Falling (21 page)

“I’m in love with you,” I say.

Angus stares at my face. I look down. The pavement glistens with freezing rain.

“It’s like
whoa
.” I smile, feeling uncharacteristically shy. “Like I’m so full of feeling, I’m going to burst apart at the seams.”

Angus reaches out and takes my hand, grips it between his cold fingers. He looks as though he’s poised to do something but is holding himself back, his breathing quickened.

I carry on speaking, needing to get my words out now I’ve started. “I’ve been in love with you for a while, but I didn’t want to admit it to myself. But tonight it didn’t matter anymore how fucking afraid I was—nothing else mattered. I just needed you to be okay. I know I was probably overreacting but it was as if I just couldn’t help it—I’d never worried about someone so much before. And I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I’ve not made this easy for you. But even though I want this—and I really fucking want this,” I add shakily. “There is stuff I need you to know too. Stuff that might change your mind.” Angus’s grip on my hand becomes painful. “But you need to be aware of it to make your choice. It wouldn’t be fair otherwise.”

Angus opens his mouth, and I think he’s going to speak, but he doesn’t. Instead he launches himself at me, and we fly back on the pavement—Angus on top of me, closing his eyes as he leans down and kisses me.

It’s not all-out passion
—
it tastes more like relief
—
but it’s wonderful. I wind my arms around his back and pull him down into a hug.

“Talk to me,” he whispers. “Talk to me, so I can show you how much my mind is never going to be changed.”

W
E
DRIVE
back to my flat. Angus locks his hand with mine the whole way. It makes changing gear a bit difficult, but it doesn’t matter that we have to crawl home in second—we get there eventually. He seems to want to prove something to me still. Those words he said as we lay on the pavement are still ringing in my head. But I know I can’t believe them until I have laid myself bare to him and he sees the darkness inside me for what it is. Until he knows just how broken I really am. I couldn’t talk to him about that on the pavement by the side of the road, though. I think I need the safety and security of my walls around me, the thousands of words I know.

Soren is waiting on the doorstep with Oskar when we get back. He pats Angus on the back and smiles. Angus returns his smile, and though he looks a little puzzled, he doesn’t say anything.

“Oskar is going to make me a famous Russian cocktail before Lucy arrives, so I’ll see you at work tomorrow.” Soren looks at me pointedly, and I’m grateful he’s being so tactful.

After a brief moment of hesitation, I let go of Angus’s hand and draw Soren into a tight hug. When I pull away, Soren is grinning widely.

“Thanks for being here,” I say.

“Anytime.”

Somehow I know he means it.

U
PSTAIRS
I
want to hesitate. I want to sidestep and avoid the whole thing. I don’t want to talk. Angus knows about my depression, after all, but there is so much about it that he doesn’t know—how bad it gets, how bad it’s been in the past.

After I close the front door, I stand blankly in the hallway. I think about boiling the kettle, taking a shower, getting changed. Anything but sitting down and talking.

Angus holds out his hand, and when I take it, he pulls me into the living room and over to the velvet sofa, flicking on the floor lamp with his foot and tugging me down to lie next to him, all squashed up and close. The patchwork quilt Eleanor made for me a few years ago is draped on the back, and he drags it over us. His shoes fall noisily to the floor as he kicks them off. He tangles his legs with mine.

It’s as though we have created a little space in the world that is just our own. I know I need to let him in.

It’s okay
, his eyes seem to say as he strokes small circles on my side under my T-shirt, his fingers cool against my skin. It’s mesmerizing. His touch is so light. I can’t do anything but lock my gaze on his. And for once I desperately wish he could see inside my head, because I don’t know what to say, where to start, but before I can utter a single word, Angus kisses me. His mouth completely suffuses me with warmth and heat. I can feel his smile against my lips. I want him badly. Naked. Beneath me. My desire wants to take over, but I know part of that is because I don’t want to face what I have to do.

“I love you so completely,” he whispers, his lips touching mine with every word. “Whatever it is, we’ll deal with it together. It’s not going to change anything.”

How did you find me?
I think, blinking back sudden, stupid tears.
How are you here with me? How have I not pushed you away with all my hang-ups?

In the low glow of the lamp, the words on the walls look like tiny shadows. Just blurs on the old blank pages. I know them all. Some of them are my own story. They have been my life.

“I have a mental illness, Angus,” I whisper. I’m aware of no other sound but that of my voice. “I tried to kill myself. Repeatedly. That’s why I was sectioned. Suicide risk.”

It hurts to talk about this. My gut is knotted so tight, I can barely breathe. I can feel the tears still falling. Gently Angus wipes them away.

“I hurt everyone who ever cared about me. Then I pushed them all away because I didn’t want to hurt them anymore. I never wanted to hurt anyone.”

“You’ve not pushed everyone away,” he murmurs. “There’s me and Mum, your friends downstairs.”

“I know.” I cup his face. “I know. Thank you.”

I kiss him softly.

“Is this about your family?” he asks gently.

God, he reads me too well.

For a long moment we look at each other, and I think
Don’t make me talk about this
.
I don’t want to talk about this.
But this is part of it. My family is part of it. My family is the part that hurts so badly, I have to pretend it doesn’t exist, or it attaches weights to my feet and drags me under.

“I don’t see them anymore.” I make it sound so innocuous, so unimportant. I take a deep breath.

“Because of what happened?” Angus asks cautiously.

Not everyone understands.

This is what scares me.

Even though Angus’s presence is like a life raft in a stormy sea, I’m finding it hard to breathe. It’s much better that I don’t think too much as I speak. No emotion, just facts.

“I was fifteen when it got really bad. My parents didn’t take me seriously at first. They said I was just feeling a bit down and I should get out and do stuff, try and snap out of it. Teenagers get stressed, they said
—
sometimes they feel a bit low. It’s hormonal. It’s winter.

“But I wasn’t just a bit low.”

I remember feeling so powerless to make them understand that I couldn’t snap out of it, that I was suffocating inside.

I wrap my arms around Angus, holding him tight. He kisses my collarbone and rests his head on my shoulder. Every time he blinks, I can feel the brush of his eyelashes against my skin. I take a deep breath and carry on.

“My first suicide attempt was a few months later. I couldn’t stand all the busyness—being forced to socialize, to smile, to pretend everything was okay. No one was listening to me. I felt like I was standing in the middle of a crowded room, screaming, and no one could hear me. I slit my wrists in the bath on Christmas Day. God, it made a mess. Everyone went crazy. I was kept in hospital for a few days, and I had to see a psychiatric doctor. He gave me medication—some heavy duty antidepressants that looked like yellow torpedoes and made me feel like a zombie, but I was only sixteen, and I didn’t always remember to take them.”

They gave me a certain
glazed-over
look. A few of the friends I had left pointed it out to me.

“My second attempt was a half a year later. It was the closest call. I overdosed on the medication, downed nearly a whole bottle of yellow torpedoes with some brandy I found in the cellar. It wasn’t a cry for help that time. They pumped my stomach and kept me in hospital for much longer. I didn’t know why they were keeping me in for so long at first.

“But it was because Mum and Dad didn’t know what to do. I have a much younger brother and a sister, and I was tearing everyone apart. They didn’t understand why I would want to end my life. Why I would do that to them—they weren’t bad parents. It was as if they thought I was punishing them for something. I tried to tell them it wasn’t them, but how could I explain? So I stopped talking to them. I shut down even more. Every visit just hurt too much, and I wanted them to stop coming so I wouldn’t hurt them anymore. So I couldn’t see it.

“When I went home, it was as if I were a stranger. The world felt so cold. I didn’t want to exist within it anymore. I really couldn’t take it.”

I pause. I can’t remember the last time I’ve said so many words in one go. Angus pulls back to look at me, searching my face, checking I’m okay, but remaining silent and watchful. Listening. Waiting.

“Everything got worse.” I choke back a bitter laugh as I say it, because how can everything possibly be worse than what I’ve just described? Angus keeps watching me—his beautiful eyes must by now see to the very depths of my pathetic soul.

“After my third attempt, I spent eighteen months in a psychiatric hospital, having ECT and cognitive therapy. I was over eighteen then, so I asked to be moved somewhere a long way away. I didn’t tell the hospital why, but it was so my parents couldn’t visit me regularly. I can’t remember much of that time. It’s like a big black hole in my memory.

“When I came out of hospital, I discovered I had a bank account opened in my name. I had a lot of money and the number of the local social services, but that was all. I assumed my parents wanted to cut off all contact. An outreach worker helped me buy this flat… and then I met Eleanor. I doubt I’d be here if it wasn’t for your mum.” I give him a sad smile.

“Have you ever tried to contact them?”

“No… I couldn’t….”
But I’ve missed them.
Even though my words go unsaid, I know Angus must be able to see that.

My brother and sister have grown up without a big brother to stick up for them, to give them bad advice and a shoulder to cry on. I have no idea what they think of me now. I have no idea what my parents would have told them.

There were times when I first moved into this flat when I didn’t think I could take the pain of it, of how badly I had hurt everyone. When I told Eleanor I thought it was dragging me under again, she told me not to worry, that we’d get through it together. She said I was grieving, and I had to focus on getting through first the minutes, then the hours, and the days would follow on their own. She’d helped me find something to focus on—decorating this flat, the words on the pages of endless books—and most of all she believed in me.

“But since you’ve come to live here, you’ve… you’ve not….” Angus stumbles awkwardly over the words.

“Since that first attempt, I’ve felt as though I’m balancing on the edge of it. Maybe the ECT worked for me, but, Angus, depression never goes completely. It’s always there in the background. Sometimes I feel as if I’m just waiting for it to call my name. And when it does… I
don’t want to hurt you
.”

I brush my hand against his cheek, lean in close so our noses are touching. I love being close to him like this.

“You won’t,” he says.

And it just reminds me of why I held back…. He has no idea. I need him to realize.

“I can’t promise that.”

I close my eyes even as Angus’s fingers trace along my jaw, my lips. He smells of winter air and fresh sweat. It’s not unpleasant, more, it’s strangely comforting. And I know he wants to comfort me. I pull him tighter in my arms. It makes me wonder if we can ever be close enough.

“When it happens it’s not something I can snap out of, I wouldn’t know how. It swallows me completely. And you might think I don’t care, but I just
can’t
. It’s like I’m paralyzed inside.”

Angus looks at me solemnly. “You need to tell me when you start to feel like that, so I can know.”

I nod. I can try. I want to try, but….

I mirror his touch, my fingers tracing the shape of his face, his eyes, his nose.

“Sometimes my heart feels so heavy, I’m scared I can’t bear the weight,” I breathe. “And all there is is this great nothingness beneath me. I don’t want to fall, but I know I will. Do you understand?”

“I understand.” Angus holds my gaze. It hurts that he’s trying so hard to mean that, to say the right things whether or not he knows at this moment what the reality entails. Perhaps it’s the fact that he’s trying that’s important. “I don’t know how you feel, I know you won’t believe me if I say I do, but I can promise I will always be here for you. Always,” he whispers, before pressing his mouth to mine. I shift in his embrace. God, I want to lose myself in him. Press us together so there is not a space between.

“I love you,” he whispers again as if he needs to keep saying it. As if my admission earlier has given him permission. As if he knows these are the right words to say. And this time when we kiss, I’m not holding back my desire. This time when he tells me he has a condom in the back pocket of his jeans, I don’t ignore him. I want to be closer than close. I want to be connected with him deeply, give myself to him in the only physical way I can.

My heart keeps unfolding like a flower opening up in the blazing light of the sun. Because I’m beginning to understand that if I fall, it will be with his arms around me, his warmth surrounding me, his words whispered in my ear. And while it may not stop my descent—nothing will—it might be the rope that I eventually learn to cling to.

W
ITH
A
tenderness bordering on awkward, we undress each other. We only get halfway done with T-shirts and belts before Angus has other ideas and gets up to unroll my socks off my feet one at a time. Curious, I prop myself up on my elbows to watch as he holds my feet in his hands, strokes my toes, and rubs his naked chest against them. I stroke my cock through my jeans, then growl as I lunge for him, ignoring his yelps and grabbing him around the waist with my legs to pull us onto the floor by the sofa with a crash.