AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Dieter?” He looked genuinely confused. “Dieter who?”
“You know? Hot dude? Singer turned actor? The next James Bond?”
“Every single young hotshot is usually thrown around as the next James Bond.”
“Yeah, but this guy actually auditioned. It was on the news and everything.”
“Oh, was it now?”
“Shut up!”
“Go on. Finish this story.”
“Anyway, it just had a handwritten phone number on it. A bit creepy if you ask me. Even Reuben thought it was weird.”
“And?”
“I’m like, a professional. I called it. I mean, if you get a letter at work, you do the right thing and respond, no?”
“I guess?”
“So I rang him, and he picked up. I checked it was actually Dieter, and then we had a chat. I was all nervous because he was coy and weird, like he wanted to ask me something freaky. Turns out he just wanted me to make a very discreet booking for him and a mate…in a suite with a king-sized bed. And pink champagne.”
“Really?” Ben grinned, finally following what I was saying. “So Dieter is…?”
“Well, he’s Dieter. And it’s none of our business what he is or isn’t. I made the booking in a fake name, ordered everything and then blocked off the Prince George suite. They want room service to deliver them a three-course meal both nights and I have…well, you have… free rein to put that together. He said to impress them. I promised we would.”
“Cool.” He grinned.
“Cool.” I grinned back.
“And I popped in and saw Anna on the way home. She tried to give me champagne again and made me eat oysters. I really don’t like oysters. Not even Anna’s oysters.”
“Nobody in their right mind likes oysters,” Ben agreed. “Not even Anna. She just likes chopping up pieces of raw seafood and drenching everything in weird flavours. Not my thing. But then she is my favourite woman in the world. Well…and my mum.”
“And your grandma.”
“True,” he said. “And your sister. Your sister is great.”
Then he got up and went to make me a cup of tea, while I snuggled down in bed, stretched, scratched my balls. Smiled like nobody was watching.
Checked my phone, where as always, Willa was monopolising my messages.
Booked another theatre weekend for November. Can’t wait to come back and spend time with you two. Mum wants to come too. You think we can manage that?
Ben was right. My sister was great. Really great. I actually liked her husband too.
I liked who I was these days. I loved my life, which was something that had been unfathomable a year ago. My body hadn’t changed much. I was still skinny as anything, but it was a good skinny. I ate. I nourished my skin and bones with good simple food. I allowed myself to eat whatever I wanted, and the world hadn’t imploded for any reason.
It didn’t mean I was fully well. I never would be. But that knowledge was for me and for me only, and I could deal with that. Could handle it like the grown-up that I actually, finally was.
My parents had come to stay in our newly refurbished spare room. A whole week of me pretending to be a proper son. A few weeks later, my sister had come up for a weekend with her husband. The four of us had gone to the theatre, and we’d had an actual meal out. In a restaurant. Like proper, fully functioning people.
Ben and I had also gone for a weekend to see them. Stayed in my childhood room. I’d been so nervous, but the world hadn’t ended, and I now had a photograph of my entire family, with me and Ben in the middle, sat in a frame next to my bed. A small reminder that I’d made it. That despite all the crap I’d lived through, I’d survived, come out the other side. Not perfect, but good enough.
Ben said it all the time.Nothing has to be perfect. As long as it makes you happy, then it’s good enough.That went for him too. We were both more than good enough and we need to remember that.
I looked over at Ben’s side of the bed, where I’d placed another framed photograph on his bedside table. A faded sepia print of a young woman in an old-fashioned dress. The woman who’d once lived in this flat. She was holding a baby in her arms, an uncertain smile on her face. That woman had survived too. Made it out the other side. Just like we all did in life.
