My friends are avoiding me, I can tell.
When I see them, they look away. They
don't want to catch my eye, and see the pain, and wonder if they could have said
something, or done something to prevent it. At the moment all I am is a source
of guilt to them.
No-one told me about her, the way she lied
No-one told me about her, how many people cried
Well it's too late to say you're sorry
How would I know, why should I care?
Please don't bother trying to find her
She's not there.
Rosie made the effort, last night. She's a great kid Rosie. She came round,
and cleared up the apartment, then she cooked me a meal and sat beside me and
held my hand while I talked, and talked and talked, and then when I cried, she
hugged me. She even had the guts to look straight at me when I said "Why
didn't you warn me?" and say, "I tried Dave. We all tried. You just
wouldn't listen."
She may be right, but even so the rest of them are avoiding me.
It all began a couple of months after I moved here. I'd come for
work, and I'd fitted in really well. I was working in a small team of coders,
all about my own age. There was Bob and Jill who'd been together since high
school, and Mark, Rick, Don and Rosie. Though most of them had grown up around
the town and gone to school locally, they welcomed me into their group with open
arms and, to begin with, we did everything together. They showed me the cheapest
place to buy pizza, the best bars, and Rosie even helped me find a better
apartment, on the top floor of her cousin Tony's place. Everything was sweet.
I
guessed that Rosie would like to be more than a friend, but she didn't push it
when it was clear I wasn't interested. As I said, she's a great kid, but she's
not my type in any way - she sort of reminds me of Velma from Scooby Doo; you
know what I mean, little, dark, glasses, sensible, clever. Everyone's
favourite sister. Maybe the fact that I knew she liked me stopped me taking her
seriously when she warned me about Celeste, who knows?
But I'm getting away from
the story.
I'd been due to go out with the guys that evening, but my car broke
down. I called up Bob and asked him to make my apologies, and I decided I'd just
take an evening on my own and go to the bar down the street.
I was at the counter with a beer, just looking round the place and trying to decide whether I liked
it, when I saw her. She was sitting alone at a corner table, and she seemed lost
in her own world. I mean really, it was like the bar in the people in it didn't
exist for her. Expressions crossed her face, as if she was having some kind of
internal dialogue. Once I saw her, I just couldn't take my eyes off her. She
seemed so different, so alien. So I watched her. She looked at her watch. Her
fingers traced patterns on the table in front of her. She took a drink then
picked up her mobile phone from the table, checking for signal or battery, or
something, then put it down again.
Then she turned and looked full into my
staring eyes. And she looked, and looked.
Nobody told me about her, what could I do?
No-one told me about her, though they all knew
Well it's too late to say you're sorry
How would I know, why should I care?
Please don't bother trying to find her
She's not there.
She wasn't beautiful. Not in the traditional sense. Her
nose had a bump in it. Her mouth was too wide, her lips too full. Seen from the
front I could see the long dark hair that fell to the small of her back was
pulled back starkly from her face, giving her a severe look. I guess you could
call her striking, but not beautiful.
But my God, those eyes.
She seemed, with one look, to know me completely. Not only who I was, but who I had been, and who
I could be in the future. It was like she was reading every memory, every fantasy,
every dream and hope I ever had. I couldn't break away from her gaze.
Her eyes still locked on mine she rose from her seat, and walked straight to me.
"I'm Celeste." she said.
"D..Dave," I managed to stutter,
feeling both guilty and foolish.
A small smile drifted across her face. "Well Dave, it looks like I've been stood up, which is a pity, because I
don't want to be alone tonight. What about you? Would you like to be not-alone
with me?"
"Sure." I smiled, "Here, let me buy you a drink." I felt more confident now, after all, I'm not a bad
looking guy, girls have come on to me before. But then she took my breath away.
"No, it's not a drink I'm looking for. I want arms around me, kisses, a
bed, and a body beside me in it. I. Don't. Want. To be. Alone." Her voice
was strained, and intense, and the intensity was mirrored in those
omniscient eyes.
Well, what would you have done? I took her home.
Well let me tell you
'bout the way she looked,
The way she acted,
The colour of her hair.
It was an incredible night. She was incredible. Her kisses burned, not like fire,
but like hot wax that keeps on heating the flesh after the candle has moved on.
Every movement she made was spare, and graceful and calculated, like a dancer
who knows exactly where to place every part of her body for maximum effect. She
smelled like pinewoods, sharp and fresh, and she tasted like mead - honey but
with intoxicating properties.
She went to my head.
I left her curled up in my
bed when I went to work. The dark, dark hair was spread out around her head, her
head resting on an arm, and the half light showed how creamy pale her naked
skin was. As I slipped out from between the sheets she
murmured a little, as if she didn't want me to go, but she drifted back into
sleep.
I felt about 10 feet tall, and completely invincible as I walked to work.
Of course, I told the guys all about it, when the girls weren't there. They
grinned, and told me how lucky I was, then Don asked the name of this amazing woman.
"Celeste." I replied, a smile all over my face. A look darted
between them. "Celeste Everton?" Mark asked, guardedly.
"Yes, do you know her?"
He nodded, looked at the others, then back at
me. "Yeah, I know her. Look, Dave, man, go carefully, okay?"
I looked
at him questioningly.
"Celeste has a reputation as a … well… she's hurt a
lot of people."
I continued to look, waiting for him to go on, but he and
the others just looked uncomfortable. Then I laughed. "Hey, I'm sleeping with
her, not marrying her, guys. I'll be fine."
They seemed relieved and the conversation moved on.
Rosie, however, wasn't so easy to shake. "She's poison
Dave," she said. "She gets under people's skin and then leaves them
high and dry. One of my best friends from school tried to kill himself when she
left him. Get out now. Please."
I looked at her with dislike. "You're
just jealous," I said coldly.
It was obvious she was hurt, but I was angry. Here I was, finding my
feet, with somebody outside the group and my friends just didn't seem to be
happy for me. Okay, maybe Rosie had a reason, I thought, but she'd have to
adjust.
Outside work though, things were fine.
Celeste was everything I'd found on the first night and more. She was bright and
fascinating and funny -- and she was sexy as hell. Every night together
was an adventure, a voyage of discovery, and I was learning as much about me
as I was about her.
Inevitably, I drifted away from the guys at work as I became more and more
absorbed in her. The regular evenings out became rare, and then stopped altogether,
although we still got along as well as we ever had inside work. But my nights
belonged to Celeste. I couldn't bear not to see her, even for 24 hours. I was as addicted to her as any junkie to his fix. I suggested once or
twice that she come out with them. She just said flatly "They don't like
me. They never have." So that was that. Rosie called me, every so often,
but the connection and the closeness of the group was gone.
I didn't even notice when Celeste moved in. It was a gradual encroachment.
Every day more of her stuff was in my place, and one day she just didn't go
home at all. But it seemed natural and right, that she should want to be with
me all the time, the way I wanted to be with her. I never thought to charge
her rent, of course. She gave me so much, made me feel so good...
Her voice was soft and cool
Her eyes were clear and bright
Sometimes, very rarely, she would talk about her desires for
the future, how much she longed to travel and see the world. Those wonderful
blue-green eyes would light up with enthusiasm, and her voice would become
wistful as she talked about India, China, Europe. But it wasn't so much that
she wanted to go there, it seemed, as to get away from here, to
something completely different.
Then she'd laugh it off. "Just a dream." she would
say.
I tried, several times to tell her I loved her, but she would
put a finger to my lips and say "Don't tell me, show me."
So I did, over and over and over again. She never once told me she loved me
either, I'll give her that.
She never said goodbye, either.
She's not there.
Last week, I came home, and she was gone. There was no sign
that she had ever been there. Her things were gone, clothes from the
closet, perfume and make up from the bathroom, cup from the kitchen. The
place was clean and sterile... and empty. Even her scent had been drowned in
the smell of disinfectant and air-freshener.
Tony said he saw her catch a cab, about an hour before I got
back. "An airport car" he said.
She didn't even leave a note.
They said they were sorry, at work, but as I say, they're
avoiding me. I can't blame them, I'm a wreck. I don't smile, I don't laugh,
my work is a mess, and most of all, I don't want to go home. All I see when I
get home is the emptiness. All I see is that she's not there.
Well it's too late to say you're sorry
How would I know, why should I care?
Please don't bother trying to find her
She's not there.