Chapter 65
65
I can’t leave, I don’t want to leave , Connor had thought, while ‘The Queen Is Dead’ thundered in his ears on his final morning run around Salford Quays, except this pervasive ennui made no sense because he absolutely did want to leave.
When he was comforting Bel, without his shirt on and somehow unselfconscious about the fact, what was going on came into very clear focus: he didn’t want to leave her.
It wasn’t the moment he’d have chosen to fully understand himself. After Psycho Tumnus and Bitter Tim, Connor was supposed to be the reliable pal, not the next applicant.
After ‘you’re human’, he’d wanted to add: the only one I lie awake at night thinking about, possibly my favourite one but it definitely wasn’t the time. Sadly, time wasn’t something they now had much of.
Worse, it seemed this wasn’t merely ‘fancying’ Bel. He could tell his symptoms were not going to abate if they had a night together, or even a fling. It would probably make his suffering even more acute. It was as if Connor had put off seeing the GP until he was an urgent A of course it was a one-night stand. That’s why she’d launched it when they had one night left.
‘Would it ruin it?’ Bel said.
‘Are you in touch with any of your past one-night stands?’
Connor wouldn’t have said this if he’d thought it through. Apart from anything else, he was jealous enough that he didn’t want to know.
‘Honestly, I’ve never actually had one before. Unless you count … that incident, which I don’t. Are there rules?’
‘Not exactly … but weren’t we staying friends?’
‘Friends can’t ever have done this?’
‘In theory, yes, but in practice we’ll feel strange about it and never know what the subtext is if we get in touch, and therefore won’t get in touch.’
‘Yeah, I see your point.’
No no no, you don’t ‘see my point’.
‘We don’t want to be sharing smash burgers and a beer and getting involuntary flashbacks to the sight of each other writhing around naked. Like prisoners of war with PTSD,’ Bel said.
It would be absolutely fine if the burgers and beer was a date, were the words that wouldn’t leave his mouth . In that context, my memory could play any X-rated highlights reel it liked. But the fact it hasn’t crossed your mind it could be a date, is a massive clue.
‘Bel, this is because I want to stay in touch so much. I haven’t said it before because I worried I was being … what do the kids call it … extra. But I’m really going to miss you. Some serious attachment has been created.’
‘Sure! I get it,’ she said, with a robust indifference, with no: ‘I will miss you too.’ Bel pulled her dress back up and Connor inwardly winced. To call declining her offer counter intuitive was a hilarious understatement.
But in her uncomplicated eagerness to shed their clothing, she’d been offering all and nothing, Connor felt sure of it. He sensed the limits of her feelings for him and faced the extent of his own.
He’d handled that with effortful restraint and qualified honesty, so he didn’t wake the next morning to the sound of a shower and lingerie strewn on the floor and the sensation that he’d gambled any future away to have her one time.
Why then did it feel like he’d handled it really badly?