Page 43 of Before You Say Goodbye

“OK, love. Be careful in there,” his mum said.

They stood motionless in the shower. The water — so erotic to Autumn just moments before — battered her unpleasantly in the face. The senior Whittles’ only house rule was that nobody had sex outside of their bedroom, out of respect for the rest of the household and to avoid any embarrassment. Emma would not be happy if she caught them in the shower together, so Autumn had no choice but to cling to Bowie until they were sure his mother had gone. Even then, she surprised herself. She didn’t move. She was frozen rigid.

“I’m sorry,” Bowie whispered. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Scared was an understatement. She hadn’t been this frightened in years. Her heart was racing in a way it once had, a way long forgotten to her until now. She realised she’d let down a guard she hadn’t known she’d had up until now, and that was because she had never expected such aggression from Bowie. He attempted to hug her, but gave up when he realised she was not responding, and tried to explain.

“I’m frustrated, but not with you.” Those were not the words she needed to hear. The idea they may have shared their last ever tryst was torturous for her too — he didn’t need to explainthat. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was the way he had reacted. She couldn’t tell him it was OK, because it wasn’t.

“I know.” She peeled him off her and stepped out of the shower. Feeling vulnerable, she covered herself immediately with a towel. Mercifully, Bowie stayed where he was. He let her leave the bathroom and left her alone to get dressed. She yanked on a pair of jeans and one of his T-shirts, loading her fingers and neck with costume jewellery and popping a leopard-print headband on her head. She was perfecting its positioning when he appeared. Her heart had slowed by then, but the surprise was still there, pouring through her veins and flushing her face an irritated red. Bowie was dry and she knew he’d been waiting in the bathroom to give her some space. He loitered in the doorway in his dressing gown.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “That was a disgusting thing for me to do.”

She turned to face him. She didn’t know what to say.

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” he added.

“Well, you did,” she told him. He flinched and looked down at his feet.

“I know. I’m so sorry. If anyone threw that kind of weight around my sisters, for any reason, I would punch them through a fucking wall.”

Autumn turned back to the mirror. She wasn’t done being mad at him yet. She stared at their reflections — hers pink with upset and his white with sorrow — and acknowledged her anger at his violence was more complicated than she’d realised. Autumn’s stepfather had thrown his fists around as easily as that. After a year or two, her mother had become his punchbag of choice, and eventually Autumn had made it onto his list of things it was OK to hit. Her sister hadn’t been immune, either. Any time anyone had done anything he hadn’t liked, if he’d been in a bad mood or had just felt like hurting someone, hewould beat them until they’d begged him to stop. When she was fifteen, Autumn had called her father and asked if she could live with him, but he’d said he thought it best that Autumn stayed with her mother. Autumn had always suspected her father didn’t really care about her, but she hadn’t expected him to turn her away when she’d explained what was happening to her at home.

It had been the first time she’d realised she’d had nowhere to run. Autumn had learned to deal with the punches over time, bracing her body to make sure that her bruises had been in places people couldn’t see, but she had never forgiven her mother for staying with her stepfather, nor her father for turning her away when she’d needed him so desperately. Eventually, her stepfather had left her mother for another woman. Katherine had been heartbroken for weeks. Autumn had promised herself she would never again allow any man to act so violently around her, and she hadn’t. Bowie had been the last man she’d expected to find herself so disappointed in.

She could feel him staring at her now. She’d never told him any of her story, but her reaction to his outburst, although appropriate, was undoubtedly uncharacteristically raw, and Bowie had recognised that instantly. She’d seen a sense of realisation flicker across his face, followed by a look of fear and then a deep remorse. She hated the potential for pity that came with being a victim. She’d never used what had happened to her as an excuse for anything. Ever. Now, because of Bowie, she’d behaved in a way that made her vulnerability obvious and she hated the fact she’d been forced to confront her demons, and to do so in front of him. She was madder at him for that than she was the act of violence in itself. She watched him now, still standing in the doorway.

The softer part of her, the bit he had awakened when he’d burst into her life, wanted to soothe his concern, but the old version of Autumn wouldn’t let her. She wondered if this waswhat being comfortably in the middle felt like. Open, but not completely.

“I’m not one of them, Autumn,” he whispered.

“Every violent man I’ve ever known has insisted he ‘wasn’t one of them’,” she said.

“I know.” He swallowed.

“Don’t ever do that to me again.”

“I won’t.” He shook his head.

She watched him in the mirror for a minute. Eventually, she turned and held her hand out to him. He padded across the room and scooped her up in his arms. She held on to him tightly. The teenage Autumn inside her — the tough girl from the council estate — felt cheated by her adult self and her readiness to forgive, but Autumn pushed that part of herself aside. She would not make excuses for him, but she wanted to acquit him.

“Do you want to tell me about it?” he asked, and she realised she was crying. She held him tighter and closed her eyes.

“Can you take me for breakfast first?”

He laughed and nodded. Autumn’s appetite had been growing at the same rate as her happiness. The Whittles presented her with delicious vegan food alongside a healthy dose of appetite daily, and Autumn found it difficult to restrict her eating anymore. She knew now that there was something psychological there — something about control and insecurity — but she wasn’t ready to psychoanalyse it yet. Instead she ate more intuitively and exercised with Bluebell and Maddie in the garden almost every day, mainly yoga, but sometimes they’d do laps of the house.

There were many healthy rituals and one of those was breakfast with Bowie in a local café on Friday mornings. Despite their commitment to return to the theatre that day, they’d been showering early so as to stick to their routine. Autumn had been looking forward to it. It was one of her favourite things they didtogether, probably her favourite now it seemed they could no longer have sex, and she didn’t want to miss a single one. If she’d known their last time together would be their last time, perhaps she’d have taken it slower. Savoured it more. Done it more often. She had taken that part of their lives for granted and she didn’t want to do that with this.

They walked to the coffee shop, placed their order and waited for their breakfast to arrive. She knew he would barely eat any of it. He’d writhed with stomach pain all through the night. His anxiety about the musical was not helping. They chatted about it while they waited. Bowie wanted to do his absolute best for Larry, and Autumn was certain he was managing it.

They came to a natural pause in their conversation as their food arrived and Bowie eyed her anxiously across the table. She knew what he wanted to ask. Autumn smiled sadly at him.

“I don’t need to tell you about it. It won’t help me if I do. And whether or not what happened to me happened to me, what you did this morning was wrong.”

“I know that,” he said. “I’m not trying to make myself feel better about it. I just want to be there for you if you need me.”

Autumn sighed.

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