Days passed, weeks passed, time moved on. The only thing that didn’t was Helena. She had commandeered her parents’ spare room again and refused to move. She ate nothing, drank very little and talked to no one. Jim’s hateful words ran through her mind on a minute-by-minute basis, crippling her on every level. She couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe without severe pain coursing through her body. Every part of her that loved Jim had shut down and would never be rebooted, and that meant every part of her was shut down. She was nothing but an empty shell. Whoever Helena was, had died the moment Jim had rejected her and called her a slut. He had been hateful, vicious, so unloving, so un-Jim. It made no sense, and yet maybe it made perfect sense. He had never loved her, he only resented her, used her then discarded her for another, someone better, someone who wasn’t a slut. The hurt didn’t just come from his words, it came from the fact that he believed those lies about her, that he could believe she was like that, that maybe he’d never known her at all. All the memories of her and Jim became tainted as if they had been dipped in used motor oil. All the fun was fake, all the love pretended. Even when they had made love, had he been thinking she was a slut then? All his smiles were lies, all his kindness an act. It shook her reality to the core and left her with nothing.
So why the paintings, she pondered, why do that? She couldn’t solve that riddle and gave up trying. She didn’t want to know, she never wanted to speak to him again.
“Hey, how you doing?” her father asked, standing in the doorway. Her eyes shifted to him in acknowledgement then flicked away. “I need a hand down at the garage this arvo…” He trailed off as she shook her head. Words were still too painful.
He let himself in, then sat at the end of the foldout bed exactly where Jim had sat. She recoiled away from him. “Come on, love, at least talk about it. You’ve got your mother worried sick.”
She cleared her throat and said in a strangled voice, “Too bad.”
He smiled at that, “And you’ve got me worried too. I’m guessing something happened in Bali.”
She nodded hoping that would be sufficient.
“And I’m guessing that something involves you and Jim.” Again she nodded, slower this time.
“I guess that because last time he was here, looking for you, fretting, and this time, he’s nowhere to be seen. Did you two have a falling out?” That was an understatement. Falling out, more like nuclear fallout.
She spoke slowly. “He doesn’t love me,” she managed without crying.
“What?” Her father laughed. “Jim Murphy not love you?” He chuckled again.
“It’s not funny,” she growled.
“Sorry Helena, but I would sooner place a bet that the sun won’t rise tomorrow than I would that Jim doesn’t love you. That boy has been in love with you since, well, forever. We just guessed you two would sort it out one day.”
“You’d lose that bet,” she said darkly.
“Three.” He held up three greasy fingers.
“Three what?”
“Three times he told me he loved you. Once when he was young, maybe about eight or nine, he asked my permission to marry you. I told him he might have to wait until you two were older and he said that was fine, he just wanted to get in first before anyone else asked me.”
She got a flood of hope at that story. It was just like Jim to say that, but then he’d grown up into someone who was cruel. Maybe she had done it to him?
“The second time he told me he loved you was when he was a bit older almost a teenager. You two had had one of your spats because you’d wasted some of his paints or something ridiculous, and when I asked if he would forgive you, he said he didn’t have a choice; he loved you too damn much.”
Helena smiled despite herself. This wasn’t helping. Her heart began to warm at the thought and she was finding it hard to remember his hurtful words. “And the third?” she asked holding her breath in anticipation.
He smiled, “It was just a few years ago, when you moved in together and I got talking about you, we were joking about your long showers and bad taste in music-”
“Bad taste?” she interrupted, “Sorry, go on.”
“I asked him if you two were ever going to get it together, and he said there was no way. And I jokingly said what’s wrong with my daughter? And he just said sometimes you can love someone too much.” He held up three fingers again and added, “I rest my case.”
“How can you love someone too much?”
He shrugged, “Most people hold back; they try to protect themselves. But I guess if you love someone too much, it can be a bit crazy. You leave yourself too open. Is that what’s happened with you two?”
Helena shook her head not wanting to recount any of the details of her last few days with Jim. Her mind cleared momentarily as a thought occurred to her. “What did you mean, Dad, about protecting yourself? If you loved someone, why would you need to protect yourself?”
The memory of walking with Jim on the beach in Bali ran through her mind. He had told Helena he was protecting her from himself. What had he meant?
Her Dad pondered her question before venturing an answer, “From breaking, I guess.”
Okay, so if he loved her too much and wanted to protect her, even from himself, why would he hurt her, cause her pain, push her away. It made no sense. “He told me he had to protect me from him. Why would he do that? If he loved me, why would he hurt me, push me away? How could he protect me by hurting me?”
Her father shrugged his shoulders and shook his head, “Beats me. Guys can be pretty insecure, just look at your brothers.”
She was missing something, something important. He had said he knew her too well, that he couldn’t tell her because she mattered too much to him. She was the only good thing in his world. She, Helena, mattered most to him and if Jim had to use every last ounce of energy to protect her, even if it meant he had to push her away, say hurtful, unforgivable things, he would do it to protect her. He was stubborn enough and, oddly, loving enough, to do it. But why?
“Do you want some soup?” her dad asked, breaking her train of thought. “We don’t need you getting sick.”
“No thanks. I never caught Jim’s flu and… I… Oh, shit.” She stared up at her father, her eyes wide as the final piece of the puzzle slotted into place.