Growing Pains

It was a Tuesday when I first noticed the creaking. 

I know it was a Tuesday because my therapist was leading me down the narrow hallway to her room, the clock on the wall displaying 11:03 – unsurprising, as she was never quite ready for me at 11. My thoughts during the walk, normally full of dread, quickly became fixated on a persistent creaking in my ribcage. Despite the sound of it seeming deafening to me, my therapist continued along as normal. As if the shifting and moving and groaning of my bones was not something she was paid enough to worry about. We continued along our well-practiced routine of her asking me what I’d noticed in the past week. Had my chest been filled with bubbling anxiety or dense dread? Had it been hard to get out of bed in the morning or had sleep not come at all? We wound our way down the path of family, friends, careers, with me dodging all the important questions. The creaking in my bones becoming a steady feeling emulating through my body.

And then she asked about you. The creaking got stronger. 

You with your bleached blonde hair that you insist has many more good years until it starts falling out, and battered skateboard that has scraped more cities’ sidewalks than the sun. So, with a hand gripped around my side in an attempt to ease whatever aching my bones were going through, I mentioned your name. Talking about you felt treacherous, like if I spoke your name into existence too many times you would begin to fade away with each syllable. I explained to her how we met by chance, and how the country I call home was just another pit stop on your world tour before you made it back to the country you called home 14,000 kilometres away from me. I explained how our time together was short, and our separation was inevitable. How I remember you in fleeting moments.

And then suddenly I’m back in your sundrenched kitchen, watching your front teeth pierce the skin of a plum. My eyes following the juice drip off your chin and wind its way down your fingers. All while the juice from my own plum slid down my wrist, too focused on you to catch it before it made its sticky descent down my body. 

I’m back in your bedroom the first time I spent the night. The first time I slept in your bed I did so with the same childhood excitement of having a sleepover and staying up past your bedtime. There was no frantic touching, no frenzied lust – just the soft feel of your fingertips traipsing up my spine and the seclusion of us from the rest of the world outside. Instead of hollow kisses and clunky intimacy, your body felt like an open invitation and all I’d wanted to do was wrap myself around you and try with all my might to absorb you by osmosis. Maybe then I’d be able to keep you. 

I’m at the airport and you’re looking down at your boarding pass and passport with a frown, trying to organise yourself before flying halfway around the world. Off to somewhere new to make new memories with new people I will never meet. The last time I touched you, I thought of David Foster Wallace when he said, ‘everything I’ve ever let go of has claw marks in it,’ and vowed to let you go gently and without wounds. To close the door and walk away, and not burst back through, spewing confessions of love with the intention to get you to stay. 

Because I don’t love you. But I could. I could in another life, in another time where the clock isn’t a constant tick in my ear and we both don’t have so many things to do. Instead, all I’m left with is infinite promises of what we could’ve been; an endless stream of what ifs and I find myself sick to my stomach with nostalgia for a reality that we could’ve existed in. A reality in which you decide the Frankston train line has a certain charm about it you just couldn’t live without, and you couldn’t imagine starting your days without an overpriced oat latte made by a girl with an ever-growing collection of tattoos. 

Twelve days after I dropped you off at the airport, I found myself sitting on the black and white tiled floor of the ensuite bathroom at my friend’s house. I had stumbled through the fog of her twenty-first birthday party, weaving my way through discarded bottles and semi-conscious adults to find myself the small oasis. The alcohol in my blood had tipped me over to the teary side of emotional, and every time I thought of you another bone joined in the creaking that was now just a consistent symphony playing at all times. 

The men that I’d welcomed into my arms since you’d left played in a slideshow in my head. Each one worse than the last. Despite the loveliness in which they’d touched me, the lack of you in each one had made them almost unbearable. The first one’s moustache scratched my face in a way yours never did, the next one’s voice was sharp and reverberated around my skull. Nothing like yours, which was reminiscent of moonlight on water and flowed across my skin. None of them found Melbourne’s bipolar weather quite as charming as you did, and not one of them made me feel as giddy at the idea of discovering the secrets of my own city. 

The chill from the bathroom floor was just starting to make its way through my spine when a friend found me. He stumbled into the room, a pouch of tobacco clutched in one fist and a half-eaten peach shoved between his teeth. He took one look at me and sank down next to me with a sigh.

‘How are you doing, soldier?’ The bones in my right shoulder groan in response.

‘Love hurts.’ I say, my voice carrying the tone of a petulant child that’s just been told the Tooth Fairy hasn’t been the one collecting their teeth. He assesses me for a beat before his voice sounds again. 

‘But it’s so worth it.’ He confirms, ‘the hurting never ends, and yet you do it again and again. Kind of feels like madness sometimes, but I can’t imagine not loving.”’ There’s a pause for a moment and I find myself holding my breath, ’I mean, that’s what life is, right?’ He sighs again, getting a distant look in his eyes that tells me his bones might be creaking in just the same way mine were. Silence crept into the space, neither one of us elaborating on the aching circulating through our chests. I look at him under the fluorescent lighting and take note of just how blonde his hair is, something I’d failed to notice until this moment. I think of his skateboard tucked away on my friend’s porch ready for him to make his departure on. Suddenly the air is charged and I’m evaluating at what distance will be the best for me to shut my eyes and pretend the fragmented version of you in front of me will suffice. The creaking in my bones starts to lessen as our bodies drift closer together. 

Then he brings the peach back up to his mouth. 

His teeth nip at the skin hesitantly and when he takes a bite there’s no trail of juice, no sticky mess left on his skin. My ears begin to ring, as the creaking comes back in full force.   

My friend gets up off the floor, gives me a small smile and makes his way back out to the party, the beginnings of a cigarette rolling between his fingertips. I think of you, and the aching in my bones that gets worse every time I think of you, and the feeling that nothing will ever be okay again now that you’ve gone. And I think of the youthful urge to live my twenties that kept me from following you around the globe and setting up a home for myself in the space between your ribs. I think of the solace I feel in the knowledge that you were a plot line in the story that will eventually become my life, and the idea that maybe you’re out there too – sifting through bodies in the dark, trying to find me in the crowd. 

The creaking never eases, but I hope that it aches in time with yours.