I was counting down the days until my family would arrive at the house, but I felt myself slowly being ripped away from reality and all the days started to blend into one. I had developed a tremble in my hands that wouldn’t go away, which was apparently a normal side effect of the medication, so was feeling drowsy. I also felt a strange sense of calm too, and felt myself looking forward to taking my next dose in case I lost that feeling. I could see why they were considered highly addictive tablets. I had been locking my balcony door at night as well, wanting to keep Ezra away. I felt so humiliated being the way I was I had got to the point where I didn’t want him near me. It was hurting him. He had left a note outside the balcony door which I found one morning, saying how much he missed me and he just wanted to help. I knew that pushing him away wasn’t the answer. What good was I to him when I felt the way that I did? I had taken to biting my arms. Hard enough to draw blood, because scratching wasn’t doing anything for me anymore. It was only a release for a couple of minutes but it was better than nothing. It made me feel real again and reminded me that I was still alive.
Dad, Daniel, Carrie and Joe arrived on the Saturday, all with smiles on their faces and holiday bags in hands. I was up and walking about then more freely and had gone out to the garden when I had got dressed where they were all sitting with Hildie and Victor. It did look nice, a jug of fresh lemonade was set out on the large wooden bench and there were plates full of pastries that they were helping themselves to. A silence ascended over them when they realised I was watching them from the doorway and Daniel came over to me immediately.
“Charlie,” he said and I could tell that he wanted to hug me but he didn’t dare. “Shit. I hope you got a punch in too.” He was frowning at my face and I had almost forgot how bad I must have looked.
“I didn’t,” I said blankly, “my head is pretty hard though I’m sure it hurt to hit me.”
“Hey kiddo,” dad said as he came over and handed me a glass of lemonade. “Whoever did this to you is a complete coward. Only a coward would do this to someone.”
“I actually think I am more of the coward.” I could see Joe and Carrie looking at me and felt that now familiar tightening in my chest starting but I was determined to move past it.
“Hey you,” Joe said fondly, “I’m sorry about what happened to you.”
“You don’t need to be. It is not like you did it to me.”
“Charlie,” dad sighed, “don’t be like that.”
“I’m fed up of people saying that they are sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry. That is all I hear.”
“Come on man,” Daniel sighed, “people are just being nice, come and sit down.” I complied, but only because I didn’t have the energy to stand anymore. I sat opposite Carrie and stole a glance at her hands, there was no ring on her finger.
“I can see you looking,” she said pointedly, “he did ask.” I raised an eyebrow at her and gestured for her to continue to talk but she didn’t.
“Not now,” Daniel said quietly in my ear and nodded his head discretely in dad’s direction and that was enough for me to not mention it again.
“Who did this to you?” Carrie asked as she took a bite out of a particularly flaky pasty and it crumbled against her lips.
“No one,” I said and felt like this was all going to be a repeat of conversations that I have had before.
“Hardly no one,” Daniel huffed, “if you are not going to say who, do you at least have a reason why they did it.”
“No,” I said bluntly and picked up a pastry of my own and started to pick at it. Hildie and Victor were talking among themselves and I could tell dad felt conflicted about what conversation he should be a part of.
“Um…okay,” Joe said and I could tell I was making them all feel awkward. “Is Ezra going to be joining is today?” she asked and I shot her a look but it was too late, Hildie had heard and was giving Joe a bemused expression.
“Why on earth would my handyman be joining us?” she laughed and Joe then looked at me apologetically.
“I’m sorry, I thought that, I mean that, I’m sorry,” she said quickly and dad placed his hand on top of hers.
“Joe thought that Ezra might be here because he has become a good friend of Charlie’s,” he explained.
“He has?” She laughed again and looked at me in confusion.
“Oh. Yeah. He has,” I nodded, “he is the only person who has been coming to visit me.”
“You have had no visitors,” Victor said gruffly, “it must be his medication, making him crazy.”
“He is not crazy,” Daniel said seriously, “that is hardly a suitable thing to say to him.”
“Oh, but he’s right. I haven’t had any visitors. That he knows about. Ezra has been quite the pro at climbing up to my balcony.”
“What?” Hildie said and it looked like she was going to choke on her croissant.
“We’ve been seeing each other. Romantically. I was going to tell you when I got back from England, but you kind of threw a spanner into the works and I felt like I couldn’t tell you,” I told her honestly.
“I suppose I am the spanner?” Monsieur Bardet glared at me and I shrugged back at him.
“You are a bit of a spanner yeah,” I said and I don’t think he realised the insult because he didn’t react at all. Daniel let out a quiet laugh though and aunt Hildie gave him a stern look.
“Charlie told us about Ezra when he came to visit and I did encourage him to tell you,” dad continued to explain, “but, I can understand why he chose not to given the chain of events that happened since he returned.”
“It is a little inappropriate,” Hildie said after a moment.
“How?” I asked and felt tired by the conversation already and wished that my damn hands would just stop shaking.
“He is employed by me Charlie,” she sighed, “I wish that you could have told me.” I could tell she felt conflicted as she spoke, because, once upon a time she fell in love with a French man too and she didn’t get the approval she so desired.
“Don’t worry. He hasn’t been slacking off,” I said indignantly
“How did this develop then?” she asked, looking intrigued despite Victor huffing beside her.
“We saw each other in town one night and then we kept meeting up from there.”
“What does it matter how it happened?!” Victor exclaimed, “it matters how we put a stop to it.”
“Why would we do that?” my dad asked him and rested his chin on his hand to look at him.
“I will not have such behaviour under my roof.”
“But, it is not your roof,” my dad pointed out, “it is my sisters roof. So, surely she should decide what is okay and what is not.”
“I don’t think you should be talking to me like that,” Victor huffed and his face seemed to be even redder than usual.
“Victor, please stop making a scene,” Hildie sighed heavily, “this is all a lot to take in. Being angry is not going to help.”
“Can I leave table?” I asked but not really asking anyone directly. I knew that the longer I sat there the more likely it was that I was going to have a full blown panic attack.
“Yeah, we will join you,” Carrie answered and both her and Daniel stood up with me. The three of us went inside and Daniel suggested that we go to the living room, which we did, and he opened the large window to the front of the room.
“Bloody hell,” he said and took a deep breath of the fresh air that was now lazily blowing into the room. “What the hell is wrong with that guy?” he asked and I slumped down on the sofa with only a slight grimace of pain.
“I think he has a lot of issues,” I said and closed my eyes as I rested my head back on the chair. Carrie sat down beside me and I felt a nervous energy from her that didn’t seem to work with her usual happy self.
“Clearly,” Daniel nodded and lit himself a cigarette. “How have you been putting up with him?”
“I haven’t,” I said and opened my eyes again to loo
k at him. “He’s a prick.”
“What does your aunt see in him?” Carrie asked and I wished I had an answer for that question.
“I have no idea. He talks to her like she’s stupid sometimes. I hate it.”
“Good job you won’t be living here much longer,” Daniel said and the comment made that stupid lump build up in my throat again.
“Hey…” Carrie sighed, noticing that I was now holding back tears. “We are all here to support you. That’s why we came early.”
“To take me home?” I asked.
“Yeah. Dad thinks it will be the best thing for now. You can come back, when you are better, if you want,” Daniel explained and I felt that familiar feeling of drowning taking over me.
“What about Ezra?” My voice sounded strained and it hurt to take a breath. “I can’t leave him here.”
“What has he said about this whole thing?” Carrie asked softly.
“Nothing much. I’ve not been talking to him.”
“Why?” She frowned but I couldn’t answer. I felt like all of the colours in the room were rushing towards me and I was too stuck to the spot to reach out for anything to hold onto. I squeezed my eyes shut tightly and let out a whimper, everything felt like it was going incredibly fast then incredibly slow all at the same time and I didn’t know how to stop it. I could hear both of them talking and even felt their hands on me at some point but it was like I was stuck. I couldn’t breathe. The air was being sucked out of my lungs at such a rate that my fingers were starting to go numb. Everything felt suddenly so heavy that it felt like the room was slowly coming down on me, pressing me smaller and smaller until I could no longer move.
I spent the next two days in bed, plagued by nightmares and these panic attacks that kept creeping up on me without any warning. How on earth did people learn to deal with these? Each time it happened I was convinced I was going to die. Everything felt so intense and urgent that I couldn’t picture what I would feel like once it was over. When they did end, I would fall back asleep, only to wake and it all repeat again. At some point the doctor came to visit again and gave me another medication to take alongside the diazepam and upped the dosage of that as well. I even had Ezra with me for long stretches of the days, which meant that my family must have met him. It was something that I had looked forward to doing - introducing him to them all and seeing how welcome he would be made to feel. I missed that though. I could only hope that the meeting had gone well, which it must have to some extent or they wouldn’t allow him near me. When we got to the third day of me in bed, Ezra started to read to me. I had barely said two words to him each time he had been there, but hearing his voice was so incredibly soothing that I never wanted him to stop. I spent ages just looking at him as he sat beside me, back leaned against the headboard as he read. Whatever the story was, it was in French, but that didn’t stop me from enjoying his beautiful voice read out the words from the pages. He was so beautiful. I couldn’t believe that he was still beside me, still wanting to be close to me despite me being a complete mess. He must have meant it when he said that he loved me and that scared me. He actually loved me. He cared so much about me that he was giving up hours of his days just to be close to me. If I had of felt like I did before, I would have embraced him, placed kisses all over his face and told him I love you’s until I couldn’t speak any more.
On day four, I got out of bed and felt a lot better than I had the previous days. Dad said it was because the medication was finally starting to settle in my system, and if that was the case then I was finally grateful for it. I had breakfast downstairs with them, everyone apart from Monsieur Bardet, and I didn’t care to ask where he was. Joe and aunt Hildie had prepared freshly baked bread and jams, complete with orange juice that had been squeezed that morning. I listened to them all converse around the table and felt an air of calm wash over me. It felt nice to be there, I felt happy to be out of bed and be around them. I felt somewhat reassured that this mood I was in was more natural rather than my bipolar affecting me. The voices around me were so soothing, happy and carefree. The chatter was interrupted by a loud knock on the door and Hildie jumped to her feet.
“That will be Ezra.” She smiled at me. “I told him to come for breakfast before he started work today.” She hurried out of the room and dad gave me a smile.
“She has been amazing,” he told me and I didn’t doubt that for a second.
“Look who has ventured out of his room today,” Hildie said as she came back into the kitchen with Ezra following behind her and she gestured to me sitting at the table.
“Hey.” He smiled and everyone said their hello’s to him before he sat down next to me. We both looked at each other, not really sure how to greet each other in front of everyone else, but he took the lead and kissed me on my cheek.
“Morning,” I said to him and Joe handed him a glass of orange juice which he took with a smile.
“It’s nice to see you looking so well,” he said as he took a sip of the juice. “How do things feel today?”
“A bit clearer, thanks.” I nodded then started to spread a slice of bread with jam, putting it on thickly even though I knew Hildie always complained about how much I used. “It must have been your reading that helped.”
“Well, I have a lot more books.”
“That’s good.”
“I’ve really missed talking to you.” I felt his hand on my knee beneath the table and I felt a little nervous about it, but no one seemed to notice or care what we were doing.
“We were hoping you would be up this morning,” dad commented then as he finished the slice of bread he was eating. “Ezra was telling us about the apartment in town.”
“He was?” I asked and my stupid hands started to tremble again so I pushed them under my thighs to sit on them.
“Well, I was just saying that you have a place in town if you wanted to stay,” Ezra explained and I wasn’t entirely sure how the conversation was going to go.
“I wanted to ask you, if you wanted to stay here in France, or come home with us,” dad asked and the question sounded like far too much for me to even think about answering. “Neither has to be a permanent thing.”
“I don’t know.” I felt bad expressing my indecision, but both options frightened me in equal measure. I was scared to stay in the town in case Henry was lingering there for some time, and I was scared to return home and face not being close to Ezra.
“There is no pressure,” Ezra said and squeezed my knee, which I think was meant to be reassuring but it reminded me of Henry holding me and I stood up abruptly from the table.
“I’m sorry…I just…I need some air.” I took myself out of the dining room and went out to the garden. In my hurry I didn’t put shoes on and the shingle that led out to the grass dug into my soles and caused me to start crying. Normally, I could handle walking on some shingle, but that was enough to push we over the edge and as soon as I got to the grass I sat down and began to sob.
I didn’t know how long I was out there before my dad came out and sat down beside me. He didn’t say anything at first, just sat and listened to me cry. I don’t remember the last time that I cried in front of him, I must have been young, because it felt strange being so emotionally vulnerable in front of him. Eventually he cleared his throat and started to pick at some of the blades of grass in front of him.
“I’m feeling a lot of anger right now,” he said and his voice was louder than I had expected it to be. “I hate that someone has done this to you Charlie.”
“I hate it too.”
“Then tell me who did it. I don’t have to tell any of the others, I just want to report it to the college. If it was another student they should not be able to complete their studies. And if it was a tutor…well…you can see the dangers here can’t you Charlie?” he asked and of course I knew the dangers. I didn’t like that there was a responsibility on me to ensure it never happened to someone else, I would never wish it on anyone, but opening up was what I
feared the most.
“It wasn’t a tutor,” I said, wanting to get that idea out of his head straight away.
“Okay, that’s a start, was it someone in your class?”
“Yes.”
“A friend?”
“Not anymore.” I wiped my eyes, the skin around them actually stung from how much I had been crying.
“Do you know why they did it?” he asked and looked at me anxiously.
“Because of me being with Ezra. Someone saw us together. Something completely innocent. But they told him and, yeah, this was the result,” I said and gestured to my face.
“So it was a homophobic attack,” he sighed heavily and put his head in his hands. “It sickens me that no matter what support you have from home, there are still people out there who I cannot protect you from. I shouldn’t even have to protect you from an attack like that.”
“You don’t need to protect me dad. I’m all grown up now.”
“I don’t care how grown up you are. You are still my son.”
“His name is Henry. Henry Fraiser.” I looked at Dad as I spoke and I could see the relief on his face when I gave him the name.
“And he is in your class?”
“Yes. But don’t tell Ezra,” I warned, “I don’t want him seeking him out and getting himself into a mess.”
“He is just wanting to protect you like I am.”
“I know he is. That’s the problem.” I took a deep breath and looked up at the sky, it was starting to look a little overcast and I was sure that it was going to rain.
“Don’t isolate yourself Charlie, having people around you is what you need right now.”
“It really isn’t.” He didn’t know how numb I felt, how I was worried that the tiniest thing would push me over the edge and result in me hyperventilating for half an hour.
“Charlie, we need to decide what your next step is. I know that we don’t want to push you but you can’t stay stuck in your room here forever.”
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