Page 217 of Falling for You

‘It just got easier not to talk to her. I felt so guilty for missing so much, for being selfish and running away.’

A stone drops through my body. How could I never have realised this before? Of course Stevie is angry. He came to London to follow his dreams and be young and free, and instead life gave him a hand of cards none of us ever expected.

‘It’s not selfish to live your life, Stevie,’ I say. ‘None of us could ever have known that Mom would get sick.’

He shrugs and sinks into silence as the TV flickers and a man with a thatch of grey hair smacks a gavel down and everyone cheers.

‘So,’ I say, after taking a swig of my beer, ‘I need to talk to you.’

He arches an eyebrow.

‘I’m going home. Back to New York. Things just haven’t worked out for me here, Stevie. I thought I could get Aunt Tell to visit Mom, or call her or something, but she won’t do it. So I have no need to be here any more. I want to go back home and be with Mom.’

He jerks around, outraged. ‘What?You can’t go back, you’ve only just got here!’

‘I know.’

‘What about that girl?’

‘What girl?’ I say spitefully, even though we both know who he’s talking about.

‘Bat Girl.’

I shake my head, swigging my beer. ‘It’s over. There is nothing there.’

‘Right,’ he says slowly, his voice hollow. ‘You really want to go back, then? Are you sure?’

‘I’m sure.’

‘There’s nothing I can do to make you stay?’

I lean back into my seat. ‘No.’

A siren wails past outside, momentarily flashing our living room with streaks of blue and white light. I glance towards the window. Rain hammers against the pane, the murky grey sky dotted with flickers from the Christmas lights that peoplehave put up, unable to wait a second longer to drape their homes and the street in Christmas cheer.

I’d had big plans for Christmas in the flat. I know Stevie has never bothered to decorate it during the years that he’s been here. He’s always told us that he’s been too busy to come home for Christmas, which I’ve never questioned too closely, and he spends Christmas Day with a friend. Whenever I called him from New York and we turned our cameras on, I could see his pale flat in the background. No lights, no decorations, no Christmas tree.

When I decided to move here, I knew I was going to have to transform the flat for us both. I’d fill the fridge with Christmas food. I would get us a huge tree and make novelty pictures of our faces squashed on the top of elves’ bodies to stick on the fridge. I’d get us some form of hideous singing reindeer that sang every time you walked past it and put it outside Stevie’s bedroom door, just to annoy him.

I had so many plans for my life in London.

‘I don’t want you to go, though.’

I take a deep breath. ‘You can come with me if you want.’

I know I’m behaving like a teenager, prodding the bear. We’ve had this conversation a hundred times and it always ends the same.

Stevie looks away. ‘I’ve got to work, you know that.’

‘Just for a weekend?’ I offer. ‘I’m looking at flights – you could take a week off.’

‘No, I can’t, Nate. Sorry.’

This is normally where I’d have to fight the anger I feelwhenever Stevie refuses to see or speak to Mom, but this time it doesn’t come. I’m so tired, it’s like I have nothing left.

‘Okay,’ I say, getting to my feet. ‘Suit yourself.’

‘I don’t know how to deal with all of this, Nate,’ he says, and although he keeps his eyes locked forward, I notice that they’re shining. ‘She’s not who she was any more and I don’t … I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.’