Page 64 of Tribute Act

I sat there for a long while, trying to get my head round what had happened with Mack. It was like I was trapped in a weird sort of dissonance that wouldn’t let me sort through my thoughts—I just kept remembering his words, and then I’d feel sick with resentment and a sharp sadness that hurt in a gut-deep way.

Distantly, I was aware that I was wallowing in self-pity, but I couldn’t seem to shake the feeling off. The thought kept returning to me that I’d been letting myself be put last by everyone for a long time, and the fact that I suspected I might have had a hand in causing that to happen myself didn’t make me feel any better. I had a bad habit of encouraging other people not to worry about me, even as I tried to sort out their problems. But honestly, didn’t it ever occur to anyone else that I might sometimes need help?

But you always insist you don’t . . . an insidious voice at the back of my mind murmured.

I did do that, I knew. It was a habit I’d picked up at my mother’s knee, though whether I’d got it from copying her actions or whether it was written into the genes, I didn’t know.

What I did know was that I’d been pushing myself too hard for too long. I felt so fucking tired of everything suddenly, like I had nothing left to give. Like I was all used up—no good to anyone.

I wanted someone to take care of me for a change.

And then, I remembered that day when Mack had gone off at Derek. Ice-cream-gate. It was pathetic how much it’d meant to me to have him stick up for me like that—not just because he did it, but because he did it without me having to ask. Because he’d noticed how much I was doing and he’d minded on my behalf.

Was that my problem? That I wanted to not have to ask for things? That I wanted people to be thinking about me so much that they not only anticipated my needs, they actually read my mind and knew when I was bullshitting about being fine?

That sounded pretty fucking self-absorbed, but yeah, maybe I did want someone to do that.

Like with ice-cream-gate.

Or like the day Mack offered to come to meet the Fletchers with me.

Or like the time he told me Mum and Derek asked too much of me.

Like all the times he’d pushed me back down onto the couch and insisted on making dinner or fetching me a cup of tea instead of the other way round.

Yeah, so maybe Mack was actually quite good at thinking about me . . .

But was that enough? What was it he’d said to me tonight? “Maybe it’s time I gave something like this—us—a try.”

It wasn’t exactly the love declaration of the year—pretty far from the stuff that dreams were made of—but then I knew Mack found it difficult to say what he felt, ask for what he wanted. He’d told me as much.

And anyway, who was I to judge him for that? Jesus, I might be even worse at asking for things than he was. So why had I felt so angry? Why had his words upset me so much?

I knew the answer, of course, but it was hard to face up to the fact that Mack might not feel quite the same way that I did. That while I was in love with him, he only liked me enough to give being together a try. I already knew from the relationships I’d had before that if that was how Mack felt, he wasn’t going to magically fall spectacularly in love with me later. If our feelings were unequal now, they were probably going to stay that way.

And I didn’t want that.

I didn’t want to be in another relationship like the ones I’d been in half a dozen times before—only this time with the roles reversed. I didn’t want to be his Ford Mondeo—I wanted to be his gleaming two-seater sports car. Not that Mack was the sort of guy who would ever want a sports car, but whatever the equivalent of that was for him. Maybe the best guitar ever made.

I wanted to be his favourite. His best. I wanted him to feel for me what I felt for him. But the fact was, he didn’t.

By now, the cold had penetrated through the layers of my clothing, and I began to shiver.

Slowly, stiffly, I rose and headed for home.

Mack was still up.

When I walked into the living room, he got off the sofa and stepped towards me, then stopped in his tracks.

“You’re back,” he said, somewhat redundantly.

“Yeah.”

“I was getting worried—you were ages and it was so cold tonight . . .”

“Yeah, sorry. I needed to think for a bit.” I pulled off my knit hat and unzipped my jacket.

His eyes, dark and anxious, studied my face. “I was thinking about what I said,” he began, “I wondered if maybe you’d thought again and realised you didn’t really want to give things a go with me after all . . .” He trailed off.