It felt good to say it out loud, but Ken didn’t give Jodi long to enjoy it. “What makes you think your thoughts are weird? We’ve never talked about sexuality. Do you remember feeling this way about other men before the accident?”
Jodi opened his mouth. Shut it again. Then a perspective he’d been lacking since he’d opened his eyes in that damn fucking hospital crashed into him like a train. “Oh God.”
His voice had faded to a whisper, but Ken heard him. “What? What is it?”
“I—I have felt like this before ... I think. Sort of. I went out with a bloke at uni for a while. I didn’t sleep with him ... I didn’t. I don’t think I even wanted to. But I fancied him. I did. I know I did.” As the memory firmed up, Jodi spoke to himself as much as Ken. “Why didn’t I remember this before? I thought it was only the last five years I’d lost. What does this mean? I don’t understand.”
“The main bulk of your amnesia has centred around the past five years, but it would’ve been impossible for the doctors to know for sure that you’d retained every memory you had before then.”
The notion that the gaps in his mind could be more vast than he’d imagined made Jodi feel sick. “How will I know?”
“I don’t know if you ever will. Perhaps it would be wiser to consider your sexuality as it stands now, rather than brooding on what it might have been. Do your feelings for Rupert upset you?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t understand them.”
Ken made a note, then turned the page over, like the subject was closed. “Have you talked to Rupert about this?”
Or maybe not. “Fuck no. I can’t do that.”
“Why not?” Ken fixed Jodi with a stare that made him want to sink through the floor. “You and Rupert were close before the accident, and you have become close again now. Why not confide in him?”
“You want me to tell my flatmate I’m having pervy thoughts about him? What the fuck’s wrong with you?”
“He was your friend before,” Ken said as though Jodi hadn’t spoken. “One who cared enough to put his life on hold to look after you. He’s seen you at your very worst moments and stayed by your side when you’ve pushed him away. I think it’s unlikely there’s much you could do to make him turn his back on you now.”
Easy for him to say. He wasn’t the one fantasising about a bloke who was clearly the best friend a man could ever have.Great way to repay Rupert, eh? Daydreaming about his cock ...
Jodi left Ken a little while later with his mind more fragmented than usual. He walked half a mile to the bus stop, checking his pocket for the Oyster card Rupert and Sophie made sure he had with him every time he left the flat, even when they were with him. Except they weren’t always with him now. A few days ago, the whole world—Jodi’s world, at least—had sat him down and informed him that he’d regained enough of his faculties to be left to his own devices a few afternoons a week. Afternoons that he mainly spent walking five times further than he needed to, as despite his newfound freedom, no one seemed keen on him crossing the street by himself.
The bus rumbled into the stop. Jodi double-checked the number and route, then felt like a twat. He knew it was the right bus because it was the same bus he’d taken two days ago when he’d come to his occupational therapy appointment. The same bus he’d taken with Rupert two days before that when he’d seen the brain doctors in the opposite building.
He boarded the bus and swiped his Oyster card, then found a seat near the driver so he could ask for help if he lost track of the stops. It would’ve been easier to take the Tube—he could follow a bloody straight line—but he hadn’t been in the Underground since he’d lost his shit on it a few months back and wound up clinging to Rupert’s leg like a hysterical cat.
That’s got to change.The notion and accompanying determination took Jodi by surprise. Until now, it hadn’t seemed to matter. Why would it? It wasn’t like he needed to go anywhere he couldn’t get to on the bus. But there was something about sitting at the front of the bus, surrounded by elderly women counting their change, that suddenly rankled him. What the fuck was so hard about taking the damn Tube?
Now felt like as good a time as any to find out.
Without pausing to think, Jodi pressed the Stop button and rose from his seat, making his way to the door as the driver pulled the bus into the next stop. There was a Tube station twenty metres away. He manoeuvred through the crowds and shoved his way down the steps. Below ground, self-doubt kicked in. He stared at the brightly coloured map on the walls and tried to trace his journey home. Instinct drew him to the Victoria line. He closed his eyes and called on the logistical memories his brain had managed to retain. He couldn’t remember ever needing to come this far south before the accident, but the conviction that he had done, many times, was suddenly overwhelming.
He opened his eyes and studied the map again, following the bright blue line down from Tottenham until it came to where he was now ... Brixton. What the hell was in Brixton? And then it came to him, and the answer was the same as it had been for many other questions he’d asked himself recently: Rupert. Rupert worked in Brixton, at the fire station, and he had done so since long before they’d apparently met. Jodi took a deep breath and another piece of the invisible puzzle slotted into place. He couldn’t think of a reason why he’d come to Brixton with Rupert—to a fire station of all places—but he had.Knewhe had. Felt it in the bones he’d longed to leave in Ken’s stuffy office.
In a daze, Jodi tore himself away from the map and followed the signs further underground. Then the heat of the looming platform hit him, and his thoughts of Rupert evaporated. Since the accident, he’d grown used to the oddly slanted perspective that often plagued him—a shifting sensation that made him feel like he was walking sideways—but today, as the ground rushed up to meet him at an alarming rate, the lack of equilibrium had never been more terrifying.
The slam of concrete never came. As he braced himself for impact, strong hands caught him and held him upright.
“All right there, mate?”
Jodi blinked as the bottleneck platform entrance he’d stumbled in returned to normal. His rescuer came into focus ... a thick-set, ruddy-faced man who looked familiar. “Thanks.”
“No worries. Thought you was gonna hit the deck.”
“Me too.”
“You okay?”
