Believe: A Skins Novel

by Garrett Leigh

  Rhys fought for breath and eventually found enough to draw back and brush Jevon’s dreads off his face. “Okay?”

  Jevon met his gaze and smiled, the agonising twist of orgasm fading from his face. “Yeah.”

  “Sure? I didn’t go too—”

  It was Jevon’s turn to kill an unnecessary conversation with a kiss. He threaded his hand around the back of Rhys’s neck and tugged him down, slicking his soft tongue into Rhys’s mouth until they both needed more air.

  All at once, fatigue hit Rhys like a train. Thirty-six hours with no sleep caught up with him, and it was all he could do to stay upright.

  Attuned to him as ever, Jevon sat up, almost managing to conceal a wince. “Lie down,” he said. “I’m going to clean up, then I’ll stick the kettle on.”

  Rhys caught his arm. “Don’t go.”

  Jevon stared at Rhys’s hand clamped around his wrist, his face caught in a conflict of emotions that left Rhys dizzy. “Okay. Fuck the kettle, but let me clean us both up, all right?”

  So many unspoken pleas and declarations danced through the air; Rhys had no hope of catching them all. He lay back, his body sprawled out with exhaustion, and counted the seconds until Jevon came back to the bed with a warm wet flannel.

  When they were both clean, Jevon drew back the covers and they crawled into bed. Sleep pounded the door to Rhys’s brain, demanding entrance, but Rhys fought it, clinging to consciousness as tightly as he clung to Jevon. I love you.

  He didn’t say it though. Couldn’t. Even as Jevon held him close and kissed his temple, whispering words that chased him into his dreams. “Wherever I go, Rhys, this night will always be with me. Sleep easy. I’ve got you.”

  Sixteen

  Rhys clung to the helpfully placed handles as the chopper swung from side to side in the wind, buffeting his dinner around his stomach. Flying at night terrified him at the best of times, but rough night flights took the royal piss. Especially when he’d been nursing a hangover in the first place.

  The helicopter lurched downwards. Rhys glanced at Pater, who seemed as unconcerned as ever, and tried to reassure himself that it meant something. A tough ask when the cool German pilot could smile through an apocalypse.

  Rhys brought his mouthpiece closer to his lips. “How long till we land?”

  “Twenty minutes, but I’m going to bring us in early at Oxford. No sense flying through this if we haven’t got a patient.”

  Unscheduled stops usually got on Rhys’s nerves, but he was glad of it tonight. They landed at the private flying club in Oxford and were immediately granted access to some pretty snazzy facilities. Shame Rhys had zero enthusiasm for anything that wasn’t being dead asleep or something that would help put him there.

  Pater and the flight doctor decamped to the club’s swanky cafeteria, which had stayed open for them, but Rhys declined dinner and lingered in the bathrooms, hiding out under a shower that made the one he had at home look like a school changing room.

  Two showerheads pummelled Rhys’s body. He closed his eyes and braced himself on the tiled wall, trying not to remember how it had felt to have Jevon come up behind him, wrap his arms around him, and slide his cock along his body. How it had felt to imagine Jevon was fucking him for real, driving into him with long, deep strokes, one hand on his hip, the other gently at his throat.

  But he failed, spectacularly, like he had every night since Jevon had left. The ache in his gut expanded into his chest. He let go of the wall and slid to the floor. At home, he’d crawl out of the bathroom and find the bottle of rum he’d taken to keeping by the bed, but he couldn’t do that here. Couldn’t numb himself enough to sleep. So he did something he hadn’t done in more than a decade.

  He put his head in his hands and cried.

  It was dawn when the chopper made it back to London. Rhys drifted home and threw himself into bed, but he wasn’t drunk enough to sleep, and with another shift rolling by in twelve hours’ time, he’d run out of time to fix it.

  He lay on his back, staring at the ceiling, his phone dormant on his chest, fingers itching for the scrap of paper that he’d carried everywhere with him since he’d woken alone ten days ago. He gave in almost immediately and retrieved it from his wallet, unfolding it, and holding it up to the light.

  Rhys,

  I’m sorry I didn’t wake you, but I couldn’t do it. Saying goodbye is wrong, and I don’t want to believe it’s true.

  Thank you . . . for everything, not just the obvious. Leaving you is so hard, but I’m doing it feeling more like myself than I ever have before. I thought knew myself until I met you. Now I am myself.

  I’ll call you from the camp as soon as I can, but it takes a while for my phone to find a connection over there. It might be a couple of days . . . maybe longer.

  I fucking love you, man. For real. Take care of yourself . . .

  Jevon x

  Rhys knew the words by now, had committed them to memory that dark morning when the crater in his heart had expanded with every breath. Jevon’s words, and the scent of him on his sheets, had kept him together then—were still keeping him together, but for how long?

  He eyed the rum bottle and rolled over, turning his back on it. Jevon’s letter found its way back into his wallet, and Rhys picked up his phone instead. In recent days, he’d found himself calling Joe, particularly if he’d had a skinful, but he called Harry now and closed his eyes when his brother’s voice filled the void Jevon had left behind.

  “Hey,” Harry said. “This is early for you. Just getting in or just getting up?”

  “Getting in. Trying to sleep, but it’s not happening. Can I ask you something?”

  “Of course.” A door closed at Harry’s end. “Are you okay?”

  “Don’t start.”

  “Sorry. Go on.”

  Rhys scrubbed a hand down his face. His eyes were scratchy from his shower meltdown, and his head ached with all the tears he’d left behind. Fucking idiot. “How did you know?”

  “Know what?”

  “That changing your life to be with Joe was the right thing to do? I mean, I know you loved him and all that bollocks, but how did you know?”

  “Are you drunk?”

  “Harry.”

  “Okay, okay . . . it’s just not like you to give a fuck about why I’ve done the things I’ve done.”

  “That’s not fair.”

  “I didn’t mean it in a bad way, bro. Just that you never ask me why. You accept everything I do without question because you believe in me . . . unless it really is because you don’t care.”

  “I care.”

  “I know.”

  “So . . .” Rhys banged his head on his pillow. “Are you gonna answer my question or psychoanalyse me?”

  “Is this about Jevon?”

  “No. It’s about you.”

  Harry sighed. “I don’t believe you, but whatever. Okay, here’s the thing . . . when it came to being with Joe, there wasn’t really a choice to be made. Being with him was going to happen, and there was a big part of me that didn’t care how. Like, I’d have done anything to be with him.”

  “Seems legit. You don’t think he’d have done anything to be with you?”

  “It wasn’t the same for him. He loves me as much as I love him, but he was in a different place. Joe doesn’t have the kind of life he can pick up and move to London. He has to be here, and I have to be with him, so that’s what happened.”

  “But why? What made his life more important than yours?”

  “Everything. There are thousands of dudes in London who could do what I was doing, but there’s only one Joe in the world. Besides, I didn’t want to go back to the city. I was miserable, Rhys . . . you know I was.”

  Rhys couldn’t argue with that. Putting up and keeping on was in the Foster family blood, but Harry had never been able to hide how much he hated it. Wearing his heart on his sleeve there for the whole world to see. Loneliness had hit him far harder than it ever had Rhys, and no one dese
rved his new life in Newquay more than him. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “So this is about Jevon? Angelo told me he’s gone.”

  “How the fuck does Angelo know that?”

  Rhys couldn’t keep the growl out of his voice, but Harry didn’t seem to hear it. “I’d imagine because Jevon kept in touch with him after you helped him out that time. Angelo’s still here, by the way.”

  “I know. Joe told me.”

  “Because you’d rather talk to him than to me?”

  “Shut up.”

  Harry laughed. “You’re fucking impossible. Look, I don’t know what the deal is between you and Jevon, but Angelo reckons he’s the tits and that he’s as into you as you are him. You just have to figure out how to mesh your lives together. If you love each other, what seems impossible is easier than you think.”

  “Shut up.”

  “Dude, you called me.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Rhys said goodbye and hung up, pondering Harry’s sage advice as he thumbed through his phone to Jevon’s contact details. Eleven digits and a photograph. It didn’t seem enough for the mark Jevon had left on Rhys’s soul.

  The phone vibrated in Rhys’s hand, startling him enough for the phone to slip out of his grasp. He fumbled for it, expecting Harry and any words of wisdom he might’ve forgotten.

  But it wasn’t Harry.

  It was Jevon.

  Rhys sat up and swiped at the screen like a man possessed. The picture jumped like an eighties TV and froze before finally—finally—Jevon’s smile lit up the world.

  “Hey.”

  “He—” Rhys cleared his throat and tried again. “Hey. There you are.”

  “Here I am. Are you okay? Did I wake you up?”

  “Nah. I’m good. Just getting in. God. I can’t believe it’s you.” Rhys touched the screen. “Where are you?”

  “Camp Moria, on Lesbos. Hang on, I’ll show you.” The picture panned away from Jevon’s face as he flipped the camera and scanned the scene below wherever he was.

  More tents than Rhys had ever seen filled the horizon. “Jesus Christ. It’s huge.”

  “Not huge enough.” Jevon returned the screen to his face and sat down on what appeared to be a sandy-coloured rock. “Four thousand people in a camp that was built for fifteen hundred. It’s like the end of the world, man. And more keep coming. I’ve never seen so many kids . . . I can’t even describe it.”

  Rhys crawled out of bed and drifted to the kitchen, though for what, he wasn’t entirely sure. “What can you do for them?”

  “With seven of us? Not a great deal as we don’t have enough equipment to go around, but we’ve played a lot of football this week, and I got caught up in a Taylor Swift singalong last night.”

  Rhys cringed. “Ouch.”

  “Yeah. It wasn’t pretty, but the older kids like that shit. It makes them smile, and that’s why we’re here.”

  “Where do you sleep?”

  “In the Médecins sans Frontières tent. They’re pretty awesome, and some days they need cheering up as much as the kids.”

  Rhys could well imagine. A long conversation with Marc a few days ago had confirmed his worst fears about disease and sanitation in the refugee camps. “Hell on Earth,” Marc had said. “And it doesn’t get any better, no matter how many Guardian articles good people write. Only the governments can fix this now.”

  He hadn’t seemed optimistic about that happening.

  “I miss you,” Rhys whispered.

  Jevon smiled and ducked his head, his dreads falling into his face. “I miss you too. I’m sorry I left without saying a proper goodbye . . . you looked so peaceful, man. I just couldn’t face it.”

  “It’s okay,” Rhys said. “I’m glad it played out that way. I probably would’ve taken you hostage otherwise.”

  “Some days I wish you had.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “I do, Rhys. You don’t understand.” Jevon covered his face with his hand and sighed brokenly. “This place is so much more than where I was before . . . it’s too much. I can’t—fuck—I can’t see how I can ever leave while it’s like this, you know? How I can ever come home, but then the idea of staying, of not seeing you or Efe or my family for months on end, is killing me.”

  Rhys was sorely unprepared to see Jevon so upset. He sucked in a shaky breath and tried to imagine what he’d do if Jevon was right in front of him. What he’d say. How he’d fix something that was so fucking unfixable. “It’s not going to kill you. It can’t because it’s where you’re meant to be.”

  “I know that. I just—it just feels wrong, Rhys. And it’s so big, it’s like it doesn’t matter how long we’re here, nothing gets better. We’re not helping these kids because we can’t. No one can while—shit. I only called to say hello. What the fuck’s wrong with me?”

  “You’re overwhelmed,” Rhys hedged. “The camp’s bigger than you’ve dealt with before, and you can’t see the difference you’re making when the scale is so huge. It’s like a mass-casualty incident when you scrape a couple of people up and patch them back together. It doesn’t seem to mean much when double that number don’t make it.”

  Jevon let his hand drop. His eyes were bloodshot but still warm. “But the people you saved still got to live. One life matters as much as twenty.”

  “I know that today,” Rhys said. “Just never when I need to.”

  Jevon sighed. “I’m so fucking emotional right now. I’ve never felt like this before. Makes me wonder if I’ve been in some kind of bubble my whole life.”

  “Would it matter if you had been? You can’t control how you feel.”

  “I wish I could.”

  Rhys touched his phone screen again. “So do I.”

  “Do you love me, Rhys?”

  “Yes. But you knew that, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah. I think I did.”

  A silence fell over them. It wasn’t the way Rhys had planned to reciprocate the sentiment in Jevon’s letter, and the new conflict in Jevon’s face tore him apart, but a layer of heaviness left him. Like confessing his love had set a sliver of him free. “Tell me something good,” he said. “Tell me what’s made you smile since I last saw you.”

  “Memories,” Jevon said. “I keep seeing you and Efe huddled in that corner taking the piss out of me, and it makes me want to bottle you both and keep you in my pocket.”

  “I like Efe.”

  “She likes you too.”

  “What else?” Rhys pressed on before the conversation got lost in separation again. “What are the kids like?”

  A smile no man could fake bloomed on Jevon’s face. “Amazing. Sometimes we’re the only ones there when they get off the boats. We take them to the reception centres and start playing games straight away, and some of them seem to forget that they’ve just spent twelve hours at sea. Kids are incredible.”

  “So are you.”

  Jevon rolled his eyes. “Not today. I’m supposed to be leading a juggling session, but I cried off to climb up this rock and catch a phone signal because I couldn’t handle another day without hearing your voice, even though we’ve got some local engineers coming out this afternoon to install some Wi-Fi.”

  “And you think that takes away from all the work you’ve done already? Jevon, you’re human, and you miss the people who love you. That doesn’t make you less of who you are.”

  “Why are you never this nice to yourself?”

  “We’re not talking about me.”

  Jevon chuckled, and some of the tension in the air broke. “Maybe we should. My phone just pinged with a bunch of messages from Angelo. He says you’re giving Harry the run around again.”

  “Fucking Angelo.” It was Rhys’s turn to roll his eyes. “He was never this up in my business when he was screwing me in the club.”

  A month ago, insecurity would’ve clouded any humour in Jevon’s eyes, but not now. His grin widened to a smirk. “Well, perhaps you should’ve spent more time getting to know him than sc
rewing him. Then you’d know that he cares about your brother enough to call you out for being a dick.”

  “I already know that. And I’m not being a dick to Harry. He knows I love him.”

  “Does he?”

  “Yes.”

  Jevon frowned, apparently unconvinced, but let it go. “What are you doing today?”

  “Sleeping until four, then I’m on shift all night from seven.”

  “So you’ll be awake around five then?”

  “That’s the plan. Why?”

  “Because the Wi-Fi will be working by then, and I’m running a circus session, and I was wondering if you’d like to come?”

  “Come?”

  “Yeah. As in watch. I can prop my phone up on something and you can see what we do. I know you’ve seen videos and stuff, but knowing you’re watching would do wonders for my motivation right now.”

  “Then I’ll be there. And Jevon?”

  “Yeah?”

  Rhys tried for a smile. “I’ll always be here. I meant it when I said I loved you . . . ’cause I really fucking do.”

  “I love you too, man.”

  Seventeen

  Jevon walked upside down around the makeshift arena, his gloved hands squelching in the mud. The dirt smearing his arms smelt awful and so did he after four days of no running water, but the laughter around him masked the grime.

  He flipped over, landing on his feet, then fell into a deliberately clumsy cartwheel, falling in a heap by a clutch of young boys. “Come,” he said, beckoning with a muddy hand. “You try.”

  The boys scrambled to their collective feet and joined Jevon in his makeshift circus ring . . . and successively put Jevon to shame as they hurled their nimble young bodies around with an ease he barely remembered.

  He watched them a moment, head tilted to one side, then turned in a slow circle, studying each cluster of children as they worked with different members of the FFP troop. The acrobatic boys, the girls spinning flawless pirouettes, the opera-singing teenager. Jevon was used to children surprising him, but the group of Syrians who’d arrived overnight were something else. Most of them spoke better English than he did.