Chapter 21 #2
People living ordinary sensible lives.
“So you keep going back.”
“Yes.”
“Every month.”
“Yes.”
“That sounds healthy.”
“Didn’t say it was healthy.”
I let out a laugh that catches somewhere in the middle.
He says, “Philip.”
“Yeah?”
“Why are you really calling?”
There it is.
The direct hit.
I sink onto the edge of the desk.
Because I saw a photograph of us in your kitchen and now I feel like my heart is ready to burst.
So instead I go for a slightly less deranged truth.
“I saw the frame.”
Silence.
“Oh.”
“Yes,” I say. “Oh.”
I hear him shift again.
He sounds almost embarrassed, which is not an emotion I associate with Mark often enough to be comfortable.
“That was accidental,” he says.
I blink.
“What?”
“It being in the post.”
I laugh.
A startled, disbelieving sound.
“I did not assume you deliberately staged Heath beside a cake as a cry for help.”
“Good.”
“But the frame itself was not accidental.”
“No.”
There it is again.
No hiding.
No excuse.
Just no.
I stare at the city.
“Why that picture?”
I ask it before I can stop myself.
Another pause.
Then Mark says quietly, “Because you’re laughing in it.”
My breath catches.
Of all the answers.
Of all the things he could have said.
That one.
Mark continues, voice low.
“You looked…” He stops.
Starts again.
“Happy.”
I close my eyes.
Whitstable sea wall.
Wind.
His shoulder against mine.
My laugh because he kept taking photos I said were awful.
Happy.
I had been happy.
Painfully, stupidly happy.
We are quite for a while.
The line hums faintly.
Then I ask the question before I can lose my nerve.
“Do you ever think about what would’ve happened if I hadn’t left?”
The silence that follows is not empty.
It is full.
Full of all the places this conversation could still turn.
When Mark finally answers, his voice is so quiet I almost miss it.
“All the time.”
The words build a bridge between us. The plain, quiet truth of it.
I grip the phone tighter.
Outside my office window, Toronto keeps moving. Cars. People heading to appointments. Somewhere below, a siren cuts briefly through the noise and fades again.
None of it feels connected to me.
“All the time?” I repeat.
Mark lets out a breath that sounds almost like a laugh, only without any humour in it.
“Yes, Philip. All the time.”
I sit down slowly.
I stare at the framed certificates on the opposite wall like they might offer guidance.
They do not.
Useless bits of paper.
“What do you think would have happened?” I ask.
“I think,” he says slowly, “you would’ve stayed Sunday night.”
I close my eyes.
He continues.
“And then probably Monday morning because Heath would’ve looked settled and we’d have found an excuse.”
A laugh escapes me.
Small.
Broken around the edges.
“Yes,” I say.
“We’re both good at excuses.”
“Professionally trained.”
“Exactly.”
His voice drops again.
“I think we’d have kept saying it was temporary.”
My throat tightens.
Temporary.
That bloody word.
The safety net of people too cowardly to call things by their proper names.
“And?” I ask.
A pause.
Long enough that I hear him breathe in before answering.
“And I think it would’ve stopped feeling temporary very quickly.”
I swallow hard.
The office is too warm.
Or I am.
One of the two.
I loosen my tie with my free hand.
“And then?”
Mark gives a quiet huff.
“You really want me to keep digging?”
“I asked.”
“Dangerous habit.”
“Mark.”
He is silent for another second.
“And then I think I’d have wanted you to stay.”
The words hit with humiliating precision.
Straight through my soul.
I’d have wanted you to stay.
I lean forward, elbow on knee, hand over my mouth.
“And would I have?” I ask.
That comes out almost against my will.
Too honest.
Too bare.
Mark is quiet so long I think he might refuse.
Then he says, low and certain, “I think part of you already had.”
My eyes sting.
Ridiculous.
Absolutely ridiculous.
I laugh once to cover it.
“That sounds suspiciously like psychoanalysis.”
“No. Just…. a fact.”
I shake my head.
Even now.
Even in the middle of this.
He can still do that.
Make me feel like I am both spiralling and somehow not alone in it.
For a second neither of us speaks.
I hear the sea behind him.
Actually hear it.
Low and constant.
Whitstable breathing through the line.
And I hate how much that sound does to me.
“I nearly stayed,” I say before I can stop myself.
The confession sits there.
Raw.
Small.
True.
Mark inhales.
“I know.”
I shut my eyes.
Of course he knew.
Of course he did.
“I had my bag packed twice,” I admit.
His exhale is almost inaudible.
“Fuck, Philip.”
“Don’t.”
“No, I’m saying fuck because if I’d known that, I might have physically blocked the front door.”
Despite everything, I laugh.
A deep laugh this time.
“You can’t imprison people in Kent.”
“Says who?”
“The law.”
“Debatable.”
I wipe at my face, annoyed to find actual moisture there.
This is getting embarrassing.
Mark goes quiet again.
Then, softly, “Why didn’t you?”
The question I knew was coming.
The one with no clever answer.
I look around my office.
The desk.
The laptop.
The city outside.
The sensible life I chose because it was stable and logical and comprehensible.
“I was scared,” I say.
There.
Ugly little thing.
Out in the open.
Mark does not rush to fill the silence.
Does not tell me not to be.
Does not rescue me.
He just lets the truth sit.
And somehow that is worse.
Or better.
I genuinely cannot tell anymore.
“Yeah,” he says eventually.
Just that.
Yeah.
As if he understands completely.
As if he maybe was too.
I breathe out shakily.
Another silence.
This one gentler.
Less jagged.
But still full.
Still carrying all the things we have not said.
I know if we stay on this call much longer one of us is going to say something irreversible.
I am not sure whether I want that or am terrified of it.
Possibly both.
I look at the clock on my desk.
4:47 p.m.
A normal time.
A completely normal Sunday late afternoon.
Yet nothing about this feels normal.
“I should let you go,” I say quietly.
Mark does not answer immediately.
Then, “Yeah.”
Neither of us moves to hang up.
Of course not.
Because we are now those people.
The ones who linger at the edge of goodbye like idiots.
“Philip?”
“Yeah?”
I grip the phone tighter.
Mark exhales.
When he speaks, his voice is low enough that I almost don’t hear it.
“I’m glad you called.”
My chest pulls so sharply it is almost painful.
“Yeah,” I whisper. “Me too.”
Another beat.
Then he says, trying for lighter and not quite getting there, “Tell your sister to stop stalking my rodent.”
I snort.
“I’ll pass on the message.”
“Good.”
“Goodnight, Mark.”
A pause.
Then, softer, “Night, Philip.”
The line clicks dead.
I keep the phone at my ear for several seconds after the call ends.
As if lowering it will make everything we just said real in a way I am not prepared to handle.
Eventually I set it down on the desk.
The office is silent.
My reflection in the window looks like someone whose own bullshit has finally stopped working.
I stare at it.
Then at the photo frame on my screen.
Toronto had felt solid when I arrived here.
Safe.
Certain.
For the first time since landing, it doesn’t.