Aidan:okay. bell me whenever u want
Wow. If anyone has the right to be insecure, it’s not me. But I can’t help how terrified I am that Aidan’s concern for me makes me feel good. Makes me feel valid and wanted, but at the same time so unworthy I want to take his messages and set them on fire. He doesn’t deserve to care about me. It will only hurt him and then hurt me when he can’t take it anymore.
“Ludovico, leave your cousin alone. He doesn’t have time for your silly games.”
My aunt pulls Angelo away from me and out of the room. I scream as he goes, and I scream and scream until my mum comes in and shuts me up. “He’s not yours. Now be quiet, your father’s embarrassed of you.”
I blink away my ten-year-old cousin’s lovely face, it’s perfection marred by confusion. One day I’ll get over the fact that I never saw him again, but today isn’t that day, and I have other things—other perfect faces—on my mind. I read through Aidan’s messages one more time; then I delete them and shove my phone in a drawer. I was an impossible child, and now I’m a difficult man. Aidan doesn’t need that in his life—no one does.
The rest of my evening passes in a haze of catching up on work and tidying away the mess I’ve somehow created by doing nothing at all. My phone calls to me every time I come in the kitchen, but I ignore it. It’s been twenty-four hours since Aidan last messaged me, and I’m so sure he’s done that I’m almost relieved. Without him I can get back to the monotony I need to stay sane—the beige that keeps me safe. Maybe I’ll paint the rest of the house the same puke-esque cream as the spare room—
My phone rings. I freeze, my hand on the kettle. It could be anyone, but of course it’s Aidan, unless I worried Rita enough for her to check up on me.
Such a thing isn’t unheard of, but I know it’s Aidan, and the drawer isright next to me. My hand twitches. I ball it into a fist but reach for the drawer with the other before I can stop myself.
My battered iPhone greets me, lit up with Aidan’s name and the photo of the rosemary bush I’ve assigned to his contact.
I should’ve blocked his number.
But I didn’t because I don’t want to. I want—no,need—to hear his voice, even if it’s for the last time.
I take the call. “Hey.”
“Hey yourself.” His voice is scratchy and rough, as though he’s been smoking a lot. “Am I disturbing you? Fuck, I didn’t realise how late it is.”
I glance at the clock and roll my eyes. “It’s nine o’clock.”
Aidan yawns. “That’s late for me when I’m working. Getting up early basically turns me into my dad.”
Shut it down. Shut it down. Shut it down.“Your dad? What’s he like?”
“Dead. And probably just as well. He was a nasty bastard.”
It makes sense. Aidan is all sharp edges and deflective defence. He’s not a man who’s been loved. “When did he die?”
“A few years ago. I don’t count them anymore.”
“Because you hated him?”
“No, because I didn’t care enough even for that.”
That wounds me. It shouldn’t, but it does. I don’t want Aidan to be a man who doesn’t care about anything. Who walks through life cold and believing himself unlovable. He is kind and funny and gorgeous, and God, I wish he knew it.
So tell him.
My brain does a one-eighty. Suddenly pushing him away doesn’t seem so important. I pour water from the kettle into a mug already loaded with lavender tea. It tastes like soap, but Rita told me purple and blue are calming colours, and I need all the purple right now. “What about your mum?”
“She’s dead too.”
“When?”
“A long time ago.”
He doesn’t want to talk about that—about any of it. But he wants to talk or he wouldn’t have called. And clearly I want to talk or I wouldn’t have answered the damn phone.
I take my mug upstairs to my bedroom. The spare room door is closed, like it has been since I stumbled out of there three nights ago. I open it now and peer inside at the drab walls. It’s not a space that makes me think of Aidan, and I feel bad that he had to come in here to find me.
“Ludo?”
