Page 72 of Best Man
“But I’m getting married.”
“Not to me, thank goodness. You are now totally someone else’s problem.”
“What about my fucking best man?”
“Ask someone who still gives a shit about you. Good luck.”
THIRTEEN
ZEB
I bang into the flat. “Jesse,” I shout out. “Jesse?”
But the silence mocks me with the knowledge that he isn’t here. I don’t even need to look. He has a way of infusing a place with his presence and I always know where he is.
I see a scrap of paper on my desk and draw near, almost afraid to pick it up. It’s a page that’s obviously been torn from his exercise book and his messy scrawl fills up the page with impatient letters. I draw in a breath that hurts my chest and read it.
Dear Zeb,
I’ve left. To be honest it’s looking like I never should have been here in the first place. I saw you and Patrick on the balcony earlier. I think that, along with your behaviour when I tried to stop you seeing him, tells me everything I need to know.
I lower the page and suck in a sharp breath, feeling moisture burn at the back of my eyes. Fuck. It just gets worse. I go back to the letter.
I realised when I saw the two of you that this whole month has really been about you and Patrick and never about me, which just goes to show my arrogance because I thought differently. I thought a lot of things which I’m glad I never said now.
Anyway, I wish you happiness. I’m not sure you’ll get it to be honest because Patrick is a complete arsehole, but maybe that’s what you need. And I realised today that I’d like you to have what you want because you spend far too much time catering to everyone else’s needs and ignoring your own. So, if a spoilt man child is what you’re after, then have at him.
Just please be happy. I don’t think you are or have been for a very long time, but I don’t think you pay any attention to that, which is sad. Be happy, Zeb, in whatever form it takes.
I won’t be coming back to the agency so you can take this as my resignation. I’m presuming you won’t hold me to anything. I just can’t see you anymore. I don’t want to. I’m going away for a bit so don’t call round at the flat.
Jesse
My hands are shaking, and I push them behind my back as if to hide them. The idea that he thinks I’ve been using him to get back with Patrick is horrifying. My stomach clenches until I think I might throw up and I want to hold him so badly. He must feel dreadful. What did he feel when he saw me on the balcony? I imagine all that lovely vitality in his face dying away and I feel sick.
I want him suddenly and desperately. I want to say sorry for doubting him. I want to hug him and hold him close, listen to him laugh and inhale his scent of green tea. But the silence of the room seems to mock me with that wish, and I sink onto a chair, still holding his letter.This can’t be over. I won’t let it.
I think of this month. All the wonderful silly dates. Laughing together. That slow dance in the candlelight. I’ve never felt so alive or so seen. Jesse seems to notice things about me that no one else does. He seems to care more than anyone else has either. My childhood was so chaotic, and I clung to the notion that my father loved me. But he didn’t really know me. No one does apart from Jesse. He is the only one who’s ever cracked the shell I grew around me as a matter ofsurvival when I was small. And even when he sees everything, I don’t feel naked and exposed because he’s seeing me with those warm brown eyes of his. Those kind eyes.
At times, this month has been scary because I have so many feelings for him. It’s such a leap of faith to invest your heart with someone. It’s something I’ve always resisted doing fully. I cared for Patrick, but it was nothing compared to what I already feel for Jesse. And it’s only now I’ve lost him that I realise just how much he’s come to mean to me. The thought of never seeing him again fills me with panic, and all my fears of him leaving me when bored fall away to nothing beside the pain of actually having lost him.
I stand up and pace over to the window, staring unseeingly out onto the yard.Where would he go?I think back to our conversation this morning and stiffen suddenly. He wanted to go to his mum and dad’s house earlier on. “That’s where he’s gone,” I say out loud. Then I frown. “But where the fuck do they live?”
A few minutes later I steam through the packed office downstairs, still dressed in my morning suit with my top hat under my arm and my gaze fixed straight ahead.
“Oh Zeb,” Felix drawls. “When did the office uniform become so formal? Can’t we talk about this?”
“Nope,” I say.
One of my perennially dissatisfied customers, Miss Higgins, stands up, her face set in its usual querulous lines. “Mr Evans, can I just say–?”
“No,” I say succinctly and bang into my office, slamming the door so her displeased whine is cut off.
I look around wildly. I’m sure the address I need is in the computer somewhere, but I’m also pretty certain it was on a piece of paper he gave me recently. But where is it? Deciding to leave the computer until last, I rummage wildly through the tidy paperwork on the desk, throwing it off when it proves useless. I scrape some of the files off and watch them cascade to the floor, so absorbed that I don’t quite manage to catch the iMac that goes sailing past me too. It crashes to the floor, exploding in a bang and a flurry of sparks.
I hear the door open behind me, and Felix comes to stand next to me. “Redecorating?” he asks calmly.
I glare at him. “I can do without the customary backchat.”
