Falling (11 page)

“No,” he says, wincing as he shakes his head.

I raise my eyebrows.

“I don’t….” He swallows. “If there is someone there… I don’t want you to get hurt.”

It’s been so long since anyone has worried about me like this, it makes me weak inside. And even though I feel awful, the bone-deep want I feel in his presence is just getting stronger and harder to ignore.

I
KEEP
a heavy torch under my bed. It’s shaped a bit like a cosh. My own paranoia had me buying it many years ago now for self-defense.

As he’s followed me into the bedroom, I show it to Angus with a flourish and a tired grin.

“Protection and a torch all in one,” I say.

I try not to look round the bedroom. I’m embarrassed by the dirty clothes I discarded last night on the floor, the way my bed looks as though I’ve been wrestling with a fucking octopus in it. Normally, no one else sees in here. The rest of the flat is immaculate. I like order. But if Angus notices, he doesn’t give any indication.

“I’m coming with you,” he says.

He still looks far too fearful.

I roll my eyes in mock exasperation, even though doing so feels like my eyeballs are moving against ground-up glass. “Come on, then.”

O
UR
TEETH
are chattering, and we’re shivering even before we’ve stepped off the porch. A deep breathy hush of icy morning air surrounds us, and for a moment we stop, just listening, just breathing. Being outside right now, searching for some phantom that isn’t here, is the last thing I want to be doing. I want to be in bed, sleeping off this headache that’s making my vision blur.

After a moment’s hesitation, I grab Angus’s hand and lead him across the frozen grass and around the side of the building. I don’t pull out the torch until the streetlights no longer reach us and even our tightly joined hands are swallowed up by the gloom.

“Which window?” I breathe.

Angus freezes by my side until I switch the torch on and point it at him. He looks terrified, and I’m beginning to lose circulation in the hand he’s squeezing the life out of.

I’m just about one hundred percent certain there is no one here.

Giving his hand a good squeeze of my own, I pull him after me as we make a circuit of the house—all the way round the back and down the side alley, with me flicking my torch up and down and around and around as though I’m trying to bring down planes out of the sky.

No one.

I don’t ask Angus if he’s happy now we’ve checked everywhere—I can see that he’s not.

Upstairs, Angus sits with his head rested on his arms at my tiny kitchen table while I make him a hot chocolate. I think about pouring a small measure of brandy in it to help him sleep, but he’s already had too much alcohol tonight.

“Can I sleep up here tonight?” he asks, looking so fucking unsure of whether or not I’m going to say yes.

“There’s not much night left, you know.” It’s nearly half five, but it’s Sunday, and I’m not working.

“I’m sorry I woke you up, and I’m sorry about coming on to you earlier.”

He won’t meet my gaze. I can hear his foot tapping against the floor.

“Wasn’t sure you’d remember. You seemed really out of it.” I try to sound offhand, wanting him to know we can forget it.

“Not that out of it.”

Obviously.

“Come on, I’ll let you have the bed,” I say.
Because I just love sleeping on the sofa.

In the bedroom I pick up my mess of clothes off the floor, then sit with him while he finishes his drink.

I move to get up, but Angus hesitantly touches my hand. “Stay here with me. I promise I won’t come on to you again or anything. I just want to be near someone.”

“I’ll only be in the next room.”

“Please, Josh,” he whispers. “I feel so fucking awful. Not just hungover. I feel so fucking lonely and scared.”

It’s his expression rather than his words that make me stay. He looks so utterly vulnerable and exposed, it actually hurts me. I try and clamp down on the feeling, but I can’t, and I know the only thing that’s going to help is being close to him.

I turn out the light and scoot into bed behind him, pulling him into my arms so we’re spooned together tightly, my hands against his heart. It feels so wonderful, and I know I can never, ever let this happen again. Not if I want to hold myself together. Not if I want to keep a grip on my life. I don’t want to be on the front of this train when it crashes and burns.

“Hangovers are the worst,” I whisper, his ear barely a millimeter from my lips. “They can make everything seem so bad.”

“It feels so good when you hold me, though.” He brings his hands up to cover mine, squeezing our fingers together gently.

I move my hands away. He promised me he wouldn’t do this.

“Don’t,” I say gently, smoothing his hair with my fingertips.

His chest trembles, and I hear him sob. The sounds he makes are just tiny gasps, as if he’s trying desperately to hold it all inside. I pull him closer because I don’t know what else to do. I feel closer to him than I’ve felt to anyone in a long, long time.

However much he’s hurting, it’s not long before Angus is asleep. I watch him in the half darkness, my hands splayed out protectively across his chest, feeling his heart beat against my fingers. I should get up and go lie down in the other room, I should snap all these threads that I can feel wrapping around us tighter and tighter, because Angus deserves so much better than what I can offer him. He deserves someone who is not so fucked-up and afraid. He deserves someone who will love him and be there for him until the end of the fucking world. He doesn’t deserve another burden, another broken person in his life.

But I can’t snap the threads, and I can’t move away.

However much I tell myself there are no triggers for my depression that I can’t deal with, I know there is one, and this is it. Feeling like this. Wanting a normality I know is out of my reach. Wishing there was a way I could fix the faulty wiring in my brain. Wishing I could promise to never hurt him.

Angus smells like heaven, and I’m lost, so lost. My throat feels tight, and I squeeze my eyes shut.

Eventually I sleep.

W
HEN
I
wake, Angus is gone.

My first thought is it’s a bit strange that I didn’t wake when he left—I’m such a light sleeper usually—but perhaps it’s because I don’t feel so good. I try and raise my head, but it feels heavy, and the slightest movement causes me pain.

Forcing myself upright, I have to wait for the room to stop spinning before I get up and gingerly change my clothes. I can’t face a shower even though I’m covered in sweat again and my stomach is roiling like an unstill sea. I ignore it as best I can.

For a while I wander restlessly from room to room. When I can wait no more, I go downstairs to knock on Angus’s door.

I don’t know what it is exactly, but something changed last night, and I just want to see him. It’s probably quite pathetic, especially as I feel so ill I’m actually shaking and ready to curl up on the cold hard tiles beneath my feet.

The door opens.

“Oh,” Angus says when he sees me. His gaze flicks away from my face almost immediately.

He doesn’t seem unwelcoming exactly, just a little closed off, and I can’t remember him ever being closed off with me before.

“How are you feeling?” Even my voice sounds tight and sick.

“Pretty crap,” he answers, and I get the sense he means more than physically, though it’s hard to tell when he’s barely even looked at me. “I’ve got some studying to do.”

“Want to come up?”

Even though I’m not feeling one hundred percent, I still want his company. I guess that should tell me something, but it’s just not something I’m willing to consciously accept right now.

He shakes his head, continuing to look down at the tiles.

“Is everything okay?”

“Fine,” he says tightly.

This conversation is making me grit my teeth a little.

“I should get back to work.” He moves to shut the door.

“Wait.” I put my arm on the door to stop it closing. “Is this something to do with last night? Is something else worrying you?”

Angus sags against the doorframe. “I wish you weren’t so nice to me. Sometimes I wish you were just my upstairs neighbor. Someone I could go and borrow some sugar from and crush on in secret, knowing nothing would ever happen between us, but that would be okay, because that’s what secret crushes are for,” he whispers.

“What?” I’m genuinely perplexed.

“You’ve no idea what this is doing to me, do you?” For a second his gaze flashes against mine, his eyes full of so much pain.

I open my mouth and close it again, swallowing whatever words I was going to say, because maybe he’s right—I don’t know.

I step backwards until my hands touch the cool wall behind me. I need something to hold on to, something to hold my shaky body upright.

“Maybe it would be better if we don’t bump into each other at all for a while. Please don’t go and see Mum straight after you’ve finished work. Go later in the evening, and I’ll make sure I’m not there.”

He closes the door to his flat.

I stare at the dark wood, feeling light-headed.

Somehow I make it upstairs. My head is spinning, my stomach cramping painfully. I just make it to the toilet before throwing up—retching and retching until my stomach is empty and it’s mostly bile. After, my legs feel so weak I can’t stand, and I curl up on the floor. I wonder if I have food poisoning and think back over what I ate last night, but it was nothing out of the ordinary.

From where I’m lying, I can just about see the galaxies pasted on the ceiling. The stars bursting and full of light, the cold stark emptiness that surrounds them.

I
DON
’
T
go to work on Monday. I still feel awful. I can’t even remember if I phoned in sick. Somehow I managed to crawl from the bathroom and into bed last night, and now I can’t get out of it. I just can’t move. It’s as though a heavy weight is pinning me in place. My body wants to throw up, but I have nothing left, and I just retch into the sorry towel by my bedside.

Sometime in the evening, there is a knock at my door, but I don’t answer it or even call out. I don’t have enough energy.

I’m not sure if I sleep or not. There are just huge blank spaces of time where I do nothing at all.

It might be Tuesday when I hear Soren’s unmistakable voice. He knocks loudly on my door and calls my name.

But he goes away again.

It’s dark when I hear a key being turned in the lock. I think I must be dreaming. Eleanor has a key to my flat. I got it cut for her years ago, but she’s never used it. Maybe she’s come up to see if I’m okay. It takes a moment for me to remember she’s not here anymore.

I open my eyes, and two people are standing in my room talking. Someone is sitting on my bed. It’s Angus. He’s touching my wrist. At first I think he’s just holding it, but then I notice he’s taking my pulse. He places his hand against my forehead and looks at me solemnly. Soren is with him, holding a tray of food. He puts the tray on the floor when he sees my eyes are open.

I think I hear Emma’s voice somewhere in the vicinity of my kitchen.

“Josh, can you sit up?”

Slipping his arms around me, Angus helps me. He looks awful—haunted. He hands me a glass of water.

God, I’m thirsty. My throat is so dry, it feels swollen. I don’t think I could speak even if I wanted to.

“Josh, what the fuck is going on?” Soren says abruptly, pacing back and forth across my room. “I thought you were fucking dying or something…! Are you dying or something?” he adds worriedly.

I’ve never heard Soren sound worried before.

Angus shoots him a warning glance and mutters something like, “Don’t,” under his breath.

I’m not sure I can speak.

“All right, all right, I’ll come back in a minute,” Soren says, waving his arms in the air and disappearing into the kitchen.

I don’t really understand why everyone is in my flat.

“Did you just suddenly come down with something? What happened?” Angus asks once Soren is gone.

He scoots closer. The glass is so heavy in my hands, I think I might drop it. Angus notices and helps me bring it up to my mouth. His hands are warm, strong.

“Tired,” I whisper after I’ve taken a sip.

“Soren told me you haven’t been in to work for two days. Not even called in sick or anything. I thought you were just keeping out of my way like I’d asked. I was so worried about you when Soren told me.”

“Don’t worry.”

Angus sits with me. Makes me eat the soup Soren brought in on the tray. Surprisingly I find I’m hungry, and I eat the lot. I feel a little better. A little more alive, less pinned in place. When Soren comes back in, Angus takes the tray away and leaves us.