This is Not a Love Story (15 page)

And where and why indeed, because his blankets are thrown back and his bed is empty.

Angry grunts are coming from every direction at my coughing inconsiderate self as I touch his sheets searching for warmth, for knowledge that he
was
here, not so long ago.

Fuck.

A sudden prickling sensation flows over my skin like an icy whisper. I imagine it’s my
name
on the wind again—even though that’s impossible—and I spin around, half expecting, no,
mostly
expecting, Louis to be silhouetted in the doorway like the stalker in a horror film. But he’s not, and as I peer down it, the corridor behind is thankfully empty as well.

Now the surge of adrenaline has passed, I feel sick, and I stagger out of the dark room and into the bright of the corridor once more.

Where the fuck is he? Bathroom?

I stop and listen for the slightest of sounds before inching my way, thief-like, back down the stairs. The bathroom is at the end of my corridor. I think my heart might stop if I see Louis waiting for me. But again, he’s not. The dorm door is closed, and all I can hear is the deep, almost palpable hush of sleep.

Slowly and with more caution than I’ve ever possessed, I push open the heavy bathroom door.

The soft water hiss of the shower echoes around me, the air lightly misted with vapor. It makes me wonder if the thing is broken, the hot water hammering emptily against the tiles.

I cover my mouth to smother my sudden coughing and creep within. A large pile of clothing is heaped unfolded on the floor by the entrance to the shower room, a trail of wet footprints looping an infinite figure of eight around it.

Now I’m closer I can hear staggered breathing, strangled gasps for air, the groan of bodies searching for release. Embarrassed, I start to back away; the lack of privacy in this place is painful enough as it is without me leering in the darkness.

Since that first day here, when we held one another in the shower, all we’ve managed are a few stolen kisses, hugs taken on the wing as we walk from one room to another—touches that qualify our existence, that prove we are real, we are here.

And then it happens, so quickly, before I’m even conscious of why. The world tilts and all the air is sucked out of my lungs. I can’t cough. I can’t fucking breathe. Or even see straight. My legs give way. Because, oh God, tangled in the pile of clothing is the jumper Julian was wearing earlier. I would recognize it anywhere. And his jeans… pants… all mixed up with someone else’s, and now every sound they make cuts into me, flays me raw, and I spread my palms wide on the concrete and heave.

I
know
without doubt he’s not doing it for pleasure. There is no question of his being unfaithful to me like that. I
know
there will be a reason. But as I sob, coughing into my arms, and lay my head against the cool concrete, I can’t imagine anything hurting worse.

I used to be able to ignore the fact that he was letting people fuck him. It was just a word, because I didn’t
see
it or
hear
it. And because the whole sordid operation was carried out far away from my sight, it was abstract and unreal.

Without warning I throw up. And crawl away from the mess, disgusted.

I move as far away from the shower room as I can. What else can I do but sit back against the lockers and wait for it to be over?

I’m so deep in despair, I don’t even notice the bathroom door swing wide and an awkward figure move in front of me. When Louis crouches down, I don’t even care—I’m not scared, I’m in pieces. Distantly, I notice how sad his eyes are, how lost his whole expression is when he looks at me. He holds out his hand, reaches for mine—my limp and useless arm offers no resistance—and places a many-times-folded piece of paper in my palm. Gently closing my fingers around it, he then gets up and leaves, as if this was all he wanted all along, to give me something, a message, a letter, a blank folded sheet—I don’t care. Yet I keep my palm folded tightly around it and stare at the wet sheen glossing the surface of everything as the shower runs on and on.

Time hisses away. It could be a little, it could be a lot. I think of how far I thought we’d come. How far away from Julian doing this I thought we were. But in reality we hadn’t even moved, or if we had, it was in a great pointless circle right back here again. Back to where I only want to run from.

If I’m honest, I can’t stand the thought of anyone else touching him. Touching him in places only I should be allowed. It’s despicable, but I want him to be mine and mine alone. I recognize the tightness of my skin around
my
bones, but I have nothing else. I’m only asking for one thing. Him.

And if he feels any meager pleasure out of the act, then it’s my pleasure that’s being taken away, my heart that’s being ripped out.

Voices emerge out of the shower room. The water is switched off.

And suddenly I can’t know. I can’t face him. And, not daring to breathe, I dart silently out of the shower room and out into the bright of the corridor to the quiet of the dorm. Where I lie coughing and sobbing and completely not caring about anyone else around me.

I
T
’
S
THE
first night he doesn’t come to me. I doze off, but every so often I wake and turn my head and notice he’s not there. The emptiness beside the bed is like the emptiness inside me and I close my eyes, chanting excuses for him, reasons why he isn’t here, make believe, fairy tales, stupid lies. The unbelievable anxiety that swept me away last night has been surpassed by this futile game.

With a sense of bleak fatality, I watch the cold dawn light inch up the walls and lengthen the shadows in the room. Shattered with tiredness and hurt as to where Julian has spent the night, I smother my cough and creep out of the room.

Strangely, it’s only as I reach out to push open the door to Julian’s dorm that I realize I’m still clasping that folded piece of paper Louis gave me last night. The hard corners have left numb red marks in my palm from where I have been holding on to it so tightly. For a second I debate unfolding it before I go in, but it can wait; this can’t.

The door creaks, the room hushed. I release the breath I was unconsciously holding when I see Julian sat on the bed leaning listlessly against the headboard. A mound of ripped paper is piled on the sheet beneath his fingers. He doesn’t seem to be aware of me as I walk across the room. But as soon as he sees me, he comes alive, his expression stark, his eyes desolate.

“I’m going to explain everything” is the first thing he says, fixing me desperately in his gaze, as though he thinks I’m not going to listen, not going to want to stay long enough to hear what he has to say.

Scraps of paper scatter as I sit down, and I shake my head. Right now I just want to be near him, be with him, close. I want to settle the relief I feel that he is here, and I have found him.

I don’t notice the blood smeared on his fingertips and wrist until it’s too late, until he’s sobbing into his hands in front of me.

I’ve never seen him cry. Not like this.

Unsure of what to do, but wanting to do it in private, I encircle his wrist with my hand and gently tug him to his feet. All the hurt I felt is vanished, evaporated in the warmth, the reality of him, here with me. Even if I have no explanation, my trust is a shining beacon of light that will not falter.

Looking back as we stumble across the room, I can see the dirty white sheet is marked with bloody fingerprints, and everything I thought I knew about last night is now unknown and assumed.

It’s nearly 7:00 a.m., but no one is around. I stand at the functional metal sink in the kitchen and watch as Julian methodically washes the blood off his hands and every so often wipes his eyes on his sleeve.

I stroke his side with my fingertips, lovingly brush the sharp ridge of his hip, visible even through his jumper, and feel torn apart when he flinches away.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers brokenly as he leans over the sink and splashes his face with the cold water.

It’s okay
, I sign, even though it’s not.

And I know I’m failing to hide the hurt I feel at his reaction to my touch.

I don’t want to stay here anymore
, I sign as he dries his wet skin on a paper towel.

Always so aware of me, he watches the movements I make and stays my hand, opening my fingers with his and gently taking out the paper I have been gripping so tightly.

“What’s this?”

I shrug and watch with trepidation as he unfolds it.

He holds it titled away from me, almost as though he wants to hide it. I have to lean over to see.

At first I can’t take it in as I stare at the boy pictured in his hands. At first I don’t recognize him, and then with an icy shiver I suddenly realize what all the ripped paper on his bed was. Me. Pictures of me. Missing.
Please call this number. Please call….
My mother’s voice, missing me.

My throat works dryly. I can’t swallow. I stumble backward into the row of chairs.

“Who gave this to you?”

Why didn’t you tell me?
I sign, flushed with anger and bizarrely fear.
Last night you let someone fuck you! I heard. I was there in the shower room!

I refuse to be the first to look away, and Julian isn’t answering me. It feels as if everything I had left is swirling away from me like water running down the drain. I have nothing. There is nothing for me to hold on to. And with startling clarity I realize the fear I feel is of her finding me, and of all this, everything I have with Julian, vanishing away like a dream when she takes me. And I can’t let that happen. But some part of me knows that it will.

“He threatened me with these.” Julian’s eyes are full of so much pain.

The flyer waves lifelessly in his hand, and I keep looking at my face in the picture—so different and yet exactly the same, so much younger, so naïve. I can even remember the photograph being taken.

“Leon, the guy on reception the day we came. He threatened to call the number. You’re underage, and he knew they would take you. I had to… I’m sorry….” He reaches out to touch me, and I back away. “I can’t lose you!”

So why didn’t we just leave? Go to another shelter,
I try to sign, but I’m doubled over coughing, crouched down.

He gets it anyway. He always does.

“Why do you think?” he says gently. “You need to get better. Going back out there right now is… it’s suicide, Remee! And your picture will be in other shelters too! And I just thought if I could stop Leon, if I could just… until you were better, we would be alright.”

He kneels down on the floor in front of me, screws the flyer up, and takes my face in his hands.

“Who gave this to you? Who else knows?”

Louis. I want to go back to Cassey’s
, I mouth.

He nods. “Okay.”

Now.

“Now? Okay.”

I collapse into him, my head thudding against his shoulder so hard it must hurt. And in a way I want it to.

But I know he doesn’t care. I could hurt him in a thousand ways, maybe I already do, and he would just fold his arms around me and stroke my hair.

After a while I pull back and sign,
You made your fingers bleed tearing those flyers up.

He shows me his hands. They look okay now, not bloody, though his knuckles look a little sore. I trail my fingers lightly over his skin, making him shiver when I catch his eye.

“Found out Leon had a stash of them. I punched the wall. It hurt.” He smiles wryly. “Should have punched Leon, but then I know he would have called for sure.”

I would never let them take me, you know.

Awkwardly I reach up, trace his jaw with my thumb, anxious lest he pull away from me when I’m so open like this, my feelings so naked.

I want you
, I mouth. I want him to take away all I heard last night. I want him in the most basic way to show that he’s still mine. But he sighs sadly and takes my hand between his, kisses the palm.

“I’m scared, Remee. Because if they took you, it wouldn’t be like this for you. You’d have a home. You’d have a chance. That’s what I’m terrified of. I’m terrified I’m being so fucking selfish keeping you with me, because I love you above everything, and I want you to have more than this—”

I don’t want more than you.

I pull my hand away and cup the back of his head, my fingers threading through his hair.

“Well, you should. I’ve got nothing. I am nothing.”

In one swift movement he stands up, backs away.

Don’t talk like that, please!

“It’s the truth.”

I pull out my pad and scrawl.
You think my mother cares about me? She doesn’t give a fuck. There’ll be a reason she’s done this, be it for money or for a place to live. She can’t give me what you give me; she can’t look after me like you do. I never want to see her again. Never. And she will never find me.

Julian looks on, his warm eyes dark and suddenly unknowable to me.

The double doors at the end of the room open and a few people start to come in, waiting for the drinks and toast that will be served for breakfast soon.

We make our way out in silence, Julian walking in front of me.

In the corridor I see Louis. I stop and hold out my hand to him. I feel stupid and guilty about last night, about how I overreacted when he just wanted to warn me. His grip is gentle, and he nods, as though he understands, smiling sadly for a moment as he moves away.

And I realize I’ve learned things aren’t always as they appear, and more than anything, nothing can stay the same, nothing will stay the same, and our time together like this is temporary unless we find a way out.