Travis Inglis
Like the Moon
Tinder was a mixed bag, but this connection was special. Charlotte. She was a lost soul, it resonated with him. She’d lived trauma which had built an amazing complexity into her being. He felt like he could know her for a lifetime and never get bored of learning her. Learning her mind, her past, her desires.
It was a month before he met her. A month of constant messaging and long talks on the phone. When he first saw her, it caused the world to stop rotating. She wore a knitted and blue jersey that matched his, and jeans perfectly fitted to her long legs and toned tight bum. He tried not to stare, but the temptation defeated him. Moulded from his fantasies; her eyes dark and grave allowed no light to escape. Slim pale features highlighted by dark blushed freckled cheeks, framed by straight shoulder length brunette hair, she was shiny and messed with wind. A collection of nerves and lament; how could it be anything other than love? She smelt of plums.
That connection that he had felt the first night on the phone, it was there, it existed and translated into the real world. He might say it transcended time; he enjoyed hyperbole and fantasy. For her part, she told him she loved how his brain painted the world in hope and surrealism.
They walked along the river, turbulent and tangled, full of dark earthly tones, full of excess nutrients flushed from the land, dairy cattle and fertilisers. The weather looked menacing, the wind moved the willows and pines, the cherry blossoms shed their weak. The path was muddied from the spring rains, walking at times became treacherous, it was amusing, missteps and slips. And it was a misstep that broke the distance, she had slid and reached for his hand. How cute they must look, he thought, her hand in his, it felt soft and thin and delicate, it was without heat, but they created their own warmth, edging ever closer together; it was spells and magnets.
The heavy clouds followed through on their threats. They hurried, sheltered under an ancient conifer, hid beneath its petticoated branches in a world just for two. Isolated from all existence by the noise and fury of rain being swallowed by the river’s flow.
They had met; the spark was there. He might have been electrocuted if his feet had still been on the ground.
But she was in a troubled place.
He kissed her under that tree on the riverbank. Her lips he discovered were the source of plums. And he held her in his arms, and he swayed and thought and smiled, sheltered from the storm. Her fingers no longer cold, explored his skin beneath layers of knitwear.
It was perfect.
The high lasted a week.
“I need your patience,” her voice through the phone line shivered. “I’ve a past I want to forget, but I’m not quite there yet. I’m not very good at making good decisions. I’ve histories of wrong men. I’ve been controlled and threatened for so long. And I don’t want to live that way.”
“You don’t have to live that way. Tell me what you need from me.”
“Time. Space to grow.”
“I can do that.”
“My son’s father, he would lock me in my room after he beat me, so the world didn’t see, but it was my fault, I fought back.”
“Charlotte, there’s no justification for it. Abuse is abuse.” He wished he could find better words, what could he say. His heart broke with her pain. He listened to her breath, noticed how they breathed in unison. Out his window the night was still, and the moon shone fantastic. “Can you see the stars from there?”
“It’s beautiful; I want to be full like the moon.” She sounded at peace, happy, like a burden had been lifted.
“I want that for you too.”
“I just need some time, there are a couple of doors I need to close.”
“I will be here waiting, if that’s what you want?”
“Is that silly?”
“No, not silly, it’s amazing.”
Her voice tightened, “Love and hate feel the same, both are overwhelming and intense. When I’m in love I don’t know what to do. I lose control.”
“There is no rush. I’ll wait for you to be full.” This was a lie. He was terrible at waiting; he didn’t know whether he could give her the space she asked for. He wanted her.
“This is new to me. Kindness. It’s nice to have someone I can talk with, and who cares about me, and is supportive, who listens. It feels right, the opposite to what I’ve known.”
Radio silence.
He had not heard from her for nine days. He had sent her messages wishing her happiness and fullness; tried to fulfil his promise of waiting. He worried she would scare. She did not respond, nine days. Doubts and alarms.
Nine days. Nine unopened correspondences, four unanswered calls. He was failing. Had he scared her away; given her the opposite of space.
The frustration and concern built within him. He cared for her so much. He was scared; he might have been in love. But he worried and doubted. What the fuck did she want from him? He wanted to trust her words. To be strong, to wait.
The broken type. Perhaps that was his type. It seemed it never worked. He was broken too.
The doubt that shouted loudest. If she cared about you, she would want to see you, want to talk to you. And he felt the heaviness and horridness of a would-be-love that was not reciprocal. He felt like an idiot, a fool, a coward, a loser. A creep who was pursuing someone who did not want to be pursued. Pursuing someone who was way out of his league anyway. And he thought about how it must be to be her, to be exposed to the clinginess and advances of someone little more than a stranger. Idiot.
It took him sixteen hours to compose his final txt; he feared that he had already pushed too hard. He thought about it from the moment he woke, until he found the right words late at night. His work had suffered that day. This would be his line in the sand; if she didn’t respond then that would be that. I’ll wait, but not unencouraged.
The world rotated again.
Nine days turned into weeks, and somehow into months.
Her absence conveyed her will, he would forget her; he owed her that. He feigned moving on.
It was ridiculous, they had only met once. Yes, there was a connection dense with gravity and magnetism. Yes, they had talked every day on the phone, and he felt it; it was real. But she had been living a different experience. He made himself available. If she had wanted him, she would have pursued. But she stopped talking to him. He didn’t want to be that knight in shining armour. He didn’t want to rescue her, he just wanted to be a positive in her life. He wanted her to heal, to be happy. Then, maybe then, he could have her.
Every day he thought about her, even when months had passed. Every day steeled himself, committed to not tracking her down, not interfering in her life, not being a negative distraction. It hurt. But he had always been stoic, or stubborn.
The taste of plums; her lips were a memory.
He had moved on with his life. When he looked at things from a distance, reflected on how hard he had fallen, how in love he had been with someone he had met only once. That feeling of being a fool and an obsessive creep faded. He had loved her, what was wrong with that? That instant love, why not? It exists, or at least he wanted to believe that it existed. And she had cared for him, he realised that. But she had to take time and space to look after herself.
She is dead now.
It had made the newspaper. That’s how he found out, the newspaper.
An apparent suicide that wasn’t.
Killed by an ex-partner, an abuser. The argument for the defence was, that there had been a disagreement and that the defendant was trying to restrain Charlotte when her hand went through the bathroom mirror. Her wrist was sliced. He’d panicked and left.
Manslaughter was the verdict.
Her six-year-old son had found her bleeding on the bathroom floor. Had called the ambulance. Had watched her die.
He cannot stomach plums anymore; their scent turns him ghostly grey. Could he have done more? He knows the truth is, her fate was far beyond his reach. But he thinks about her some days, and the river, and their petticoated tree, and the cherry blossoms surrendering their weak.
Charlotte, I am sorry that you never felt full like the moon.