Chapter 27
‘I’m falling off the mat, princess.’
‘Yeah, join the club. It was made for one person.’
I hear a light thump. ‘Ah, shit,’ he mumbles.
‘Sorry!’
‘Could you try to restrain yourself?’
I sigh with frustration. ‘I was turning over to make space for you.’
‘You legitimately just pushed me off the mat,’ he drawls.
‘I don’t think this is going to work.’
‘I’ll just sleep here on the floor Nora, it’s fine.’
‘Nope, come on–’
I feel around in the darkness for his arm, grab it and firmly pull it toward me.
‘You don’t need to – oh. Okay–’
‘There we go.’
‘Thanks. You’re uh, much stronger than you look.’
‘Oi,’ I object. ‘Do I look like a weakling to you?’
‘No, no.’ He sounds scared.
‘If you’re looking for a fight, Walker, I’ll give you one.’
‘That won’t be necessary. And since when do you call me “Walker”?’
‘Since when do you care what I call you?’
Despite intending for my comeback to sound light and playful, I realise that my voice undeniably comes across sullen and bitter. I feel him sit upright beside me.
‘What’s going on?’
One of my eyes peek open. I’m very aware of the sudden change in tone.
‘What?’
‘You’re being particularly… snipey,’ he murmurs. ‘Are you sure you don’t want to talk about… you know. What happened earlier?’
I almost jump at the mention of the incident. The image of Elliot’s lips on mine flashes in my mind, hot and insistent.
I huff. ‘No. I’m just sleepy and your enormous…ness is taking up half my sleeping mat.’
‘It’s not too late to go to my tent,’ he offers. His voice is soft and rumbles so deliciously close to my ear. I could simply scream.
‘Yes, it is,’ I whisper. ‘It’s far too late. I’m in my comfies and I’m halfway to snooze town.’
‘Okay,’ he replies, his voice just as quiet. He lies back down next to me. ‘I am sorry about earlier though.’
Oh no. I resist the urge to cover my ears. ‘It’s okay,’ I tell him. ‘They must pump something into the air in there.’
He huffs a laugh. ‘Yeah, maybe.’
I frown, the quiet confirmation hovering in the dark space around us. The kiss was a one-time occurrence, triggered by something in the atmosphere. A mistake never to be replicated.
Despite the fact that this truth is reverberating in my skull, I’m still irritated by the quiet guilt stirring somewhere inside me for my short replies and unintentional coldness. No matter the situation, I hate behaving like that with anybody.
‘I’m sorry too,’ I say, raising my voice slightly so it fills the tent a little more than I wanted it to. ‘I didn’t mean to be so… snipey, as you put it.’
‘It’s okay, I get it. I have kind of got in your way this weekend.’
That’s an understatement.
‘Well, it’s not too late to give up the stick,’ I say with a smirk in my voice. ‘You know, if you have any regrets.’
I still when I pick up on the unintentional meaning behind my words, the kiss springing to mind again. But he responds without pause.
‘I don’t have any regrets.’ The sleeping bag rustles, and I swear I feel his eyes on me.
What? I pull my sleeping bag closer and dig my face into it. That doesn’t make sense? He must regret it, to an extent. The guy just said he was sorry about it. Pick a side!
I shake the thoughts out of my head. Maybe I’m the only one thinking about the kiss now. Or is there a chance he’s plagued with the memory of it like I am?
‘Really?’ I ask, my voice muffled.
‘Really.’ His voice is firm, it leaves no room for debate.
‘Well, it’s still up for grabs, then,’ I mutter, trying to drive the topic back to the drumstick.
There’s a pause.
‘The drumstick, I mean,’ I add, panicked. But he stays silent.
I shuffle a little, trying and failing to get comfortable. Unfortunately, I’m now very awake.
‘What do you think your brother’s reaction would be if you gave it to him?’ I whisper over my shoulder.
‘I don’t know, honestly. It would just be nice to do something special for him.’ He clears his throat. ‘It’s not really been the best time, recently.’
‘What happened? I mean, if you don’t mind me asking. You don’t have to tell me. But you know… it might help. Talking about it.’
The tent is quiet. I feel him shift next to me. Although it isn’t my right to know his business, I felt so safe opening up to him earlier – and a tiny bit of me desperately hopes that he might feel comfortable enough with me to share as well.
He seems to be considering his next words. I don’t dare move a muscle.
‘Prepare yourself,’ he murmurs with a light laugh. ‘It’s pretty sad. Lame, I mean. Whatever you want to call it.’
My head whips over my shoulder toward him. ‘I know it definitely isn’t lame and I don’t even know what it is yet,’ I whisper fiercely.
I hear a rough sigh in the darkness and sit up to peek over my shoulder at him. His hand flies up and flutters at me, motioning at me to lie back down.
‘This might be easier if you don’t look at me.’
‘Elliot.’ Something in my chest cracks open. ‘I’m sorry. You really don’t have to tell me anything, honestly. We can consider this conversation closed.’
‘No, no. It’s fine.’ His voice is low and calm. Tired.
I lie back down next to him, facing the top of the tent. I feel a tiny nudge from the sleeping bag and imagine him nervously tugging at his hair.
‘Alright, well. For starters, I’m not exactly proud of how I’ve dealt with this situation.
But to cut a long story short… Max, my younger brother, has struggled with his mental health his whole life.
OCD and depression mostly. And I always did my best to support him and look out for him.
You know, as much as a brother can anyway.
My parents are great, but I always wanted to go above and beyond, you know, to make sure he felt looked after.
We used to talk all the time, I’d push for updates and check-ins and everything. I tried to do what I could.’
I hear him swallow and wait for him to continue.
‘You know my ex I mentioned?’
My heart sinks. ‘Yeah?’
‘We were together until last summer. She, well…’ He hesitates, his voice catching.
‘It sounds crazy to even say it out loud, but she… sort of ghosted me completely. One evening she left my flat like normal and then I just – I never heard from her. I completely went out of my mind at first because I was so fucking worried that something terrible had happened to her until I eventually reached one of her friends, who said that she’d gone to France. To… think.’
Then I do sit up straight. ‘She went to France? To think?’ I hiss.
He snorts. ‘Yeah. She’d mentioned here and there that she wanted to travel and live abroad in all these different places but never in a serious way.
She never said she wanted to make a plan – so I was just content living here and saving to maybe buy a fucking house at some point.
I was an idiot and ignored all the signs, I had no idea that she just…
I don’t know. Wasn’t satisfied with that kind of life.
She didn’t have the guts to talk about it. Or even break up with me.’
For a moment, I stare at him open-mouthed.
‘You haven’t heard from her at all? Still?’
He sighs. ‘She actually did try a few times to get in touch to apologise but I didn’t want to hear it. As soon as I learned that she was okay and just didn’t want to deal with the inconvenience of breaking up with me, I was fucking done. Everything that we had built meant nothing anymore.’
‘How could she do that?’ My voice almost cracks. It feels like my stomach is being hollowed out. ‘How could someone do that to you?’
‘Looking back now, it was just classic Rachel. She never wanted to talk about our issues or obvious incompatibilities, she just wanted to pretend everything was okay and that we were happy. And once you set up a precedent of poor communication it’s weirdly hard to come back from it.
I tried sometimes, but it’s on me as well.
I should have tried harder and listened to my gut that something with us just wasn’t… right.’
‘This is not your fault.’ I take a deep breath through my nose, trying to quell the anger rising inside me. My mind conjures the image of Elliot’s easy smile replaced with stress and horror as he checks his phone again for a sign of the girl he loves. His composure unravelling as the days drift by.
The fact he had been so thoroughly abandoned by his own partner and experienced such a distinct type of rejection makes me feel sick.
Something in my mind clicks and I recall his words from this morning when I left him:
I’m just trusting you to come back.
My mouth feels dry when I speak. ‘How long were you together?’
‘Two years.’
I take a shaky breath. ‘I’m so sorry, Elliot.’
‘I’m fine now, there’s no need to worry about me. It’s Max I’m more worried about now.’
‘Are you sure you’re fine, though? Elliot, that’s a really big deal. It’s not something you have to feel okay about,’ I insist.
‘I know. I do feel alright, though. I’ve tried to deal with it, even though it took a while. I’ve seen a therapist and everything. If anything, I’ve just been selfish about it. Like, dealing with it all on my own.’
‘What do you mean? Taking time to deal with something like that isn’t selfish at all,’ I tell him. ‘That’s a very specific kind of loss.’
‘Yeah,’ he says, his voice brusque. ‘But in the process I completely neglected the fact that I have a brother who isn’t well.
And needed me. I stopped supporting him in the way he needed, I created distance that I didn’t even want because my head was just such a fucking mess and didn’t know how to deal with anything. Or anyone.’
‘Of course you couldn’t. How is anybody supposed to adjust to something so extreme? That’s what nightmares are made of – a partner quite literally vanishing from your life. It’s horrific.’
I’m actually so worked up I can feel heat making its way up my cheeks.
‘Did you talk to your family about it? And your brother?’ I ask carefully.