Free Gravitate by Jo Duchemin

Sandra had been thoroughly convinced that he would be a perfect lodger; she would not have allowed him to move in othe rwise – only applicant or not. Now I wondered why we ’d both trusted him so easily. He’d lied about being a medical student – was it possible he was lying about other things, too?
    I read and re-read the same paragraph five times before giving up and putting the books back and deciding to get a coffee from the canteen. On my way back down the library’s main staircase, I passed the second floor, where the barely-used compu ter room was positioned. A few years ago, this had been one of the most popular parts of the university, with students queuing to spend an hour on the computers, but since technology had moved on, and mobile phones could often accomplish the same jobs as computers, this r oom had become almost defunct. Now the computer room was only busy when essays and dissertations were due in and studen ts needed to use the printers. On this occasion, there were only two other students working in this room and around twenty computers waiting to be used.
    I hit on an idea, not belie ving I hadn’t tried it before. I would Google ‘Marty Glean’. My heart pounded as I sat down at one of the computers, away from the other students. Part of me felt excited that I might find out what his secret was and the other part felt nervous in case I found someth ing that I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to believe there was anything bad about Marty, but t hings weren’t adding up for me. I tapped my fingers agitatedly on the desk, as I waited for the computer to reach the search engine and the other students looked up mo mentarily from their computers. I stopped tapping and started typing Marty’s name into the computer. The somewhat archaic computer whirred into life and I involuntarily held my breath as I waited for the informat ion to flash up on the screen. What I saw shocked me. There was nothing of interest. Nothing. I’d at least expected to have to wade through Facebook pages of ‘Mart y Glean’ that weren’t my Marty. But ther e was nothing. Just a random list of pages featuring either the word Marty or the word Glean.
    I felt disappo inted as I started to log off. I’d wanted something, anything, that would cast some light on this man that I’d fallen in love with. I was just about to close the computer down when I thought of another possible lead for information on Marty. He’d told me, just that morning, that he wa s working at a cancer hospice. I quickly found the website for the hospice, and looked at the staff page. I was relieved to see that there was a Dr Glean working there but, unlike the rest of the care team, his profile was awaiting a photo and extra information. They must have known som ething about Marty to hire him. I quickly wrote down the address and phone number for the hospice in my notebook, not sure of what I plann ed to do with the information. I checked my phone to see what the time was and realised I would be late for my lecture if I didn’t leave now.
    The lecture passed in a blur, as I spent the whole time tryin g to work out what to do next. A stronger woman would just ask him outright why nobody seemed to know he existed until four weeks ago, but I didn’t want to break out of the spell he had me under yet. I needed to believe that he had his reasons for not telling me the whole truth. I needed to believe that he was a good man. I needed him. I thought about going to the hospice and trying to spy on him, but I was thwarted by the fact I didn’t drive and places like that would have quite strict policies on who would be allowed to gain entry. I decided my best course of action would be to ring up the hospice and see what they would tell me over the phone. I had two possible plans. One would be to ring up as myself and to ask to speak to Marty – after al l, I did live with him. I could say my mobile phone was out of power and I needed to talk to him,