“I doubt it was as cut-and-dry as that. Perhaps something triggered these thoughts. Have you read back through your journal?”
Jodi resisted the urge to roll his eyes—it made him dizzy—and shrugged. “Er, I never really got round to starting it.”
It wasn’t strictly true. He had written a few entries, but none of them were about Rupert, and it had been weeks since he’d even thought of it.
Ken didn’t seem surprised or annoyed. In fact, for a brief moment, he looked almost amused. Then his expression sobered. “So, you have feelings for Rupert that you don’t remember having before the accident.”
“I don’t remember Rupert at all from before the accident.”
“Don’t you? You mentioned the Olympics in our last session. Said you went to the women’s weightlifting at Excel Arena.”
“So?”
“The Olympics were in 2012, two years after you met Rupert.”
Jodi blinked. “I don’t remember that.”
“You don’t remember the event? Or you don’t remember telling me?”
Jodi wanted to say both, that he couldn’t remember either, that Ken was mistaken, but the harder he thought about it, the clearer the recollection of his last session with Ken became. They’d been talking about sport in general and Jodi had admitted he cared little for football and rugby.
“What about a big occasion? Like the World Cup, or the Olympics?”
“Just give them a ball each. I’d rather see someone do something incredible ... like lift twelve times their bodyweight in bags of nails.”
The image of himself and Rupert watching Chinese women doing just that had manifested moments later, so clear and strong Jodi couldn’t deny it was real, could he?
A hand on Jodi’s shoulder made him jump.
“Jodi?” Ken’s voice sounded unnaturally close. Jodi’s vision cleared to reveal Ken had left his desk and was now kneeling on the floor in front of him. “Would you like some water?”
Jodi shook his head. “No ... I’m fine.”
“Sure? You’ve gone a little pale on me. Have you eaten today?”
“Yes. Rupert massacred an omelette for me before he went to work.”
“Good.” Ken stood and returned to his side of the desk. “What shift is Rupert working today?”
“Six till six.”
“You were up early, then?”
Jodi nodded absently. He’d got up that morning to have a piss and met Rupert in the hallway on the way back. Following him into the kitchen had felt so natural he’d hardly noticed himself doing it.
“You know, I ask you quite often about Rupert’s movements, his shift patterns, how he spends his time when he’s at home. You never used to know ... like you didn’t care enough to keep track. Have you noticed your awareness improving in general? Or is it just Rupert you’re paying more attention to?”
Ken spoke with his gaze down, studying the meticulous notes he scribbled on a pad with a Snoopy cartoon in the corner of each page, but he looked up as he posed his last question, leaving Jodi nowhere to hide.
“I don’t know,” Jodi said honestly. “I know I’m getting better, but I’m not the same as I used to be.”
“How do you know that?”
“Sophie ... and Rupert. They seem so sad when they look at me. I feel like I’m failing them.”
“Sophie is very dear to you, even now when you haven’t been a couple for a long time, and you know she loves you, but what about Rupert? Are your feelings for him the same? Or something else?”
“Something else. And he loves me too. He’s never said it or done anything to make me think he has the same weird thoughts as me, but I know he loves me ... in a different way than Sophie.”
