“Want train!”
I laugh. It’s amazing how seeing Carys even for a few minutes can lift my spirits so much. “You do. And I’ll come very soon to visit for Christmas. On the train. And I’ll see you and your mum and your gran.”
She peers at me, restless in her chair. Em’s got her buckled in, ready for the inevitable squirms.
“When I come to see you, we’ll play trains, I promise.”
Carys looks satisfied with that. “Now?”
“I wish I could, darling. In a few days.”
Emily comes into view to save a brewing storm as Carys looks tearfully at me. “Bath time. Say good night to Daddy.”
“Good night, Carys.”
“Night, Daddy,” Carys says mournfully, as though saying good night is causing my two-year-old profound suffering. Fair. I have it too, that same profound suffering deep in my heart from missing her. I hate being so far away.
My guts twist. If only I was closer to give her a bath, help with the nighttime routine, help with the washing up or anything to give Emily a hand. And, of course, play trains with my baby girl.
After the call, I flop on the bed. For some time, I lie there, staring at the ceiling.
Priorities, Charlie. Carys is what matters. You and Em made a choice.
It’s terrible being so far from them. It won’t be forever. It can’t be. After this weekend, they’re an excellent reminder of what I need to focus on.
The rest of Sunday evening passes in a blur of emo misery, another diagnosis that should be in theDiagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. It sounds far better than depression and generalized anxiety disorder, with bonus panic attacks for the win. At least the hallucinations stopped when I quit shoving drugs and things into my system. Binge-drinking, inappropriate men, chasing highs… If it had been toxic, I’d been all in.
By ten o’clock, I’ve worn myself out, paced over the creaky hardwood of my room till even the floor was tired of me, sick of thinking, sick of myself.
Give me a different life, universe. I’d like a do-over. And a brain that’s not a champion arsehole.
I carefully avoid thinking of how disappointed Ben looked when he awoke to find me sneaking away the first time in the night. A shiver runs through me at the memory. I hate that I disappointed him.
We never actually exchanged phone numbers, so there’re no messages today. And I’m not on social media, so that’s out. I’m left with the overwhelming urge to drown myself in liquor but I keep it together, staying up late watching shit online to keep from thinking of Ben. It works—mostly. Right now, there’s a carefully carved Ben-void in my memory.
Besides, there’s Carys and the upcoming holidays. There’re essays to write and books to read and the reading list to start on for next term. There’s a load of things to think about other than Ben. I just don’t have time in my life for him, like it or not. It was a fun one-night thing. That’s it.
Let it go, Charlie. Let Ben go.
That all works till I shut off the laptop and the lights and slide beneath the covers. Alone. When I close my eyes, I can see him in front of me with his easy grin and striped scarf and leather jacket, the simple freedom of snogging in the snow in a magic moment out on Denmark Street, stolen away from our usual, very different lives, and lying skin to skin in his bed, just hours ago. And guiltily, I linger on that image of us, together in his room lit by the moon, sprawled on the bed, happily exhausted and wanting nothing else in that moment, until sleep takes me.
Chapter Fourteen
By Monday, I’m back to the usual and more settled as a result. It’s a new week. I can forget the weekend’s highs and lows. Christmas is coming up fast and there’s loads to do once I get through these latest shifts, least of all the shopping for Wales with my latest wages.
The café’s busy, and today the Soho shoppers are out to do some serious damage. Which means the café is full of them when they need a break from corporate consumerism and all of that Christmas retail cheer. A flat white is a brilliant salve for overspending, or at least a time-out. There’s also a layer of students crept around the edges, planted at the wooden tables like some kind of permanent fixture.
I’m back to my typical grumbling café persona. That bout of happiness was only a lapse. Even with Jasmine’s pep talk yesterday, I have the all-too-vivid reminder of my bandmates’ abject glee at trying to figure out why I was doing something so banal as smile.The worst. I have a careful veneer of gruff and surliness to maintain. Any deviation will lead to questions that I don’t want to answer.
And that’s time wasted which would be far better spent imagining Ben naked on the bed, all temptation and vice and the way he justlooksat me, like he’s trying to remember every last scrap of me, trying to imagine what I might do next—
The latest piercing shriek of Lars abusing the steamer rips me back to the present, appalling reality in the café. The good news is that the peak of the lunch rush is over and Jasmine, Lars, and I aren’t quite losing our minds up front. We’re damned busy, but not desperate. It’s a lull between rounds of desperation, at least. More people will hit the café soon enough.
I pause to drag the cuff of my black sleeve across my forehead, then glance at Jasmine, who’s stalled out in filling the order I called to her a moment ago.
She doesn’t answer me.
“Ground control to Moon Unit,” I say. “One broccoli cheddar soup and a croissant. Plus one cappuccino, extra hot. I don’t know if Lars heard the last bit.”
