Gillian wasn't entirely sure how it had happened, but they had become friends. Good friends too. Not the kind of friends that exchanged a random text twice a year or four lined emails asking how the other was and sharing no details about their own lives. Cal sent long, sometimes random anecdotes over the internet. He text almost every week, if Gillian didn't end up texting him first. And the thing was, Gillian did the same. At first, she had been the one to initiate contact. She had questions and she emailed him fairly frequently with them, asking about his science, inadvertently asking about his life, finding out about his academic history, then little tid-bits of his past. He would call into see her, to ask for her 'help'. After that, he started texting her. And back and forth and such and then he had asked her to go into business with him. They were working out the details. They were working on it.
Sometimes, she really couldn't believe it.
They were still getting closer; it probably helped that they were spending so much time together. But here she was staring at the message on her phone in her hand feeling like she had to do something. Of course she had to do something. She couldn't not do something. He was her friend and he had reached out, confessed. And she was a psychologist, she was practically hard wired to at least try and help. So she reached for her car keys.
She wasn't entirely sure where he'd go. 'Drinking in a pub' didn't leave a lot of clues (and if she asked him where she suspected he wouldn't tell her exactly where anyway), but she had got to know him and there were a few places they'd gone for a drink for before. Or had lunch to discuss business. So she tried the place closest to home, his home, but she struck out. She worked her way further across the city and found him at the third place she tried; an English pub. Too obvious.
She spotted him at the bar as she came him, sitting alone, a glass in front of him, his head resting in his hand. The back of his shirt was untucked and as she got closer she could see it was badly rumpled, like the day had been hard on it, on him. A wash of sympathy came over Gillian as she stood at his side. Sometimes, Cal seemed huge, larger than life, but she was starting to see, that sometimes, he was also very small, vulnerable.
"What are you drinking?"
He startled so hard he just about fell off his bar stool. He looked up at her, right hand gripping the bar so tightly his fingers were losing blood. His pale blue eyes were shocked, but swimming; so he'd already drowned his sorrows pretty thoroughly already. "What are you doin' here?" He muttered.
Gillian signalled the bar tender. "Can I get one of those?" She pointed to his drink, her tone and demeanour polite. The bar tender nodded and placed a napkin down in front of her. She took the seat next to Cal, crossing her ankles to keep firm and turned her head to look at him. He had re-adopted his slouch and stared up at her with bleary eyes; eyes that still studied her. She didn't say anything, waiting for him to maybe start. He straightened up a little, reached for his drink and downed it in a tight mouthful.
"Again," he told the bar tender when he approached with Gillian's drink. She picked it up her own, swallowed it back and asked for another too. The bourbon burned her throat and warmed her all the way down to her toes. She felt a slight sweat break out on her chest and was glad for the button up shirt she was wearing so no one would notice. She turned her head to look at Cal again and found a stunned surprise expression there. She didn't respond to that, just felt the way her skin prickled and she was too warm and oh, damn, she hadn't eaten, so that generous nip was going to go straight to her head. She promised herself she wouldn't drive home, no matter how sober she thought she might feel.
Their drinks arrived together, but this time Cal toyed with his glass. Gillian wondered how long he had been here. She hadn't had the chance to ask someone in her haste to get to his side. She wanted to push him to talk, but Cal would only resist that; he got around to talking about things in his own time and she had already learnt not to insist.
Gillian figured the alcohol had reached her head because she had the sudden urge to hug him. She had the urge to hug him and consol him and sway all over him and make him tell her what was wrong. She wanted to make whatever was bothering him better. She wanted to fix. She should order some food. She had come straight from her office and hadn't eaten since lunch. She could smell cigarettes. She knew Cal used to smoke. He told her things like that as if it were casual conversation, instead of slowly baring his soul.
"My day was completely shit ass. How was yours?" Cal spoke up.
"It was fine," Gillian answered and leapt all over the opening. "I'm sorry your day was so bad. Wanna tell me about it?"
"No," Cal grouched. He looked over at her. "You don't have to sit here bein' all..." He waved a hand as if he couldn't find the words, or maybe just didn't have the right ones to describe how they were. They were friends. Good friends and tentative business partners. But did that warrant her babysitting him? Probably not. Maybe? Was she babysitting? Or was she there because she wanted to be? Wanted to be.
Gillian reached out a hand to place on his arm. He looked down at it for a second, then back up to the coloured bottles lining the bar. "I want to hear about your day," she told him firmly.
Cal looked over at her again, his blue eyes intense, a borderline glare. "And if I don't feel much like talkin'?"
"Then we can just sit here," Gillian withdrew her hand. She raised her glass to him, like a toast. "And just drink for a bit."
"And then?" Cal challenged.
"And then I'm going to put you in a cab and send you home. And then I'm going to get home."
Cal weighed up her words. "All right luv." His phone started to ring and it startled them both. Gillian saw the bartender eye them up from the corner. Cal took a mouthful of bourbon before pulling his phone from the inside pocket of his sports coat. He looked at the screen, declined the call, and put the phone back.
"Who was that?" Gillian asked before she realised she was prying again and could stop it.
"Zoe," Cal answered.
"She's probably wondering where you are," Gillian supplied.
"Probably," Cal agreed glumly.
"Everything ok there?" Gillian pressed.
Cal gave a shrug. Gillian gave herself a frown. Cal gave a great sigh. "Fuck Gillian why does it have to be so fuckin' hard sometimes?" He turned to her with a wince.
"That's life," Gillian tried. "Life is hard."
Cal gave a short 'hmph'. "Love is hard."
"That too," Gillian agreed, thinking about her own husband and the fights they kept having over every little thing it seemed. Even when she tried really hard to not let him get under her skin, or not let all those nuances get under her skin, they did anyway and she would snap eventually. And he'd yell and then she'd yell and then she'd get upset and he'd be sleeping on the couch and they were trying to make a baby. Trying so hard. She took a large mouthful of her bourbon, realising she felt pretty shit herself now.
"What's your problem then?"
Gillian looked over at him. His blue eyes were intense in another way now, like a hawk with a meek little mouse in its sights and Gillian caved. "I can't get pregnant."
Cal glared at her. "Are you tryin' hard enough?"
Gillian gave him a disgusted expression. "Yes," she grumped. Well... No, yes, of course they were trying hard enough. What did he mean by that? Making a baby was complicated. Didn't he know that? Typical guy.
"How long you been tryin'?"
"A year," Gillian admitted. Oh wow, had it been that long?
"Maybe there's somethin' wrong with Alec's swimma's?"
Gillian cringed a little. Alec would be so unimpressed with her for having this conversation with Cal, with anyone, but... She turned to look at her friend. He was gazing at her steadily, his lids half closed, like he was asleep, and she just wanted to hug him. She just wanted to hug him. He looked like a teddy bear, all harmless and soft. She wanted him to hug her. "Maybe," she admitted. She realised belatedly he immediately thought there was something wrong with Alec, that the blame lay with him, not her.
Cal gave a purposeful shrug. "Zoe thinks what we're doin' is a giant waste of time."
"What we're doing?" Gillian asked, confused. Did he mean, now? Or...
"The Group," Cal clarified.
Gillian was not at all surprised to hear that. "Time?" She queried anyway.
"Time," Cal agreed. "Too much time tryin' to work on the Group and not enough time doin' somethin' else that could be..." He drifted off. "I don't actually know what her argument is."
"She didn't tell you?"
"No, it's just that I wasn't listenin'."
Gillian laughed and Cal gave her a slight grin. "Maybe you should listen," Gillian suggested.
"That's what Zoe tells me too."
Gillian laughed again and Cal's grin became a little more defined. He sipped his bourbon and shifted on his bar stool, so his body was turned towards her almost completely, a knee brushed against her thigh and his head came to rest on his upturned hand again. He studied her. "You eva feel like packin' it in?"
"The Group?" Gillian queried with surprise. "You want to give up already?"
Cal waved a hand in dismissal. "Not that. I mean, just... all of it. You eva get to the point where you just... don't want any of it anymore?"
Not sure what he was asking, Gillian thought again about fighting with her husband, trying for a baby, the mortgage on the house, essentially working two jobs to keep an income while she also worked with Cal on launching the Lightman Group, how much Alec fought her on starting the business in the first place, how hard she had had to argue, convince him; he was a money worrier. And if she could just pack it all in and escape to Italy for a few months? Yeah that sounded pretty good about now.
"Want to run away with me?" Gillian asked lightly.
"Love to."
"Hm," Gillian agreed warmly.
"Can't," Cal added.
"Hm," Gillian agreed again, her tone tighter.
They were silent for a moment. Gillian was aware of Cal's eyes on her. She lifted her drink again, halving the contents. She almost forgot she was in a bar. She couldn't really hear the other patrons, and she certainly couldn't see them. Everything it seemed, boiled down to Cal these days. Alec threw that at her once in the heat of a really good argument and she had been so stunned by the stupid audacity she hadn't responded. But maybe he was right somehow?
"Come on Cal," Gillian looked over at him. "Drink your drink. I'll take you home."
"No offense," Cal objected immediately. "But you've been drinkin'."
Gillian gave him a rueful expression. "Then I shall call for a ride." She finished her drink and swung around on her bar stool, her leg knocking into his again. She jumped down to the ground, finding herself to be a lot steadier than she thought she was going to be, even on heels, and dug through her purse for her phone. She went outside into the cool evening air and called her husband.
PJ
Cal stumbled out after Gillian a beat later and he found her staring up at the sky. He stopped at her shoulder and looked up and he swore he could feel the earth tilting on its axis. "What are we lookin' at?" He stage whispered.
Gillian sighed. "I don't know." She sounded far too sober.
"How come you're not pissed right now?"
Gillian turned her head to him, studied him in that quietly measured way he actually enjoyed; he did not feel like he was being judged when she looked at him like that. It felt like she was really seeing him. "You probably drank more than I did."
"Yeah but law of averages and such and you're a woman."
Gillian gave a light laugh, musical against the night. She shook her head and moved a few steps away so their shoulders were no longer touching every so often. "Still had a lot less to drink than you."
Cal gave a shrug, felt it ripple through him several times like water at a lake's edge. Traffic passed intermittently and he wasn't sure how long the silence went on but Gillian was close to him again and she was touching his wrist. "Cal?" She asked gently. "Are you really ok?"
"Yeah I think so."
"And so you were drinking in a bar alone because?"
"I had a bad day."
Gillian paused and Cal could just about feel her vibrate with wanting to say more. She lasted five seconds before adding, "That's not really a constructive way to cope with a bad day."
"Yeah I know luv," Cal pulled his wrist free from her fingers. He rubbed his eyes with his hand and looked at her again. She was slightly fuzzy. "Combination of quite a few things is all."
"Want to talk about it?" She asked again.
Cal shook his head, felt a bit like he might fall down if his brain didn't stop swimming in his skull. "I'll tell you about it tomorrow."
They had a business lunch scheduled. Gillian was still working at her regular job but she was pulling some crazy hours with Cal too, to keep up her half of the Group. The Group that was a shoe box and his kitchen table right now. It all felt too hard, too much... Just everything was so shitty at the moment. Emily was his shining light and Gillian his shining knight. Zoe kept saying she would help him but she was always so damn busy and he felt sometimes like he was drowning and he couldn't focus.
"Are we doin' the right thing?"
"Right now?"
Cal waved his hand at her in frustration. "The Group."
"Yes Cal. I've told you. You just need to be patient. It's early days and it will take some time before..."
Cal waved the hand once more to cut her off and she fell silent. He looked over at her again and she was watching him, the remnants of earnest still on her face. When she had text to ask what he was doing and he had responded that he was at a pub, the last thing he expected was for her to show up. But he had felt better for her company, and he was at least going home with most of the money still in his wallet and standing up right. Sometimes, he had a hard time with coping.
Headlights pulled into the parking area and Gillian's attention moved from Cal to the vehicle. She gave a smile and stepped forward. "Come on," she coaxed. "Don't make me drag you."
Cal followed after her easily enough but the door handle seemed to move out of the way of his hand and the seatbelt was complicated. Alec gave him a polite hello as he got in and Cal grunted a response.
They drove mostly in silence. Gillian gave directions to Cal's house and held her husband's hand. Cal slumped in the back, feeling his head throb. But surely he couldn't be starting his hang over already? Perhaps it was just the pressure of the day catching up with him.
Alec pulled up alongside the house and put the car into park. He cut the engine and Gillian told him she'd just be a minute. So she was going to walk him to the door. Cal released his seatbelt and fumbled with the door handle again. Gillian was waiting for him on the sidewalk and he glanced at her as he let the car door slam shut, realising too late that he forgot to thank Alec for the ride home. Cal moved purposefully towards his home but Gillian followed along and he eventually slowed and they stood in the middle of the path to the front door.
"So you're ok?" Gillian asked.
"Yep," Cal nodded.
"Ok," Gillian said softly and Cal could tell that she so badly wanted for him to talk to her, to tell her whatever it was that was bothering him. Zoe would ask and when he didn't answer she would just get mad and leave him alone. But Gillian niggled. She niggled and nagged and honestly? Cal wanted to tell her things about him. And he just didn't understand that.
"It's the anniversary of my mutha's death," he blurted.
Gillian's surprise was clear even though Cal only had street lighting by which to see it. Then she was immediately contrite. "I'm sorry," she murmured. Her hand came to his upper arm, gave him a little rub. It was meant to be comforting but Cal still shrugged out of it.
"Was a long time ago," he muttered. Gillian didn't pry further, she didn't coddle him, she didn't try to tell him it would be ok. She just stepped forward and hugged him. She put her arms around his shoulders and gave a squeeze and then stepped back. Her face was soft and gentle, borderline patronising, but calm and sympathetic and Cal felt the urge to hug her back. Too late she had already moved away.
Gillian didn't tell him to get a good night's sleep or to rest or anything else that was usual and annoying. She told him instead that she would see him tomorrow. "Right?"
"Right," Cal agreed, confounded. She didn't pry but he wanted her to. He didn't know how else to tell her about his mother without her prompting him. "Night."
"Goodnight," Gillian offered. Her hand rubbed at his arm in farewell and she turned to walk away. Cal listened to her heels on the path for a moment before heading for the door. It opened before he got there and Zoe was a shadow in the light.
"I've been trying to call you," she said.
"Yeah I know. Sorry," Cal started. Then he drew a blank. What else was he going to say? I was avoiding you on purpose? "Just you know," he stepped up into the light, saw her face was careful. "Today," he supplied.
Zoe gave a nod and stepped back to let him in. "I know," she said and shut the door behind him. But this was the first year he hadn't come home completely plastered.
PJ
"Is Cal ok?" Alec asked as Gillian put her seatbelt back on.
"Yeah I think so. It was just one of those days, you know?"
"Yeah, sure," Alec agreed. "Everyone has those."
"Mm," Gillian agreed, reaching for his hand again. Some more than others, Alec should know.
"So did he call you?"
"No. I asked where he was."
Alec was silent for a moment. "And so you went to him?"
"Yeah. I'm glad I did. He was really flat."
Alec was silent again for a longer moment. "You're a good person Gill."
Gillian smiled.
PJ
Cal was late for their lunch date, but Gillian didn't mind too much because she just sat and answered emails while she waited. He slouched into the chair opposite her without a greeting, looking a little worse for wear, his eyes tired and wary.
"Hi," Gillian greeted him with a smile, dialled down on the enthusiasm.
"You orda-ed?"
"No I was waiting for you."
Cal gave a nod, raised his hand to signal a waiter and reached for a menu. He quickly scanned it and then closed it again. The waiter approached and they ordered. Gillian asked for a jug of water. She felt uneasy. Cal wasn't normally like this, shut off around her, but she suspected she would get used to it. Whatever it was that was bothering him, it went deep and it would come up again. That didn't matter to her too much. Everyone had their layers. She didn't bother asking if he was ok, or how he'd slept, or any of those other polite social niceties. She did think about asking how his head was but refrained from that too. Sometimes, it could all just be too much. Instead, she pulled a folder from her bag and put it down on the table in front of her, preparing to at least carry on with their business lunch at some point.
"She killed herself," Cal spoke, his voice low.
"What?" Gillian looked up alarmed. Her heart pounded suddenly.
"My mutha," Cal went on, his face dead neutral, his tone tight. He cleared his throat. "When I was a boy."
Gillian felt her lower jaw want to drop open a little and she resisted. His blue eyes bored into hers, challenging her with the information, but fragile enough to wait out her response instead of changing the subject. "I'm sorry," Gillian started. She reached over the table to put her hand over his. He didn't pull away. At least, not right away. After a moment he did, and shifted in his seat, straightening up, then slouching down again.
"She had troubles," he added.
Gillian nodded. She searched for the right thing to say but she kept drawing a blank. He must have heard it all before, a million times over and she wanted to offer something new; she wanted to be someone different for him.
"Thanks for comin' to get me last night," Cal went on after a moment's silence. He didn't quite meet her eye and she realised he was a little ashamed. "Not my finest moment."
"You were quite tame, trust me," Gillian said without thinking.
Cal met her eye and smiled slightly. "You've not seen me the otha years then."
Gillian tempted a smile of her own, taking her cue from him. "Next year I'll try to get to you before you get to the bar then."
Cal's smile slowly went a little wider, but it didn't quite meet his eyes. He carried a world of hurt with him. She wondered just how young he had been when his mother died. Any child would have been horrifically scarred by something like that. "We'll see," Cal said lightly.
Gillian smirked a little. "Challenge accepted." And then she opened the file in front of her.