“No joy?”
He shakes his head. “Won’t come out, won’t let me in, won’t talk on the phone. Total shutdown.” He swallows, gripping the steering wheel with both hands. “I’ll be honest, I’m scared he’s going to do something to hurt himself.” He grips the back of his neck. “I don’t know what you know but…”
“I admit, I have a similar fear. But he told me to trust that he knew his limits. He’d speak up if he needed help, right?”Right?
He gives me a grim nod. “I hope so, Rhiannon. I know he’s still alive. He told me to go fuck myself about three minutes ago when I told him I’d climb up the drainpipe into his bedroom window like fucking Romeo.”
Relief floods my veins like a bucket of ice-cold water. “I’m glad you waited for me to get here so I can record that.”
His smile doesn’t meet his eyes. “I’m guessing that’s not for me.” He gestures to the paper cups in my hands.
“You’re right, they’re not. Maryann’s out at Dock of the Bay if you feel like company though. I’ve got him. Go on ahead, sure.”
There’s reluctance in his eyes. I know if it was me, my sisters wouldn’t leave the driveway either. “You don’t have to. You want to come in with me?”
He shakes his head. “I’m good. I think he’ll feel ganged up on if we both go in. Just… let me know he’s okay please?”
I nod, and balance one cup on top of the other, holding the bag of traybakes in my mouth while I unlock the door.When I’m in, I slam the door loudly enough to be heard, and before he can say a word, I give him notice that I’m in the building. “It’s me. And I’m not leaving until we talk, so you can tell me to go fuck myself all you want, but I’m not going anywhere.”
Silence.
I’m taking it as a win that I haven’t been told to leave yet.
I don’t have to go far to find him. He’s lying on the sofa with a blanket over his head. “You shouldn’t be here, Rhiannon.” His voice is a muffled grumble from under the blanket.
“And why’s that?”
“Didn’t you break up with me?”
I laugh, which makes him pull the cover from his face to look at me.
The contrast between Robert from a month ago and Robert now is startling. Back then, he was confident, all crooked smirks and flirtatious gazes. And now? Well, now he’s a smelly pile of man on the couch. He looks like he’s aged a decade, his eyes are dark, blood-shot, and the bags underlining them tell me he’s not sleeping well.
“I understand you haven’t been in many, or any grown-up relationships, Robert, but no, I don’t tend to break up with people without having a conversation first. And I certainly don’t do it over text or phone. Which you’d know, if you’d picked up any of my calls.” I toe his phone on the coffee table next to him.
He has the decency to look bashful. “I thought you were going to read me the riot act and end our relationship.”
His voice cracks, and his sentence is labored, like he’s struggling to get the words out. I lean forward to touch his face, but he flinches.
“So, you thought hiding from me and not answering my calls was the better solution?” I offer him the cup, which he takesas he sits up on the sofa.
“When you put it like that, it sounds incredibly stupid.” He offers a shaky smile, but I think that’s more because he’s trembling than anything else. “Every word I wrote feels like a trap I fell into. Every click makes me a villain in your eyes, in everyone’s eyes. I can’t breathe in this story anymore.”
It is kind of stupid. I don’t want to beat him to death with it, but I also need him to understand how this relationship should work. “I understand what it’s like to have gremlins in your brain telling you that everything’s awful. For longer than I’m comfortable admitting, I thought your silence might have been you breaking up withme. But I need you to know that you’re right, it was a silly thing to do, and in future, if something like this should happen—which so help me God, Robert, I’ll kill you if you make this a hat trick of articles about my family—we need to talk it out. Together.”
He takes a precarious sip of his drink, eyeing me like he’s afraid I’m a mirage. “You’re not breaking up with me?”
“Do you want me to break up with you?” Please say no.
He shakes his head, loosening all the tangled knots in my chest at the same time. He drags his hand through his greasy hair, still staring at me, so I move to sit facing him, plonking my arse on the edge of the coffee table in front of his sofa.
“Why are you here?” He sounds truly confused as to why I’m sitting in his living room.
“Because that’s what you do for the people you love, Robert. You show up when they need you.” I squeeze his hand. “And more so when they don’t know they need you. Plus, you kind of need a shower. You stink.” I waft my hand in front of my face, but his usual chuckle doesn’t meet my ears. My poor boy is low.
“I’m trying to get them to print a retraction.” He sips his hot chocolate. “Pete stole notes from my hard drive, wrote his version of the article, then put my name on it. I don’t know what his endgame was. Maybe he simply wanted to sabotageme, it’s hard to tell. But I didn’t write that article, Rhiannon. You have to believe me.”
I take his hand in mine and squeeze it again. “I know. I believe you.”
