“You and I both know I can’t just pack up and go away for two weeks, no matter what the holiday looks like.”
“A week and a half,” she said, as if that made a difference. “And isn’t that what carers are for? If we plan around Anil’s schedule, we could?—”
“No, Amy!” I said, my voice raised now. “I’m not leaving her for that long, and that’s final. What if something happened? And I don’t even mean the worst thing. I mean, what if she started sundowning and Anil got hurt? What if she fell again? The only reason I can go away for things like the ball and the festival is because I can get back in an emergency if I need to. I can’t very well be airlifted back from some fjord if I’m needed, and that’s assuming I could get the call to begin with.”
“So let her come with us!” Amy shouted back, though I could tell even she knew that wasn’t an option. “Or let’s think of something different! Don’t just write it off. It doesn’t have to be a yes or no.”
“It’s very much a yes or no,” I said. “We’re going on a two-week Norwegian fjords cruise. Wanna come? Yes or no.”
“They said they werethinkingabout Norway, Phil.” Amy rubbed her face, and for a moment I thought she was wiping tears away, and I softened slightly. But there was just frustration in her eyes when she looked back up. “They want to take all of us on holiday together, and they were trying to be thoughtful.”
“And I appreciate that, I do. But I just can’t do it, Amy.”
“And when will you?” she asked, flinging her arms out to the sides. “When she’s gone? Because that’s not fair to you, Phil, and it’s not fair to her either. You’re taking on too much, and she wouldn’t want you giving up things like holidays and nights out. You’ve already given up your twenties to care for her.”
“Don’t you dare speak for her,” I said, pointing a finger in Amy’s face, my voice low and rough. She didn’t balk, but I did see surprise flicker across her expression.
“Something’s gonna have to bend, Phil,” she said, bringing her hand to wrap around my finger, lowering it. “Otherwise something’s going to break, and that something will probably be you.”
Or uswas the unspoken end to that, and I knew it.
I felt my lip start to shake, and before I even knew why, Amy’s face softened, and she reached up to wipe away the tears that had started slipping down my face. She pressed up onto her toes and kissed my face– each cheek in turn, each eye, my forehead, my mouth– and then wrapped me in her arms. I tried to swallow the tears, but they wouldn’t stop, and before long I was sobbing into her shoulder.
“I’m just so tired,” I said through the sobs. “I don’t know how much longer I can do this. It’s not fair.”
“I know,” she said, stroking my hair. “I know it’s not.”
At some point my knees started to go weak, and she squeezed me tighter to keep me up.
“It’s okay,” she said, her breath hot against my ear as she spoke. “I’m here. And I always will be.”
Chapter26
Amy
Against my better judgment, and against the advice of every horoscope I saw in the following days, I followed Phil’s lead when he brushed the holiday incident under the rug. Moments after he was crying in my arms, he was walking downstairs for dessert like nothing had happened. I expected there to be at leastsomeawkwardness, but he was instantly back to his usual playful self: debating the ideal crumble topping with Mum, arguing with Ethel and me about the bestPride and Prejudiceadaptation (he preferred the 2005 version, like a weirdo), and later, in bed, waking me up in the night with kisses on my ear and a hand already roaming up my thigh. It was like he’d just needed to get all the stress out of his system, and now that he had, he could slide back into the status quo like nothing had happened. Like he’d just decided to compartmentalise, and it had worked.
But still, it had scared me. He hadn’t said it, but I’d been able to read between the lines: our relationship and the things he thought it demanded were making his burden heavier.
So over the next week, I took care to need nothing from Phil. I didn’t ask about plans for the ball, despite the fact that we were getting close enough to necessitate more detailed logistics. I asked to cancel the bonus date night we’d planned in favour of hanging out at his, knowing it meant one less shift he’d have to pay Anil for and several hours fewer to worry about Ethel. And all the while, I wore my amethyst pendant every day, even buying a handful of tumbled sodalite and amazonite, dropping stones in his pockets each day, desperate for anything that could encourage honesty and understanding.
Meanwhile, I had plenty of my own shit to worry about. I was trying to get the presentation ready for my dad, spending actual time at the job sites so I understood how he and his team worked. I asked them questions about how they got their schedules, what annoyed them about the processes they used, and what they would change if they could. I knew I’d be asking for a lot– I was going to try to strike whilst the iron was hot and get him to implement a bunch of integrated upgrades at once– so I needed to be just as on it as I had been for Tim. All around making sure my boyfriend didn’t crumble into dust under the weight of… well, everything.
But things weren’t getting better. If anything, I could see Phil fraying further and further. And by the time Sunday dinner rolled around again, I suggested he stay at home to catch up on things, and when I joined him at around seven, he fell asleep on the sofa almost immediately.
So I was surprised when Tuesday came and he didn’t want to skip the pub quiz.
“Of everything you could skip, the pub quiz is the easiest,” I said as we waited outside the physio. Phil was texting Anil to confirm for the evening. “We only ever get second place, and I can go by myself.”
“I know you can,” he said, and despite the fact that he was smiling, I could hear the exasperation. “But you like going, don’t you? So I do, too.” He pressed a kiss to my temple.
I narrowed my eyes at him, sceptical at best, fearful at worst.
“I know I’ve been tired,” he said in the understatement of the millennium, “but I feel like I’ve been neglecting you. So let’s just do the quiz tonight, yeah?”
“I don’t feel neglected,” I lied. Though it wasn’t his fault; I was insisting upon my own neglect. It was temporary… wasn’t it?
Although, come to think of it, what was the endpoint? What arbitrary milestone was I waiting on that would make everything better? I didn’t like where that train of thought led.
