‘I never meant to make things uncomfortable. You are his friend, first and foremost.’
‘You need to stop talking and rest.’
I kept my eyes on him, waiting for him to meet them, knowing he would read the question there.
He did. ‘I dropped round on my way to the gym earlier.’
I tilted my head in further question.
Charlie looked everywhere but at me. ‘I’d better nip over and get this stuff for you,’ he said, standing.
‘She was there, wasn’t she?’
He looked down at me, his face a mixture of emotions.
‘Please don’t fall out with your best friend over this. It would make me feel far worse.’
He sat back down. ‘Alex and I have very different beliefs when it comes to relationships. It’s one of the reasons I wasn’t thrilled at him picking you up at Mum and Dad’s barbecue.’
‘Picking me up?’ I made to sit up but a large hand quickly came to rest gently on my shoulder.
‘Sorry, that came out wrong.’
My stomach twisted as I forced the second question out. ‘What were the other reasons?’
‘Huh?’
‘You said it was one of the reasons. What were the others?’
‘Oh!’ Charlie shook his head. ‘Nothing really. Just a turn of phrase. Now you really need to stop talking and get some more rest.’
I opened my mouth to argue.
‘Please?’ Charlie said quietly, meeting my eyes at last.
Taking a deep breath, I snuggled back down in the duvet, signalling my acquiescence and pulling my arms back in too. For all my protesting earlier, they now felt cold. In fact, all of me was feeling cold. I clenched my teeth together to stop the chattering becoming too obvious.
‘You’re shivering.’
I unclenched my jaw, letting my body do whatever it wanted.
Charlie stood, grabbing the quilt off the other sofa as he did so. He snuggled the duvet around me again and then laid the quilt on top.
‘Are you all right if I go and get this stuff? I could ask your neighbour to come and sit with you, if you like.’
My horrified look gave him an answer.
‘OK. Just stay there. I won’t be long. Can I take the keys, so that you don’t have to get up to answer the door?’
I nodded and met his eyes. He gave me one of those sympathetic looks and it was the worst thing he could have done. A sob broke through and I made a weird noise that ordinarily would have been crying but thanks to my cold sounded almost inhuman.
Had I not had the cold, I probably would have gone round to Amy’s this morning, had a good old stomp about, bawled at breaking up with Alex and then stuffed unhealthy food all afternoon whilst we watched romantic movies and sobbed together some more. But feeling rotten had screwed up my normal procedure for dealing with such things. And now Charlie was on the receiving end, with an added side order of squeaky croaks and the ever-present danger of a loaded sneeze.
‘I’m sorry. Just feel a bit…’
‘Shh.’ Charlie perched on the sofa, brushed some wisps of hair away from my mouth and shovelled his big hands underneath me, duvet and all, pulling me up towards him until I was wrapped in a big, comforting cuddle. We stayed there for a while, Charlie freeing one hand occasionally in order to pass more tissue supplies and hold up the bin for me to lob spent ones into. Eventually, the in and out procedure became less and Charlie must have sensed that the tissues weren’t the only things spent.
I was exhausted. He gently laid my duvet sausage roll back down and I looked up at him.
