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“I just…” He shook his head. “The closer I got to finishing, the more I realised that accounting wasn’t for me. What was the point of staying there and qualifying if I knew it wasn’t where I wanted to be, and getting stuck in a job I hated for the rest of my life? Better to cut my losses. And then the apprenticeship came up, and…it would have been nearly impossible to get another one at my age. I had to go for it.”
The kid beside him sneezed again. Jack leant away instinctively.
Mia nodded. “I guess. Listen, I have to go. Let me know how Harry is, yeah? And his last name’s Townsend, by the way. So you know what name to put on the apology gift you’re going to send him.”
“Oh. Yeah, I should probably do that. Maybe a fruit basket?”
Mia gave him a flat look. “Yes, because Harry does so well with fruit.”
Jack grimaced. “You may have a point.” He prodded the backpack. “I'll try to get in and give him this, at least. See you at home later?”
Home. Jack was aware that he was using the term extremely loosely, because home was, for now, Mia’s fold-out futon. Fun fact—when he’d dropped out of uni, he’d also dropped out of the right to stay in university-provided accommodation, and he hadn’t had any luck finding his own place yet. He’d couch surfed for a while, but now he was at Mia’s. The last flat he’d applied for, the potential landlady had hinted heavily that he could get a rent reduction in exchange for certain services, and Jack had backed out of there with all the speed he could muster. Still, he couldn’t pretend he hadn’t at least thought about it for a second—the rental market was brutal—right before he remembered that even if he’d wanted to take her up on her offer, he wasn’t sure he physically could. He was, to quote his dad, “as gay as a maypole.”
There was a reason nobody ever quoted his dad.
“See you,” Mia said, and cast another long look at him before she walked away.
The snotty kid stared at her arse all the way to the door.
“Hey,” Jack said. “That’s my sister.”
The kid shrugged and sneezed into his tissue again.
Oh God.
When Harry finally shuffled out into the waiting room, he looked like shit. He was shirtless, and his hair was sticking up all over the place. His face still contained the last traces of swelling, and even his glasses were askew. He was clutching a piece of paper. Also, he was pink. It was an improvement on the lobster red he’d been when Jack had seen him getting loaded into the back of the ambulance, but he looked sunburned, as though he’d spent a day at the beach and forgotten to reapply his sunscreen.
Guilt bit at Jack as he stood up. He held the backpack out in front of him like a peace offering as he approached. “Harry?”
Harry turned to look at him. The bags under his eyes were as dark as bruises, but his haggard expression lit up a fraction when he saw his backpack. Then he narrowed his eyes when he saw who was holding it.
“I’m really sorry,” Jack said, and handed it over. “Are you, um, are you supposed to leave? You still look sort of…”
Harry raised his eyebrows.
“Pink,” Jack said softly. And sort of lumpy, he didn’t add, because there was such a thing as kicking a man when he was down.
“The doctor said I could go as long as someone’s at home to watch me.” Harry’s voice was quiet. He sounded as tired as he looked. “I need the…” He waved his piece of paper around. “The pharmacy.”
Jack pointed to the sign that pointed to the pharmacy. “It’s that way. Look, if you need anything, I could get it for you?”
Harry dumped the backpack on a chair and unzipped it. He drew out a truly ugly Hawaiian shirt and pulled it on. Jack winced, first at the fact it took Harry three tries to get his left arm in the sleeve, then at the shirt itself. A man with a combover grinned out at him from a hideously bright background of palm trees, boats and what Jack hoped were badly drawn coconuts and not badly drawn hairy balls.
A piece of paper, dislodged by the shirt, fluttered to the floor. Harry blinked down at it, and Jack could almost see the moment his brain went “fuck it.” Jack picked it up for him, glancing at it as he handed it over. Housemate wanted. Newtown.
Harry glared at him and took it, then shoved it back inside his backpack.
“I’m really sorry,” Jack said again.
Harry looked too tired to murder him, but Jack was sure he was thinking about it. He shoved his prescription at Jack instead. “Can you get that for me?”
“Yes.” Jack was pretty sure he owed him whatever the doctors said he needed. God. He hoped it wasn’t highly experimental with a price tag to match.
Harry sagged down into a seat, and Jack went to the pharmacy.
The wait wasn’t long, and the prescription wasn’t for anything Jack had never heard of before. Fresh guilt twisted in his stomach as the pharmacist handed over a twin pack of EpiPens. It was so fucking stupid. He’d only wanted to humiliate Harry the same way he’d humiliated Dad. He hadn’t wanted to hurt him. And he certainly hadn’t wanted to almost kill the guy.
His hands shook when he thought of how close he’d actually come to making the sort of irrevocable mistake that would have changed the entire course of his life, and snuffed Harry’s out right there. It had been a long time since Jack had prayed—hell, it had been a long time since he’d actually believed—but he sent a quick prayer of thanks up God’s way now.
