Page 6 of The Long Way Home

I knew Magnolia would have seen that article, knew she would have seen that photo of me sunk back in the chair, eyes blurry and shit. I know she knows my mouth better than anyone else ever has or ever will and I know she’d know from that photo I’d been kissing someone. I also know she’d know that I was fucked up. High as shit. Forget that Parks was on the cover of the magazine too, glistening away on the arm of Rush fucking Evans, forget that it made me sick to my stomach where his hand was on her waist; without even a word from her, I knew in the centre of myself how she would have felt when she saw me like that. I hated the feeling of her being ashamed of me, and I knew she would be. She would have looked at that article, swallowed heavy, then flipped it over and tossed it away. She probably piled it under a bunch of other magazines, trying to bury the truth of what I’d become because she’d be embarrassed to be associated with me when I was like that — and we’re always associated, even when we haven’t spoken in nearly a year.

I stopped taking drugs after that photo ran.

And then the therapy, I’d already been doing that a while — Bridget Parks’s doing, I’d bet my life on it. She’ll deny it though.

Bridge hasn’t spoken to me directly since it all went down, but around June, the day after a particularly damning article about me ran in The Mail, ten prepaid sessions with one of London’s top psychologists arrived in the post with a note that just read Or lose her forever.

Four and a half months of weekly therapy sessions and I can tell you this: I probably have lost her forever.

And a bit of that might always feel like a punch in the gut, but it’s okay, I think.

I fucked up.

For a lot of reasons. Some of them might even be valid, some of them might even wash what I did away, but I still fucked up. No one else made me do what I did.

And I was always going to lose her with the way I was going…

Don’t know why I kept it from her for so long. She was always going to find out, and whenever she did, there was at least always a chance that she would be done with me right then.

That killed me for a bit.

That maybe we were always going to end no matter what…

But when I sort of accepted that — that maybe we were star-crossed lovers, or whatever — you know, fire and powder, dying in our triumph, all that shit — I was more okay than I thought.

I started therapy to get her back, wanting to grow into the kind of person she’d want to be with, be good enough, be the sort of person worthy of a girl like Parks. I definitely wasn’t before and maybe I won’t ever be — even if we’re dead in the ground for good, can’t hurt to try to be good enough anyway.

I put my arm around my girlfriend.

My girlfriend. Weird to say. Fresh to say too.

Only been about a month since that article ran and I just rolled with it. Been hanging out a bit longer than that though. Met at the end of August and started hooking up late September.

Now here we are. Nearly mid-November and I have girlfriend number two at the ripe old age of twenty-five.

“Where’s Taura?” Allison asks Henry brightly.

Henry squashes a smile, pretends he doesn’t notice the stark difference between their interest in Taura Sax and their complete disdain for Jordan.

Mads has always been weird about the girls I hang out with. Allie and Jemima are usually fine, but none of them are fine about Jordan. It’s like they’ve all been possessed by the ghost of my ex-girlfriend who lived in Holland Park and wasn’t very friendly to new people.

“New York, actually.” Henry nods. “Flew out two days ago.”

“Oh.” Dad nods. “What for?”

Henry clocks me, nervous. Licks his bottom lip. “Uh, to bring Magnolia home.”

“What?” Jordan sniffs, amused and confused. “She can’t fly by herself?”

And the look Henry gives her… If I was a better boyfriend, I’d call him out on it. I mean, fuck, if someone ever looked at Parks like that I’d hit them. But Jordan’s not Parks, so I just give my brother a look.

“She didn’t grow up here, Hen.”

“They can be quite mean to her,” Jemima says, taking a sip of wine.

Jordan frowns, confused. “Why?”

“Because she’s beautiful.” Jemima shrugs like she’s not just merrily tossing grenades about.