BBHR: 04 - Friends and Family
Beyond Back Harlow Road: 04 - Friends and Family
Rating: 12A (UK), PG-13 (US)
Summary: Three years after the events in 'Stand By Me', Chris Chambers and Gordie Lachance are still standing by each other. What will face them as they journey even further beyond childhood?
Gordie's POV. Chris/Gordie Slash.
Warning: Contains strong language, male-male relationships, mature content
¤
I woke up the next morning to the sound of a skylark and the uncomfortable feeling of a knee wedged in my stomach, a knee that couldn’t be my own because I knew for certain that I didn’t have that sort of flexible capability. My body ached all over and I wondered why-instead of the soft mattress of my bed-I was lying upon a hard wood floor. A heavy yawn escaped my lips and I began to rub my sleep-encrusted eyes open.
Chris was the first thing I saw, his eyes were closed and the bruise that shaded his left one stood out in deep contrast against his lightly tanned skin-a deep purple mixed with angry scarlet. His face lay only a few inches in front of mine, so close that I could feel the warm breath from his nose touch the skin of my cheek. I yelped in surprise.
‘Christ, does you breath stink Gordie,’ said a Chris who was not as asleep as I had thought, though his eyes were still closed I could see his mouth curled up into his trademark ruffian smirk. His smirk made me glance down at the scabbed over cut upon his bottom lip and the raw red flesh around it. The memories of the night before came flooding back into my mind, answering my mental questions as to why I was sleeping beside Chris in our long-forgotten tree house. Even so, although the useful thing called a memory had answered my questions, it didn’t make the situation seem any less weird.
‘Yours probably does too,’ I retorted lamely and Chris laughed, finally opening his eyes to stare at me amusedly with irises of steel green.
‘Nah, I smell as fresh as a freshly picked daisy,’ he said matter-of-factly. He leant close to me, still laughing, and opened his mouth, breathing stale morning breath right under my nostrils. I jolted back and covered my abused nose with my hands, making fake retching noises as I did so. In my vengeance I yanked his half of the blanket off of him, exposing his lightly clothed body to the cold dawn air.
‘Fuck, it’s cold,’ he yelled, sitting bolt upright and rubbing the top of his sleeveless arms with his hands. He glanced over at me with one eyebrow raised and a grin resting upon his lips; it was a glance I knew all too well and it only meant one thing.
‘Oh shit,’ I whispered just as Chris screamed a battle cry and pounced on me, mouth opened wide to breathe more morning breath at my unprotected sinuses. He held me down, grasping my wrists with his hands so I couldn’t push him away. I tried to kick him off with my legs but-being Chris Chambers-he had thought of that too, holding my legs down with his right shin. I stared up at his grinning face, feeling beaten and waiting patiently for him to let me go. Our eyes locked and he paused…for a remarkably long time. I saw the skin of his forehead crinkle into something akin to confusion and he suddenly looked away, breaking eye contact, his cheeks slightly flushed from what-in my opinion-must have been the effort it had taken for him to keep me pinned down.
It was then that I saw the glimmer of opportunity and took my chance to get the better of him. Twisting my hands free from his grasp I grabbed the front of Chris’s shirt, pulling him down to the floor and pulling myself upwards at the same time. After another few clever manoeuvres I had managed get on top of him in the same position as he had had me before. I took a moment to marvel at the fact that for once I had managed to best him, giving me a feeling of pride greater than any obtained from fancy A’s in English class.
‘Well, well Chrissy-poo,’ I lorded over him. He wasn’t looking at me and I let out a huff of annoyance. ‘Sore loser much?’
It seemed those words hit home. ‘Get off me Gordie,’ he muttered and began to wrestle me away. I held tight. I wasn’t keen to let my victory go so easily. Pushing my whole weight down on top of him I kept him in place as best I could.
‘Get off me Gordie!’ Chris repeated, though this time louder, angrier.
If I had been in a different state of mind and not so drunk to win I might have given in and let Chris go. But I was a kid and what kids didn’t like to win? Hell, what people didn’t like to win? However, at that moment, I had forgotten one simple fact. He was Chris Chambers and Chris Chambers always won.
‘Off!’ he yelled and shoved at me hard. I lost my balance and toppled to the side, hitting the back of my head on one of the wooden crates used as seating in the tree house. Pain shot through me and my eyes blurred as I became overcome with a sudden dizziness.
‘What the fuck was that for?’ I shook my head to clear my vision and touched the tender spot on my head with a wary hand. From the corner of my eye I could see Chris hurriedly crawl over to me, the anger gone completely from his features in a flash. Instead replaced with concern, the same concern as I had seen on his face the time I had awoken from my nightmare.
‘I-I got caught up in the fight,’ he said apologetically. He reached out a hand though it did not touch me. He just let it hover by the side of my head as if one of those invisible force fields written about in comic books was holding it back. ‘You okay?’
I shrugged, letting go of the little annoyance I still had and saw his hand fall back down to his side. ‘I’ll live.’ I couldn’t stay annoyed at him for long anyway, I never could. Chris was good at that; his voice had a way to calm people, and it worked especially well for me. We fought but never for long or in any way seriously. We weren’t best friends for nothing after all. ‘So did I win?’
He looked over at me, eyebrows raised. ‘I was distracted.’
‘Yeah right,’ I said, scoffing at his petty excuse. ‘What distracted you?’
‘You did.’
I stopped mid-way in massaging the back my head and stared at him. ‘Huh?’ I asked eloquently.
Chris blinked and shook his head. I wondered whether what he had said was another product of his thinking-out-loud habit, another one of his many thoughts spilling from his brain and accidentally forming words when they reached his tongue. Like his thoughts were pennies and his mouth was the torn hole in the bottom of his jean pocket. Nobody liked to lose money and Chris didn’t like to lose his thoughts, he just hadn’t been able to get himself a new pair of jeans.
‘What’s the time?’ he asked quickly, changing the subject. I stared at him a second longer before giving up and obliging, looking down at my watch. It was just past seven in the morning, the time I normally woke up when I was at home. Pretty soon my mother would finish setting out the breakfast table and call for me to come down to eat.
‘Seven,’ I told him. He nodded and stood up, holding out his hand to me once he had gotten to his feet. Without hesitation I took it and let him pull me up. He did so easily, one yank of the arm muscles and I was stood there in front of him as if I had been there all my life.
‘You headin’ back?’ he asked and I made a noise that was neither a yes nor a no. It was warmer now. The air was no longer filled with the chill of twilight but instead the tired tepidity of an actual morning.
‘I suppose so,’ I said after a while. I lifted my hand to run it through my hair only to find it still in Chris’s grasp. He noticed at the same time I did and let go so fast that it seemed like he had been burnt by a hot poker, quickly shoving his hands in his pockets afterwards-a gesture too that, although meant to seem nonchalant, was riddled with the opposite.
‘I’ll see you then,’ he said hurriedly and I nodded. He stepped to the side and I meandered past him, reaching down towards the tree house’s trap door and heaving it open. It was too early in the morning to think about why Chris was being so strange. Maybe it was simply due to the fact that he was not a morning person.
¤
My parents hadn’t noticed me coming down late for breakfast and I carried on my morning rituals the same way as I’d always done. It was as if the night in the tree house had never happened. If it hadn’t been for the potatoes and meatloaf sitting stale on my bedroom desk I would’ve thought it had all been a dream.
I collected together my books and stationary, shoved them unceremoniously in my school bag and hitched the tattered strap of it upon my shoulder.
‘Gordon,’ I heard my mother call from the kitchen. ‘Hurry or you’ll be late for school. I can see that Chambers boy waiting for you by our gate.’
That Chambers boy…for some strange reason neither of my parents liked calling Chris by his first name. In fact I couldn’t recall a moment when they ever had. It was always ‘that Chambers boy’ or ‘that friend of yours’ or sometimes even just ‘him’. Even Chris doing college classes didn’t sway my parents’ opinion of him, especially not my father’s.
‘Yes ma,’ I replied and rushed down the stairs, taking the steps two at a time. I didn’t bother to say goodbye when I swung open the front door. They didn’t either.
Chris was standing by the gate just like my mother had said, leaning against its wooden frame with his eyes squinting in the sun. He had cleaned himself up since earlier that morning. He had on a different shirt, one that was still stained though not with flecks of dried blood, and his face and hair had been washed, though in a haphazardly manner. The bruises and cuts were still noticeable though, standing out like the sun in the sky, obvious and there and blazing. On his shoulder he had a bag similar to mine except more worn. The bag, the shirt and the slight dampness of his hair told me Chris must have gone home just as I had done and went about his morning rituals same as me. Almost the same.
‘Shit,’ I muttered and called for Chris to wait there for a second longer. He looked at me confused and I could see his mouth open to ask me why just as I turned right back around shoved open my front door. My mother was walking through the kitchen door just as I swerved right past her.
‘What do you think you’re doing, Gordon?’ I heard her say. I could feel her eyes upon me as I grabbed four slices of toast and an apple from the kitchen table.
‘I’m hungry,’ I told her and she looked at me sceptically. She did not believe me but I didn’t really care. She always prepared more food than she needed too, as if she was still cooking for Denny as well.
I pushed open the front door for the final time that morning and ambled my way towards a bemused-looking Chris, shoving the toasts and apple at his chest once I reached him. He instinctively grabbed a hold of them so they wouldn’t fall to the dusty ground.
‘What this?’ he asked and I rolled my eyes.
‘Breakfast, numbnuts,’ I said. ‘Eat up.’
He looked down at the food in his arms and then at me. I gave him a smile and he slowly returned with one of his own, a smile that, now in hindsight, seemed to say so much more than ‘thanks for the grub’.
‘What would you do without me, eh?’ I said as he took a tentative bite out of a slice of toast.
‘I have no fucking clue,’ he replied in a tone more honest than I had expected. He offered me two pieces of toast but I shook my head, pushing the food away from me and back towards him. He insisted though, not taking another bite until I had finally accepted at least one of the pieces of toast. It was a compromise so I took it, glad to see that Chris stowed the apple I had given him away into his bag without a fuss.
We ate as we walked and got to school in good time. Chris and I were at our lockers when I heard someone call his name from across the hall.
‘Hey Chambers!’ I turned my head and saw a girl walking towards us. I recognised her vaguely, but only as another face in the crowd. She had long brown hair tied up in a side ponytail and a confident swagger in her stride. One could call her pretty if they ignored way her front teeth jutted out slightly and simply concentrated on the area around her bosom; the large amount of area around her bosom.
‘Chambers, didn’t ya hear me?’ She was right next to us now, though she ignored me completely. Her big brown eyes focused solely on the back of Chris’s head. He had not yet turned around to face her. It was only when I poked him in the side did he contemplate the girl’s existence.
‘Hey Becky,’ he said. The name rung a bell in my mind but I couldn’t quite place it.
‘How come you’ve been avoidin’ me?’ The so-called Becky took a couple steps towards Chris, looking up at him in a way that seemed like she was looking down at him instead.
‘I haven’t been avoiding you,’ Chris replied and I could hear the sigh in his voice, as well as the silent words of ‘go away’. Becky, however, didn’t, or if she did she didn’t take much notice of them.
She scoffed and flicked at her ponytail. ‘Yeah right,’ she said. ‘I don’t fuckin’ believe you Chambers, you’re such a faggot.’
Chris scowled and his cheeks flushed red. ‘Maybe if you get your fuckin’ head out from your ass you’d be able to see it ain’t as pretty as you think it is.’
Becky’s face went even redder than Chris’s and she stormed off without another word. Beside me Chris made a noise like a growl of irritation and slammed his locker door closed with a clang.
‘So…’ I began, ‘what was that about?’
Chris looked at me as if he had forgotten I was there. ‘Nothin’,’ he said after a while, with a casual shrug of his shoulders.
‘Yeah right,’ I said sceptically. ‘Who was she? Becky who?’
‘No one, it’s not important. Just some girl I know.’
‘Some girl? Since when did you know girls?’ The words had slipped out of my mouth before I realised. I was pulling a Chris, speaking my thoughts out loud just like he did. Though for some reason when I did it, it seemed far worse.
‘What do you mean?’ Chris asked, placing a steady hand on my shoulder blade and lightly shoving me against my locker door. He glanced around the school hallway as if expecting people to be staring. The place was clear. It was almost time for the bell and most people were making their way to homeroom, the few stragglers that still remained weren’t looking in our direction.
‘Just that you don’t know any girls,’ I said, shrugging his hand off my shoulder and laughing. The laugh felt more nervous than I had wanted it to and so I cut it short, making it sound less like a laugh and more like a gasp for breath.
‘The world doesn’t revolve around you, Gordie,’ he told me.
‘I never said it did.’ I didn’t know what was wrong with Chris. He was acting weird, not all the time but just in strange bursts. Strange bursts of oddity, it was confusing the hell out of me.
‘That was Becky Ramirez,’ he said with an aggravated sigh. ‘She’s goin’ out with Vern, remember what Teddy said yesterday?’
I paused a moment to think and then nodded. ‘But what has she got to do with you?’
‘She asked me out once. Before she went out with Vern.’
I gawked at him. ‘How-why didn’t you tell me?’
‘Because I don’t have to tell you everything, Gordie,’ he answered, pulling me into one of his half-hugs in a motion of reconciliation. ‘And it’s not important anymore. I told her no.’
‘She doesn’t seem to like being told no,’ I said, laughing and glad to feel that my laughter felt the way it should do once again.
‘Well I don’t give a shit. Girlfriends are stupid,’ he replied. ‘I’d rather just hang out with friends.’
My laughter grew and I reached up to ruffle his hair. He let out a whine but let me carry on messing up his hair. Chris wasn’t one to care about his appearance; girls, however, did. I had to agree with him on that. Girlfriends were stupid.
‘What friends are those?’ I asked, teasingly. ‘I’m your only friend.’
Chris shrugged. ‘Well then I’d rather be with you. Better?’
My cheeks and ears went hot as blood rushed towards them for reasons I couldn’t tell. I put it down as a random occurrence and ignored it until the flush subsided.
‘Uh, yeah,’ I mumbled. ‘Better.’ I slipped myself out from underneath his arm, which he had still had rested upon my shoulder blades from the half-hug earlier. ‘We better hurry,’ I told him. ‘Or we’ll get a tardy slip.’
¤
The school day went by like many school days before: uneventfully. Chris had told me he would come around to study (‘Not matter what,’ he had said reassuringly) as the last afternoon meant we were both slightly behind on work. Not enough for me to be worried but enough for Chris to be.
I waved goodbye to Chris from the gate and made my way up to the front door. I knocked twice and waited. There was no answer. I knocked a few times more and still the same thing. My mother must have been out in the back garden and so I let myself in with the spare key my parents had hidden under the geranium flowerpot on our front porch.
The note, written in my father’s hand on white lined paper, had been pinned upon the wooden handrail of the staircase, right in front of the door so that when I entered I saw it immediately. Curious I walked up to it and read the words written in my father’s rushed scrawl.
Gordon, your mother has been in an accident. You don’t need to come. Food is in the oven.
I read the note again. My school bag dropped from my shoulder and I read the note once more, my eyes rushing frantically through the letters in case I had missed some. But I hadn’t, that was all it said. My mother had been in an accident. What accident? How did it happen? When did it happen? I had so many questions and no one was around to answer them. Where was she now? Probably in the hospital but where in the hospital? I didn’t know and according to my father’s note I didn’t need to know. You don’t need to come. But she was my mother!
Food is in the oven.
That was the clincher right there. Food is in the oven. Your mother has been in an accident and food is in the oven. Just in case you’re feeling at all peckish after that bit of news. Something bubbled in my lungs and I released it, shouting out loud to the emptiness of the house. I didn’t shout anything in particular, mostly swears. In between my yells I ripped the note up, letting the pieces of torn paper fall like snowflakes to the floor.
Still screaming profanities I ran up to my room and slammed the door behind me. My mother was in an accident and I didn’t need to be there, wherever she was I didn’t need to be there. Like I wasn’t part of the family. Like all I did was eat there. I picked up the nearest thing to me, a Superman comic book on my desk, and threw it across the room. It fell quite calmly onto my bed, as if to tell me that even my anger at not being part of my own family was not significant enough. I yelled again and took another book-a heavier one this time, a hardback-and threw that too. It hit the wall with a satisfying bang, creating a tiny indenture in the plaster. I picked another book and threw that too. Aiming for the same spot but missing it by about a foot.
I gave up then, collapsing into a heap on the floor I sat, staring blanking out the window. I’m not sure how long I was sitting staring, nor what I thought about during it all. It was only when a small pebble hit the glass of my window did I snap out of my reverie. Chris. I glanced at my watch and it read five o’ clock. He was early, really early.
I went to my window and slid it open. Chris had already begun to climb up the branches of the oak tree, movements swift and agile. I watched him do so until he reached the branch just opposite my window.
‘You’re early,’ I told him quietly.
‘Yeah, I know,’ he said, equally as quietly. I moved aside and he climbed gracefully into my room, his feet landing on the floor with a soft thud.
‘I heard about your mom,’ he said.
‘How?’ I asked him. I tried to keep my voice from sounding choked but failed miserably.
‘Eyeball said, as soon as I got home. It was Ace’s car. He wasn’t lookin’ at the road and your mom was crossing and-’ he stopped and I was glad he did, I didn’t want to hear the details. I felt his hand gently touch my arm and a chill ran through me. ‘I wasn’t sure you’d be home,’ he continued after a moment. ‘I just needed to check.’
‘Well I am home,’ I replied. ‘My dad he-he wrote a note…said I didn’t need to see her.’ I shook my head and scrunched my eyes closed tight, surprised to feel the wetness of tears behind my lids. ‘But she’s my mom, Chris. It’s like he doesn’t want me there but she’s my mom! I need-I need-’
It was then I broke down. Like someone had unscrewed the tap and let the water just fucking flow. I lifted a hand to wipe angrily at the streaming tears but Chris pulled it back and pulled me into him, wrapping his arms around me in a tight yet comforting hold. I lay my head upon his shoulder and he rocked me slowly, his hand running lengths across my spine.
We stood like that for a while, me leaning into him and him holding me upright. I felt something soft touch me on the crown of my head but his hands were upon my back. I shifted so I could look up at him.
‘Chris, did you just-’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ he interrupted and he walked me towards my bed, sitting down on the mattress and bringing me with him, still holding me as if he were afraid to let me go. I realised that, for a brief instance, I had not been thinking about my mother. I was thinking about her again though. It pained me that Chris knew more about my mother’s accident than I did myself. It wasn’t right.
‘Ace is going to pay,’ I whispered into the cloth of Chris’s shirt. ‘I don’t care if it was a fuckin’ accident.’
‘I’ll make sure of it,’ Chris said, his voice assuring. Then I felt it again, the soft touch on the top of my head.
‘I’m not a faggot, Chris,’ I said suddenly and felt his arms stiffen as they held me.
Another soft touch upon my head.
‘I know.’
Rating: 12A (UK), PG-13 (US)
Summary: Three years after the events in 'Stand By Me', Chris Chambers and Gordie Lachance are still standing by each other. What will face them as they journey even further beyond childhood?
Gordie's POV. Chris/Gordie Slash.
Warning: Contains strong language, male-male relationships, mature content
¤
I woke up the next morning to the sound of a skylark and the uncomfortable feeling of a knee wedged in my stomach, a knee that couldn’t be my own because I knew for certain that I didn’t have that sort of flexible capability. My body ached all over and I wondered why-instead of the soft mattress of my bed-I was lying upon a hard wood floor. A heavy yawn escaped my lips and I began to rub my sleep-encrusted eyes open.
Chris was the first thing I saw, his eyes were closed and the bruise that shaded his left one stood out in deep contrast against his lightly tanned skin-a deep purple mixed with angry scarlet. His face lay only a few inches in front of mine, so close that I could feel the warm breath from his nose touch the skin of my cheek. I yelped in surprise.
‘Christ, does you breath stink Gordie,’ said a Chris who was not as asleep as I had thought, though his eyes were still closed I could see his mouth curled up into his trademark ruffian smirk. His smirk made me glance down at the scabbed over cut upon his bottom lip and the raw red flesh around it. The memories of the night before came flooding back into my mind, answering my mental questions as to why I was sleeping beside Chris in our long-forgotten tree house. Even so, although the useful thing called a memory had answered my questions, it didn’t make the situation seem any less weird.
‘Yours probably does too,’ I retorted lamely and Chris laughed, finally opening his eyes to stare at me amusedly with irises of steel green.
‘Nah, I smell as fresh as a freshly picked daisy,’ he said matter-of-factly. He leant close to me, still laughing, and opened his mouth, breathing stale morning breath right under my nostrils. I jolted back and covered my abused nose with my hands, making fake retching noises as I did so. In my vengeance I yanked his half of the blanket off of him, exposing his lightly clothed body to the cold dawn air.
‘Fuck, it’s cold,’ he yelled, sitting bolt upright and rubbing the top of his sleeveless arms with his hands. He glanced over at me with one eyebrow raised and a grin resting upon his lips; it was a glance I knew all too well and it only meant one thing.
‘Oh shit,’ I whispered just as Chris screamed a battle cry and pounced on me, mouth opened wide to breathe more morning breath at my unprotected sinuses. He held me down, grasping my wrists with his hands so I couldn’t push him away. I tried to kick him off with my legs but-being Chris Chambers-he had thought of that too, holding my legs down with his right shin. I stared up at his grinning face, feeling beaten and waiting patiently for him to let me go. Our eyes locked and he paused…for a remarkably long time. I saw the skin of his forehead crinkle into something akin to confusion and he suddenly looked away, breaking eye contact, his cheeks slightly flushed from what-in my opinion-must have been the effort it had taken for him to keep me pinned down.
It was then that I saw the glimmer of opportunity and took my chance to get the better of him. Twisting my hands free from his grasp I grabbed the front of Chris’s shirt, pulling him down to the floor and pulling myself upwards at the same time. After another few clever manoeuvres I had managed get on top of him in the same position as he had had me before. I took a moment to marvel at the fact that for once I had managed to best him, giving me a feeling of pride greater than any obtained from fancy A’s in English class.
‘Well, well Chrissy-poo,’ I lorded over him. He wasn’t looking at me and I let out a huff of annoyance. ‘Sore loser much?’
It seemed those words hit home. ‘Get off me Gordie,’ he muttered and began to wrestle me away. I held tight. I wasn’t keen to let my victory go so easily. Pushing my whole weight down on top of him I kept him in place as best I could.
‘Get off me Gordie!’ Chris repeated, though this time louder, angrier.
If I had been in a different state of mind and not so drunk to win I might have given in and let Chris go. But I was a kid and what kids didn’t like to win? Hell, what people didn’t like to win? However, at that moment, I had forgotten one simple fact. He was Chris Chambers and Chris Chambers always won.
‘Off!’ he yelled and shoved at me hard. I lost my balance and toppled to the side, hitting the back of my head on one of the wooden crates used as seating in the tree house. Pain shot through me and my eyes blurred as I became overcome with a sudden dizziness.
‘What the fuck was that for?’ I shook my head to clear my vision and touched the tender spot on my head with a wary hand. From the corner of my eye I could see Chris hurriedly crawl over to me, the anger gone completely from his features in a flash. Instead replaced with concern, the same concern as I had seen on his face the time I had awoken from my nightmare.
‘I-I got caught up in the fight,’ he said apologetically. He reached out a hand though it did not touch me. He just let it hover by the side of my head as if one of those invisible force fields written about in comic books was holding it back. ‘You okay?’
I shrugged, letting go of the little annoyance I still had and saw his hand fall back down to his side. ‘I’ll live.’ I couldn’t stay annoyed at him for long anyway, I never could. Chris was good at that; his voice had a way to calm people, and it worked especially well for me. We fought but never for long or in any way seriously. We weren’t best friends for nothing after all. ‘So did I win?’
He looked over at me, eyebrows raised. ‘I was distracted.’
‘Yeah right,’ I said, scoffing at his petty excuse. ‘What distracted you?’
‘You did.’
I stopped mid-way in massaging the back my head and stared at him. ‘Huh?’ I asked eloquently.
Chris blinked and shook his head. I wondered whether what he had said was another product of his thinking-out-loud habit, another one of his many thoughts spilling from his brain and accidentally forming words when they reached his tongue. Like his thoughts were pennies and his mouth was the torn hole in the bottom of his jean pocket. Nobody liked to lose money and Chris didn’t like to lose his thoughts, he just hadn’t been able to get himself a new pair of jeans.
‘What’s the time?’ he asked quickly, changing the subject. I stared at him a second longer before giving up and obliging, looking down at my watch. It was just past seven in the morning, the time I normally woke up when I was at home. Pretty soon my mother would finish setting out the breakfast table and call for me to come down to eat.
‘Seven,’ I told him. He nodded and stood up, holding out his hand to me once he had gotten to his feet. Without hesitation I took it and let him pull me up. He did so easily, one yank of the arm muscles and I was stood there in front of him as if I had been there all my life.
‘You headin’ back?’ he asked and I made a noise that was neither a yes nor a no. It was warmer now. The air was no longer filled with the chill of twilight but instead the tired tepidity of an actual morning.
‘I suppose so,’ I said after a while. I lifted my hand to run it through my hair only to find it still in Chris’s grasp. He noticed at the same time I did and let go so fast that it seemed like he had been burnt by a hot poker, quickly shoving his hands in his pockets afterwards-a gesture too that, although meant to seem nonchalant, was riddled with the opposite.
‘I’ll see you then,’ he said hurriedly and I nodded. He stepped to the side and I meandered past him, reaching down towards the tree house’s trap door and heaving it open. It was too early in the morning to think about why Chris was being so strange. Maybe it was simply due to the fact that he was not a morning person.
¤
My parents hadn’t noticed me coming down late for breakfast and I carried on my morning rituals the same way as I’d always done. It was as if the night in the tree house had never happened. If it hadn’t been for the potatoes and meatloaf sitting stale on my bedroom desk I would’ve thought it had all been a dream.
I collected together my books and stationary, shoved them unceremoniously in my school bag and hitched the tattered strap of it upon my shoulder.
‘Gordon,’ I heard my mother call from the kitchen. ‘Hurry or you’ll be late for school. I can see that Chambers boy waiting for you by our gate.’
That Chambers boy…for some strange reason neither of my parents liked calling Chris by his first name. In fact I couldn’t recall a moment when they ever had. It was always ‘that Chambers boy’ or ‘that friend of yours’ or sometimes even just ‘him’. Even Chris doing college classes didn’t sway my parents’ opinion of him, especially not my father’s.
‘Yes ma,’ I replied and rushed down the stairs, taking the steps two at a time. I didn’t bother to say goodbye when I swung open the front door. They didn’t either.
Chris was standing by the gate just like my mother had said, leaning against its wooden frame with his eyes squinting in the sun. He had cleaned himself up since earlier that morning. He had on a different shirt, one that was still stained though not with flecks of dried blood, and his face and hair had been washed, though in a haphazardly manner. The bruises and cuts were still noticeable though, standing out like the sun in the sky, obvious and there and blazing. On his shoulder he had a bag similar to mine except more worn. The bag, the shirt and the slight dampness of his hair told me Chris must have gone home just as I had done and went about his morning rituals same as me. Almost the same.
‘Shit,’ I muttered and called for Chris to wait there for a second longer. He looked at me confused and I could see his mouth open to ask me why just as I turned right back around shoved open my front door. My mother was walking through the kitchen door just as I swerved right past her.
‘What do you think you’re doing, Gordon?’ I heard her say. I could feel her eyes upon me as I grabbed four slices of toast and an apple from the kitchen table.
‘I’m hungry,’ I told her and she looked at me sceptically. She did not believe me but I didn’t really care. She always prepared more food than she needed too, as if she was still cooking for Denny as well.
I pushed open the front door for the final time that morning and ambled my way towards a bemused-looking Chris, shoving the toasts and apple at his chest once I reached him. He instinctively grabbed a hold of them so they wouldn’t fall to the dusty ground.
‘What this?’ he asked and I rolled my eyes.
‘Breakfast, numbnuts,’ I said. ‘Eat up.’
He looked down at the food in his arms and then at me. I gave him a smile and he slowly returned with one of his own, a smile that, now in hindsight, seemed to say so much more than ‘thanks for the grub’.
‘What would you do without me, eh?’ I said as he took a tentative bite out of a slice of toast.
‘I have no fucking clue,’ he replied in a tone more honest than I had expected. He offered me two pieces of toast but I shook my head, pushing the food away from me and back towards him. He insisted though, not taking another bite until I had finally accepted at least one of the pieces of toast. It was a compromise so I took it, glad to see that Chris stowed the apple I had given him away into his bag without a fuss.
We ate as we walked and got to school in good time. Chris and I were at our lockers when I heard someone call his name from across the hall.
‘Hey Chambers!’ I turned my head and saw a girl walking towards us. I recognised her vaguely, but only as another face in the crowd. She had long brown hair tied up in a side ponytail and a confident swagger in her stride. One could call her pretty if they ignored way her front teeth jutted out slightly and simply concentrated on the area around her bosom; the large amount of area around her bosom.
‘Chambers, didn’t ya hear me?’ She was right next to us now, though she ignored me completely. Her big brown eyes focused solely on the back of Chris’s head. He had not yet turned around to face her. It was only when I poked him in the side did he contemplate the girl’s existence.
‘Hey Becky,’ he said. The name rung a bell in my mind but I couldn’t quite place it.
‘How come you’ve been avoidin’ me?’ The so-called Becky took a couple steps towards Chris, looking up at him in a way that seemed like she was looking down at him instead.
‘I haven’t been avoiding you,’ Chris replied and I could hear the sigh in his voice, as well as the silent words of ‘go away’. Becky, however, didn’t, or if she did she didn’t take much notice of them.
She scoffed and flicked at her ponytail. ‘Yeah right,’ she said. ‘I don’t fuckin’ believe you Chambers, you’re such a faggot.’
Chris scowled and his cheeks flushed red. ‘Maybe if you get your fuckin’ head out from your ass you’d be able to see it ain’t as pretty as you think it is.’
Becky’s face went even redder than Chris’s and she stormed off without another word. Beside me Chris made a noise like a growl of irritation and slammed his locker door closed with a clang.
‘So…’ I began, ‘what was that about?’
Chris looked at me as if he had forgotten I was there. ‘Nothin’,’ he said after a while, with a casual shrug of his shoulders.
‘Yeah right,’ I said sceptically. ‘Who was she? Becky who?’
‘No one, it’s not important. Just some girl I know.’
‘Some girl? Since when did you know girls?’ The words had slipped out of my mouth before I realised. I was pulling a Chris, speaking my thoughts out loud just like he did. Though for some reason when I did it, it seemed far worse.
‘What do you mean?’ Chris asked, placing a steady hand on my shoulder blade and lightly shoving me against my locker door. He glanced around the school hallway as if expecting people to be staring. The place was clear. It was almost time for the bell and most people were making their way to homeroom, the few stragglers that still remained weren’t looking in our direction.
‘Just that you don’t know any girls,’ I said, shrugging his hand off my shoulder and laughing. The laugh felt more nervous than I had wanted it to and so I cut it short, making it sound less like a laugh and more like a gasp for breath.
‘The world doesn’t revolve around you, Gordie,’ he told me.
‘I never said it did.’ I didn’t know what was wrong with Chris. He was acting weird, not all the time but just in strange bursts. Strange bursts of oddity, it was confusing the hell out of me.
‘That was Becky Ramirez,’ he said with an aggravated sigh. ‘She’s goin’ out with Vern, remember what Teddy said yesterday?’
I paused a moment to think and then nodded. ‘But what has she got to do with you?’
‘She asked me out once. Before she went out with Vern.’
I gawked at him. ‘How-why didn’t you tell me?’
‘Because I don’t have to tell you everything, Gordie,’ he answered, pulling me into one of his half-hugs in a motion of reconciliation. ‘And it’s not important anymore. I told her no.’
‘She doesn’t seem to like being told no,’ I said, laughing and glad to feel that my laughter felt the way it should do once again.
‘Well I don’t give a shit. Girlfriends are stupid,’ he replied. ‘I’d rather just hang out with friends.’
My laughter grew and I reached up to ruffle his hair. He let out a whine but let me carry on messing up his hair. Chris wasn’t one to care about his appearance; girls, however, did. I had to agree with him on that. Girlfriends were stupid.
‘What friends are those?’ I asked, teasingly. ‘I’m your only friend.’
Chris shrugged. ‘Well then I’d rather be with you. Better?’
My cheeks and ears went hot as blood rushed towards them for reasons I couldn’t tell. I put it down as a random occurrence and ignored it until the flush subsided.
‘Uh, yeah,’ I mumbled. ‘Better.’ I slipped myself out from underneath his arm, which he had still had rested upon my shoulder blades from the half-hug earlier. ‘We better hurry,’ I told him. ‘Or we’ll get a tardy slip.’
¤
The school day went by like many school days before: uneventfully. Chris had told me he would come around to study (‘Not matter what,’ he had said reassuringly) as the last afternoon meant we were both slightly behind on work. Not enough for me to be worried but enough for Chris to be.
I waved goodbye to Chris from the gate and made my way up to the front door. I knocked twice and waited. There was no answer. I knocked a few times more and still the same thing. My mother must have been out in the back garden and so I let myself in with the spare key my parents had hidden under the geranium flowerpot on our front porch.
The note, written in my father’s hand on white lined paper, had been pinned upon the wooden handrail of the staircase, right in front of the door so that when I entered I saw it immediately. Curious I walked up to it and read the words written in my father’s rushed scrawl.
Gordon, your mother has been in an accident. You don’t need to come. Food is in the oven.
I read the note again. My school bag dropped from my shoulder and I read the note once more, my eyes rushing frantically through the letters in case I had missed some. But I hadn’t, that was all it said. My mother had been in an accident. What accident? How did it happen? When did it happen? I had so many questions and no one was around to answer them. Where was she now? Probably in the hospital but where in the hospital? I didn’t know and according to my father’s note I didn’t need to know. You don’t need to come. But she was my mother!
Food is in the oven.
That was the clincher right there. Food is in the oven. Your mother has been in an accident and food is in the oven. Just in case you’re feeling at all peckish after that bit of news. Something bubbled in my lungs and I released it, shouting out loud to the emptiness of the house. I didn’t shout anything in particular, mostly swears. In between my yells I ripped the note up, letting the pieces of torn paper fall like snowflakes to the floor.
Still screaming profanities I ran up to my room and slammed the door behind me. My mother was in an accident and I didn’t need to be there, wherever she was I didn’t need to be there. Like I wasn’t part of the family. Like all I did was eat there. I picked up the nearest thing to me, a Superman comic book on my desk, and threw it across the room. It fell quite calmly onto my bed, as if to tell me that even my anger at not being part of my own family was not significant enough. I yelled again and took another book-a heavier one this time, a hardback-and threw that too. It hit the wall with a satisfying bang, creating a tiny indenture in the plaster. I picked another book and threw that too. Aiming for the same spot but missing it by about a foot.
I gave up then, collapsing into a heap on the floor I sat, staring blanking out the window. I’m not sure how long I was sitting staring, nor what I thought about during it all. It was only when a small pebble hit the glass of my window did I snap out of my reverie. Chris. I glanced at my watch and it read five o’ clock. He was early, really early.
I went to my window and slid it open. Chris had already begun to climb up the branches of the oak tree, movements swift and agile. I watched him do so until he reached the branch just opposite my window.
‘You’re early,’ I told him quietly.
‘Yeah, I know,’ he said, equally as quietly. I moved aside and he climbed gracefully into my room, his feet landing on the floor with a soft thud.
‘I heard about your mom,’ he said.
‘How?’ I asked him. I tried to keep my voice from sounding choked but failed miserably.
‘Eyeball said, as soon as I got home. It was Ace’s car. He wasn’t lookin’ at the road and your mom was crossing and-’ he stopped and I was glad he did, I didn’t want to hear the details. I felt his hand gently touch my arm and a chill ran through me. ‘I wasn’t sure you’d be home,’ he continued after a moment. ‘I just needed to check.’
‘Well I am home,’ I replied. ‘My dad he-he wrote a note…said I didn’t need to see her.’ I shook my head and scrunched my eyes closed tight, surprised to feel the wetness of tears behind my lids. ‘But she’s my mom, Chris. It’s like he doesn’t want me there but she’s my mom! I need-I need-’
It was then I broke down. Like someone had unscrewed the tap and let the water just fucking flow. I lifted a hand to wipe angrily at the streaming tears but Chris pulled it back and pulled me into him, wrapping his arms around me in a tight yet comforting hold. I lay my head upon his shoulder and he rocked me slowly, his hand running lengths across my spine.
We stood like that for a while, me leaning into him and him holding me upright. I felt something soft touch me on the crown of my head but his hands were upon my back. I shifted so I could look up at him.
‘Chris, did you just-’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ he interrupted and he walked me towards my bed, sitting down on the mattress and bringing me with him, still holding me as if he were afraid to let me go. I realised that, for a brief instance, I had not been thinking about my mother. I was thinking about her again though. It pained me that Chris knew more about my mother’s accident than I did myself. It wasn’t right.
‘Ace is going to pay,’ I whispered into the cloth of Chris’s shirt. ‘I don’t care if it was a fuckin’ accident.’
‘I’ll make sure of it,’ Chris said, his voice assuring. Then I felt it again, the soft touch on the top of my head.
‘I’m not a faggot, Chris,’ I said suddenly and felt his arms stiffen as they held me.
Another soft touch upon my head.
‘I know.’