I’m not entirely sure how to make her feel better. But taking a break is definitely a step in the right direction.
“Now tell me how work was,” I coax.
“I don’t want to talk about it.” She pushes food around her plate but doesn’t eat.
“That’s alright, you don’t have to if you don’t want to,” I tell her, and she gives me a half-smile and nods with slightly glassy eyes.
“Maybe later,” she offers. “I just want to have a nice dinner with you.”
So we do.
We talk about old TV shows, the one pasta dish that Tom keeps on making that no one likes anymore because he’s made it one hundred times, the new school her dad’s moved to.
After she finishes with small talk, she pauses. Silence lingers between us. So much silence that I wonder if she’ll speak again or space out and move on, like she’s done every time before when work comes up. I open my mouth to speak, but I’m interrupted by a barrage of words that tumble out of her all at one.
“I… I… God.” And once she starts to open up she begins to share everything.
An hour later, I’m sitting on her bed while she cries about a patient who reminds her of someone who died during COVID. I’ve never seen Kath like this. She’s always been the happy one. The person who bounces through life with her lists in hand. It makes me even more determined to take her on that holiday.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers when she stops crying.
“Never apologise about this.” I push hair out of her eyes. “This is what friends are for, Kath. What I’m here for.”
“I just really struggle to stop thinking about it, and then I can’t sleep,” she whispers.
No wonder she looks so tired. I know that feeling. Though my issue was being woken up by my anxiety and then being unable to get back to sleep.
“Do you want to try my meditation app with me?” I ask her. “I’ve found it useful. Though it takes a bit of practice.”
She nods and I fish my phone out of my pocket, flicking it open and turning on one of the guided breathing exercises.
“Ready?” I ask her.
We shuffle round on the bed so we’re both lying back, me on the right hand side, her on the left and the phone on the bedside table. I press play, and the recording starts, instructing us to breathe in and out in time. I let my mind drift. I acknowledge my feelings and then let them go. The instructions continue in the background and my breathing settles.
When I wake up, I realise it’s just gone midnight and I’m still in Kath’s bed.Shit. I turn my head to look at her. At least she’s asleep. I ease myself up, trying to make sure that I don’t jostle her, and peel the spare blanket off her chair to cover her.
“Stay,” she mumbles just as I’m about to leave the room, and I freeze.
“Are you sure?” I whisper.
“Please,” she mumbles. “Just this once. I always slept better with you anyway.”
I pause. It’s thepleasethat destroys me.
She doesn’t know how hard I’m fighting myself. How many nights I’ve lain awake wishing I could go back and unsay everything that threw us apart. How much I hated myself for everything I did, because if I hadn’t done it maybe things would be different.
I’m terrified of blowing it all up again. Terrified of how much I still love her after everything I’ve done, and of how much I don’t want to break this fragile new version of our relationship.
But it’s Kath. She needs me. So I pad back to the bed and tuck us both under the blanket.
Chapter 47
Twenty-six years old
Sam
“Ican’t believe you guys are going on a road trip,” Josh says. “I’m so jealous.”
