Page 108 of Out of the Shadows
DANIEL
“What’s up, boy?”
Wandering around the kitchen, Wallace is mewling, aimless and unable to settle. I try to pick him up to comfort him, but he wriggles out of my arms and flees. He misses Cosmo, and he’s not the only one.
My eyes are itchy, dry and sore and I rub them hard. I’ve buried myself in work, here at home rather than in the office. Work. Piles and piles of work. It’s my default avoidance tactic, so ingrained I barely notice anymore. This time, all my attempts to stop the clamouring voices in my head have been futile. Cosmo’s and Geraldine’s, Geraldine’s and Cosmo’s, one telling me I’m little better than a coward, the other telling me I have to be brave.
It’s seven-thirty in the evening which means dinner, I suppose, but there’s nothing I want to eat so I make another coffee. I’ve lost count of how many I’ve had, but it’s enough that by rights I should a be a quivering wreck. I huff. I’m not quivering but there’s no doubting I’m a wreck. Tipping a brandy into the coffee, I settle down once more to my computer at the kitchen table, only to stare at the screen before I close it down as the noise in my head gets louder.
In the lounge, Wallace is curled up in the corner. He’s still mewling as he tries to burrow into — I take a closer look. A jumper, and one I recognise. Moss green, and the same shade as Cosmo’s eyes. I was with him when he bought it. My heart stumbles, missing a beat, as I remember his laughter when I peeled it off him, later, when we’d closed the door on the world…
I scoop Wallace up but he hisses at me, baring his teeth. Not that he’s got too many left.
“Enough of that.”
He answers with another hiss, but there’s something half-hearted about it before he starts to mewl again. I grab the jumper and take it, and Wallace, over to the sofa where he settles beside me. The jumper’s soft and silky under my fingers, and I press it into my face and breathe in deep. The lingering fragrance of Cosmo’s cologne, which I last breathed in on his arched and straining neck, desire mounting in me as I’d sucked on the thin and sensitive skin as he’d moaned, and murmured my name on a long, trembling sigh…
“Oh, Christ.”
A jumper here, a book there. The room, the whole house, is full of reminders Cosmo was filling not just my house with life, but me too.
My gaze falls to the armchair in the corner, filled with an oversized cushion. I don’t have cushions, or I didn’t until Cosmo turned up with it. It’s rainbow striped, a bold flash of vibrant colour in a room dominated by muted shades. I could wave the rainbow flag in the privacy of my home, he’d said. We’d laughed, but we’d both known the comment had been about so much more.
You have to take Cosmo by the hand, literally and figuratively, and you have to do it under the full glare of the sun…
Geraldine’s words come back to me. Everything we’d talked about, this is what it all comes down to. No slow and cautious steps, because aren’t they really just an excuse to retreat back into the darkness?
“What have I really got to lose? What is it I’m afraid of?”
I look down at Wallace as though my capricious, bad tempered cat who was always a playful kitten for Cosmo, can give me the answers, but all he does is stare back at me.
Will there be professional repercussions? My name’s a heavyweight in the industry, my expertise is in demand and where there’s money to be made, everything else falls by the wayside.
Will my friends turn their backs and desert me? My closest friends, only a tiny handful, have always stood by me. If I tell them my biggest secret, which may not be the secret I’ve always thought it was, will they still stand by me?
Will my loving family disown me? My parents have always put my sister and me first. Follow your heart, do what’s right for you, my mum had said to me, privately and quietly, after I’d told her and my dad that Geraldine and I had split up. As much as they both love Geraldine, it was me they thought of first.
I jump up, unable to keep still. Wallace howls in protest and retreats under the sofa as I pace the room.
Will they do that? Will they do this? What will they say? What will they think?
I don’t know, because how can I know? I can’t control how others will act, how they’ll look at me, what they’ll think. Whatever I do, it’s a risk, but aren’t I used to taking risks, to taking chances? I’ve always been bold and fearless, I’ve made a fucking fortune in being bold and fearless. I’ve spent my whole career doing it and it’s served me well. But my heart? Have I ever been bold and fearless enough to really and truly take a risk where I need to most of all? Why ask myself the question when I already know the answer…
I come to a stop in front of the window, where I rest my forehead against the cold glass and close my eyes.
My heart. I’ve spent so many years protecting it and keeping it safe. So many years hiding what it truly yearned for. It’s a fragile thing, and I’ve done all I can to keep it protected, and safe from hurt.
Safe from the rough and tumble of what it is to be fully alive.
I squeeze my eyes tighter, as I press my forehead harder against the window pane.
All my life I’ve clung to the conventional and the expected, rather than face the truth and accept what has always lain in my heart. All the women I’ve dated. Lovely, funny, intelligent, kind and beautiful women, every one of them ending in failure. Even Geraldine, I suppose, although with her sharp legal instinct for sniffing out a lie, she saw, and accepted, what was in my heart before I ever did.
The conventional and expected — until Cosmo burst into my world, full of energy and colour, bringing me to life as he pushed back the shadows, giving me permission to tilt my face to the heat of the sun.
A shudder runs through me, coming from nowhere, and tripping down my backbone. My eyes snap open and I swing around.
The room’s bathed in gloom. The lamp’s glow isn’t warm and buttery, but weak and dull, as though it’s being absorbed by the darkness lurking in the corners.
I turn my back on the gloom and the waiting shadows, and gaze out at the square, at my neighbours’ homes festooned with lights. I’ve barely noticed them before, and I take the time to look.
Their windows are filled with ornate and twinkling Christmas trees, candles and lanterns, the light colourful, rich, and inviting, bright with the promise of warmth and life.
The promise of warmth and life.
I suck in a hard breath as pain spasms in my bruised and battered heart, as it cries out for what it has always yearned for but I’ve always been too afraid to confront.
I pull my mobile from my pocket and gaze down at it, just for a moment, before I find the number I need. It’s my first step, and one that has to be made before I earn the right to take Cosmo by the hand under bright, warm sunlight.
“Hello Mum, it’s me. There’s something I need to tell you…”
