This is Not a Love Story (26 page)

Not wanting to disturb him, I ease his arm from around me and slip out of the bed. The bathroom is at the end of the corridor, but I pass so many other doors it feels like I’m in an empty hotel.

I can no longer hear the TV burbling away. Everything is disturbingly quiet—no traffic, no arguing in the street outside. It’s like the silence after an explosion. It makes me want to hold my breath.

I drink from the tap and use the toilet without even turning the bathroom light on. I don’t want to see how nice the room is. Everything here must remain at arm’s length. Detached. Because that’s the way it is. My world is the one we’re all pretending doesn’t exist. And although I’m here, I’m not thinking about what that might mean yet, but I know I can’t straddle the divide forever.

Cupping warm water in my hands, I wash my face and try not to look back at the boy in the mirror above the sink. I hardly recognize him anymore—he’s changing too traitorously quick to grasp hold of. The glass is cold beneath my palm as I cover his face.

Back in Crash’s room, I don’t know what to do with myself. I’m too restless to sleep. I glance at the papers and books that are under my feet. School books, homework. Other world stuff.

I sit down at his desk and flick through a couple of them, knowing I’m being nosy as hell but unable to stop myself looking for more of his little doodled illustrations—cityscapes seem to be his favorite, with faceless boys on skateboards riding down stairwells and over barriers. Estella said he was an artist of a sort, and although he’s good, and I’m entranced by all the quirky details like the graffiti in the background, I don’t think this is what she meant. His magic is in the way he moves. The way his body describes the space around him, the way he tests the limits and boundaries in his movements.

Closing the books, I notice for the first time the name that appears on the front of them is not Crash but…
Christopher
. I say it over in my head. It’s as though I have discovered a secret.

I keep glancing at the blank notebook on the side of his desk, pretending I don’t feel its pull as I stretch my fingers out, then make a fist, feeling the way my skin tightens against my bones. I’m scared I won’t be able to do it anymore, that I’ve somehow broken that almost mystical connection between my brain and my hand. But I know it’s thinking like this that’s really going to break the connection.

Carefully, I pick up the notebook and quietly tear out a piece of paper. I fold it over and root around on the floor until I eventually find a pencil and something to lean on. I know what I want to draw. I’m not sure what his reaction to me drawing him sleeping will be, though. Maybe I won’t show him. Maybe I’ll keep it like the picture I drew of the boys kissing on the bus. A moment, a snapshot, captured and stolen out of time.

T
HE
GRAY
morning light filters through the bare branches of the oak outside the window. The ground below is swathed in mist. Wrapped in one of Crash’s jumpers, I’m sitting on his windowsill, waiting for the night to fade away completely. I’ve been sat here for hours now, thinking, trying to make sense of everything. Trying to work out what I should do.

I can’t remember ever being able to hear birds sing so clearly
—
the city drowns out everything but its own song. It’s never quiet, like this.

But by seven my patience has evaporated; I’ve had enough. Lack of sleep has me restless to be gone, and I decide it’s not too early to wake Crash. I crouch down in front of him and brush his silky hair out of his eyes, watching as he blinks sleepily at me and stretches languidly, his arms above his head.

I want to go see a friend before I look at the rest of the pools and get my drawings from the hospital,
I sign in a rush.
She works at a cafe. She gets there early.

Cassey saw Julian more than I did in those last few days. Maybe she can help me make sense of things.

You didn’t sleep much, did you?
he signs, ever perceptive, as he squints at me.
What about talking to Kay and Peter?

I will, just… later
. I know he’s just woken up, but I’m ready to leave now.

I can’t deny that I’m starting to feel caged in. If I talk to them, they’ll try to stop me, try to convince me that my continual searching is not the way to do things, tell me I need to stop and get on with things, my life. My chest feels tight just thinking about it.

They could help.

I shake my head.

They wouldn’t understand. How could they?

He sighs.
I need to talk to them before I go anywhere.

Out in the corridor there is movement; a floorboard creaks near Crash’s door. I begin to feel a little desperate.

You don’t have to come.
It would be better if he didn’t. But at the same time, his presence comforts me.

He gives me a lopsided smile.
I want to come. But I can’t just go without saying anything.

Do you need their permission whenever you want to go outside?
It pisses me off that he can’t seem to do anything without some sort of adult interference.

No, but I want it.
He looks at me steadily.
So I’ve got to talk to them.

I don’t want to wait,
I sign irritably. I want to just go, but I don’t know where I am, and I have no money for the bus. I walk across the room and stand by the door, frustrated.

With immense casual grace, Crash gets up, picks his clothes off the floor, and pulls them on. He walks over to me and before I know what’s happening, pulls me into a hug. I lean into it for a second, then push him away.

I feel like shit, don’t be nice to me.
I scowl.

Briefly, he searches my eyes and he signs,
Wait here.

When he returns Kay is with him. She has a sandwich for me. She holds it out like a peace offering—except it’s me who should be offering something.

I put the plate on the bed next to me, cast my eyes down, and glower at the carpet.

“Romeo, I know you don’t want to talk right now,” she says gently. “Crash told me you want to go and see a friend this morning.”

I refuse to look up, but I nod.

“Okay.” She pauses, and I assume she’s signing something to Crash. “I just want you to know that we’re here if you need us, and we’d very much like it if you came back later.”

If she means that in some way more than just doing her job to make me feel wanted, I can’t understand why—I’ve been nothing but a silent presence that’s eaten their food and hidden away in their house. I wonder if Crash was like this, or if he was just so grateful to finally belong somewhere, everything fell easily into place.

But again I nod.

Her feet step lightly across the room, out of sight. I hear the door shut.

Crash dips his head and peers at me until I look back at him.

Sorry, I couldn’t stop her.
He doesn’t look sorry.
No one is going to force you to stay. But given a choice between this and
—
he gestures toward the window
—
out there, I’ve never looked back.

I
T
’
S
COLD
,
he signs as he passes me the fur-lined hooded top I wrapped myself in last night.

It smells of him, and I relax infinitesimally as I slip my arms down the sleeves.

I wait by the door while he searches through his drawers for something.

Here.
He hands me a mobile phone.
I’ll put some credit on it when we’re out.

I pass it back to him.
I can’t.

For texting.
He mimes, like I don’t know what that is.

But it’s not that I can’t use it; it’s that I can’t take a phone from him. I can’t pay him back.

Please.
He places it back in my palm, folds his hand over mine over the phone.

My resistance is being worn away, like a city slowly crumbling to dust. I put it in my pocket.

W
E
STAND
at the bus stop down the road, freezing. I pull at the neck of the top to cover my mouth and look around.

Everything is so green out here, wherever we are, whatever middle-class borough we’re in. Even though it’s winter and it’s the frost that flowers in the gutters and across the cracks in the road, there are still thorny hedges and frozen grass and weird-shaped conifers in everyone’s gardens. It’s all more green than gray, and it makes me feel as though I’m taking a deep breath, a breath I need to take. There is no panicked flood of things happening, there is nothing moving through the stillness, everything is glacier slow, yet the moment is full, peaceful. Another world.

T
HE
BLACK
knot in my chest grows heavy as the bus stops on the embankment and we get off. It weighs me down as though it will be my cross to bear. My devastated heart, my loss.

She felt like this too, my mother. I don’t know how I know it, but I do. She lost her love, her family—all she had left was me. And it all twisted up bitter and sharp inside her until everything good was gone.

I don’t want to be like that.

Like the slow spread of a disease, I’m beginning to hate this city and what it’s done to us. To all of us, to everyone I know. I glance at Crash. Maybe I am starting to understand why he wants me to take what’s being offered.

I
DON
’
T
know where Cassey’s sister’s cafe is, but I don’t want to admit that to Crash after he’s come so far with me, so for a while I wander up and down the litter-filled streets near the embankment, trying to look as if I know where I’m going.

We see a newsagents and go in so Crash can put some credit on the phone he gave me and, swallowing whatever fear usually stops me, I write a note and pass it to the woman behind the counter, asking her where Jackie’s cafe is.

“Next left, Old Paradise Street,” she says.

It’s not far.

It’s just a tiny place, smaller than Joe Brown’s used to be, with yellow lighting and steamed-up windows that radiate warmth. I stop outside, dreading what I’m about to do.

At the end of the street—the restless gray ribbon of river, the sky like mist above it. Nothing ever black-and-white.

Crash looks at me expectantly, but I won’t hold his gaze.

You want to see her on your own,
he surprises me by signing what I was just about to.

I bite my lip and nod, my eyes flicking over his.

Will you collect my drawings from the hospital?

I hate that I’m asking him this, and I don’t want to hurt him, but I’m here to talk to Cassey about Julian. He was never meant to come.

Will you be here when I get back?

Yes,
I mouth.

Is it a lie? I just don’t know.

I stand in the doorway and watch him until he disappears. He looks back once, before the corner, and I know he sees me.

W
HEN
I
push open the door, the smell of hot grease and tea brings back a storm of hopeless memories I have to swallow down. Cassey is stood behind the counter serving a young girl with a baby. She nearly drops the plate of toast she is passing to her when she sees me.

“Jesus Christ, Romeo, I’ve been so worried! The hospital said you’d run away. Come here!”

She pulls me into a hug across the counter, squeezing me so hard my ribs might crack.

“I’ll make you a tea,” she says, unnecessarily turning away to get a cup so I can wipe my eyes and steady myself again.

“Jackie!” she calls, lifting the counter top. “I’m just taking five.”

We sit at one of the empty tables. It’s only just past eight, but the first wave of breakfast customers is gone, and there are only a few stragglers left.

I pull out a page from Crash’s notebook and pass it to her. Everything I need to know is on that page.

She skims my questions briefly before looking back at me, confused, pitying maybe.

“You haven’t heard?”

Blood rushes in my ears, making my head throb. I can’t breathe for fear of what she’s going to tell me. The world stops when I shake my head.

“Romeo, Pasha isn’t with Julian anymore. Pasha’s back down the embankment with Roxy.”

Before I realize what I’m doing, I’m up and out the door, leaving it wide open behind me.

I
RUN
toward the river, not seeing anything but my destination—the embankment, the sharp concrete steps, the sleeping bodies lying in shelter beneath the concrete sky. There are too many for the police to move on, although they will have tried. Beyond them the underpasses turn into the tunnels.

I am disconnected from my body, unaware, as I weave my way between the sleeping forms and run into the dark. I’m not scared anymore, even though this is the place where I pushed Cricket into the fire and burned my hands, even though Cricket is probably still here somewhere. I don’t care. I just need to find Pasha.

There are few fires burning at the center of the tunnels, and it is dark and cold. My footsteps splash through the black water, and the sounds echo on around me as I run through the vast, unlit space. I don’t know where I’m going. Pasha will be with Roxy, and Roxy will be… where?

I stop, staring around at all the boxes and blankets and sagging tarpaulin shelters, listening to the sounds of fitful sleep, the coughing, the moans. I can’t take it. This is my life, and at the same time, it’s not anymore.

Taking myself by surprise, I crouch down and shake the blanket-wrapped body nearest to me.

Do you know Roxy?
I mouth.

Dark, tired eyes glare up at me, not even trying to understand. “Fuck off.”