Soon enough, the circle has filled up with people. Larry claps his hands, before sitting down on a spare cushion next to Ruby. With a flash of panic, she realises that instead of being the only one here tonight, she is the only new person in attendance. The only person who doesn’t know the rules. As if on cue, after thanking everyone for returning to the circle, Larry asks Ruby to introduce herself as the group’s newest member—‘And all the way from Aussie, too!’ She sees eyebrows raise at this piece of information, and suddenly wants nothing more than to get up and run.
As the sessions plays out, nothing feels right. Not all those eyes on her. Not Larry’s barely concealed glee at having a new story to bat around the circle, and definitely not the way she senses others in the group are impatient for her to finish introducing herself—details minimal as they are—so they can have their turn for the night, each person contributing a story seemingly worse than the one before, a Jenga tower of misery just waiting to topple.
At the base, on Ruby’s right, is a middle-aged woman who, after a home invasion, has had triple locks drilled into every door in her apartment, including the closets. Next comes a man who found his three-year-old nephew drowned in a hotel pool three summers ago. On top of their stories comes the weight of an elderly gentleman who accidentally put a shopkeeper in hospital when he drove his Mercedes through a grocery store window. One traumatic event teetering on top of another, and though Ruby feels a heart-clench of sympathy for all the pain laid out in front of her tonight, by the time it gets to Tanker, an engineer in his late twenties who had a gun held to his head during a convenience store robbery that turned fatal for the owner, she has to admit she made a mistake in coming here. Her situation is so different, she almost feels foolish. It is as if Tanker and the other members of the group are still deep inside their disasters, struggling for the surface, while she sits outside of the experiences that led her here, watching from a distance. That’s the best she can explain it without the therapy language they all seem so familiar with. The group members might suggest she is repressing her feelings, avoiding them, but really, after listening to the circle of stories tonight, what she wants to say is this:
I don’t own my pain the way you do. I feel as if I have borrowed it from someone else.
It is unsurprising that she shakes her head—No—when it’s time for her to speak.
From across the circle, the girl who fell through the door watches Ruby, her smile never shifting. Like Ruby, she declines to speak when it comes to her turn—‘I’m taking a break tonight, folks’—and her silence leaves Ruby feeling vaguely disappointed. This girl seems so different to the others, almost serene, despite her apparent clumsiness. From her tumble through the door to the curious calm of her smile, something about her makes Ruby feel a sudden pang at the thought of walking out of there alone.
Had she known anything about the young woman smiling at her from across the circle, Ruby would have understood that Lennie Lau could see her isolation clearly, was immediately drawn to the painful beauty loneliness can wrap around a person. And she would have seen how Lennie was already hatching a plan to unravel that loneliness, to pull at it, like Ruby had pulled at the loose thread of her cushion tonight, only harder, so that with time and care, all that pain would come undone.
Lennie has already spilled her drink, and twice knocked her fork to the floor. She doesn’t bother to ask for a replacement, just rubs the metal prongs against her ripped jeans and places the fork back on the table. She talks rapidly, gestures wildly, sending anything within elbow radius flying. The staff here smile benignly at her, bring her extra napkins, patting her on the shoulder as they pass. Ruby gets the feeling this girl is treated with affection wherever she goes.
They are at a small Italian restaurant on 3rd Avenue, a street over from the meet-up. Lennie had grabbed Ruby’s elbow after the session ended, asked her if she’d like to go for dessert, and Ruby had looked around, thinking the invitation was meant for someone else. Strangely, wondrously, it seemed to be directed at her, as if this Lennie had somehow read her mind. The desire for good company felt like the memory of her favourite food, a longing she could taste. To be with interesting people again, to follow a conversation that wasn’t just in her own head—Ruby hoped Lennie had not seen her eyes well up when she vigorously nodded yes to the invitation.
On the way to the restaurant, Lennie kept the conversation light and breezy, as if they had just walked out of a movie together, but once they sit down at their small table, she fixes her dark, intense eyes on Ruby, and the questions start.