Page 10 of For Real

I turned off the shower, dried myself, and pulled on a dressing gown. I was tired, but restlessly so, like a bell tossed upon the wind, and I wandered my own house like a stranger.

He had left no trace at all. Not even where I’d knelt and watched him touch himself, and broken on the edge of his words. I crossed to the bookshelf and took down a random volume of Dance from amongst all the medical textbooks and journals, flipping through it as though seeking my future in the family Bible: this relic, this talisman that Robert had forgotten to take with him.

I made myself a cup of tea and didn’t drink it.

Then I climbed to the top floor room. (“That’s very Bluebeard of you.”) Stood for a while at the centre of its emptiness, waiting for it to mean something and listening to the rain. I lost all track of time. And, finally, I cried. Because, the truth was, the room no longer meant anything at all. It was simply a space between four walls, and I was lonely and alone. Tired and sad and sick with yearning. And I’d treated someone badly, for no reason other than selfishness and fear, which was never who I’d meant to be. So much shame and loss and frustrated lust. Bitter indeed.

* * *

I was crawling into bed when my doorbell rang. At first I thought it was a mistake and shoved my head under the pillow in order to most effectively ignore the buzzing, but it didn’t stop. So I reclaimed my dressing gown and—reluctantly—went to answer.

On the doorstep was an exceptionally bedraggled nineteen-year-old. Every line of his thin body was pulled so tight he almost seemed to be vibrating, but his wet-lashed gaze was fixed on the ground. “Look, I’m going to need that account number, okay?”

“My God, what happened?”

“I didn’t want to take your fucking whore taxi, okay?” His furious eyes met mine. “But there’s no Tube, and the buses are shite, and then it started to rain, and then my phone ran out of battery so I couldn’t use Google Maps anymore, so I had to come back.”

“Where were you trying to go?”

“Tabernacle Street.”

“Shoreditch? That’s miles away.”

His shoulders jerked into a frustrated little shrug. “Six, according to Google.”

“I never meant—”

“You never meant what? Seriously? What didn’t you mean?”

I had no answer for him. He was right. “I’m sorry.”

“Save it…just like…save it.” He sounded flat and tired and sparkless. My handiwork. “And get me a fucking taxi. I want to go home.”

I hated myself, and the part of me that was cowardly wished for a simple solution: an exchange of pain for forgiveness. But life didn’t work that way, and fucking up was forever. “I really am…” And then I stopped. Selfish again, keeping him there in the rain while I protested my sincerity. He had no reason to believe me, no reason to care. I’d given him none. “Of course. Do you want to wait inside?”

“Doesn’t matter. I’m not getting any wetter.”

“Please come in. I don’t want you to catch cold.”

He jammed his hands deep into his pockets and glared up at me. “Yeah. Right.”

At that moment, he sounded very much the teenager, and I wished I hadn’t pushed him to it by treating him so carelessly. I stepped away from the doorway, and—after a moment—he came inside, bringing with him a rush of cold, damp air.

“Shit,” he muttered, shuffling his feet in their saturated Converses. “Your carpet.”

“I really don’t care about the carpet.” The echo of my own words hurt.

I closed the door, flicked on the hall light, and reached for the phone.

“Oh my God.” Whatever was in his voice—the warmth, I think—took me utterly by surprise. And the next thing I knew, his wet body was shoved up against mine, his freezing hands cupping my jaw as he dragged my face down to his. “Fuck. I knew aftercare was a thing.”3

I blinked at him helplessly, not even thinking to pull away. “W-what?”

“You’ve been crying.”

“I…”

“Dude, I can tell. Your eyes are all red.”

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