For a second I stand there with my coat in my hand, city lights reflecting against the glass.
Toronto is good.
The job is good.
This life makes sense.
But as I walk towards the lifts, one thought follows me with slow, infuriating certainty.
I am not homesick.
That would be simpler.
I am Mark-sick.
And that is a significantly more complicated issue.
Chapter 17
Philip
Amonth in, Torontohas stopped feeling temporary.
Not home yet.
That would be generous.
But no longer like I am sleeping in someone else’s life.
The boxes are gone. My books are on shelves. I have acquired a plant from a woman in the office who insisted the flat needed “something alive” and then looked at me as though I had personally failed every windowsill in Canada. I know where to get decent coffee, where to avoid at rush hour, and which meetings can be survived by looking thoughtful and saying, “I think we need to consider positioning.”
In short, I am functioning.
Convincingly enough that some days I almost believe it.
It is Saturday morning, grey and cold enough that the city outside my windows looks offended by its own existence, and I am halfway through answering emails when my phone rings.
Sophie.
I answer immediately.
“What’s happened?”
“Possibly nothing,” Sophie says, which is never a reassuring opening, “but Jamie has just shown me an Instagram account for a hamster called Heath and I have questions.”
I frown.
“There are many hamsters in the world.”
“Yes, but not many called Heath.”
“That proves absolutely nothing.”
“The hamster also appears to belong to someone called Mark.”
I go still.
Sophie hears it.
