Rachel clamps her mouth shut, turning away from him. He watches as her body rises and falls in time with deep breaths. ‘Fine,’ she finally says. ‘If you don’t want to tell me, then I’m not going to force you, but just remember something, Stephen.’ At this point, she turns around and looks at him with softer eyes, slightly watery. ‘I love you. I am here for you, but if you don’t feel the same way, then please tell me now.’
Stephen frowns. How has she got the idea in her head that he doesn’t love her? The female mind is a complicated thing to understand. ‘Of course I love you,’ he says. ‘What does me not telling you about my nosebleeds have anything to do with whether I do or do not love you?’
‘Then why haven’t you told me you’ve been having nosebleeds? Have you spoken to a doctor?’
‘What’s that got to do with my love for you?’ he asks again, purposefully ignoring her second question.
Rachel sighs. ‘You really don’t understand how relationships work, do you?’ He knows she doesn’t mean it as an insult, but it still stings.
‘I told you I struggle to comprehend a lot of things, including the complexity of relationships and how I’m supposed to react. I just … didn't see the need to tell you until I knew more. I didn’t want to worry you, so I kept it to myself. You can understand that, can’t you?’
‘To a certain extent, yes. You have spoken to a doctor then?’ Rachel takes a few steps closer, grasping his upper arms with her delicate hands. His skin tingles and the outline of her body blurs as he stares into her eyes.
‘Yes, I have.’ He stops.
‘And?’
‘I’ve had tests run and I am due to find out the results on Friday.’
‘How are you feeling about them? The results, I mean?’
‘I don’t know. I haven’t really been thinking about it.’
Rachel leans forward and wraps her arms around him, squeezing tight. Stephen hugs her back, relaxing into her warm embrace. He loves this woman so damn much, and his inabilityto understand simple human emotions and interactions is slowly ruining his chance to be in her life indefinitely. He’s come to terms with his differences years ago, but when it threatens to push people away, people he cares about, he curses himself, wishing he were like everyone else.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says again. Should he ask her to come with him to the doctor’s appointment? Is that the done thing? But does he want her to come with him? What if it’s nothing and he’s making a fuss over something that has a simple explanation?
‘You can come with me to get the results if you like,’ says Stephen.
‘Do you want me to come with you?’
Oh God. It’s a trap. Back out. Back out now.
Stephen holds his breath as he says, ‘Not really.’ Brutal honesty. Women like that, right?
Rachel smiles. ‘It’s fine. Just call me straight after though, yeah?’
‘Okay.’ Stephen nods. ‘Let’s eat.’
‘Great, I’m starving.’
Chapter 9
GRAHAM
The next morning, he wakes up, aching like he’s run a marathon and with a slight stomach ache from devouring the banana bread too fast. It had been a big slice. He really needs to do something about his overall health and diet. The local doctor has warned him that if he doesn’t start increasing his exercise and decreasing his bad eating habits, he’s at risk of heart disease, diabetes and all those other old-age conditions that he’s sure are right around the corner, like a creature waiting to jump out at him in the night.
Eating cheap, quick food and drinking whisky every night isn’t helping his mental state either. Still, he’d rather die early than have his mind waste away and forget everything that’s happened in his life. At least he won’t be leaving behind a wife or children who’d be forced to watch him decay and forget they ever existed. Graham isn’t sure why he’s become so morbid with his thoughts lately. Death is inevitable, he knows that, but he isn’tthatold. Hell, technically he’s still too young to retire. What’s the age of retirement now for a man? Sixty-five or sixty-six? It seems to go up every damn year. He still has a decade of work ahead of him. Maybe he needs to gethimself a part-time job to keep his mind and body occupied because ten years is a long time. Plenty of years left, right?
Wrong. Not if he keeps eating crap and drinking whisky like it’s water.
Last night, after he’d walked back from the village meeting, full of banana bread and overloaded with more questions than when he arrived, he sunk a couple tumblers of his favourite tipple as he stared absentmindedly into the roaring fire in his lounge. He always drinks his whisky with two ice cubes. No more. No less. He’d listened to the wind and rain pelt against the window next to him and it had lulled him into a deep sleep.
Woken with a start, hours later, he’d then plodded to his bedroom and passed out.
No wonder his neck aches this morning, having slept awkwardly. Or perhaps it was the previous morning’s adventures up the tree that have caused his muscles and joints to seize up like a tin man in a rainstorm; another delightful reminder of his aging body. He doesn’t want to imagine what he’ll be like in ten or twenty years if he keeps going at this rate.
As he stands at his kitchen window, stretching his neck and back and waiting for the kettle to boil, he stares at the hill ahead, at the tree, thinking about what Frank and Karen had divulged about it last night.
