Would he leave…forever?
Again.
“Why did you come back, Hugo? Really? Were you just this side of the pond and fancied a trip down memory lane?” There it was again, that anger. Dammit. He’d said it was because he was selfish, but what did that mean? My question blew the invisible cloud that had been lingering above us since his arrival wide open. The atmosphere changed in an instant, as if the roof had evaporated and flooded our surroundings with the dark wet skies.
The smile I loved fell from his face. He shifted in his seat, set his third empty mug down on the coffee table. “Because I need you,” he said, which didn’t explain a thing.
“And…that makes you selfish?”
He scoffed, looked away. “I abandoned you, Helen. What you said before, how much we meant to each other…it’s the truth. I know I don’t always read people that well at first, but not with you. You know that. I’m not a fucking imbecile-”
“I know that,” I interrupted. “Bloody hell.” Hugo Hayes was one of the smartest people I knew. It tore into me to think he thought I’d assume otherwise for even a second.
“I was under no illusion you’d be hurting. Hell, I knew you were. I got your voicemails, listened to them over and over…but I cut you off anyway. I’d go to call you and my manager would tell me there was no time. I’d ask if I could go see you and then be whisked off to the other side of the fucking world. And it hurt, Heli. I was hurting, too, and I…I couldn’t fucking deal with it.” He stood up, tore at his hair and walked to the other side of the room.
I thought about joining him, holding him, telling him he didn’t have to explain…but I needed him to. I’d spent too long wondering what’d happened, if I’d done something wrong, if I’d lost him. – not just physically, but the real him.
He blew out a breath, dropped his head. “I shut out things that hurt. Always have. You were hurting me and you had no idea. You were hurting me just by existing.” He risked a glance my way and his eyes met mine. I saw the pain in them as they glassed over, the years of guilt and regret. “And it wasn’t your fault. Hell, it wasn’t even the label’s, the manager’s fault. It was mine. I can make all the excuses in the world, say how young I was, how naïve and stupid. I could blame the autism, the anxiety, depression, but truthfully I shoulda taken a stand and learned how to say fucking no.”
“Shit, Hugo…” I’d always known what to say to him, but I had nothing. Were they excuses? I hadn’t been there. I couldn’t know. Would Hugo have hurt me on purpose? No. No, he wouldn’t have. I believed that with my whole heart.
“You were on your own.” I should’ve been there. He should’ve had parents that gave a shit. He had nobody.
“I’m not now,” he said with a small smile, like he was trying to reassure me. “I just…I guess I just don’t want you thinking I turned up tonight because I’ve got no one else. I have. Last few years, I’ve had great people around me, folk who understand me, look out for me.”
That felt good. It seemed obvious, too, on reflection. You could hear it in his music, see it in his style. I doubted a stranger would’ve noticed, but I’d always seen the discomfort in the eyes of the popstar puppet parading around the stage at the start of his career. “I’m glad.”
He returned to the settee, sat on the edge. “To answer your original question…I came back because, despite the people I have, they’re not you. Shutting you out was never gonna be a long-term option. You were always in here,” he tapped the side of his head, “Talking to me. Calling me. Telling me to quit being a dick. The longer I stayed away, the harder it became. You’d had longer to forget about me, to move on, make a life for yourself, to…to find a reason not to forgive me. But deep down, I didn’t want that for you. I wanted you to still be here waiting, for me to be able to turn up and take you out and we’d hit it off like nothing had happened. That’s why I’m selfish, Helen…because you deserve the fucking world, yet all the way here I prayed your life hadn’t moved on at all.”
Well, he’d got his wish. Here I was, eight years later, still pining after him. I’d had a couple of boyfriends, nothing too serious. I’d just quit a job I hated. Hadn’t travelled the world or found the cure for cancer. “I lost five stone,” I announced, feeling the sudden need to brag about something. “Well, four, because I put some back on, and I got fatter after you left so you won’t even notice the loss…but it’s there. Sooo…”