Page 60 of The Notecard
You need help, Nick.
‘I’m not sure.’
‘And what do you hope to achieve from counselling?’
I just want to leave. I can’t stand being here. The feeling of it. It’s too quiet. And why is the plant dead? All you have to do is water it occasionally.
‘I don’t know.’
She looks at me again. A painfully long silence. I look out of the window.
‘Let’s start at the beginning. Tell me about your childhood. Your parents.’
And there it is. Tell me about your parents. I don’t want to. I can’t do this. Mum was wrong. It isn’t going to help. I just need to get on and work. Working keeps my mind busy, and that will be far better than this. All of this thinking, talking, and quietness isn’t helping. I look across at the plant. It’s definitely dead.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say, and I get up and walk out.
I can’t do counselling. It isn’t for me. I just need to get on with my life. Work hard. Be the man that Dad wanted me to be. The best doctor. That’s what will get me through this. Not some counsellor with a fucking stain on her shirt in a messy office.
NOW
I’m outside having a cigarette with Meg. I want to talk about the notecard. I want to ask about the man I saw leaving her flat. I want to talk about something serious with her. I want that connection. That closeness. I felt it for a moment in my flat. But now we’re just joking around and talking casually like two friends. Flatmates who bump into each other outside of their flat for a cigarette once in a while. I feel like we’re characters in a sitcom. The wisecracking neighbours.
‘Is he good? Hugh, that is?’ I say.
‘He’s hilarious. He just did a new bit today about sex.’
‘Sex is funny,’ I say, realising we’re discussing sex. Not sex exactly, but the comedy of it.
‘It can be,’ says Meg.
Uncomfortable.
There’s a pregnant pause. Actually, it’s not just pregnant, it’s dilated, and the head is crowning. The man leaving her flat. I walk past. I see them. Her face. Guilty.
‘Nick... about that morning,’ says Meg suddenly.
‘It’s fine, you don’t have to explain,’ I say, even though I want her to explain.
‘It meant nothing. It was just some guy from work. I was drunk. It was a huge mistake, and I don’t know why I care so much that you care, but I do.’
I look across at her. She’s so beautiful it hurts.
‘Honestly, it’s fine, it’s not like you and I…’
I stop because, well. You can’t say ‘you and I’ and not continue pulling on that thread.
‘No, it’s not like you and I…’ says Meg.
A look.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘What for?’
For not talking to you about this before. For not telling you exactly how I feel. For being a fucking coward. For everything.
‘I got the Nottingham job,’ I say.
