Page 11 of Electric Boy

Julian folded his arms defensively over his chest, erecting a barrier between them. “And who’re you? My mum? Going round the whole city looking for me, going through my things -- isn’t a man entitled to his privacy anymore? We living in a police state now? I didn’t know this was Nazi Germany.”

“You’re really gonna pull that shit with me, Julian Collier? Really? After I caught you with that slag at that club in Camden?”

“That was nothing!” he whined. “You know it wasn’t! I thought we’d been over this -- you said you were gonna forget all about it!”

“How am I going to forget finding you with some cow’s tongue down your throat and your hand on her arse?”

“I was drunk!”

“You’re always bloody drunk!”

“I am not! You wanna walk down to any of those football pubs and see how those yob pissheads drink? See how they get pissed and go home and beat on their girlfriends?”

“I’m not dating a yob, am I? Or I didn’t think I was, but that’s really all you are, aren’t you? Just a South London cockney tosser who dyed his hair and thinks he’s Keith bloody Richards.”

Julian tugged angrily on that same hair as he paced up and down in front of the sofa like a caged puma. “I can’t help where I come from, can I? And where d’you think you’re from? Buckingham fucking Palace? You’re from farther South than me, mate, and you don’t ever see me calling you out for that posh voice you put on, the one you forget all about the second you lose your head. You think no one notices, but everybody can see right through it. It’s pathetic.”

“Pathetic?” Aisling screeched. “I’m pathetic? Mister ‘I can’t get a real job,’ Mister ‘shite band,’ Mister ‘my only friends are a Paki poofter and my own sister.’ And I’m the one who’s pathetic?”

Julian swept an arm over the hall table, sending its contents flying, including a lamp that shattered as it impacted the wall. Aisling jumped.

“Don’t you bloody call him that.” His voice had gone dangerously low, a warning tone Aisling had hardly ever heard from him. Her throat tightened around a rapidly growing lump. She knew immediately that she’d crossed a line.

“He’s not even from Pakistan,” Julian went on, not looking at her. “Not that you fucking care.”

“Whatever,” Aisling bit back, sounding fiercer than she felt. “Why should I care about somebody who hates me because he wants you all to himself?”

“Here we go again.” Julian dragged his hands over his face, smearing his eyeliner after he did. “What else are you gonna bring up now that we’re replaying all the old hits? ‘You love Rahul more than me,’ ‘You think you’re better than I am even though I think I’m better than you.’ Oh! Play the one that goes ‘Why won’t you make your mum like me?’ I love that one ‘cause of how fucking mental it is.”

“You’re a bloody bastard, you know that?” she bit out as the first fresh tears broke free. Most girls loved to cry in front of their boyfriends because it made them uncomfortable and, as they’d begin to panic, they would quickly cede the battle. Julian wasn’t much better with female tears than the rest of his species, but Aisling took no pleasure in his sudden awkwardness, his need to make the leaky tap stop. It didn’t mean she’d won the argument, because it only meant she’d made him more uncomfortable than he was angry. That sort of loss was one of forfeit. What Aisling wanted was for him to listen and to understand and to change, so he wouldn’t make the same mistake again. What she wanted was to win.

“I’m sorry,” he squeaked, predictably. “I didn’t mean it.”

“You’re always saying that! You do mean it. And you’re not sorry. You’re just sorry I’m upset with you. You don’t care how I feel. You’re selfish. You’ve always been selfish.”

“If I’m so terrible then why don’t you just go?”

“I will!”

“Good!”

“Fine!”

“Well, go on then!”

“I am going. I’m going. And I’m staying gone this time, Julian. I mean it.”

“Good. If you don’t wanna be here, then I don’t want you around. I don’t wanna be with somebody who’s miserable around me.”

“And I don’t want to be with someone who resents me!”

“Then we’re in agreement! So what do you want from me? A fucking invitation? You can get out!”

“I will! And don’t think you can get me back. I’m gone for good this time. Don’t even try calling me. If I never hear your voice again it’ll be too soon.”

“Oh yeah? Same here!”

“Oh, sod off,” Aisling grumbled at last and slammed the door on her way out. She made a promise with herself, even as tears blurred her vision, that this was it. This was the big one. No turning back. Not again.