‘I’m not sure. It feels too much. I wish I had the answers. I’m being pulled into a hundred different thought-processes. I want to help, but …’
‘You have your own life too,’ I finish for him.
‘I don’t,’ he says. ‘Not really. But I’m finishing my degree this year, so I need to focus on that. But Ben’s my friend. If anything happened to him because I didn’t help …’
‘You are helping,’ I say. ‘Imagine how I feel? I walked out – walked away.’
‘You had to,’ Ollie replies, shooting a look over his shoulder to check Ben’s still asleep.
I don’t want to drink the fizz any more. I put it down. ‘Cup of tea?’
Ollie nods, his own flat fizz discarded, and I make tea. I go into the utility room while the teabags steep and fetch two blankets. We have quite a supply of these.
Ollie eyes them curiously.
‘So we can stay warm on the balcony? So we don’t wake Ben?’
He smiles. ‘Sure.’
We take our cups of tea and sit on the balcony furniture, wrapped in blankets. We sit next to each other and I curl my feet under me on the cold cushions as I snuggle into the blanket and sip my hot tea. I angle my body so I can look at Ollie. ‘I’m sorry for what I said.’
‘It’s fine,’ he replies softly as we gaze out at the river. Somewhere in the distance a tugboat sounds, a dull thud-thud-thud of the motor edging its way through the river in the silky gloom. ‘You don’t need to apologise.’
‘I do.’
‘You already apologised,’ he says, turning so that his eyes, saddened by everything, look into mine.
‘It doesn’t make it any better. I can’t believe I said that. Ican’t believe I thought it … even for a second. Because you’re not, you know. You’re not boring. Far from it.’
‘Liv thought I was.’
‘Everyone thinks shitty things about their exes,’ I reply.
‘Yeah, I guess,’ Ollie agrees.
‘But you’re not boring.You’re not,’ I repeat, trying to ram it home.
‘No? What am I, then?’
If he’s fishing for compliments, then I’m going to overload him, because this boy – who, without me even noticing, turned into a man – is so many things.
‘You’re kind, possibly the kindest person I know. You’re funny, but in a quiet way.’
‘Understated funny, is that a thing?’
‘It is. Go with it.’
He chuckles.
‘You always know the right thing to say. Always. Even when you’re telling me I’m doing something wrong, you always say it in such a way that it makes me realise what Ishouldbe doing. You don’t just tell me what I want to hear, so we can have an easy conversation.’
He looks away, abashed. ‘Sorry,’ he says.
‘Don’t apologise for being the most honest person in the room.’
‘Ollie of the difficult conversations,’ he comments thoughtfully.
‘Ilikeour difficult conversations. I don’t know where I’d be without them.’
