Chapter Ten On This Day in History #2
“My mum died…a while back. Lived with my uncle for most of my childhood.”
“Shit. Sorry. What about your old man?”
Jude gave a small shake of the head. “No idea. Didn’t stick around long enough after I was conceived to leave a forwarding address.” He popped a bite of fish into his mouth, chewed, swallowed. “So, yeah…you were right to ask. I don’t have anyone to flip a coin for me.”
Warren nodded, voice gentling. “Sorry to hear that. You and your uncle not close then?”
“Didn’t exactly see eye to eye.” Jude shrugged, but it was tight in the shoulders. “It’s better we parted ways when we did.”
“When was that?”
“I left home when I was sixteen.”
Warren looked up. “That’s young. Where did you go?”
“Here and there,” Jude said, evasive but not dismissive. “Hostels. Sofas. Places that didn’t ask too many questions.”
Warren hesitated for a beat, then, “Can I ask why you left?”
Jude twisted his fork through the scraps on his plate, trying to reshape the memory into something easier to swallow.
“Could say I was… encouraged to leave.” He glanced over at the old couple in the corner. Easier to say these things when he wasn’t looking directly at a reason. “My uncle didn’t take too kindly to my lifestyle choices.”
Warren paused mid-bite, gaze meeting Jude’s with something quiet and intense behind them. Not pity. Presence.
“Gay,” Jude offered, flat. “If that wasn’t already obvious.”
“I figured.” Warren smiled, then let it drop. “Still. Christ. That’s brutal.” He looked away for a moment, then back again. “You didn’t deserve that.”
Jude gave a half-smile, more reflex than feeling. “No one does. But it happens.”
They let the quiet settle for a bit, but it didn’t feel heavy. More necessary.
Warren leaned back. “So… Worthbridge. Why here?”
Jude’s gaze dropped. His appetite had disappeared somewhere between the question and the memory it dragged up. He pushed food around his plate, then shrugged.
“Needed somewhere quiet. Clean slate. Job came up. Seaside town. Figured I’d take it.”
Warren nodded. “From Leeds?”
Jude shook his head. “No. I left there early on. Spent a few years in London.”
Warren grinned. “No way. My old stomping ground. Whereabouts? Did you teach there too? Maybe we crossed paths? Roamed the same school corridors? Went to the same uni?” He gestured between them with a faint, teasing wave. “Reckon that’s why there’s this… thing.”
Jude’s breath caught. This thing? What exactly did he mean by that? The same pull Jude felt humming under his skin, or just polite familiarity. He didn’t dare ask. Instead, he focused on his plate, on the scrape of cutlery, anything keeping him from meeting Warren’s eyes.
“Worthbridge is my first teaching post,” he said quietly.
There was a pause. Jude felt it before he heard it.
Warren sat back, searching Jude as if adjusting his mental maths.
“Started late,” Jude offered before he could stop himself and had to grab the beer, taking a mouthful to swallow around the bitterness. “Took the Access route into teaching. So no previous school. No uni.”
Another pause.
Then Warren tilted his neck. “How come?”
“The usual cliché. Messy breakup. Hit reset.”
It should be enough. It had always been enough.
But Jude could feel Warren watching him. Not in the way other people had. With pity and understanding. There was something else in Warren’s gaze. A if he knew the story had legs and wasn’t as simple as two people parting ways. And he wasn’t just looking at Jude then, but through him.
He hated that.
Also… didn’t.
Warren’s chest rose with a breath getting ready to pivot. Change gears before it got uncomfortable.
“Well,” Warren tapped his fingers on the table, “for what it’s worth, I rate late starters. You’ve got real history behind you. Lived experience. Makes for a better teacher, if you ask me. Gives you something real to bring to all that… history.”
Jude let out a short laugh, dipping his head as he glanced down at his plate.
“Guess so.” He poked at a half-eaten chip, the edges of a smile tugging at his mouth.
“Though I’m not sure how my personal odyssey from Leeds to London to Worthbridge qualifies me to teach the Reformation or the Treaty of Versailles. ”
Warren smiled. “You’d be surprised.”
Jude looked up at that, arching an eyebrow.
“Not that I’ve got the faintest idea what the Treaty of Versailles is, mind you.” Warren bit his lip. “But I can tell you all about oxbow lakes.”
Jude laughed. “Well, I guess nothing prepares you to explain the rise of fascism to a room full of Year Tens like having once shared a flat with three chain-smoking conspiracy theorists in Elephant and Castle.”
“Bet they thought the moon landing was filmed in a chip shop.”
“Only on Tuesdays.” Jude took a sip of his drink, the humour fading a little. “Still… they taught me resilience. And the value of sleeping with a knife under the pillow.”
He didn’t mean to say it. Or for it to land as dark as it did. But Warren didn’t flinch. Didn’t laugh either. He kept looking at him. As if he understood exactly what wasn’t being said. And Jude felt something warm unfurl in his chest.
Like maybe, for once, someone actually did.
Jude stared at his plate again. “Is this part of your PT qualification?”
“What?”
“Getting people to say too much.”
“Only the ones who have a talent for dodging eye contact.”
Jude blinked. Then glanced up. Met his gaze.
“Gotcha.” Warren smiled.
Jude snorted. “You’re a knob.”
“Occupational hazard.”
Jude narrowed his eyes. “Which occupation is that?”
“Professional nosy bastard. PE teacher when wearing the shorts.”
Jude didn’t mean to laugh. Not properly. But it escaped anyway. Quiet. Breathy. The sound of something old and rusted creaking open.
“Right,” Jude said. “Because they’re so different.”
“It is when I ask about your glutes for curriculum purposes.”
Jude rolled his eyes. But he didn’t look away. That was the problem. He hadn’t dodged the eye contact, and Warren wasn’t breaking it. That quiet, deliberate stare wasn’t confrontational. Nor was it too intense. But it was… unwavering. As if he saw more than he should and wasn’t afraid of any of it.
“Sounds like you’ve had a journey to get where you are.” Warren cocked his head. His voice was calm, but there was something behind it. Curiosity, maybe. Or care.
Jude gave a shrug, eyes on the tabletop. “Hasn’t everyone?”
“No.” Warren shifted forward, broad frame filling the space across from him. “Most of us have someone flipping that coin for us. You? Sounds like you flipped your own. Twice. That’s brave as hell. Starting over like that.”
“Or what most people call running.”
“Running’s fine.” Warren dipped to get in his line of sight. “Depends whether it’s away or towards.”
Jude looked away. Blinked. Swallowed around the sudden tightness in his throat.
He hated how kind it sounded. How true.
Then Warren reached out across the table. Not sudden. Not pushy. A quiet gesture. A hand, palm-down, resting gently over Jude’s.
“Hey,” he said, voice low. “It’s alright. I didn’t mean to—”
Jude jerked back. Instinctively.
“Whoa! Fuck. Sorry!” Warren pulled back, raising his hands in surrender. “I wasn’t…shit. I didn’t mean…”
But Jude couldn’t hear him. Couldn’t hear anything over the roar in his ears telling him to get the fuck away. Adrenaline tore through muscle and memory, his vision tunneled, and he shook. Visibly. Involuntarily. His hands were icy, his stomach churning as if he'd swallowed gravel.
No. No. Not here. Not now.
He couldn’t fall apart in front of Warren.
He wouldn’t.
“I’m sorry,” Jude gasped. “God, I’m so—”
But the rest caught in his throat as panic surged, sharp and choking. He slid out from the booth so fast the table rocked behind him.
“Jude!”
He didn’t stop. Couldn’t. Even with the old couple in the corner glancing up as he stormed for the door. He shoved it open hard enough to rattle the frame, rain smacking cold and sharp the moment he hit the street.
He dragged in a breath. Then another.
As if air alone could erase the last thirty seconds. As if oxygen might clear the shame rising like bile.
He needed out.
Distance.
Somewhere that wasn’t there. Or in his own head.
“Jude—Jesus, Jude!”
He spun. Warren caught up, reaching out, then stopping dead, hovering his arm in the damp air.
He retracted it instantly, clenching his hand into a fist at his side, as if physically restraining his instinct to close the distance.
When really, Jude wanted nothing more than kind arms to wrap around him, soft fingers to stroke him, gentle voice to whisper that he was okay.
“Hey,” Warren said, voice soft. Grounding. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“No.” Jude shook his head, shutting his eyes tight. The shame was still there, but beneath it was a small, fragile certainty: Warren hadn't pushed. Warren had backed away. Warren had listened. “It’s fine. I… I need to go.”
“Okay,” he said. No pity. No tension. Just the word, calm and sure. But he darted his eyes around as if checking anyone was watching. “Let me pay the bill, grab my coat. Then I’ll give you a lift home.”
Jude blinked. Oh God. The bill.
He’d walked out without paying.
He fumbled in his trousers pocket, found a crumpled tenner, and shoved it into Warren’s hand. “Here. Sorry. I’ll give you more next week. You don’t need to—”
“Jude, please.” Warren dipped to get into his eyeline, trying to keep Jude there with his gaze, not by force. Or power. God, he had no idea what that meant. “You can trust me.”
Then that.
But Jude said nothing.
Because people said that sort of thing all the time. Some even meant them. But it didn’t mean they wouldn’t still hurt him later.
And Jude had learned the hard way. Everyone lied eventually.
So when Warren turned back into the restaurant to settle the bill, Jude watched him for a beat, caught in the soft glow of the doorway light.
Then he turned away, and let the night swallow him whole, darkness wrapping around his shoulder, the only shield he could still believe in, reminding himself that it was his own reckless choices that had led him to where he was now.