Ten - Derek

I chase you, calling your name, but you aren’t there. I check every room in the house, even peek my head into the attic, but you aren’t there either. Sandy is at my heel the whole time, maybe thinking I’m giving her a tour of the house, but I trip over her, and she yowls and runs down the stairs.

I ignore her. I stand at our bedroom door like a nervous little boy, wish-fulfillment going into overdrive. I speak your name, but more a statement than a fact. Are you waiting for me, like the punchline to a sick, year-long joke?

You aren’t. The bedroom is as empty as I’d left it. The mattress is where it always is, on our unmade bed. It needs clean sheets. I can’t remember the last time I slept here, aways dropping off on the sofa to the gurgle of the television. The whole room’s getting musty, messy, unlived-in. I open a window, wondering why you were throwing our mattress out.

But I am breathless, confused, thinking I’m going mad. How can there be another you? Different, smaller, you look defeated and alone. You wanted to cry when you saw me, but not from anger or disappointment. More like depression, or loss.

But you’re not here now. Why did I wait so long before I followed you? How can this be possible? Why two of you?

I tramp down the stairs in defeat. I grab a can from the fridge and slump on the sofa, turn on the TV for some background noise. Sandy looks at me with dolefull, accusing eyes. She climbs up on the sofa - never allowed in your day - and gets comfortable with her head on my leg.

Alcohol calculations are never to be trusted, but I muse anyway. Two of you, different but the same.

Julia-one. Pissed-off-you, the man-hating bag of expletives and backstabbing venom. I don’t think I love you any more, but that isn’t true past the moment I think it. Yes, you hate me, and you’ll tell everyone my latest trick, how I went to your house and stole your dog. They’ll all laugh and roll their eyes. He’s really lost the plot now, they’ll say. Then Julia-one would say something like ‘I wish he would just hurry up and drink himself to death,’ and everyone will laugh nervously, wondering if you really mean it.

That little imagining reminds me of the first thing I ever killed, a worm, as a child. I crushed it with a rock, and then cried when I realised what I’d done. Mopped about all day, until dad took me on his knee and explained to me about anger and regret. I feel that way about you, because I killed something precious and beautiful, and I’m sorry, but nothing I do can bring it back.

But then there’s Julia-two, a life-saver to clutch to. You, but how I remember you. You’ve not changed, not developed that line on your lip from sneering so much. You I want to hold and adore, tell you my dreams and never, ever hurt you again.

I drink another beer, settle down to watch an action movie. I’ve seen it before, but a famous actress gets her tits out in it, and I bring in the rest of the beer during the break. Sandy moves over, lies beside me. I think about you - both of you - and just how there could be two, so different, so close and so distant. I fall asleep as the snooker comes on, wondering if you’re just my imagination or I have a brain embolism of something.