Page 76 of Before You Say Goodbye

“I’m sorry.” Autumn sighed in sympathy.

“They had someone filling in for me for a while, but they found somebody that was awesome and don’t want to let him go in case I don’t come back.”

“I’m sure they’ll let you play with them again when you’re ready to.” She’d worded her response with deliberate care. He gave her a knowing side-eye.

“Don’t do that, Autumn.”

“Don’t do what?” she asked.

“Do that,” he said. She turned so her back was resting against the arm of the chair and her legs were stretched straight out in his direction, drawing up her knees to her chest to avoid her toes coming into contact with his thigh. Touching tonight was not a good idea.

“Everyone else is carrying on as normal,” he said. “It’s easy to forget that sometimes.”

“Are you really going to kill yourself?” She surprised herself and wrong-footed him all at once. He peered at her from behind the bottle of rum he’d been downing shots from for the last fifteen minutes. They’d run out of mixer but they were still, between them, succeeding in polishing off the entire contents of the drinks cabinet. He nodded, almost imperceptibly.

“Tonight you talked with your family about maybe having a son one day. About calling him Ben. Why would you say that if you’re planning to end it all?” she asked.

“It was just a mistake,” he said, taking another swig. “Like I said, sometimes it’s easy to forget.”

“Do you actually have, like, a plan and everything?” She felt her lips tremble. She didn’t want to know the details, but she wanted to know how much he’d thought about this. He nodded, moving again to drink from the bottle. She held out her hand to stop him.

“Slow down a bit,” she said. His gaze was steely when it met hers.

“Don’t ask me not to do it, Autumn.”

“I’m definitely going to ask you not to do it,” she said.

“I thought we weren’t doing this tonight? I thought we were just two friends on a sofa?”

“We are. And, as your friend, I’m asking you not to kill yourself.”

“If you were my friend, you’d understand that I can’t live without my brother.” His voice cracked as he spoke.

“Yes, you can,” she said. “It’ll be hard, but you can. You won’t be alone.”

“What if I just don’t want to live without him?” he asked.

She didn’t have an answer. If he didn’t want to live life without Bowie, there wasn’t much she could say to that. He took another drink and she grabbed hold of his forearm. He watched her fingers gripping his skin.

“Please don’t do it, Marley. I won’t be able to cope with it all.”

“Yes, you will.” His eyes fixed on her fingers.

“Well, what if I don’t want to cope with it?” The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them.

“Don’t use your clever little word games with me.” He shrugged her off. “You don’t understand. You can’t ever understand.”

She wrapped her arms across her chest, hugging herself for comfort.

“Maybe you’ll feel sad for a couple of months, but then you’ll move on with your life,” Marley said bitterly. She knew he believed what he was saying, and that hurt. She had a close bond with Marley now. He made her laugh and took care of her, he was funny, clever and talented. She had come to care deeply for him. If he weren’t a part of her life, she would miss him terribly, and his loss would leave an awful hole in her heart. She wanted to tell him so, but was still sober enough to know that she shouldn’t.

“Is that what you would do if I died?” She spoke carefully. “Move on with your life after a couple of months?”

“There’s no point in talking like that because it isn’t going to happen that way.”

“Hypothetically, though?” Somehow, without revealing too much, she had to make him see how much he meant to her.

“Shut up, Autumn,” he said from the neck of his bottle.

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