“I’m going to do better, Lucien,” Oliver whispered.
If anyone else had said that to me—and many people had, Milesand my dad included—I’d have dismissed it as bullshit. But this was Oliver. Perfect-imperfect Oliver Blackwood, my boyfriend-for-life, the best person I knew. Who always sorted the recycling and kept his socks in ordered pairs. Who saw the good in me I could never see in myself.
Which meant I’d always see the good in him back.
Chapter 39
Sunday—or technically the rest of Sunday—was quiet. Not totally thegoodkind of quiet. Jaz spent literally the whole day in her room, but if we were judging success on a spectrum from “stays in her room” to “steals the car and drives to Dagenham,” then things were definitely moving in the right direction.
Downstairs, the wreckage of the previous night’s dinner lay congealing in the good crockery, and Oliver set about diligently collecting it all up, scraping what could be scraped into the bin, and then loading the rest into the dishwasher. I followed him, diligently picking up the occasional fork and trying not to look or feel too utterly useless. Then I realised I could do somethinggenuinelynon-useless and went upstairs, turned the water supply to the toilet off to stop it leaking all over the floor, and arranged for an emergency plumber.
Around noon I got a text from Bridge that readIS JAZ OKYA?
I texted backLong story,and my phone rang three milliseconds later.
“It’s Bridge,” I yelled through to Oliver. “I might take it upstairs.”
Oliver made “Of course” noises from where he was still slightly distractedly cleaning, and I vanished into the bedroom to explain the previous night’s events to the woman who, while she wasn’t mytoken straight friend anymore because I’d picked up loads of those when I got with Oliver, was definitely still mybestfriend.
“OhLuc,” she sympathy-wailed when I was done. “That’s sosad.”
Sadwas certainly one way to put it. “I think she’s okay now. Well, okay-ish. She’s in her room.”
“I meant more it was sad in general. Imagine being so desperate to see your mum that you had to steal a car.”
I didn’t have to imagine very hard because I’d seen it play out in front of me, but I knew what she meant. As somebody whose mum had only been downgraded to second-most important person in his life relatively recently, the thought of being forcibly separated from her, especially at such a young age, was horrifying. “Yeah,” I agreed. “Yeah, it’s kinda”—I made a noise that I hoped encompassed the enormity of the concept—“when you think about it.”
“Iknow,” replied Bridge, who usedI knowas a sort of all-purpose expression of support.
“So, how’re you holding up?” I asked her. Because while the Jaz thing had been intense, it hadn’t been the only intense thing that had happened yesterday evening, and the first intense thing had been quite Bridge-centred.
In all the years I’d known her, it had never taken more than a “How’re you holding up?” for Bridge to tell me with unflinching honesty exactly how she was feeling. And today was no exception. “Oh, Luuuc.” Bridge was the only person I knew who could produce audible emojis. “I feelterrible. I ruined everything.”
“I really don’t think you did.”
“I’m the one who made a scene. I should never have evenstartedshowing baby pictures, and Icertainlyshouldn’t have jumped all over poor James like that.”
“Poor James,” I reminded her, “is a grown-arse man who can take care of himself and who has been winding us all up for months.Like there’s ‘proud of your kid’ and there’s ‘won’t shut up about your kid’ and then there’s whatever James was, which is worse.”
“But it was coming from a place ofhurt.” Bridge sounded like she was about to burst into tears for our mutual very annoying friend. “I’d never have been upset with him if I’d realised he was coming from a place ofhurt.”
That was Bridge all over. But Bridge being Bridge all over and me being me all over was kind of what made our relationship work. “Take it from somebody with a lifetime of firsthand experience,” I told her, “you can be coming from a place of hurt and still be acting like a dickhead.”
“I should apologise to him,” declared Bridge, whose belief in the power of apologies was as unshakeable as it was unfounded.
“You probably should,” I said. “But also remember, he should probably apologise to you too. Honestly, we should all probably apologise to each other. I don’t think any of us exactly came out of that looking good.”
Bridge went quiet for a moment. And then came back with a plaintive, “Oh, why does it have to be sohard?”
“I think it’s part of being an adult?” I told her. “If it’s any help, I’m not happy about it either.”
From the other end of the phone, I heard the sounds of movement. The kind of sounds of movement I heard when Bridge was about to set off at no notice to do something noble and foolish.
“Bridge,” I asked, hesitantly, “are you putting your shoes on?”
“I’m going to see James. Then I’m taking James to see Jennifer.”
“Are you one hundred percent certain that’s a good idea?”
