Diamonds, Loose: Part Four
The next day, we’re sitting around, talking shit over lunch.
“No, no,” Gabe speaks over everyone, holding up a hand to try and silence the voices. “Seriously, okay, I got a good one. Bilvy, you need to shut up.”
“Sorry,” William smirks, tilting his head towards Gabe across the table. “Do go on.”
“I have never... done anything with a girl in a car.”
Pete, Jon, Spence and myself all smile, laugh a little, and reach out for our cans, bringing them up for a collective swig. We’re playing the I Have Never game to pass the time, and it’s really not as fun when the drink’s non-alcoholic. The soda we’re using is this cheap shit that the vending machines stock, renowned for its disgusting taste; anyone who can prove they can down a whole can is immediately crowned King of Bishop Gorman.
“Really?” Pete directs to Gabe, looking smug. “Never?"
“Does it surprise you that I have some standards? Dude, a car.”
“Oh, okay,” Jon chimes in, “so you’re saying if Jessica Alba walked in right here, right now, and proclaimed, ‘Gabriel Saporta, please take me now with your Spanish appendage in the backseat of your car,’ you’d say no? Because of your standards?”
Wrinkling his nose, Gabe replies, “Well, Jessica Alba wouldn’t convince me otherwise.”
“Man.” Pete shakes his head. “How are you not gay?”
“I’m just saying, she’s so... generic.”
“You have a fucking Megan Fox poster on your wall and you’re preaching about generic, oh my g-“
“Hey guys!” Jac interrupts, materialising out of nowhere, and the conversation wisely stops. I’m beginning to lose interest, I’ll admit that, but today she does look pretty good standing beside my seat, the make-up toned down and not so obvious but still enough to make me automatically double-take. “Ry,” she addresses me, and her voice is lowered, accompanied by sultry eyes. She doesn’t say anything else, I feel like I should be catching onto something but I’m coming up blank.
“Jac,” I reply robotically, and she rolls her eyes, grabs my blazer and yanks me out of my seat.
“Come on,” she mutters, a little like she’s pissed off but not, but different, and it only really clicks when she drags me into the nearest empty classroom and shuts the door behind us, flashing me a wicked grin and pulling me into a kiss. Several kisses. Oh. “God, feel like I haven’t been alone with you in forever,” she mumbles, lips to my neck, and I don’t say anything because I hadn’t noticed.
“Jac, someone’s gonna walk in any time,” I grit out, but she ignores me. She’s all over me, teeth and lips and tongue and hands everywhere so I can’t keep track, and I let her, trying not to be too stiff, too unresponsive. I don’t know how much time passes, but it passes in a tense haze of avoidance and indiscretions, of trying. By the time she’s got me pushed up against a teacher’s desk, hard edge digging into the small of my back as my hands fly out and scatter papers and knock things over in a bid to try and stabilise myself, I feel lost, and it’s almost a relief when I’m proved right.
The door’s a creaky one, and the sound it makes when an unknown someone enters the room, light footsteps, cuts through the air and overrides Jac’s harsh little breaths against my neck. Her hand is creeping inside my school shirt, and all I can see is her. She pauses, breath stopping, and I crane my neck to look over her shoulder, in the direction of the door.
“Brendon,” I gasp out, knees buckling a little, and he’s standing in the door looking mortified. Jac makes a small, unamused grumbly noise and giggles quietly, pressing her face into my neck. I stutter out something unidentifiable, which is good because it was probably complete bullshit anyway; I’m somehow feeling like I need to explain myself, and I don’t know where that’s come from.
“O-oh God,” he stammers, all the usual confidence or faux-confidence draining out of him in favour of a quiet humiliation. He’s staring. Jac’s hand is still stroking at the skin under my shirt. “S-sorry, sorry, I shouldn’t have just--“ He lowers his eyes, ducking his head as his face flushes a bright scarlet, all the way to the tips of his ears. The door is minutely shaking where he’s gripping the handle so tightly, white knuckles.
Jac turns around to see him, her eyebrows raised, probably wondering what he’s still doing there. Which, hey, good point, why is he still there? “God,” I spit out, suddenly angry, “what the fuck, Urie, why’re you always fucking everywhere?” Jac looks at me warily, and I watch him flinch as I shout, “It’s always you! All the goddamn time!”
“Hey, calm down,” Jac murmurs, her hand closing around my wrist, “he didn’t know we’d be...” She trails off as I shake her hand away, pushing myself from the desk and taking a single step forward. When I fix Brendon with the sharpest stare I can muster, he cracks easily, hanging his head.
“Sorry,” he says, “sorry, sorry, uh,” meek, timid. Different. Without another word or a glance in my direction, he leaves, shoulders slumped as he closes the door properly after himself.
“Well. That was interesting,” Jac comments, winding herself back around me, and I just nod and let her.
* * *
“Hey, earth to Ryan.” Jac waves her hand in front of my face and I jerk back into the here and the now, blinking rapidly at her and her curious smirk. “What were you thinkin’ about?” she asks, leaning against me. We’re sitting on the same steps that me and the guys were on just recently, and she’s cuddled up to me, slipping her arm through mine.
“Nothing much,” I tell her.
“You can talk to me, you know,” she whispers, resting her head on my shoulder, and I close my eyes because that’s a lie.
“I know.”
She sighs, picking her head back up and following my previous line of sight, from when I zoned out. Lost in thought, lost in my head. Grinning, she says teasingly, “You gotta stop staring at that Brendon kid, anyone’d think you’ve got a boy-crush.”
“What?” I snap, turning my eyes towards her, away from Brendon who, incidentally, I have not been staring at, merely contemplating. There’s a lot to think about, with him, the sort of stuff that you mull over in your mind for weeks on end and it still remains a tangled mess of dodgy connections.
There’s clearly something in my expression that I didn’t mean to put there because her eyes widen and she raises perfectly shaped eyebrows at me. “Hey, I’m just saying. Think you spend more time looking at him than at me,” she jokes, and I flare up.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say swiftly, trying to sound casual, failing at it. “He’s not even a friend, I don’t even like the kid, so I don’t-“
“I was only kidding, babe.” She’s frowning, and I hang my head, focus on my lap.
“Right.” I knew that.
God, fucking shit, Ryan. I need-I need to get it together, get a grip, get a hold of myself because this isn’t me, it’s not. It’s not who I am meant to be here, I can feel myself pushing the barriers and slowly destroying the structured blueprints of my being, and I can’t stop it for the life of me. I need more control. That’s the only way to solve this, the only way to stop me staring at him longer than I should be, thinking thoughts involving him that should only feature faceless guys who duck out of my life as quickly as they jumped in.
The only solution to feeling trapped, I’ve discovered, is to trap yourself more.
But there’s a mandatory problem, as with every well-thought-out answer, and the problem with that is that there’s always a limit: somewhere, someone.
* * *
“Hey, Ryan, Brendon Urie mentioned you the other day.” It’s some random guy, a junior, and I’m not even sure where he popped out from. I sigh into my open locker, hands pausing in the fight to free the binder wedged in tight amongst all the other crap in there, and I slowly turn my head to the side to meet the kid’s eyes. He’s a short, chubby kid wearing non-ironic glasses; I think his name’s Patrick, but I can’t be sure. He always wears a hat pulled low, shielding over his eyes, and it’s the only reason I recognise him.
“What?” I ask him, keeping my eyes on him but resuming the struggle of the binder.
“Brendon Urie, the new junior?” he says. “He mentioned you the other day. Just thought you should know, before he starts talking more shit, you know?”
The thick, bulging binder slides free suddenly, almost sending me stumbling backwards, and straight after I regain my balance I demand urgently, “Wait. What’s he been saying?” My stomach coils, dark and defensive.
It’s only to be met with a careless shrug, though, and the kid says, “Hey, man, I have to go, I’ll see you around,” and then he’s fucking gone, lost in the masses.
“Hey!” I call out uselessly, trying to peer over people’s heads. In the way, they’re all always in the way. I start to call his name, realise I’m unsure that he’s even called that, and go for, “Hey, kid!”
I don’t see him again, and the tightness in my stomach spikes up to my chest and winds itself inexorably around each individual bone. Fuck, what has he said, what has he done, why does he have to make things so difficult?
I wish I could know.
I keep obsessing over it the whole day, turning the guy’s words over and over as if examining every possible facet of them. Brendon’s been talking shit, but God, there’s so much shit to talk. So much. The nagging, biting worry is almost overcoming me, constantly there at the corners of my vision, a dark, crawling mess.
It’s only been a few days since he walked in on me and Jac, tripped over his words and himself and left, so maybe. Maybe, it could be that. He made that comment about being cheap, me and the guy at the gig, “where everyone could see us,” so maybe, maybe it’s the same logic, he’s been bitching about naughty behaviour in a semi-public place. That’s plausible, right? Fuck, there’s no one to answer. Fuck.
It won’t be what I’m dreading it might be.
It won’t, it can’t. I won’t let it, but sometimes there’s only so much I can do, and the thought won’t quit.
In Creative Writing, the tutor sets a task to be done in individual silence, taking up the entire lesson, and with nothing to distract me I surrender to the thoughts, the anxieties. The bare, bleak knowledge that he could bring all of this crashing down, everything, with a click of his fingers and a cruel slip of his idle tongue.
I sit in my seat next to Jon, not slouched down as usual but leaning forward, my back slightly hunched as I absently tap my pen against the table, leaving tiny dots in its wake. The clock ticks agonisingly slowly, the silence stretches, and I can’t stop thinking.
The tap-tap-tap of my pen nib on the surface stops abruptly, and I snap out of it to see Jon’s hand lightly covering mine, stopping me. I look at our hands dumbly, then at him, and he’s watching me intently, not too intense or intruding but concerned, mildly interested. I like Jon. He gets the balance right every time.
He takes his hand away and mouths, “What’s on your mind?” as he raises his eyebrows inquisitively at me.
I roll my eyes, roll my shoulders, shake my head. “Nothing,” I mime back, and he frowns at me. After a decisive second or two, he turns away and discreetly rips off a corner of his spare sheet of paper, scribbling on it quickly when he’s done. He slides it across to me, crumpled and messy, and I reach out one finger to pull it and turn it towards me. you can tell me i swear i won’t say a word!!
There’s a small doodled smiley face at the bottom, and I can’t help but smile back at it. My face falls, however, a moment later, when I realise I can’t tell Jon. I can’t tell anyone anything, and I need to get used to thinking that. I throw him a half-hearted smile and slide the scrap back unchanged with another shake of my head, focusing my eyes on the ill-attempted work in front of me so that I don’t need to see the disappointment on his face.
* * *
That’s it. That is it, I can’t take this anymore. I’m a fucking wreck.
Over the course of today, I’ve had more and more comments like that one, ever more of the same. It can’t be as many as I’m thinking it is, though, or there’d be more of a stir, more gossip and chaos; but every mention of his name and mine in the same sentence counts for about fifty accusations in my mind, automatically converted, and I can’t do it anymore.
I can feel the eyes on me. And maybe there would have been more questions and direct statements if he’d ratted me out but I wouldn’t know, and I feel conspicuous.
By the fifth, “Dude, Brendon’s been telling us some stories about you,” thrown my way aimlessly on the mooch from one lesson to another, I’m close to shaking. It’s all too much, too much for me to bear and to handle, I can’t deal with all this uncertainty. I have to know, got to know what he’s saying. Stories, fuck, what stories does he have to tell?
“Patrick,” I call, spying the kid from earlier and attracting his attention. His head snaps up and huh, I suppose that is his name. He adjusts his glasses, pushing them up his nose, and stops in his tracks as I stride purposefully over to him. I’ve seen him talking with Brendon a couple of times, which is why I ask him, “D’you know where Brendon is?”
“Um,” he says, blinking rapidly.
“I haven’t got all fucking day,” I growl, and he swallows, shuffling the books in his arms.
“Uh, I think.” Blink, swallow. “He had Art, so I’d guess right now he’s probably somewhere in between that building and this one?” He phrases it like a question, like I’d be talking to him if I knew the answer.
I grunt out a hurried thanks and push past him, locating the nearest doors leading to outside. The art rooms are in a different block to the rest of the school, along with technology and design rooms, in this nonsensical little faux-building. I follow the edge of the main school building, cutting across the way where I know he’d be coming from an Art lesson, and I’m beginning to lose hope, turning one of the last corners when I spot him. Specifically the back of him, but by now I recognise his way of walking. Now that’s a worry.
“Brendon!” I yell, and he pauses, turns. There’s no one else around, it’s generally accepted to be late from an Art lesson and so he is, alone and vulnerable though I see him draw himself up to his full height when he clocks me, raising his chin.
Not waiting for a reply, I make my way over the concrete to him, walking quickly. “What-“ he starts, but I’m not going to let him finish, he’s already said quite enough.
“What the fuck have you been saying?” I shout, right in his face. “I thought this was fucking clear, are you fucking deaf as well as stupid?”
“Ryan,” he says quietly.
“No, fuck you, tell me what you’ve been saying about me!” My ears are pounding, hands clenching, so, so angry, I can’t control.
He raises an eyebrow and that makes me push closer, step so close to him, my chest heaving with furious breaths, and he stands his ground, defiantly looking into my eyes.
“What did you say?” I demand again. Near hysterical in my tone, and he’s just standing there. “Tell me!”
“Relax, Ross,” Brendon says coolly. He looks amused, like he’s sharing an inside joke with himself. Oh, the bruise is almost completely faded, but I could easily top that up, easily if he carries on.
His eyes are wide, and it strikes me, then, just how generically unthreatening and innocent he is; underneath it all, even if he tries to seem better than everyone else, he is.
“All I told them,” he mutters, leaning in closer as if he’s secret-telling, “was that you punch like a girl. And you ran off after.”
Well, fuck. A great whoosh of air leaves my lungs, breath I didn’t know I’d been holding. Relief.
Well.
That’s fine, then. That’s fine, I’m fine, everything’s fine... except, hey, wait. “I do not punch like a fucking girl.”
He raises his hands, palms-up, an if-you-say-so pose, and the anger flares up again, flames licking away at my insides. “Whatever,” he says, and I let out a small growling noise.
“If you want me to prove it, I will.”
“That’s a pretty tough act, Ross, does it work on the chicks?” he says, and he’s mocking me, taunting me with his eyes, fuck, my vision swims for a second as my pulse thumps angrily, angry, angry, angry. He makes me this way, God, I just need something to shut him up, something to put him in his place.
He’s smirking, and the weak sunlight is falling on his face in such a way that it highlights his cheekbones, the strong bridge of his nose, and momentarily I’m distracted. His jaw line is hard and set, accentuated, microscopic flecks of patchy missed stubble visible only when the light catches them just right, and I’m distracted. “Why do you do this?” I ask him, aiming for cold but my voice comes out a little weak. I could be wrong, but I think neither of us know exactly what I’m referring to.
“You make it worthwhile,” he smirks - smug bastard - there’s a dose of honesty thrown in there, and I’m still not sure what we’re talking about. He tilts his head suddenly, the light spilling over his features and ravishing his face, and I’m struck, just for a second. If only for a second, I wonder whether, maybe, maybe I want him.
But that would be stupid. For so many reasons, it would be stupid. He goes to this school, he’s from this world and this side of me, and that’s not allowed, that’s against my rules. I couldn’t do that. Add on the fact that I can’t look at him or have any conversation with him without wanting to punch him to the ground, and you’ve got yourself stupidity.
I don’t know why I’m even trying to rationalise it, though, because I don’t. Want him, that is. I don’t.
“Fuck you,” I reply belatedly, and he sighs, pissed off. “Do you think you’re fucking better than me, or something, because I can tell you right now that you’re not. You don’t mean shit here. Don’t try bite off more than you can chew, kid.”
“What the fuck,” he says, annoyance and anger growing. “I never said I was better than anyone, the hell are you talking about?”
“You,” I burst out, flinging an arm around carelessly.
“Me,” he repeats, scoffs. A silence falls, chilly and tense, and eventually he comes out with a rough, fierce question, “Why are you still here?”
I don’t know.
His hair falls into his eyes and he flicks it away furiously, meeting my eyes with an unreadable look as the irritation builds. "So?" he demands. "What? What the hell else do you want from me?"
There's a red flush creeping across his delicate cheekbones and his shoulders are minutely shaking as he again draws himself up, puffs out his chest the little he can. And I find myself inexplicably drawn (again, fucking again) to him, his lips this time, perfect and soft and welcoming, slightly parted as his gaze burns into me. "I just want--" I can hear my voice but it's tight and strained, not at all like me.
God, I don’t know what’s happening, something’s slipping through my fingers and I’m just letting it go, letting it go exactly as the ground beneath my feet is cracking and sliding away. "I just." Shit.
Shit, whatever.
So maybe I want him.
I let my schoolbag fall carelessly from my shoulder and my feet take decisive steps forward until I'm pinning him to the wall of the main building behind him, shutting out his protesting grunt, hands gripping shoulders. When I lean in and crash my mouth to his, I kiss him with a want that I've felt before only a handful of times, one that makes me fist a handful of his shirt and push closer, closer, even though there's no more space left to fill, everything put into the harsh smash of my lips to his.
All the restrictions are breaking away, barriers crumbling and I don’t care, I don’t fucking care, I just want - and I know, I know I’m selfish, I’ve admitted it before and as I grasp his shoulders tighter, possessive, I know once more it’s true.
It's too hard and it's too fast, I can barely get enough oxygen into my lungs but I can't slow down, can't force myself to stop. Can’t even think, like everything’s rushing faster than I’m used to and I can’t keep up so I’m clinging, clawing at the only chance of survival, catching his lips again and again and not leaving time to breathe, time to think. Feverish, I'm pushing against him and licking into his mouth roughly and there's something surging through me that I can only identify as a lethal cocktail of anger-lust-desperation. His taste is bittersweet, invigorating: yeah, this is breaking the rules, but it must be worth it for this.
One hand moves from his shoulder to grip vicelike at the back of his neck, to greedily draw him in closer and keep him there. God, yes, just stay right here. He mutters something incoherent against my lips, hot breath washing over them and mingling with mine, and I pull back just the tiniest fraction in response before he clamps his teeth down on my lower lip, hard and purposeful, causing me to gasp out in pain and duck my head.
"Dude," I say, glaring at him, my voice muffled by my hand clutching at the accosted lip, "seriously, shit. Uncool." I move towards him again, prepared to forgive by the blazing-harsh press of mouths, but this time his eyes narrow coldly and he shoves me backwards, hard, two hands on my chest. My feet trip over themselves and somehow I end up sprawled on the ground, Brendon standing over me, silhouetted darkly against the sun that just now had kissed him softer than I probably ever would.
Brendon is wide-eyed and shell-shocked, abused lips parted. Silent, until. "Don't even touch me, okay," he spits viciously. I blink up at him, bemused. "You think you can just-- God, Jesus, you really are an asshole, aren't you?" He sounds disbelieving, there's a sour hint of helpless laughter in his tone.
"I'm. No, I'm not.”
"Yeah?" He does laugh then, short and ugly, shaking his head. "Screw you, Ryan."
He grimaces down at me, like I’m shit, like I’m nothing, flicking his eyes over my dazed form before making a noise of disgust, turning on his heel and striding away, the line of his whole body tense, shoulders set. "What the fuck-- Brendon," I call out half-heartedly after him, but he doesn't look back. I yell, “Fuck you!” as my face and my lungs burn together.
Dragging myself to my feet, I attempt to brush the dirt off my uniform and soon realise it's a lost cause. I'm more than a little shaken up, if I'm honest with myself. I didn't-- I never lose control, not like that, not here, with all inhibitions and habits and restrictions thrown out the window in favour of wild, spiralling emotions. Hormones. Animalistic wants, desires not kept at bay.
I stare at the wall in front of me.
The red brick is blank and faceless to anyone else, but to me it's beaming with the imprint of his body, mine, fused together, like someone took a piece of chalk and drew an outline around us, left it there for all to see. Guilty, guilty stencils. Incriminating. I squeeze my eyes shut, try and turn back time, shake my head to clear it (doesn't work, never does) and retrieve my schoolbag from where I'd supposedly dropped it, although I don't remember doing so.
The grey building looms in the distance and I don't try to kid myself I'll go back to face the next class.
* * *
The next day is a Saturday. I’m not as happy about that as I probably should be, as a high school goer. When I wake up, it’s not one of those things that slam into you, hit you hard and sudden and take you by surprise as you remember, no, it’s already there before I even open my eyes. Lurking behind the blackness, pinching at me as the dark fades away, and when my eyes flutter open it’s there still, unchanging.
The knowledge that I have royally fucked up.
I don’t quite understand it, in the way that it hasn’t sunk in; what I did. I wouldn’t even believe it if it wasn’t for the taste of him that still lingers on my lips and the feel of him pressed against me that tingles all the way through me.
I spend the day curled up in bed, only emerging for food and to use the bathroom. No one asks, no one comes stomping into my room demanding that I get up, that I do these chores, that I stop moping, because that isn’t what this is anyway: I merely need this time, alone, hibernating. Just me and the singular wish that I could undo what I have done, and the hopeless feeling that comes attached.
Because, the thing is, I kissed Brendon.
And that was a really fucking stupid thing to do.
Over the course of the day and amid the fog of distress, I work out few things. Mostly just going around in endless, ongoing circles, but something I manage to piece together that I’m pretty sure is true, is that he didn’t stop me. Okay, no, obviously he did - the fucker - but at first, at first he didn’t, he was soft and pliant against me, and although his hands stayed at his sides his body and his mouth betrayed him, both yielding and melding against mine, if only for a second or two. It was there, I felt it, and if I have to be unable to forget that then I’m going to make damn sure he doesn’t forget it either.
* * *
On Sunday, nothing much happens except that I realise I’m going to have to face it - him - tomorrow, watch the web of lies grow tighter around me, and I want to disappear.
* * *
“Morning.” My voice sounds lifeless even to me, more monotone than usual packed into one little, trivial word, but I can’t do anything to help it. My brain is swamped right now, over-thinking things too much when it’s pointless anyway; they’ve already happened, nothing I can do about it.
“Morning, sweetie,” Mom says, and she sounds even more distracted than me, so I look up from the floor as I sit at the kitchen table, study her where she’s leaning against the cooker. She looks tense, biting her fingernails absently. The dark circles under her eyes make my stomach clench uneasily, and she flicks her eyes to meet mine and attempts a weak smile.
Keeping my voice deliberately casual, I ask, “Everything okay?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?” I murmur slowly, fingernails digging into the polished wood of the table.
She sighs heavily, looks away, and when she looks back her eyes are shining sadly, a helpless look etched on her face. “No,” she replies finally, like an admission, “no, it’s not okay, Ryan.”
I swallow. “Why?”
“Because your dad’s-“ And she’s interrupted by the excellent timing of the front door banging, flung right back on its hinges before slamming shut. Footsteps, footsteps, and she rushes out, “I was going to try and get you out of the house before he came back but-“ and he’s there, and my heart stops at the look on his face, pure fury, and I don’t know why and even if I did I couldn’t make it better.
“You,” he growls out, pointing a fat finger at me. I’m glued to the seat.
“Yeah?” The word trembles.
One second he’s swaying on the spot, holding the doorframe for support, and the next he’s moving remarkably quickly, closing the significantly safe gap between us until he’s right in front of me, breathing hard through his nose and glowering, and I only have time to stand up from my chair before he’s grabbing me by my shirt collar and yanking me closer. I look down, his hands are grimy, fingernails blunt, and they’re curled into fists so easily, habitually.
“I have to go to school,” I gasp out, the only thing I can think of to make him let go, but he laughs in my face, the kind that washes over me with alcoholic breath and doesn’t reach to his eyes.
“Like it’s any fucking point with you anyway,” he says, and he hauls me out of the kitchen and into the darkened hallway, the last thing I see being my mom standing with her hands clasped in front of her, stock still.
Then it’s just me and him, and I’m shaking, something in the back of my mind telling me to run somewhere, anywhere that isn’t here in the gloom with his harsh, ragged breaths and iron grip on my shirt. I struggle a little, sudden panic clamping down on me, but it’s no use, too weak against him. That’s when I say, “Let go,” and he sneers.
After he doesn’t say anything in reply I can’t help but wriggle again, quickly calculating how long it would take for me to get from here to the front door at the other end of the hallway, and he mutters something unclear and shoves me harder into the wall, the hands clenched in my shirt tightening and tightening until it’s hard to breathe.
His hands slip upwards a little more, just a little and probably accidental but one of them is now pressing against my throat, and I tilt my head upwards as I stretch my neck, trying to get away, trying to breathe. My vision bursts into spots of dizzy colour, my lungs struggling as alarm bells ring, and with difficulty I choke out, “Let go of me!”
It sparks a fuse in him and before I know it my head slams into the wall behind me; a thud and a crack that I swear I can feel all the way through my skull, and I’m reeling from it, my legs and my body going weak, a rag doll in his hands. My eyes are dazed but when I focus them I see his fist pulling back again, realise he just punched me. A deep, heavy throb is emulating from my nose and I can feel the thick trickle of blood above my upper lip.
“Stop,” I whisper, shaking, and I manage to squeeze my eyes shut and brace myself just before the second punch hits, catching the bone of my brow. This is-it’s not new, but it’s unheard of nowadays: I thought, I thought this had stopped ages back, I thought I didn’t have to be scared of this anymore.
Tears mingle with the red trail down the side of my face, and the pain spikes as I hang my head, let it loll onto my chest. Crying, I’m crying, but I don’t fucking care.
He lets go and my legs immediately give out. I slump to the floor, not looking up as I cradle my head in my hands, fear and anger bubbling up together, so hot inside.
When I see his feet leave in the direction of the stairs, know he’s walked away, I tip my head back up to lean it gently against the wall, catching sight of my mother standing in the exact same position, having seen it all. Having not done a thing to prevent it, fuck. My eyes narrow of their own accord, and she claps a hand to her mouth before whimpering, “Ryan, I’m so sorry.”
“If you were fucking sorry,” I mutter evenly, struggling to my feet with a hand pressed to my face, stemming the blood-flow from above my eye, “you would have done something.” With that I turn on my heel and head for the door, pushing the thought of how her eyes were brimming with tears as I open it and step out into the morning air.
I don’t have my school bag with me, or any of my books, just my phone and my iPod in respective pockets, but that’s okay because I don’t intend on going to that place. Fuck facing Brendon, fuck everything, I feel so... so fucking trapped, and I need to get away.
I take a right at the end of our garden path, the opposite direction to the town centre: the shops, the school, any of my friends’ houses. We live right on the edge of the suburbs, see, and people don’t tend to walk this way. I am, though, today. With dried-out eyes, blood drying on my face and iron on my taste buds, I am.
I don’t know where I’m going, but I need to get away.
I walk and I walk, until my feet are throbbing as much as my face. My nose feels swollen, misshapen, almost too big for my face and I have no idea what I must look like, but it can’t be good. There’s red smears on the sleeve of my blazer where I wiped the blood from around my eye, from my upper lip, evidence of what I want to forget. That’s my aim, here, to forget. When I eventually go home, he won’t talk about it; he never does. He’ll shrink back in on himself, after doing this, and it won’t be mentioned. So all I need to do, see, is forget it happened, and I’ll be fine. I’ll be as close to fine as I can scrape.
A little of the way along, my phone vibrates in my back pocket, and when I pull it out there’s a text from Spence. wher r u??havnt seen u this monrning? And if it was anyone else, I’d ignore it straight away, cast it off as an irrelevant reminder of the life I’m trying to get away from (if only momentarily), but it’s Spencer, so I hit the ‘reply’ button.
didn’t come in today..i’m ill.:(
There’s a small electronic silence, and then, bs...cud have told me u were skipping!!! I smile guiltily despite everything as I pocket the phone, no need for a response. He knows it all already.
The urban bricks and buildings peter out soon, grey concrete and city-esque skyline melting into green and peace. It’s odd, really, and I’ve never fully understood why it’s there or how it happened, but at this edge of our sprawling town the scenery completely changes, gives way to a forest-type terrain; expanses of grass layered with crinkled leaves and peppered with tiny daisies, and further on an army of trees, towering tall.
Not many people go as far as that, the paths through the roots and under the branches un-trodden and disused. I mean, why would they? They’ve got a mall, movies, walls to spray-paint, who gives a damn about a random spattering of nature?
That’s why I like it, though. The solitude, the calm of the thought of no one else being around. If the guys from school knew, I’d be completely shunned.
Usually, when I come out here, it’s when the anger and the temper get too much, boiling up and bursting into flames inside my chest so that it feels like I might combust, and I come here to get away, to escape and let the fire simmer. But usually, I don’t stray very far in, only wandering around the edges of the mini-forest, the parts where you can still see clear daylight and distant rows of houses on the horizon.
Today, I keep walking.
The trees get thicker and closer together, but I just keep fighting, pushing overhanging branches and creepers out of the way as my sneakers smash a path through the undergrowth. Something chirps into the quiet, a bird off to my left, and I look but I can’t see it.
I walk.
My head is throbbing and I’m feeling a little queasy, my stomach churning as a new drop of blood drips from my brow. I wipe it away, aggravated. I’m still walking, walking, but it’s not helping, every step I take a reminder that the pain is still there, the pain on my head and the pain inside, too, every footprint left in the dirt stark proof that I’m not fixed yet.
Maybe I’m more stressed, more twisted up than usual. I’ve been telling myself I’ll stop when it’s better, when I feel normal and calm and steady again, but this is further than I’ve ever been before and still nothing’s changing. There’s a pressure on my skull that won’t quit, a squeezing grip, and I can’t think straight, my head’s in a whirl and caught between thoughts of fists and blood and home and Brendon and Jac and school and I can’t think.
I stumble a little, tripping over a root, and my arms flail out, catching onto a sturdy trunk to balance myself again. Once I look up from the treacherous ground, I notice a clearing not far off, somewhere I’ve never visited, and I feel inclined to check it out. Drawn to it, almost, and I head towards it, the trees thinning out until I break out of them and my feet hit plain grass again.
I’m not really looking at the ground, though, more at what’s looming up in front of me, partially blocking the watery sunlight overhead.
A cabin. A pretty decent-sized log cabin, just slumped in the middle of nowhere, long grass adorning the foot of the front door and vines and creeping plants climbing up the walls. It looks abandoned, not run-down but definitely forgotten, and one of the windows on this side is smashed, tiny jagged pieces clinging to the frame.
Letting out a rush of breath, I find my feet carrying me nearer, making out the lopsided chimney perching on the sloped roof, the iron weathercock attached close to it. There’s something about it that interests me and pulls me in, and before I know it I’m close enough to see the knots and whorls of the wood. Suddenly hesitant, I hold my breath, trying my best not to make a sound as I strain my ears, because as much as it might look deserted, you never know. I’ve had enough trouble this morning to last me at least a few days.
It’s silent as the grave, and I take cautious steps, letting myself breathe again as I work my way around the perimeter, taking in the size and the shape of it, running my fingertips along the rough wood surfaces. One whole side, the one opposite to the first I saw, is completely covered in green, swallowed up by ivy, and it’s strangely pretty, picturesque. If Jon was with me, he’d have said it would make a great photo.
When I come back to the door, I don’t feel anything tentative towards testing it, don’t think twice when I find it unlocked but jammed shut and use my shoulder to budge it open. The wood makes a cracking sound as it tears away from the frame, and the dust from inside assaults my eyes before I even step in.
It’s more extravagant on the inside than the exterior would have you believe, and the ceilings look higher once you’re under them. There’s woven rugs covering most inches of the wood flooring, pieces of random, understated art scattered around the walls in a hard-to-follow-pattern. I take glances at the bedrooms in the back but always loop back to here, the main space that consists of a kitchen and what looks like a living room. In terms of furniture, well, there’s a holey couch that looks like it’s seen better days, and a plush armchair close to it with an old blanket thrown over the back of it.
I’m kind of speechless. Not that it’s anything particularly breathtaking, just that it’s a surprise to find it here, just sitting and waiting, almost expectant.
I pluck the blanket between thumb and forefinger and drop it over the back of the chair, seating myself with both hands resting on an arm. I can hear every single breath I take, my heartbeat loud and clear, and a small part of me wishes someone was here with me. All the same, it feels right, like coming home, and it’s decided. What I didn’t know I was looking for I have now found; a haven that is mine, a secure place to feel safe, to drop pretences.
So I inhale the slightly stale air through my nose, take a deep breath. I sit, and I close my eyes against the world.
* * *
After that, I mentally claim it as my own property, and I start going there more often. Whenever things get too hard, too stressful. It’s not so much a place where I can feel calm, really, because I’m not sure what can fully achieve that through and through although it’s probably something big; but it is somewhere that I feel more grounded and more myself, with nothing to hold me back or clamp me down.
The day after the first time, when I have to go to school and am forced to face Brendon in the corridors, undergoing awkward, broken eye contact, silence and red-hot cheeks on both parts, I think about it several times. Think about just leaving, running, sprinting there until my lungs are ready to burst, just so I can breathe without suffocating - it’s only things like Spencer’s hand loosely and wordlessly curled around my wrist and Jon’s clueless but reassuring smiles thrown my way when I’m looking particularly lost that keep me.
I’ve been there three times when I go a fourth, walking quick and stiff out of town and down the slight hill to the wooded land, twilight setting in as the late evening moon casts just enough light to glint off the lone tear-track down my face.
I never used to let myself cry, but I can’t seem to help it recently, sometimes.
I had an argument with my dad, he’d spent the day lolling around and festering in the pit of his bed, blissed out on booze while I’d been at school all day actually doing some fucking good work for once. As soon as I let myself into the house, he came clumping down the stairs, gruff and glaring, and started immediately bellowing at me because he’d found a half-used stick of kohl eyeliner (subtly snatched from Pete’s stash) in my room, and wanted to know what the fuck his son was doing ‘acting like a queer.’ I saw red, got mad, asked him why he thought he had any right to go through my personal shit, and he’d let rip, shouting until his throat was raw and his voice was raggedly failing.
So, of course, I left, and I came here. The moment I shove the door shut behind me, I feel some of it draining out of me, tension rolling off my shoulders. My vision’s still a little blurry and I knead at my eyes fiercely with the heel of both hands, digging in until I see spots and the wet is temporarily blinked away.
Flopping down onto the chair that’s now, I like to think, moulded into the shape of me, I can sense an edge of hopelessness that’s damn hard to shake off, and I bite my lip against tears, screwing my eyes shut. I resist, I refuse. God, it was just an argument, I’ve had far worse, but if there ever was a straw to break the camel’s back, this is it.
Finally, I lean forward, bury my face in my hands, long fingers threading through my bangs, and I let the tears spill out; catch them all.
Yeah, okay, usually I would sort myself out, discipline, wipe away the tears and get on with my life but hey, you know what, fuck it. Fuck that, I don’t bother trying to stem the flow because this is my place now, and no one else’s, so no one has to see. No one has to know, witness the flaws and the cracks in the composure that I’ve worked so hard to smooth over. No one knows, and it’s so good that way.
I don’t know how long I let myself go for, but it’s long enough, and soon I hear something that jars me out of whatever reverie I had fallen into.
Footsteps, scuffling echoes of shoes on ground, right outside the cabin. My breath catches, heart stopping, and I’m already shaken up, Goddamnit, so I’m not surprised when I start to shake the tiniest bit. I always assumed no one would ever find this place, not a soul would stumble across it the way that I did, but maybe I was wrong, maybe I spoke too soon because the footfalls are getting closer and closer, someone clears their throat, fuck.
Then I hear the door swing open, hear it un-stick from the frame, but I can’t see it; it’s round the corner from the couch and the armchair, can’t see the intruder, but I’m frozen to my seat anyway. I let my eyes dart around for the slightest second or two before I hear a badly-stifled gasp and whirl them back, meeting an extremely unwelcome sight.
“Brendon,” I grit out, sounding pained, and he’s there, he’s here in this place that nobody’s supposed to be except me, standing there wringing his hands and gaping at me like he can’t believe it - can’t believe that we still run into each other, here of all places. Me, well, there’s some dull anger rising, but I’m not surprised like he is; fucking hell, he pops up everywhere and I seem to do the same to him, I should think I’m used to it by now.
“Uh,” he says. His eyes are too wide for his face, and he keeps opening and closing his mouth like a goldfish.
“What the hell, man,” I exclaim, lifting both my hands from the chair arms and gesticulating unhelpfully. “What are you doing here?”
“Me?” he scoffs, scandalised.
I scowl at him, pushing away the remaining awkwardness in favour of irritation and, of course, dislike. “Do you see anyone else, genius?”
“No,” he draws out, acting stupid, mocking. “But I could ask you the same thing.”
“But I’m asking you.”
He shrugs, like it’s obvious, like I’m the stupid, intruding one here. “Not that it’s any of your business,” he starts, “but I come here all the time. To get away from everything, you know, if that's not a problem with you.” It’s softly spoken but his voice is strong and unwavering.
I’m unsure how to reply, so I don’t at first, but after a beat I make an impatient sound. “Dude.” He just looks at me, waiting. “Aren’t you gonna leave?”
Brendon’s eyes narrow, but his lips pull up into a smirk. “Uh, no, I wasn’t planning on it.”
“Maybe you should be,” I shoot back lamely.
“What?” he snaps.
“Get the fuck out!”
“No.”
“Why?” I demand, exasperated, drained.
“It’s just as much mine as it is yours, Ross,” he points out, honest and a little smug, “meaning that technically I could say the same to you, but we both know you’re too stubborn for that.”
“Shit,” I mutter, massaging my temples.
“You could always leave, if you want,” he suggests, casually leaning against the archway that opens into the living room area.
“I’m not leaving.”
“Well.”
I stare at him and he stares at me, both of us unblinking and waiting expectantly for the other to back down. It’s strange, really, the tension that’s thick in the air, pulled tight like a rope connecting the two of us, carrying the tainted memory of before; of lips and harsh words, but it goes unmentioned. It goes ignored, in favour of petty arguing. I don’t know what I should be making of that.
The hurt from my dad is still raw inside, like an open wound constantly being scraped and torn open, and it’s driving me insane with every heartbeat. Pushing me closer and closer to the edge of something I can’t make out in the gloom quite yet. It’s making me irrational and it’s making me want to close my eyes for eternity, it’s consuming me.
And that’s my excuse, I decide, that’s why I say, “Fine. Stay, then. I don’t care.”
He smirks a little more, eyes crinkling. “I was going to.”
He sits himself on the couch, right in the middle of it, the cushions sinking and dipping with his slight weight. To me, he looks out of place but at the same time weirdly comfortable, familiar, as if part of the furniture.
For a second or two I worry that he’ll try and make conversation, pointless small talk when we both know that we’re not here for each other, we’re here for here, and that’s all we need. He doesn’t, though, just sits in silence, hands loosely clasped in his lap where he’s focusing his eyes. I notice that his hair is curling at the ends slightly, he must have neglected to straighten it today. A few strands of his bangs flick outwards where they shouldn’t. It would be endearing, on anyone else. Really, really fucking endearing.
As time passes, seconds ticking away in silence, I can feel the uneasiness creeping back, the want to curl up and let everything overcome me. I feel oddly lonely, though I’m far from alone with Brendon breathing quietly through his nose not even a metre away. My mind flashes back to unwanted thoughts of this morning, of home, and my eyes prickle warningly. Shit, it’s like fucking floodgates. So stupid.
I try to force it away, screw my eyes shut and blink them open again only to be faced with fuzzy outlines and hot pricks behind the lids until I’m fighting it with what feels like the whole of my body, just to prevent him from seeing me like that.
It’s no use, though, and I have to lift a hand to rub quickly and hopefully discreetly at the angry tears welling up. I’m not looking at him, but I feel his gaze on me, and then I have to, don’t I.
“God, what?” I snap at him thickly, sniffing hastily, self-consciously, as I register the expression on his face. He’s looking at me so funny, unreadable - a mix of pity and sadness, all of the usual haughty derision faded and lapsed in favour of... well, care. And that’s just. What do I do with that? “What?”
He watches me wipe at my eye once more, then bites his lip, big, sorrowful eyes not leaving my face. “Are you okay?” he murmurs, not intrusive but full of what seems like genuine concern, and my gut twists unexpectedly.
“What did you just say,” I whisper, not loud enough to even count as a question.
He clears his throat, a little nervous, and his eyes flick for just a beat to where my fists have unknowingly curled into fists at my sides. I relax them until they’re flat, open palms, and he says softly, “I asked if you were okay.”
I’m completely blindsided because this is a total turnaround; he’s switched from shoving me to the ground to, what, I don’t even-to asking after my wellbeing? He throws me off course every single fucking time, and I’m sick of trying to deal with it.
I’m torn between three options, then. The first is to give in and rant to him, complain and get it all off my chest because he seems like he genuinely wants to listen; the second is to grab him, pull him towards me and kiss him breathless: just to shut him up, and partly to taste him again. And the third, well. The third is what I go for, anyway.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” I explode, making him jolt in surprise, eyes widening as he leans himself back on the couch cushions away from me. “Make up your fucking mind, God!”
“Ryan-“ he starts, but I stand up abruptly, silencing him.
Fuck this. “I don’t need your fucking pity!” I yell, my voice hoarse and cracking but loud, bouncing around the room, all around him, and he drops his mouth open to say something or maybe just in shock, but I don’t care, I don’t care, I’m already out the door.
* * *
Later on, I try not to regret walking out on him, but I keep reminiscing all the words we didn’t say and the intrigue of the conversation we never had, and it gets harder and harder to do.
* * *
Part Five