It was better to just start over. Start afresh. Be someone else for a while because the person who slept in his clothes and sometimes forgot to shower was definitely not the person I was aiming to be. It was just, at the moment, this seemed to be the only thing I could be and that... that was a worry.
I showered on New Year’s Eve, just in case, letting my hair dry in front of the fire as I installed the Wi-Fi router that had finally arrived. I drank cups of tea and tried not to text Charlie, hoping my indifference to his whereabouts would make him more inclined to come and see me. It was stupid, of course, because he said he would come back. Yet he didn’t.
He didn’t turn up on New Year’s Day, despite me taking a brisk walk through town, hoping there would be light above the bakery and fresh goods on display.
There weren’t, of course, and I went to bed feeling crushed and distraught. I’d hoped he would come, and he didn’t. I rang him in desperation, only to listen to his cheery voicemail in despair.
I texted him, wishing him a Happy New Year and hoping this was the year when we laid down some roots.
It sounded great in my head but reading it back, my stomach twisted with fear.
I didn’t want this. I didn’t want to be here. Alone.
But the days went on, and I went back to work, getting back into routines and filling my evenings with TV and sleep. I met with the architects and showed Big Derek around the house. He laughed at the state of it and told me he’d seen worse. Then he quoted me a ridiculous amount of money, and I laughed right back in his face. Then he laughed even more and sat down on my sofa and told me not to be stupid because he knew Mrs. Hallet’s son, who’d said I was a decent bloke. He also lived for Graham Shaw’s meat and potato pies, so anyone who was a friend of Charlie’s would be looked after. He would build whatever I wanted, and I shouldn’t worry about a thing. His grandma was apparently one of my patients too, so that, he said, sealed the deal. I couldn’t follow much of his logic, but he shook my hand, and I signed his contract, and the planning permission sheet was stuck to my door the following week.
It was crazy, but I needed crazy. I needed anything to get my head screwed on right because Charlie? I missed him every day. I knew it was madness, something that had spiralled out of control in my head, but I couldn’t let go of the thought. The ridiculous fantasy that perhaps I could do this. That I could make him happy when I couldn’t even make myself smile.
This thing with Charlie? It had destroyed everything I thought I was, and there was nothing I could do about it.
It was a cold evening at the end of January when I finally took a day off, so Geoff the Kitchen-fitter-who-also-owned-a-Gay-Bar could come and take measurements for what was to become an open-plan kitchen in the new improved hovel that I now couldn’t wait to get started on. Both rooms upstairs now leaked, the loft had bats, and I was going batshit crazy, trying to control the constant migration of rodents in the downstairs toilet. They were probably rampant in the kitchen too. I was sure of it as I held my breath every morning, hoping my teabags were still intact. I’d bought a fire alarm in case my four-legged squatters chewed through my wiring. I lived in squalor and misery, but at least my clothes were cleaned weekly, and the sofa I slept on had blankets and enough warmth that I slept well at night.
But Charlie? Charlie was never where I was, and I avoided town as much as I could. I thought I was giving him space, the space he had asked for, but the thoughts in my head were filling me with doubt because I was more than likely doing this all wrong.
So, I sat down on my sofa and stared at my phone. I stared at his number and pressed it. I knew he wouldn’t answer and almost jumped at the sound of his voice.
“Hi, Daniel,” he said in my ear, and the lump in my throat made me shudder with fear.
“Charlie,” I said, my voice cracking up. “Fucking hell, Charlie.”
“You all right?”
“No,” I said because I just couldn’t lie. Not to him. “I’m not all right. I’m lonely and messed up, and I bloody miss you.”
“I’ve not been around much,” he said, sounding completely indifferent to my pain. “Gave up the job at the hotel and got another one teaching down at the college. Just two days a week but it’s… It’s been good, you know?”
“How are you?” I said weakly because I needed to know. I needed to hear him speak because just hearing his voice had already settled the anxiety in my chest down to a small flutter in my stomach.
“I’m fine…” he said. Then there was just the sound of breathing in my ear.
“Can I please, please see you? I just need to talk to you,” I begged. I wasn’t proud. This was not me. I was better than all this. Yet, I realised that this was exactly me. I demanded. I needed. I pushed and I pulled and people walked away.
“Daniel,” he said softly.
“I’m sorry.” Here we were again. Me and my stupid excuses, but I took a deep breath, and the words just came tumbling out.
“I wish things with you had gone differently, and god knows, I wish I’d said completely different things. I wish things with you had played out differently because if they had?” I had to stop and breathe again. “If I knew what I know now? I would’ve hugged you more. I would have hugged you every time I saw you and every time I left. I would’ve told you how bloody cool you are, and how beautiful you look when you smile. If I’d realised sooner, why I felt like this around you, why you calmed me down and made me laugh, and why the world was a happier place when you were with me, then I would’ve stood there and let you kiss me. And I would have kissed you back, but I didn’t realise, and instead? I got scared. I didn’t want to think about all those things in my head because I knew they weren’t true, and then I tried to tell myself I didn’t like you as much as I thought I did, but I did, and it wasn’t you. It was never you reading things wrong. You read everything right, and I wish I’d just realised before it was too late.”
“You’re not in love with me,” he said softly. “Well, fuck do I know? You might be. I mean there are people who are bi-romantic, who fall in love with people of the same sex, but don’t necessarily want to have sex with them. But…”
“Bi-romantic?” I questioned. “I like sex. I want sex.”
“Yeah, but have you actually thought about it?” he asked. And I had to swallow, a bit too loudly.
“Sex?” came out of my mouth as I blushed like a teenager. “With you?”
“Yes, Daniel, because sex is kind of a deal-breaker with me. I like sex too. If you and I can’t at least get naked and get each other off, then I don’t know how this relationship will have a future because I get what you are saying and trust me, you’re asking how I am? Daniel? Really?”
“Yeah?” I sounded like a fool again. And now? Now he was truly angry.
“I’ve been humiliated in my life. I’ve been beaten up by assholes and followed around in town. I’ve been scared shitless, many, many times, but that kiss with you? Fucking broke me. That was the last straw because I thought… Fuck, I liked you so bloody much. I finally thought, you know, that I had met someone... someone I actually cared about. Every day, I woke up and I couldn’t wait to see you. I counted down the hours until you would walk through that door, and when you did? You lit up my world, but that? That wasn’t how it all turned out. You just dumped me after you had that big gay panic of yours. And then? A couple of texts. A five-minute phone call where we said nothing that mattered. Nice. That? That’s what you want?”