The holiday is over. We’re flying back home tomorrow. A bit sad.
Tori
Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad I went on this trip. I’ve seen so much and learned a lot about the world. Leah and I have witnessed and done things very few people do in their lifetimes. I know it has developed me as a person.
Before this trip someone would have had a very hard time convincing me that there is a dying breed of wild-eyed monks who exist in a state of intoxication and believe that they can reach enlightenment by the very act of turning away from all earthly pleasure and partaking in everything that is disgusting and taboo. Even eating dead human flesh or human waste.
Now I know better.
When we were in Australia I met a cute Australian surfer who chased me relentlessly. Probably because I didn’t turn him down flat as I had all the others. In some small way he reminded me of Cash. It wasn’t his looks. Maybe the curve of his mouth, but it was enough to endear him to me. Still, in the end I didn’t want him. Even drunk on Fosters I couldn’t bring myself to go with him.
Leah and I made a pact never to discuss Cash. We never bought a gossip magazine or watched E-news. She is of the opinion that the more you obsess and think of something the more it embeds itself into your heart. She thinks the solution to a broken heart is to never talk or think about that person.
We were on a strict Cash free diet.
I fell off the wagon once. Just once when Leah went into a shop to get us a couple of cans of coke. It was in India. I was standing beside a wooden stall selling magazines and sweets and cigarettes and my eyes fell on a magazine cover. He was on it. My heart slammed into my ribs.
I looked away quickly and then, like an addict, I looked back at his face. There was something different about it. I would have stared more, but Leah was coming back and I hurriedly turned away and smiled at her.
‘What’s wrong with you?’ she asked.
‘Nothing. Bit too hot I think,’ I said.
She looked at me strangely, then at the Newsstand, and sighed. ‘Come on. Let’s go find a cool bottle of beer.’
Other than that one time I never thought about him, well, during the day at least, but when I got into my sleeping bag, or into my hostel bed for the night, my mind would replay that scene when he looked at me as if I had stabbed him in the back. With such hurt.
Hurt always turns to hate.
Sometimes I cried silent, bitter tears, thinking of him in England hating me and other times other memories would come back. The ants in his pants, being on the roof, laughing together under the sheets, going to The Ministry Of Sound, our unforgettable time in Milan, having sex, having sex, and having sex.
Chapter Forty-two
Tori
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o358xut_JBE
I look around the dinner table. My mom, my dad, even Brad has come home tonight for our family dinner. They listen to my tales with wide eyes. We laugh, we drink, and we talk late into the night. It is gone midnight when Brad leaves. My mother kisses me on my head.
‘I’m so glad you’re home, darling. I’ve missed you.’
‘I love you, Mom.’
My parents go into their bedroom and I go into my room and close the door. I don’t switch on the light. I walk to the window and look down at our yard. The silver glow of the moon peeks through the trees and illuminates the old tire swing. The metal on the gate gleams and the air is still. Everything is exactly as it was. I look up at the sky dotted with stars and tears gather in my eyes.
I can’t do this. I just can’t.
I take my phone out of my bag and scroll through my photos until I come to the one of Cash in his disguise. I was so happy that night. I know I said I wouldn’t follow Cash’s career, but tonight, just this once, because I am feeling extra vulnerable, I will go on the net and see how he is doing.
I won’t check his personal life. I won’t look to see what new woman he is with. I just want to see how he looks. It will soothe my aching heart.
Sitting in the dark, I navigate to YouTube and type in his name. I scroll down results and see that he has recently, just last week in fact, done an interview on a German TV program. I click into it. An advert for Adidas comes on and I realize I am holding my breath. I make it full screen. The advert finishes and a man in his late forties or fifties with a red/blond scruff on his face appears. He is wearing a grey suit and holding a sheaf of papers. He raps the edges of it on the table ala Jon Stewart, and calls out in a very strong German accent, ‘Cash Hunter.’
The in-house band starts playing and the camera cuts to Cash coming into the studio. He is dressed completely in black, suit, shirt with three buttons undone, and shoes. His hair looks lighter and his face more mature. As if it is not months since I saw him, but years. He stops at the top of a white staircase, smiles, and waves to the audience before he walks down it.