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Bradley sighs again, and I hear the sound of his footsteps pounding on the treadmill. It’s his morning routine: Work out, and call to hassle me. “Listen, since you’re still making cuts, let’s push harder, OK? Five hundred k is small change. I want to see a couple of million off the top by the time you’re through.”
What the actual fuck?
“Why?” I demand, before I can stop myself. “In fact, why do you even care at all? Two million shaved from this movie isn’t going to achieve anything except pissing off the creative team and distracting everyone from making the best film possible. This isn’t fucking laundry detergent we’re selling here, it’sart! What was your salary last year?” I can’t help adding. “Twenty million? More? You’ve got a billion dollars of debt on the books after buying that TV network. Pinching pennies on one little movie is the least of your worries, mate.”
There’s an icy silence. “There’s one saving I can make right now,” Bradley finally says. “Your paycheck.”
“You’re welcome to it,” I tell him. “In fact, stick it up your arse. Because I’m done.”
I hang up, disgusted—at him, and myself.. Why the hell have I been putting up with his shit for so long?
Not just him. This. Crunching numbers, and chasing profits, and telling people ‘No’ all day long. Jolene was right, I’ve set up my family, and got a nice little nest egg besides. I could have chucked it all in and gone back to art school any time I liked… If there wasn’t a part of me still holding back.
I sigh. Numbers have always been simple to me. Safe. But making art, pouring your heart out on a canvas, and sharing it with the world? That’s pure, messy chaos. And after my mum died, I wasn’t willing to open myself up like that again. In any way.
“Fucking coward,” I mutter to myself angrily. I’ve been playing it safe for the past ten years, and where has that left me?
Standing alone on a bloody cliff, watching the things I care about slip further out of reach.
Jolene doesn’t trust me… But what have I done to earn that trust—besides sitting around here, grumbling that the most cowardly moments of my life haven’t been magically erased from her memory?
As much as I hate to admit it, she’s got a point. It wasn’t just that I blacked out in a haze of grief that summer, trying to keep everything together after my mum died, it’s that after I surfaced, and could finally think straight again—think ofher—I didn’t scrape together every penny I had and catch a flight to go see her. Hold her. Beg her for a second chance.
I let the love of my life slip away because I was too cowardly to chase after her. Too scared of being vulnerable and opening myself up to love and grief again.
Am I really going to make the same mistake again?
Fuck. No.
And suddenly, it’s not even a question. There’s only one way to show her things will be different this time, and that’s by showing up for her. Every time. Every fight. Whether I think she’s right or wrong. I need to be there. Not three hundred miles away, wallowing in whiskey and regret.
I yank the door open and poke my head back into the kitchen. “Thanks for everything, mate, but I’ve got to go,” I tell Max, who looks up from the sausage casings in surprise.
“What, now?”
“This minute,” I say, feeling perfectly clear. Hungover, but clear. “I’ve already wasted long enough without her. I’m not waiting another fucking moment anymore.”
I slam the door shut and leg it back to the cottage to grab my things, then cram myself into the stupid yellow car for what I hope to God is the last time. I start the engine, and yank the gears into first, already wondering if I can make it back to Sussex before—
“… Hold up!”
I hear a voice yelling and look in the rearview mirror to see Max racing down from the restaurant, waving wildly with an assortment of bags in his arms.
What in the world…?
I slow the car, as he catches up, and yanks open the passenger door. “I can’t let you be the only one making a dumb romantic gesture,” he says, collapsing in the seat beside me.
“It’s eleven hours’ drive,” I warn him. “And I’m not stopping.”
“Then it’s a good thing I brought provisions.” Max holds up a sack of leftover pasties. And a thermos of coffee too.
I put the car in drive again. “You think they’ll hear us out?” I ask, feeling a rumbling of doubt. What if I’m already too late? What if I’ve just lost the second chance of a lifetime?
Max buckles up and gives me a rueful grin. “There’s only one way to find out.”
23
JJ
