It looks like a butterfly, and it should fecking worry me how long it takes me to conclude it’s no cabbage white. Then I realise what it is and I stop thinking entirely, my brain wiped clean of everything except the name I scrawled on that scrap of paper.
Sab.
It’s his phone number. The same number I plumbed into my phone before I walked into this river. So it doesn’t matter if it floats away. And yet I reach for it anyway, my hand lazy in the manic river, even as I stretch and my fingers find nothing but angry water.
The paper slips beyond my grasp, twirling in the current, eerie and calm, like I’m starting to feel—like Idofeel as the water presses closer and the cold settles into the kind of silence I’ve made my peace with before.
Dangerous silence, my brain whispers. And I know it, I fecking swear. But this kind of quiet, it’s nice. It’s consuming. And just for a second, I let it take me with one last thought of Sab dancing through my mind.
He knows.
Sab
I haven’t been sick since I was a kid. Withdrawal flu, sure. But until now, I’ve been lucky every winter. The nasties have passed me by. And maybe that’s why I find myself so floored by the lurgy Esme brings home from nursery.
It’s the only explanation I can find for sleeping twelve hours straight for the first time…like, ever. And for the message I’ve woken up to that’s so close to the yearning in my heart it has to be a fucking fever dream.
Unknown:Hey. I nicked your number off your van when I chased you out of the shop. It’s mad, but I don’t have time to…fuck. I’m sorry for being such a shite communicator. I’ve never felt like this before and it scares me. I don’t want the hookup thing. Not with you, and I haven’t with anyone since we met. Sab, I want more. Maybe after Christmas if you don’t hate me too much we could get a drink and talk? I miss you. I think I love?—
Galen.
Merde.
I mean, it doesn’t say it’s him. Or finish the sentence that has my pulse roaring in my ears like an incoming train. But every part of me knows it is. From my achy limbs to my fuzzy head, it’shim, and fuck, I’m not ready for how his words heal me, and yet somehow flay me open in a thousand new ways.
I sit on the edge of my bed, Esme behind me, right as rain after a good night’s sleep, already bored of English cartoons. I have minutes, if that, before she remembers it’s Christmas Eve and wants to go to Uncle Tam’sright nowto raid the box of treats he’s been teasing her with all winter. Minutes before almost everything I’ve ever wanted for her plays out in real time.
Cake for breakfast. Chocolate for lunch.
Love all day long.
But three words—Galen’s words—they sit on my chest above everything else, and my thumbs don’t know what to do with themselves.
I want more.
So do I.
But what does that mean? And what if he was drunk when he sent it? Or as delirious as I’ve been with the same fucking flu?
I check the stamp on the message.
5 a.m.
Check the time now and see it’s nearly seven. That it really is twelve hours since I rolled in from work and face-planted on my bed and I don’t remember Tam standing down from babysitting duty.
He’s sent me a message too. It’s rude and involves a picture of the giant capon I left on his doorstep before I came home last night. There’s a voice note too, but I’m not awake enough for that.
“Papa?” Tiny hands smack my cheeks, Esme climbing my back from behind. “Is it Christmas today?”
“Demain, mon petit cœur.”Tomorrow. I speak around a fat yawn. “But we can go to Uncle Tam’s in a bit if you have a bath without hurling water everywhere.”
She agrees, though her word is slippery as hell until she’s distracted by the teeny fire truck she’s barely let go of since Galen gave it to her in the supermarket. Until this morning, the sight of it has made me want to puke, but the combination of the lurgy passing and Galen’s message simmering on my phone has changed everything, and I watch her run the toy along the edge of the bath with new eyes.
Esme doesn’t need another dad.
More fun uncles.
But what about friends? Galen could be that for her…couldn’t he?
