You Me Everything Page 26

  Chapter 72

  Adam had been in Manchester that night, finishing off his team-building day in the Bush Bar. And so had Georgina.

  “I hadn’t told you I’d arranged to meet her, because I knew you thought there was something going on between us,” he says. “And with her being newly single . . . I didn’t think you’d have understood. But this is the truth. She was a mess after she broke up with Johnny. It wasn’t just breakup blues; it was more than that. She was seriously depressed . . . on the edge.”

  “I thought you’d said she was better off without him?”

  “Oh, she was, but she couldn’t see it at the time. He’d cheated on her at least twice and fleeced half her savings. For some unfathomable reason she wanted him back.”

  Adam tells me that Georgina phoned him that day, upset and determined to beg her ex-boyfriend to take her back. He persuaded her instead to meet him for a drink at the Bush Bar, where he knew he’d be with his colleagues from work. By ten o’clock, she still hadn’t turned up, and he was desperate to get home, but he hung around for her sake, coldly sober and surrounded by friends six pints ahead of him.

  He texted me to check all was okay, and I told him I was off to bed. In our last communications, we exchanged simple good night and I love you messages, which I’d interpreted for years afterwards as us going through the motions.

  “When Georgina finally showed up, she was falling-down drunk,” he continues. “She had these two girls in tow, friends of hers I’d never met before. They were determined to drag her round the Northern Quarter to drink away her sorrows and throw herself at any bloke who stood in her path.”

  She was bawdy, tearful and reckless enough for him to conclude that his friend’s fragile soul was in trouble. So he didn’t recoil in horror when she draped her arms around him, telling him she just wanted to be held.

  “I just kind of . . . froze. Only she started kissing my neck, and I had to pry her away. There was no way to be subtle about it.” He swallows a lump in his throat. “She was mortified.”

  Georgina ran into the night, burning with shame and not nearly drunk enough to pretend it hadn’t happened. One of her girlfriends chased after her, and he watched at the door of the bar as they stumbled into a cab. He slipped away after that, wrung out from the evening and craving the warmth of his bed. He describes how he strode through rain-drenched streets, his clothes soaked with grimy water as he stepped up his pace to the car park. He was nearly there when he saw the figure of a man being bustled out of the Northern Tap.

  “I dodged out of the way at first,” Adam says. “He was in a seriously bad way.”

  “Drunk?”

  He nods.

  I picture a man that could’ve been any old pisshead: aggressive but vulnerable, righteously indignant about being manhandled.

  “Then he kind of dropped to the ground and started making these awful noises. I couldn’t just leave him there. So I bent down to try and help him. I thought about phoning an ambulance, so I tried to roll him over, and it was then that I realized . . . I knew the coat.”

  My heart turns over as I reinterpret this sentence. “You mean, you knew the man.”

  It takes a moment before he nods, confirming what I already knew. That the old drunk rolling around in the rain was my dad.

  Who hadn’t touched a drink for years and whose sobriety had been—for me and Mum—the source of so much pride and relief.

  “I tried to wake him up, but he started thrashing out at me. He didn’t know it was me. He was . . . disoriented.”

  Adam is choosing his words carefully, but it’s hardly necessary. I can picture every detail.

  “I remembered all the stories you told me about what he was like when you were little. But this blew my mind. I’d never seen your dad like this.”

  It turns out that Dad had been heaved out of the pub because he’d thrown up on the bar. More worryingly, he’d fallen on top of his arm; Adam was convinced he’d broken a bone.

  He was sweating panic, his mind racing, but there was no way he was going to phone his heavily pregnant girlfriend, who was tucked up in bed with his child still inside her belly.

  So he ran back into the Bush Bar and grabbed Chris, the only other vaguely sober colleague left. “We managed to bundle your dad into the back seat of my car so I could drive him to hospital. He was in such a bad way . . . I was pleading with him to stay awake, shouting at him to try and get him to respond. I thought he was . . .”

  “You thought he had alcohol poisoning?”

  He nods.

  The ER staff were wearily professional. They’d seen it all, every Saturday night.

  When Dad eventually came round, he was terrified, frenzied almost, clutching at Adam’s hand, begging him not to go. “And it was slap-bang in the middle of all this that I realized my phone had run out of juice,” he tells me numbly. “I forced myself to stay calm. I kept thinking, if there was any chance of Jess going into labor, she’d have said something in her last text. I thought about using your dad’s mobile, but that would have involved explaining why we were together. I’d already worked out that Martin wouldn’t want a soul to know about this. And . . . more to the point, I couldn’t even contemplate what it’d do to you if you’d found out about it.”

  He knew it would’ve broken my heart; that’s what it would do.

  “Your dad’s arm turned out to be badly bruised but not broken. When we finally got out of hospital hours later, what he needed more than anything was somewhere to shower. So I drove to Chris’s house—I couldn’t have taken him home to your mum in that state, not without getting him sorted. When we were in the car, your dad was . . . He was upset. He was sobbing. I kept saying to him, ‘You’re going to be okay, Martin. You’ll feel like shit, but you’ll survive.’”

  But this was about more than feeling like shit, and both of them knew it.

  “As we pulled up outside Chris’s house, he grabbed me by the arm. And he made me swear I’d never tell you about it. Not you, not anyone. I promised him I wouldn’t. I told him he’d never need to worry—that this would always be between him and me.”

  It was nearly seven in the morning by the time he bundled Dad into the shower. Then he walked into Chris’s kitchen and plugged in his phone. And it sprang to life for the first time since ten o’clock the previous evening.

  Chapter 73

  Just seeing the desolation in Adam’s eyes lets me know that it’s true. It makes sense in the worst and best way, and although I don’t really need Dad to confirm Adam’s story, I know he will when we finally get round to talking about it. Not just about the night itself, but about why he fell off the wagon. It was when Mum was having the tests for HD—before her diagnosis but certainly when they knew what might be coming.

  “I couldn’t betray your dad,” Adam says. “Despite how pissed he was, he was right to ask me to keep quiet. He didn’t do it for his own sake; he did it for yours. For your mum’s. It would’ve destroyed you.”

  “But Adam, that changed everything. That was the reason . . .”

  “The reason you left?” He raises an eyebrow. “No, it wasn’t, Jess. Let’s be honest. There were dozens of reasons, and that was one.”

  “A big one,” I argue.

  Adam looks through the windscreen at the hazy sunlight, unable to meet my eye as he speaks. “I hadn’t wanted to be a father, because I was scared and immature and unwilling to admit any of those things. I should’ve stepped up to the mark when you got pregnant. But I didn’t. And I compounded all that after William was born by staying away.”

  I bite the flesh inside my mouth. “I didn’t exactly make you welcome.”

  “You didn’t say anything I wasn’t convinced of all by myself, Jess. Even your mum thought I should fuck off and disappear from the face of the planet. I knew things must’ve been bad if it’d come to that.”

  I fr
own. “What makes you say Mum thought that?”

  His jaw tightens. “I turned up out of the blue once to see you and William. She completely lost it with me. She terrified the life out of me, if I’m honest. I’d got on so well with her before, and she’d always been the kind of woman who’d make you feel welcome the second you stepped through the door. When I saw how much she hated me . . .”

  “She didn’t hate you, Adam. She didn’t like you after that night, admittedly. But those rages . . . they were part of her condition. It wasn’t the real her.”

  He looks ahead, scraping the bottom of the steering wheel with his thumb. “Whatever it was, it became one of the things that made me think you and I just weren’t meant to be. That I had to get away from you and William and do something else with my life. I was an idiot.”

  “I’ve got my regrets too, I promise you.”

  I am suddenly lost for words at the thought that Adam has carried this secret for so long, while I’ve harbored a completely unwarranted grudge all that time.

  “Listen, Jess. I really do need to go. I’m already twenty minutes late.” He turns the key to start up the engine and waits for me to get out.

  But I don’t want to.

  Instead, I reach over and touch his arm. Then I unstrap my seat belt and lean across with both hands, taking his face in them. His eyes look young again, shining with emotion. I kiss him gently at first, brushing the tender skin on his lips, before he opens his mouth and allows me to sink into him. I unclick his seat belt.

  “What’s going on?”

  I kiss him again, more deeply, before speaking, his lips an inch from mine. “Why? Are you complaining?”

  “No,” he croaks. “Absolutely not. In fact, carry on.” He pulls back and glances at his watch. “Although . . . possibly after my meeting.”

  I kiss him harder now, and he responds instantly, pulling me towards him. Then he stops, looks at me, his chest rising as he goes to object.

  “Okay,” he says urgently. “Screw the meeting. I’ll text and tell him I’ve got a flat tire.”

  I burst out laughing as he yanks the keys out and clicks open the car door. I follow suit. We emerge onto the grass outside his cottage, straightening our clothes.

  We stumble inside, and the door slams behind us. I press my back against the wood as he threads his fingers through mine and plants a trail of kisses on my face and neck. His lips feel hot on my skin, silent and feverish. I unclasp my hands and run them up his shirt, tracing the contours of his ribs as my desire builds in waves. I reach up to his shirt, but I’m not fast enough for him, and instead he opens the first two buttons and tugs it over his head.

  The sight of his body makes me throb with longing. The salty dampness of his skin. The athletic curves of his muscles. The dark hair that brushes his collarbone.

  I start kissing his chest, but he gently lifts up my head and begins undoing my blouse, slipping it off my shoulders with eyes heavy as they linger on me. Our clothes pile up on the floor until he takes me by the hand and leads me to the bedroom.

  I couldn’t tell you the reasons why sex with Adam has always been better than with anyone else. Maybe he’s just particularly good at it. But there’s a magical alchemy when the two of us are together, one that’s never been replicated.

  As a fierce sun streams through the windows, Adam makes love to me in the same way he always did it: like it is the first time and the last. As if every moment is as precious as the ability to live itself.

  Chapter 74

  Afterwards, I lie with my head on his chest, as he strokes the skin along the line of my jaw, his touch making me shiver. He is unusually quiet.

  “Is everything okay?”

  “Yes,” he replies. Then: “No.”

  I lift up my head. “Go on, spit it out.”

  He props himself up on his elbow and takes a moment before speaking. “Are you going to tell me you regret this again?”

  A bittersweet smile creeps to my lips. “No.” I push myself up and kiss him briefly on the lips. “No, I don’t regret it. Why would I after two orgasms?”

  I’m being deliberately flippant—I don’t think we need any more high drama. Although he laughs, he doesn’t seem placated.

  “You don’t need to look so proud of yourself,” I say, trying harder.

  “Why, were you hoping for three?” He then looks down at his hands, his eyes serious. “Look, I’m glad you had two orgasms. But I want it to be about more than that.”

  My shoulders soften. “It was, Adam. It definitely was about more than that.”

  “Right then, I’m going to ask you something.” He pushes away my hand and kneels up in front of me, strategically holding up a pillow to cover his modesty.

  “Jess. I love you.”

  My heart almost stops. Allowing myself to believe these words feels like way too much recklessness for one day. “The thing is, Adam—”

  “I haven’t finished. I want to marry you.”

  I can feel my jaw lower. “Adam, calm down, for God’s sake.”

  “I know it probably feels sudden,” he argues, “but it’s not really. I was in love with you right from the beginning.”

  “You never even noticed me right from the beginning.”

  “You’re splitting hairs—the point is this: I love you. I loved you every moment we were together, whatever you think is the case, and I’ve spent ten years trying to get over you. Dating women I’ve hoped will come close to matching you, then realizing within months, weeks, that none of them could.”

  Emotions battle for space in my head. I’m lost for words.

  “I realize this is the crappiest proposal ever. I haven’t got a ring, I haven’t prepared a speech, I haven’t done it right. But there’s one thing it’s got going for it, and that’s that I mean it. Every word.”

  He seems to not be joking.

  “Will you marry me, Jess?” he repeats. “I’ll get down on one knee if it makes it any better.”

  “That won’t be necessary, Adam. Not when your balls are on show.”

  He gives a spurt of laughter, which dies down as he starts rubbing his forehead. “You haven’t answered me.”

  The urge to cry swells up in me, rising in my throat. “No, I haven’t. I’ve got something to tell you, Adam. I should’ve told you a long time ago. But I’ve hardly told anyone. I’ve not been honest with you about the person I am. Why I couldn’t marry you. And why you really wouldn’t want to anyway.”

  He frowns, clearly lost. “Is there someone else? I know you said it wasn’t Charlie, but is there another man?”

  I shake my head, wishing that it were that simple. That all I had to worry about were the small distractions of romance and relationships that concern everyone else.

  I pull the sheet over my chest and sit up, running my hands through my hair.

  I’m not going to start crying.

  I’m not.

  “This isn’t just about you and me, Adam. This is about you, me, everything.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The thing that Mum has is called Huntington’s disease.”

  He narrows his eyes, trying to work out why I’m bringing this up now.

  “It’s a brain condition that affects her nerves and is fatal. There’s no cure, and there’s no way of even slowing it down.”

  “I’ve heard of it. I don’t know much about it, but it rings a bell.”

  “Okay.” I take a breath that’s supposed to be fortifying but isn’t. “Well, the thing about it is . . . it’s not just what it’s done to my mum, turned her into this wreck of a human being who can’t think straight and can’t eat properly or talk or . . .” I glance up, trying to find the courage to say the words that have haunted me for so long.

  “It’s an inherited condition. And I carry the faulty gene that causes it too
.” I grind my teeth together, buying myself a moment before I have to carry on. “Which means I am going to be exactly like Mum, Adam. It is going to do terrible things to me, physically and mentally. And then it’s going to kill me.”

  I wonder for a moment if the calm understatement with which I’ve told him has meant he’s failed to grasp what I’m saying. He simply looks at me, or looks through me, trying to comprehend what I’ve said.

  “And as I have the mutant gene, there’s a 50 percent chance William will as well.”

  I sit back and let Adam take everything in, watching as the lower half of his face softens until his lips part. The look in his eyes goes beyond shock. It’s not yet anger, or fear, or pity, but there’s a whisper of all those things. It’s disbelief so smothering that he’s yet to let out a breath.

  “There’s a test you can have to find out if you’re going to develop it,” I continue. “I took it, so that’s how I know I’m going to get it. William isn’t eligible for it until he’s eighteen.”

  “But it might be wrong, surely?”

  “It’s not wrong, Adam. The test is definitive. I am going to get Huntington’s disease. I can’t escape it.”

  His head is clearly ablaze with questions, but he starts with one. “So . . . are you sick—now, I mean?”

  “No. My consultant says I have no symptoms, although I’ve learned from experience that you can convince yourself they’re there if you look hard enough. Every time I trip over something, I think there’s a problem with my coordination. Every time I forget a shopping list, or get annoyed with someone, I think, This is it. But my doctor says it’s just anxiety.”

  “Okay.” I can see how his mind is working as he thinks about how to respond. I was just the same when Mum told me about hers. He wants to come up with a solution. He will quickly recognize that this particular problem is unsolvable.