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“God, that’s so like you. If I thought, for even the slightest moment, that this was like that Somersby movie, you cleared it up right there.”
He smiled at her tone, not taking his eyes off her face as he sat down. “I owe you an explanation.”
“You sure do.” She was starting to feel better.
“I had a scare in Thailand. A really bad one.”
“I know. The embassy rang me.”
“Right. I was in hospital for a while. It gave me a lot of time to think about things. And you know what I thought of the most?”
“What?”
“You. I thought, Jesus Fucking Christ, the last thing I want is for Georgie to get a phone call telling her I died in some back alley in Bangkok with foam in my mouth and shit in my pants.” He paused for a moment. “And I thought of all the things you’ve done for me. Over all the years. My rock. Always just…there. I’ve always known that no matter what I did you’d always bail me out. Help me. Forgive me. And I’d taken that for granted for years. All our lives, if I’m being really honest. And I didn’t want to do that anymore. And I didn’t want you to get that phone call. So I went to India.”
“India? What the fuck?”
He smiled. “I thought if I came home to get clean, it would just put more pressure on you. Because you know how many times I’d tried. And all my old networks were here. So I worked my way to India. Went to an ashram. Learned to meditate. Did lots of yoga. Got into philosophy.”
Georgie looked at him, wide eyed. “When I let myself think that maybe you were still alive, I imagined where you were. What you were doing. I never, not once, thought you were in the sub-continent turning yourself into a pretzel over Socrates.”
He grinned. “I spent a lot of time there. I didn’t want to leave until I was one hundred percent sure that I wasn’t going to relapse.”
“And so you’re sure?”
“Yep.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I can feel it, George. I know it sounds dramatic, but I used to have this feeling, all the time. Like there was a beast inside me. Clawing, clawing, clawing. Screaming at me. It hurt. A lot. The only thing that ever made it shut up was the drugs. Until I learned to make it shut up myself.”
“Okay. That’s good.” She looked at him for a long moment. His mop of blond hair. His clear blue eyes, watching her steadily. “I’m proud of you.”
“Jesus, don’t say that. I somehow let you think I was dead for three years.”
“Right. And on that?”
“I rang you. I told you everything I planned to do. I said I was sorry. I promised that I wasn’t going to come home until I could look after you for once. Buy you a car. A house. Someone to clean your house. Whatever.”
“I couldn’t hear a word you said on that call, Brandon.”
“Huh?”
“I heard you at the start. Something about the drugs. Hospital. But that was it.”
“Jesus.” He ran a hand over his face. “I thought you were so mad at me that you were giving me the silent treatment.”
“Seriously? Fucking hell. You’re an idiot.”
“Yeah.”
“But why didn’t you contact me after that call? You could have called me from India.”
“Because I promised you that I wouldn’t talk to you again until I’d done what I planned.”
“Buy me a car?”
“Buy you anything you want. But not just buy you stuff, because that’s just stuff. Look after you. So you didn’t have to work if you didn’t want to. You could study. Or volunteer. Or grow peas. Whatever you wanted to do, I wanted to make sure you could do it.”
