Take My Breath Away by Ali Ryecart

Chapter Forty-Two

JAMES

Climbing out of the bed I’ve slept in alone, I stumble into the shower. My head’s hammering and I feel sick, but it’s got nothing to do with the booze from last night’s party. I have to speak to Perry and try to explain, although how in God’s name I’m going to do that I have no idea.

It’s not you, it’s me… Bitter laughter bubbles on my tongue, that clichéd line that’s never been more true. Because this is me, this is who I am and always will be. As I think of the man who’s sleeping away from my arms, all I want to do is weep for what I believed I could have. I lied to myself, but I won’t lie to Perry.

Sunday morning, and I have to go into work. A shit storm’s hovering on the horizon. Angry headlines and a public baying for blood, if the storm dumps its load. My role, along with a small group of others, is damage limitation. Heads will roll, but fewer of them. I don’t want to go, but I’ve no choice.

On the landing, I listen hard, but there’s no sign of Perry stirring, and I’m glad because in this moment I don’t think I have the courage to face him. For now, I have to manage an angry, frightened, and cornered government minister, loathed and loved in equal measure by the public. It’s nothing to what I’ll face later, when I get home.

I creep downstairs, and let myself out, clicking the door closed quietly behind me as I slip away into the grey drizzle of a London winter’s day.

* * *

I’ve sent Perry a text to say I’ll see him at home, and will be coming back with a takeaway. I don’t want him to cook, not tonight.

“Perry?” I call out as I let myself in and make my way to the kitchen. It’s always been his favourite room in the house and nine times out of ten it’s where I’m likely to find him, and I do so again.

On the threshold of the kitchen, I watch him at the table. He’s wearing a pair of jeans, loose and comfortable looking, and an oversized sweatshirt, but they can’t disguise the fact that he’s lost some weight. He doesn’t exactly look skinny but he’s starting to head that way. The bitter taste of bile coats the back of my throat and I know it for what it is. Guilt. He’s like this because of me.

Perry’s not heard me call out, he doesn’t even know I’m standing here, he’s so intent on whatever it is he’s looking at on his laptop. Headphones are clamped to his head, further cutting him off.

I study him the way I’ve studied him so many times and there’s that guilt again, burning in the back of my throat.

He looks tired and strained and his pale skin’s even paler than usual and even from this distance it makes the freckles scattered over his nose darker. All this, in just a few days, since I froze on him, since I closed down. Pain explodes behind my eyes, and I suck in a breath and hiss as I clamp my eyes closed for a second. When I open them, with the echo of the pain beating the inside of my skull, he’s still not seen me.

Whatever it is he’s looking at, he’s not happy. A deep frown crinkles his brow as he scrolls. He stops and leans forward, taking a closer look at whatever’s caught his attention before he shakes his head and moves on. I take a couple of steps into the kitchen and he must spot the movement from the corner of his eye because his head snaps up and he looks at me wide-eyed and blank, before he takes off the headphones and closes the lid of the laptop with what sounds like a hard thud.

“Thai. From the place down the road. Your favourite.” I hold up the white plastic bag before I deposit it on the counter. He pushes himself up from the table.

“Lovely, thanks. I’ll just get some plates.”

This is what it’s come to. There’s no kiss, no cuddle. There’s no idle chitchat about our days. There’s no touch or smile or any of those things we did just days ago. There’s no — anything, other than two people in a room.

“Don’t you want to go and have a shower before we eat?” Perry asks me. It’s what I always do but this time I shake my head.

“No, it can wait.”

He doesn’t comment further as he sets out all the little tubs and trays in the middle of the table for us to dig into.

We sit opposite each other, the laid out food a barrier between us. Sampling pieces of this and that I’m wondering if, like me, he can’t taste a thing.

“What’s happened, James? What’s gone wrong all of a sudden?”

My fork drops from my hand, clattering against the plate.

“Perry, I’m so sorry. Christ, I am so, so sorry.” The voice I can barely believe is mine, is weak and rasping. This isn’t how it’s supposed to go, although I’ll be damned if I know how it should.

“What is it you’re sorry about, James? What is it, precisely, you’ve got to be sorry about?”

There’s an edge to his voice, hard and uncompromising and his eyes, always so warm and soft, are cold and stony. It’s a side of him I’ve not seen before, but it’s the only one I deserve. Not a muscle moves, as he stares and waits for me to answer.

“I—I can’t do it,” I whisper. Pain once more explodes in my skull, and I press my fingers to my temples.

“What is it you can’t do?”

He’s not giving me any quarter, but why the hell should he?

“Us. A settled life. A—a proper relationship. I thought I could, Perry. Honestly, I thought I could. I thought I’d changed, that something had shifted and clicked into place. Because I wanted that, I—I wanted that so much…” My words stumble to a halt as Perry continues to stare at me, still stony-eyed, still cold, over the plates heaped with the food we’ve hardly touched.

He jumps to his feet, the movement sudden and jerky, and I rear back. He’s piling the plates and tubs on top of each other, squashing them down hard. Food oozes out and slops over the sides. Slamming his foot hard on the peddle of the bin, the top swings open and he dumps it all, everything, into the bin. Spinning around, he glares at me.

“So what’s happened to change your mind? Or can I guess?”

I get up. My legs are heavy and slow, and all I can do is stand and clutch the back of the chair as we stare at each other across the chasm that’s cracked open between us.

“I promised you something I had no right to, because I’m not the kind of man who should make promises like that.”

“And what kind of man is that, James?”

I wince as my name falls hard from his tongue.

“A man who promises fidelity. A man who promises not to break your heart. A man who promises to—”

To love you.

Words I can’t say.

“Who was it?”

It’s as though he’s fired a gun, as his words blast into me. I catch my breath, but his eyes widen as dark knowledge lights up inside him.

“Him. That guy. Aiden. The one you had some kind of fuck buddy arrangement with. Has this been happening all along?” His voice wavers, but the muscles in his face harden.

“No, I’ve not—” I take a step towards him, but he lurches back.

“Keep the fuck away from me.” He’s shaking, every part of him trembling as his icy demeanour cracks.

“I’ve not… but I was tempted. I came so close to—to—”

“Fucking another man.”

I drop my head and say nothing.

The fridge gurgles, the wall clock ticks out the seconds and in the distance a car roars past before fading to nothing.

“I’m sorry, Perry. I’m so, so sorry. I’d do anything for this not to have happened.”

“But it has, hasn’t it? Yet, in some warped way I guess I should thank you.”

“What?” My head snaps up. “I don’t understand.”

All the stoniness in his face and voice has crumbled to dust. He looks tired, worn out and Christ, but it makes the jagged line breaking my heart in two break a little more. I want to go to him, hold him as I whisper sorry, sorry, sorry into his hair. He wouldn’t believe me, he has no reason to believe anything I say ever again.

He hugs himself around his middle, the keep away message as loud as if it were screamed through a megaphone.

He shrugs.

“You rescued me when I needed it. You gave me a home when I had none and for that I’ll always be thankful. You even made me happy when for a long time I’d not had very much of that in my life. And yes, you made me believe in something that was really just an illusion. But you can’t be who you aren’t. I realise that now. Just like I realise the only one I can truly rely on is myself. I have to stand on my own two feet, I mustn’t let myself get sidetracked and you sidetracked me, James, but then I suppose I wanted to be, so it’s my fault too.”

“It’s not—”

“I’m going to rely on myself,” he says, raising his voice as he tilts his chin up, sweeping away my words. His arms drop to his side. “I’ll rely on myself because I can’t rely on anybody else. And you’ve taught me that, James, you’ve taught me that lesson very well. I’m going to talk to Alfie about moving in with him, as soon as possible, just like I’m going to make sure I get the new start I’ve promised myself. But this time it’s going to be down to me, and me alone.”

A moment later he’s gone. I slump down into my chair as my legs begin to buckle.

It’s for the best, it’s for the best, it’s for the best…I tell myself that over and over, tying the words around me like rope because if I don’t, I’ll unravel and fall apart.