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

out of the country without his parents’ consent was kidnapping, a crime as serious as child molesting. We’d not be safe, even in those dusty Greek hills.

The day after that, Alex left. I find it hard to describe the day at all. I left for work and as usual I glanced up at his window. He was there, staring down at me. I don’t know what I expected, but not the look he gave me.

We only connected for a couple of seconds. I gave a false cheery wave to him in exactly the same style I’d give to my children waving from upstairs, but his eyes burned into mine and his one palm against the glass felt as though it was warm and safe in my hand.

I spent the day at work sick at heart, my phone idle in my hand more often than not. I skipped lunch and tried to smile when my colleagues accused me of working through to catch up. It was stupid, I reminded myself constantly. There was nothing I could do. Nothing. But I wished to God he’d managed to convince his parents to take him over the weekend, so I could be there at the gate, waving him off as I was sure my family was doing.

The thought of walking back up The Avenue past his house and knowing that he was gone until Christmas pulled at me all day; what had I done before? I couldn’t remember what it had been like not to anticipate turning the corner and seeing his house in the distance. Before he had kissed me, I had hoped for the chance of a glimpse of him, but afterwards, I longed for it. It was a reward he gave me (when he could) for a day’s toil in London. It sliced time for me, the time we had to stay apart, divided it into manageable segments. It will be this long before I see him again. This amount of time. Measured and precious.

I played our last moments over and over. The feeling of his hand in mine. The fear in his face when he recognised Phil. Phil ruining the only chance we had for a last goodbye. All I felt when I remembered Alex and I together was the sick feeling I’d experienced when Phil appeared in the underpass. All I could remember clearly was the fear.

And now, with Phil’s words ringing in my ears—and he was right, damn him—I knew that Alex was gone, not just for the term, but gone forever. The very thought of it made me sick to my stomach, but I forced myself at long last to look into that bleak future that Phil had painted.

I told myself that Alex would be fine. He was adaptable, wasn’t he? I hadn’t liked university much, but then I hadn’t been the kind of young man who would kiss another man “just because” he thought he wanted him to. I had watched, avidly and from the sidelines, young men like Alexander. Young men who lit up the quad, the drama society, the debating society. Alex would find his feet, my clever boy. He would come down at Christmas, full of gossip and scandals, and he’d have so many new friends that he’d find his old life colourless and somehow restrictive. I might not have been much at university, but I could remember the first few vacs. My home life had shrunk somewhat; suddenly my parents couldn’t match up with the parents of my friends, and their views were no longer mine.

I knew, I just knew that Alex would be the same. He’d outgrow The Avenue and its middle-class aspirations as surely as I had outgrown Grover Terrace and its allotments and alleyways. And if I broke his heart—just a little—now, then he’d bounce back. One day he’d be ashamed of his older-man stockbroker lover—or perhaps he’d find what we’d had something to boast about, but not something to return to. Perhaps one day when he had an actor or an author to love. Some young man who would be able to let Alex fly.

I got through that day, and the week. And somehow, the weeks after that churned by one day at a time. Life with Valerie had reached some kind of ententecordiale, a formal alliance full of brittle politeness and over-careful manoeuvres. In spite of my assurances to her, from time to time we’d explode at each other—dried tinder-kegs sparked off with a terse comment—and the same recriminations and accusations would fly. Was I having an affair? “Tell me, Ed—I’d rather know.”

No, she wouldn’t.

Painted into a corner, I chose the coward’s path. I stuck to what I had, what I knew. What choice did I have? Each day, on the train, between calls, day after day, I rehearsed what to say to Alex. I was no actor and there was so much in that speech that was false, and so much that was bitter, undeniable truth. “We have no future.” “What do you want? I can’t leave my family.” “We should never have started this.” Implying that he should never have started it. I had a dozen speeches, and they were all lies.

He came down mid-December. It’s hard to believe it’s not even February yet. I felt like I was holding my breath on the day he came home, and the speeches I had saved up seemed nonsense. We weren’t in danger; of course we weren’t. There was no reason for anyone to find out. A hundred excuses, a hundred rebuttals.

His timing couldn’t have been worse, or better. Val had taken the children out before he called. I’d opened the door when I was on the phone in the hall, during two minutes when I hadn’t been expecting him, hadn’t been thinking of him. His grin was a mile wide and he slid into the hall with a whispered “Hello,” then stood there, leaning against the hall with his lopsided smile—the one that made my heart