What Remains (25 page)

Jodi didn’t look up. “Don’t worry about it. Sophie told me I’ve been a dick to you ever since the accident.”

“That’s a little harsh.”

“Is it? She seemed to think she was being kind.”

Rupert ventured further into the room. “When did you speak to her?”

“This afternoon. She rings me every day after work.”

“Ah, like she used to, eh?”

“Yeah?” Jodi finally tore his gaze from the laptop. “I like that. I was worried I’d never get to talk to her when she stopped staying over. I couldn’t work out how the three of us—and Indie—all fit together.”

“Like a melted welly boot.”

“What?”

“Your words, not mine.” Jodi stared, clearly mystified. Rupert let it go and sat on the bed, trying not to read over Jodi’s shoulder. “Are you hungry?”

“No.”

“Sure? I’m going down the chippie.”

“I’m fine—” Jodi started to shake his head, then appeared to think better of it. “Actually, can I come with you?”

As if Rupert could refuse. As if he wanted to, because despite his fears that Jodi’s newfound well-being was too good to be true, he couldn’t resist an opportunity to do something so normal with him, sloping off down the chip shop like they used to.

While Rupert had been contemplating what his life had become, with his head in the fridge, outside, it had grown dark. Jodi gazed up at the stars like he’d never seen them, apparently oblivious to the Friday-evening bustle of Tottenham’s streets. “I like nighttime better, don’t I?”

“Aye, you’re a night owl.”

“A night owl who’s scared of the dark? What a cunt.”

“We’ve been over that.” Rupert took Jodi’s arm to cross the road at the traffic light fifty yards away from where he’d been run down. “Besides, you’ve been taking the Tube, haven’t you? Doesn’t seem like you’re scared of anything.”

Jodi grunted. “Still sleep with the fucking lamp on, though.”

“So?”

Jodi’s only answer was a glare.

Rupert guided him across the road, then released his arm. “What were you doing on your laptop? Working?”

“Hmm?” Jodi blinked like he’d forgotten Rupert was there. “Oh, no. I was doing some memory exercises online. Trying to retrain my brain.” He pulled a face that, despite the dark scruff on his chin, made him look like a twelve-year-old.

Rupert chuckled. “How’s that going?”

“Shite, but I’m not surprised. Dr. Nevis told me I’m pretty much done with my neurological recovery. He doesn’t think I’m going to get any cleverer.”

Rupert frowned. “When did he say that?”

“A while ago.”

Rupert did the maths. “A while as in . . . about two weeks ago?”

“If you say so.”

“Makes sense,” Rupert said. “You didn’t say a word all weekend after your last appointment.”

Jodi winced. “Sorry. It kind of threw me.”

“I get that, but why didn’t you tell me later on?”

“You weren’t here. You went to work on Monday and you didn’t come home till Wednesday morning. I was over it by then.”

It was Rupert’s turn to be contrite. A factory fire in Stockwell had pulled Green Watch out of their jurisdiction and stretched Rupert’s shift so far into the following day there had been little point going home before the next one. “How do you feel about it now?”

Jodi shrugged. “Dunno. Some days it doesn’t seem to matter, and others it’s the worst shit in the world.”

“What is?”

“That I have to start from the beginning with the things I want the most, and I don’t even know if you want them too.”

They’d reached the chip shop, and Jodi ducked inside, leaving Rupert with his mouth open.
Is he serious?
How on earth could Jodi not know Rupert wanted him back—wanted him now—more than anything in the world?

He followed Jodi inside and found him at the back of the queue, staring at the hot-hold counter, clearly bemused. “I don’t know what I usually have.”

“What do you
want
?”

“Are we still talking about chips?”

“You tell me.”

But Jodi couldn’t, and Rupert knew it. He tapped his finger on the warm glass of the hot-hold counter. “You usually have two steak pies, large chips, mushy peas, and a battered sausage.”

“Two pies? Really?”

Jodi looked so horrified that Rupert couldn’t help chuckling. “Shall we just get one to start with? Ease you in?”

They settled on a pie, a bag of chips, and a couple of jumbo sausages, and took it all home to share. On the way, Rupert waited for Jodi to pick up the conversation where he’d left off, but he didn’t, and back in the flat, without Tottenham’s busy streets as a buffer between them, an awkward silence took hold, suffocating the tentative good humour they’d shared in the chip shop.

Rupert picked at his food, his agitation growing as he watched Jodi do the same, like they’d got off the roundabout for the hundredth time and gone back to the start. Frustration overwhelmed him. “I’m sick of this. It’s doing my feckin’ head in.”

He got up and tossed his plate on the coffee table, storming into the kitchen without waiting for Jodi’s response—if there was to be one. Chances were, there wouldn’t be. They’d become experts at half conversations that went nowhere. Masters of scratching a wound until it was open and bleeding, and then leaving it to fester.

He didn’t expect Jodi to follow him.

Jodi chucked his own plate in the sink. Chips scattered across the draining board. “It’s doing
your
head in? At least you know what you’re fucking missing, if you’re missing it at all? Maybe you’re not. Maybe you dodged a bullet, eh?”

“What?”

“Oh, come on. Just because we were together before, doesn’t mean we should’ve been. Doesn’t mean we were happy, does it?”

“Happy? Of course we were— What the fuck? What makes you think we weren’t happy?”

“You don’t seem happy now.”

“What have I got to be happy about? So, you know we were together . . . doesn’t change much. You still don’t want me.”

“Don’t I?”

“Do you?” Rupert hadn’t meant to challenge Jodi so bluntly, but the words were out before he could stop them, laid bare between them.

“I
do
want you,” Jodi said. “I just don’t know if that means I wanna bang you and leave, or hold you all night long after. And I don’t know how to learn. I thought it would come back to me, eventually, but Dr. Nevis says it probably won’t, that if I want to be with you, we have to start over again. And I don’t know how to do that. Or if you even want to. Why the fuck would you? Why would you—”

Jodi’s voice cracked. He clamped a shaky hand over his mouth briefly, then let it drop, fixing Rupert with a gaze that hurt Rupert’s heart. “I’m broken, Rupert, and I can’t be fixed. Why the hell would you want me now?”

“Jodi.” Rupert closed the distance between them and gripped Jodi’s shoulders. Only Jodi’s injuries stopped Rupert from shaking him. “Jodi, you’re not bloody broken, you hear me? And I do want you, as much as I ever did, I just . . . I don’t know what that says about me. I’m your carer, Jodi. I shouldn’t be thinking about stuff like that. It’s not right.”

“Oh God.” Jodi twisted himself from Rupert’s grasp and abruptly sat on the floor, like his legs wouldn’t hold him any longer.

Alarmed, Rupert dropped beside him and took his face in his hands. “What is it? Are you okay? Are you dizzy?”

“I’m fine.” Jodi pushed Rupert’s hands away. “It just feels like we’re going round in circles. Am I being totally fucking dense, or are we both saying the same thing? You think it’s wrong to want a broken man, and I think I’m too broken for you to want me in the first place?”

Rupert replayed Jodi’s words. Matched them with his own, then sat back on his heels as a crashing wave of perspective rocked his equilibrium. “Jesus.”

Jodi laughed humourlessly. “I know, right? I think one of us needs to spell it out, and it has to be you, because I need to believe it. Will you do that for me? Please? I need to know it’s real.”

“It’s real, boyo. I promise.” But was it? Jodi’s emotions had been volatile and unreliable since the accident, often swinging from one inappropriate reaction to another too fast for Rupert to keep up. What if this was just a cruel trick played by the shadow clouding his brain? What if they woke up tomorrow and Jodi hated him all over again?

He never hated me. He just didn’t know me.
And as far as being wrong goes . . . we’re both bloody wrong, or not. Perhaps we never were.

For once, Rupert’s relentless inner monologue was worth listening to. He crawled closer to Jodi and put his hands on his bent knees, waiting for Jodi to meet his gaze. It didn’t happen.

“Listen to me,” Rupert said. “Something terrible happened to you, to us, and it took everything we had. This,” he gestured around the dimly lit kitchen, “all of this, is just the remnants, but it’s enough for us to build something new. I want to, Jodi, because I want
you
, because I love you. I know you can’t say the same right now, but maybe, if we go back to the start, you might learn to love me again.”

Jodi finally looked up. His eyes were red-rimmed and watery. “Do you really love me?”

“Yes. Have done since the moment I met you.”

“Do you want me?”

“More than ever. It just scares me a bit.”

“I know how that feels,” Jodi said. “But I wish I’d known the rest of it from the beginning.”

Rupert swiped at his face. “I’m so sorry. I told you every day until you started talking, then I got scared, because you were scared too, and I didn’t want me loving you to be the reason you couldn’t get better.”

Jodi moved, his body blurring in Rupert’s gaze until they were nose to nose. “I think I got better
because
you still loved me, even though I was gone. I must have known on some level, because it feels so right now.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Now all we need to do is figure out how to make it awesome.”

“Awesome?”

“Indie told me we were awesome. She said I made you happy. I want to do that again.”

“Sounds like we want a lot of things.” Rupert blew out a breath.

Jodi frowned. “Is that bad?”

“No, just means we’ve got a lot of work to do.”

“Then we’re going to need some more chips. I kinda chucked mine away.”

Rupert laughed, feeling somehow lighter than he had in a long time. “Get your coat then, boyo. Chippie shuts in ten.”

That night, with Rupert by his side, Jodi slept better than he could ever remember doing before: long, deep, and pain-free. He felt like he’d just blinked when he opened his eyes in the morning. Shame he hadn’t meant to fall asleep in the first place.

He rolled over, searching for Rupert’s warmth, but found only cool sheets. He bolted upright. Panic roared through him. Had he dreamed it all? Had the long hours talking into the night, stretched out on the bed with a bag of chips between them, been nothing more than a figment of his defunct imagination?

“Easy, boyo.” Rupert popped up from nowhere at the side of the bed, his hand comforting and warm on Jodi’s knee. “Gonna give yourself whiplash, sitting up like that. What’s the matter?”

Jodi shrugged, unwilling to admit he’d been on the verge of a meltdown. “What are you doing on the floor?”

“Cleaning up. We passed out in a bit of a mess last night.”

“Did I fall asleep first?”

“Yup.” Rupert grinned. “With a mouthful of chips and a can of Tizer in your hand. Reminded me of those nights you used to get tanked on JD and wait up for me, only to KO before you took your bloody clothes—”

Rupert stopped, flushing guiltily.

“Go on,” Jodi said. “Tell me.”

“Not sure it’s something you want to know.”

“Why do you think that?”

Rupert didn’t answer. Jodi replayed his last sentence.
“. . . only to KO before you took your bloody clothes—”
“Did I summon you home on a promise and let you down?”

“You’ve never let me down, Jodi.”

It was sweet of Rupert to say, but Jodi doubted it was true. Whoever he used to be, he couldn’t have been perfect. Lord knew, he wasn’t now. “Did we have sex a lot?”

The blush returned full force to Rupert’s fair cheeks. He got awkwardly to his feet and made a meal out of stuffing crumpled chip papers in the nearby bin. “Why do you want to talk about that?”

“Talked about everything else last night, didn’t we?”

“Aye, but we never figured out what we were going to do about it.” Rupert left the room.

Jodi thought about following, but something told him to stay put and do all the things Rupert usually had to remind him to do.

He’d just swallowed the last of his morning medication when Rupert reappeared, sheepishly brandishing a mug of tea and a plate of Nutella toast.

“Sorry I keep walking out on you,” he said. “This is way harder than I ever imagined it would be.”

“What is?”

“You getting better. I thought we’d done the hard bit, but it feels like we’re just getting started.”

Jodi twisted the cap back on his antiseizure drug bottle. “Is that why you won’t talk about sex?”

“Jesus, Jodi.” Rupert scrubbed a hand down his face. “Why do you suddenly want to talk about that?”

“Because it was the first thing that came back.”