A Beautiful Struggle (5 page)

Focus Katrina, you’re an athlete, and
he’s a guy you can’t have and you don’t want – stop being ridiculous!
I felt angry with myself that every time I saw Elliot, I would start
imagining him naked… and on top of me… underneath me…
stop it!

“So why are you running? Do you just like
it or are you in training for something?”

“Huh?... oh, I do triathlons,” I told him
quickly, hoping he wasn’t reading my thoughts.

“Ah, explains why you’ve got such a good
pace.”

“Oh yeah? Thought you’d have to slow down
running with a girl huh?”

“I did actually. So you any good at triathlons?”

“I’m decent. I do sprint distance, and I’ve
been in under 19s until now, so I have never really had to race against the big
guns of the sport. But I have a hefty stash of medals hanging up at home. Did
you ever do any sport or do you just work out for fun?”

“I used to do kayaking in my late teens and
early twenties. I was ok at it. I wish I had have been good enough to compete
at worlds or even the Olympics, but I barely made it to nationals. So what
about you? Will you be trying out next Olympics? You’d still be young enough,
wouldn’t you?”

“If that’s your way of fishing for my age,
I’m 20,” I smiled, giving him a sidelong glance, “and as far as the Olympics go
- it depends on if I’m still competing; It’d be pretty awesome to make it
though.”

“I know wouldn’t it? Nationals were amazing
so the Olympics would be off the charts compared.”

“And you’d have every sport from so many
different countries all in together. Imagine the after party!”

“Ah, the after party – they’re the best
part!”

“They are,” I agreed. We continued to run
and chat, until my timer went off. Turns out, Elliot is a really nice guy, and
if I could just get past visualising him naked all the time – we could actually
be friends.

“What’s that for?”

“It’s to tell me to turn around so I can
get back in time,” I answered stopping but jogging on the spot. He did the same
and looked at his own watch frowning.

“There’s still almost half an hour until
the end of lunch, another five minutes, and we will loop around,” he told me
moving his arm in an arching motion to demonstrate, causing his muscles to flex
and my mouth to go dry.

“I want to have a shower and what not. It's
fine for you to rush back and rinse off - you don’t need to put your make up
back on,” I called out as I started to run away from him.

“Neither do you. You'd still look great
without it,” he called out after me.

I laughed, “That’s not helping,” I called
back.

Elliot stopped running on the spot and held
his arms out to the side. “Helping what?”

Helping me not visualise you naked!
“Good bye Evan,” I called over my shoulder, before running back to
the office, leaving him to finish the circuit on his own.

***

I walked the last stretch along Phillip St
leading to my office for a cool down and did a quick stretch before going
inside to ride the elevator back up to my floor. There were maybe 15 people
waiting for the next one to arrive, and I wasn’t very excited when I saw that
Bianca was one of them. She of course noticed me straight away.

“Oh, it’s you. I thought you were a man!
What
are
you wearing?” she sneared, looking at my running gear like it
was covered in cockroaches.

I took up the challenge and looked at her,
slowly sliding my eyes over her clothing and down to her shoes with an
unimpressed look on my face.

She rolled her eyes and huffed out some
air. “Why don’t you use the gym upstairs like everyone else so we don’t have to
look at you like that?”

“I’ll tell you what Bianca,” I levelled
with her, already tired of her horrible attitude towards me. “Why don’t you go
and fuck yourself?”

Her mouth fell open, and I could hear some
muffled snickers from the people waiting around us. She narrowed her eyes and
was perhaps going to say something in retort, but the chime signalling the
arrival of the elevator cab pinged causing a surge forward of the people
waiting around us.

We both joined them in the cab in opposite
corners and when the doors opened she was quick to storm out in front of me. I
pretended not to notice and made my way to the bathrooms to shower and change
before my lunch break was over.

The glory of watching her mouth fall open
faded quickly, and I regretted my outburst and wished I could learn to keep my
mouth shut. As satisfying as telling her where to go was, it wasn’t something I
should be doing in a work environment.

“Hi Mrs Mahoney,” David called as he
sauntered into the kitchen where I was standing talking to my mother. I was
drinking a glass of water, and she was busy cooking the pasta to go with the
cabonara sauce she had prepared for dinner. He walked over and kissed her on
the cheek and then leaned over and did the same to me.

He stood next to me and leaned up against
the kitchen bench, stealing a piece of garlic bread. “So what are we talking
about?” he wanted to know.

“Hello David, I was just about to tell
Katrina that I played tennis today,” my mother informed us.

“You did? That’s great! Are you going to
keep going?” I asked in response, pleased that she was getting out of the
house. She used to play tennis when my brother and I were young; I remembered
having a great time hanging out with all the other kids while the mothers
played and chatted, but she gave up due to wrist problems, became a home body
and never went back to it.

“I will, I think. I’m not sure yet. I will
see how my wrist feels tomorrow… Although I did meet the mother of someone you
might know from work.”

“Really? What a small world – although, I’m
not sure if I’ll know them, I haven’t even met everyone yet.”

“Well, her name is Kathy Roberts, and her
son's name is Elliot - she said he was a junior solicitor there.”

I took a steady sip to try and mask my
surprise at hearing her say Elliot’s name. David looked at me, recognising the
name also, and I shot him a warning glance. I had to think carefully about how
I responded as my mother had always had a tendency to see relationship
potential where there wasn’t any, she’d never really gotten off my back about
how much time I spent with David.

She picked up a colander and set it inside
the sink, pausing to look at me, “Do you know him?”

Placing my glass on the bench, I said, “I
think so, I met one person called Elliot on my office tour. I’m not sure what
he does though.”

Happy with my answer, she collected the pot
and started to pour the pasta into the colander to strain it. “His mother is
very nice. She invited me to a lunch with all the tennis girls next weekend – I
think I might go.”

“That sounds like a lot of fun Mrs M!”
David told her. “Would you like me to take the bread and bowls to the table?”

“That would be lovely David,” she smiled
after him. “I don’t know why you two aren’t a couple Katrina, you spend so much
time together anyway.”

“Mum!” I admonished her.

“What? He’s such a lovely boy. I don’t
understand you two.”

“I couldn’t date David, even if I wanted to
– he sticks his dick into a new girl every night!”

“You bitch!” David laughed, as he threw a
piece of garlic bread at me. With lightning reflexes, I caught it and took a
bite, sticking my tongue out at him as I did.

“I don’t believe that," said my
mother, “he spends most nights here, so he can’t be sticking his… as you put it
– dick in a new girl every night.”

David and I burst out laughing at my
usually very straight mother swearing and left her in the kitchen to finish
setting the table for dinner.

“Where’s your dad and Tom?” David asked me.

I lowered my voice to a whisper, “Dads at
work and Tom is out with his girlfriend who mum and dad don’t know about so
shhhhh!”

“Is she hot?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t met her yet.”

“Haven’t met who yet?” my mother asked as
she walked into the dining room carrying a serving dish full of pasta.

“Here mum, give that to me,” I offered,
reaching out for the bowl.

“Thanks, so who haven’t you met?” she asked
again.

“Oh…just the big boss at work,” I lied as I
took my seat at the table. We all began to eat and talk about safe topics, like
work, university and my training.

However, sensing an untold story my mother
asked, “So are you thinking of starting to date again Katrina? Surely there’s a
nice young man at the office you could go out with.”

“I’m not interested in anyone right now
mum,” I told her, immediately annoyed.

She turned to David to try to enlist his
influence on me, “Don‘t you think she should start dating again? I’m just
concerned that she will miss out on the right guy because she is worried about
what happened with Christopher.”

“Mum!”

David carefully looked between my mother
and I before he answered. “Um…I think she’s only 20 Mrs M. She has plenty of
time - I know there’s no way I’m settling down right now,” he told her through
a mouth full of food.

“Yes but she’s very mature for her age. I
don’t want her to be turned off men just because of one bad decision.”

That pissed me off, “
One
bad
decision? Mum! Please leave this alone – I only moved in with Christopher
because
you
pushed me to! I wanted to wait until I was at least finished
uni before moving in, but you insisted that I shouldn’t wait. Seriously mum,
stop trying to marry me off! If you don’t want me living here again – that’s
fine, I will look into campus housing tomorrow.”

“That’s not what I am saying Katrina! I am
happy that you’re home, but I don’t want you to end up like your brother and be
nearly 30, still at home and no partner in your life!”

David, very sensibly, kept his head down
and shovelled food into his mouth.

“Mum, it’s my life – please let me live it.
I don’t need you to push me again, especially after what happened.”

A wounded expression fixed itself on my
mother’s face, “How could I have known what Christopher was like? You didn’t know
yourself. Please don’t put that on me.”

 “Why not? It’s the truth - If you hadn’t
have pushed me, David and I wouldn’t have been there and none of this,” I held
up my forearms and flashed my hands at my face and shoulder, “would have ever
happened.”

“Katrina, that’s not fair,” David put in.

“It might not be fair, but you both know
it’s true,” I spat out and got up and went to my room.

Ok, so maybe I was a bit angry with my
mother, a little over a year ago she pushed me into moving out with my then
boyfriend, Christopher and it all went horribly wrong. I ended up in the
hospital. I just kept on thinking that if she had left the decision up to me, I
would have waited. I don’t know if it all would have ended the same way – but
I’d like to think it would have been different.

My inner critic kept telling me that I
still could have followed my gut and just said ‘no' to moving out with
Christopher, and it was right, I guess it was just easier to blame someone
else.

I was still brooding in my room when I
heard a gentle knock on the door, it opened a crack and a hand slid in waving a
white sock as a surrender flag. “Is it safe to come in?” David asked.

“Of course.”

He walked in and sat down next to me on my
bed, replacing his sock. “Your mums pretty upset you know.”

“Yeah I know, I shouldn’t have said
anything to her – I just want her to stop talking about relationships with me.
Why can’t she just wait until I’m ready?”

“Well, number one she’s always been like
that, and number two, have you ever thought that she really does blame herself
over what happened?”

I looked down, picking at an imaginary
speck on my pants as I thought about this. “Maybe she does, but she behaves
like she can’t wait to have me married off and moved out again.”

He put an arm around me and hugged me to
him, “You know it’s not like that, she loves you. I think she just wants the
fairy tale for you.”

We sat in silence for a while, me with my
head rested on his shoulder and him with his arm still around me.

“Hey Trina?” David spoke, nudging me gently
with his shoulder.

“Hmm?” I murmured.

“Do you blame me for what happened too?”

I sat bolt upright and looked at him, “No!
How could I do that?”

“Because I couldn’t protect you,” he looked
vulnerable with his eyes downcast. My heart ached with sorrow at the thought of
him blaming himself.

“David, if anything, I am annoyed at myself
for not listening to you when you said you didn’t trust him. I stupidly thought
it was just male bravado, and you would get used to each other. I didn’t expect
it all to explode the way it did, but it did. So now we move on,” I said and
squeezed his leg in reassurance.