“I’m not talking about me, of course. I’m talking about that idiot out there.”
I blush violently.
“I see you know who I’m talking about.”
“What? No, I—”
James places his hand over mine.
“I only accepted this physio because it was you.”
I feel the colour of my face change from red to deep purple.
“You know, it’s strange. I don’t remember much of my life. And I’m talking about important moments, things I did yesterday. To tell you the truth, I don’t even remember my fall,” he says, calmly. “But do you know what Idoremember?”
I shake my head.
“I remember you, at the airport. The day Nick left.”
My heart skips at least ten beats at the memory of that day.
“It’s been a long time since then,” I say, trying to play it down and avoid the conversation.
“That’s true: time passes. Unfortunately, for me it passes much too quickly. But certain things stay with you. Sure, they’re a little confused in my mind, but they also stay right in the heart of anyone who experienced them.”
“Mr O’Connor…”
“James.”
“James, I don’t understand what you’re trying to say.”
“Me? Nothing, dear. But you have the whole world ahead of you. You can go anywhere you want, even if you don’t know the way.”
I shake my head and tear my gaze away from his. His eyes remind me far too much of someone else’s, and now is not the time for a trip down memory lane.
He squeezes my hand, forcing me to look at him again. “Don’t wait for him to start this journey. You probably know better than me that he can’t. He barely knows the way home, let alone the way to his own heart.”
Despite everything, he manages to get a smile out of me. But it’s a smile loaded with sadness: a sadness which overcomes me every time I try not to think of him, of what we never were, of what he did to me and my stupid feelings.
Of what he said to me, before throwing his bag over his shoulder and leaving.
Of what I felt when I saw him pass through airport security, happy and proud, as if he were leaving nothing behind. But, that day, I decided not to stick around: not to stand there, waiting for someone I already knew would never come back.
I made my decision, and I moved on. I threw myself into my life, and everything I had ahead of me.
And, with time, I learned how to survive without him.
Without us.
13
Nick
“Can you stop that?”
“Stop what?”
“Stop just standing there at the door.”
