It was becoming increasingly clear that I had made a profound and irrecoverable error with one of my persons. Sadly, my other person was sleeping the sleep of the rational upstairs and probably wasn’t about to notice my absence and ride to my rescue. This was my fault and my problem. “Seriously,” I tried again. “It isn’t a big deal. I had a bit of a freak-out, it’s passed, I—”
“Not about tomorrow?” Bridge cried. “You’re not having second thoughts about tomorrow!”
“No.”
“That’s your lying monosyllable. Didn’t I just tell you not to lie to me?”
Toppling onto my side, I mashed my face into the sofa cushions.“You know I’m not good with…like, decisions, maturity, responsibility, the future, having tiny lives depending on me, that kind of thing.”
“Lucien Havelock O’Donnell, you—”
“Hang on.” I briefly unmashed my face. “Havelock?”
“Well, if you’re not going to have a middle name, then you…you…get given one.”
“No, you don’t. That’s not a thing. That’s never been a thing.”
In typical Bridge style, she ignored me. “Lucien Havelock O’Donnell, you are not going to mess this up for me.”
Okay, I was officially feeling at least two percent less guilty. “Um, what do you mean,for you?”
“I’ve wanted you and Oliver to do this for years. And since you let us all down by not getting married—”
“Bridge, come on. We did what was right for us.”
“But I’ve always dreamed of going to your wedding.”
“Youdidgo to my wedding,” I pointed out.
“Yes, but youdidn’t.”
“And it was the happiest day of my life. Now please go back to sleep and—”
“It’s too late. I’m up now.”
“You told me you were already up.”
“I was lying.” It was amazing how sure of herself Bridge could sound even when she was admitting to having done something wrong. “But it doesn’t count because it wasn’t about somethinghugelike ‘I’m thinking of not doing something that mybest friendhas wanted me to do foryearsand now I’m trying to not eventellher and—’” I became uncomfortably aware that I could hear dragging, moving sounds.
“Bridge…are you putting your shoes on?”
“I’m coming to see you.”
I was going to sayBut you’re pregnant, but I shelved thatparticular objection for reasons of dehumanisation and probable misogyny. “Are you?”
“Yes. I’ll meet you on the Millennium Bridge.”
“You absolutely will not.”
“But it’s ourthing. It’s what wedo.”
“We did it once. Years ago.”
A confused silence briefly echoed down the line at me. “It wasn’t.”
“It was pre-pandemic. That’s years.”
“Fuck.” Bridge sounded genuinely distraught. “Oh my God, Luc, we’reold. We lost our youth to a virus.”
