Page 148 of Pansies

“I did the right thing.”

“Absolutely you did. I know what I want to hear when Itell someone I love them is, ‘I’m leaving you now for your own good.’”

“Same.” Kitty nodded sagely. “It’s the dream.”

When you looked at it that way, it did sound bad. “You don’t understand. I don’t want to be what’s keeping him in Shields when he could be having an amazing life somewhere else. Doing all the stuff he left to do the first time round.”

“Yes,” said Greg, in his most patient voice, “and if you were proposing to kidnap him and lock him in a basement, then I’d be concerned. But given that he seems to be volunteering to spend his life with you, I’m really not. And, oh God, I can’t believe I’m defending him.”

“What have you got against him, anyway?”

They all seemed to get very interested in their wine suddenly. And Greg finished what was left of his in a swallow—total waste of a really good Chardonnay. “Partly it feels like he’s taking you from us. But mainly because he’s everything to you that I’m not.”

“Oh. Uh.” This was the last thing Alfie would have expected. And he felt at once both bad and confused about it. “You don’t want any of that stuff.”

“Maybe. I don’t know. But you didn’t even consider me.”4

Alfie threw an arm around Greg and pulled him in for a snuggle-hug. “I’m sorry, hinny. I’m such an idiot.”

“’S’okay. It’s my problem, really. And you’d better stay in touch when you’re living in a hovel in the north.”

“Firstly, we have houses up there. Some of them even have running water and broadband. And, secondly, I’m not going.”

Greg bit Alfie’s biceps impatiently. “So let me get this straight. A man you really like—maybe even love, if that gooey look you get when you talk about him is anything to go by—offered youeverything one human being can give to another. And you didn’tbelievehim?”

Alfie had honestly tried not to think about it too much, but suddenly all he could see was Fen smiling at him in the moonlight. Those impossible words: “I’m head over heels in love with you.” And it was just this…this slice of joy, cutting right through him. Not so very different from pain right then. “It’s just kind of…massive, you know?”

“Yes”—Greg nodded—“love is, I hear. But commitment phobia is my gig, not yours.”

“Not that bit. The fact he’d have to give up so much to be with me. I mean, he thinks he’s okay with it right now, but let’s be real. Nobody should change their whole life for the sake of one person.”

None of his friends seemed to have anything to say.

Alfie shifted on the sofa, making the leather squeak. “And definitely not for a silly bugger like me.”

They kept on not saying a damn thing.

Eventually, Greg punched him ineffectively in the torso. “You’d better not be telling me that you turned down the man you’re irritatingly in love with because you got randomly insecure.”

“It’s more complicated than that,” Alfie protested. “His dad told me I was wrecking his life.”

“Holy shit-balls, Alfie, you’re not sixteen. And neither is he. You don’t need parental approval.”

“No, but I want Fen to be happy. I want that more than anything in the world.”

“And you somehow think his dad is better placed to decide that than he is? Honestly, sometimes I think your values haven’t made it out of the sixteenth century.”

“Maybe,” interrupted Kitty, “this isn’t the time to debate our respective world views. But for what it’s worth, Alfie, I do agree with Greg. It’s darling the way you want to do what’s right for Fen, but at the end of the day, that should be up to him.”

They had a point. Didn’t they?

Alfie wasn’t sure if the jittery feeling inside him was hope. Or simply terror, because if his friends were right…he’d fucked up. Probably beyond redemption.

And Greg still wasn’t done. “Let me put it another way. There’s no denying that you’re a great person, and you fuck like a stallion who spent his formative years in a monastery without any other horses to play with, but you’re not so superlatively amazing that you’d render someone incapable of managing their own happiness.”

“Fuck. Oh fuck.” Alfie moved, or did something, and his glass and the bottle of wine smashed on the floor. The shards twinkled, sharp and meaningless. “I didn’t want to. I thought it would hurt me more than it hurt him, and that would be okay. Except I don’t know anymore. I just know I’m miserable and I miss him and I want to be with him.”

He buried his face in his hands. And snuffled a bit. Which his friends were kind enough to ignore. Finally he looked up again.

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