"O absence, what a torment..."
At least the train doors
had the courtesy to beep a warning before they rammed themselves closed,
sealing her inside the chilly, air-conditioned carriage, but, no matter
how politely they were going about it, they were still cutting her off from
him. There on the platform, standing with his crutches braced securely against
his weight, head slightly to one side, eyes full, dark and wide, was
Alex. Gorgeous, handsome Alex, she thought with a smile. Sam
pressed a hand against the glass and blew him a shy kiss. She rolled her eyes
and chuckled, knowing full well what a corny cliché they were turning
into, but she was falling so quickly in love that she didn't even care. He
closed his eyes slowly in response, moved his chin upwards by a centimetre or
two, and said silently with his whole body, "I’ll miss you too."
She had made the
journey to London from Cambridge countless times before, but it felt
entirely different this time. Her thoughts scrolled back through the
past couple of days after graduation, to spending every waking hour in Alex's
company; yesterday she had either been folded in his arms on the sofa or
strolling slowly along the river with the sound of his soft voice and
his quiet crutches for company. But before she’d left that day they hadn't
ventured from his flat, and when she hadn't been helping him cook a light
lunch, or playing Portal 2 with him, she had been on the sofa, holding him,
running her hands over his shoulders, his arms, his chest, his hips. He hadn't
let her go any further south this time. "Don't... don't think
about this if you think of me, will you?" he had whispered hesitantly when
her hand strayed too far down the denim that covered his still, slender
thigh and the struts of his braces.
Glancing up and seeing how
vulnerable his face had become in that moment, she had smiled gently and
murmured enigmatically, "I will think of you, when I think of
you." She wasn't about to go promising things she could not keep.
"And I'll probably be thinking of you every waking minute," she had
added with a laugh.
"Tickets
please," the inspector said, rudely awakening her from her daze. On
returning her tickets to the wallet in her bag, she glimpsed the screen of her
phone and saw a message: a simple little "<3" from Alex which
made her own lurch with happiness.
After a while, she found
herself in need of a distraction, and decided to text an old
friend from school who lived in London, and asked if she might be free for
drinks or dinner somewhere that night. "Hey Bella, it's been a couple
of weeks since we've spoken and I'm on my way down to London now for
my internship. Drinks/dinner/both tonight? Xxx." When
Bella's happy text confirmed that Sam now had something to look forward to when
she arrived, she tried to read her book and forget that she was acting
like some love-struck teenager about not seeing Alex for five days. Five
days, for heaven's sake, she chided herself. You can go back
to Cambridge next weekend and see him then. It's only five flipping days!
As the train pulled calmly
into the station, she took a breath for courage. She was not a city girl. This is going to be a long couple of months,
she thought as she stepped out into the seething hoards of Sunday tourists,
with her enormous bag in tow. The new building at King's Cross station was a
huge, echoing, metal tent, full of teaming, scurrying people and the occasional
dirty pigeon, but, she thought as she headed towards the Underground, it was
probably just her sad mood that was painting it all a rather dull shade of grey.
Like a memory from an earlier time, the old, previously external, shop
fronts and building facades had been preserved beneath the permanent 'lean-to'
design of the new extension, and it leant a magical quality to the space, like
studio film set. As if on cue, two young Hispanic-looking teenagers approached
her and asked, in exquisite and almost undiscernibly thick Mediterranean
accents where they could find Platform 9¾.
The Underground was less
of a fairytale than the world above, and she heaved her unsociably big bag down
the escalators and entered the network of tunnels and corridors below the city.
The rounded tunnels and strange lighting made her think of Fallout, and she
allowed herself a smile as she wondered whether there were any radroaches
scuttling along the tracks of abandoned train lines. Staring into the darkness
of the tunnel ahead and trying not to imagine a feral ghoul lurking just beyond
the reaches of the light, a flash of bright colour caught her eye as the crowd
on the platform beside her moved a little and revealed a poster on the wall. It
was a perfume advert, and her eyes moved over the white curly writing of a
quotation, and she recognised it instantly. The company was appropriating a
Shakespeare sonnet for its own gains, and she smirked a cynical smile. The line
did make her think of Alex though, and the dull ache in her chest that she
thought she'd left behind on the train resurfaced as her brown eyes
skimmed over the words, "Summer's
lease hath all too short a date".
Brushing that aside,
before she lost herself in wistful thoughts and knocked some unsuspecting
tourist off the platform with her bag, she turned up her headphones, blasting
Alex away with her song of the moment. Hopping onto the train, she sang softly
under her breath, "In the night, the stormy night, she closed her eyes…"
And as the train thundered into the station and the crowd surged forwards for
the doors she tried to shut them all out.
She made it to South Ken
station and surfaced from the horribly stuffy Underground to a balmy
London evening and the contrast made her want to go for a run, despite her
travel-weariness.
The rooms which the museum
had provided for her as part of the internship belonged to the halls of a
nearby university, and having got her key card for entry, she trundled up to
her floor in the lift and when she eventually reached her bland
and blank-walled room, she flopped on the bed and took a moment to
herself. As her eyes traced blind swirls on the white ceiling, she wondered
what Alex was doing. Was he just getting on with his life, almost as though the
past few weeks had never happened, or was he spending every single second
thinking of her too? She couldn't know, and it was madness to lie there in the
quiet, guessing. Reaching for her phone, she checked the time and saw that she
had a couple of hours spare until she had to head out to meet Bella.
"All settled in
now," she texted Alex. "Meeting a friend for dinner tonight.
Miss you. What are you up to?"
His instant reply brought
some comfort. "Working, and trying forget about the fact that you're
not here..."
Her heart leapt wildly
with a mixture of relief and pity. "Aren't we soppy? I'll probably come
back up to Cambridge and see you this weekend if I can."
"T minus 120
then."
His reply puzzled her.
"Huh?"
"Roughly 120 hours
til I see you."
She had to laugh. "Ohhh,"
she replied. "Wow, the timer’s already set then?"
"Has been since
you left. Enjoy tonight. Take care. xxx"
Hyde park wasn’t far away
from the university halls, so she fished her ancient and much-loved running
shoes from her bag and headed out for a quick exploration of the territory.
With a couple of months of city-time booked, she'd need somewhere to run and
let off steam.
Neat rows of slender trees
bordered tidy paths as she wove out of Knightsbridge and towards the wilder
patches of the park, where dogs roamed and frolicked between thicker ancient
trees, and the sunlight glittered on the water of The Serpentine. It wasn’t the
green freedom she could really have done with, but it would have to do for now
to recharge her batteries after travelling. It was such a beautiful day, and
she couldn't help thinking she was going to plough straight into someone
famous, maybe an actor shooting a new film. They were always filming in Hyde
Park. Maybe she'd jog past the next Bond actor, she thought as she made to leap
over a fallen branch. As she caught her toe on it and nearly went flying, she
thought that maybe meeting Renee Zellweger or Colin Firth, filming the next
Bridget Jones, would be more appropriate than Bond, and she began to
laugh. If they ever need a Bridget Jones Junior, I'd probably be
perfect...
Deciding that she ought
not to get carried away and run too far when she still had to get back and
rehumanise herself before dinner, she wove her way back through the trees and
the tall grasses til she came to Exhibition Road, where a small cluster of
museums huddled together for shelter like nerds in a playground: The
Natural History Museum with its dinosaurs and rock specimens conferred quietly
with the Science Museum just behind it, while the rather more hipster Victoria
and Albert Museum stood slightly aloof over the road. Barrelling down the hill
through the tourists and early evening wanderers like an escaped raptor from
the Natural History Museum, Sam pushed herself hard until she reached the
little square of gardens in front of the university halls. As she stretched
herself out and cooled her muscles off a bit, she looked at the time on the
small running watch that Dan had given her for her birthday, and saw that she
had just over an hour before she was due to meet Bella.
Since her friend always commented on the fact that she
never wore anything 'boy clothes', as Bella called Sam's endless series of
baggy shorts, faded jeans and scruffy t-shirts, she thought she'd surprise her by
turning up in a floaty white dress, which showed an unusually large amount of
flesh both at the top and the bottom. Though it was far from indecent, it still
made Sam feel a little self-conscious. As she left the close air of the Tube
station platform behind and poured out of the Underground with all the teaming
hoards of people heading for Leicester Square or Chinatown, claustrophobia
loomed above her and she missed the wide open spaces of her parents’ home by
the sea.
She smoothed the front of
the mid-thigh length dress and took a moment before beginning to look around
for Bella. It was a good ten minutes or so before Bella turned up, during which
time Sam kept an eye out for a tiny, blonde-haired, ditzy-looking
cheerleader-type. Eventually, one such person hurled herself at Sam. Bella drew
her old friend into a mad, warm embrace and squealed, "Oh my god, Sam, you
look amazing! What's changed? You have to tell me everything!" From 9-5 Bella
was the sensible, well-organised PA to the CEO of a software company, but off
the clock she was the crazy, fun and bleached blonde girl she'd always been at
school.
"All in good time,
Bels, all in good time," she said, trying to calm her down, as much to
lower the danger of physical harm to herself as to reduce the stares of passers
by. "Come on, let's go and eat."
"Fine," the
pretty blonde pouted with a glint in her blue eyes. Bella flicked her hair back
from her face, ran her fingers under her eyes to erase any stray eyeliner, and
then adjusted the strap of her enormous handbag. She was the kind of girl John
Mayer might say 'poses for pictures that aren't being taken'. When she was
happy with her appearance, which had been fine to begin with, they made their
way to Bella's favourite little Chinese restaurant, round the back of Leicester
Square. It was the kind of place where the menu was entirely in Chinese and there
wasn’t a fork to be seen. As Sam's eyes roamed warily over the indecipherable
menu and over the tricky looking chopsticks, her heart sank a little, and she
just asked Bella to order whatever she normally ate when she came here. "I
don't have Chinese very often," she said. "I wouldn't know what to
pick..."
As their plate of dim sum
arrived, Bella leaned forward conspiratorially and said quietly, "I've got
it. There's a man in your life, isn't there?" And when Sam blushed, she
shrieked, "Oh my God, Sam, why didn't you bring this up sooner?!"
An elderly Chinese couple
in the corner shot Bella a dirty look and Sam's blush deepened. "I didn't
want to tell you until I knew it wasn’t just some crazy crush, you know, that
he and I at least had a chance of working out..."
"Yeah, but Sam, this
is a big deal!"
"It's not that big a
deal, Bels," she countered, hoping their wine was going to come
soon.
Bella fixed her with a
look, but toned her intensity down. "Ok, so tell me about him - what's his
name, where'd you meet, what are his vital statistics, you know, all the usual
stuff."
Sam couldn't help but
laugh. "You haven't changed a bit since school, you know that?"
"I'm forever young,
what can I say? Now focus. Spill."
So Sam began to tell her
all about meeting Alex and how it had all begun in the tea rooms of the UL. She
tried to play down quite how much she'd enjoyed getting close to him - in more
ways than one - at their cinema date and at the pub afterwards. Bella's
reaction to Sam’s putting the creep in the arm lock was much the same as
Ollie's had been. "You did what?" she laughed. "You're hopeless.
I'm surprised you didn't scare this guy off!" she smiled fondly.
"I've already had
that lecture, Bels..." she smiled, trying not to let her irritation show
through. "Anyway, I obviously didn't
scare him off, because we went on this adorable date to a beautiful old house
just outside Cambridge, and we spent basically the whole day just wandering
around in the sun. It was amazing."
Bella mostly listened
quietly while Sam finished telling her a bit more about their blossoming
relationship, a smile dawning in her sapphire-blue eyes, its strength
increasing with each accolade Sam uttered about Alex. "Oh girl," she
giggled when Sam had finished. "You got it bad..." She paused and
said, "You got a picture of this guy?"
"Alex," she smiled,
"His name is Alex. And no, no photos on me, because I don't have a
smartphone..."
"I've got
mine..." Bella said, fishing in her cavernous handbag for iPhone, handing
it to her with a smile as their wine and main course arrived.
There weren't many photos
of Alex on Facebook, and he almost never used it anyway, but one picture she
found was of him standing in crutches, laughing, wearing a tux at a May Ball
during his undergrad. Not bad, not bad at
all, she smiled to herself. "It's a year or so old, but..." she
said, handing it back to Bella and forcing herself to take a mental step
backwards while her friend considered him.
"Yummy," Bella
said, in obvious surprise, and Sam tried not to think of what Bella might have
been expecting. "I promise I'll sign you out when I've finished drooling
over this..." She paused, her eyes snagging on something. "What
happened? Why was he on crutches?"
The topic she'd been
hoping to avoid was now looming over her like a crane with a twelve ton weight
of cargo. "Er... he was in a car accident," she said, pouring herself
a massive glass of wine and taking an unladylike gulp that nearly made her
cough.
"Shit," Bella
swore, looking serious. "Is he ok?"
Sam's stomach was churning
for some reason. "Well, kind of," she finally said. "He was hurt
pretty bad. It was about six years ago I think. He hasn't told me much about it
– we have only been together for a few days shy of a month after all - but he
has to use crutches to walk, or... or a wheelchair." There. She'd said it.
Alex uses a wheelchair. No. Big. Deal.
The Atlantic Ocean could
not have been wider than Bella's blue eyes in that moment. "Oh," she
said, looking back at the photo. "Damn," she said.
"What do you
mean?" Sam challenged.
"I mean it's a
shame," she said.
"What, that he's disabled?" Sam suspected that her
huge glug of wine probably wasn't helping.
"No," Bella returned evenly. "Just that
something like that happened to him." She pinched the screen to zoom in on
his face. "He's gorgeous, Sam," she smiled. "Seems you've hit
the jackpot on your first shot back in the dating ring. Lucky you," she
said, sipping her own glass of wine rather more demurely than Sam, who was most
of the way through hers already.
"Too many mixed metaphors in that, Bels," she
grinned, feeling the sweet, cool trickle of relief roll down to her stomach. A
few seconds later though, she thought she picked up a little swirling eddy in
Bella's blue eyes. "What?" she asked quietly. "You think I'm
doing the right thing?"
Bella's big eyes were clouded for a second and she pursed
her lips together in thought. Finally, she spoke, "Yes, but… Sammy,” she
began hesitantly. “I've known you since school, and I've never seen you this
happy -" she held up a perfectly manicured hand as Sam began to smile.
"But you do need to be careful.”
"Why?" she blurted defensively. If she was
about to get the sex talk from Bella, she might as well walk out then and
there. She was not fifteen years old.
"I know you've only known each other a few weeks, and
that it's obviously in its early stages but... but..." she sighed, "I
have to ask this, so please don't hate me for it..." Again, she faltered,
and Sam, breathing deeply, silently bid her go on. "Is Alex the first guy
you've dated since Laurence?"
She'd not been expecting that name, and the lights seemed to
flicker for a moment, as hearing it on someone else's lips filled her with a
sudden, plunging dread. "Yes." Her response sounded small, almost
childlike, to her in its simplicity.
"Ok,” Bella said kindly, “Just promise me you won’t
rush into anything with this guy, ok?”
Sam knew she was only
looking out for her, but it was starting to feel like an inquisition against
her. Her friend obviously saw that, and backed off gently, steering the
conversation onto herself, but Sam never really let that last comment lie. It
haunted her all the way home.
Should she have dated someone who didn’t have any kind of
issues so that at least one person in the relationship was undamaged by their
past? Should she have tested the waters a long time ago with someone else?
Someone like Doyle? It was obvious that he was fond of her, and he wasn't a bad
guy. Perhaps it was the wine playing the devil’s advocate, but, as she walked
up the stairs to her dorm room, she realised that this was the first time she'd
been able to step back and assess her feelings from a distance since she and
Alex had made their relationship 'official', and, as her hand pushed the door
open, she began to feel ever so slightly uncertain about whether she would be
able to handle a relationship at all, let alone one with Alex.
Knowing she had to be in
work at 9 am for her initial meeting with the Exhibitions Coordinator, her
immediate boss, she showered and headed to bed, chastising herself for
the kind of thoughts that were whirling round her mind.
After surviving survived
almost a whole week, Sam found herself feeling more like a Londoner than she
had expected. The gritty, busy, bustling city had opened its arms and welcomed
her into its fold more swiftly than she had expected. She felt grounded in her
little patch, with her running route round Hyde park. If it was tracked from
above, it’d look like the travels of a cockroach on crack, as it
included almost every corner of the park in the widest set of intersecting loops
possible, but she was beginning to fall a little bit in love with the wide
tracts of meadowy land and huge, old lime trees, and she looked forward to her
daily run after work to clear the museum dust away at the end of the day. All
in all, it was a nice little routine she'd got going.
That Thursday night Bella
was sitting on her bed at the end of the working day, just like she had when
they were sixteen, only this time she was ranting about some guy who'd felt
her up by the photocopier at work instead of some guy who'd felt her up by the
lockers at school, and suddenly she turned to Sam and said, "You know
what? Let's go out tonight. Let's go clubbing."
Sam rolled her eyes and
pulled a face, flumping back into the pillows with a dramatic sigh. "Urgh,
Bels, you know I’m
not really into that..."
"You are
tonight," Bella said, her eyeliner smudging slightly beneath her
eye after a long day at the office. "I need a good dance with music
so loud I can't hear my own thoughts. How about Tiger?"
She raised her head and
said pointedly, "Last time you took me to Tiger I almost put a guy in a
headlock..." Grinning all the while she spoke, she'd already caved in and
decided to go, and Bella had seen it, pouncing on the opportunity like a cat at
play.
"Oh my God, that's
right," she shrieked, giving a real cackle of delight at the memory.
"That was the funniest thing I think I've ever seen. Maybe not Tiger then…"
Sam made a gesture that
relinquished all control to Bella, and flopped her head back onto her
pillow with another big sigh.
"What's the matter? I
thought I’d convinced you but now I’m not so sure…"
"It’s nothing,"
she breathed.
"You're worrying
about Alex, aren't you?" Bella asked quietly.
"Maybe a
bit." Bella sighed, and Sam added, "I just don't want him to
think that because I'm in London, I've turned into some floozy, drinking and
dancing until the small hours without him."
"You should be able
to go out and do what you like, without being worried about upsetting the other
person..." she said pointedly, "As long as it's not something that is
going hurt them, of course, which this isn't, Sam."
"Fuck it, let's just
go," she said, sitting up quickly. "You always say I over-think
everything..."
Bella laughed. "You
do. You want to come over to mine or meet me there? We could go for a drink
somewhere first - no one even gets to these places til at least eleven - what
do you think?"
She agreed, beginning to
look forward to the idea of losing herself in a dark room with strobing
lights, pulsing lights and dancing strangers.
"You want to bring anyone else
along?" Bella asked, standing up and fiddling with her bracelet.
"I was thinking of inviting a couple of guys I know..."
Sam only really knew a few
people in London, Doyle being one of them. He was big on the club scene,
spending almost every night at one or other of the popular London clubs, so she
knew she wouldn't need to ask him twice. "Er, not really, no. Feel free to
invite whomever though," she smiled.
Pounding bass. Strobing
lights. Arms raised high. Body moving. Hips swaying. Even Sam had to admit
that it felt amazing to give herself up to the mass and become just one of
the seething crowd, and she laughed freely as she saw the same expression on
Bella's face. "I knew you know
how to have fun!" Bella shrieked gleefully. Sam couldn't deny that
she was right as her hair swung freely down her back. She still poked her
tongue out her for her rude comment though. They had been dancing for nearly
three hours, and they were all exhausted, sweaty, and very much on the blurrier
side of happy.
A few of the guys Bella
had invited had turned up for drinks beforehand, and they were all dancing in a
knot together. Sam had an escort of two tall guys on either side of
her: a blond-haired graduate student called Seth on her
right, and some privately-educated entrepreneur, who was probably fiftieth in
line to the throne or something, called Hector on her left. Seth had just put
his hands on her waist, where her dark teal top melted into the very
figure-hugging and very short black skirt, and as she did a sort of dancing
step sideways to indicate politely that that was not acceptable, she thought
she saw a flash of a familiar face illuminated in the rapidly changing lights. Suddenly
as one track melted seamlessly into another, a gap opened up in the figures as
someone made their way from the dance floor to the bar. Her suspicions were
confirmed; it was Doyle. Instinctively, she nearly ducked back into Seth's
for cover, but it was too late; Doyle had seen her and he ploughed
slowly through the dancers, and he bent and swept her into a massive,
sweaty hug. "Sam!" he said his big, Irish-accented voice booming.
"I had no idea you'd be here! I didn't think this was your scene?" he
said, still leaning in close to speak in her ear above the bass. Bella’s blue
eyes were locked onto them, and unusually, Sam couldn’t read her expression.
"It isn't normally my
kind of thing," she chuckled, pulling herself back out of his enormous,
crushing bear hug and tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.
His eyes ran unabashedly
up and down her body in a rapid but appreciative sweep. "You look amazing!
How's it all going?" he asked, his voice carrying easily above the music
as he stood close by.
She stopped swaying her
hips at that point; the last thing she wanted was for someone else to get the
wrong idea, him most of all. "Thanks," she smiled graciously.
"I'm just relaxing tonight to celebrate almost a full week at the
V&A..."
"Oh yeah, that's
right!" he grinned, his head nodding a bit with the beat. "How are
they treating their newest intern? Have you graduated from making coffee to
stapling forms yet, or is that still to come?"
Laughter bubbled up
from her chest, her chin tilting back, her hair cascading down her neck and
back, shivering in the neon lights. "I've skipped that stage entirely...
gone straight to writing display labels for objects in an upcoming
exhibition..."
He made a comically
impressed face, his eyebrows dancing high on his forehead, "Oooh, get
you!" he chortled. "Well, if you're not too important for the rest of
us these days, how about we get lunch some time and catch up?"
"Sure," she
said, a little warily, "Sometime next week?"
He nodded. "Love
that."
"Ok. My lunch
hour is 1-2."
"We can go somewhere
nearby, perhaps Federico's..." he was thinking aloud.
Doyle was pretty wealthy,
and given that Harrods' was just around the corner from Federico's, she was
worried that he might be thinking of going somewhere that her pitifully
empty wallet would not cover, and she did not want to be
under any kind of obligation to him. The hugely-overpriced cocktails which had
replaced a lot of the blood in her veins threatened to tell her to
ignore that and make the most of a free lunch in a posh restaurant,
but she managed to shut that idea up and say instead, "Nowhere too
posh, Doyle. I'm on a budget..."
It was his turn to laugh,
and he waved his hand with a carefree gesture. "My treat, Sam," he
breezed.
"No," she said,
"I couldn't. Let's just get something light somewhere..."
He laughed dismissively,
and said, "We'll work something out."
***
It seemed like only the
previous day that he’d stood on that platform watching his beautiful Sam
pulling away in the train carriage, his heart skipping more than a beat or
two when she’d pressed her tiny hand against the glass of the window and blown
him a kiss. Working solidly from early morning til well into the night for the
rest of the week had knocked the starch out of him, and it was certainly a
relief to be back in his chair after crutching around with Sam for so
long. He sighed as he wondered why he felt the need to be on his feet as
much as he could around her - she clearly didn't mind about the chair.
This was an issue of his own making and he had to get out of it: the fit of
awful spasms which had descended when he’d got back to the flat was concrete
evidence that he’d definitely been too ambitious in staying on his feet for
that long.
By the time Thursday
afternoon came around, a certain string of numbers had been burning a hole
in his mind intermittently all week. The little scrap of paper
with Rachel's phone number on was sitting on the kitchen counter amid a
pile of receipts and other shreds of paper. It was nagging at him like a whiny
little dog that wants a treat and won't go away.
He'd been reminded of her
number again on that particular morning because he had just about had
enough of his cramping, jumping, grumpy legs, and decided to go
and do some targeted exercise and physio at the gym; the routine
R.O.M exercises clearly weren't enough.
However, it had only been
as he'd finished his last set of tricep dips and lowered his tired body back
down into his waiting chair, that he remembered his meeting here with her, and how
she had ambushed him, assuming he was still the same vulnerable boy she'd known
in rehab. He'd been so wrapped up in his own surprised offence that day that
he'd not noticed the real emotion in her eyes. After further reflection as he
had pumped a dumbbell up and down in a quiet corner, resting on a
soft bench while his chair sat quietly waiting for him to return to it, he'd
realised with a small jolt of shock that in fact Rachel had been the one with the 'vulnerable' eyes, and
not him. There was something in her, in that look, that had been reaching out
to him in the same way he had once reached out to her all those years before: a
wordless, expressionless cry for company. She had done too much for him, given
too much of her time and of herself, for him not to phone her back and tell her
he wasn't angry, not really.
Sitting exhausted in the
car after a very long, hot shower, he was pleased to see that his
exertions appeared to have cured the near constant jumping in his legs,
but having forgotten all about Rachel in the intensity of his new relationship
with Sam, the recent re-emergence of her presence felt all the larger
in Sam's absence.
He ran the little piece of
paper through his fingers as he sat in the kitchen when he got home, and he
cautiously leaned backwards a little in his chair, the sinews and muscles
of his abs stretching almost painfully, reminding him of his workout. He
couldn't work up enough courage to call her yet though, and he shoved
the scrap of paper back into the mountain of other paper and rubbish on the
counter and began to turn his mind to work.
Before he started though,
Alex glanced at the big Swiss Mondaine clock on the wall, ticking efficiently
with its clean black lines and authoritative, red second-hand, and he rolled to
the bathroom to cath and take his afternoon meds, and returned to the kitchen
and began to make a cup of tea. "If I were as good at coding as I am at
procrastinating, I'd have created a whole knew language by now or something… "
he chuckled to himself. Will would be back from seeing Eva shortly, and he
ducked into his bedroom, where his bank of three monitors spread their arms out
like a triptych on a church altar. He knew Will would be wearing that smile
that reflected complete inner happiness. He’d seen it on his own face when Sam
was here, and not once since.
When Will’s keys did
eventually jangle in the lock however, Alex had been coding in his room for a
solid three and a half hours and in fact he welcomed the distraction. Releasing
the brakes and pushing his rims backwards, he freed himself from his desk, with
its heaps of notes and sheaves of paper scattered everywhere forming a kind of
choppy sea at the base of his cliff of monitors. He had been right - the grin
on Will's face made his cheeks and eyes positively glow.
Alex couldn't help but
smile too. "When do I get to meet her then?" he asked as he
watched Will put the kettle on and lean his lanky frame against the
counter.
"I was thinking of
inviting her over for dinner..."
"Surely you'd want
me out for the evening if that's the case..." he flashed
a grin, fiddling idly with the rims of his chair, rocking himself back and
forth.
Will's blue eyes crinkled.
"I knew I wouldn't have to ask..."
Alex laughed. "I
should probably text Max and see if he's around then. It's been about a month
since we last met anyway."
"How's his job
going? I thought he was in London?"
"He's shuttling
between the two offices in Cambridge and London. He's still got his house here,
and Steph's here too..." He smiled, thinking of the nerdy, computer
scientist he’d become best friends with in their very first week of university, and
Max's lovely, crazy, purple-haired, tattooed, pierced, girlfriend, Steph.
"Last I heard from him, he was the lead programmer on a text
adventure RPG project going up on Steam soon, and he's designing a new
Minecraft mod in his spare time."
Will made an shrugging
sort of expression, and turned to pour the freshly boiled water into his
favourite mug. "Impressive stuff," he murmured. "You two should
get together and do build more of your Minecraft maps. Anyway, Eva said she's
free on Monday or Tuesday next week..."
"I’ll see if Max is
too," Alex laughed softly.
He sighed. Living with his
brother did have its advantages, but he couldn't ignore the tingling beginnings
of that sinking feeling; that sinking feeling that accompanied the old,
familiar feelings of disappointment, dependence, and maybe even depression.
He shoved his hands to the
rims again, but Will tossed a quick comment at him before he could leave,
"It's not important if Max isn't free," he said. "You're welcome
to stay and join us, or just do your own thing, you know, whatever."
Alex gave him a
reluctant smile, and then muttered, "Thanks." A strange and unnerving
sense of guilt descended around his shoulders and trickled down to his stomach,
and he realised it was because Rachel had flashed back into his mind.
He said, "Oh, yeah, I was going to ask you something..."
"Fire
away," he said, sipping his tea.
"I've got Rachel's
number from James, but... but I'm still not really sure if I should call
her or not."
"I thought we decided
it was a good idea?" Will asked good-naturedly, his
already skinny frame seeming to deflate a little more, as though Alex had
punctured Will's happiness with his question about Rachel.
He sighed. "Yeah, I
guess."
"Up to you,"
Will commented. "Just... it might be nice to catch up, and it might be
nice to have someone understanding to talk to..."
Alex blew the air from his
lungs and nodded. His hands moved around the rims and he tipped back into an
absentminded wheelie, which made Will grind his teeth in silent apprehension.
He set the little casters back down again and said, "It's not that Sam isn't understanding," he began.
"But she
doesn't... understand..." Will finished, pointing out the
difference with a mere inflection of tone.
"I'll probably do it
some time next week..." Alex shrugged, agreeing with his brother by
saying nothing more about it. He jests at scars that never felt a
wound, was a line from The Bard that dropped unbidden into his mind.
Sam certainly didn't mock his disability, but she couldn't truly
understand what it meant to him.
He pushed his way
towards the door, making his way back to his desk, which was slowly sinking
into a marsh of impenetrable, hieroglyphical notes. "Anyway,
I've got some more tests to run so I'd better get back to it,” he added by way
of an exit cue.
"Sure."
Texting Max before
resuming his work, he saw that it had been nearly a month since they'd
messaged. He wondered how they sustained such a close friendship despite the
lack of contact, but that was probably a guy thing. His message too was
typically male: "Dinner out on Monday or Tuesday? My turn this
time."
Max's reply came within
fifteen minutes. "Sure. Free Monday - usual place at 7?"
"See you then."
Turning his thoughts back
to his code, Alex felt a slight thrumming pulse in his thigh. Half-heartedly
pushing his palm into it, he scrolled back through the lines of functions,
searching out the bug that had caused his last test to fail. With the
grinding movement of his arm, he became aware of just how tight his shoulders
were, and he longed to feel Sam's fingers digging into the muscles. They’d set
like concrete since the last time she'd pulverised them for him.
Thoughts of that particular massage
reminded him of his body's surprise reaction, and he allowed himself a self-satisfied
smirk at the thought that maybe the old Alex wasn't quite so far removed from
the present. Maybe he could make Sam happy in some way after all? Running his
flat palms up and down his un-braced thighs which leapt in a brief
reaction beneath his touch, he thought, I wonder if we'll both
ever let go enough for that?
To be continued...
I was so excited to see your update. I'm absolutely in love with this story. It is so well written and it feels like I am there with all the description of the location and people. This story stands alone... not just as "dev" fiction.
ReplyDeleteHurray for regular updates and a dozen more chapters!
Thank you so much for your lovely comment. I always think of this as a story of two people falling in love, one of whom just happens to be need a wheelchair...
DeleteSame.:) Believable characters getting it often and well is my favorite thing.
DeleteOMGGGGGG you're back and its amazing. Love this storie so much and I'm so so so glad youre back!! Cant believe I have to wait a whole week to see what happens next... Really hope he doesnt do anything with Rachel... I dont like her she can keep her '"vulnerable eyes'" to herself....... but is so good!
ReplyDeleteHaha, mixed feelings about Rachel, good good...
DeleteWelcome back, Rose. So so glad to see Alex, Sam, and you back on here. Great chapter, picking up easily where you left off before. I really like the new character Bella so I hope to see more from her in the future?? L
ReplyDeleteGlad you like Bella as she's based on a friend of mine... She crops up again, don't worry.
DeleteWooo hoo! Can't believe you updated!!! And I need them back together!!
ReplyDeleteTc
Glad to see you back and looking forward to where the story takes us. :)
ReplyDeleteThanks Chie - this chapter wouldn't be even half as good as it is without your input from a while back.
DeleteYes yes yes!!! So glad your back. Also, even though Sam's questioning sentiments regarding alex terrify me (who doesn't want a fairy tale ending?) I always appreciate the realistic nature of your stories. I think the believably is part of what all of us crave about Alex and Sam. I kinda feel like this could happen for real.
ReplyDeleteSo happy your back = )
Yay, you're back! I'm so glad to see more of this story and as always you left me wanting more. I can't wait to see what happens next as this story unfolds.
ReplyDeleteWonderful to have you and your delightful characters back with us! I especially enjoyed the quality of your writing:
ReplyDelete"where a small cluster of museums huddled together for shelter like nerds in a playground: The Natural History Museum with its dinosaurs and rock specimens conferred quietly with the Science Museum just behind it, while the rather more hipster Victoria and Albert Museum stood slightly aloof over the road."
Great imagery and use of language! Can't wait for more.
So happy this fantastic story is back. So well written and wonderful to have a story set in places I know! (Being English) looking forward to seeing how these two work through this separation.
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad you're back! This story is amazing. :)
ReplyDeleteWelcome back Rose!
ReplyDeleteWhat a great chapter, as always ... but I'm afraid that there will be problems soon between Sam and Alex. I don't like the fact that sam ih having doubts or that Alex is thinking about Rachel.
I want Sam and Alex together
Oh! Sooooo great to have you back. And a lovely chapter to greet me. Love these two and all their over-thinking. But, I'm a bit concerned that Alex doesn't see that Sam will never understand what he doesn't tell her. Trust is so central for them both. Can't wait for more!
ReplyDeleteDelly