Heli. He’d been the only person to ever call me that. He’d invented the nickname in primary school, and I smiled as I remembered the proud grin he’d worn the first time he used it. Helen Helicopter. Being seven, or so, I’d taken offence and pushed him into the play tyres behind our classroom.
Soon enough, my smile faded, though I did turn around. “You stopped calling.”
He dropped his head, appeared to focus on the tip of his boot making circles on the tiled floor. “I know.”
“I called you. I kept calling. I worried about you…and then your phone stopped working. Next thing, you were this mega famous pop star and became completely inaccessible to me. Believe me, I’m really afraid of sounding like a clinger-on here but, fuck me, Hugo I thought we meant everything to each other.” The words wobbled and broke on my lips and, as soon as I’d said them, I felt like a pathetic and desperate loser, no better than the parasites from our old town chasing their five minutes of fame by selling out stories about him to anyone who’d listen.
“You were,” he said, voice heavy and insistent as he took a step forward. “You are!” His arm reached out and my gaze followed his hand. It rose towards me, hovered by my face, so close that I could smell the damp rain on the cuff of his blazer…and then he dropped it. “It happened so fast. So many demands, so many people, places…I…I…”
I watched his eyes close and his expression crumple. He swallowed hard, chewed his bottom lip. It’d hurt him, too. I wanted to be pleased about that, but all I felt was greater sadness.
“I switched off, Heli. Zoned you out. It was the only way I could keep going. My head…my head it…it couldn’t process all those emotions at the same time. I couldn’t…”
I cut him off by leaping forward and enfolding him in my arms. Just like before. Like I always had whenever he’d felt this way. Hugo didn’t need to explain how his mind worked, not to me. I understood the torment it could put him through, and my arms had always provided a safety net when he couldn’t escape his own head. What hurt the most in that moment, Hugo close, reunited at last, was over the last eight years, I’d never even considered those arms would be the thing he’d need to escape.
He clung to me like he would drop and die if he didn’t. His fingers gripped the back of my shirt, pulled me tightly into his chest. His face buried itself deep into my neck and he breathed heavily into my skin. “I left because I was selfish. I came back because I’m still selfish.”
I wasn’t sure what that meant but, right then, I didn’t care. My fingers combed up through his thick, wet hair and I kissed the top of his head. The dampness of his clothes seeped into mine and, together, we remained embraced in a cold, clammy hug that couldn’t possibly last long enough. “I’ve missed you,” I whispered, inhaling the scent of spring rain, floral cologne, and a smell I recognised instantly as him.
“I’ve missed you, too.” He pulled away and cupped my face, used his thumbs to dry my cheeks. I wasn’t sure if they were damp from his hair or if I’d been crying. Maybe both. When his arms dropped to his sides, my chest swelled with emotion, making my breath stutter.
Are you leaving? I wasn’t brave enough to ask, too afraid of the answer.
“I don’t suppose you’ve got anything I could change into?” he asked, pulling on the lapels of his blazer. “Before the hypothermia sets in.” His smile brought out my own, leaving me safe in the knowledge he planned to stay…for now, at least.
I took him upstairs and showed him to the bathroom while I rummaged for some clothes. I managed to find a T-shirt that’d belonged to an ex, but he’d have to make do with a pair of my trousers. Somehow, I didn’t think he’d mind. Although I wasn’t rocking it at that moment in time, I had great style.
After changing into some pyjamas, I strolled to the bathroom with a selection of clothes draped over my arm. “Hugo?”
I’d expected a reply through the door, not for him to open it and face me dressed only in a towel and steam from the shower. I sucked in a gasp, which I hoped wasn’t obvious. “I, uh, I have this…” I handed him the T-shirt. “But the rest is my stuff. Pyjamas or trousers?” I tried to make eye-contact, really I did, but his body was right there. The last time I’d seen him this exposed, in person at least, his torso had been pale and flat and the only ink marking his skin was the small swallow below his left collarbone. It was still there, only now the little bird sat on a large bed of black and grey roses that extended across his toned chest. Below, what looked like a moonlit ocean had been carved into his abdomen, shades of grey dipping and swirling in and out of the defined muscles. “The, uh, the trousers are the wrong cut for you, but they’ll, uh, fit well enough for lazing around in. I can alter them before you go, you know, if, uh, your others aren’t dry.” I’d turned into a mumbling mess. I tried to disguise the nerves, forced a smile that, I suspected, made me look like my lips were made out of plasticine.