Page 111 of For Real

“You don’t have to impress me, Toby.”

It was the wrong thing to say. I could tell by the downturn of his mouth. “Yeah, well, maybe I want to.”

“You already have me.” There was some…anxiety, some uncertainty in him, and I didn’t fully understand where it had come from, let alone how to alleviate it. I tried a more teasing note. “You don’t need ropes to keep me.”

“But your last boyfriend…”

It was neither something I expected nor wanted to hear. I didn’t want to talk about Robert with Toby, not because I was trying to keep anything from him, but because I’d already wasted too much of my present on my past. “It was one of his things, yes. But I’m with you now. We have our own things.”

“Okay.” He tucked his knees up to his chin and huddled.

And I wished for my freedom so I could touch him, reassure him with my body if nothing else. Finally I looped my hands over him and drew him in close. He made a startled sound—almost a giggle—and then settled against me.

“Are you really worried about the ghosts of boyfriends past?” I asked.

“I’m worrying about everything.” He tucked his head against my shoulder and let out a long sigh. “I know I should be thinking about Granddad, but all I can think about is me. It’s messed up.”

“I told you, there’s no normal here. Whatever you feel is okay.”

“Fretting because”—he touched his jaw self-consciously—“I’m really scrofulous right now? That’s normal, is it? Not completely shallow and selfish?”

“Not at all. And I’ll get you some tea tree oil tomorrow.”

“Oh God. I’m grotesque.” He hid his face against my neck.

“Acne is susceptible to stress and emotional distress.”

“Not helping, Mr. Doctor.”

“How about this.” I rubbed my cheek against the edge of his jaw, nuzzling into him, awkward without hands to touch or anchor me. “You’re beautiful.”

He twisted and looked at me, his eyes wide and a little tear-blurred. “I’m really scared, Laurie. I’m scared of being alone, and of…of the whole of my life.” He took a deep, shuddering breath, and then the words came rushing out: “And then I get really angry at my granddad for leaving me. And then I feel like a shithead. And then I get stressed out at something completely irrelevant like acne or not being able to tie a double slipknot. Or that I can’t live up to some guy you were with like ten years ago.”

“All of that’s understandable,” I told him soothingly. “Except for the bit about Robert, which is nonsense.”

I kissed his cheek. On the screen, the credits rolled, bathing us in flickering light.

“But…” Ever persistent, Toby ducked out of my embrace and wriggled away. “You were with him for ages, and when you couldn’t be with him, you didn’t want to be with anyone and—”

“I want to be with you.”

After a moment, he nodded. “Okay.” I hoped that might be the end of it, but he went on. “It’s just everything feels so fucked up right now. I don’t want to fuck this up as well.”

I wanted to reassure him, but I was wary of forevers. Robert and I had promised each other so much. Possibly too much. “Let’s not jump off bridges until we come to them.”

Toby blinked moisture from his lashes. “At least tell me why you broke up with him, so I know not to do that.”

Oh God, how to explain. How to condense all that pain and loss and confusion into a single, useful parable. “Well, you could try not to tie a slipknot on a sole load-bearing suspension line, causing me to fall and break my wrist and fracture my pelvis.” I heard Toby’s startled gasp, but I pressed on, wanting to be done. “And you could try not to be so consumed with guilt about it that you stop having sex with me.”

I knew I was being unfair to Robert. It had been complicated, and we had both been hurt in our different ways. I’d become a permanent reminder of a single moment of failure—no wonder he hadn’t been able to bear being close to me.

My voice had lost something of its careful modulation, so I took a few calming breaths before I continued. “Then you could not start going out to clubs, and doing all the things you used to do with me with other people. And when I confront you with it, you could not tell me it wasn’t cheating because it wasn’t sex. Because it was. Sex. Cheating. It was.”4

There was a long silence.

Toby’s arms came round me and held me so very tightly, my already-trapped hands trapped between us, making me feel at once safe and unbalanced and exposed. As Robert had once done with rope. “I won’t do that,” he said fiercely. “I won’t ever do that.”

“Please,” I said, realising I was weary beyond reckoning, “can we go back to bed?”

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