The Things We Promise by J.C. Burke

Author:J.C. Burke [Burke, J.C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Published: 2017-01-18T23:00:00+00:00

The next morning the lime mobile didn’t appear from around a corner. It was parked outside my place and sitting in the driver’s seat, all alone, was Ralph.

My first thought was: Do I pretend I haven’t seen him? Do I just keep walking and see what he does? But Ralph was out of the car, the top half of him leaning over the roof and waving me down with both arms.

Don’t laugh, I ordered myself, because he looked pretty funny.

‘Do you want a lift?’ he called.

‘What are you doing here?’ I answered with a question because I was terrified that a simple yes or no would be the end of the conversation.

Ralph opened the passenger door. This morning his hair was damp and when I got up closer I could smell apple shampoo. His fingers raked the wet strands off his face and close up I could see how beautiful he was.

‘Please?’ he murmured. ‘Can you get in, Gemma? I’m starting to feel like a stalker.’

I didn’t answer.

‘And I’m not just being nice to you because Vanessa told me to.’

I climbed into the front seat and waited for him to close the door. If I closed the door, it’d feel like I was jumping at his offer and although I wasn’t altogether devastated that he was waiting outside my place, I didn’t want to seem overenthusiastic or desperate.

Ralph didn’t start the ignition. We didn’t drive away. Instead, we sat there like we were boyfriend and girlfriend about to break up. But the problem was we weren’t. We were Ralph and Gemma who’d had one proper conversation in our lives and even that hadn’t gone well.

But I would be lying through my teeth if I said that there wasn’t some feeling in the car that morning. I just wasn’t sure what the feeling was. I couldn’t name it. However, I could say that, for me, it was suddenly like I’d known Ralph all my life. Like we were that couple who’d just had a fight and were now sitting in the broody air.

How could something feel so comfortable yet so uncomfortable at the same time? Ralph must’ve felt something too because why else was he here? Why did he keep turning up in his car? Stop thinking, I told myself, terrified that I might have a Tourette’s outbreak and accidently say it all out loud.

‘I’m sorry about what happened last week,’ Ralph started. ‘I feel like what I said came out all wrong.’

‘It was pretty harsh,’ I answered.

‘Yeah. I get that it could’ve sounded like that.’

‘Could’ve?’

‘I mean, did sound like that,’ he admitted. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Are you okay?’

‘Am I okay about what exactly?’

‘About your brother being …’ he hesitated, ‘being sick.’

‘Having AIDS, you mean?’ Now I was being harsh. ‘It feels like shit. It feels like everything’s different. Like my whole world’s changed in a month. It didn’t even feel like this when my dad left. When he left everything was better at home. There’s no bonus with this one. Just a whole lot of nasty surprises waiting behind the couch.

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