Page 21 of Sleep

Calm. Breathe. All is well.

“You don’t have to do this,” they said in a voice thick with something that made me want to cry. I never cried. Well, only when nobody could see me.

“I do,” I replied honestly. It had worked before and was what I was going with here.

Silence. I liked the silence. I liked being here.

“We’re in public,” I said. “Away from any kind of professional setting. No boundaries are being crossed.”

“Great pick-up line.” Trust them to turn it into something that made me smile.

“Not a pick-up line.” I didn’t dare look at them, my gaze still fixed on the crowds. The horizon. The last light from the sky gently fading in front of our eyes. The nighttime air was chilly, but I didn’t feel the cold after that brief run.

“Mr Templar,” they started, then wrung their hands. “Sorry, I should look at you when I speak. You probably didn’t catch any of that.”

“Jonny,” I said and offered them my hand to shake. They took it and held onto it. “I did. I’m not deaf. I can hear fine when it’s not too noisy. There are certain frequencies of sound I can’t hear at all, which makes it easy for me to mishear words, and I struggle with certain voices, heavy accents. And, of course, when I can’t complement my hearing with reading lips.”

“Okay,” they said softly. “So you can understand me fine here?”

“You have a good voice, Donovan. Clear. And you always make an effort to look at me when you speak, so we’re all good.”

“Then stop with the Donovan stuff. I haven’t been Donovan since school.”

“It makes it…less personal.” I tried to defend myself.

“I think we’ve crossed that line already.”

“Nah.” I had to smile but still couldn’t look them in the eye, so I focused on their lips.

I was trying to figure this out, what it was with Mabel Donovan. Why I behaved like this as soon as they were near. Why I lost my nerve at the same time as all my walls fell down. I couldn’t even stop them, and it rattled me into some kind of state where I didn’t know who I was anymore or why I was sitting here with their hand in mine as a gust of wind almost took my breath away. In a week or two, the Christmas decorations would be up, and the city would take on its wintry robe for a mere few weeks until the new year blew in and life would just be as before. Again and again.

They were still holding my hand as I finally took the chance and looked up and met their eyes. Their cheeks were blotchy, wetness still lingering on their skin, streaks of dark make-up running in lines over their cheekbones. I reached out and carefully wiped one off, then on the other side, keeping my eyes steadily on theirs.

“I didn’t want you to be on your own.”

“I’m fine on my own.”

Exactly the response I would have given had I been in their shoes. But I wasn’t, and even though my stomach was churning, I felt in some kind of control, like I could still steer this situation home, dock it gently in a place where I could walk away unscathed.

The problem was, I didn’t think I wanted to walk away unscathed. I wanted to hurt and bleed and heal and scream and—

“Mr Templar… Jonny.” They let go of my hand, leaving me with it hanging in the air, once again not knowing how to control my body. Grappling in their coat pocket, they produced a crumpled tissue, which they loudly blew their nose into. “Sorry,” they continued, offering me a strange smirk. “It’s been a shit day.”

“I can see that.” I wanted to grab their hand back but settled for making myself comfortable on the bench, signalling loud and clear that I wasn’t going anywhere. I hoped they could read me as well as I surprisingly read them. All their thorns out, hoping I would go away or evaporate into thin air so they could compose themselves and pretend nothing at all had happened.

“Do you want to tell me what that was all about?” I asked quietly.

I could almost feel the daggers they were shooting out of their eyes.

“You don’t know me. I don’t know you. Apart from your Wikipedia entry, which was rather unfulfilling, and I did read a few articles from the Financial Times.”

“The Time cover story is quite complimentary.” I sounded like a deranged celebrity freak, and it hit home as they laughed softly.

“No shame there then?”

“None whatsoever. The lady who wrote it was very thorough. Still misspelled my mother’s maiden name and got her wins wrong. She took four Olympic Golds, not three.”

“I hope you sued,” they snarked. I liked that and couldn’t help but smile.

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