The Cupid Touch

The Cupid Touch Chapter 31 - Today is the First Day of the Rest of Your Strife

It wasn't a number I recognised. I frowned. Was he being clever? Had he borrowed a phone in order to get through and tell me how sorry he was? How much I'd meant to him?

But I didn't think he had. I knew how it was when my exes got gripped by the touch. They only half-bothered even to contact me, and the rest of the time they were lost in adoration. I was positive he wouldn't have had time for thinking through any kind of complex plan, and that he wouldn't care enough any more.

Don't think about it. Don't think.

I answered the call with my heart pounding even so.

"Helena, it's Brandon."

"Errr... hi. How did you...?"

"Sorry for calling," he said quickly, awkwardly. "Joe messaged me your number after he told Axel to leave. He said I should get in touch with you instead of his brother if I wanted to know what was going on."

Thanks, Joe-Moe, I thought. Managing to cause me trouble after you've gone.

Unfortunately, pretending to be angry at him didn't help the pain at hearing his name, and the want to have him there with me.

"Look, I'm worried about Axel," Brandon went on, when I couldn't find anything to say. "I talked to him, and... with all the nova stuff going on, I needed him here. He said he was coming back, and then I - I haven't heard from him and he won't answer his phone. Do you know what's going on?"

I remembered, for the first time, some of my conversation with Jeroniri during that day I wanted to forget. Axel had come back for Brandon. And then I thought, Asshole.

"You nearly got him killed," I said. "Do you realise that? Joe sent him away for a reason. He was in danger. And because you told him you needed him, he came back and got picked up by the people who were looking for him and his brother."

"I don't know anything about anyone looking for him," he said, stiffly, immediately offended. "I just told him how I felt. It was up to him to choose."

I wanted to say more, but I realised that he was going to find out that he'd lost Axel pretty soon. It was enough punishment, even if he hadn't treated him well.

I sighed. "True, but he's impressionable. It's worth being careful with people like him."

"I will be," Brandon said, quickly. "I know that now."

I knew it wasn't up to me to tell him that his boyfriend had fallen for a drug baron and was now living happily ever after with him. So partly to change the subject, I asked, "What's happened with the supernova, then?"

"You haven't heard?" he asked, with obvious excitement. "Eta Carinae went fully nova, but extraordinarily the stars both survived. Major and minor alike. So we now have a new binary system, with one giant red dwarf which is now almost touching the smaller white dwarf. It's stable, and it's fascinating."

I couldn't tell you why, but where everything else had hurt me but let me hold it together, that broke me utterly. I was already crying as I said, "Good for them," and then hung up, unable to even say goodbye.

I didn't know where to go or what to do. There was nothing I could think of that could take away this feeling. I would fly home tomorrow on my adjusted flights, and I knew I would carry it with me.

I realised I'd been walking round and round a tree as I talked to Brandon, leaving an ever deeper trail of footprints in a trench around its base.

I need to go home, I thought, and turned back towards the gates.

My eyes were full of tears and pretty useless, but even I could see the figure who was walking rapidly down my solitary trail of footprints, leaving a second, larger set alongside them.