He claimed the prescription slip the doctor held out, though, and escaped to the waiting room.
Reg took the slip from him and scanned the information. He frowned. “Did you ask for these?”
Leo thought about saying he had, just to see that frown deepen, but he couldn’t be bothered. “No. She said since I have trouble sleeping, I should take them.”
“Do you think you need them?”
“I don’t care.” Leo took Lila’s hand and walked out of the surgery.
A few hours later found Leo trapped in a tiny room with yet another doctor—a man this time, a white one, with cold hands and bad breath.
The doctor unwound Leo’s dressing and twisted the arm this way and that. “This is healing nicely,” he said. “I’m still concerned about this graft, though. Do you see where it’s raised here?”
Leo glanced at the bumpy flesh where the inside of his bicep had been grafted to the outside. Regretted it. The skin felt numb now, like it had ever since the surgery to close the burned hole in his arm, but he hated looking at it. “Do you have to do it again?”
“Perhaps. I think the graft has slipped slightly, but the overall healing is good. I’m reluctant to mess around with it at this stage, but we’ll keep an eye on it. Are you all right? You’re a little pale.”
Leo swallowed the bile in his mouth. “I’m fine.”
The doctor said something. Leo didn’t quite hear him. Then someone put a hand on his shoulder. It took him a while to realise it was Reg.
“Ah, there you are,” he said. “You had a wobble on us, lad.”
My name’s Leo.
“What’s that?” Reg said.
Leo blinked rapidly. Had he said that out loud? He straightened up from where he appeared to have slumped in his chair. “What happened?”
“You fainted. Did you eat breakfast this morning?”
Leo thought back to the toast Charlie had dumped in front of him. “Yeah. Charlie made me toast.”
Reg smiled. “Sounds like Charlie. Hmm, perhaps you’re dehydrated, then. Have some water.”
He held a plastic cup of water to Leo’s lips. Leo took a tentative sip and noted they were alone in the doctor’s room. He shrugged away from Reg’s hands. Get the fuck off me. “Where’s Dr. Frankenstein?”
“Discussing your case with another doctor. He doesn’t want to operate again, so he’s hoping the graft will right itself.”
“He told you that?”
“Yes, Leo. We’re your guardians, for the time being, at least. We want to let you make your own decisions as much as we can, but we can only do that if we know what’s going on. You understand that, don’t you?”
Leo opened his mouth. Shut it. He understood the words, and even the sentiment, but the power of speech was beyond him. He was going to be sick.
Charlie hovered in Leo’s doorway, transfixed by the humped shape in the bed. Still? Leo had been asleep when Charlie came home from school. He’d missed dinner, and Lila’s bath time, and now it was ten o’clock and he’d yet to stir.
No one had mentioned his absence downstairs. Kate had kept Lila close all evening until her bedtime, and it was only then that she’d asked for Leo. Charlie hadn’t seen what Kate signed, and something had stopped him from asking her to repeat it. Fliss had taken Lila to bed, and after a restless evening, the entire household had called it an early night.
Charlie leaned on the doorframe, taking comfort in the cool, peeling paint against his cheek. Leo and Lila had been with them for less than forty-eight hours, but everything already felt different. Kate and Reg. The house. Even Fliss. The world had shifted, but Charlie couldn’t figure out why. He took a shaky breath and stared at Leo, like he could see through his skin and decipher the boy behind the sullen glares, occasional smirks, and the sad smiles he saved for Lila.
What happened to you?
The unspoken question went unanswered. Leo was curled on his side, his bandaged arm cradled close to his body, like it had been since Charlie had first peeked in on him after school. Charlie gazed a moment longer, before he admitted defeat and returned to his own room, seeking solace in the dark.
A strange noise woke him sometime later. He sat up on his elbows and blinked away sleep. Then he waited, unsure of what had woken him, but silence reigned. There was nothing to be heard save the arthritic creak of the central heating pipes.
Charlie lay back down, unnerved. He usually slept like the dead, convinced he’d blinked and the night had melted into a new day. He closed his eyes. Lethargy washed over him. He was halfway to sleep when he heard it again . . . a soft moan that cut through the stillness of the house and gave him goose bumps.
Alarmed, he scrambled out of bed and across the landing. In the murky darkness he could hardly make Leo out, but the moan had come from him, Charlie felt it in his bones, and when Leo cried out again, he was across the room before he knew he’d moved.
But he faltered at Leo’s bedside. Even in sleep, Leo’s demeanour told the world he didn’t want to be touched. Charlie crouched down and absorbed the tremble beneath Leo’s skin, and it shuddered through him.
Why am I shaking with him?
Charlie had no answer to that. Maybe he should say something, but what? Leo didn’t seem the type to be easily comforted, and Charlie didn’t know how anyway. Instead he sat on the floor and leaned back on Leo’s bed. It was a while before he realised Leo was staring right at him.
“Splash me a fag, mate?”
The boy in the bomber jacket eyed Leo suspiciously, like every other person at Heyton High had since he’d walked through the gates that morning. A new kid on the block was apparently big news, but Leo didn’t much care. Bollocks to them. All of them. He was only here ’cause he couldn’t stand another day stuck at home dodging Kate’s smothering affection.
And you want to be where Charlie is . . .
Wherever that was. Leo hadn’t seen Charlie since they’d parted ways at the school’s reception that morning, Charlie to his tutor group, and Leo to a meeting with the head of year ten.
Charlie, Charlie, Charlie.
Get a grip. Leo tried to tune out the devil on his shoulder. Focussed on the kid who was buckling under the weight of Leo’s patented blank stare and reaching for his battered packet of Mayfair.
Charlie, Charlie, Charlie.
His deep brown eyes.
His endless long limbs.
His gentle, probing gaze when Leo had woken a few nights ago from the worst nightmare he’d had in months.
In the darkness, Charlie had scrambled back to the doorway the moment he’d realised Leo was awake, and they’d hardly spoken since—at least, Leo hadn’t—but Leo hadn’t forgotten it. Hadn’t forgotten lying awake for hours after, and feeling the roiling turmoil in his belly calm with every slow whisper of Charlie’s breath.
“Do you want a fag or not?”
Leo cut his gaze to the kid proffering his open pack of smokes. The cigarette in the back row was turned upside down for luck. Wendy had always done that, saved it till the end, promising it would be the last one before she gave up for good. No one had ever believed her. Leo claimed the smoke next to it, took a lighter from his new friend, and lit up. He glanced around as he blew smoke into the grey sky. The tennis courts at Heyton High were teeming with teenagers, the boys playing football, fighting, or smoking. The girls standing around in groups, watching . . . seeing everything, like girls always did.
“So who the fuck are you, anyway?”
Leo cast a bored glance to his left. “Leo. Who are you?”
“Wayne, innit. Think I saw you in physics this morning. I’m gonna jump the fence and get some chips. Wanna come?”
Not particularly. Leo hadn’t been hungry since he’d started taking the pills the GP had given him. They hadn’t done much to help him sleep, but late at night while he waited for Lila to join him, he found himself enjoying the scratchy, numbing buzz that tickled his brain.
Still, with forty-five minutes left o
f lunchtime, he had nothing better to do, so he followed Wayne across the tennis courts to the school boundary and considered the fence. It was seven foot high with plenty of handholds to aid a quick scramble over the top. An easy feat six months ago, but now? Leo flexed his damaged arm. He hadn’t tested his weakened muscles since the fire, hadn’t cared enough to bother, but suddenly, with the fence right in front of him, he couldn’t wait a moment longer.
Hungry or not, he had to get to the other side.
Mindful of Wayne watching, he stuck his smoke in his mouth and launched the messenger bag Kate had bought him over the fence. It landed in a bush, upside down, zips swinging in the wind. That could be you in a minute. Leo pictured himself careening through the air and landing smack on the concrete below. He imagined the impact. Felt it spread through him, cracking his bones—
“Are you coming or what?”
Leo blinked. Lost in his morbid imagination, he’d missed Wayne clearing the fence.
Get on with it, dickhead.
He took a few steps back and braced himself for the run up. His footsteps pounded the tarmac, the metal links of the fence bit into his hands, and then he was flying over the top, the wind in his ears, and he hardly felt the tearing burn in his left arm.
He hit the ground. Shockwaves travelled up his legs from the balls of his feet, but he remained upright. Breathless, but upright. For a moment he wanted to cry, mourning the loss of his imagined fall, then exhilaration hit him and he wanted to jump all over again.
Then he met Wayne’s bored gaze and reality seeped into him. Chips, remember?
Leo sloped to the bush and retrieved his bag. Wayne offered him another smoke. He took it and followed Wayne to the local chippie, a place that looked and smelled like arse.
No, thanks. Leo waited outside and took in Heyton’s high street. Manky chip shop aside, the town was far more glamorous than the grey streets of Swindon—posher people, flashier cars. He watched the world go by and pretended he was waiting for Wendy to emerge from one of the poncy coffee shops across the road, the one with the vintage cake stands, and the grand piano in the window. Then his fantasy faltered. Eyes closed to the world, he could picture Kate in a place like that, with her flowing skirts and dangly earrings, but not Wendy. Life with Dennis had hardened her, and pretty things had often passed her by.
Wayne emerged from the chip shop with a grunt. He offered Leo his soggy bag of chips, but Leo looked away. “Nah, mate. You have ’em.”
“Suit yourself.” Wayne turned back the way they’d come. “So where are you from, anyway? You sound Irish or some shit.”
“Irish? Piss off. I’m from Swindon.”
Wayne was apparently mystified, like he’d never ventured beyond his own back garden. Perhaps he hadn’t. “What did you come here for? Did you move house?”
“Something like that.”
Wayne let it go, apparently not one for small talk, which suited Leo. He’d argued his case to come to school in order to escape the searching conversations every fucker at home seemed to want.
They drifted the rest of the way back in silence. Leo relieved Wayne of a few more fags, but the jaunt remained unremarkable, save the vexed teacher waiting for them at the gate.
The teacher let them in, and then fixed Wayne with a frown Leo had seen from just about every teacher he’d ever known. “Been somewhere nice, Mr. Murphy?”
Wayne shrugged and tossed his chip paper into a nearby bin. “Showing the new kid where the good grub was, weren’t I?”
“Very funny. You know you’re not allowed off school property at lunchtime anymore. We stopped that last term.”
“Did you? Sorry, miss. I forgot.”
For a moment, Leo thought the teacher would let them go, but then her gaze flickered briefly to Leo and something clicked in her expression. “Leaving school property without permission counts as truanting. Go and wait for me in my office. I’m sure your mother will be over the moon to have you suspended again.”
Wayne shuffled off with an insolent roll of his eyes, and Leo wondered if Wayne’s record was as blighted as his own.
“I’ve never seen you before. You must be new,” the teacher said. “First day?”
Leo shrugged. Stuff talking to teachers. Nosy bastards, all of them.
“Well, even so, young man, I know you were told this morning that students aren’t allowed off-site. What do you have to say for yourself?”
Nothing that wouldn’t get him in more trouble, and it turned out not to matter.
“Um, Mrs. Parkin? This is Leo, my new foster brother.”
The teacher—Mrs. Parkin, apparently—and Leo both looked around to find Charlie behind him, hair a mess, and a dark-blue hoodie over his school-issue blazer. Charlie met Leo’s gaze briefly, then focussed on the teacher again.
“Leo came in with me this morning. He didn’t have an induction.”
That wasn’t strictly true. Leo had been spared the student-led orientation Charlie had warned him about on the way to school, but he’d still endured an hour-long lecture from Mr. Donnelly, head of year ten. Did Charlie know, or care, that he’d known perfectly well that leaving school at lunchtime was against the rules?
Mrs. Parkin eyed Charlie. Her expression softened, like she was fond of him, and then it changed, like she’d remembered something long forgotten.
She knows.
Fuck.
She knows.
It always happened like this. Teachers, doctors, social workers—Leo could always tell when they knew. They looked at him differently, like Wendy had looked at the dead cat he’d found by the river. Mrs. Parkin touched his arm, and he jumped back like he’d been burned all over again, stumbled, and cold sweat beaded his back. “Don’t touch me.”
Mrs. Parkin raised her hands. “All right. I was just saying you’re free to go. Charlie says you have art together next lesson. I suggest you make your way there and keep your nose clean from now on.”
Leo blinked. “Charlie says you have art together.” When had he said that?
“And take that sweatshirt off, Mr. de Sousa.”
“Yes, miss.” Charlie tugged Leo’s good arm, like he knew the other was throbbing, burning . . . smouldering. “Come on, Leo. Let’s go.”
Leo let Charlie tow him away from the searching gaze of Mrs. Parkin. His heart slowed with every step and embarrassment replaced the heady rush of fear. “You know we’re not really brothers, don’t you?”
Charlie rolled his eyes. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to tell anyone.”
“Tell anyone what?”
“That we know each other.”
Charlie turned away before Leo could answer, and disappeared into a nearby art room. Lacking any better ideas, Leo followed him and found the lesson had already started.
The teacher met him at the door. “You must be Leo. Take a seat next to Charlie. I’ll get you a book and some pencils.”
Leo followed the teacher’s gaze to where Charlie was sitting at the back of the classroom, head down, already engrossed in whatever he was working on. There was an empty stool beside him. Deliberate? Stuff it. After a day of being stuck beside a bunch of numpties, Leo didn’t much care.
He made his way across the classroom and dropped onto the stool. The teacher placed a sketchbook and a few pencils on the bench. “Charlie can fill you in on what we’re doing.”
The teacher walked away without another word. Leo watched him go. That was a new one. Most teachers had bent his ear for twenty minutes before they’d let him sit down.
“We’re sketching the view through the window,” Charlie said. “You can draw the science block to the left, or the memorial garden to the right.”
Leo peered at Charlie’s sketchbook. “What are you drawing?”
“The duck in the pond.”
“Where’s the pond?”
Charlie shrugged. “Who cares?”
Leo grinned. Finally. A sentiment he could relate to. “How come your name is de Sousa? Thought yo
u’d have taken Reg’s name by now.”
“Why would you think that?” Charlie kept his gaze on his work. “You hate Reg, remember?”
“Says who?”
“Says you. Yesterday.”
“Didn’t.”
“Yes, you did. After he gave you your school blazer. You called him a prick and told him you hated him.”
Oops. Leo had muttered the words under his breath when he’d been halfway upstairs. He’d forgotten Charlie had been behind him. “So? Doesn’t mean you hate him too. Call him ‘Daddy’ don’t you?”
“Not always. Sometimes I call him Reg, and he doesn’t care, because he loves me.”
“‘Because he loves me,’” Leo mocked. “’Cause your life’s a fucking fairy tale, ain’t it?”
Charlie scowled and looked like he wanted to be a dick right back, but he didn’t. He said nothing and went back to his work, and the silence stung. Leo could handle a row, or a punch up, but the guilt in his gut at hurting Charlie’s feelings bothered him more than he cared to admit.
“Where does ‘de Sousa’ come from? Is it Spanish or something?”
For a long moment, Leo feared Charlie wouldn’t answer, then he set his pencil down and picked up another. “It’s Brazilian,” he said. “I was born in São Paulo.”
“São Paulo?”
“Yup. Got dumped in an orphanage when I was a baby.”
Wow. Leo had figured Fliss and Charlie had to have come from shitty backgrounds to end up in foster care, but he’d imagined something closer to home. “Do you remember it?”
Charlie finally looked Leo’s way. “Nope. My first memory is drawing on my bedroom wall with one of Kate’s lipsticks.”
The art teacher cut off Leo’s reply by tapping Leo’s closed sketchbook. “Make a start please, Mr. Hendry. I want to see an outline by the end of the lesson.” Leo glanced up, irritated. The teacher smiled and held out a pencil. “Come on. If I don’t see some lines, I’ll have to find you a seat at the front.”
At the front? Stuff that too. Leo liked people where he could see them. He opened the book and considered the view through the window. Neither option Charlie had mentioned seemed worth a punt, and Leo hadn’t put a pencil to paper in . . . shit, he couldn’t even remember. Not that he’d ever been particularly good at it.
Finding Home Page 5