course, I did. It had just seemed an unlikely occurrence about five minutes ago.

  “Yeah, sure,” I said, following her down the street, past the homeless dude.

  Her eyelashes in my pocket.

  I was back in her room with the coloured light, only now everything was quiet.

  The street was quiet. The inky blackness of night cloaked that evening, and everyone within it. Muffling all into stillness.

  I wasn’t sure what time it was. My ears were still ringing from the loud music at the party. Incredibly loud in that noiseless space.

  The immensity of that moment yawned ahead of me, so very wide.

  Some things were only supposed to be imagined. The thought caught me off guard, and filled me with dread.

  The mewling sound of a baby, crying next door suddenly seemed incredibly loud. But I was glad for the intrusion, because I didn’t have anything to say.

  She switched the overhead light off.

  “The next-door neighbour has a newborn,” Francesca Moore said, as she scooted past me. “That’s the thing about terraces, you can hear everything that’s going on in the other houses. The walls are like paper thin.”

  She unzipped her skirt, and stepped out of it, and replaced it with a pair of pyjamas shorts. I caught a glimpse of her slender figure, and failed to avert my eyes. Was I supposed to? I had no idea what this all meant. I supposed if I had of been a more formidable guy I would have. Known what it all meant. And maybe I would have guided it into the right direction.

  But I wasn’t a more formidable guy. And just like the kiss with Maddison, I usually waited for things to happen to me, rather than me happening to them.

  “Is this weird for you?” she said, as she lay down on top of her doona cover. I noticed she hadn’t taken her make-up off, and half of it had slid down her face. She was like that, I thought. Impossibly perfect, and impossibly messy all of the time.

  There was a fork in the road just up ahead. Right in front of me. I could be honest, and say that it was, so very weird for me, or I could lie and pretend this was completely normal. That I slept next to beautiful girls all the time. With the prospect of sex.

  “It’s weird for you,” she acknowledged with a little laugh. Clearly my silence had gone on for just a tiny bit too long.

  “Why do you always do that?” she asked.

  “What?”

  “Like pause for an incredibly long time? You do it all th
e time.”

  “No, I don’t,” I lied, kind of embarrassed that I’d been caught out. I kicked my shoes off. Should I take my jeans off too? Who slept in their jeans? But what underwear was I wearing? I couldn’t quite remember ... but I was pretty sure it wasn’t that flash ... and besides, what were we even doing? Why was I sleeping in this girl’s bed? Was this sex or just sleep?

  I kept the jeans on, and lay down next to her. Awkwardly.

  “You do,” she continued. “It’s like you zone out.”

  “I’m not zoned out ... I’m just thinking.”

  “About what?” she snorted.

  “About what to say ... or what it means. Sometimes I don’t get what it all means. Actually, a lot of the time I don’t understand what it all means,” I said, eyes fixed to the roof, arms crossed across my stomach.

  “Like right now?”

  “Yes. Exactly like right now.” Bingo. There it was. Like right now, Francesca Moore. What exactly did you want from me? Did you want to talk, fuck or go to sleep?

  “I guess it’s open to interpretation,” she responded.

  “I hate that.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I wish it were black or white. I wish it was more obvious.”

  I could feel her watching me. I knew she had turned her head to one side and was looking at me. The sensation of those brown eyes was heavy on my skin. I didn’t want to look at her because that would make it worse. That would really make me lose my chain of thought. But I knew it was inevitable. It was something that had to be done. She was beckoning me to do the same. So eventually, I lolled my head to the side and there was that beautiful face.

  Watching me.

  We stared at each for a long while.

  “You’re so pretty Benjamin Carroll,” she finally said.

  I smiled. Because it was a silly thing to say, but also because I liked her saying it.

  “Why are you smiling?” she asked.

  “Because it’s a funny thing to say. Boys aren’t supposed to be pretty.”

  “Well what are they supposed to be?”

  “Handsome, I guess.”

  “But you’re most definitely pretty, not handsome.”