Conversations with my Tom Tom (II)

Night erases everything. The curve of the hills in the distance vanishes as it is absorbed into the edges of a midnight velvet sky. The road, travelled under cloak of darkness, folds, dips and disappears into each bend. But for the two pin pricks of my headlamps that pierce an ombre countryside, no one would know that I was here. I longed to blend into the inky blackness about me till I attained invisibility myself. All I wanted was to be hidden from his burning eyes, and shielded from the violence of his words. But try as I might, the stone he has lodged into my heart would not dissolve or melt away this time. Traces of his arrogance pursued me into this deepening night, snipping at my fugitive heels even as I pushed them harder against brakes and accelerator.

AFTER 300 YARDS, CROSS THE ROUNDABOUT, THEN TAKE THE SECOND EXIT.
Exit. Was all I could do. Flee from the dangerous room where hearts break and tears flood. There is a difference between cowardice and self preservation. I fled on both counts – a coward deserting the inevitability of our rift, and a wounded soldier sounding the retreat in the face of defeat. For the first time, tears and girliness no longer effected the usual softening of his eyes and a remorseful invitation to embrace. Not knowing what else to do, I turned and ran. The row itself wasn’t even over something deeply dividing, merely an excuse for the growing restlessness that I think we’ve both begun to feel over the past months. It’s about what the know-it-alls hammer like so many hackneyed nails into relationship coffins: his idiosyncrasies which once amused but now grated; the clichéd dirty socks syndrome; increasingly unguarded remarks about my mother, his ex, my higher salary, each other…. What hurt more was the speed at which our hurled insults descended into the inane and poisonous; no holds barred. He looked ugly, and I felt ugly.

TAKE THE EXIT, THEN STAY IN THE RIGHT LANE. STAY RIGHT.
Was I in the right? Was he? Is it ever just a matter of right and wrong? Was it right to fall in love, against common sense, against the advice of all I trusted? Was it wrong to turn from family, from my own plans and dreams - to take on a dare from so-called friends who had nothing to lose but to watch and sman from the sidelines? Did I go down this road for their amusement, or did I follow my own heart to end up all alone, with him? In this moment of speeding away from him in the dead of night, I wonder if it was a huge mistake to have chosen someone so far outside of my usual, safe circles; we have such a disparate take on life. But wasn’t it exactly this though which attracted in the first place - our strangeness to each other? Hadn’t we revelled in the hard fought common ground to spite those who willed us to fail?

AFTER 100 YARDS, TURN LEFT.
I left him, standing there. I can’t believe I did that. Mother always told me never to leave with melodrama, because how do you get back onstage without looking stupid? I can’t be entirely sure, but did he call after me as I slammed the car door? I thought I heard his throat catch, in the way it does when he’s feeling vulnerable or hurt, or sheepish about something. It’s one of those little things that I love about him - how he lets his guard down sometimes when he’s playing with small children or animals, and I see the little boy in him. Once he crumpled his face when we found a small bird which had fallen out of its nest in the park. He’d cradled it for the rest of the time, blowing his warm breath over it in the chilled November air, until the creature finally died, right there in the palms of his hands. He was quiet for the rest of the evening, and lay nestled against me that night until I had to roll him off to restore the blood flow in my arm. I wonder if he’s sorry now that I’ve gone. I want him to hurt as I hurt, to miss me. As I miss him already...

YOU HAVE MISSED YOUR EXIT. TURN AROUND WHEN POSSIBLE. TURN AROUND WHEN POSSIBLE.
I know I heard him call out. As sure as I feel this chill right now I know that there was desperation in the way he cried out my name when I left. He needs me. He told me that I was the only one who ever got him. He warned me that there would be moments when his stupid pride would get the better of him and I would be tempted to leave him. He made me promise never to succumb to those moments, because I was smarter, stronger. We agreed that we would be incredible together – with his get-up-and-go and my steadiness. I’ve never felt more alive than when I was with him; never such a wonderment to anyone, because I did everything so differently to him and he loved me for all my weirdness and all my awkward, introverted extroversion. Oh God, I’ve missed that moment I was meant to have recognised! I was supposed to have stood firm, for the both of us. He must be worried sick by now. Where the hell am I?

AFTER 800 YARDS, TAKE THE EXIT, THEN TAKE THE MOTORWAY.
I can’t even remember what we fought about. It’s all such a blur of stupid words. Never mind that now, got to get home, get back before he’s called the police, or even worse, my mother, or woken up the neighbours with his pacing up and down the stairs.

BONG! BONG! BONG! BONG!
Right, right – slow down, slow down. God I’ve hit 95 back there! Got to keep my head, he’ll be there, waiting for me. He won’t say anything, but in that rough way of his he will grab me and shake me a little, and then hold me and hold me….

AFTER 200 YARDS, TAKE THE EXIT. CROSS THE ROUNDABOUT, THEN TAKE THE THIRD EXIT.
Third exit – one…two.... I’m nearly home. Please be there. Please please be there….

AFTER 80 YARDS, TURN LEFT.
I know I know. Here's our street at last….And is that....? Yes! There he is! Oh thank God, thank God!

YOU HAVE REACHED YOUR DESTINATION.