The Devil's Trill Sonata

by Matthew J. Metzger

  “Juliet-Rosaline,” Mum said proudly. “Very quick, weren’t you, darling?” she cooed at the bundle, but Jayden’s brain stalled and backtracked. The moment had burst; Jayden jerked his head up in horror to stare at Mum, and Dad turned a violent shade of red behind her.

  “Seriously?” he squawked.

  “Quick?” Dad demanded in the same moment.

  “Yes,” Mum said and folded her arms. “It’s a lovely name! And you,” she turned on her husband, “eight hours is very quick, I’ll have you know! Now come on, let’s sit down, and Colin, get the kettle on. Darren, darling, are you all right with her for a moment more?”

  “Um, yeah,” Darren said hesitantly, eyeing Julie…no, God no, eyeing the baby like she was a bomb. He passed into the living room anyway and sat down without thinking twice about it, and Jayden at once envied his ease with carrying her, and loathed the fact that his boyfriend was carrying something with such a ridiculous name.

  “For the record,” Dad grunted, helping Mum into the armchair, “I’m calling her Rosie.”

  “No you will not, Colin, she’s…”

  “Jelly,” Darren pronounced suddenly.

  “What?!” Mum demanded.

  “Jelly,” Darren repeated obligingly, peering down at the baby and bouncing her a little in the crook of his arm. “Aren’t you? You’re Jelly.”

  She blinked up at him, prising open big eyes to stare, and then yawned and closed them again. They were a bright, pale blue, just like Dad’s, and she fisted that pink starfish of a hand into his chest again.

  “I think she likes it,” Jayden opined.

  “Course she does,” Darren said, and he sounded so much like his old self, Jayden resisted the urge to hug him again.

  “No,” Mum said and held out her arms. “Give me back my baby, before you corrupt her.”

  Darren didn’t laugh, but he did smile, and Jayden’s heart swelled at its return as he rose and crossed the rug to hand the new baby back. He looked okay, for the first time since Christmas, and Jayden could even forgive Mum for giving the new baby such an awful name for returning even a little bit of Darren to him.

  When Darren sat back down, Jayden slid his arms around his waist again and hugged him tightly, but refused to give an explanation.

  Chapter 32

  A sharp shrieking pierced the darkness, and Jayden groaned, turning his face further into the pillow. The baby was crying again. After a pause, he heard Dad’s heavy tread in the hall and the screaming died to a plaintive whimpering.

  And then Jayden realised the bed was cold.

  He sat up, blinking in the dim light. The alarm clock on the side table said one fifty-eight, but it was an hour out, so it was actually almost two in the morning. The moon was high and clear in an icy sky, and Darren’s silhouette was outlined by the critical glare. He was sitting on the windowsill, feet almost wholly obscured by the borrowed pyjama bottoms, arms wrapped loosely around his knees, and staring blankly down into the empty street.

  “Darren?”

  He didn’t move, didn’t even twitch. Jayden gingerly slid out of the bed and padded across to perch on the sill opposite him, back to the glass. It was cold, and he pulled his feet up on top of the radiator.

  “You okay?” he prodded gently.

  Darren shrugged. Jayden bit his lip and rubbed a hand over his chilly toes. It was all so awkward. What did he say? What did Darren need to say? What did he need to hear? What could Jayden possibly say when…

  “I’m…” he began, but couldn’t think of how to continue. Couldn’t even think of what he wanted to say, really, because…what was there to say? What was Darren thinking—then and now?

  “Do you remember,” Darren interrupted suddenly, his voice almost a whisper, “the day we got our exam results?”

  A-level results day. God, did Jayden remember. He’d been terrified. They’d had to go into the school hall to collect a sealed envelope with their names on them and open them, then and there, in front of everyone. There’d been every kind of reaction imaginable, from cheers to tears, and Jayden had held Darren’s hand so hard he’d left bruises. He’d made Darren open the envelope for him too, and read the letters out to him, and then he’d nearly strangled him in a hug.

  “Yes…” he said slowly.

  “Do you remember the row that evening?”

  Jayden flinched. Yes, he remembered that too, in Darren’s room at Hayley Lane because his parents had been away at a horse-jumping show with his little sister, and they’d chased Scott out and kept the house for themselves. And asking Darren one last time if he was taking the job offer in Southampton, and when Darren had said yes, asking if maybe they wouldn’t be better off calling it quits.

  He could still remember how still Darren had gone.

  “I was so convinced,” Darren said quietly, “that I was right. I was so convinced that I wouldn’t lose you.”

  “Darren…”

  “I knew that university and the distance and whatever…it wasn’t going to change how I felt,” Darren continued, as though he’d not heard. “I was in love, and I was going to stay that way, no matter what, and you being in Cambridge wasn’t going to change that.”

  Was? Jayden wanted to ask, but his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth, and he said nothing.

  “Did you want to break up with me?” Darren demanded suddenly. “Was it just you were afraid of the distance doing it for us, or did you actually want shot of me then and…”

  “No!” Jayden burst out.

  “It fucking felt like it, Jayden!” Darren exploded, and Jayden jumped. “Suddenly it’s a fucking problem that I drink lager, and you’d rather to go fucking Paris for a fucking weekend with them than come and fucking spend two goddamn days in my flat with me! Because hey, you can see me anytime, right? I remember when you wanted to see me anyway, even when we lived in the same fucking town!”

  Jayden flinched back from the sudden explosion—he’d forgotten how Darren did this, sometimes, how he’d blow up and break down in a matter of seconds and then it would suddenly be normal again, and after that, after overdosing¸ he should have expected it, should have…

  But he didn’t. And suddenly, he was angry. Sure, he’d fucked up, but for God’s sake, it wasn’t totally his fault! “You didn’t fucking talk to me!” he snapped back, and flung himself off the windowsill to pace. “You don’t fucking talk to me, Darren! You’re okay, you’re fine, and then Rachel fucking calls me to say…”

  “I shouldn’t have had to!” Darren shouted.

  “You have to fucking talk to me, or how am I supposed to know what the fuck is going on!”

  “When was I supposed to talk to you?” Darren demanded. “Between your study groups with Ella, or your fucking around with that gay prick John!”

  “Jonathon!”

  “WHAT THE FUCK EVER!”

  The door banged open, Dad’s shadow filling the empty frame. “Knock it off!” he bellowed, and the tiny lump of Rosie on his shoulder started wailing again. “I’m having enough trouble with the bloody baby as it is! You want a bloody handbag fight, you can do it outside!”

  Jayden swallowed. He was shaking, his hands clenching and relaxing intermittently, and he was gasping like he’d run a marathon. “Sorry Dad,” he whispered. Dad grunted, eyeing the pair of them. “We’re just…”

  “I need a drink,” Darren said suddenly, and was up off the windowsill and stalking out of the room, shouldering past Dad brutally and without a trace of his usual semi-distant respect. Dad glanced after him darkly, looked to Jayden, and shook his head, still bouncing the whimpering baby.

  “Careful, kid,” he said. “Think he’s reached the end of his rope.”

  Jayden bit his lip and nodded. “Sorry for…disturbing Rosie.”

  “Just sort it out. You don’t sort it now, it’ll end. You know that. And I don’t fancy handling two kids in tears, ‘specially not at once.”

  Jayden flinched, folding his arms and hunching in on himself,
and nodded. When Dad retreated with the whimpering baby, Jayden reached for the hoodie at the end of his bed. The green hoodie that Darren had brought him at Christmas. When things had been…okay.

  Just okay. Not good. Things hadn’t been good since Cambridge, not really, not even at Christmas, and Jayden screwed together all his courage before shrugging into the hoodie and padding quietly down the stairs.

  Darren was sitting at the kitchen table, still shirtless, with one hand tangled in his hair and the other around an open can of Carlsberg. He watched with hard, weary eyes as Jayden slowly pulled out the chair opposite and sank into it, and Jayden clenched his jaw against the urge to just cry. They needed to talk about this. They did. And he knew this pattern, he could remember this, the way Darren exploded and cracked and then it was like the clouds rolled past and he went back to normal. And if he went back to being okay and they didn’t work this out, then…

  Then Dad was right. Darren would break it off. And Darren…Darren didn’t really do changing his mind. He did things, and they stayed done, and he didn’t change his mind or undo them or alter them. If he broke it off…a lump swelled up in Jayden’s throat, and he whispered, “You never told me you were having bad days.”

  “I wasn’t,” Darren said brusquely. “I was having bad weeks. Bad fucking months. My boyfriend was not only gone, but I was bloody lucky if I got to talk to him at all, and the one time I do visit him, he spends the entire time letting his so-called friends rip on me for every single thing I say or do like I’m some pig-ignorant, useless piece of shit.”

  Jayden opened his mouth, closed it, and breathed deeply through his nose. Ella’s pursed lips and condescending smiles came to mind: all the times she’d asked him something in that slightly-incredulous tone about Darren, all the times she’d smiled without it reaching her eyes or really changing her expression…

  “You hated them before you came to see me,” he said lowly.

  Darren snorted. “Of course I did,” he said caustically. “Do you know what you’re like, Jayden? You try to fit in. Always. You go somewhere new and you’ll let anything slide just to not rock the boat. You did it at school, you did in sixth form, and you’re doing it now. For God’s sake, you’re drinking wine to fit in with them. You used to pull faces at your mum if she offered you wine at dinner!”

  “I…” Jayden started, but Darren didn’t let him finish. Or even continue.

  “You’re moulding yourself to be like them, and every time you’d say something like why did I drink lager, why didn’t I buy better shirts, why did I let Rachel cut my hair— or everything time you’d miss my call and not call me back, or you’d just stop texting, or you’d blow off a Skype session to be in the library with Ella…”

  “I had to study, Darren!”

  “With Ella? Every fucking time?” Darren said sharply. “I’m not thick, Jayden, even if I don’t go to bloody Cambridge. She said come out, you went. Never mind anything else, you went, because Ella said so. And every time you did, I felt like…”

  He stopped. Jayden bit his lip hard enough that a single bead of blood welled up, and leaned forward in his chair until his chest hit the table. “Felt like what?” he whispered.

  “Felt like I was losing,” Darren said eventually, and his eyes slid sideways, his voice dropping down into a hoarse sort of murmur. “Felt like you were just drifting away from me. And I didn’t know what to do. You weren’t listening to me. You weren’t hearing me, Jayden. How many times have I actually told you I’m having a bad day?”

  Not many. “Not many,” Jayden admitted softly, and finally pulled Darren’s hand away from the can, holding it in both of his. “But you needed to tell me,” he breathed. “I can’t read you properly over the phone, Darren. I’m not there, and I miss things, and I…I fuck up. I fucked up, and I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, but you needed to talk to me and you weren’t, and…”

  “I don’t know if I can do this anymore, Jayden.”

  Jayden’s chest bowed like he’d been punched. The upswell of raw panic was sudden and shocking, his blood pounding in his ears, and then he crushed Darren’s fingers in his and whispered: “No.”

  “I can’t,” Darren shook his head. “I can’t take…I can’t take hanging on every text like it’s going to be the last, can’t take waking up every morning wondering if today you’ll even resemble the guy I’m in love with anymore, can’t take…”

  “You still love me?” Jayden pleaded.

  “I’ve always loved you,” Darren said simply. “But I don’t love what Cambridge is turning you into. And I don’t love what’s it turning me into.”

  “I’m not breaking up with you,” Jayden said fiercely, clutching the captured hand. “I’ve missed you, and I’m sorry, and I should have stood up for you, should have…”

  “You should have stood up for yourself,” Darren whispered. He tugged his hand, but Jayden refused to let it go.

  “I am now,” he said. “I’m not…I’m sorry, Darren. I’m sorry, and I want to just stay here with you until you feel better, and this has…I…I’ve never been so fucking scared as when Rachel called me, and…”

  His mouth started to shake, then Darren sighed and dropped his other hand to hold Jayden’s back properly. “I’ll have to go back to work soon,” he said lowly.

  “I’m not breaking up with you,” Jayden repeated stubbornly. “And I’m not letting you break up with me, because we’re both wrong and we’ve both been stupid, but I’m not letting this break us up. I should have…I got complacent, Darren, that’s all. I’m used to you being there, and you know, I’m kind of used to you being okay as well because I’ve always been able to make you feel better in the end, and I guess I just didn’t…I didn’t realise. If I’d known, even just a little bit…”

  Darren sighed. “I know,” he said finally. “I…it’s not your fault, not really. I just felt like any minute I was going to get the call and you were going to dump me. And I’ve forgotten how to get along without you.”

  Jayden took a deep breath and squeezed his hands. “So what do we do?”

  Darren shrugged.

  “Are we…okay?” Jayden tried eventually.

  “I don’t know.”

  Jayden bit his lip. “We will be,” he said finally. “I’ll make us okay again.”

  Darren offered him a wan smile, and drew a hand back to his can of Carlsberg. “Maybe,” he mumbled.

  “We will,” Jayden said, and in that split second, he made his decision. “You’ll see. I promise.”

  Chapter 33

  Darren woke up feeling…okay. Not good, certainly not good, with the residual cloud around the edges of his thoughts, but…not bad either. Not so crushingly bad.

  It was late; Jayden’s alarm clock said it was half past ten, and the bin lorry was reversing outside, judging by the smell and the sounds floating through the half-open window. Jayden was still asleep, half-wrapped around Darren’s arm, and he grumbled when Darren shifted.

  “Need to get up,” Darren coaxed, and Jayden squinted at him before letting go. For the first time in weeks—maybe even months—a tiny flower of warmth opened up in the pit of Darren’s stomach.

  He felt Jayden’s tired eyes on him while he dressed, and when he reached for his glasses on the bedside table, a hand caught his wrist. “Don’t,” Jayden mumbled sleepily. “Wear your contacts.”

  Darren considered him: the dark smudges under his eyes, the firm grip despite the half-awake glaze in his eyes, and he felt sorry, suddenly. Sorry for what this had all taken out of Jayden, because…it wasn’t his fault. Not really. Darren was still a little pissed off, sure, but it hadn’t really been Jayden’s fault. They should both have seen it coming, so…

  “Okay,” he agreed and unburied the box from the bag Scott had dug out of his room. He’d left a lot behind when he’d moved out, and in a weird way, it had paid off. When he slipped out to the bathroom to put them in, he heard Jayden slide out of bed.

  Maybe today…maybe toda
y they could…turn it around. Maybe. Darren felt a little lighter, a little less like he was sleepwalking, or wading through waist-high mud. Breathing didn’t quite ache so much. His own weight didn’t feel unbearable. Maybe today they could go out, get coffee, see a film, something. Just…forget.

  Darren wanted, more than anything, to forget about the whole sorry mess.

  Eyes smarting a little, he went straight downstairs from the bathroom. Mrs. Phillips was putting on her coat in the hall, Rosie cooing mindlessly from a car seat, and Darren was reminded strongly of Misha when she’d been tiny and sweet. It hadn’t lasted long, but it had been nice. He crouched down by the seat and tickled a tiny hand. It latched on, and she waved his finger around curiously.

  “You know, darling,” Mrs. Phillips said above him, and he glanced up at her smile, “you’d make a good father one day.”

  “I’m not having kids,” he said flatly, tickling Rosie’s ribs and getting a startled look from those unfocused blue eyes before she seized his hand again and yelped indignantly. “I’m not passing this on.”

  She hummed and a hand touched his hair lightly. “Still,” she said. “They wouldn’t have to be yours, you know.”

  Darren shrugged.

  “You seem a little better today,” Mrs. Phillips said.

  “I feel it,” Darren said and pulled a face. Rosie giggled. “Sorry about the row last night.”

  “It needed to happen,” Mrs. Phillips said. She lifted the car seat, and Darren stood with it, gingerly extracting his hand from Rosie’s grip. She was only twice the length of his hands as it was, but the grip was phenomenal. Misha hadn’t been so interested in people at that age. “Here,” Mrs. Phillips said and hugged him with her free arm. “Whatever it takes, all right, darling? You’re family too.”

  Darren swallowed, nodded, and held the door for her while she struggled out to the car with baby and handbag. Rosie cooed and burbled through the fiasco of fitting the car seat into the back of the car, and Darren waited until the tail-lights turned out onto the main road before shutting the door. The quiet rolled in, but he wasn’t alone; Mr. Phillips’ shadow graced the kitchen doorframe, and Darren shuffled in around him, wary of the narrow-eyed look he received.