I Was Born for This(33)

She sends me the address. I look up where the nearest tube station is. I get dressed. I go downstairs.

Juliet and Mac are eating breakfast in the kitchen. Juliet looks like she’ll never enjoy food again. Mac looks like a guest at an awkward family dinner. Dorothy is standing at the kitchen counter, writing in a notepad.

I make up some excuse about agreeing to meet with a friend in London, but neither Juliet nor Mac seem particularly phased and they don’t ask any questions. I walk out of the house without a second thought. Off to rescue the girlfriend of one of the three boys who have kept me alive for the past four years. You know. Just a casual, normal Wednesday.





It’s not normal for us to get a day off from The Ark. Most days are spent at interviews, meetings, rehearsals, studios, concert venues. And even on the rare day we got to spend sightseeing during our Europe tours – they’re not days off. Not really. Not when the fans track you down, somehow, impossibly, to wherever you want to go. Not when someone is asking for a selfie every five minutes, snapping photos, screaming, always screaming.

The fans gave us everything we have. I love them. I love the fans.

I love them, I love them, I love them, I love them.

Days spent at home are our real days off. When did we last have one? Maybe three, four months ago? I Skyped Grandad, called my mum and dad. Rowan Skyped his family, spoke to his sister for hours. Then we ordered pizza and played Splatoon. Lister … I don’t remember what Lister did.

Today isn’t anything like that, anyway.

Rowan is inspecting the cut on my palm, checking to see if any shards of ceramic have been embedded into my skin. He holds my hand up to the kitchen light, squinting at it.

‘I think there’s a bit in there,’ he says.

My hand stings.

‘Oh,’ I say.

‘I think we’re gonna have to get it out.’

‘Oh.’

‘Do you want to do it or do you want me to do it?’

He looks at me. Right in the eyes.

‘Jim?’ he says.

‘You do it,’ I say.

‘Do we have tweezers?’

Tweezers. I feel a bit ill.

‘I think so. In the bathroom.’

Rowan puts my hand down on the breakfast bar and walks away towards the bathroom. I just stand there, waiting, my hand open in front of me like it’s not really attached to my body, blood still seeping out of the open wound. I look down and realise there’s blood splattered all down my pyjama shorts and on my legs.

I laugh.

Why’ve I got blood all over me?

What the fuck.

‘Jimmy?’

Rowan’s back, holding the tweezers. He picks up my hand and grips my wrist tightly.

‘This will hurt,’ he says.

‘Yeah,’ I say.

Rowan digs the tweezers directly into the wound.

I make a strangled screeching noise in the back of my throat and try to move my hand, but Rowan keeps it still. My eyes start watering again.

‘Sorry,’ Rowan mumbles, poking the tweezers at my palm now.

I’d say it’s fine, it’s all fine, he shouldn’t be sorry about anything, he’s the one going through seven tons of shit this week, but all I can manage is a pained laugh.

‘Nearly got it,’ he says, clenching his teeth. Rowan doesn’t like blood. When we had to dissect a kidney in a Year 8 biology lesson he threw up.

‘There!’ He holds up the tweezers triumphantly. There’s a tiny reddish sliver of ceramic in between the pincers. Rowan puts it down on the countertop. ‘Now you won’t get poisoned.’

‘Thanks,’ I say, wiping my eyes with my uninjured hand.

‘Wait here, I’ll get a plaster.’

‘I can do that—’

‘Not with an injured hand, you can’t.’

Rowan leaves again.

The blood falls, with a soft ‘plip’, onto the table. Almost indiscernible from the rain falling outside.

The fact of the matter is there’s no way to fix this. The information is out, the photos, all the evidence of Rowan and Bliss’s relationship. There’s no way to erase the memory of every single person in the world. I can’t go begging to Cecily to fix this one. I can’t pay anyone to stop. I can’t do anything.

I just have to sit and wallow in it.

The punishment for the truth.

At times like this, when horrible stuff happened, I used to pray, and talk to God, and He’d talk back to me. All that stuff.

These days, though, it’s a lot harder to get a response.

‘I couldn’t find a plaster big enough, but we did have some bandages.’ Rowan grabs my hand again, pulling it towards him, and pushes up his glasses with his free hand.

‘Do you think it needs stitches?’ I say.

Rowan starts wrapping it in bandages. ‘I don’t know. Do you want to go to the hospital?’

‘No. This is our only day off.’

‘True.’

He rips the bandage and ties it. The blood has already started to seep through the thin white cotton.

‘How does that feel?’ he asks.

I lie. ‘Fine.’

He chuckles. ‘Liar.’

I look at him. ‘It hurts.’

He looks at me. ‘Don’t smash mugs, you mug.’