A Necessary Absence

Dark Memoirs - Index

It feels like the right time to talk about the one who got away.

That lover from high school you thought you’d grow old with, the white-picket-fence life already imagined. A fumbled fuck behind the bike shed, bright-eyed and convinced it would become the romance of the century. Romeo and Juliet, without the feuding families or the suicide.

That girl you went on a few dates with. Tongued in Nando’s, then never followed up. Never called again.

I had a girl.

She was perfect. Tall but not overtowering. Strong but not overpowering. Blonde, with red streaks against pale skin, freckles, green eyes.

I met her when I worked as a dishboy in the local curry house. She was a waitress.

Even then, I understood I was meant for greatness.

We had differing opinions.

Things changed the night I stepped out for a smoke and saw her boyfriend strike her before walking away, leaving her crying.

After that, we became fast friends—and more. She still had her hang-ups. Him.

Hugo became a problem.

He was self-important and assumed I shared his views. We went camping, he said, to get in touch with our ancestors.

I disappeared, as far as he was concerned. He woke from a drugged stupor to find his hands bound, the tent gone.

I returned from that trip unchanged. He didn’t return at all.

Sally McLeish was heartbroken. That confused me.

She mourned him. We later heard his body was found stripped and decaying.

I reminded her of what he’d done, of how she was better off without him.

I stayed up.

…

I remembered reading On the Murder of Eratosthenes by the orator Lysias. According to the speech, an Athenian man named Euphiletos defended himself against a murder charge on the basis that he killed Eratosthenes after finding him in bed with his wife.

Had I not plans beyond such basal sentiment, I would have been appalled that I had killed someone for such ridiculous, melodramatic reasons.