“See, this is where I’m confused.” May sighed. “You don’t live in England, you stay in your house in London for maybe a total of six weeks throughout a year. You don’t live in Southwold at all . . . Frankie does.”
My hands tightened around the steering wheel.
“I’m fully aware of all of that, May.”
“Are you really?” he pressed. “I don’t think you are, main man, because ever since she forgave you for being the world’s biggest dickhead in the diner a few days ago, you’ve wanted to spend every minute of the day with her. I don’t give a fuck what you say, you are not just friends. Even back when you were friends you were never really friends. You both have always just been . . . more.”
He was right. Frankie and I had always been more, we could never be ‘just friends’ with one another. I knew that and deep down she knew that too.
“I don’t know what to tell you, mate.” I sighed. “I thought seeing her again would go differently. I thought maybe I’d see her and feel nothing and that I’d be able to fully move on from her with a clear head but fuck, May. She’s all I can think about, I want her so badly I can’t think straight.”
“Want her how? For sex? As your girl? What?”
“All of the above.” I grunted. “I want her, but I can’t fucking have her. Nothing about our lives has changed. She couldn’t cope with the thought of long distance before we blew up and now with me being famous, and having no privacy, I think any chance of her wanting to have a relationship with me is out of the window.”
“So what the hell are you both doing?” May demanded. “I’ve been watching the pair of you. You’re both gonna get in trouble, man. I can see it happening.”
“Just leave it,” I quipped. “Please, May. We agreed to spend time together and just enjoy one another until we leave on Sunday. I don’t want to think beyond that, I just want to stay in the now with her. I just want this tiny bit of time with her. That’s all.”
My friend sighed deeply.
“This is gonna be bad, you know that . . . right?”
“Probably,” I swallowed. “But I’ll deal with whatever comes my way once I can have these few days with her.”
“But what about when things go back to normal but this time you guys keep in contact? What about when she gets a man?”
Instinctively, my hands clenched around the steering wheel.
“Main man, you can’t even handle the thought of her with someone else . . . what will you do when it actually happens?”
I couldn’t answer him because I didn’t know what I would do. Die, probably.
“She’s still into me,” I said. “I kissed her on the pier the other night and she kissed me back. She was hungry for me, man. She wants me as much as I want her, I know she does.”
“That’s great,” May said, dryly. “But fuck all has changed. She’s still in Southwold and you’re not.”
I remained silent.
“Let’s say both of you realise you’re right for each other and you can both do long distance until Frankie’s situation changes with her mum because the woman is, I hate to say it, dying. Let’s say you get back together . . . d’you really think Frankie can handle being thrust into our lifestyle? The paps, the fans, the white-hot spotlight on her life. After last night and how she reacted, I don’t know if she can hack it, man.”
May was speaking nothing but the truth and the weight of his words was crushing me.
“I know she’s not meant for this life,” I hissed. “She’s a small-town girl, she can’t come on tours and live in America and have a camera in her face whenever she leaves the house. I’m stupid for even thinking she can. I know this, May. I know. I just . . . I just can’t stay away from her.”
“You’ve given up one addiction for another.”
“Don’t ask me to quit on her,” I glanced at him. “I can’t do that.”
“I’m not asking you to, man, I just don’t want to see you back in that pit you were in. You broke my heart when you crawled your way down that hole before. I won’t let you do that to yourself again. I won’t.”
I stopped at a red light and looked at my best mate.
“I never meant to hurt you, or anyone, with the shit I’ve done but I know I did. I found a reason to start my life over and that reason isn’t Frankie, it was me. I got sober for me. If I get hurt over her again, I’ll cope. I won’t go back to that place. I promise, May.”