Leaving the World

Leaving the World Read Online Free PDF

Book: Leaving the World Read Online Free PDF
Author: Douglas Kennedy
leave you. It will only be eight months and then I’ll be back in your arms”?’
    ‘Yes, words to that effect. And the thing is, I wanted to believe them.’
    ‘That’s pretty damn understandable. If we don’t want to lose something . . . someone  . . . we always want to believe the declarations of others, even if we privately doubt them. We all talk about how much we hate lies. Yet we prefer, so often, to be lied to . . . because it allows us to dodge all those painful truths we’d rather not hear.’
    ‘I certainly didn’t want it to end.’
    ‘Then why didn’t you follow him to Dublin?’
    ‘Because I wanted to come here. And because I didn’t want to live in Dublin.’
    ‘Or be tethered to his career?’
    I felt myself tighten. David noticed this.
    ‘Hey, there’s hardly anything wrong with not wanting to be in the shadow of someone . . . though have you ever thought about the fact that perhaps your fellow didn’t want to live in your shadow? Take it from me, men are very uncomfortable when they realize a woman is more accomplished than they are.’
    I felt a blush spread across my face. ‘Please . . . I don’t take flattery very well.’
    ‘I’m not trying to flatter you. I’m just pointing up the reality of the situation. Maybe everything was commensurate between you when you were both at college. But graduate school is another matter, because everyone’s looking ahead to their careers and the atmosphere gets just a little competitive and cut-throat. Though, of course, at Harvard we really disdain competitiveness . . .’
    He shot me a mischievous smile, then added: ‘The hardest thing about a break-up is being the one who’s been left. It’s always better to do the leaving.’
    He then directed the conversation back to the work at hand. In the coming weeks he made a point of not asking me anything more about the situation. Rather he simply opened our tutorials with the question: ‘How are things?’ Though I could have told him I was still feeling extremely fragile about everything, I chose to say nothing. Because there was nothing more to say about it and I always hate sounding sorry for myself – even though it took several months before the sense of loss began to diminish.
    And the very fact that my involvement with David only began around six months after Tom sent me his kiss-off letter meant that . . .
    Well, what exactly did it mean? That David wasn’t an opportunistic sleaze who hit on me when I was feeling vulnerable and alone? That ours quickly became a serious relationship, as we had known each other for almost a year when we crossed that frontier between camaraderie and intimacy? Or that we both played a very long game with each other – as it was clear early on (to me anyway) that we were more than attracted to each other.
    But he was my professor, he was married – and I couldn’t even contemplate entering that realm of clandestine adulterous mess, or assuming the grim role of the Other Woman. Bar that one moment when he got me talking about the break-up with Tom, we stayed on neutral ground with each other.
    Until one late afternoon in mid-May – when we were in the middle of a tutorial discussion on Sherwood Anderson, and the phone rang. If the telephone started buzzing during one of our weekly sessions David would always ignore it. That day he tensed as soon as it began to ring, then reached for it, saying: ‘Have to take this . . .’
    ‘Would you like me to leave?’ I asked.
    ‘No need . . .’
    He reached for the phone, swiveled around in his chair so his back was to me, and started to talk in an agitated whisper.
    ‘. . . Yeah, hi . . . look, I’ve got someone here . . . so what did the doctor say? . . . Well, he’s right, of course he’s right . . . don’t tell me I’m bullying you when I’m just . . . this is all down to you not taking the meds and then having these episodes . . . there’s no need
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