Chapter 26
NEIL
At ten a.m. on the dot, Ez strides into Luke’s sitting room in that purposeful, elegant way he has. I must look as uneasy as I feel, because he pulls up short. “Neil. You okay? Christ, we’ve been worried. I barely slept a wink the last couple of nights.”
Really? Why’s he so antsy? Has he forgotten this injury is because I trashed his bar?
“I’m fine.” I peek across at him. Ez’s skin always has vampiric undertones, but the circles beneath his eyes are new.
Fuck, maybe he’s had to close the bar to make repairs.
Maybe a customer injured themselves on my broken glass.
“I’ve been here with Luke the whole time.
Being pampered far more than I merit. You didn’t need to worry. ”
He collapses onto the sofa next to me. “Yeah, I did. I’ve been worried sick about you for fucking weeks. We all have.”
That’s heavy, stealing my breath. “I only did it five days ago. And no one died. It’s only a scratch.”
“There was a lot of fucking blood, mate, for a scratch. Thank fuck the cut was only your arm and not your neck or your face. That broken glass got everywhere.”
“About that.” I shift awkwardly. “I’ll pay for the damage out of my own money. Just tell me what I owe, and I’ll transfer it today into the company account. I can’t do much about the customers I scared off, but—”
“Babe, slow down.” He puts a hand on my good arm; I fight the urge to shake him off.
He’s being far too fucking considerate about this.
In his place, I’d be livid. “Let’s focus on the important parts.
Luke says the surgeon’s managed to repair everything.
All the tendons and nerves, as well as the blood vessels.
Isaac says it should heal as good as new. That’s great news.”
“Yeah, but—"
“Bet it still hurts like a bitch, though, yeah?”
Only everything I deserve. “No, well… yes, I suppose. But it’s fine. It’s…it’s just fine.”
Ez shuffles his arse, facing me square on, building up to something. I swallow, staring at my stupid purple sling, waiting for the hammer to drop.
“Look, Neil,” he begins, and I close my eyes, bracing.
“I need to tell you how sorry I am we fell out. I said some things I shouldn’t have, and not just the other night but on a couple of other occasions.
I was sharp with you. I guess…I guess I’ve got carried away with the renovation ideas.
You know what an impatient bugger I am. I want to run with it.
I want everything to happen, like, yesterday.
And I thought we were on the same page. So it came as a shock when you started backpedalling.
Isaac said that maybe banging your head might be–"
The world freeze frames. “I’m going blind,” I interrupt.
“You’re—"
“Blind. I’m losing my sight.”
The messy, shaky truth lies there on the sofa between us.
I have an insane urge to laugh. It’s almost funny, how easy it is to say.
Ten out of ten for honesty, Neil, I think to myself.
Of all the ways I’d composed in my head how I was going to break the news to him, vomiting it out did not feature in a single one of them.
But maybe two out of ten for composure. That bowl of natural yoghurt gnaws away at my insides and I’m trembling like a jelly in an earthquake.
“You’re what?”
“Going blind.” Bloody hell, I’ve managed to say it again.
Luke squashes down on the sofa next to me, taking my hand in his.
Anchoring me. How does he always sense the exact moment I need his touch?
How can so much power be unleashed by so small a gesture?
“It’s a genetic condition called retinitis pigmentosa,” he explains.
“Isaac and Alaric will be familiar with it. We learned about it at med school.”
“I’ve known for years.” I confess, toying with Luke’s fingers.
Each of them so precious to me, like he wouldn’t believe.
“Since I was around fourteen or so, but I almost forgot for the next fifteen years because back then it didn’t seem real.
Until this year. When I banged my head and when I slipped down the basement stairs.
When I had to ask Luke to translate our accountant’s Excel spreadsheet—although I don’t think, even with 20/20 vision, I could make sense of that. ”
“What…” Ez shakes his head, pinching the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. “What’s the accountant got to do with anything? Just slow down a sec.”
I can’t. It’s all tumbling out of my mouth.
My hand in Luke’s shakes violently, the battery acid-flavoured yoghurt climbs up my throat like it’s come alive and grown legs, but if I don’t rid myself of everything now, then I’ll freeze and never find the nerve ever again.
“I’ve been trying to work out how to tell you for months.
But I couldn’t, because I don’t want you to look at me differently—although soon I won’t be able to see how you’re looking at me, so that’s idiotic from the start.
But anyhow, you know what I mean. I didn’t want you to worry.
I still don’t. About me. Or…or the business, the plans for the business.
I didn’t want you to pity me either. So I kept quiet, and then you were fussing and fussing, and saying nothing got harder and harder as I fucked things up even more, like I did with that health and safety woman.
And then Luke went away, I became a needy, mopey idiot, you and I fell out, and then I fucking exploded and ruined everything.
I probably wouldn’t be telling you now if Luke hadn’t come back. "
I run out of breath, but the silence is deafening; I can’t bear it.
“So, yeah,” I babble on in a thin and wobbly voice.
I really ought to shut up right now. “I have this degenerative eye condition heading towards blindness, at a rate of knots. You can buy me out of the business if you want. I’d absolutely understand.
There would be no hard feelings. If I were in your shoes, I’d tell you it was the right thing to do.
Soon, I’m going to be a dead weight. And I’m…
I’m, well, as you can probably tell, I’m fucking scared to death. ”
Standing up, Ez walks to the window. His shoulders rise and fall as he takes in, then lets out, a huge breath.
Finally, he turns around again, arms folded.
His expressive eyebrows morph into their angry-birds thing, ready to launch a thousand guilt trips.
I used to take the piss out of him about that; they semaphore one of his pithy, articulate observations is incoming long before the words leave his mouth.
I prepare for it, shoulders tense, jaw tight, the way you brace for a bitter cold wind.
“Let me get this straight,” he begins coolly, that dark gaze locked onto mine. “Because that’s a hell of a lot of information you’ve just thrown at me. And it’s safe to say I didn’t see any of it coming.”
I nod mutely. “No. I was happier with you thinking I’d become an alkie.”
“Your eyesight is deteriorating, and there’s no cure, right?"
“Neil can take steps to slow it down and maximise what he has, but yes,” Luke butts in.
Ez moistens his lips. “And you’ve been struggling with this for a while. You’ve known about it for even longer. And you didn’t want me to worry.”
“No. I didn’t.”
“Even though this isn't going away.”
“Correct.”
As if they know we’re discussing them, my eyes prickle. A too-big feeling presses up against my throat, and it’s not a lump of semi-digested yoghurt. One wrong word, one fucking sympathetic look from him, and I’ll tip right over the edge.
Ez shoots Luke a what-the-hell glance so sharp it could cut through steel. “You’ve known about all this for a while?”
“Yes.”
“Leave Luke out of this,” I bite out. “He’s the reason I’ve found the balls to tell you.”
Ez nods. “Does this retinitis condition have any other symptoms?”
What, like destroying property and friendships and business partnerships? Nah, that’s all me.
“No. Just a gradual loss of vision,” Luke confirms. “Most people don’t even realise they have it until they’re about Neil’s age. And it’s a spectrum. Some cases are slower to progress than others.”
“But Neil’s is progressing a bit faster than most?”
God, I’m glad Luke’s answering these totally reasonable questions. I’m not sure I’ve got the strength.
“We hope the speed waxes and wanes over time,” he confirms. “But yes, possibly.”
Ez swings that unbending gaze back to me. “So it doesn’t affect your brain, Neil? Your memory, for instance?”
“No.”
Ez whips out his phone. These days, he’s nothing like that gangly, lost teenager I picked up that first Saturday night.
I must only have been a cocky eighteen myself.
I’d been out with the bunch of wild students I used to hang around with, and was on my way home, feeling high and horny.
I’d come across him begging down by Euston Station, wrapped in a blanket.
He’d looked harmless, cold, and fucking delicious.
We fucked, shared a spliff, and fell asleep on the sofa. Things kind of spiralled from there.
Ez is still gangly and pretty, but now he’s cool and street smart, a great dad to Jonty and in love with his adopted brother. And I’m in love with the beautiful nervy man holding me tight, a man brave enough to take me on.
“Just give me a moment,” Ez orders, thumbs flying over the screen.
He holds it to his ear. “Alaric,” he says when it’s answered.
“You got a second? I’m with Neil.” His world-weary eyes flick over to mine.
“Yeah, that Neil, and yes, you can relax. He’s fine.
Mostly. Except for the part where he’s been a fecking idiot. ”
Hands on hips, he huffs a massive sigh, staring at me as if I’m an annoying plot twist to his day he hadn’t anticipated and isn’t sure how to solve.
“In that case,” he continues, after promising Alaric he’ll call him back later, “if this disease doesn’t affect your memory, then you’ll remember perfectly well all those late nights I crashed at yours because it was pissing down outside, and you didn’t want to kick me out.
And all the times you split your tobacco with me, and your weed, and your beer.
And that time you came to my appointment with social services, sat down and refused to leave.
You said you’d phone the local papers and kick up a fuss until they’d guarantee that me and Jonty—whose asthma was really bad—were next on the list for a flat.
And then you chatted up your mate’s dad so he’d give me a cash job washing up, in order that I could afford the rent, even though at the time I didn’t have a fucking fixed address and looked and acted exactly like the homeless, penniless, druggie that I was.
Remember any of that? Or is that going the way of your eyes too? ”
“I remember.”
“Good. Because I’ll never forget it. Any of it. So if you think for a single nanosecond that becoming blind is your brilliant excuse to abandon me and the amazing, amazing business we’ve built together, then you can fucking think again, babe. Earth Bar is us, Neil. Not me. Us.”
I don’t notice Luke’s arm slipping around my back, only that it’s there. I fall into him, resting my head against his shoulder. I don’t notice when my useless eyes start leaking tears, either. Only that they do, and I can’t control them.