Chapter 1
A murmur came down the phone line, followed by a heavy sigh. A bit of crackling here and there, and what sounded like the scratching of a head. The silence beyond was palpable; so much so that Steve began to feel tension rising in his chest and the desire to stand up and shake it all off. He actually used to enjoy talking to his friend Josh, but these telephonic rituals of late had been getting all the more frequent and he was running out of answers.
Probably thinking of the perfect thing to say in his head, he thought, allowing himself a smirk.
As a response finally did arrive, Steve couldn’t say he hadn’t expected it. He felt his stomach grow hot and his free fist clench hard as the words “Life’s just so boring, mate...” flooded into his ears. So much for the perfect thing to say, he thought with a furious shake of the head. Here he was yet again, spending his Friday afternoon playing counsellor with his friend when he could be sat at the park, enjoying the perfect August weather and having some drinks with more enjoyable company instead. Yet he had to bring himself to respond.
“You say that all the time Josh, but you don’t actually do anything to make your life more interesting. All you do is work and piss around on your computer, and then you complain that life’s boring. What do you really expect?”
More silence. In all the years they had been friends, Steve had never known Josh to be this moody and sombre. Sure, during secondary school he had been somewhat reclusive and aloof, not really speaking to many people and rarely, if ever, going to parties. It was what had attracted him to Josh in the first place – his solemn, serious attitude, combined with his lofty intellect and wisdom, had always fascinated Steve, and played a nice complement to his extroverted, slightly wild personality. Josh had always been the level-headed guy who set him on the straight and narrow, made sure he was seeing things from a balanced perspective, and not to mention helping him get far better grades than any of his teachers were ever expecting. ’Talks too much, very distracting, inconsiderate of other students; homework, if handed in, is of poor quality…’ The look of quiet contempt on their faces when results day came had always been a real source of pride and satisfaction for Steve, and he knew it was all down to Josh forcing him to spend hours in the library with him so he wouldn’t screw up. Now more than ever, he had to force himself to remember this.
Still, he hadn’t expected to ever find himself in this position. His lifelong friend was borderline depressed and phoned him up almost every day to ’chat’ – Josh’s words – and recently he had been finding himself ignoring his calls even when he had nothing better to do. Steve, as an extrovert who acted first and thought about the consequences later, wasn’t used to discussing emotions in such detail, especially negative ones, and neither was he comfortable doing so.
“Well, what do you recommend I do then?” Josh, aware of Steve’s impatient reply, responded equally sharply.
Steve got up from his chair and let out a long-held sigh. “Get some interests, go out, don’t think so much!”
“Hm,” Josh smirked. “Easier said than done.”
“No mate, it’s not hard at all,” Steve retorted, all the more impatient. “You must like something. You must enjoy something. I don’t get how you can spend so much time wallowing and thinking; of course you’re bored! Go out, go to a bar - you’re a smart guy, and pretty funny too, when you’re not contemplating the meaning of everything. Have a few beers, get a nice girl – sorted.”
On the other end of the line, Josh’s face was creased and his eyes tautly shut.
“I already have a nice girl, Steve…”
“Yeah well maybe you should get a new one,” he quipped back sharply.
Josh too now found himself getting angry, his wry smirk betraying a criticism he had always held about his social butterfly of a friend – his superficiality. If Josh had been the guy who had saved Steve from a life of minimum wage jobs with little or no chance for advancement, Steve had tried to give something back by helping to make Josh ‘popular’. Whether it was setting him up with pretty girls, introducing him to his own, popular, friends, or getting him involved in martial arts to boost his macho appeal – there was little Steve hadn’t tried. For Steve, a week without a party, getting off his face and taking a girl home, preferably one he hadn’t taken home before, was not a successful week. He had noticed Josh’s perceived lack of popularity and had attempted, out of genuine affection for his friend, to get him out of his shell, thinking that this was the solution that would solve his issues.
Josh, however, was of a slightly different opinion. The parties Steve dragged him to only served to reinforce his perception that the majority of people were absolutely brainless. Seeing people lose sense of themselves to alcohol and drugs, the suspicious sounds coming from the bathroom, and the repetitive music, all topped off by the inevitable vomit he would discover when leaving made him thoroughly dislike parties. Not that he’d ever liked them in the first place. And then there were the clubs, as if the house parties weren’t bad enough - Steve’s ‘solution’ to Josh’s problems with the fairer sex. “Just find one you like, buy her a drink, pay a few compliments and Bob’s your uncle”, were Steve’s words of wisdom for his club-nouveau friend. Like that ever worked. Josh’s almost complete lack of self-confidence, combined with his opinion that most girls who went to clubs seemed little more than common prostitutes, had Steve’s idea dancing to an early grave. Nightclubs had also shown Josh a new level of brainlessness that even he hadn’t thought possible. He often compared them to cattle farms, apart from the fact that it wasn’t cows repetitively moving to an incessant beat, but supposedly rational human beings.
Josh had often wondered why he was even friends with Steve in the first place - after all, they were like two opposite ends of a magnet, and he was certain he frustrated Steve as much as Steve frustrated him. On some level, however, he knew he would be nowhere without Steve. His natural positivity and careless attitude had kept him sane over the years, and although he would never admit it, there was a part of him that yearned for the same impulsive freedom that Steve enjoyed. Not to mention that he was his only true friend.
However, he could hardly hide his annoyance after hearing the same advice for what must have been the thousandth time.
“Yeah, like that ever works,” he murmured down the line. “Can’t you think of anything new?”
This was something of a last straw for Steve, who had decided that enough was enough. “No Josh, I can’t think of anything new,” he replied, feeling his anger boiling over. “And to be honest, I’m fucking fed up of you calling me every single day just to tell me how shit your life is. I’m trying to help you, trying to suggest things to do, but you just won’t listen!”
A silence ensued, and this time Steve felt compelled to add something more. “You know what your problem is, mate? You’re totally stuck inside your own head. Constantly obsessing about what everything means, thinking about every single little thing and blowing it all way out of context, and then you go and moan to everyone else about how fucking fed up you are. Well so am I!”
Another long pause followed. Steve was on the verge of hanging up but something had him stay on the line. Josh was trembling - he hated conflict and was fighting every impulse to just hang up there and then, but surely he couldn’t just let such an outburst go unanswered?
“Hello?” came Steve’s response. He knew full well Josh was still there and had heard every word, but he didn’t know what else to say.
“Look, I didn’t mean to put it like that, I just wanted-
“Fuck you, Steve.”
Josh pressed the red button on his phone and launched it halfway across the room in a fit of rage, hearing it clatter into the radiator and then against the floor. The thought of a possible broken screen was pushed out of his mind as quickly as it came in. He writhed his fingers through his hair and as he pulled them out he could almost feel the roots coming out, such was the force of his frustration. He turned to the wall beside him and slammed it with his fist, yelling at the top of his voice into an empty magnolia abyss for as long as his breath held out.
He sat in silence, an angry frown across his brows, for several minutes. He started to wonder whether the neighbours had heard his scream, and the guilt that followed only made him angrier. He then reprimanded himself for calling Steve in the first place – even Josh knew he had been doing it mainly just to rant. But even if Steve was right – that he was simply complaining and doing nothing to improve his situation – he was still at a loss as to what action he could actually take to change his life.
Well, what can I do? He started to argue in his head. I’m a journalist. I work 50 hours a week in a job that stresses me to death, I have terrible relationships with my family, I have (or had) one real friend, and I swear my girlfriend is on the verge of leaving me…
A momentary recollection of his primary school days came to him then. He remembered playing football on the playing fields, writing silly short stories, having fun with his friends. Those days were long gone now. There has to be more to life than this! he thought angrily, suddenly leaping to his feet. He strolled over to the window opposite him, walking past his now cracked phone as he did so. Ponderously glancing out of the window, observing the flocks of Londoners passing by his apartment block to and fro, a small semblance of a smile slowly began to creep back onto his face. It was 5.30 in the afternoon, and people were heading back from work. He wondered what would be in store for them when they got home – a partner, kids, other interests not related to work? Or maybe they’re just like me, he thought with a soft sigh. Looking at the swathes of people outside, many of their faces familiar, he couldn’t help but feel somewhat disappointed. It often seemed to Josh that life was almost like a video game, where you just play the same level over and over again until you get bored; the only difference being that when you die, you can’t just restart the game and try again. With this thought weighing on his mind he continued to stare at the masses, almost sending himself into a daze, watching as one person became another, then another, becoming so mesmerised that the image soon blended into a blurry collage of suits, some grey, some black, high heels of various colours, cars going past in opposite directions and a fuzzy red blob of a double-decker bus sandwiched somewhere in the middle. Completely losing track of time, he felt his eyes begin to close as he drifted into sleep.
He stumbled back slightly, his left leg more stable than the right. Awakening and feeling his heart begin to pound, he stumbled sideways into his desk, painfully clipping his leg against one of its corners as he regained his balance.
“Idiot!” he angrily exclaimed, berating himself for being so clumsy. The time when he had fallen down the stairs at his girlfriend’s house during a similar trance immediately came to mind and only served to further fuel his anger. Breathing steadily in an attempt to calm himself down, he stood still for a moment and took a look around the room. It needed a good clean – Josh’s phone wasn’t the only thing lying on the floor, but was accompanied by dirty clothes, pizza boxes and odd bits of paper. The furniture was incredibly dusty and the bed looked like it hadn’t been made in weeks.
Finding no solace in the state of his surroundings, Josh again found himself drawn towards the window, like some kind of powerful magnet that had him in its thralls. A slight smirk again began to appear on his face as he noticed how stupid the people seemed, like robots who had no real idea of what they were actually doing. Then, all of a sudden, a sharp realisation hit him, and he could actually feel his stomach twist as anger and fear rose from within him, ready to explode.
“And I’m one of them!” he whispered furiously under his breath, clenching both his fists and looking down towards the floor, a deep frown lined across his face. He searched for an expletive. Yet instead of shouting, he closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths, his fists still clenched. He had spent years in anger management and this was one of the best exercises, however simple, he had found for relaxation.
Feeling calmer, he opened his eyes and took one more glance at the passers-by outside. I need to go out there, he thought, making his way towards the front door of his flat.
***
Tina’s house always made Josh feel slightly uncomfortable. They had been going out for almost three years now, and he still hadn’t come to terms with how amazing, and at the same time, how intimidating her place was. It was huge – a three-storey, five-bedroom house just on the outskirts of London – a juggernaut compared to his poxy flat in Hammersmith – and formed part of a private estate. The walls were covered with expensive paintings, most of which her father had bought and decided to leave there after giving the house to Tina a few years back. If a wall didn’t have expensive art on it, it bore one of Tina’s numerous certificates and qualifications, or a collection of photos from one of her many trips across the world. Tina was 24, only a year younger than Josh, and yet she had already achieved and done so much that even after all their time together he couldn’t help but feel slightly inferior. She was already running her own yoga centre, which although financed by her parents, took a great deal of confidence and business acumen to operate smoothly and indeed, she had made it turn a fantastic profit two years in a row with little or no outside assistance. It was safe to say that Josh had ′a good catch,′ to use Steve’s terminology. Yet he wasn’t with her for her money and nice house – he had only found out about those three months into their relationship. Neither was he with her for her intellect or impressive array of skills and qualifications, nor for her stunning good looks that would turn any man’s head. What had drawn him to Tina in the first place was her heart of gold – she was by far the most compassionate and caring person Josh had ever known. She knew that Josh had issues even when they first met, yet she had stuck with him for nearly three years. This was a fact which Josh was all too aware of and made him feel all the more guilty considering the recent state of their relationship. “I don’t really deserve her”, or “Maybe she’s too kind to break up with me” were fairly recurrent themes in his mind. The only difference was that whilst he’d been able to brush off such worries fairly easily in the past, he now found himself genuinely convinced that his first ever relationship was about to end for good. And the thought of that terrified him to death, although he would never admit it.
He was sitting alone, propped up against a wall in the main entrance of the house. He had the privilege of owning a key, which meant he could basically come and go as he pleased; and while he would normally tell Tina if he was going to come over, today his overwhelming urge to speak to his girlfriend had him show up unannounced. This was despite the fact that she had explicitly told him she would be busy the whole weekend and unable to see him.
He gazed out of the large glass panel directly in front of him, looking out onto the gravel driveway for any sign of Tina’s shiny black Maserati swinging around the corner. He had spent the last hour trying to meditate, but the constant thoughts swirling around in his head weren’t giving him any peace. Instead he just sat there, staring out of the window.
Staring out of windows seems to have become my favourite pastime, he thought to himself with a frown. He couldn’t stop thinking about Steve, and how much to blame he felt about the way their conversation had ended earlier. Then he would think about Tina, and how bad he felt about how much he had annoyed her recently with his moodiness and anger, and now he had turned up at her house uninvited and without warning. He was shaking in anticipation of seeing her car and began to feel dismayed at how totally powerless he felt in his life.
Tears began to well up in his eyes. How could he risk losing the two people he cared about most dearly? His life was dull enough as it was – without Tina and Steve, he doubted whether he would have the motivation to go on. Something was telling him that Tina was as good as gone, or would be after today, and after his earlier altercation with Steve, how much more could his old friend endure? As the tears of sadness began to roll down his face at this realisation, his eyes were blinded by headlights, almost like one of those scary dreams where a train is coming at you full-on on a cold, black night and you wake up just before it hits. This time, however, it wasn’t a train, and he wasn’t dreaming – it was the very Maserati that had been giving him waking nightmares for the past hour and a half.
It’s safe to say that Josh sitting on the floor crying in her front entrance hadn’t been what Tina was expecting to see when she arrived home from work. A look of surprise spread across her face as she pulled up into the driveway, her headlights illuminating her boyfriend’s now rather embarrassed face. It was hardly the best timing. Their eyes met for a few seconds, both looking at each other with a sense of perplexion and surprise before Tina averted her gaze, moved the slender, leather-lined gearstick of her luxury car into neutral and switched off the engine. As she got out of the car, her attention turned back to Josh, and she didn’t take her eyes off him all the way to the front door. Josh, still haplessly spread across the floor, felt quite intimidated by the stern look emanating from her piercing brown eyes, and was beginning to ready himself for some serious questioning. Drawing the conclusion that remaining on the floor with tears still lining his cheeks as his girlfriend, looking as beautiful and confident as ever, walked into the house, would look slightly too pathetic, he awkwardly sprang up to his feet just as she opened the door.
Still carrying forward motion from coming up too quickly from the floor, he came up square with Tina just as she entered the hall. Their faces were mere inches apart, with Josh staring into her eyes with a look that combined apology and guilt. Tina looked searchingly at him for a few seconds that felt like a lifetime, then, quite unexpectedly stepped forward, opened her arms and gave him a warm hug.
“Oh, Josh…” was all she said. The tender utterance of his name sent shivers down his spine and more tears down his face.
Several minutes passed as they silently clung to each other. Any annoyance Tina had felt at Josh showing up the way he had seemed to have all but evaporated. She gently removed her arms and put her hand on his face, wiping away his tears.
“What have you got yourself into this time?” she asked in her usual feather-soft voice, a certain glisten twinkling in her eyes as she looked up at him, her long chocolate-brown hair falling away from her face as they pulled apart.
A familiar feeling began to engulf Josh, the relief that yet again his expectation of confrontation with his girlfriend had been misplaced. Her question nevertheless made him feel quite uncomfortable and he looked straight down at the floor in despair as soon as she asked it. It wasn’t just the question that was getting to him, but how calm Tina seemed. He felt quite sure that this was all some kind of act, that she was actually really angry with him but was just covering it up.
Seeing that this wasn’t going to be as easy as she had hoped, Tina let out a deep sigh and took him by the arm. “Come on, let’s talk,” she said wearily, looking up at him with expectant eyes and a forced smile. Josh was still staring at the floor. “Josh!” She pulled his arm so hard that he almost tripped.
“What?’” he asked confusedly. He looked into her eyes and blinked a few times. Seconds passed. “What the hell is going on with me?” he asked with a firm shake of the head, looking around, then at Tina, still slightly dazed. “Yeah, let’s talk.”
Josh removed his arm from Tina’s and began to walk towards the sitting room. Tina followed as they proceeded to sit down on one of the luxury leather sofas in the grandest room of the entire house. Tina snuggled up closely to Josh as they sat, but he seemed indifferent. The picture of her at the Taj Mahal with her travel buddies had caught his eye, staring down at him as a condescending parent might. He had always wanted to travel but had never really had the chance; neither had he had the people to go with, and he wasn’t really one for superficial, one-off acquaintances. Tina, however, seemed to have been to almost every country the world over, and Josh began to feel a familiar envy creep into his gut.
“Josh,” Tina, again noticing her boyfriend’s scattered focus, said to regain his attention. He, again somewhat startled, looked across at her vacantly. “You’re a bit all over the place today, Josh. It’s like you’re not even here. What’s wrong?”
Josh averted his gaze and took a deep breath in, yet continued to remain silent.
“You know you can tell me anything, Josh...”
He glanced back at her briefly, before reverting his eyes to the floor.
“I had a fight with Steve.”
Tina frowned. “What? Like a punch up?” She knew how close Josh and Steve were and had never expected them to fall out.
“No, an argument over the phone. But still, it might as well have been an actual fight, the feeling would be the same.” His voice was dull and lifeless.
“Oh…” Tina now found she was the one staring into space.
“He’s the only friend I have, Tina. And now he’s gone. I really screwed up! I shouldn’t have called him so much, I shouldn’t have complained to him as much as I did, I shouldn’t have called his advice useless…”
Josh, getting visibly more animated, looked away for a second, then directly into Tina’s eyes. “Why do I do this? Why do I alienate all the people who ever get close to me? Why do I piss them off and push them away? I mean, let’s face it, I’ve basically done it to you as well.”
Josh’s last words were like a knife in Tina’s stomach. She frowned and looked away from him, a lump bulging in her throat.
“Well, haven’t I?” he continued interrogatively. “Don’t act like you’re not pissed off with me, with the way I’ve been recently.”
Tina looked back at him, her usual calm, composed demeanour tempered with flickers of anger and anxiety.
“Do you want me to be pissed off with you, Josh?” she asked sternly. She was finding it hard to speak as she fought to keep her emotions under control.
“What kind of a question is that?” Josh replied dismissively, turning himself around on the couch to fully face her.
She shook her head. “A good one.” She paused briefly to catch her thoughts. “I can be angry if you want me to be.”
This was equally a statement of defiance to herself as it was to Josh. Tina, like her boyfriend, had never really enjoyed conflict and had always considered kindness and compassion to be better ways of resolving disputes than getting angry. Rarely in their three years together had they ever had a heated argument. However, she was, as much as she tried to push it away, truly upset with Josh, and he wasn’t exactly making it easy for her to hide it. Josh, whilst also uncomfortable with these sorts of situations, and surprised to see Tina anything but calm, was feeling particularly in the mood for arguing today. A somewhat sadistic urge was spreading through him to see just how far he could push her, like a small fire in his stomach growing ever larger into a blaze. A thought came into his head telling him that this was irrational and would hardly help the situation, but he drove it away fiercely.
“Then why don’t you tell me how you really feel?” he asked invitingly.
Tina, again unnerved by his question, looked away briefly. “Why are you asking me all these questions, Josh?” They looked at each other for a few seconds. “I mean, you’re the one who just turned up here – I assumed you wanted something, to talk or something?”
“Ah, so you are angry with me for doing that…” Josh muttered with a fox-like grin.
Slightly dumbstruck, Tina gasped, as if about to go into a tirade, then immediately stopped herself. But Josh had already pushed her over the edge. Turning her face towards him, her words felt like a waterfall of suppressed emotions all coming to the surface.
“Well Josh, what do you honestly expect? You show up here when I explicitly told you I wasn’t going to be free. All you’ve been doing recently is complain and complain and complain about how rubbish your life is. I’ve tried to help you but you’ve done nothing, and you wonder if I’m annoyed about that? I feel so used lately, like I’m just some sort of emotional punchbag for you! It’s all just been you, you, you – in fact, when was the last time you asked me something, sincerely, about my life, or how I am?”
Tina was surprised at how good this felt. So good, she felt compelled to continue. “Relationships are a two-way thing, Josh. Not all you and no me, and I’m not going to put up with being ignored and taken advantage of. You need to start treating me with some more respect, otherwise don’t be surprised if I kick you out next time.”
Josh turned his head away sharply. Those last few words were like a punch straight to his gut, and he began to feel physically sick. He shot up from the sofa, glanced uneasily at Tina and began pacing around in front of her.
“That’s if there’ll even be a next time,” Tina, as if what she’d already said weren’t enough, added questioningly.
“What?” Josh stopped and looked her straight in the eye, still shaking. “What do you mean?”
Tina couldn’t help but feel sorry for the man standing in front of her. The visible fear he was experiencing made her feel somewhat guilty, and yet deep down she felt rather pleased at having stood up for herself with Josh for the first time in years.
She invited him to sit back down beside her, and as he begrudgingly obliged she rested her hand softly on his leg and looked deep into his eyes. “Look at you, Josh”, her voice again showing her characteristic compassion and warmth, “you’re a mess.”
A deep frown was still laced across his brows, and her words sent his eyes to the floor again. “What did you mean, if there’ll be a next time?”
Tina moved away from him slightly and let out a deep breath. “You need proper help, Josh. Help that I can’t give. I’ve tried, but it obviously isn’t working. I know you’ve done lots to try and improve how you feel, but maybe you need a complete life change. Including... including us spending some time apart.”
Josh’s eyes fixed sharply on Tina’s. As her words began to reverberate in his mind, he felt powerless to fight the feeling of complete failure that was rising up in him. Time apart? All he wanted right now was for his girlfriend to give him one more chance. A few tears began to roll down his face.
Tina moved her hand back to his knee, averting her gaze. “I love you, Josh, I really do. But I’m finding it really hard to be with you at the moment. I don’t think this is working for either of us.”
Josh turned sharply away from Tina, before getting up from the sofa and again beginning to pace, clearly absorbed in thought. “But… who will I talk to?” he asked, stopping dead centre in the room and turning pleadingly to his girlfriend.
She looked away momentarily, having to resist saying something hurtful. “I’ll still be here if you want to call me, Josh. I’d just rather not see you in person at the moment… at least not for a while.” She saw a look of deep sorrow fill his eyes as his worst fear became manifest. Getting up from the couch, she walked slowly towards him and put her hands softly around his arms. “I know this hurts; it hurts me to say it – it’s just that every time I see you I end up feeling like shit, and I don’t think that’s fair. My needs are important too.”
At these words, Josh clenched both his fists together, looking down to the floor dejectedly. “I’m sorry…” he uttered, knowing that things would never be the same between them again. His anger at the situation he found himself in was turned inwards as he realised that he was solely responsible for causing it.
“Why do I always do this?” he asked, repeating his earlier question almost in complete despair.
“Josh…” Tina edged closer to him, putting her arm around his shoulder. “It’s not your fault. Time apart will be good for both of us. It’ll give you a chance to really get yourself sorted out once and for all.”
Her words of reassurance weren’t having much of an effect on Josh. “How’s that?” he asked with a quick shake of the head.
Tina sighed. “I don’t know, Josh. I’m sorry, but I really don’t know. Sometimes we need to figure certain things out for ourselves. Perhaps you should speak to Sumesh about it?”
Josh’s eyes flashed as he looked away to the side with a gleeful smile, as if he had just been struck by a sudden, overwhelmingly pleasant realisation. His joy soon turned back into a frown, however.
“Do you think he’d want to see me after what happened?”
“He adores you, Josh. I’m sure he’d welcome you back with open arms even if you’d become the next Hitler!” She began to smile, a smile that even Josh found hard to resist.
“I guess it’s worth a try,” he replied with a hopeful smile. It was the first time in quite a while that Tina had seen hope on Josh’s face.
“I’m glad something I’ve said to you has finally had an effect!” she said with relief.
The smile on Josh’s face got even broader as tears continued to fall from his eyes. He looked at her with an expression conveying both sadness and gratitude. “Honestly Tina, thank you. And this isn’t the only thing you’ve said that’s made a difference. If it weren’t for you I’d probably be in some mental asylum by now!”
Tina took hold of both of Josh’s wrists. “Go on, then. Speak to Sumesh. I can’t bear to see you suffer any more.”
Josh looked into her eyes, her seemingly never-ending warmth and compassion touching his heart. He really wanted to kiss her but was wary of how she might react. “Tina – before I go, can I…?” He looked down at her lips.
Tina didn’t answer the question. She simply pulled his face down to hers and gave him a long, loving kiss. Pulling away, they looked at each other for another few moments before Josh turned to look towards the door. “I’d better get going,” he said as he began to slowly pace out of the room, taking his jacket off the stair bannister as he went.
Hovering at the door, he looked back at Tina to see her looking at him with the same soft smile. He muttered a goodbye and went to open the door. Before he could walk out, however, he felt his wrist being pulled.
“Josh, before you go…” A few tears welled up as she realised that she might not see him again for quite some time, maybe ever. Josh remained silent as he looked at her in limbo.
“I love you, Josh. Please remember that.”
Brought down from the slightly heady high he had got himself into at the thought of seeing Sumesh, Tina’s simple farewell had such an emotional impact on him that he felt his legs buckle. He realised that this was, basically, the end. Turning around to face Tina, tears streaming down his face, the only words he could muster were “I love you too”, although even this was slightly inaudible due to him crying so hard. Tina gently released his wrist, sensing he didn’t want to hang around any longer than necessary after everything he had just been through. He turned around and began to walk at pace towards the end of the drive. She simply watched him, not quite knowing what to do. Guilt started lashing up at her as she compared herself to an angry headmistress who had just sent a naughty boy out of her classroom. Part of her wanted to scream to him, to tell him to come back, to say how much she loved him and apologise for what she had done, but she refrained from doing so. After he turned the corner and she could no longer see him, she took a deep breath in, walked back inside and closed the door.
Josh, although heartbroken and walking through the streets with tears flooding down his face, was feeling more optimistic than he had in a long time. He looked up at the sky and saw the sun peering through a blanket of clouds - a small shimmer of light penetrating through the thick grey mass, like a rainbow after a heavy storm. He wiped his face, smiled, and began heading towards the station.
