5:17 a.m. He wondered where those luminous digits were coming from. Too small to be his alarm and the wrong colour too – blue instead of green. He turned his head on the pillow towards another light and saw a crack in the door, a yellow glow seeping in from the hallway outside. He stretched out and his foot hit the arm of the sofa. He had fallen asleep on Rami’s living-room couch and there seemed to be a weight on top of him . . .
Groggily, he struggled to sit up and beat back the covers – one, two, three layers covering him. He pushed the blankets to the floor and spent a few seconds fumbling about in the dark for the lamp. He yawned, blinking blearily and looking down with surprise at the UCL tracksuit and thick socks he was now wearing. Then his grazed arms began to throb and he remembered Jennah.
He knew exactly where the car keys were – in the pocket of Rami’s jacket. But Rami’s jacket was not on its usual peg by the front door. Nor was it slung over the back of one of the kitchen chairs. After wasting a good five minutes wandering aimlessly back and forth between the living room and kitchen, Flynn realized the jacket had to be in Rami’s bedroom.
The stupid door creaked, which wasn’t a good start. Then the light from the landing fell directly over Rami’s gently snoring face. Flynn darted over to what looked like a pile of clothes by the window and banged his toes against the foot of the bed. A small sound escaped him. Rami began to stir. Flynn crouched down, gripping his bruised toes. Then he straightened up slowly and began to go through Rami’s pockets.
‘Oh Jesus, Flynn, what now?’
Flynn span round. Rami was propped up on his elbows, looking straight at him.
‘I need the keys!’ Flynn whispered urgently.
‘What keys?’ Rami hissed, reaching for his T-shirt. ‘Come on, let’s get out of here before we wake Soph.’
Downstairs, Rami put the kettle on. Flynn paced the floor, biting his nails.
‘I really need to borrow your car, Rami. I’ll be careful, I promise. I’ll bring it back before tonight but you’ve got to lend it to me—’
‘Flynn, there’s no way I’m lending you my car at this time in the morning, especially after the state I found you in. And I’m not too impressed that you were going to take the keys and help yourself to it, either.’
‘You don’t understand – it’s an emergency!’
‘I spoke to Harry. I know about Jennah. But you are not going to be able to find her by combing the streets in the car any more than you were going to find her by running through the streets in the dark. Christ, Flynn, what were you thinking? You could have—’
‘But you found me, didn’t you?’
‘Only because Harry told me you were running around Bayswater like a maniac!’ Rami looked angry. ‘Look, I’m sure Jennah’s got a lot more sense than you and won’t have been walking the streets all night. She’s most likely just gone to stay with a friend and forgotten to tell her mother.’
Flynn ran his hands through his hair in desperation, a dreadful wave of panic rising in his stomach. ‘Rami, you’ve got to believe me. She’s been missing for nearly twelve hours. Something bad has happened to her, I know it has, I know it has. I know Jennah, she’s my best friend – at – at least she used to be – and I know she wouldn’t stay out all night just for fun. Something’s happened to her. I want to find her, I’ve got to find to her, Rami, please!’ He hated the frantic, imploring tone of his voice but couldn’t manage anything else.
‘I’m not lending you the car, Flynn, and that’s that.’ Rami filled the mugs with hot water, and Flynn knew by his tone that he meant it. A crushing wave of guilt and helplessness washed over him.
‘Damn it, Rami, you’ve got to help me! It was all my fault! Everything was my fault! I wouldn’t talk to her for two weeks and she kept on trying and I kept on ignoring her and then she got upset and came round to talk to me and I yelled at her. Rami, I yelled at her! I told her to leave me alone and to go away and that I didn’t want to talk to her and then she started to cry and I didn’t even go after her—’
‘Look, stop shouting and calm down. Sit down for a minute.’
Flynn threw himself furiously onto a chair and bit his thumb to fight back the rising tears. Rami placed a mug beside him and joined him at the kitchen table.
‘I was horrible to her!’ Flynn burst out. ‘I was really horrible to her and – and now she’s disappeared and – and it’s all my fault!’ He clenched his teeth until his jaw hurt.
Rami wrapped his hands around his mug and leaned forwards. ‘Listen. It’s not your fault that Jennah’s disappeared for a while. Yes, it sounds like you didn’t handle the situation very well and it probably was your fault that you ended up having a row. But that doesn’t mean you’re responsible for her disappearance. If somebody attacked her, which is really unlikely, then the attacker is the one to blame. If Jennah has decided to lie low for a while and lick her wounds, which is far more likely, then that’s her decision and her fault for causing her mother and friends to worry. But you didn’t make Jennah disappear.’
Flynn rubbed his fingers up and down his burning cheeks. ‘But don’t you see? It doesn’t matter whose fault this is! She’s missing, that’s all that matters! Something terrible could have happened!’ He slammed his fist down on the table. ‘I might never see her again!’
There was a silence. Rami stared across the table at him. Flynn pressed his fist to his mouth to muffle his ragged breathing. He mustn’t lose it, he mustn’t start crying – he would never persuade Rami to lend him the car if he did.
But something in Rami’s expression seemed to change. ‘All this stuff between you two started because Jennah kissed you one day in the pub?’
‘How do you know? Yes, yes!’
Rami’s eyes didn’t leave Flynn’s face. He seemed to be thinking hard. ‘Why did that make you so angry?’
‘What? I don’t know! I was just embarrassed. But, Rami, about the car—’
‘Hold on. So because you were embarrassed, you started ignoring her. And she got upset and came over wanting to go back to being friends . . .’
‘Yes! But that’s not the point! The point is—’
‘And her asking whether you could just be friends made you so angry that you started yelling . . .’
‘Yes, I told you! So can I just borrow—?’
‘Flynn, do you fancy Jennah?’
Flynn stared at him. ‘What? What are you talking about? She could be anywhere! She could be dead and you’re talking about—’
‘Why don’t you answer the question?’
‘Because I’m not – I don’t—’
‘Think about it for a second.’
Flynn felt the blood pound in his face. ‘I don’t want to talk about this!’
The flicker of a smile passed over Rami’s face. ‘Tough luck, I do.’
Flynn scraped his chair back. ‘What are you talking about?’ he shouted. ‘All I want to do is borrow your car! I ask you for one tiny little thing—’
‘Just answer the question.’
‘Leave me alone!’
‘Do you fancy her?’
‘Stop asking me that!’
‘Oh my God.’ Rami was trying not to smile. ‘You’re in love with her, aren’t you?’
‘I don’t know!’
‘Of course you know. Are you?’
‘I hate you!’
‘Are you?’
‘Yes!’ Flynn yelled at the top of his voice. ‘I am! Happy now? Satisfied? Since I first met her. I’ve been in love with her since we first met! What the hell did you think?’
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
FLYNN LAY FACE down on the sofa, a burning cigarette between his fingers. He felt wrung out, exhausted; the sleeve of Rami’s UCL sweatshirt was soaked with tears.
‘I hope you realize that Sophie has a nose like a bloodhound,’ Rami said, a smile in his voice.
‘Are you going to give me some Valium then?’ Flynn said thickly.
‘No.’
‘Then
I’ll smoke every last cigarette you’ve got.’
Rami laughed. Then there was a silence. ‘What do you think you’re afraid of?’
Flynn just shook his head.
‘It’s being vulnerable, isn’t it? It’s admitting that you want something, someone, and that you might not get her.’
Flynn dragged his sleeve across his face. ‘I have wanted someone, for seven fucking years. Do you have any idea what that’s like?’
‘I can imagine,’ Rami said. ‘But now that she wants you, it’s too late?’
‘She’s gonna find another Charlie.’
‘Not if you ask her out, she won’t.’
‘I can’t go through that again.’
‘Wanting but not getting? Do you honestly think that’s the answer, to go through life never wanting anyone, just in order to avoid getting hurt?’
‘It’s worked so far, hasn’t it?’
‘Has it? Has it?’ Rami’s gaze was hard, almost fierce.
Flynn looked down at the floor.
Rami said, ‘You won’t find happiness by hiding from life, Flynn.’
After a while, Rami got up and went into the kitchen to make some more coffee. When he returned, he handed Flynn a steaming mug and a small, chipped pill.
‘What the hell’s this?’
‘Three hundred milligrams of lithium,’ Rami said. ‘Half your usual dose. We can do this the easy way or the hard way.’ He smiled.
‘I’d rather have some Valium,’ Flynn said.
‘But I’m the doctor.’
Defeated, Flynn put the pill on the back of his tongue and swallowed it with a mouthful of scalding coffee. ‘Here’s to never wanting to get out of bed again,’ he said.
‘No,’ Rami countered. ‘Here’s to getting reacquainted with your own feelings. Here’s to being able to want, without being sure you’re going to get. To risk being hurt and to risk being rejected. Here’s to life.’
Flynn raised his mug with a small, tired smile. ‘Cheers,’ he said.
Half an hour later, the phone sprang into life. Rami went to answer it in the kitchen. When he returned, a pale dawn was beginning to touch the living-room curtains.
Rami said, ‘You’d better have a shower and make yourself look respectable. We’re going into London. Someone spent the night with a friend and is now safely back home. And I think you owe her an explanation.’
Jennah lived with her mother in Aldgate in a house that looked smaller than Flynn remembered. He had chewed off most of his thumbnail by the time they had crossed London and the sun was already high in the sky, drying out the puddles from the night before. Rami pulled up without turning off the engine and looked at Flynn expectantly.
‘How can I explain—?’ Flynn began.
‘You’ll find a way.’
‘What if she never wants to see me again?’
‘I don’t think she’s one to give up so easily.’
Jennah’s mother opened the door, looking tired. ‘I was half expecting you.’
Flynn felt the heat rush to his cheeks. ‘Can I talk to her?’
‘You can, though I should warn you that we’ve just had words, so she won’t be in the best of moods.’
Flynn went upstairs and knocked on Jennah’s bedroom door.
The door opened halfway and Jennah stood there, leaning against the wall. She looked pale and calm and painfully pretty.
‘Oh, it’s you.’
Flynn took a deep breath to speak, but she cut him off. ‘Flynn, I tried to talk to you yesterday. I’m all out of words now . . .’
‘I know,’ he said quickly, desperately. ‘But – but I’m not.’
Her expression didn’t change.
‘It’s my turn now,’ Flynn said.
There was a moment’s hesitation. Then Jennah stepped back from the doorway. ‘OK,’ she said.
Jennah sat cross-legged on her bed. Flynn sat on the chair, hands on his knees, fighting the urge to bite his nails. Jennah just looked at him. There was a long silence. He didn’t know where to start.
Jennah finally gave him a hint of a smile. ‘Don’t look so scared.’
He gave a small, embarrassed laugh.
‘I’m sorry if I worried you last night,’ Jennah kicked off helpfully. ‘It was childish and stupid, I know.’
‘You really did worry me,’ Flynn said without looking up.
‘Sorry.’
‘OK, well I’m sorry too. I shouldn’t have shouted at you. I behaved like an idiot.’
Jennah gave a wry smile. ‘You’re right about that.’
Another long silence. ‘Well at least we’ve cleared that up,’ Jennah said brightly.
Flynn looked up desperately. ‘There are some other things I need to tell you too.’
‘What?’
‘You know this – this thing I’ve got?’
‘Bipolar disorder? That’s manic depression, isn’t it?’
He nodded. ‘There’s this medicine I’m supposed to be taking,’ he began awkwardly. ‘It was making me feel really crap. So I stopped taking it and I sort of got ill again and I was feeling really shitty when you came round.’
‘You stopped taking the lithium?’
He looked at her in surprise. ‘Yes.’
‘And now?’
‘Now I’m taking it again. I guess – I guess I do need it. I thought—’ He took a deep breath. ‘For a while I thought maybe it was all a mistake – maybe I was just overreacting to things and just needed to exercise a little more self-control. And . . . well . . . it turned out it was bigger than that. It turned out that I needed the medicine after all.’
She gave him a long look. ‘Are you going to keep taking it?’
‘I suppose I am.’
‘Are you going to get better?’
‘I honestly don’t know.’
There was a silence. ‘It’s bad luck,’ Jennah said suddenly.
‘What d’you mean?’
‘The bipolar. I mean, it could have happened to anyone. It could have happened to any of us. But it happened to you.’
‘Yes.’
She smiled suddenly. ‘Shall we go downstairs and have something to drink?’
He looked at her. Say yes and he would be off the hook. Say yes and they would be back where they started, just good friends, safe and comfortable, the way it had always been. Say yes and they could put all this messy business behind them and relax. Say yes and he could breathe again and life would be easy . . .
‘No.’
Jennah looked at him in surprise.
‘I – I – you know that thing that happened in the pub?’
‘When I kissed you?’ Jennah gave a wry smile. ‘Couldn’t we just put that behind us now?’
‘Well no – well, the thing is, I actually made a mistake. I mean that— What I mean is, I reacted the opposite to how I felt— In other words I reacted to it in a way that wasn’t exactly in line with—’ He broke off, breathing rather fast.
Jennah was looking at him, a small smile hovering on her lips. ‘What are you talking about?’
Flynn looked at her, his face burning. ‘Can I – can I just try explaining that again?’
Jennah smiled uncertainly. ‘OK.’
He looked at her and took a deep breath. His heart was going like a sledgehammer. ‘What I was trying to say was just that – was just that I – um – despite my reaction, I really liked the fact that you kissed me and I really wish that you would do it again, or – or that maybe I could . . .’ He looked at her dizzily. God, if I’m supposed to die, now would be a good time.
Jennah stared at him. Then she bit her lip, holding back a smile, her eyes very bright. ‘Really?’
He nodded, reeling.
‘Well then,’ she said and swallowed. There was a pause. ‘Well then,’ she said again. ‘I think that this time it’s only fair to point out that it’s your turn.’
‘OK’ He looked at her, frozen. ‘OK.’
Jennah smiled. ‘OK,’ she echoed. r />
He got up. Went over to the bed and sat down next to her. Cupped her cheek in his hand. Leaned forwards. Closed his eyes. And kissed her.
EPILOGUE
Jennah twisted a strand of hair tightly around her little finger and looked anxiously at the slowing traffic ahead. She took Flynn’s hand off the steering wheel to look at his watch for the third time.
‘We’re OK,’ he said.
‘I know.’ She wrinkled her nose and turned away, drumming her fingers on the armrest.
‘Stop it,’ Flynn said with a smile. She gave a small laugh. ‘Sorry.’
Flynn released the clutch and edged a few inches closer to the brake lights in front.
Two months had passed, the summer was drawing to an end and already the days were getting shorter. Jennah glanced at the suit on the back seat.
‘Shoes?’ she asked suddenly.
He gave her a meaningful look.
‘OK, OK, I’ll stop!’
He put his hand over hers.
They swung into the car park. Flynn flashed his pass at the attendant and they were waved through. As they pulled up under the shadow of the London Eye, Jennah got out, pulling her shawl around her. Flynn gazed at her over the bonnet of the car. She looked breathtaking in her long crimson dress, her hair pinned up, tiny pearls hanging from her ears. Her black shawl fluttered in the early evening breeze.
Flynn took his suit and shoes from the back seat and slammed the car door shut with his foot. Jennah held out her hand, her eyes sparkling once again with excitement. They made their way under the bridge, towards the long flight of steps, and Flynn suddenly stopped dead, staring up at the huge mass of grey-stone building towering above them.