OVERNIGHT IT snowed. Four inches, according to the weather reports. Dale couldn’t rake up the leaves because they were buried under a blanket of white.
I emerged from the blanket fort on my bed, puffy-eyed, somewhere between monumentally pissed off and monumentally devastated. Also, my arse was sore, and I could feel the sting every time I moved.
Wrapped in a blanket, I put on the kettle. The steam billowed from the spout and it clicked off. I made myself a cup of tea, like I had hundreds of times before. There was no good reason for it to remind me of Dale, aside from the fact I saw him everywhere in this bloody house and out the bloody window, in the garden.
I had to get out. Clear my head.
I sent a text and a few minutes later Becca replied: Sure. Come over. Bring some old clothes. We’re decorating the baby’s room.
That cheered me. I packed sweats, a T-shirt, clean underwear and my toothbrush. Outside, meanwhile, an engine sounded on my driveway. Peeking between the slats of the blind, I saw Dale pushing a snowblower.
I didn’t want to talk to him. But I supposed after the way he’d humped me and dumped me last night, he didn’t want to talk to me either. In the shower, I took particular care cleaning my arse, my dick, my neck—everywhere Dale had touched. Then double-checked the coast was clear before sneaking my car out of the garage and braving the slip and slide of the snow-covered road.
At Becca’s, Mike was busily ploughing their driveway. He motioned for me to park in the spare space in their triple garage, and from there I went into the house. Changed into my scruffy clothes and met Becca in the baby’s room.
She was rolling sticky plastic around the edge of the room up to the skirting boards, protecting the thick cream carpet. I didn’t mention what had gone on with Dale. ‘Let me do that,’ I said, as she huffed and puffed, her cheeks flushing a deep pink.
She kneeled and rested a hand on her watermelon-sized baby bump. ‘I’m not an—’ Her face contorted into a tight grimace and she hissed. ‘Invalid.’
‘What was that? Are you okay?’
She put one foot on the ground and slowly levered herself by pressing her hands on her raised knee. ‘That was a Braxton Hicks contraction. A practice. A warm up.’
‘Fuck. It looked painful.’
Breathing deeply in and out through her mouth, she massaged her belly. ‘Not so much painful as intense.’ Handed me the roll of plastic. ‘If you put that down, I’ll make us a cuppa. Mike should be finished with the drive soon, and he’ll be gasping.’
Manual work was the perfect distraction. The three of us together quickly painted the first coat in the baby’s room, a gentle, sunny shade of pale yellow. Later, we played cards and watched a movie, painted the second coat, and went to bed at a sensible hour.
Early the next morning, Becca joined me in the spare room with two cups of tea, climbing uninvited into the empty side of the double bed.
‘What the fuck, Becks?’ I grumped. ‘Why so early?’
‘I needed a wee. For about the sixth time since last night. Then I was too awake to bother going back to bed.’
‘Shouldn’t you be waking up your husband and seeing to his morning wood while you’re still child-free.’
‘Not that it’s any of your business, but Mike’s more of a night-time lover.’
I snorted, and burrowed out from under the covers.
Becca leaned into the pillows and nudged my leg with a cold foot. ‘When are you going to tell me what’s going on?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You’re upset. Don’t tell me you’re not.’
I hadn’t planned on keeping what had happened with Dale to myself indefinitely. I really needed to get everything off my chest. The delayed to the inevitable was because I didn’t want to drag down Becca’s and Mike’s hopeful, happy mood. But having slept a second night on my misery, and feeling no better about it, I told Becca everything.
‘Stupid thing is, Becks, I still miss him. I think I’m in love.’
Becca put her head on my shoulder. ‘Yeah. I think you are too. But here’s the thing, Nick. What he did wasn’t nice. It was manipulative and cruel. He knows how much you like him, and he slept with you to spite you? So as enamoured as you are, and probably not wanting to hear this, I don’t think he sounds any better than half the shitty boyfriends you’ve had before.’
She had a point.
She added, ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘It’s okay. I suppose I’d been thinking the same thing.’
That was why I’d needed to get away. To escape the safety and comfort of the house Dale had built, and the neighbourhood it sat in, that had so quickly come to feel like home.
I stayed at Becca’s the rest of Sunday, keeping her company while Mike worked. After dark, I returned home and did some work of my own. Mostly reading emails and attachments.
Dale didn’t text or call, and I was glad. I hadn’t decided whether Becca was right, and I’d been looking at him through rose-tinted glasses—it wouldn’t have been the first time—or whether the truth lay outside the bounds of my imagination and experience. I wanted to think better of Dale, but he had given me too little to go on.
Work on Monday was the usual blah, blah, blah. Patrick stopped by to tell me my slides had been well received (hallelujah) which meant that, as well as more empty praise, in future I would probably get lumbered every time Patrick needed something snazzy for a presentation. Whether or not it was my job.
I left the office early, with plans to take a nap and head downtown for the evening. See if I could find someone, anyone, who might find me desirable enough for a quick blowjob. Obviously, brooding over Dale the whole while. Wishing I had the balls to give him what for.
Then as I was driving along Frank Street, almost home, in the moment just before I turned into my driveway, I saw Dale’s pickup right behind me in my rear-view mirror. We each parked level with the footpaths that led to our respective front doors. Side by side. Separated only by our snow-covered front lawns.
I exited my car with aching slowness, buying myself some extra seconds for I didn’t know what. I supposed part of me hoped Dale would rush over and make a heartfelt declaration. But even as I lingered over retrieving my briefcase from the passenger seat, Dale remained stock still in his driver seat. Engine off, eyes front, hands on steering wheel. Ignoring me. Probably hoping that if he waited long enough I would buzz off, like some irritating little fly.
Something inside me snapped. Flipped me over like a tossed coin.
I had to do something. I was going to do something. Probably stupid. Probably regrettable.
Stomping up the gritted steps to my front door, I dumped my briefcase on the mat, and then stomped right back down the stairs again to the edge of my driveway. Heart pounding in my chest. Breaths in fast cloud-like puffs in the freezing air. Only a matter of seconds, that felt as huge and immutable as a frozen mountain, I stood and stood. Didn’t budge. Clenched my fists inside my leather driving gloves, as the bitter cold seeped in over my coat collar, and numbed my cheeks and lips.
At long last, Dale got out of his vehicle. With the force of his footballers throw, he slammed the door closed and turned to face me. His snow jacket was undone, and underneath he wore a shirt, a tie and a jumper. He’d just returned from work, like me.
Dale’s eyes narrowed. I couldn’t discern the emotion that hid behind them. For a fleeting moment, the part of me that had been his mate, his friend, wondered if his day had been shit. If his stoop meant he was as miserable as me. But a bigger, angrier part of me railed.
We were duellers at dawn. This was the end. I’d have my retaliation if it killed me.
I’d scooped a big lump of snow from the ploughed ridge piled at the edge of the driveway before I realised what would inevitably follow. Packed hard and tight, I lobbed the snowball at Dale.
It landed in the middle of his front yard with a silent thud, barely disturbing the ground—fallen short by about six feet. Well I wasn’t a fucking footballer, was I?
So I piled another mound of snow in my hand, well aware Dale was watching, absolutely motionless. Giving nothing away, as fucking usual. I looked him in the eye, took aim and threw again.
He didn’t flinch. The snowball had landed short once more, and he damned well knew it would.
Then the bloody git put down his rucksack on the bonnet of his pickup and stepped over the ploughed snow at the edge of his drive, onto the snow-covered lawn. Held out his arms and calmly said, ‘Try again.’
Icy rage ripped through my veins. I was livid. But not so blindingly that I couldn’t see the tautness in his shoulders or the way his nostrils flared. Tiny movements like ripples on the surface of an impenetrably deep, dark pool.
Let him mock. I didn’t care. He was nothing to me.
I packed the snow harder, thinking about how he’d barged into my house. Kissed me. Taken me to bed and made me feel loved, and then walked out like I was a piece of garbage. That’s right. Fucking garbage. I’d spent so much time with Dale I’d started to talk like him.
With that piercing, agonising thought, I threw the snowball as hard as I could.
And hit him square in the face.
He wasn’t expecting it, I could tell that much. A horrible sick feeling replaced my anger. Like that was it. Dale was going to run across the two yards and bury me.
Except he didn’t. He brushed the snow from his face and turned around. I thought he would walk away but the bastard bent down and with his big bastard hands made a snowball the size of a fucking cantaloupe melon. Then he lobbed it straight at me.
I made the mistake of thinking I could duck out of shot. Only he’d anticipated the move and aimed low. Bitter cold, sharp as knives, the snowball struck me on the back of the neck.
‘Right. That’s it.’ I marched across the gardens to maybe eight feet from Dale, cupped my hands in the shape of a shovel, and launched handful after handful of snow at Dale’s legs and torso.
‘What the hell are you doing?’
I kept on, shovelling and hurling with my hands, as if my paltry efforts would bury him under snow and ire. ‘You think I’m immature? Take a look in the mirror, Dale. You come into my house. You…’ Breathlessly, I wheezed, ‘I’m not going to say it in the street. You know what you did. Then you leave? You think you can school me like some fucking meaningless high schooler? Like I don’t have feelings? For you.’
By this time I’d closed in on him, just a few feet away. Shivering and choking.
Dale’s beard was full of snow, yet he didn’t brush it off. All he did was stand there, looking at me slightly dazed, as if I was a hysterical nutter.
My voice came out high and shrill. ‘You’re a wanker.’
‘A what?’
‘A wanker.’
He frowned.
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake. A knobhead. A bastard. A shitting cunt.’
Then he winced. ‘I get the picture.’
‘No. You don’t. I’ve had it up to here with men like you.’ I gestured wildly and sprayed myself with ice-cold flecks of melting snow. Dale reached out to touch me. ‘Don’t. Leave me alone. Go back to spending the rest of your pathetic life waiting for your perfect American passport holder. I’m done with you.’
Then, as the grand finale in the last stand for my dignity, I spun away. At which point my foot clipped the snow-buried edge of the lawn and sent me tumbling over, flat on my face.
Dale lifted me to my feet, held me in his arms before I could exhale the frozen breath stuck in my chest.
‘Don’t touch me!’ The last of my anger found its vent in a determined and vicious push.
Dale stumbled backwards and landed on his arse. The utter surprise on his face would have been hilarious if I hadn’t started to cry.
‘Nick. I’m sorry.’ Dale scrambled to his feet, held out his hands, approached me an inch at a time. ‘You’re frozen. Please, let me take you inside.’
‘I don’t need…’ A gasp. ‘Anything…’ A sob. ‘From you.’
My self-respect in tatters, I stumbled up the veranda steps of what had for a short time been my safe-haven. My home.
I closed my front door. Saw Dale retreat across the front gardens, away, away, away. I didn’t know what else I’d expected. We were over before we’d begun. And now, on top of everything, I’d made a complete tit of myself and into the bargain ruined a perfectly decent pair of brown leather shoes.
Stripping off my gloves, coat, shoes and wet socks by the front door, I shivered uncontrollably. Collapsed in a heap on the sofa. Buried my face in the cushions and locked my hands over my head.
There was nothing for it. I would have to move house. Somehow, I would have to find a way to wheedle out of my lease. Because I couldn’t live here another day.