I had no counter for that. Looking at Freddie was sometimes like looking in a mirror fitted with a time machine. Except he wasn’t the selfish fuckhead I’d been when I’d had the world at my feet. “I’ll pay you back.”
“Piss off.”
I closed my eyes, drifting. “My brain hurts.”
“I don’t know why. Can’t be all that big if you were stupid enough to go swimming with that leg after a late night in the city.”
“I didn’t drink.”
“Nah, but you were still out late with no dinner.”
“You sound like Sam,” I murmured, despite his words echoingmythoughts from sometime earlier.
“Speaking of which,” Freddie said. “I messaged him for you.”
That got my attention. “You what?”
“I sent him a message request on Instagram letting him know you were with me and didn’t have your phone. You know, in case he was wondering why you went to the gym and never came back.”
“What time is it?”
“Half-two.”
“Halfwhat?”
I scrambled to get up, all jelly legs and flailing arms.
Freddie restrained me. “Easy. You can’t go anywhere till the doc comes back and signs you off.”
“I need to leave.”
“Uh-huh. He won’t be long.”
“Fre—”
“Dude. Stop. You aren’t walking out of here like this. Wait for the doc and I’ll drive you.”
Liverpool Street was a stone’s throw from home. That I couldn’t make it on my own was more humiliating than I was prepared to deal with. “I was supposed to be with Sam.”
I spoke as much to myself as to Freddie, but he answered me anyway. “I know, mate. You told me in the car on the way over here. That’s why I messaged him.”
“What did you say?”
“That you were with me and you didn’t have your phone.”
“Did he reply?”
“Nope. But he might not see the message. We don’t follow each other on social media.”
My heart continued its merry way to the pit of my stomach. Sam spent as much time on social media as I did grocery shopping. There was zero chance he’d see that message unless he actively went looking for it, and why would he do that? As far as he was concerned, I was just the bozo who’d let him down. Again.
“I need to go home.”
“Soon, mate. Soon.”
Soon turned out to be two hours later, by the time my legs were working properly. Freddie dropped me outside the flat, and I limped upstairs like a deranged robot, despite knowing full well Sam would already be at work. That he’d have left thinking I didn’t give a shit about him enough to let him know I wouldn’t be there when he woke up.
I opened the door to two omelettes lying cold on the kitchen counter and a blank Post-it that might as well have hadfuck youscribbled on it. Sam was the light and noise in my life. I needed him like I needed air. His absence in my life at this precise moment was killing me. Only a desperate need for more sleep kept me from dashing down the road to the pub.
