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The Complete Fic Directory
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- Flat Tyres And Palm Prints [Birth]
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- Friends: A Dictionary [Friends]
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- What Did You Say This Time?
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Flat Tyres And Palm Prints [Birth]
We fall down, we roll in the grass and we’ve even held hands every now and again. He’ll jack up the car if we get a flat tyre but he’ll lie for my pride and I’ll laugh and he’ll smile. We get up, we run and we stretch out in the sun and ignore all our other friends. I kissed his girlfriend once. I’d like to lie and say it was all her. But like I said, it’d be a lie. In my defence, I thought they were over. I know, that’s no excuse. He forgave me, like he always does. I screw up sometimes. He didn’t like her that much anyway, he promises. And I certainly haven’t seen her in his life since. I’m still in his life though. Always will be. We go for lunch and we talk about life and we remember what it was like to be in a band and he smiles sadly and stares into his coffee. He goes faraway and distant and quiet and I feel guilty that I don ‘t know him as well as I used to. We go for another drive and the car doesn’t break down this time. I try to talk to him. He stares at the road. I give his shoulder a squeeze. He still stares at the road. It’s a long drive up to Manchester but he does it. And we stand in the middle of a park where no one recognises us and he tells me he’s going. He won’t tell me where or how long. I squeeze his hand. He shrugs and sniffs. I try to raise a laugh so I ask if it’s hay-fever and he shoots me a sideways glance that’s muddled up with a million different emotions. He tells me he’s going to buy another place somewhere. Somewhere in the sunshine where it doesn’t matter if he falls asleep or not. I tell him he’s trying to escape and he doesn’t argue. I just nod. We drive home. I close the door. We turn our keys in the locks, turn our backs and maybe bow our heads a little. His footsteps on the gravel outside as I dig out old photos of us, grainy and tired. Group shots of laughter, me and him arsing around, him dancing, me posing, a couple in the sunlight. Drugs and booze and crazy days all strewn through an album and ending abruptly. The shuffle carries on, just apart not together. I do up my house, he gets on a plane, we both kiss some girls and he sends postcards to his mum whilst I stroll past the park.
We could carry on like this our whole lives but that’s not the way the world works. We don’t keep in touch too well and we lose each other’s numbers. I get a new address and he buys himself that home in the sun and I think for a while he actually manages to sleep at night. But I don’t know for sure, that’s just instinct. We move on, we forget, we don’t really talk and I meet someone and he’s polite to the odd lingering fan. And then Grace is born. Mark phones and Gary leaves a message and then I start to wait. I hide what I’m thinking and he stays put in God-knows-where and for the tiniest of seconds I think perhaps we resent each other. I only feel bad when the postcard drops through my door. We meet up at some cafe and I turn up half an hour late. We order and we small-talk and he rolls his eyes a little, eyes gleaming fiercely. We talk for hours, we creak back in our chairs and every now and again his hands will rest quietly on the table in a gesture not returned, I feel guilty but he doesn’t say a word about it. I put down my mug and tell him to come back with me. His mind seems to churn over for a minute too long and I get up to go. We say our goodbyes and we smile and we hug and his arms are tight and caring as we string out our goodbye, as if we’re waiting for some director to yell out ‘cut’ and put us out of our misery. We get in our cars, which are now too fancy to get flat tyres for no reason, and we drive off and we turn on the radio and I think we’re both pretty sure they’re making sly digs at Gaz so the radio goes off as we sit in ours cars thinking that we’re both pretty stubborn bastards. He turns up on my doorstep about one hour later and we grin sheepishly and we talk seriously and before we know it we’re us again. A little fractured for one second but the memories are like glue and we have them in their thousands. He’s good with Grace – he’s better than I am. We joke and we tease and he holds her for a while. She cries when he leaves and so do I. Different reasons, I’m pretty sure. Or maybe she’s just as attached as me, it’s hard not to be once you’ve held that understanding hand. The lines of his palm are soft and caring. We’ve fallen down together a lot of times, we’ve lost a lot of bets to one another, we’ve broken the odd promise that we shouldn’t have and he’ll nod to admit that he had his part to play and then in seconds that gentle hand is there. For my own sanity I pretend he doesn’t exist but there’s a chasm in my life where we used to stand and talk it all out. But I know the communication’s lost again. He stays a few weeks and we talk and he sleeps and Grace likes him and I tease him and we can both see the space between us getting smaller. But he has to get back and I have to get on and we’re not just blokes messing around anymore, we’re blokes with lives to lead. I stay and he goes and he phones and I miss the calls but it’s a better place to be than it was before Grace was born.
The next time I see him, he’s not all that glad to see me. We stand face to face, we watch each other carefully and neither of us speak, he clenches his jaw and draws a breath, briefly his eyes scan me up and down and with a sigh of disappointment in me he turns around and goes inside. I follow him in through the still-open door and he starts to turn his sofa into my bed. We don’t talk for a while, we move around each other like two shadows and he doesn’t meet my eyes. He hands me a glass of water when I start to feel sick again, I thank him and he only nods, watching with disapproving eyes as I drink. He only talks to me to ask after Grace. I assure him she’s fine, promise that she didn’t hear a word of the argument and then wince as another wave of nausea hits. He nods again and leaves me. He cooks the dinner but I eat mine alone. I don’t question what it is he’s feeding me, I’m just grateful someone took me in. Him of all people. He doesn’t have to do this for me and I feel awful turning up here. We wash the dishes in silence and we listen to the loud ticking of the kitchen clock as we both pretend not to be so painfully aware of one another. There’s a tingle in the air between us, charged and powerful as a million memories bounce back and forth. His hand brushes mine as I hand over a plate and finally he stops and looks at me, his eyes boring into me. We stop and we pause and we study one another. A roughish kindness lingers in his face and for the first time I realise how different he looks, how thoughtfully his eyebrows quirk, how there’s understanding lingering in his gaze. He takes the plate and his touch is lost. We don’t say it but we know I’m sorry, we don’t admit it but we know we’ve both screwed up. We’re nobody’s angels but each other’s. He’s flawed and imperfect but he’s the only real rock I can count on. He spends most of the night on the phone. I don’t know what he says but I’m invited back home the next day and we whisper a goodbye before I get back in my car and drive away. I try to visit one week later but he’s gone. I’m not surprised. He doesn’t come back for a long time after that. We don’t talk much but we start to build bridges again, we know we need each other, we know we were stupid to pretend that turning our backs would suddenly make our lives normal. We can’t be normal.
When he finally comes back we go for a drive. I bring Grace and she doesn’t object, she likes our company. She’s not old enough to understand the banter but we banter anyway and she smiles. We chat a little about life and love and he tells me about things he’s done that I hadn’t even known about and we both feel a stab of guilt about that. He talks about some girl on a beach and I tell him I’m sorry that I haven’t called. He points out that he didn’t call either and with that we keep on driving, further and further out into the countryside until all other cars are far behind us. We don’t get a flat tyre this time but we stop anyway. We sit side by side on the bonnet of the car, we bask in the sunlight and his touch is kind on my shoulder, his smile just a soft. He shields his eyes from the sun a moment as he looks at me and tells me he’ll be going again soon. It’s my turn to clench my jaw and subconsciously I hold onto Grace a little tighter. He draws a breath and takes his hand away. We don’t look up and we don’t make a sound. Wordlessly he lays himself down in the sunlight and I lay down with him. I think it’s the first time he’s slept so well for months so I don’t disturb him as I see his eyelids flicker closed. I enjoy his company whilst it lasts. We drive back to my place when it’s getting dark and he leaves with little ceremony. Grace and me stand outside and watch him drive away. I dig out the photographs again that night, trawling through endless pictures of stupid games in the sun, laddish laughter and strong embraces. And in the back of the album I find a ratty piece of paper, ‘I.O.U a night down the pub’ written out in his neat handwriting. I grab my keys in no time and I drop Grace off on the way, smiling to myself for the whole drive over. He frowns at first but the note makes him laugh and, true to his word, he comes with me. We buy pints and we talk and we joke all night. I know he’ll be gone tomorrow but I don’t ask him where, I simply make sure he’ll be hung-over when he gets there.
When Lola’s born he’s back again, he’s the first of us this time and me and him stand together as he dotes on her. We ignore all the crap that’s gone before, we pretend he never went away, we forget I ever wanted to shut him out and he taps his watch in jest when Gary finally calls. Mark shows up two days late when he’s long gone and I wonder briefly if we’ll ever all be in the same place at the same time again. Especially as he’s vanished once more. I try calling but I think he’s ignoring me. I don’t think it’s anything I’ve done though. He’s just a moody bastard sometimes. If he’s not happy about something or if something doesn’t sit well with him then he refuses to pretend. Maybe there was a time when we’d all paint on smiles but he resents that kind of thing now because of it. I try not to let it bother me. When he gets in touch again it’s through the post, a lengthy letter, handwritten and smudged. He’s not run away, he’s only in London. He’s been talking to Gary, he’s been getting out some stuff we’ve all been sitting on for a long time and he’s sleeping a little bit better. I’m too busy to write back. We live our lives in different circles me and him, we’re close but not close enough and that’s why we never quite manage to bridge that final gap.
It rains when we meet up again. He’s in Manchester, I drive up there. We go for a stroll through the puddles and we reminisce a little, things have changed a lot and he knows I need to go again almost as soon as I’ve arrived. He takes me to his favourite spots, the ones he used to tell me about but never had the time to show me. We laugh and we almost fall down in the rainwater, his shoes scuffing the tarmac as we stumble back to our cars, drunk on much-missed friendship. We twirl our car keys on our fingers, run our hands trough our hair and exchange drawn-out glances, placing too much emphasis on each fleck of silver in the other’s eye. When Grace was born we got closer again but it’s fading already and I’m chasing mist trying to get it back. He’s not sleeping as well anymore, he explains, and I nod sympathetically, a million miles away. I’m not in-tune enough with him these days, I can’t hear the note of pleading in his voice to make it better, find words to make it ok. Instead I mutter platitudes and glance at my watch. We don’t have time to fall down, catch the sunlight, get back up or even go dancing in a crowded street. They’re luxuries for younger friends, closer friends. And then we get that call. At first when we get there, we all just shake our heads, pull faces, close our eyes and sigh. Gary almost left through the window already, so great is his urge to run. Mark looks white and nervous and uncomfortable, he too just wanting to back away. And then there’s him and me, sat side by side not risking the glance. His jaw is clenched and my shoulders are tense and all it would take would be a pin-drop and we’d probably all collapse. He looks across with eyes cut-ice and a stab of something I thought I’d forgotten runs through my heart. It’s like when all this first began, it’s the birth of a new era, the start of tumbling into his gravity all over again. I shake my head, we all shake our heads. But his eyes still flick to me. We sit very still, we lean in very close, we even risk a glance, though neither of us dares hold it. Everything about this life is charged with emotions, Gary and Mark seeming to sit in the same suspended animation just opposite us, Mark’s fingers picking fiercely at the threads on his sleeves. We stand and we leave and we fish our keys from our pockets, he smiles softly as he climbs back into his unassuming world and I speed off down the motorway and we both cross our fingers that this isn’t really an end.
I hardly register the significance of this moment as we sit, all four, talking about it all. We’re open and honest and as close as we ever were. I take the piss out of him and he takes it, laughing softly, head tipped back. Something glitters in his eyes as he looks across at me and I think back to that instinctive embrace we had shared just hours earlier, to the relief that filled every corner of my heart when I saw him walk through that door – the same charming swagger to his walk that has always been there, but a softer edge to the lines of his smile than there used to be. He takes so much stick from us, always has and he is again now. We laugh and he pulls a face and he swots at me as we exchange a sparkling glance. We stretch our legs and we chat and things get pretty serious once the cameras have gone but we all fall back into stitches eventually. He presides over the hilarity with a warm chuckle. I remember we used to do this a lot once. I can tell by the looks on the others’ faces that we’ll do it a lot from now on too. We stand outside alone a while. He’s quiet at first and I’m no louder and we watch the night with thoughtful eyes until finally he promises me he’s not planning on disappearing again. We know where to find each other and we will in little while. He drives back home to visit his family and I get back to work and wait for what the future holds.
We’re not back together but I don’t think you could really say we’re apart as we sit in the bar, waiting for him to make his way over. We are probably a bit too drunk to be choosing what drink to order next let only be making choices that could change our lives. I think that’s why we’re all so ridiculously glad to see him. He looks at us, bewildered and confused, and it slowly starts to dawn on us that he is far too level-headed to go along with this. I don’t know how long it takes to persuade him but we manage it. We beg and we bargain and we rope him into it all over again. Even by the time we’re telling the press he still can’t quite believe he’s agreed to this and I’m pretty sure it’s a miracle that he turns up at all. I don’t have long to dwell on the thought, the next thing I know I’m sobbing my heart out in a corner and his gentle arms wrap around me, folding perfectly around my shoulders. He’s white as a sheet as we sit together in our corner but he still manages to look after me, steady me enough to get on with the rest of the day. We don’t really talk much, we don’t need to. He understands me on a level no one else does and he isn’t far away when I start to crack under the pressure again. He’s tactful through it all and by the time it comes for the serious work to be done, he’s probably the most together of all of us.
We’ve seen a lot of changes, births and weddings and disasters and miracles. We’ve laughed and we’ve cried and yes, we’ve held hands from time to time. I need the support, he needs the assurance. We don’t know what’s going to happen next. I never would have thought it would come around like this, never thought I’d be selling out Wembley with my three best mates at my age. But I think I probably could always have told you he would be there, in some capacity. Even when he disappeared, even when we didn’t speak, even when he disapproved...I knew we would come through. The births, the weddings, the disasters and the miracles are all spun out around us and we just get on with them all. He doesn’t disappear anymore, I don’t sulk as much. We still fall down sometimes but it’s easier to get back up now and in times of crisis we remember that shit happens, it just doesn’t have to be the end of the world every time it does. I let him kiss my girlfriend last week. He laughed and it was only a peck but it was the last thing that needed burying and we’re even now so life goes on. Births, weddings, disasters, miracles – bring on the lot. We can take it, I promise.
We could carry on like this our whole lives but that’s not the way the world works. We don’t keep in touch too well and we lose each other’s numbers. I get a new address and he buys himself that home in the sun and I think for a while he actually manages to sleep at night. But I don’t know for sure, that’s just instinct. We move on, we forget, we don’t really talk and I meet someone and he’s polite to the odd lingering fan. And then Grace is born. Mark phones and Gary leaves a message and then I start to wait. I hide what I’m thinking and he stays put in God-knows-where and for the tiniest of seconds I think perhaps we resent each other. I only feel bad when the postcard drops through my door. We meet up at some cafe and I turn up half an hour late. We order and we small-talk and he rolls his eyes a little, eyes gleaming fiercely. We talk for hours, we creak back in our chairs and every now and again his hands will rest quietly on the table in a gesture not returned, I feel guilty but he doesn’t say a word about it. I put down my mug and tell him to come back with me. His mind seems to churn over for a minute too long and I get up to go. We say our goodbyes and we smile and we hug and his arms are tight and caring as we string out our goodbye, as if we’re waiting for some director to yell out ‘cut’ and put us out of our misery. We get in our cars, which are now too fancy to get flat tyres for no reason, and we drive off and we turn on the radio and I think we’re both pretty sure they’re making sly digs at Gaz so the radio goes off as we sit in ours cars thinking that we’re both pretty stubborn bastards. He turns up on my doorstep about one hour later and we grin sheepishly and we talk seriously and before we know it we’re us again. A little fractured for one second but the memories are like glue and we have them in their thousands. He’s good with Grace – he’s better than I am. We joke and we tease and he holds her for a while. She cries when he leaves and so do I. Different reasons, I’m pretty sure. Or maybe she’s just as attached as me, it’s hard not to be once you’ve held that understanding hand. The lines of his palm are soft and caring. We’ve fallen down together a lot of times, we’ve lost a lot of bets to one another, we’ve broken the odd promise that we shouldn’t have and he’ll nod to admit that he had his part to play and then in seconds that gentle hand is there. For my own sanity I pretend he doesn’t exist but there’s a chasm in my life where we used to stand and talk it all out. But I know the communication’s lost again. He stays a few weeks and we talk and he sleeps and Grace likes him and I tease him and we can both see the space between us getting smaller. But he has to get back and I have to get on and we’re not just blokes messing around anymore, we’re blokes with lives to lead. I stay and he goes and he phones and I miss the calls but it’s a better place to be than it was before Grace was born.
The next time I see him, he’s not all that glad to see me. We stand face to face, we watch each other carefully and neither of us speak, he clenches his jaw and draws a breath, briefly his eyes scan me up and down and with a sigh of disappointment in me he turns around and goes inside. I follow him in through the still-open door and he starts to turn his sofa into my bed. We don’t talk for a while, we move around each other like two shadows and he doesn’t meet my eyes. He hands me a glass of water when I start to feel sick again, I thank him and he only nods, watching with disapproving eyes as I drink. He only talks to me to ask after Grace. I assure him she’s fine, promise that she didn’t hear a word of the argument and then wince as another wave of nausea hits. He nods again and leaves me. He cooks the dinner but I eat mine alone. I don’t question what it is he’s feeding me, I’m just grateful someone took me in. Him of all people. He doesn’t have to do this for me and I feel awful turning up here. We wash the dishes in silence and we listen to the loud ticking of the kitchen clock as we both pretend not to be so painfully aware of one another. There’s a tingle in the air between us, charged and powerful as a million memories bounce back and forth. His hand brushes mine as I hand over a plate and finally he stops and looks at me, his eyes boring into me. We stop and we pause and we study one another. A roughish kindness lingers in his face and for the first time I realise how different he looks, how thoughtfully his eyebrows quirk, how there’s understanding lingering in his gaze. He takes the plate and his touch is lost. We don’t say it but we know I’m sorry, we don’t admit it but we know we’ve both screwed up. We’re nobody’s angels but each other’s. He’s flawed and imperfect but he’s the only real rock I can count on. He spends most of the night on the phone. I don’t know what he says but I’m invited back home the next day and we whisper a goodbye before I get back in my car and drive away. I try to visit one week later but he’s gone. I’m not surprised. He doesn’t come back for a long time after that. We don’t talk much but we start to build bridges again, we know we need each other, we know we were stupid to pretend that turning our backs would suddenly make our lives normal. We can’t be normal.
When he finally comes back we go for a drive. I bring Grace and she doesn’t object, she likes our company. She’s not old enough to understand the banter but we banter anyway and she smiles. We chat a little about life and love and he tells me about things he’s done that I hadn’t even known about and we both feel a stab of guilt about that. He talks about some girl on a beach and I tell him I’m sorry that I haven’t called. He points out that he didn’t call either and with that we keep on driving, further and further out into the countryside until all other cars are far behind us. We don’t get a flat tyre this time but we stop anyway. We sit side by side on the bonnet of the car, we bask in the sunlight and his touch is kind on my shoulder, his smile just a soft. He shields his eyes from the sun a moment as he looks at me and tells me he’ll be going again soon. It’s my turn to clench my jaw and subconsciously I hold onto Grace a little tighter. He draws a breath and takes his hand away. We don’t look up and we don’t make a sound. Wordlessly he lays himself down in the sunlight and I lay down with him. I think it’s the first time he’s slept so well for months so I don’t disturb him as I see his eyelids flicker closed. I enjoy his company whilst it lasts. We drive back to my place when it’s getting dark and he leaves with little ceremony. Grace and me stand outside and watch him drive away. I dig out the photographs again that night, trawling through endless pictures of stupid games in the sun, laddish laughter and strong embraces. And in the back of the album I find a ratty piece of paper, ‘I.O.U a night down the pub’ written out in his neat handwriting. I grab my keys in no time and I drop Grace off on the way, smiling to myself for the whole drive over. He frowns at first but the note makes him laugh and, true to his word, he comes with me. We buy pints and we talk and we joke all night. I know he’ll be gone tomorrow but I don’t ask him where, I simply make sure he’ll be hung-over when he gets there.
When Lola’s born he’s back again, he’s the first of us this time and me and him stand together as he dotes on her. We ignore all the crap that’s gone before, we pretend he never went away, we forget I ever wanted to shut him out and he taps his watch in jest when Gary finally calls. Mark shows up two days late when he’s long gone and I wonder briefly if we’ll ever all be in the same place at the same time again. Especially as he’s vanished once more. I try calling but I think he’s ignoring me. I don’t think it’s anything I’ve done though. He’s just a moody bastard sometimes. If he’s not happy about something or if something doesn’t sit well with him then he refuses to pretend. Maybe there was a time when we’d all paint on smiles but he resents that kind of thing now because of it. I try not to let it bother me. When he gets in touch again it’s through the post, a lengthy letter, handwritten and smudged. He’s not run away, he’s only in London. He’s been talking to Gary, he’s been getting out some stuff we’ve all been sitting on for a long time and he’s sleeping a little bit better. I’m too busy to write back. We live our lives in different circles me and him, we’re close but not close enough and that’s why we never quite manage to bridge that final gap.
It rains when we meet up again. He’s in Manchester, I drive up there. We go for a stroll through the puddles and we reminisce a little, things have changed a lot and he knows I need to go again almost as soon as I’ve arrived. He takes me to his favourite spots, the ones he used to tell me about but never had the time to show me. We laugh and we almost fall down in the rainwater, his shoes scuffing the tarmac as we stumble back to our cars, drunk on much-missed friendship. We twirl our car keys on our fingers, run our hands trough our hair and exchange drawn-out glances, placing too much emphasis on each fleck of silver in the other’s eye. When Grace was born we got closer again but it’s fading already and I’m chasing mist trying to get it back. He’s not sleeping as well anymore, he explains, and I nod sympathetically, a million miles away. I’m not in-tune enough with him these days, I can’t hear the note of pleading in his voice to make it better, find words to make it ok. Instead I mutter platitudes and glance at my watch. We don’t have time to fall down, catch the sunlight, get back up or even go dancing in a crowded street. They’re luxuries for younger friends, closer friends. And then we get that call. At first when we get there, we all just shake our heads, pull faces, close our eyes and sigh. Gary almost left through the window already, so great is his urge to run. Mark looks white and nervous and uncomfortable, he too just wanting to back away. And then there’s him and me, sat side by side not risking the glance. His jaw is clenched and my shoulders are tense and all it would take would be a pin-drop and we’d probably all collapse. He looks across with eyes cut-ice and a stab of something I thought I’d forgotten runs through my heart. It’s like when all this first began, it’s the birth of a new era, the start of tumbling into his gravity all over again. I shake my head, we all shake our heads. But his eyes still flick to me. We sit very still, we lean in very close, we even risk a glance, though neither of us dares hold it. Everything about this life is charged with emotions, Gary and Mark seeming to sit in the same suspended animation just opposite us, Mark’s fingers picking fiercely at the threads on his sleeves. We stand and we leave and we fish our keys from our pockets, he smiles softly as he climbs back into his unassuming world and I speed off down the motorway and we both cross our fingers that this isn’t really an end.
I hardly register the significance of this moment as we sit, all four, talking about it all. We’re open and honest and as close as we ever were. I take the piss out of him and he takes it, laughing softly, head tipped back. Something glitters in his eyes as he looks across at me and I think back to that instinctive embrace we had shared just hours earlier, to the relief that filled every corner of my heart when I saw him walk through that door – the same charming swagger to his walk that has always been there, but a softer edge to the lines of his smile than there used to be. He takes so much stick from us, always has and he is again now. We laugh and he pulls a face and he swots at me as we exchange a sparkling glance. We stretch our legs and we chat and things get pretty serious once the cameras have gone but we all fall back into stitches eventually. He presides over the hilarity with a warm chuckle. I remember we used to do this a lot once. I can tell by the looks on the others’ faces that we’ll do it a lot from now on too. We stand outside alone a while. He’s quiet at first and I’m no louder and we watch the night with thoughtful eyes until finally he promises me he’s not planning on disappearing again. We know where to find each other and we will in little while. He drives back home to visit his family and I get back to work and wait for what the future holds.
We’re not back together but I don’t think you could really say we’re apart as we sit in the bar, waiting for him to make his way over. We are probably a bit too drunk to be choosing what drink to order next let only be making choices that could change our lives. I think that’s why we’re all so ridiculously glad to see him. He looks at us, bewildered and confused, and it slowly starts to dawn on us that he is far too level-headed to go along with this. I don’t know how long it takes to persuade him but we manage it. We beg and we bargain and we rope him into it all over again. Even by the time we’re telling the press he still can’t quite believe he’s agreed to this and I’m pretty sure it’s a miracle that he turns up at all. I don’t have long to dwell on the thought, the next thing I know I’m sobbing my heart out in a corner and his gentle arms wrap around me, folding perfectly around my shoulders. He’s white as a sheet as we sit together in our corner but he still manages to look after me, steady me enough to get on with the rest of the day. We don’t really talk much, we don’t need to. He understands me on a level no one else does and he isn’t far away when I start to crack under the pressure again. He’s tactful through it all and by the time it comes for the serious work to be done, he’s probably the most together of all of us.
We’ve seen a lot of changes, births and weddings and disasters and miracles. We’ve laughed and we’ve cried and yes, we’ve held hands from time to time. I need the support, he needs the assurance. We don’t know what’s going to happen next. I never would have thought it would come around like this, never thought I’d be selling out Wembley with my three best mates at my age. But I think I probably could always have told you he would be there, in some capacity. Even when he disappeared, even when we didn’t speak, even when he disapproved...I knew we would come through. The births, the weddings, the disasters and the miracles are all spun out around us and we just get on with them all. He doesn’t disappear anymore, I don’t sulk as much. We still fall down sometimes but it’s easier to get back up now and in times of crisis we remember that shit happens, it just doesn’t have to be the end of the world every time it does. I let him kiss my girlfriend last week. He laughed and it was only a peck but it was the last thing that needed burying and we’re even now so life goes on. Births, weddings, disasters, miracles – bring on the lot. We can take it, I promise.