‘Spiralled?’
‘Yep,’ I said. ‘I got into a loop of “fuck this up and you’re fucked, fuck this up and you’re fucked”, and, surprise, I fucked it up.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Why? You were normal. I was the disaster.’
‘For eliminating you,’ he said. ‘I thought I was being kind, taking you out of an environment you were obviously struggling in. If I’d known how much you were relying on being there…’
‘How could you have known?’ I asked. ‘Even if I had managed to get some time with you at the First Night Party, and even if I had managed to string a few coherent sentences together – what would I have said? “Hello, nice man, please keep me around even if you’re not interested in dating me. I’m broke and desperate and I need this”?’
The sun was beginning to set behind the hill, making the Juliet Villa glow almost pink. The hedges leading up to it looked inky black, casting long shadows.
A breeze blew across the verandah, ruffling Dylan’s perfect hair. I shivered.
‘It’s that bad?’ he asked. ‘Your money situation?’
‘It’s pretty dire,’ I said, curling my fingers around the railing and digging them into the wood. ‘I lost my job. I have some savings, but no safety net. No soft place to land.’
That was already more information than I usually gave people when they asked me questions, so no one was more surprised than me when I kept talking. ‘I grew up in foster care, so I don’t have parents or family I can ask for money. I live with my best friends, and while I know in my head that they wouldn’t throw me out on the street if I couldn’t afford rent…’
‘… You don’t know it in your heart?’
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘And the thought of having to rely on them kills me.’
I twisted my fingers together. ‘In case it isn’t already incredibly obvious, I’ve got a few, uh, issues. About money. Especially about relying on other people for it.’
‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘You don’t need to justify yourself to me. The pandemic’s got a lot of people terrified about money.’
‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘For understanding. I really don’t like talking about it.’
‘You think you could stand talking aboutsomestuff, though?’
‘What?’
Dylan jerked his head towards the French doors. ‘I’ve got an idea,’ he said. ‘Feel free to say no, because I know being on camera isn’t your favourite thing, but I think you can help me, and I can help you make some of that money after all. Or at least put you in a position where you can make it yourself on Instagram.’
I turned around and leaned against the balcony railing, trying to look cool and not like my heart was suddenly beating at about three hundred beats per minute. ‘I’m listening.’
‘So I’m the spokesperson for this charity, right?’
‘The one with the terrible name?’ I said, before I remembered I probably shouldn’t insult the person who was dangling a carrot made of dollars in front of my face.
Luckily, Dylan continued to live up to his Very Nice Man billing and just gave me the mildest of withering looks. ‘Fine, okay, Ties Out For The Boys might not be the greatest charity name in the history of the world, but it gets the job done,’ he said. ‘It’s an initiative about men’s mental health. I’ve got personal experience with mental health issues, so I know firsthand that men can have real problems with bottling everything up inside instead of talking about what they’re feeling.’
‘You told me,’ I said, remembering suddenly. ‘Last night. You said that you have panic attacks.’
‘You better believe I do,’ he said. ‘Lifelong anxiety sufferer over here. Before I got myself into therapy, I was having panic attacks constantly. Mostly because I was so panicked about having them that I’d panic myself into them.’
‘A spiral.’
‘Exactly,’ he said. ‘I am intimately acquainted with the “fuck this up and you’re fucked” panic spiral. Which being able to actually admit took even more therapy, because men are particularly bad about owning up to things like that.’
‘I’ve met one or two men in my time. I’m familiar.’
Dylan grinned, a brilliant flash of white teeth. ‘So I’m – we’re – trying to do our bit to help,’ he said. ‘Once a year, wehave Ties Out Day, where we encourage men to wear their silliest ties in order to demonstrate that they’re a safe man for other men to talk to about their feelings.’
‘Okay,’ I said slowly.
