“You didn’t tell me!”
“I didn’t think I had to. You were in the shower.”
“How is he?”
“Phone him and ask him yourself.”
Jonah blushed. Blushing was something Jonah didn’t do. “It’s weird if I phone him.”
“Is it? Why isn’t it weird if he phones me?”
“Because you’re friends.”
“So are you.” I wanted to add that we were friends too because the amount of sex we hadn’t had suggested that we weren’t really lovers any more.
“It’s different.” His eyes went back to his phone. The home screen was set to a picture of him and Callum and me, one taken in September when we’d just gotten back to London for a series of lectures.
“I don’t get it.” I sat up. “I really don’t get it.” But I was starting to. “You and Callum kissed once, didn’t you?”
He didn’t look at me. Just shrugged. “Once. Just one night.”
“You should phone him.”
“There’s no point.”
“Why’s that?”
I knew the answer. My legs stood up of their own accord and I walked to the window, watched the first flake of snow as it dropped. Jonah idolised Callum. We’d teased him about his man crush, how he stuck up for him, made sure he had something to eat in the fridge, bought him an extra pizza, even did his fucking washing if he was doing his own. I knew Callum had experimented; I’d even joked once that he’d been there with Jonah because of the bromance between them. It wasn’t a serious comment.
“I’m going to head home.”
“You’ve only just got here.” He came over to me, put his hands on my shoulders. “And it’s snowing.”
“If I leave now there won’t be an issue with the trains.”
“Wren…”
I turned round. “Jonah, I love you. And I know that you love me. But I think we’ve come to the end of what we’re meant to be.”
His expression greyed, the colour dripping away from him like my words were washing it out. “I don’t understand. I haven’t…”
“I know you haven’t. You haven’t hurt me, or you haven’t intended to,”
“Callum would fucking kill me if I upset you. What can I do to put it right? Stay. My parents are away for another three nights, we can talk…”
“We always talk. I’m sorry. I am going to head out now.” I broke out of his arms and went upstairs to his bedroom, picking up my belongings and stuffing them in my luggage. He followed me, a lost lamb.
“Wren – I don’t know what I’ve done but I want to put it right. Fucking hell, please…”
I sat on his bed, feeling like a bitch who was trampling over someone’s intricate dreams and tearing them into fragments.
“I’m sorry. It isn’t working and it hasn’t been for a while.”
“We can make it work.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think I want to.” Because there were three of us in this relationship. “It’s nothing you or I’ve done, Jonah. We never see each other, our placements are at opposite ends of the country. We’re growing apart and I don’t want either of us to turn down meeting someone else or an opportunity out of loyalty.”
His chiselled jaw was set firm, biceps tightly covered by a fitted t-shirt. Hair mussed, overly long. His new tattoo was visible just below his sleeve. He was gorgeous and I’d spent enough nights in his bed, being fucked, made love to, ridden – worshipped. I could keep it, because while it didn’t happen like it used to, he’d never hurt me.
