Page 49 of My Best Friend Is Broken
Because Nicky kissed me.
Actually kissed me. Put his mouth on mine and meant it, kissed me like he’s been wanting to do it for years, kissed me like I’m something precious instead of something broken that needs fixing.
I touch my lips without thinking, remembering the way his mouth felt against mine. Soft but demanding, gentle but desperate, everything I’ve been dreaming about sinceI was eighteen and too scared to put a name to what I was feeling.
He called me his boyfriend this morning. Not directly, not in some grand declaration, but in the easy way he made coffee for both of us and asked if his “boyfriend” wanted eggs with his toast. Like it was the most natural thing in the world. Like we’ve been together forever instead of just figuring it out last night.
Boyfriend. The word sits warm and strange in my chest, unfamiliar but perfect. I’ve never been anyone’s boyfriend before, never had the chance to learn what that means, what it feels like to belong to someone who actually wants you.
“Walker, Liam.”
The bored voice of the receptionist cuts through my reverie. I look up to see her pointing toward a corridor with the kind of dead-eyed expression that comes from years of processing human misery for minimum wage.
I get to my feet, still buzzing with the kind of giddy energy I haven’t felt since I was a kid on Christmas morning. Even this, the humiliation of proving I’m still behaving myself like a good little ex-convict, can’t dampen the euphoria that’s been coursing through my veins since I woke up in Nicky’s arms.
The corridor is exactly what I imagined a probation office would look like. Narrow, beige, lined with identical doors that could lead to anywhere from counseling sessions to drug tests to meetings where they decidewhether you’re worthy of remaining free.
“Ms. Harris, room four,” the receptionist calls after me without looking up from her computer.
Room four is a small office that feels even smaller thanks to the overwhelming presence of filing cabinets, stacks of paperwork, and a desk that’s seen better decades. Behind it sits a woman in her late forties with graying hair pulled back in a practical bun and the kind of exhausted expression that suggests she’s seen it all and been disappointed by most of it.
She doesn’t look up when I enter, just gestures vaguely at the chair across from her desk while she continues typing something on her ancient computer.
“Liam Walker,” she says without glancing away from her screen. “Released from HMP Brixton on...” She pauses, scrolling through whatever file she’s got open. “November first. Served five years for death by dangerous driving and other related charges.”
Each word hits like a slap, reducing five years of hell and everything I’ve survived to a few clinical sentences in a government database. But even that can’t completely kill my mood. Because whatever I was when I walked into Brixton, whatever I am now that I’ve walked out, I’m also someone who gets to go home to Nicky at the end of the day.
Someone who gets kissed good morning and told he’s loved and called boyfriend like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
“Current address?” Ms. Harris asks, finally looking up from her computer with the kind of mild interest you might show a mildly interesting piece of paperwork.
I give her Nicky’s address, watching as she types it into whatever form she’s filling out. She doesn’t ask if it’s permanent or temporary, doesn’t seem to care whetherI’m sleeping on someone’s sofa or have an actual home. Just records the information and moves on.
“Source of income?”
The question I’ve been dreading. Because what am I supposed to say? That I’m completely financially dependent on someone who earns his money doing things I try not to think about too carefully? That I’m a grown man who can’t even afford his own groceries because five years in prison has left me completely unprepared for basic adult life?
I feel heat creep up my neck, and I know I’m blushing. “My boyfriend is taking care of me.”
The words slip out before I can stop them, and the moment they’re in the air, I freeze. Boyfriend. I’ve said it out loud to a stranger, made it real in a way that goes beyond just the two of us figuring out what we are to each other.
But Ms. Harris doesn’t even blink. Doesn’t look up from her typing, doesn’t ask for clarification, doesn’t show any interest whatsoever in this piece of information that feels monumentally important to me.
“Hmm,” she grunts, fingers clicking away at the keyboard. “Any employment prospects?”
The casual dismissal stings more than outright hostility would have. This thing that feels so precious and new and life-changing to me, this relationship that’s literally keeping me sane, that’s given me a reason to keep fighting when everything else feels hopeless, is just another box to tick on her form.
“I’m... looking,” I lie, because the truth is that I’m nowhere near ready to handle job interviews or workplace dynamics or any of the social interactions that normalemployment would require. The truth is that just getting through each day without falling apart feels like a full-time job.
“Support network?” She continues, still not looking at me.
“My boyfriend,” I say again, and again she shows no reaction. No curiosity about who this person is, whether they’re good for me, whether this arrangement is healthy or sustainable or anything other than a line item in a database.
“Any substance abuse issues since release?”
“No.”
“Mental health concerns?”
