Guilt returned full force. Jodi closed his eyes and imagined how he’d feel if their roles were reversed—if Rupert was snatched away when Jodi was just beginning to comprehend loving him.
There was no worse feeling. There couldn’t be. Jodi opened his eyes and found Rupert on his knees in front of him. “Don’t leave me,” Jodi said. “When you come home tonight, I need you to sleep in the bed with me. I don’t care about the sex—I don’t even know what the fuck I’m talking about ... I can’t remember it, but I need you with me. I can’t be away from you anymore.”
Rupert cupped Jodi’s face and stroked his cheek with the pad of his thumb. “If that’s what you want, boyo. I’m there, every night I’m home. I love you.”
“I love you too.”
* * *
“So things are good at home, then?”
“Hmm?” Jodi tore his gaze from the window and struggled to focus on Ken. “Oh, um, yeah. It’s all kind of falling into place. At least, I think it is. It’s not like I know how things should be.”
Ken raised an eyebrow. “You know what you want. Isn’t that enough?”
“You tell me.”
“I don’t need to, Jodi. You might not remember every moment of your past, but you know how you feel right now. You love Rupert. You want to be with him. If that’s what Rupert wants too, there’s no reason you can’t have it. Is it what Rupert wants?”
“He says it is.” Jodi chewed on his lip. “He wouldn’t lie, would he?”
“What do you think?”
“I think— I know he loves me. I knew it before he told me.”
Ken smiled. “Then focus on that and don’t let yourself be distracted by any negative thoughts. Talk them out, with Rupert or with me, and then move forward. There might be bumps in the road, but you and Rupert have overcome so much already, you should both be proud of how far you’ve come.”
Jodi couldn’t speak for Rupert, but as a faint sense of pride bloomed in his belly, he realised Ken was right. So much had changed in the last few weeks alone, but it was all for the good. He was no longer lost and lonely; he was loved, like he’d always been, only now he knew it, believed it, and had made it his own.
He left Ken and began heading home, stopping at the supermarket for milk. On the few occasions he’d ventured out to do the shopping alone since the accident, he’d deliberately chosen the quiet corner-shop near the flat, ducking in and out with the exact change, counting it carefully before he went in. Today, with his last conversation with Rupert keeping him company, he braved the Sainsbury’s he and Rupert had bought the toad-in-the-hole ingredients from all those weeks ago.
The shop was busy. Nerves tickled Jodi as he searched for the milk aisle. It was a big store, but as he navigated through it, the ceiling seemed to get lower with every step. Anxiety roared in his ears, growing louder and louder, until the urge to bolt and run became too strong to ignore.
Just gotta man up.Jodi sucked in a breath and pulled his phone from his pocket. He craved Rupert’s gentle, comforting voice, but Rupert was on shift and couldn’t answer. So he rang Sophie, preempting her usual afternoon call.
“I’m in Sainsbury’s,” he said by way of greeting. “I don’t like it.”
Sophie’s laugh was like a bell. “Oh honey. Are you by yourself?”
“Yup. Tied my laces myself and everything.”
“Don’t be a dick.”
Jodi stopped walking, ignoring the trolley that banged into his ankles from behind. “Am I really that bad? Rupert called me an arse this morning.”
“Did he mean it?”
“I think so, and he wasn’t wrong. I forget sometimes how much this has hurt him. It’s like that gap in my head swallows me up.”
“But that doesn’t happen as much as it used to, does it? And the gap’s getting smaller.”
Another trolley collided with Jodi’s ankles. He moved out of the way and found a quiet-ish spot by the lacto-free milk. “Not anymore it’s not. Dr. Nevis says I’m probably done with my neurological recovery.”
“I know that,” Sophie said. “But he also said that nothing was definite. Anything could happen, Jodi. Besides, even if you never remember another thing, you’ve got the rest of your life to plug that gap with new memories. You won’t need to be certain of your old past, because you’ll have a new one.”
It sounded pretty fanciful to Jodi, and he would’ve called bullshit to anyone else, but Sophie’s dreams had always felt real. “He said he loves me.”
“He does love you.”
