Trust (London Love #5)

“I’m a massive Dieter fan.”

I snorted. She laughed.

“I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Get some sleep. Let me email you all those dull words, and then we’ll take it from there. One day at a time.”

“Okay,” I said, though all I wanted to do was disappear. Forever.

“Gray?”

God, she was annoying.

“Meant to say, I saw some of your scenes today. Spoke to the director. I think people will like what they see. I did.”

At last, she hung up—no goodbye. Michelle wasn’t the kind of person to waste her words on goodbyes.

Neither was I, it seemed, because I’d said goodbye to everything without even opening my mouth. Everything was gone. My whole life. The last ten years had been like this. Pretty words, pretty promises that meant nothing. I wrote those down in my lyrics document. Added a few ideas. I still had words in me, but they were words that would never be heard. I’d never sing them. I didn’t see how I could.

What I’d figured out over the past week was that I was really very, very stupid. I may have been in this business for almost ten years, but I truly and honestly had no idea about anything. I didn’t understand most of what Musa was on about in his long daily rants in our now slimmed down group chat. I didn’t understand what Lee was getting out of touring the media scene slagging me off at every opportunity. I had no clue about this lawsuit that I was about to plunge a huge chunk of my savings into, or the terminology in the constant stream of documents being securely emailed my way. I certainly didn’t understand myself.

Which made me more frightened than I’d ever been in my life.

I regretted a lot of things, but mostly I regretted not paying attention. Everyone else seemed to understand the clauses and policies being thrown around in the daily meetings we’d started to have online. I mostly sat there in silence while my head felt like it was about to explode.

And I seemed to get ALL the emails. I stared at the attached documents with no concept of what I was supposed to do with them. I tried to read them. I even showed them to my dad, who patted my arm and muttered something about young people and technology.

The worst thing of all?

I missed Reuben.

So much.

I was rudely dragged back to reality by Mum, back from shopping and aggressively tugging the curtains open, filling the room with unbearably bright light. Picking my half-drunk cup of tea off the floor, she perched on the edge of the sofa. Well, on my leg.

“Ouch!”

“Oh, stop it, Graham. Enough.”

“What?”

“I need to ask some questions here so I know what’s going on.”

I grunted. More questions. I was sick of questions.

“Are you taking your sleeping pills? The ones I got you?”

I said nothing. What pills?

“Are you on PrEP? And are you taking your anxiety medications regularly?”

I grimaced, my stomach filling with unease.

“Thought so. Dr Williams is on his way up from the surgery to sort out your prescriptions, because this is more than you can manage on your own. And you’re obviously not taking in anything I’m telling you. You haven’t had a full night’s sleep since you got here. Neither have your dad and I, since you’re up wandering around in the middle of the night, banging into things.”

“Mum.” I sighed, trying to sit myself up. She wasn’t wrong. I’d woken up in the kitchen last night.

“You’re depressed. You haven’t left the house since you got here. Won’t even step out into the back garden. Dad and I are worried. I know you’re sexually active, so you need to look after yourself, and you promised me that you would keep up with the PrEP when you came up last time. I wasn’t a nurse for forty years to sit here and watch you destroy your life. You’re young. You should have more self-respect than to lounge around in your parents’ front room. Dad hasn’t been able to watch his programmes for weeks. It’s not good enough.”

She sighed. I sighed too.