Page 107 of For Real

Oh God. I deserved every word. He’d been alone, and in pain, when I could have—should have—been with him, and that was my fault, not his. All this week fretting because I didn’t have his number, and I’d never even thought he didn’t have mine. “Oh God. I’m—”

“If you say you’re sorry, I’ll scream.” He looked at me, his eyes all shadow and shiny with unshed tears. “My granddad’s dead, Laurie. The person I love most in the whole world. And I spent his funeral thinking about you. How fucked is that?”

If he didn’t want my regret, could he at least accept my consolation? “It’s not fucked. Funerals are…funerals. Grief is grief. There aren’t any rules about what you should be thinking or feeling.”

“Oh, fuck you, that’s not the point.”

“I know.” I was almost glad, in a way, to bear his anger without flinching. It was something I could do for him. “The point is, I wasn’t there for you.”

His fingers knotted restlessly. “Well, at least you get it. But why’s it always me?”

“Why’s what?” It felt wrong now to be looming over him, so I hunkered down in front of him and linked my hands together.

“Why do I always have to ask for everything? Why do you never just…give…or offer?”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you, but I’m not psychic. I didn’t know.”

“Yeah, but you never ask either. Do you know how fucking hard it is to be the one who’s always asking? Why do I always have to roll my heart between us like it’s a fucking marble?” His voice lifted, then broke. “How the fuck am I supposed to know?”

“Know what? That I’ll be there for you?” I tried to keep my voice gentle, but there was something unexpected and unexpectedly painful about his uncertainty. “Darling, how could you doubt it?”

Again, that cold, bright stare. “Because you’ve never given me a reason to believe it.”

His words slid into me like pieces of glass. “That’s…that’s not fair.”

“Well, neither are you.”

I had no idea how to answer. Everything he’d said was true: I hadn’t been fair. And sorry was so inadequate as to be insulting.

I didn’t know how long he’d been sitting out there, so I stood up, took off my coat, and draped it across his shoulders. He didn’t react, but at least he didn’t shake it off. Then, I sat down next to him, and we stayed like that for a while, locked in our silences. He smelled faintly of the cologne I’d bought him, a hint of spice and tears, and I ached to be back in Oxford, where it had briefly seemed possible that we could be in love. Where it had been the easiest, simplest thing in the world.

He was right, though. Asking was difficult. Incredibly difficult. But there was such a lot I should have asked and asked for, such a lot I should have given, instead of pretending and telling myself I didn’t want any of it. I hadn’t given him freedom. I hadn’t even managed my own expectations. All I’d done was place every burden of love and trust on Toby, made it impossible for him to ask for something as basic as my presence in his life, and sentenced us both to nearly a week of hell.

Perhaps it was already too late to begin building certainties. But the least I could do—at last, at long last—was try. Ask. “Toby?”

“What?”

“I know I should have done this weeks ago, but there’s something I need to ask you, and something I need to give you.”

“Too late. I don’t want your dead-granddad pity.”

“This isn’t pity.” I crushed my own impatience. I knew, like my anger and my hurt, it was just a form of emotional distraction—a way for me to feel less on edge, less vulnerable, less fucking guilty. “When I didn’t see you last week, and I had no way to contact you, I was…I was…”

“What?” He sounded so sceptical. My fault again.

“Distraught. Devastated. Heartbroken. The thing is, I’ve been telling myself for weeks that you have the right to walk away from me at any time. Well, you don’t have that right.” His head turned sharply, and I reached out without thinking and pushed his fringe out of his eyes. “I mean, you do have the right, I’m not insane. But you have to break up with me first.”

“Y’know,” he said softly, “that sounds like you want to be my boyfriend.”2

“I do. It wasn’t what I was going to ask, though.”

His lips curled into the smallest smile. “I’m still counting it.”

And I smiled back, just as tentatively. “All right.”

We were quiet again as I struggled with my incredibly banal, yet utterly necessary request. It should have been so simple, but somehow it wasn’t. I’d pleaded with him shamelessly for all manner of violations and all manner of mercies, but the sexual vulnerabilities I allowed were nothing to sitting on my doorstep with Toby, admitting everything I wanted—and needed—from him.

He nudged his shoulder gently against mine. “What did you want, Laurie?”

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