Page 48 of Bridget & Gabe Are Not Okay

“You can talk,” Bridget said, turning onto her back and taking another sip of the aforementioned wine. Yep. Tasted just like alcohol. “Can’t promise I’ll have anything to say back.”

“No. We’re both pretty dependable on that front.” Arthur was quiet for longer than Bridget had thought him capable. “You know, I think I’m finally working out that I can still be the person I always was, it just doesn’t have to be so hard. Sometimes I think I’ve changed, but actually I’m the same person, it’s just the way Idealwith things that’s changed. Does that make sense?”

Bridget considered. “No. Doesn’t mean you’re wrong though.”

“That’s because you have perfect control over all of your emotions at all times,” Arthur lamented, “and only twice a year, on special occasions, can you be harried to a frown.”

Beset by cramps, Bridget didn’t answer for a while, and when she did, she did so without thinking. “That’s… not true.”

She didn’t have to look at him to know that Arthur was smiling triumphantly. “I know. That was a trick. Go on then—what’s wrong withyou?”

That was, indeed, the question.

“I don’t know.”

She shifted, and the nice warm pan with the lovely coals was dislodged, and she was overcome with misery for a moment before she heard Arthur making to get up.

“You don’t have to—”

“I’ll crawl there,” he said magnanimously, “to rescue you. It will make me feel excitingly chivalrous and masculine.”

“Okay.”

Bridget didn’t know if he actually crawled. She just waited with her eyes closed, and eventually heard Arthur’s shuffling approach, and then the pan was back on the cot with her. When she opened her eyes, he had only managed to get halfway back across the room, and was sitting on the slightly muddied rug with his back braced against the pole keeping the tent aloft.

“Ican tell you what’s wrong with you, if you like,” he said, out of breath, a sheen of sweat on his neck and brow.

“No thanks.”

“Go on, let me take a stab at it.”

Bridget sighed. “If it’ll make you happy.”

“I think you’re an addict.”

This annoyed Bridget enough that she sat up slightly, propping herself on some pillows. “Oh, this should be good.”

“It shall. Heartbreak has been very revealing for me,” Arthur said loftily. “Plus… having a lot of time to think, last summer, when I was ill. I am a whole new man. You too can begin to understand the depths of your own psyche with this one simple trick—getting beaten almost to death by your father’s men in an alleyway.”

Bridget raised her eyebrows, and Arthur laughed humorlessly.

“Well, at least now IknowI deflect with humor. Anyway, I was supposed to be bullying you. I think…” He steepled his hands, pressing his fingertips to his mouth, appearing to be genuinely deep in thought. “I think you’re chasing something. I think youneedit. Or at least, you think you do. Is it to do with Gwen?”

Bridget shook her head vehemently. “No.”

“Hmmm…What are your parents like?”

“Good,” Bridget said.

Arthur rotated a finger to encourage her to go on, the turning of a tiny wheel. “Not enough, I need more juice.”

“That’s it. They support me. Always have. They’re proud of me—I try to repay the favor.”

“Repay it how?” Arthur said, quick as a lash. “Untold riches?”

“Mmm… No. By making them proud.”

“But they’re proud of you already,” Arthur said, starting toannoy her now. “So, job done. You can lay down your arms and spend the rest of your days in repose.”