Page 97 of Commitment Issues
Chapter Forty
Elliot
The brandy joins the other two I’ve drunk, adding to the layer on top of the G&Ts I had with James. For somebody who’s not much of a drinker I’m doing pretty well. But I’m not doing well, I’m not doing well at all.
“What a mess, Jas, what a fucking, awful mess. It was never supposed to be like this.”
Jasper, curled up next to me on the sofa, whines, and looks up at me with his big brown eyes.
“You miss him too, don’t you?” I whisper.
And I do miss Freddie, I miss him so damn much. I pushed back at everything James said. It’s casual, it’s no strings, it’s a temporary friends with benefits arrangement. He saw through every hollow word, but still I denied everything. But now, it’s gone midnight, and my thoughts crowd in on me. They should be hazy and drunken, but they’re clear and crystal sharp.
I turn my mobile over and over in my hand. I’ve sent Freddie a couple of texts since I’ve been home, but he’s not answered. I’ve left a voice message, but again there’s been nothing. We’ve not had contact for the past four — no, five days now. I’ve told myself it’s due to being busy with work when it’s really just another indication of that cool distance that’s formed between us.
Cool distance I can’t take any longer.
“Do you think I should phone him, Jas, now, this minute?”
Jasper whines again, before burying his face in the sofa, and clamping his paws either side of his snout. He shifts, his claws scrabbling at the leather. I don’t know where his blanket is, and I don’t give a rat’s arse.
Midnight has turned to 00:40am. I can’t ring, no matter how much I want to, because calls at 00:40am can only mean one thing.
“I know he’s going,” I say quietly, as I stroke Jasper’s rough, wiry fur, “and I want him to go, for his sake, but I don’t want him to go for mine, and I know how selfish that makes me sound. But I can’t let him go without making things right between us, because it’s all gone wrong, Jas.”
Jasper slips from under my hand and stumbles off to the kitchen and his basket. Even my dog doesn’t want to put up with my maudlin navel gazing. I don’t blame him. It’s now nearly one o’clock. I’m tired but I know I won’t be able to sleep, and I should be drunk but I might just as well have been drinking water.
Pushing myself up, locking the house, and turning off the lights as I make my way to my cold and empty bed, I know what I have to do. Tomorrow, which is really today, I’ll go to him, and tell him I’ll always be his friend, I’ll always be there for him whenever he needs me. I’ll tell him all of that as I don’t tell him what he must never know, and what I must for both our sakes keep to myself
He must never know how much I love him.
* * *
I do sleep, but fitfully, and my eyes are dry and gritty as I climb out of bed and drench myself under a jet of water that’s so hot it damn near boils my skin. Coffee. Espresso, because this morning’s no time for tea. I need the nuclear bomb of caffeine to explode in my bloodstream and blast me into the day.
There’s still no response from Freddie, and I’m starting to get a nervy, creeping feeling in the pit of my stomach. Something’s — not right. Something beyondusbeing not right. His silence is uncharacteristic. I call again, but just as before his voicemail picks up and I go to leave a message, but my throat closes up and I end the call. The clock ticks over to 06:30am, early for many but not for me, and I can be at his front door in forty-five minutes.
Moments later, I’m out the house and all but running to the Tube station at the bottom of the hill.
Early Saturday morning, there are no crowds on the Underground to impede me, and I make it to the house Freddie shares with Cosmo in forty minutes. It’s madness, what I’m doing, doorstepping him as though I’m some kind of stalker, but he’s given me no choice.
I press my finger to the bell button, and keep it there.
“For fuck—? What? Elliot?” Cosmo, his hair sticking up, bleary, and wearing ridiculous Christmas novelty pyjamas, stares wide-eyed at me.
“I need to talk to Freddie.”
“He’s not here.”
“Has he told you to say that?” I look past him, towards the stairs, almost expecting to see him peeking over the banister.
“No, I really mean he’s not here. He went home, to his parents. On Wednesday evening. Come in, for God sake, it’s pissing down with rain.”
I barely notice the rain that at some point between racing out of my front door and ending up at this one, that the city’s enduring a drenching.
He grabs my arm and pulls me in. Like James, he’s small and compact and a lot stronger than he looks.
My eyes are everywhere at once, looking for Freddie, for any sign of him. The house is quiet and calm, so different from the last time I was here, the party where I dragged the drunk off Freddie because I couldn’t bear even then to see another man’s hands on him.
