Chapter Forty-One Soundtrack: These Days by Nico

We unanimously decide to give ourselves the afternoon off. It's not like our boss cares, after all. I haven't seen Barry in a week.

Maybe different, more grown-up people would have stayed on the futon and hashed things out. Maybe different people would have relived our conversations in a new light, gently apologising for the misunderstandings and attempting to compromise towards a future.

Instead, we stand silently in the lift and I salute him as we exit the building. I can tell he's feeling terrible because he doesn't roll his eyes.

And then, because we're both idiots, I wait until I'm home and curled up under an enormous duvet to text him: weird day huh

He replies immediately. Oh, you weren't expecting to share your traumatic past with your asshole colleague?

are you just my colleague?

Three dots, a pause, and then he ignores the question. I am unquestionably an asshole.

i'll concede that.

Would an apology change anything?

no harm trying.

The wait before his response is agonising. When it comes, my phone buzzes warm in my palm and I hold it for a moment, breathing slowly, and then read.

I am sincerely sorry. I wish things could have been different between us, and I am amazed that you managed to remain civil to me, and even though it's probably too late I will do everything in my power to be a better person / colleague / friend / ??. Feel free to tell me to fuck off, but if you do want to talk about it, I'm here.

I pull the blanket up to my chin and think very carefully about his offer. Nas knows me so well, but there is a huge hole in my past, and he's skirting the edges of it. He's opened up enough to me that I owe him—No. I want to share this with him, because I want to know him in return. I don't want to hide my scars anymore.

I was driving. A drunk driver hit us. I walked away and Ben died on impact.

The words are so factual. Hiding within them are piles of shattered glass and thick, dark blood.

I saw the blood before I saw Ben.

The paramedics didn't tell me he was dead. They didn't have to. I knew. I knew that no one could live with that much blood scattered around them. I knew it so deeply that I couldn't look over at him. It was like my neck was locked in place. Instead, I just grasped for his blood, pooling it in my hands, like I could pour it back into him. The paramedics cut me out with only the shattered glass scars to prove it had ever happened. Ben came out under a sheet and I never saw him again.

Every time I step into a car, I hear that rubbery screech of tyres. It was a cinematic sound, I remember thinking. What a stupid thought to be my last. But I didn't even see the car coming. I just heard it frantically braking, and I thought, 'That's the movie sound before the car crash'.

And then the car crashed.

In the moments after, I opened my eyes and saw Ben's hand curled into my lap. It was damp and dark. Around us screeched cars and sirens and screams and, I would later learn, in the other car the driver slowly died, but I didn't hear any of it. All I heard was the silence where Ben's breathing should have been. My neck was locked in place, the air bag crushed my chest, and so I had an excuse for not moving, but it was my cowardice that kept me motionless. I couldn't look at the man I had killed. My next thought was the most selfish I've ever had: I wish he'd been driving.

I wished I had died so that the guilt would weigh on him, not me.

I wish I could forget that.

Hot tears pool in my eyes. I blink furiously.

I'm so sorry. Nas's text blurs behind my tears.

Another text: And I'm so sorry that I hurt you too. I never want to hurt you.

I know, I reply. Even this admission was unimaginable a few months ago. But then I add, that doesn't mean you don't.

I know, he replies. I'm too quick to judge.

Through my tears, I laugh. Of course he thinks he's too quick to judge, because I think that about him too. Because we are the same. In every way that matters, Nas and I are alike, unflinching in our criticisms of ourselves, honest to a fault with each other, except when we're talking about anything that matters. Somehow, we are unable to name what is obvious between us, blooming now but growing for years.

I've known for months that I don't hate him, but I've refused to accept what that means. Because he's bad at what I'm good at, and he makes me safe when I am afraid, and I can't follow that thought to its logical conclusion.

Can I come over? Can we talk properly?

no. Once I would have just sent this. Now I need to explain. I have to go for dinner.

I'll cook you dinner.

next time.

Three dots appear. He's thinking.

It's a date.