Page 21 of Forever Not Yours

Snarky brat.

“I’d sleep better having you properly rested.” Truth, right there.

But he was talking. That, in itself, was reassuring.

“Have you talked to Juliet?” I asked, hoping my question wouldn’t make him clam up again.

“I spent the weekend grovelling and taking an enormous amount of shit from my parents.”

I thought he might have. Also his mum hadn’t rung me for a few days, so that was another win.

“A few years ago, when you took me up to see your mum and dad—d’you remember? You had something to do, so I spent an afternoon with your mum in the garden.”

“She probably told you a load of shit she shouldn’t have. I doubt I have any secrets anymore. It’s not like I can just live my life without having everyone’s nose in my business.”

So defensive.

“She told me when you were a child, they had you investigated for autism. Because you didn’t talk. Then they thought it was some kind of selective mutism. The doctor dismissed that because you wouldn’t stop talking to him. School said you were absolutely fine. It was just at home you wouldn’t say a word.”

“Didn’t have anything to say. Everyone else was talking all the time. They didn’t need me to add to the noise.”

“Silence,” I added. “You always liked it. When nobody spoke and all we could hear was the creaking of the floorboards upstairs.”

“Those student flats had paper-thin walls. Even thinner floors. We could hear everything.”

“Sometimes we heard nothing, and that used to make you smile.”

“Shut up, Jake.”

“You still do it, Bastien. You still don’t talk. And that’s absolutely fine, but I’m right here. And I need to know what’s going on in that head of yours, so I don’t fuck this up. Because I don’t want to.”

More silence as he took deep breaths on the sofa. Long, drawn-out ones.

“I’m not ready for that,” he said quietly.

I could accept that. For now.

The days passed, and we both seemed to function as it was. Clothes drying on that rack of his. A suit jacket thrown over my treadmill. An empty cup in the sink. The long row of medicines he now had neatly laid out on the worktop.

And once again I was startled by a rap on the door, a Wednesday morning when Bastien was at work and I was due to leave in an hour.

Someone who obviously didn’t have a key to my front door and impatiently rapped a second time against the wood and shouted my name.

Juliet.

“Hey,” I said softly with a healthy dose of fear in my voice, because I was no better than Bastien, avoiding talking to the people I really needed to speak to. Grovel to. Explain.

I had no idea how to explain.

“Don’t hug me,” she said, holding her palm out in my face. “I still have an awful lot of unresolved anger, especially towards you. But I also need to talk toyou, so here I am.”

“Understood.” She was brave, braver than me.

“Coffee would be good.” She sat down on the sofa, pinching the edge of the discarded blanket, flicking it to the side.

“Coming right up.” I didn’t want to stay nor explain the blanket. Not my place. Not her business. Or maybe it still was.

My hands shook, but in a good way. This was good; this was working towards getting somewhere.

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