Junction X Erastes (best motivational books of all time TXT) 📖

how many lies I’d tell my pregnant wife, it seemed. My mind felt frozen-numb. I knew I should be asking questions, I knew I should be on the bed next to her with my arm around her. I should be praising her, reassuring her. There was no one to reassure me.

“Are you having an affair?”

“I…”

She didn’t give me time to answer. “Ed.” She got up and walked across to where I was standing, my back hard against the wardrobe doors. She took hold of my hands. “Ed. You’re my best friend. I’ve seen you in every mood a wife should or could see a husband, but I’ve never seen you like this.” I swallowed but couldn’t speak. “There’s something wrong with you, and I’m frightened.” I wished that she wasn’t so reasonable, that she’d scream at me like some Hollywood movie-wife. “I don’t know you.”

“Please, Val, there’s nothing. I swear.”

She was crying, and I pulled her into my arms. “Just tell me that there’s no one else, that you aren’t sick, that you aren’t going to leave me. Promise me, Ed, and I’ll believe you. That you still want us. All of us.”

My own cowardice made me physically sick, and long after she’d gone to bed, and she’d turned away on her side, I lay awake as my ulcer reminded me what a bastard I really was.

Chapter 22

I know now that she didn’t believe me, but for a while I fooled myself into believing otherwise. The next morning we pushed the inconveniences of the night—things like suspicion and dissent—back into the closets where they belonged, just like English people do. There were other things to discuss now, and other matters to be focussed upon. I tried not to notice how she would touch her stomach when she thought I didn’t notice. We left my joy at the news assumed and unexpressed, and left all announcements and arrangements in her hands.

As time passed, I noticed a look about her, and if I hadn’t had my own secrets I would have suspected her of her own. She would hang up the phone when I walked in a room and I found her once—and only once—going through my wallet. It spoke volumes about what was going on between us that I didn’t even question her about it.

Alex, I clung to. “I can’t breathe,” he said more than once, and I was contrite. “It’s all right,” he’d say. “I like it. I like you like this.” We had no calendar in our haven, but I had one in my head, some terrible doomsday clock worthy of Quatermass. It ticked constantly, cutting away each moment I had left with him.

He was filled with plans and bubbling enthusiasm. “I’m going to live in college, for the first year, anyway. I tried to talk Mum and Dad out of it, because—well—you know, but they insisted, said they can manage with the grant and the scholarship. So you’ll come up. I don’t know if I’ll have to share yet, but,” he leaped astride my stomach, knocking the wind out of me. “Bloody hell, Edward—wouldn’t it be great if I don’t?”

 I don’t remember promising him anything, but maybe I did. It’s the images that remain clear; perhaps I fill in or erase what I don’t want to remember.

Earlier I said that I still wanted to kiss him, to touch him, to fuck him. There, Alex. I can say it now. It’s a craving that I know will never leave. Making love with him never became repetitive or automatic. His body remained a delight, and even though I had touched every inch of him with some part of me, I never felt that I’d explored him. He was like a fresh fall of snow each time.

Then, like all things, the parting came.

Our last day, our last hours were almost silent. We loved slowly, deliberately. That’s the part I want to remember, not the rest of it as we dressed, almost awkwardly, talking about trains, books and calculus. I don’t want even to write it down, but this is what I set out to do. It wouldn’t be fair to dwell on the last time he was in that room with me and miss the rest of it.

We stepped out of the lift—together. We had become complacent and stupid, and anyway it was the last time until Christmas.

Phil was standing in the underpass.

Alex was fast, adaptable, even though we both knew it was useless and I saw the look in his eyes as he turned towards me, panicked. I probably looked no better.

He turned and shook my hand. “Thanks again, Mr. Johnson, I’ll tell Dad what you said about the flat, but I don’t think my aunt would like the lift much.” With a strained smile for me and a nod to Phil, he ran off.

Phil just stood there; neither of us was smiling. I turned and pulled the lift doors open and waited for him to get in.

In the flat, I closed the door and leaned back against it. I was suddenly exhausted, but deep inside I boiled with anger at Phil: for spying on me, for setting this whole thing up, for not being trustworthy, for not being the friend I thought he was. For spoiling everything. All the tension and fear balled themselves together and came out in bitter accusation.

“How dare you!”

“You are joking. How dare I?”

“What? This isn’t anything to do with you! Why are you here? Lurking around outside like some kind of dirty old man…”

“Oh, that’s rich.”

“What?”

“Oh, don’t act coy, Eddie. I think we know who the dirty old man is here.”

I took a step towards him. I wanted to smash his face in. “Just shut up.”

“And what? You’ll explain? How can you explain? How long…” He ran his hand through his hair. “Shit. I called you a cliché, too. A bit of skirt, I thought. And all the while you were…” He looked at me like he was looking at a