Good. At least she won’t have to shove me away when I tell her. I suddenly can’t bear the idea of feeling her horror against me.
Bracing myself, I drop my truth bomb with all the delicacy of the City trader I am at heart. “So, when I tell you that my brother died and it was entirely my fault. You have got to believe me.”
CHAPTERNINE
Jules
Forget roller coasters. Get stuck in a Paris elevator with the hottest, grumpiest man you’ve ever met and let the feelings fly. Now, this is what I call a ride. Ups and downs like you wouldn’t believe.
I can hardly catch my breath, can’t move at all as I wait for him to go on, staying as quiet as I can possibly be. How else can I gauge what’s behind the words? I can’t see his face, but in this short time, I’ve somehow learned to…feel his expression, to sense it or hear it. Carefully, I pull his jacket tighter, ignoring how the wood smoke/man smell keeps tricking me into feeling safe.
“He—Eddie—was a pipeline welder. He traveled all over the world working with different crews. From one day to the next, he’d get sent out, stay someplace new, someplace wild and different for him. Brazil, France, Australia. Always traveling. I reckon you’d have got on with him.” There’s a smile in his voice when he says, “He’d have liked you. I know that.”
I hum a wordless reply and stare at where his dark shape curves in on itself.
“His dream was this thing we’d always talked about, he and I. Owning a little pub in Paris. I remember the exact moment we dreamt it up, too.” His words tumble out, fast and low, like they’ve just been waiting to escape. His breathing’s gone all quick and choppy. “Mum’s French. She always wanted to come back, but Dad is as Welsh as a person can get. Every year, as children, we came here on holiday, to visit Mum’s family and sightsee and, for Dad, to get a taste of the expat life. We’d go to a little Scottish pub not far from here. God, Dad was in Heaven. Mum loved it, too, actually. We’d be out all day and, in the evenings, swing by for a tipple before dinner and it felt like, I don’t know, a taste of home.” He huffs out a breath. “It sounds so infantile now. And so fuckingcolonialto need a pub when there are dozens of cafés. Anyway. Sorry. I’m going on a bit.”
He’s not going on at all. He’s telling his story with the kind of deadpan delivery that I gave just a few minutes ago. Quick, too, like if he doesn’t rush, he’ll never get it out. Or he’ll lose the courage.
Being here in the dark made it easier to let go of my hot, festering wounds. Does he feel the same or is every word as painful as it sounds scraping over his throat?
“I’m listening,” I urge. Is it selfish that I want his story? Not to collect it, but to protect it, tight inside this coat. Can he feel that I’m here? There? With him in his pain the way he was with me when I shared mine. Stuck beside me, inside the car, hanging upside down, singing songs I didn’t know. Songs I’ve tried hard not to think of again.
Because I don’t believe for a second he hurt his brother. Not this big, tender man whose heart is so fragile he has to hide it beneath so many layers.
“Right. Eddie always…Wetalked about opening a pub here and I liked the idea, but then I moved on and made, fuck, just so much cash and Eddie went off and did his thing. He’d bring up the pub. I’d nod and sayalri’and then one day, after years of working the pipeline, he told me he was ready to do it. Had the cash and everything and I…”
He swipes his hand through his hair. The sound quick and rough, like he’s trying to hurt himself. A little self-flagellation. A pained exhale. I want to comfort him, the way he did me, but that’s not what he’s asking for. If I had to guess, I’d say he’s seeking punishment.
“I told him I’d changed my mind, you see? I chose playing rugger with my mates, pretentious bars, and my huge flat with views of the Thames over my own fuckingbrother.” The low sound he lets out might have started as bitter humor, but once it hits the air, it’s something else, charred and angry and stunted. His breath’s coming fast, like he’s running a race. His body’s swaying just the slightest bit. With a big sniff, he gathers himself and straightens. Even in the dark, I can feel the way he’s standing at attention, ready to take a hit. Geared up for whatever retribution he seems to think he deserves.
“Now you see,Jules,” he sneers, trying to put distance between us, but only reminding me that we’re bothright here. “Instead of safely pouring pints in a Paris pub with his selfish prick of a big brother, Eddie died on the job two months later. Christmas Eve, to be exact. A pipeline explosion. I’ll spare you the details.”
“Oh no.” Sadness bursts through me. “Colin.”
He faces the corner, like he’s willing himself out. Away. “Don’t.” That one broken word’s the loneliest sound I’ve heard in my life.
“I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t feel sorry. Feel enraged. Get…angry. Hate me, if you want. Hate works. It burns, cauterizes, gets rid of everything else.” He turns to me and back. Turns and back, the still air swishing madly with each shift. I think he’d start pacing if the space allowed. “Fuck.If you could see my parents. They’re zombies. Hollow, pale, wafer-thin shells, walking, talking, but not alive. Certainly not living.”
“What about you?” I ask, out of breath like I’ve run up six flights. “Are you alive? Are you living?” Or does he hate himself too much to do that?
“I’m here, aren’t I? It’s enough, isn’t it?” He’s gotten louder now, not yelling, but blasting like a furnace. Spewing air and heat and regret so it fills the elevator like lava. I can picture his face. Tense, tight, fiercely angry.
“I bought the pub and the flat and I…I open every day. Every. Night. I’m here.There.Doing what he wanted. Living his dream for him.”
I don’t dare touch him now.
“Why? Why did he dream of that? What was it he wanted?”
“I don’t fucking know, do I? Maybe he just wanted to drink on the job?” The laugh he lets out is dry as old newsprint. I picture his parents in their house, the way he described them. Hollow, pale, wafer-thin shells.
He’s the opposite of that. He’s hot enough to set the night on fire. I feel his solid mass, his energy, despite the way he’s tried to tamp himself down. It’s that anger, maybe. The way it leaks out, even now, in hot, hard puffs.
After a handful of seconds, his breathing slows, the fire banks. I want to put my hand on his chest, to soak up a dose of all that guilt.
Finally, he sighs and goes on, voice lower, tired. “All that traveling. He thought it would be a piece of home, I suppose. A bit of familiarity in a world full of strangers.”
