Addicted (29 page)

‘It’s not really about that. The Master thing doesn’t bother me. The millionaire thing doesn’t even bother me, really. I know I can be your fantasy, if that’s what you need from me. It’s just …’

‘What?’

He sighs, but I can tell he’s going to say it. And he does, a second later, in yet another anticlimactic rush.

‘I used to do something
worthwhile
.’

I mean, really. Why does he think any of this matters?

‘You do something worthwhile
now
,’ I say, though even as I’m doing so I’m getting this little lowdown frisson. This small, faintly unnerving feeling, about the direction this conversation is headed. In fact, I’m starting to suspect that his mildly interesting sexual proclivities are not the thing he was talking about when he said there was something I’d never want to know.

I think this is the thing I’d never want to know, even though I desperately want to know it. That frisson has turned into a kind of tingle, and I’m definitely holding my breath. And I hold it harder, when he finally says:

‘Not like I used to.’

I have to hold it harder, in truth. I’m afraid of disturbing the air around him, in case it persuades him to stop talking. I can’t even say the encouraging things I want to say, like
oh I’m sure it’s not as bad as you think it is
or
maybe you’d feel better if you shared
. None of them seem adequate, which is probably why I end up going with ‘mmmhmm’.

It’s not even a word.

But luckily he accepts it anyway.

‘You know what I used to be?’ he says, and, though my insides are suddenly turning cartwheels and setting off fireworks, I think I do an admirable job of keeping it all hidden. Instead I nod sagely and make another deeply interested but totally casual sound.

I think it’s sort of akin to a balloon rapidly expelling air.

And then he tells me, and it’s all I can do to stop myself farting oxygen all over him.

‘A firefighter.’

A firefighter
. Is he serious? Did he wear the big pants and charge around on the back of one of those engines, like firefighters probably only do in my daydreams about heroic jut-jawed men from the 1940s? And if he did even one tenth of this stuff, I feel I really need to ask. What the hell does he think is wrong with that? Anyone who ever wrestled actual fire at any point in their lives is automatically awesome for ever.

I’m amazed that he doesn’t know this.

But he really doesn’t seem to.

‘It’s all I ever wanted to be, you know? And not just in that dumb kid way, when you think you’re going to grow up and be so cool, in-between sliding down a big pole. I mean, I really wanted to fight fires. I really wanted to save people.’

He pauses then to gather himself, though I’m kind of glad he does. I need a moment, too, before he descends in a great and horrendous avalanche towards this next part. I can feel it coming before it’s even here, but this moment of awareness doesn’t really prepare me. It doesn’t prepare him, either.

He looks like someone’s planted a steel hook in his gut, and is slowly drawing all his insides out. His jaw has tensed into one straight, mean line, and he’s staring off between the higgledy-piggledy rooftops at that rising sun, like his life depends on it.

‘But the thing is, about saving people … sometimes you don’t. Sometimes you fuck it up.’ He runs a hand over his face, over his hair. ‘Nobody really tells you, before you get into it – though I guess it’s kind of stupid that I didn’t realise. Of
course
people die, in the real world. Of
course
you don’t always get there in time. Life’s not just this big fun fantasy, where everything turns out OK in the end. But I guess … I guess I just thought it was, until the Hellerman building.’

I can’t say I know exactly what he means, because I don’t. But I do at least understand the concept he’s driving at, in my own silly, probably very minor way. There’s a moment in everyone’s life when they have to face the crushing knowledge that nothing is quite as lovely as life seems in dreams.

Nothing is going to be awesome; nothing is going to be cool.

It’s just this all the time:

‘There was a wall, you see. And I could hear people screaming on the other side of it, even though everything was really loud by that point. You ever been near a burning building? It’s so much fucking louder than you think it should be. Fire has this sound to it – this roaring, devouring sort of sound that you don’t really appreciate when you’re just, like, warming your hands on a bonfire. But when you’re
inside
it … it’s huge. Plus, you’ve got all this shit coming down everywhere and stuff exploding and fuck,
fuck
.’

He spits out that last word the way most people would, if they’d just stapled their hand – or maybe forgot to file that report last Wednesday. In other words, he isn’t the least bit dramatic about it. He doesn’t rend his breast.

But somehow that only makes it worse.

‘I just couldn’t … there wasn’t anything I could do. I mean, later on I went over and over it, thinking there might have been something. Possibly I could have hit the wall in another place and broken through. Or maybe if I hadn’t stepped on that exact spot I wouldn’t have fallen. You know? But I didn’t hit the right place, and I did step on that spot, and so that’s just the way it goes. I fell two storeys and woke up with a broken arm, and that was that.’ He even does a little dusting-off sort of gesture with his hands. As though none of this is a big deal at all. ‘But of course it’s never just that in my head. Because every time I imagine being that worthwhile person again, all I can think is: what if I can’t save them a second time? What if I go back into it and the same thing happens, only worse? Maybe this time it’ll be two hundred kids in a goddamn orphanage, trapped behind five miles of molten steel that’s somehow turned to toffee, in my head. What if? And that “what if” never goes away. All the time I think: today is the day you’ll be OK again. Today is the day, even though it never is.’

The tattoo
,
I think. Though of course I don’t say it. I can’t say anything. I’ve been rendered mute by all of this, and oh, God, there’s still more to come. There’s so much more to come. He’s on a roll now, eyes all distant and faraway.

Words like knives in my heart.

‘So I do this instead. I spend my days doing this ridiculous job, rather than being brave, and good, and all the things I always hoped I’d be. Because I’m selfish. That’s the problem. I’m a selfish person, who worries more about feeling so helpless over the people I couldn’t save than feeling like I helped because of the people I did.’

He gives me no warning that he’s done and is about to turn and look at me. In fact, until he does it, I hadn’t even realised that he’s not looked at me since he started speaking. And then it’s this weird, jolting shock, coupled with a kind of embarrassment to find that I’m absolutely sobbing my heart out. My face is soaked. His T-shirt is soaked. I don’t even know how I managed to do this so silently that it’s kind of crept up on me too, but there it is. I’m a crying fool.

And he thinks so too.

‘What are you crying about?’ he says, as though all of that was just nothing. He’s even kind of half-laughing at my heartbroken state – or at least he’s managed to put his face back into some semblance of OK.

But now he’s the fool, because he honestly doesn’t get it. He doesn’t have any idea about the kind of person he is. I told him, but I don’t think he listened – so I guess I have to tell him again. I have to really, really tell him again.

‘Are you honestly asking me that?’ I say, even though it’s so hard to. It’s hard to get words out, and hard to keep myself under enough control to express this. But I do it for him. I’d do anything for him. ‘Do you really not know? Dillon, you’re the least selfish person I’ve ever known. Even when you think you’re being selfish, you’re actually not. You’ve done more for me than any man I’ve ever known, and even after you’ve done it you don’t think it’s anything much. You don’t even think this is anything much. Something
that
horrible happened to you, and you’re more concerned about why you can’t do it again. Do you even understand why you can’t do it again? I’ll give you a clue: it’s not because you’re selfish.’

I swipe at my face, but it’s no good. It’s like trying to stem the tide. And of course when he offers me the edge of his T-shirt, I blubber even harder. My voice sounds like it’s been caught in a gravel grinder, and the effect only gets worse after he’s said this:

‘Are you sure?’

I mean,
how
is he like this? I don’t understand how anyone can be like this. The urge to hold his face in my hands is so strong it’s almost violent, so I simply do it.

‘I’m so sure,’ I tell him. ‘You’re just hurting, baby. You’re walking around with a knife in your side, and you just don’t know it.’

He puts his hands over mine in this wondering, half-dazed sort of way. Like he’s surprised to find them there. He’s surprised to find he’s still sitting upright, I think, though I’m not sure why. Did he imagine he’d cave in on himself if he finally shared something so serious?

Or is it just such a shocking idea to hear that he’s not to blame?

‘You’re right. You’re right. I really didn’t know,’ he says, which suggests it’s the latter. But then he ends it with this: ‘Until you took it out.’

So I’m really not sure any more. I’m not sure of anything, apart from the need to do more than hold his face. I want to hold him, all of him, as tightly as I can.

‘I thought I was the kind of person who couldn’t say something like that, you know?’ he says, but I can’t say
yes, I understand
here. Because I don’t. He’s mad, I think, absolutely beyond bonkers, and I need to squeeze him really hard to get all of that crazy out. ‘Like I’m supposed to be light and fun and it’s such a relief to just …’

‘Be you,’ I finish, for him, and he answers in the middle of the sweetest sort of surrender – from the weight-bearing expanse of his shoulders, all the way on down.

‘Yeah,’ he says, as he allows himself relax. As he spreads one big hand over my back, and holds me against him like he’s never going to let me go. ‘Yeah.’

‘You don’t ever have to be anyone else with me,’ I tell him. ‘Because, God knows, I don’t have to be anyone else with you.’

And it’s true. I don’t. I don’t care if he sees me cry, or knows that I love him and love him and love him. I don’t hesitate before I hold him in my arms, and when he spreads all of his weight on me, I bear it. I’d bear it in the middle of a burning building, thousands of miles from where we are now – in that place he still is sometimes. I’d carry him home, my one, my soulmate, my good, good guy.

I’d carry him home.

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