This is friends only because I have promised Steve I'll not discuss it with Lauren, and she has the address of this blog.
After I wrote last I went to sleep for a bit, then watched 'Notes on a Scandal', which was good, but had been 'obvioused up' for a mass audience, and lacked the subtlety of the book. Then I went off to bed.
I was woken by the phone. It was Steve, blaming me for Lauren being 'a bit off' with him. I told him it was his own fault for lying to me - I'd only ever told her the truth as I knew it, so it wasn't my fault if I'd thought she was his heroin supplier. He was saying why had I texted her tonight. I said I hadn't, she'd texted me. I reminded him I'd texted him to say, 'tell your girlfriend to stop texting me or she might find out more than you want her to. I've already had to tell her not to give you any money.' This was because I'd promised not to text her any more, but she was the one who'd kept texting me.
After this we carried on talking, and although he was plainly off his head on heroin, we were really getting on, and he finally was telling me the truth. I'd told him how pissed off I'd been about what he said about fancying me when I was gothed up. He said not to be daft, his actual words had been that he fancied the arse of me when I was gothed up, he always fancied me anyway, whatever, even when I'd had the second head (a throat infection that made a neck gland swell up MASSIVELY over New Year!). I asked him why he'd slept with me that Friday. He said he hadn't. I said I didn't know how he could forget it when it had taken 40 minutes, not even counting foreplay. He said, 'was it really that long? I thought it was more like 30?' So you do remember it then? Of course he did. And the answer to the question was the same answer as to why he was jealous about the jockey - he loves me still and always will.
He talked again about how he had no friends here any more, all of them have grown up and got children and partners, or are still going raving, neither of which appeals to him. He loved the times we were together, but a while he'd asked me, 'will we ever live together?', and I'd said no, (because of the dog, and also because I never wanted to think he was with me just for someone to live). I'd not realised this had hurt him so much, but he had obviously been dwelling on it on and off ever since.
About 2am he asked me to come over to his, 'to talk'. So I did, because I was wide-awake by now.
When I got there I could see what a state he was in. He had scored £100 worth of heroin for £60, he boasted. He could barely stand, and was having trouble even lighting his lighters to smoke it. He'd also taken diazepam. I told him he really should stop now or he'd still be wrecked tomorrow when he had to catch the train to the Lakes.
In the end we came back to mine because I had his lighter fuel in my cupboard.
So we sat in the kitchen, him smoking heroin out of the patio doors, me drinking cranberry juice, just talking. He told me he could never stop loving me, but he wanted to have a life in the Lakes where he was making friends. Why couldn't I let my son go to live with his dad, and then I could move there with him, I'd easily find a job (yeah, a bar job, rather than a job I absolutely love), and new friends, after all I only really have Sue here (and my family, and other friends who don't approve of him but have been really kind since we split).
I asked him why he was with Lauren if he felt like this? He said because he knew this was just a dream and I'd never leave my son (too right). He liked her, they got on.
I said to him, 'you wanted to forget we had sex last Friday because you'd already had sex with he rby then hadn't you?' He admitted it. It was because I'd sent the 'last weekedn then split' text, which I'd guessed. He said, 'you don't know where it might go with her, we might fall in love.' I said to him that he admitted they'd known eachother two weeks, I suspected it was longer, roughly coinciding with his return to heroin out of guilt. I said even taking the two weeks as the truth, how had he felt about me after two weeks? 'I loved you' he said. 'That's what I mean,' I said. Who was the sex better with? He just looked at me and said, 'I can't say, because you might tell Lauren.' I laughed at him and said he just had said. He looked at me again, and said, 'but you know anyway. Neither of us have ever had sex like that, unless you were lying.' I told him of course I hadn't been.
So to sum up, I am the love of his life but he is giving me up to go to the Lakes? He said yes, and it killed him, and Lauren helped ease the pain, and it was easy being with her. With me there were things he couldn't do (like heroin, and Special Brew), but Lauren took ketamine, so she wouldn't be able to lecture him. And even if it didn't work out with her, he would still have his new life, and his life with me was often painful because he loves me so much. He couldn't bear to stay here anyway if I wouldn't have him back, because how could he ever see me with someone else and not want to kill them?
'And supposing, just say we did get back together, how would that work with me up there and you here?'
I told him that I didn't want him back, even though I loved him. He had betrayed me, and also I didn't like that he was blaming me and our relationship for stuff in his head. His fantasy of a new life is just that, because he'll still be taking the same old Steve with him wherever he goes. But I want ot support him, and I want it to work out for him because I love him.
By this time it was 4am, so I finally persuaded him to go to bed. He was practically unconscious so I knew it was safe. But we still slept cuddling up to eachother. He said I'd be telling Lauren. I said I wouldn't, and I won't. This isn't about Lauren, I know that now.
Another 'friends only' follows this one.
