Dear Sir,

Thank you for writing to enquire about the size of my penis. Put it this way: the inhabitants of the kingdom of Lilliput would have mocked me.

Kind Regards,

 

 

I let myself into the house with a sense of trepidation and panic. I need to throw my stuff in my bag, and get away. The urgency is like an electric current running underneath my skin. Then I pause. Am I really doing this? Can I really leave him and Billy? I slump, because the simple answer is no. I can’t be without him, without that calm strength, large body and wicked mind. I will be lonely forever if I leave this man. I know this suddenly.

I waver for a second and then shut the door and start towards the stairs. I’m leaning towards locking myself in my room until my mind clears of all the shit from today, but I hear movement and when I turn around, he’s standing there, leaning against the door of the study. He’s wearing old, faded jeans and a navy long-sleeved t-shirt, and for a second it’s like we’ve stepped back in time to when I first met him. For a brief second I wish passionately I had turned away and left then, before I had the chance to feel this mess of emotions. The next second I know I wouldn’t ever choose to give this up, no matter how much it hurts.

He stares at me, his normally kind brown eyes still turbulent from this morning, as he folds his arms over his chest. “Going somewhere?” he asks, and I flinch because the knowledge is in his eyes.

“Asa,” I say entreatingly, but he shakes his head.

“No. Say it properly, Jude. Look me in the eyes and tell me you’re leaving.”

“How do you know?” My voice sounds thick and indistinct.

He shrugs and laughs humourlessly. “Dylan rang. He was concerned you were making a rash decision, but really he needn’t have been. You’ve been waiting to go since we started.” He pauses. “But I knew this morning for sure. I’ve been sitting waiting for you to recognise it and act on it.”

“I’m sorry,” I say falteringly, and he laughs again harshly.

“I’m sure you are, Jude. After all, there aren’t many smiles with this leave taking, are there? Not such a charmer now when it hurts this badly.” He shakes his head in pitying disgust.

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Then don’t,” he says passionately. “It’s simple. Don’t leave and you won’t hurt me.”

“But I will,” I shout. “In the end, I will let you down and you will look at me like I’m the biggest disappointment you’ve ever met, and I can’t … I can’t bear to see that look on your face.”

“Well, look at me now, because it’s already there,” he roars, and I flinch back feeling like he’s slapped me. “Oh, I’m sorry, am I not reading the script properly for this, Jude? Was I supposed to be like all your other men? Is it easier if I’m a self-obsessed wanker? Does it make it easier for you to leave? Well, fuck that! I’m not going to make it easy for you to leave me.” He pauses and then glares at me. “Maybe that’s why you picked them. You knew there was no chance of them ever putting you first, so you could carry on being a fucking martyr.”

“That’s not fair,” I shout, starting to lose the moorings on my temper. “You don’t know what it’s like.”

“Of course I don’t,” he says scornfully. “Because you won’t tell me. You give me bits, but you never really let me in.”

“I told you about my dad, didn’t I?” I say, suddenly stung. “But it doesn’t matter, because you won’t stay anyway. The first time I let Billy or you down, you’ll leave me.”

“Oh, you know me so well,” he sneers. “You somehow seem to have the impression you’ve come to know me better than anyone in the short time you’ve been here.” He shakes his head. “I don’t know why I’m bothering. You already wrote the end before we started.” He sighs and I see defeat in his body. I swallow hard at the look of disgust on his face. “Why don’t you just go, Jude? Stop stretching this out. I was wrong about you. I thought you were different, but you’re not. You’re a fucking coward, and you’re leaving just like all the others. Phillip was right about you.”

I jerk away, feeling like he’s punched me in the fucking face. “What about Billy?” I say haltingly.

He sneers at me. “You can fuck off if you think you’re playing mind games with him too. He’s better off without knowing what a fucking coward you are.”

I hesitate, feeling like he’s drawing blood with every whip of his tongue. I can’t bear that I’ll never see him or Billy again, and that this is his last impression of me, but at my hesitation I see his control snap. “Fuck off!” he shouts. “Get your shit and fuck off, and don’t ever fucking come back. I can’t stand the sight of you.”

I turn and go.

Half an hour later, I hear the familiar sounds of his footsteps. But instead of heading towards the study where he will pop his dark, messy head around the door, his face alive and cheeky, this time they head down the hallway away from me. For a second, I’m sure they hesitate, and I will him to come in, to change his mind and let me in, but he doesn’t, and I flinch as the front door slams and the house descends into silence again.

I don’t know how long I sit on the sofa, but the room is dark when I become aware of someone watching me, and I look up to see Peggy. I put up my hand and balk as she switches on a lamp and floods the room with golden light.

“Billy’s staying at Rachel’s house tonight,” she says quietly. I smile involuntarily at the thought of the way she and Jude have become such good friends. They’re as thick as thieves together. The smile dies immediately, and Peggy continues. “They’re having a sleepover and I thought it was a good idea.” I stare at her and I can’t think of a single thing to say. She smiles softly. “You okay, darling?” I shrug, and she comes to sit down on the sofa next to me. “Has he gone?”

I nod and swallow hard. “I’m an idiot.”

She jerks. “Why?”

“Falling in love with another waster. What’s the matter with me, Peg?”

To my amazement, anger crosses her face. “Don’t talk rubbish,” she says sharply. “He’s not a waster. He’s wonderful.” I flinch and she glares at me. “He’s perfect,” she reiterates. “I’ve watched you fall in love with him over these months and felt so happy, because finally, I’ve seen you with someone who’s truly your equal. Someone who understands you innately, someone who challenges you and makes you come alive in a way I haven’t seen in years.”

“I’ve lived,” I say indignantly, but she shakes her head.

“You were wild and unmoored, but then you put yourself together for Billy. But he’s not the sole reason for someone to live, Asa. You’re a fantastic father, but you’re also a man, and you need more.”

“I’m a man who couldn’t fucking pick a decent partner if my life depended on it,” I say sullenly. “What’s the matter with me, always going for the users and the lightweights? Ow!”

I look up in amazement at the tiny punch she just landed on my arm. “Don’t talk about Jude like that. You’ll be sorry when your mood lifts. He’s not a user. He’s an amazing young man, kind and funny and clever and loyal. I’ve watched him with Billy and you, and I couldn’t have picked better if I was your fairy godmother.”

“He’s a charming, lovely young man who just fucked off and left me,” I say sharply. “And I gather I’m not the first it’s happened to.”

“He’s scared, Asa,” she says softly and I look up, her words somehow cutting through the pain in me which makes everything else indistinct apart from the need for him.

“How do you know? Did he tell you?”

She shakes her head, and I feel an awful pleasure in the fact I’m the only one he told about his dad. “I heard him talking to his mum, and I know his dad’s ill because I had to pick Billy up from school for a couple of days when he first started working, so he could sort out something at home. He also mentioned past relationships going wrong, and I joined the dots.” She looks at me beadily.

“He’s gone, you know. He’s not coming back.”

“Hmm, I wouldn’t bet on that,” she mutters, and I look up with an awful hope stirring in me.

“You think he’ll come back?”

“I’m sure he will,” she says calmly. “You think you’re just the latest in a long line, Asa, but you’re actually the last. He’s in love with you.”

For a second I’m held immobile by shock and joy. “How do you know?”

“Oh, Asa, love,” she says, stroking my arm. “It’s written over every inch of him when he looks at you like you hung the moon and the stars. It’s in the way he loves Billy. It fairly shines out of him.”

“He never said anything,” I gasp. “I thought he was just fond of me.” Then recollection of everything I said to him crashes over me, and I feel utter despair. “Shit,” I groan. I look up at her. “Peg, I said some fucking awful things to him.”

She shakes her head. “I’m sure you did. I could hear the shouting from the kitchen.” She tuts. “Always the same you are, Asa. Placid as a puddle for ninety percent of the time until pushed, and then you’re like a force ten bloody hurricane blowing everyone over in your path.” She shrugs. “Well, I’m sure you had your reasons.”

“He was leaving me.”

“Was he really? Do you think he’d have gone?”

I slump. “Don’t fucking say that,” I groan. “I’ve tried so hard to be calm and measured with him, and not push him or frighten him. It’s been like taming a wild animal. Any wrong steps and he’d dance off. Then today I just lost it.” I rub a hand over my eyes. “I don’t think he’ll ever come back, Peg.”

“Lovey, he will. I know it.”

I uncover my eyes. “Do you think I should go after him?” I stand up, suddenly energised. “I’ll go and apologise.”

She shakes her head. “I think you should leave him be for now, Asa.”

“What?”

She nods. “He has to come back of his own accord. He has to make that decision and prove something to himself, because the centre of Jude’s worries is that he’ll always let people down. That he’ll let you down. The only thing you can do is wait it out and let him sort his mind out, because if you force it, he’ll run.”

I rub my chest feeling his absence like a physical pain, and raise my face for her kiss. Then she’s gone and I’m left sitting here in the empty room, loneliness running through me like the pulse in my blood.

Jude

Two days later, I sit lounging on the sofa at Dylan and Gabe’s house with Charlie Hunnam panting on my lap. This is less exciting than it sounds. I’m staring into space and listening to Oasis’ ‘Outta Time’, when I hear a muffled commotion at the door. I close my eyes tight, willing the moisture away. Two minutes later the door opens, and Gabe is half shoved into the room. The door closes behind him and he directs a fulminating glare at it, before turning reluctantly to me.

Against my will my lips twitch at his look of abject pain. “He made you come in, didn’t he?”

He sighs and slumps down on the sofa next to me. “He’s quite alarmingly forceful when he wants to be.”

“That’s your business.” I pause. “Unless you’ve got the downstairs bedroom like me, when it very loudly is my business.” He shrugs, profoundly unconcerned, and I stretch. “Okay, let’s get it over with. He won’t let you out otherwise.”

He sighs. “Firstly, Dylan would like you to know if you keep playing this song he will take your phone, stick it up your arse and then force you down the waste disposal unit. This also applies to ‘Different’ by Robbie Williams.”

I blink. “Okay, is that it?”

He sighs. Heavily. “Alas, if only. Jude, I want you to know I would rather sit in a bath of cold, three-day old vomit, than talk about feelings.”

“But?”

“But Dylan has decreed I am your only option, which seems to me to indicate a certain feeling of doom about the future of your relationship.”

I lie back against the sofa. “This is already taking my mind off my heartbreak.” He glares at me, and I wave my hand regally. “Proceed.”

He clears his throat. “Let me sum this up. You’re in love with Asa. He’s in love with you. You both love his child.”

I sit up slightly. “Yes, but it’s not that easy.”

He smiles. “Yes, it really is. Love is simple. Humans are complicated.” He sits back looking alarmingly like he’s in court, and staring at me as if I’m a specimen in a lab. I squirm slightly, but he carries on relentlessly. “You’re frightened because you have a family who are depending on you to the extent you can’t commit properly to another person. In the past, lovers have left you over it and it hurt you, but you love him more than you’ve ever loved anyone else, so the fear is multiplied because, when it invariably goes wrong, it will hurt you deeply, and more importantly to you, will cause him pain.” His gaze softens. “I understand fear of love, Jude. It very nearly ended me and Dylan, and if I remember rightly you had a lot to do with us getting back together. It means something to me. It means you are now a part of my family.” He smiles. “It’s small, and consists of me, one very contrary person, and a dog called Charlie Hunnam.”

I smile, unbearably touched. “Thank you.”

He shakes his head. “I’m afraid I haven’t finished yet. I profoundly wish I had, and we could pretend this conversation never took place. However, Dylan won’t allow it, so we must carry on to the bitter end.”

I nod solemnly. “Onward.”

“I pushed Dylan away, the same way you’ve pushed Asa away. It’s to his credit he wouldn’t come back at first, because I needed to learn the hard lesson, that it’s actually worse to be alone and without the person you love, than it is to be with them and deal with the fear of letting them down.”

I jerk, and he looks hard at me. “Do you love him? Would you do anything for him if he needed you?”

“Yes,” I say with no hesitation at all.

“So why not be together? Have a real relationship. Take your problems to him and let him help, because it’s a given he’ll also have his own.” He pauses. “If Asa came to you now and told you he needed help, would you give it?”

“Of course.”

“So why won’t you let him do the same? It seems to me, Jude, that you’re making all the decisions for him, which is rather arrogant.”

“But what if I have to let him down? What if I’m needed at home and I can’t help him?”

“He’ll understand, because compared to Sam, this one’s a fucking adult. Who do you think comes first with Asa?”

“Billy,” I say quickly, and he nods.

“As it should be. So why do you think he wouldn’t understand having to make concessions for people? You’re not running off partying and shagging other men like his last lover. You’re dealing with something real and huge. He’s a grown up. He’ll accept it and help you.” He pauses. “I had no family of my own, Jude, and from my standpoint of having been inducted into the Mitchell clan, there is nothing more powerful or strong than a family. It has hundreds of graduating ties and bindings which float around you all the time, wrapping you up in them and holding you tight. Why would you expect a man, who would give up his life for his son, not to understand the demands love and family put on us?”

I sigh heavily and pluck at a loose thread on my jeans, noticing distantly my hands are shaking. “I don’t think he wants me back anyway, Gabe. He called me a coward and told me to fuck off.”

“He’s a very calm man. They often have the hottest tempers, Jude. And you were leaving, weren’t you, or was he mistaken?”

I slump slightly. “I think I was going. To be honest, even I’m not sure what I was thinking. It was quite a mad day.”

“Then what would you rather have? Would you like Asa to have let you go with a smile and a slap on the back, or do you want him to fight for you with every part of him? I can tell you a man in love will only choose one of those options, and sometimes that man will fight dirty.”

I stare at him. “You’re rather scarily good at this.”

He smirks. “I’m good at most things, Jude. It’s only because you’ve been indoctrinated with Dylan’s way of thinking that I have flaws in my character.” He pats my leg companionably. “You’ll see the truth eventually, the more time you have with me.”

I grab his hand before he can withdraw it. “Thank you.”

He stills and gives me that warm, wide smile I only ever really see him give to Dylan. It’s quite potent close up, and I blink as it softens. “You’re not just Dylan’s friend, Jude. You’re mine too. If it goes wrong, you can come back here and stay with us.” He pauses. “And I’ll soundproof the upper floor.”

We smile at each other and he tousles my hair. “I don’t think you’ll be back. You’ve found the one for you. The other part of you. You’re not stupid, so you’ll hang onto him, because if you let go, it will fucking hurt.”

I nod, and then we both jump as the door opens and Dylan sticks his head round. “Have you had your talk?” he asks impatiently.

Gabe smirks. “Really, Dylan, it doesn’t take me half as long to get my well-constructed argument out, as it does for you to flutter about making no sense.”

“I do not flutter about,” Dylan says, giving Gabe a death glare. Then he looks at me. “Did it really go okay?” he says sympathetically. “It was my last resort. I didn’t know who else could talk to you.” He winces. “Was it painful?”

“Hey!” Gabe says crossly, and I shrug.

“Meh, it was okay. He said I’d be an idiot to let Asa go, and offered to soundproof your den of sin upstairs so I can come back and live with the two of you forever.”

“Forever?” Dylan says faintly, and swallows.

I nod evilly. “Forever.”

Gabe roars with laughter and flings his arm around Dylan. “It’s like having a stubbly, sullen toddler. He takes after you, darling.”

Dylan ignores him and turns back to me. “So, you’re not staying here forever?” he qualifies, and I smirk.

“No.” I laugh as he hugs me.

“You could do though,” he says fiercely. “My home is your home.”

I look at Gabe. “I’m not sure of that anymore, babe. Home’s not bricks and mortar.”

Dylan jerks. “Shit, I forgot.”

I stare at him. “What?”

“Asa’s in the papers again. It was just on the television, and the press are all over his house.”

“What?” I shoot off the sofa. “What’s happened?”

“Someone went to the press about his ex-girlfriend. Did you know she was a drug addict?”

I push my feet into my trainers and grab my jacket. “Of course I did,” I say sharply. “Shit. This is going to destroy him. He wanted to tell Billy himself when he was older.”

“Where are you going?” Gabe asks lazily, and I stare at him.

“I’m going to him, of course,” I say simply. “He needs me.”

“But what if your dad rings and needs you? What will you do?” he interrupts, sounding urgent.

I blink and think hard. “I don’t think he will. I haven’t had to go down there for a while. But if he does, would it be okay for you or Dylan to go and help him? I’ll join you when I’ve sorted Asa out.” I stop, arrested by the words which have just come out of my mouth.

He nods and smiles knowingly. “So, it seems you don’t let the people down who you love. Families come in all shapes and sizes, Jude. Just because I wasn’t born a member of your family doesn’t mean I don’t understand. Families help each other. We accept shifting priorities and make changes because we love the person and we want them to be happy. Your parents love you very much. I doubt they’d think much of their son living a solitary life just so he can be at their beck and call.”

I stare at him and Dylan stirs. “Oh, you’re good, Gabe.” He shrugs modestly, and Dylan’s eyes narrow. “But I already got through to him earlier, so this was just gravy. Don’t go getting big headed.”

He smirks. “Very rich, very meaty gravy though.”

Dylan opens his mouth to argue, but I’m out of there. “I’ve got to go,” I say. “He needs me.” I hug Gabe, and feel him stiffen in surprise and then finally hug me back. “Thank you.”

“Any time,” he says softly.

Dylan follows me to the door. “Wait for me. I’ll come with you.”

“Why?”

“The press are parked all around the house. You’ll never get in through the front. I’ll drop you off nearby.”