“Bingo,” I said, touching one finger to my nose and pointing at him with the other hand.
He nodded as he processed what I’d said. “So you think I’ve lost my ability to do the things I want to do because I’m letting the fear stop me.”
I almost fell backwards with relief. Playing therapist was fucking exhausting. “Well done, Jack. Plus one thousand emotional XP for you.”
“You’re incorrigible,” he said as I laughed. I ate in silence for a moment.
“You know what the next step is, right?” I asked as I finished my own sandwich. He looked at me again, and I saw his shoulders drop.
“I’m not sure I want to know.”
“Exposure therapy, baby,” I said, admittedly a bit smug. “You’ve gotta do your version of what you’re making me do.”
“I’m hardly making you do this,” he said.
“You literally pushed me into the river,” I countered.
“Fair.”
“So, you and your ex,” I started, “you guys broke up what, four years ago? Where were you? Some far-flung tropical beach? Chucking coconuts at each other?”
“We were home, actually,” Jack said, looking down at his lap. “Or, at least, I was. We hadn’t been back in like a year, but we came for her dad’s birthday. I travelled home after the party, and she stayed in Kent where she’s from. We’d planned to spend the week with our separate families before flying out to Singapore. But once I was back, I couldn’t bring myself to leave.”
“Why not?” I knew I was being nosy, maybe pushing him a bit, but I couldn’t help myself.
He shrugged. “I mean, we both knew for ages that it was over. It just took us being apart for a millisecond to acknowledge it.”
He sat forward a bit and exhaled deeply. This was definitely the most open he’d been with me so far. It turned out we were actually pretty good at the talking stuff, as long as we stayed away from the touching stuff.
“When my family were asking me about my travels – I was super bad at keeping in touch, so they didn’t know anything we’d been doing – I realised that every single story I had to tell was about her. Not about me. Not about us. She’d been having all the cool experiences, and I’d just … been there. On the sidelines. And even though I’d had lots of fun travelling, it was like I was always secondary to her needs. Her career. Her agenda.”
I wanted to say something trite likeOh Jack, I’m so sorry, but I knew it wouldn’t help, so I stayed quiet.
“And when I was driving to see Chloe and Phil, a song came on, and I just started crying. Like, full-on weeping. I had to pull onto the verge and everything.”
I took a punt; the track change when he’d picked me up for our hike. “No Room In Frame?”
He nodded. “Yeah, sorry about that. It’s literally the one song I still can’t handle. There are others that remind me of Aria, but the problem is that one reminds me of myself too much. The version of me that got lost in her world.”
“It’s a good song,” I said, “but not a great one to find relatable.”
Jack laughed. “Yep. I even got a tattoo to remind me never to let another person push me out of my own life like that again.” He pulled up his t-shirt on the side closest to me, all the way over his shoulder, turning away from me so I could see his back. Across his left shoulder blade was a fine line tattoo of a camera, with a silhouette inside the lens. Not just any silhouette; I could tell just from the shape that it was meant to be Jack himself.
“That’s amazing,” I said, resisting the urge to reach out and touch it.
“I got it the day I was supposed to fly out,” he said, dropping his t-shirt and turning back to me.
“So you broke up before the trip?”
Jack cringed slightly. “Not exactly.”
“Go on…” I prompted.
“I sort of … told her I’d meet her in Singapore. And then just … didn’t.”
My mouth fell open. “That’s horrible!”
He raised his hands in front of his shoulders in surrender. “To be fair, I didn’t consciously know I wasn’t going when I said that. But I did know I wanted to break up, so it wasn’t a fair thing to promise, you’re right.”
