More Alchemy, Less Chemistry

Jazz informed me that she had received a message saying I had wanted to see her right away. I shook my head but could feel the grime of Gervais all over this little interruption and when she saw my response, she uttered his name the way one spoke of filth. Braith followed us back into the drawing room and the two who were once the most devoted lovers in Bishop Vale sat a universe apart unable to look in each other’s direction. I had mistakenly assumed that her zeal in joining us was in some way to aid her in reconciling with Braith but her eyes when she looked at him were devoid of all warmth. I tried to keep from staring at them but the corners of my eyes wandered over despite my resolution, as I had not seen her reaction to him in person before. Everyone else tried to distract with tales of gossip and delight but the strain cracked the conversation into forlorn pockets without balance. The only bridge between the ex lovers was one of ice and I have to admit it was a side of Jazz I had not expected to find.

She was always a creature of joy to me, with her liquid brown eyes and shining tawny hair, her radiance would fill a room with light, yet here she was colder than Liselle, harder than Gervais. Although I am not in a position to judge her reaction, not after the Simon/Gervais interlude, at least Simon and I still spoke and I did not stare daggers at him. It was then that I realised she blamed Braith for his fall from grace and a numb shock crept into the corners of my mind. As we move throughout life, we leave behind the illusions of childhood but I never expected one of them to be the character of a close friend. Jazz was not the girl I once knew for when the walls of her life crumbled, she crumbled with them. I could understand such behaviour from Tiah or Coco but Jazz had grown up in a war zone so surely she would have a more realistic approach to life and love than this childish response of blame the victim.

I wanted to shake her and shout how stupid she was behaving for she has the most beautiful man in Bishop Vale in love with her or at least had, judging from the grim look he sent her way. There was no love lost here, only the death of a love not strong enough to endure the antics of my cousin, giving me yet another reason to ensure his demise for Gervais was ruining my relationships in ways I had not thought possible. He was unraveling the tendrils of my childhood and now my friends were becoming strangers as his touch corrupted all our dreams and destroyed all of our aspirations. While the others gossiped and drank coffee I grabbed Jazz in a not too subtle manner and took her into the office.

She demanded, as a cold fury misted her eyes, why he was here so I told her the truth, he had turned up without warning and I wasn’t about to toss him out. She folded her arms, her eyes hard, her soul frigid and I saw for the first time the wall of blame that Braith had been facing. I had no clever response to this tidal wave of hate so I suggested lamely that perhaps they should have a private conversation and she raised an eyebrow as if I had asked her to disembowel herself.

“I don’t think so.” She replied haughtily.

I could not take anymore of this rubbish so I asked her directly “Muse what is going on? You know it was all Gervais lies, it wasn’t Braith at all, everyone knows he adores you so why this coldness.”

Her mouth set in a thin line and for a second I saw Chantal, I knew this look well as I had seen her mother often give it to whomever was Tony’s latest liaison. She icily responded,

“ He shouldn’t have let it happen, he is a whoring bastard like every man.”

I knew this attitude was from a life with her father and his antics, well her father and her brother because Jojo wasn’t far behind in the family sleaze stakes, but to accuse Braith did not seem logical. Fed up with her tantrum I said,

“Which part did he allow to happen? The part where he was kidnapped? The part where he was drugged? The part where he obviously has no idea what is going on? Which part Musie?”

She was too far gone into her rage and self pity to care about facts or even the truth, the minute Braith appeared to fall off his pedestal she classed him as whore and abandoned him to the schadenfreude of society.

“He disgusts me.” She choked and left me standing bereft of words as she stomped back into the drawing room.

A small cough from behind made me turn around to see Braith, his face granite, standing in the kitchen doorway while carrying the empty coffee pot. There was nothing that I could say or do to remove her remark from echoing from the air like some gleeful demon around us. I followed him into the kitchen expecting him to explode like Jojo or growl like Simon but Braith put the kettle on, his face a mask of resignation. He had been living what I had just discovered so her announcement was nothing new to him, there was to be no rage or despair and I finally understood what he meant about fighting for her relationship. The going had got tough so Jazz got going.

As we stood in the kitchen watching the coffee brew I didn’t know what to say to him, as he stood beside me, impassive, beautiful, grim, lost to the world. My mind flooded with words but I stayed with the simple facts, it was the only place to start.

“She blames you.”

“I know,” he responded quietly, “she should have fought for us but instead she blames me.”

I wanted to tell him that when Gervais crushes a dream he ensures your soul is so devastated that sometimes there is no picking up the pieces but somehow I knew there was no point. There was no frustrated passion here, no emotional heartbreak, and no longing soul, there was only the realisation of who Jazz really is and what choices she will make when faced with adversity. He continued,

“When this happened I expected her to be like you, because you are friends I thought you were more alike. I thought I would have to hold her back from killing him but instead I am the baddie and Gervais is merely the tool to expose my villainy. For a long time I couldn’t understand why she didn’t care enough to fight back. Then I realised that Jazz never had to fight for anything, ever. Life has been handed to her on a platter, wealth, good school, jobs. Her mother fought all the battles so all Jazz had to do all her life was coast. When life got dirty she just didn’t have the capacity to cope and so she did what she understood, what her mother had been doing all her life, she blamed her partner.”

I think this was the longest speech I had ever seen Braith make and as insightful as it was I couldn’t allow him to gloss over the truth for I had done to Simon exactly what she was doing now.

“ I did the exact same to Simon.” I said, my voice quiet with remorse but Braith shook his head at me.

“ When you started with Simon I thought he had told you about his past, because it was too big to keep this from someone you love. Did he really think Gervais was going to let a secret as juicy as that lie in the dark forever? Simon owed you the truth so you could have made an informed decision about having a relationship with him but he didn’t so how can anyone blame you for walking away?”

“I didn’t show much loyalty either when he needed me I ran away—“

Braith interrupted, “Let me ask you this, would you have started had you known?”

We stood there staring at each other until I shook my head no, if I had known about Simon I never would have been his lover. The shade of Gervais would have been far too strong for me.

Braith moved closer until I fell into the deep blue of his eyes. He was too close, too masculine, too much for me to deal with. I could not allow him to affect me, I had a purpose and nothing was going to stop me. He put his hands on my shoulders and my heart fluttered,

“ You fight Lucinda, right or wrong, you stand for what you believe in, you try to protect those around you, you are brave and beautiful and—“

Here he stopped for his lips were on mine and I trembled under his touch as I betrayed my childhood friend as I melted into his kiss. Intensity, fear, despair had strung me so tightly I could feel myself humming within my body. The blaze of passion firing from his touch, his eyes drew all tension from me and I relaxed into the safety, the strength of his arms. I should have been racked with shame, pushed him away, instead I succumbed to my weakness yet again, the urge to have comfort in this ceaseless, hopeless battle. Braith kissed me and I kissed him back.

A discreet cough broke us apart to see a startled Maritka in the doorway. Confused, my skin burning from his lips, I babbled about coffee before returning to the drawing room, praying that no one noticed my shaken state.

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