All the characters and events in this story are fictitious. Any resemblance to real people, either living or dead, is entirely unintentional.
The story is copyrighted and may not be reproduced in any way without the express permission of the author who can be contacted at pjalexander1753@gmail.com
A Very Ordinary Boy (Part 2)
From Chapter 2:
Oh, so you didn't know I was gay, you just hoped. You'd never seen me with a girl and didn't think I'd ever had a girlfriend, hadn't ever seen me hang out with anyone apart from Dyl and Si. And you thought I was way hot! Now I know you're just pulling my chain. How can you say I'm hot? Have you looked at yourself in the mirror lately? That's hot. Oh shit! Did I just say I think you're hot? Well, well you are. And fit. And kind. And a good listener. And a great homework monitor. And I think you need to go home before, well, before I say anything else to embarrass the shit out of both of us. Bye. See you tomorrow.
Chapter 3:
Hi. I wasn't sure you'd be coming back today, not after the way things ended yesterday. But I'm really glad to see you, and not only because today has been totally mad. I mean, totally. Today I went outside. And not just into the garden. No, I went O-U-T. Yes, really, OUT! And out on my own. Yeah, okay, so I've been for a couple of walks round the estate -- Doctor Witless thought it'd be good for my "psychological well-being" -- but I haven't been allowed out on my own, always had to have a `minder'. Fuck knows what they think I might do -- stand in the middle of the street and wait to be run down? There's a 5 mile an hour speed limit, for fuck's sake! Or climb a wall and jump off hoping to break my neck? Come on, as if! Or maybe smash somebody's window and give my wrists another going over? I mean, really? Just how stupid do they think I am? Well, whatever, every other time that I've been allowed out since I've been home, it had to be with Granny Smith or Rosa. Or my dad when he's been on a late shift.
But I had such a horrible night, probably the worst since I got home from the hospital, so this morning I knew that I just had to make a break for it and get out of here, no matter what. You want to know why it was such a bad night? Cause I just couldn't sleep, that's why, and, yeah, I know, that's not exactly unusual these days, but last night was way the worst. For some reason, I don't know why, stuff got stuck in my head and kept going round and round and wouldn't leave me alone, stuff that I've sort of been hiding at the back of my brain for weeks. But last night it decided it was bored with playing at being a happy little puppy and came growling right at me like a mad dog on acid. Suddenly all my memories of that camping trip, not just the way Noah treated me that night, but the cycle trail ride and the journey home and the text message, they all came crowding in on me and it was like my head was trapped in some sort of totally-ungetoutable, crazy maze. And it wasn't just the stuff that actually did happen, I could, maybe, have handled that. No, it was all the unknown unknowns, like, who else has he told? Does Tani know what happened? And if she does, then how could he do that? How could he be so cruel to go round bragging about having raped me, to someone he's supposed to be so close to? Someone who'd been through hell with that brutal boyfriend guy that Noah told me about? That would just be too gross and weird and totally off the scale. But then, maybe yeah, maybe he wanted to twist the knife and make sure he'd properly hurt me by going round telling everyone what a sad, pathetic fag-boy I was who was gagging to get laid and desperate not to be a virgin any more. And once that idea was inside my head I couldn't get it out cause maybe it's true and I wasn't raped but secretly wanted everything that happened that night in the back of Noah's van and I've been kidding myself all this time trying to make myself out to be the victim when all along getting well and truly nailed by him was exactly what I wanted and expected and I shouldn't be getting all this sympathy from everyone cause, really, I got exactly what I was hoping for and the truth is that I probably shouldn't have survived the wrist-slashing thing cause I'd manipulated Noah, a perfectly good guy, into doing just what I wanted. Shit! It all went round and round my brain all night. I started to think I might actually be going mad. Properly mad. Yeah, all totally stupid and I know that now, in full daylight. But last night, in the dark, with no-one there to tell me anything different, well, then I wasn't so sure.
So, like I said, this morning I knew I had to get out, out of this room, out of the house. I knew Rosa wasn't gonna be in till later but I still had to get the timing right, to wait until there wasn't anyone else in the house. I stayed up here in my room until mum and dad had both gone to work -- nothing unusual about that these days, but what they didn't know was that, when they came up, I was under the bed covers, hiding the fact that I was fully dressed, just in case they decided, for whatever reason, to come in here and not just say goodbye through the door like usual. Once I heard them drive away I knew I had about fifteen minutes, max, before Granny Smith arrived for morning guard duty. So I was out of bed, down the stairs and out to the garage in less than a couple of minutes (with a quick detour to the kitchen to pick up a drink and a snack). I decided last night that I wanted to get right away from here but wasn't sure I'd have the energy to walk far -- who knew that slashing your wrists could be so tiring? - so I needed to get my bike.
Like I said, I knew I wanted to get away from here but it wasn't until I was down the street and out through the main gates that I realised that I had no idea where I was actually gonna go. Just hadn't given it any thought at all; was totally fixated on getting out, of escaping before GS arrived and stopped me. So where to go?
You're ahead of me here, aren't you? You've worked out where I went? Yeah, I suppose it is pretty obvious. I mean, where's pretty much the only place I've cycled to in the last few months? The place that my legs are more or less programmed to go? Yep, into town and straight to FfT. Weird or what? You'd think it would be the last place I'd want to be (well, maybe the hospital would be worse). I mean, why would I deliberately go back to the place where I'd be most likely to run into the person who was responsible for me ending up in the psych ward in the first place? I bet Doctor Pointless would have something to say about that. He'd think it was my sub-conscious "working through the trauma", or some dumb shit like that. And, oh fuck, it would have had my mum's child psychologist imagination running at a thousand miles an hour, so you totally mustn't tell her. Swear.
So there I am, standing outside the place, looking in through the window, just like on that Friday afternoon all those months back when I had my interview. And it looks exactly the same, I mean exactly -- same cash register, same displays of cakes and buns (not the same actual ones, obviously!), same tables and chairs, same flowers. All the same. Like I've never been away. Yeah, nothing different at all. And then suddenly everything goes blurry, like there's rain pouring down the window. But it's not rain making everything look wet, it's me. At least, it's my tears, so many tears it's like a dam has burst. Yeah, I'm standing there, before nine o'clock in the morning, in the middle of High Street, hundreds of people walking by - well, dozens, at least --and I'm bawling my eyes out like a three year-old who's lost his mum. Talk about pathetic.
So I'm trying to dry my face with the sleeve of my hoodie and when I glance back in through the window I see Michelle behind the counter looking back at me. She's looking straight at me and the expression on her face is totally weird. It looks like she's seen ghost but at the same time she's really happy about it. Her eyes are wide open and her mouth is too but in a strange half surprised/half happy way. And for some reason I'm shocked to see her there. I mean, what did I expect? That she'd walked away from the place when I did and that there would be someone completely different there now who wouldn't know me at all? Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!
So anyway, she's the last person I want to see, except, of course, for Noah. I mean, what am I supposed to say? Er, sorry for letting you down and running out on you like that? Sorry I let you think I was a good, reliable kid? Sorry for expecting you to warn me about your douche-bag of a cousin? Sorry for you being a member of such a shit family? I'm standing there, as if my feet are glued to the ground, and all I want to do is jump back on my bike and get the fuck out of there as fast as I can but there's a problem, my legs won't move. My brain is sending desperate "Move it. Move it!" messages but nothing's getting through to my body. So I'm stuck there and I'm watching Michelle put down a tray of flapjack, move out from behind the counter and start walking towards the door. And I want to get away, I really, really want to get out of there, but still I'm super-glued and immobile, and there's nothing I can do as I see her open the door (same old ting-a-ling) and take the two or three steps she needs to get right up in front of me. And I can't read the expression on her face but I think she must be soooo angry and I'm certain she's gonna take a swing at me or, at least, start screaming at me for being such a miserable, fucking shit. And I still can't move so I'm waiting for whatever is about to come my way. And then she lifts her arms and I think, Here it comes,' and there's nothing I can do about it cause I still can't move and, anyway, I think I deserve it for the way I let her down. And the next thing I know her arms are around me and she's hugging me, a full-on, body-squeezing, breath-stopping hug. I definitely didn't expect that. But my ams just stay hanging by my sides like they're not part of me at all. And it, the hug, seems to go on for, like, forever and when she finally eases up and grabs me by the shoulders and we look straight at each other, we've both got rivers streaming down and stupid, little-kid grins on both our faces.
Next thing, she takes hold of my arm and drags me inside and then she's hugging me again and this time I can finally move my arms and they go round her and I'm clinging onto her like a drowning guy hanging onto a lifebelt. Eventually we let go of each other and she makes me sit down at one of the tables then she turns round and hangs the `Sorry, we're closed' sign on the door and then we're just looking at each other and neither of us is saying anything until, of course, we both start talking at the same time, me saying how sorry I am for walking (well, riding) out on her that day and her saying how sorry she is about my "accident" and about me being in the hospital.
Accident'? I think. What does she mean by that? Does she genuinely not know what happened or is she just trying to be kind by not actually saying that it was no accident but a full-on, nut-job, let's-just-put-an-end-to-all-the-crap, failed attempt to kill myself? And while I'm sitting there trying to decide Does she know or doesn't she?' she answers the question for me. She takes hold of my hands and turns them over so the palms are facing up with both wrists there, plain as, for anyone to see. I haven't shown you the scars, have I? Well, they're not exactly pretty and I try not to look at them but then, sitting there in the café, Michelle still holding my hands, I really didn't have any choice. So I looked down and so did she. So embarrassing. Doctor Thoughtless says he thinks they're healing well but what would he know? -- he's a head doctor. To me, sitting there then, and even now if I'm honest, they look like something out of a horror movie. I just need the buzz cut and a bolt through my neck to be a shoe-in for Frankenstein's monster. No, only joking. Hey, did you know that the book was written by someone -- a girl, not much older than us? Mr. Miles told us in English lit. Crazy!
What? Oh yeah, sitting there in the café, with Michelle, staring at the ... at my scars -- or the "Manifestations of my inner turmoil and confusion" as Doctor Tactless calls them -- it brought it all crashing back in again and I was back in my room and there was Saint Seb and the knife and Noah's text and the ... the blood. Everything was going round and round my head in a loop. And I knew I was crying and then, somewhere in the distance, I could hear a voice, Michelle's voice it was, and at first I couldn't make out what she was saying but then the voice came closer and it was telling me I had nothing to apologise for. And that didn't make any sense. Apologise? Apologise for what? And to who? And then I could feel she was shaking me, very gently, as I sort of came back to myself, and then she said I'd been saying "Sorry" over and over and she said again that I really hadn't got anything to be sorry for. In fact, she said, she was the one who should apologise for not realising what was going on with me and Noah. And that properly shook me up `cause, no surprise, I started wondering exactly how much she knew about me and him and about me being gay and about exactly what happened on the camping trip.
And I could feel myself getting really tense and Michelle must have felt it too cause she started saying how it's always been the same with Noah, ever since he was a kid, that he picks people up, gets really friendly with them and it's, like, We'll be best buds forever' for a while but then he gets bored and loses interest so he drops them again like cold shit. And she said she knew all of that and didn't do anything to protect me and that she hadn't realised how vulnerable I was and how cut up I'd been when he dumped me (yes, she actually said "Cut up."!) and that she was really, really sorry. But what she didn't say was anything about knowing what had happened in the back of his van that night and how that, yes, he definitely had treated me like shit.
I started to relax and something, something mad, made me think it would be a good idea to ask her about Noah and how he was -- yeah, I know, totally stupid -- but before I could get the words to make any sense in my head (and make a complete idiot of myself) she totally blew me away when she said that Tani had been asking about me and that she wanted to see me but didn't know whether I'd want to see her `cause she knew she hadn't been exactly friendly and that I probably hated her. And that last bit is true, I had hated her, you know, when I'd convinced myself that I'd be way better for Noah than she was and I'd resented the fact she was always bossing him around and rubbing her hands up and down his chest. That, though, was before I knew that it was all an act and about the guy who'd beat the crap out of her and how she and Noah had been pretending to be an item so they could be cover for each other.
But why would she want to see me? What was there to say? I couldn't see any point in her apologising for the way she'd been towards me, if that's even what she wanted to do, and I definitely didn't want to hear her telling me how Noah was really a good guy and that whatever had happened between him and me on the camping trip must have been some sort of giant misunderstanding. And that's what I've been trying to work out ever since I left the café -- Michelle telling me not to be a stranger and that my job was there for me any time I wanted it back -- on the ride home and up here in my room. That was after I got away from Granny Smith who was not impressed to find me gone when she arrived this morning. In fact, I don't think she's ever bawled me out like she did when I walked into the kitchen. I was hoping to find something to eat in the fridge - somehow I was starving - but instead I found GS pacing up and down, trying to decide who to call, my parents or the police. Thank fuck I managed to convince her that everything was fine and that I was sorry and that, yes, I really should have messaged her and that I was the worst grandson on the planet and how I'd never do anything like it again and that there was no need to tell anyone and that I'd find a way to make it up to her, just as soon as I'd eaten and had a nap. I definitely used up a lot of brownie points but it'll be totally worth it as long as she keeps shtum and doesn't say anything to the parents about my little adventure today. And I didn't get to have that nap, even though I really needed it, `cause I've been lying here trying to decide if going back to FfT had been a good thing. And why does Tani wants to talk to me? Everything is so fucking complicated and difficult and confusing and ... Hey, can I ask you something? I could so do with a hug right now. Would you ... do you think you could do that?
As an author, it's REALLY encouraging to know that there are people out there who are taking the time to read what I've written, and then bothering to send a response. So please, do feel free to write to me at the email address given at the top of the chapter. I welcome all comments and guarantee to write back. PJ
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