Silently, we traipsed into the living room. He sat where he always did, in the corner with his legs stretched out. My place had been the other end when I’d first moved in, but I’d migrated in recent months, edging closer and closer to him, even before he’d taken me to Whitby.
I sat opposite him and stretched my legs out so they touched his. “I’m sorry about your dad.”
“We’ve done that bit. Tell me what happened when all the pretty girls went away.”
“They never went away.” I sent him a grin from the old days, before my face settled back into a speculative frown. “But it was too easy, and I was an arrogant prick. Hooking up with wannabe WAGs got tired, and then one day it was a hotel waiter who’d crashed the party to clear up. He told me to use a fake name on Grindr and be super low key. Said that most blokes looking for a dirty hook-up wouldn’t pay too much attention to my face if I had a good bod.”
“Was he right?”
“For a while. Then it started costing me money again to keep people quiet, and you know the rest.”
“Not really. I know things. They don’t add up to your version of events because you’ve never told me.”
I hadn’t told anyone except medical professionals. Dom wasn’t a details man, and Freddie had been there. I’d never told Sam because I’d never known how. In all the conversations we’d had, never once had it occurred to me to flay myself open. Naïvely, perhaps I’d believed I didn’t need to. That he knew me inside out without me having to try. But... I was an idiot.
My hands grew clammy. I wiped them on my sweatpants. “I guess I ran out of luck. That nearly agent I told you about managed to shut down a couple of rumours, but when him and Dom moved on, I had no fairy godfather to fix my shit. Looking back, I was unravelling for a long time, and I got sloppy, you know? Like I didn’t care if I got caught. But I did care, and when it happened, I really fell apart.”
“Did you—” Sam took a breath. Tried again. “Did you try and kill yourself? At the Tube station? I mean, that’s what I read, but—”
“I didn’t.”
Something that looked suspiciously like relief crossed Sam’s face. “You didn’t? Because you know it wouldn’t change anything, don’t you? That’s not why I want to know?”
I wanted to say that of course I knew that nothing I could tell him would change anything between us, but if I truly thought that, why had I never told him in the first place? It wasn’t as if he hadn’t given me plenty of opportunities. “I know you won’t judge me or look at me differently; it’s never been about that.I told you before—I think—I just can’t talk about it sometimes. It was so bad back then that talking about it scares me. It puts me right back there, and I can’t remember how I ever managed to leave it behind. How I didn’t die on those tracks.”
“Did you want to die?”
“It was an accident. I didn’t jump.”
Then what happened?Sam didn’t verbalise the question, but he didn’t have to. This was my moment to speak the truth and break the deadlock that had simmered between us since we’d met. “I fell.” I twisted my hands into a convoluted tangle and forced myself to meet his gaze. “I’d done so much coke I had a fucking seizure and rolled onto the tracks. My leg got caught and burned by the current. Freddie dragged me clear, otherwise I’d have died right there on the platform. The media tried to spin it as a suicide attempt, but it really wasn’t. I didn’t want to die; I’d just forgotten how to live.”
“Have you remembered yet?”
“Some days.” I tried for a smile. Got one back in return, and the weight I’d carried for no fucking reason at all floated away. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why it was so hard for me to tell you that.”
“I’d imagine because it’s traumatising to relive it every time someone gets nosy, andI’msorry about that. I’m sorry about Freddie too. I didn’t believe you when you said he was a good friend, and I should have.”
“You can apologise for giving Freddie a hard time, but not for being nosy. I love that about you.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah. I’ve never had that with anyone before. My parents were the kind that let me get on with whatever providing I didn’t bring trouble to their door. Did me a favour when I was misbehaving, but in the long run meant I never held myself to account. I regret that now.”
Sam rubbed my leg in just the right place. “Do you think you’ll ever reconcile with your parents?”
“Yeah. Not for a while, though. They’re proud people, and I embarrassed them.”
“That’s awful, Micah. You were ill. It wasn’t your fault.”
“I know.”
Silence fell over us. Sam was clearly unconvinced about my parents, but there wasn’t much I could do about that. I’d spoken nothing but truth.
His body pressed against mine on the couch felt so good. I absorbed the warmth radiating from him and made it my own. Contentment settled over me. I closed my eyes. We had a long way to go, but something had shifted between us tonight and drawn us ever closer. Guilt coursed through me that I hadn’t been here when he needed me, that he’d rushed home to his father alone when I should’ve been with him, but I couldn’t fix the past, only the future. And, fuck, I loved him so much.
“Micah.” Sam shook me.
I opened my eyes. For the second time that night, he stood and held out his hand. “Come on. Let’s go to bed.”
