He’d promised Callum.
“Take some time. I’ll get the train down at the weekend. We can talk. I don’t want us to finish like this.”
“You have your sister’s birthday this weekend.”
“She won’t mind.”
I pulled my coat on. “Okay.” The air around us froze. I had to say it, I had to add that dagger. “I know you love me. I love you. But you think you’re in love with Callum.”
He didn’t say anything as I walked down the stairs. It was only when I opened the door to leave after I’d pulled on my boots, that I heard his voice,
“What the fuck, Wren, I’m not gay…”
“I didn’t say you were.” I looked at him. “I don’t think you are. I’m sorry, Jonah. I really am.”
I walked away from his home, headed towards a taxi rank to take me to the station. When I was on the next train I pulled out my phone for the first time since I’d left my first boyfriend.
He hadn’t tried to contact me.
I watched out of the window as the train picked up speed and then sent a message, asking to be met at the station. It was to the one person I knew would understand, who wouldn’t need an explanation.
My best friend.
Callum.
* * *
He didn’t lookat me as I finished the explanation, instead staring at the city around us and out towards the horizon where the Zimbabwean plains met the sky. Everything here was so vast, it was as if our history was merely a grain of sand.
Callum would never make eye contact when he was feeling. If he needed to talk about how he felt or something that had bothered him, he’d look away. He couldn’t concentrate on his own pain and manage someone else’s at the same time.
“I phoned him, you know, after you got back. I went outside and called him while you were in the shower.”
“What did he say?”
“He apologised. Asked me if I was okay with him. Then he asked if he could see me.”
“What did you say?” As far as I was aware neither of us had seen Jonah since, not even at graduation.
“I told him no. Being friends with both of you wasn’t going to work because you’d be asking me about the other. So he asked me if I was choosing you and I said I was.”
“Oh.”
I’d never meant to come between them. That first coffee, after that lecture where Callum came in late, I’d been so attracted to Jonah. Not just to him, but to the friendships he had, the camaraderie between him and his friends. And Callum. He was the sun they all circled around. I’d never wanted to get between anyone, damage any friendships, bonds.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It was my choice; you weren’t responsible for it.”
“Why did you choose me?”
He didn’t look at me, simply stared ahead. There had been many times I wanted to get inside the mind of Callum Callaghan, this was definitely one of them,
“Callum?”
“Because you’d never asked me to choose and Jonah did.”
“It was as simple as that?”
