He rubbed his face again. “It’s …” He looked at his phone. “Seven. In the morning.”
“I know. But I needed to know. It’s been a long afternoon, and you didn’t text me back. How is he?”
“How is who?” He knew who. He just didn’t want to talk about it.
“Oh, for— Who do you imagine I mean? Tom Smithson! How is he? And how areyou?Why didn’t you text me?”
He blinked. Skylar was almost never narky. Kindness was practically the woman’s middle name. And today of all days? “I don’t know,” he said, “and I won’t know for a while. It just happened. He’ll have had surgery by now, or be in the midst of it. That’s what I know. What was I meant to do, call and weep at you about what I’d done? You’re teaching, remember? Have much time for personal calls during the day, do you? And even if I caught him wrong, which I probably did, whether I meant to or not, what good would it do to tell you how I feelabout it?”
“Howdid you catch him wrong?” she demanded. “We watched it. Everybody watched it. You didn’t do anything wrong!”
“But then, you don’t know, do you? You don’t understand the breakdown.” He knew it was wrong to take it out on her, but seriously? “This is for me to handle, however it turns out. It’s my job, my decisions are mine to live with, and nothing you say is going to help with that.”
“What?” she said, sounding stunned. Why, when it was nothing but the truth? “That’s as far as you’ll let me in?” He was about to answer that—no doubt saying something he very much shouldn’t have—when her tone shifted. “Zane. Iknowyou need more than that. I know you feel. I know youhurt.And, no, this isn’t about me. I don’t care how many mistakes anyone thinks you’ve made, I’m going to love you anyway. I’m going tosupportyou anyway. All I’m asking is for you to let me do it.”
“Well, I can’t,” he said. “Not now, I can’t.” He let out a sigh.It was cold in this bathroom, he was wearing nothing but boxer briefs, and his entire body ached. He needed Panadol, he needed sleep, and he needed physio. “I can’t do emotion right now,” he tried to explain. “I don’t have it. Go to bed. It must be nearly bedtime there, and you get up early. I’ll ring you later. Once I know something, though you’ll likely hear almost as quickly as I will. Bloody press.”
“Zane,” she said. “Really, I think you?—”
“I’m ringing off now,” he said. “Going back to sleep. I love you, but I’m ringing off.” And did it.
Why couldn’t women understand that a man needed time to think through the hard stuff before he could talk about it, not be cornered like that? That you didn’t go crying to someone else and dumping your problems in their lap before you’d even begun to work out how to cope with them? Why, when every man throughout history had probably needed the exact same thing? How old was homo sapiens, three hundred thousand years? Wasn’t that enough time for women to get it?
He’d ring her later. Wait. She’d be asleep. All right, he’d text her later. A sentence, anyway, that included the word “Sorry,” butdidn’tinvite her to rummage around in his psyche and examine the weaknesses there.
No. Just no. Not today.
He’d fix it later. He’d fix it tomorrow. Or maybe tonight. Once he was ready.
He swallowed two Panadol, drank an entire glass of water, climbed back into bed, and did his best to forget the whole thing. Especially the part where Smithson had been lying prone on the wet grass, still as death.
Not moving his arms or legs. Not moving anything. Because his neck was broken.
No. Sleep. And maybe it’ll be better.
Oh, God, let it be better.
“You’re doingwhat?”Granddad blinked at Skylar over his reading glasses from his comfy spot on the recliner.
“I told you. I’m going to London.”
“Why on earth?—”
“Granddad. I don’t have time for this. The plane leaves at ten-thirty.”
“Did Mahuta ask you to come?”
“No. But I’m going anyway.”
“You don’t even have a case packed.”
“I’ll be gone three days. I have extra shirts and undies. I have my toothbrush. And I have to leave.”
“You’re leaving your class?”
“Yes,I’m leaving my class!” She looked at her phone, practically dancing with impatience. The driver was four minutes out. She had three minutes for this conversation. “I’ve missed one day in the past, what, two years? And that was for the earthquake!”
“They’ll sack you,” Granddad helpfully pointed out. “Leaving without notice. Without a good reason.”
