Why was Darren calling Sam so much?
The orchestra were packing up; Jayden clicked out of the menu just in time to let Darren swipe the phone from him, and grinned half-heartedly at the swat at the side of his head. But he didn’t feel amused, suddenly. He felt upset and uncertain and…and why was Darren calling this guy? Girl? Which was even better?
“Between you and Paul, I’m going to die,” Darren predicted flatly, tucking his phone into his blazer pocket. “Come on, I need coffee before we do anything else.”
“Yeah, um, sure,” Jayden said numbly, scrambling to gather his things. “I have some chemistry revision.”
“Okay,” Darren gave him a funny look. “You all right?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. Yeah.”
“Right. Because for the record, Ethan’s been sexting me ever since I told him he looked better in his T-shirts than he does in the uniform.”
“Um, what? No, it’s…I guessed it was a joke. You know. It’s Ethan.”
Jayden couldn’t get that tone out of his voice. That hurt, awkward mumble. But he felt it. He felt awkward and hurt. Just…why? Who in the hell was Sam?
He muttered responses all the way to Costa, failed to put up a proper fight when Darren paid, and stayed silent all the way back, the same question on loop in his head. He found himself analysing every time Darren had blown him off, or not replied quickly to his texts. Did he really babysit Misha that much? But…Jayden had seen him babysitting Misha, so he did it some of the time. And really, did he really think Darren would be lying to him? With all his schoolwork and his violin practice and all the time they did spend together, where was he fitting a…where was he fitting in a Sam? He couldn’t, right? So it had to be something totally innocent and boring, right? Sam was probably his cousin or something.
Right?
They had barely reached the auditorium again before Jayden felt the question rising up in his throat, and he sounded just like Darren with his complete lack of filter when he blurted out, “Who’s Sam?” in the middle of aisle, clutching his strawberries-and-cream smoothie and wanting to simultaneously run away and shake the answer out.
Darren blinked and uttered the worst response ever. “Who?”
“What do you mean who?!” Jayden shouted. “The guy you’ve been calling! The guy you’ve called more than thirty times since whenever you cleared your phone last! You’ve only called me, like, ten times in ever!”
“Hey, whoa, wha—you went through my contacts?” Darren demanded.
“Who is he?!”
“Show me,” Darren snapped and tossed him the phone. Jayden fumbled to catch it. “What were you doing going through my call log anyway?”
“I was curious!” Jayden defended himself.
“You wanted to see who I’d been calling.”
“I was curious.”
“Why were you curious?!” Darren yelled back, and the sudden boom of his voice was a shock. Jayden fumbled with the contacts menu. “Texting Ethan is one thing, but then you decided to go hunting through my history? Are you trying to catch me out or something?”
“There! Him!” Jayden highlighted the contact and shoved the phone in Darren’s face. “That Sam!”
“That Sam,” Darren said flatly. “The Sam whose number starts with an oh-eight?”
Jayden’s breath caught. Oh-eight. Not oh-seven. It wasn’t a mobile number, it was a commercial number.
A cold feeling of dread began to creep up the inside of his stomach. “Who…what is it?” he whispered.
“You’re not the only one who goes hunting,” Darren snapped. “You’ve met my mates, I've told you about my brother—I don’t keep secrets on my phone.”
“Who’s Sam?” Jayden whispered.
“Samaritans,” Darren snarled, and Jayden felt suddenly sick. “The Samaritans, Jayden, and they always pick people with nice voices, but it’s not exactly a sex line, you get what I’m saying?”
Jayden felt shaky. He felt ill and wobbly somehow, and he clenched his hands into fists, resisting the urge to reach out. “You…you called…?” He’d called a hotline for…
“Obviously,” Darren said, pocketing the phone. He turned away, stalking to the edge of the stage and slamming the coffee cup down angrily.
“Darren…”
“What the hell were you hoping to find, Jayden?”
“I just…I’m sorry,” Jayden stuttered. “I didn’t…I was just messing about, and when I saw…I thought it was a person, I didn’t think…”
“No, you didn’t,” Darren snapped.
“I’m sorry,” Jayden repeated. “I really am, I’m sorry. I just…”
Darren scrubbed both hands over his face and held them there, bending in on himself a little. He looked dangerously like someone who was about to cry, and Jayden’s stomach twisted violently, the sensation propelling him forward with open arms to slide them around Darren’s back and hold on.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, pressing his cheek into Darren’s thumb and part of his mostly-hidden face. “I just jumped to conclusions and assumed the worst and I wasn’t looking for it, I promise, I was just messing about. I’ll never touch your phone again if you don’t want me to, I’m so sorry…”
He wanted to bring up the number. He wanted to know why Darren was calling them so often. He wanted to ask when the last time was, how bad he had been, whether some of those had been the days he’d turned to Jayden too. If some of them had been days he hadn’t. But he didn’t dare. Darren was shaking in his arms, slightly but noticeably, and Jayden was terrified, suddenly, of what asking those questions would do right now.
“Come home with me,” he whispered, squeezing tight. “Just come home with me and we can laze around and watch a film or something? You can raid the biscuit tin again; Mum got more just for you. Please? Let me…I’m really sorry, and let me make it up to you, please?”
The deep inhalation, and the rattling quality to it, said that Darren was crying behind his hands, and Jayden’s heart clenched until it physically hurt, but he was saved from tears himself when Darren exhaled a throaty, “All right,” and half-pushed him away, turning to get his bags.
It had been their first fight, and it had been horrible, and Jayden had been on edge for the following week. He’d triggered something, or made a crappy day worse, because Darren had gone from a little off to very off, to the point where when Mum came home from the rehearsal she’d insisted on driving him home because he hadn’t looked well.
“Just a migraine, Mrs. Phillips.” He’d brushed off her concerns. “I’ll be fine.”
She’d driven him home anyway, and Jayden had spent every class the next day texting variations on ‘I’m sorry.’ Eventually, Darren had told him to forget about it and stop spamming him, and after a few awkward days, it had all subsided.
Only, you know, it hadn’t. Because his boyfriend was calling The Samaritans on a pretty regular basis, and Jayden didn’t know what to think about it. On the one hand, it was better than he’d hoped. Darren didn’t open up, he didn’t talk about things, so that he was even trying to, even with a stranger…that was amazing and brilliant and he’d make him do it every single time if it helped.
But on the other hand, he’d had to do it thirty-three times. In the last not-too-long. It was a mind-blowing number, and one that Jayden kind of totally didn’t want to think about. Ever. Because he’d been that bad, that many times, and…
And Jayden couldn’t shake the feeling, no matter how happy he was—they were—the rest of the time, that a day was going to come when the depression overwhelmed them both.
* * * *
Dad had been generous, and not dobbed him in it, but Jayden hadn’t counted on Mum. The Tuesday after their argument, Darren left early thanks to a visit from an aunt by the very unlikely name of Petal, and so Jayden, for the first time in weeks, went home in the car with Mum rather than walking back early with Darren.
And just like the talk with Dad, he really should have se
en the talk with Mum coming.
“Darling,” she’d said, not two minutes out of the theatre car park. “Let’s get some KFC and talk, shall we?”
The alarm bell didn’t just go off, it went mental.
“Um…about…what?”
“About Darren,” she said flatly, changing lanes. “I think we need a proper talk because, darling, I’ve seen the way you look at him.”
Jayden went purple. “Mum…”
She brushed him off, and kept shushing him and brushing him off and fiddling with the radio until they were parked in the KFC car park with a couple of chicken burgers and a ridiculous amount of fries (because if it was one takeaway food that Mum loved, it was fries).
“Now,” she said, once he was halfway through his burger and thus as off-guard as he was going to get after hearing ‘we need a proper talk’ from his mother. “Darren.”
Jayden swallowed. “Um. What about Darren?”
“Do you like him?”
“Well, yeah…”
“I mean,” Mum interrupted, “are you attracted to him? Because I’ve seen the way you look at him, darling, and…”
Jayden sighed heavily. “Um. Yes, I am. Mum, I…”
“Then I think perhaps you need to see less of him, sweetheart.”
Jayden’s heart hiccupped. For a moment, his brain shrieked in panic, and then the rational part of him caught up and he exhaled shakily. Wow, she really hasn’t worked it out yet? the snarky little voice sneered, and he shook his head to shut it up. “No, Mum, I, um…”
“I know you’re good friends, darling, and I’ve been pleased to see you getting to know other people than the kids at Woodbourne, especially a boy so bright and engaging as Darren, but…”
“Mum…”
“…I don’t think it’s healthy to keep exposing yourself to a boy you find attractive who isn’t open to the idea, and…”
“Mumwe’redating.”
She finally stopped. And stared, and put down her fries, and wiped off her fingers on her napkin, and stared a bit longer, and then finally said, “Excuse me?”
Jayden blushed and fidgeted with his Coke. “We’re dating. Me and Darren. I…um…”
“How long?” she interrupted.
“Um…since October.”
“…Since October.”
“Well,” Jayden flushed. “Um. Late October?”
“You’ve been dating Darren—and we are talking about the same boy?”
“St. John’s, violin, hair, yes,” Jayden snorted and sobered at the stern look she was giving him. “Mum…”
“You kept this from me?”
“I didn’t…” Jayden pinked. “I mean…before…before I told you I was gay, I didn’t want to just…you know, I was scared maybe you wouldn’t like it. Or him. And I wasn’t sure it was going to work at first because…” Well, maybe he shouldn’t tell her the because. “And then when I told you, I realised…you were so okay with it, you and Dad, but Darren’s family aren’t like you and I didn’t want you, I don’t know, going off and wanting to talk to his parents about it or anything and I needed to ask him if it was okay first and…then I just…didn’t,” he finished lamely.
Mum stared at the steering wheel for a long moment while Jayden crumpled the paper takeaway bag and waited for her to say…something. Anything. Somehow, this was actually worse than coming out in the first place.
“Well,” she said, then paused. “He’s…gay, then?”
“Um. Well,” Jayden pinked, his inner voice helpfully going, Gay enough to put his… “Yes. Well, he’s probably bisexual. He has a crush on Mila Kunis,” he added.
Mum laughed a little. “Okay. And you’ve been dating for…six months or so.”
It sounded like such a long time when she said it, and Jayden couldn’t help but smile. “Yeah.”
“You’ve been dating a boy that I know, and I had no idea,” Mum said slowly, then huffed and folded her arms like a crossed schoolgirl. “Where in the mother contract did it say I have to be the last to know about everything?”
Jayden found a proper laugh, beginning to relax. She wasn’t mad at him.
“I’m sorry, darling, I was so sure that you carried a torch for him and he was oblivious,” Mum said, and sighed. “He is interested in you, then.”
“Yes,” Jayden said and curled his toes inside his trainers.
“But his parents don’t know?”
“They’re snobby lawyer types,” Jayden said and pulled a face. “I don’t think they know his shoe size, never mind…”
“Oh, dear,” Mum said and laughed. “Well, I suppose I’d imagined worst people for you to be involved with. He’s a nice enough boy.”
He was more than that, Jayden thought privately, but then Darren’s quirky sort of sensitivity was very well hidden. Maybe he was the only person who really saw it. That was a nice thought.
“You’ll have to have him over for dinner, of course,” Mum said. “We have to meet him properly.”
“You’ve both met him.”
“Jayden, your father can’t remember the names of his own sisters, never mind friends of yours or mine he’s met once or twice,” Mum pointed out. “And anyway, we never knew that he was so important to you, did we? Invite him over. Soon.”
Jayden reddened. “Um, okay.”
“And darling?” she added as she started the car. “We’re going to have a long talk soon—your father and you and me, all of us—about boundaries. You’re sixteen, Jayden, and you’re far too young to be going off with a boyfriend at all hours of the night and having sex and all of that nonsense.”
Jayden’s face rather promptly caught fire.
Chapter 26
Darren woke, and his bedroom was dim.
Never mind that the sun was pushing effortlessly past the curtains. Never mind that Mother had opened the door to remind him to get up and ready for school. Never mind that Misha had obviously been on the rampage, turning all the lights in the house on again, and his bedside lamp had been a victim, glowing wetly not a foot from his head.
The room was still dim.
It felt dim. He felt as though he was watching the ceiling through a thin veil. He felt heavy, like something was pressing his limbs back into the mattress, a solid weight on his shoulders and face. He felt exhausted, so utterly lethargic that the sounds of Misha wailing and Father’s low cadence were like a film set too quiet, and listened to underwater. Even the motion of breathing seemed too energetic.
“Fuck,” he whispered, but there was no energy in that either.
He should have known. He should have known that it wouldn’t last, should have known that it was only a matter of time before the shadows leaked back in. Jayden wasn’t a god. He wasn’t a cure. There wasn’t a cure, and he should never have been so blind as to think he was actually getting—what? Getting better?
He turned onto his side, attempting to dislodge the weight, and it slid into the pit of his stomach like a lead ball. He wanted to cry, somehow, but there wasn’t the energy for that. There wasn’t even the misery for it. There was nothing.
“Hey, Daz, you gotta get up for school.”
He ignored the warning. After a moment, Scott’s palm landed on his shoulder and shook him.
“Darren? You feeling sick?”
Darren ignored him even then, closing his eyes against the dim room and the too-loud bawl of Scott’s voice. Go away, he thought listlessly. Just go away for once.
“Huh. You feel a bit warm, I guess,” Scott mumbled, feeling his forehead. On any other day, Darren would have rolled his eyes and remarked that happened to people who slept in pyjamas under a winter duvet in a heated room. “You got Misha’s cold?”
Darren ignored him still. Scott tended to come to conclusion on his own.
“You wanna stay home and sleep it off?”
Darren managed to hum an agreement, and Scott hiked the sheets back up around his shoulders. “All right. I got a shift at work, though, so I’ll text around l
unchtime, check up on you. Okay?”
He was gone as quickly as he’d come and finally closed the bedroom door. Darren huddled further under the sheets, curling into his own warmth, and shut out the world. Go to sleep, he told himself. It’ll only be worse if you don’t.
For once, he listened; he didn’t stay awake long enough to hear Father and Misha leave.
* * * *
Paul woke him up. Where you at? Or Ethan with Paul’s phone. Whatever. It was half past eleven, and Darren dragged himself out of bed to go to the bathroom. It felt like being dragged as well. He felt about a hundred pounds heavier and had to clutch the top of the toilet to stay upright. He almost felt legitimately sick. Proper sick, not crazy sick.
He looked like hell, when he glanced up into the mirror after washing his hands. There were rings under his eyes, his skin had gone from white to practically see-through, and he looked as worn down as he felt. Like those pictures of meth users in the nurse’s office at school, or something.
“Fucking pathetic,” he whispered at his reflection and poked it with one finger. He barely felt the fake glass. His hands felt thick and numb again. “Shower. Okay. Shower.”
He hadn’t told Jayden this. About how he’d stumble around like a blind retard, or a drunk this close to passing out. About how he’d talk to himself, just to muster up the energy to do anything. About how if he didn’t, he’d spent the whole day staring at the ceiling or asleep, drifting between the two like there was no difference. About how he didn’t care if he did.
The shower was hot, and he turned it up until the steam was hissing out of the cubicle and his skin was going red under the assault. He watched the steam hitting the icy tiles, condensing, and the resultant water running down to the floor like he’d been hypnotised. He wiped a few away, trying to draw or write in the steam, but stopped when he realised his fingers just refused to work. He couldn’t feel the tiles. He couldn’t feel anything.
By the time he stepped out of the shower, a small flood had built up in the bottom of it, and he’d washed even the smell of his shower gel away. His shoulders were scarlet when he returned to the mirror—they were angry, even if he couldn’t find the energy to be—and even his hair had been steamed into submission, clinging to his scalp like it was hiding.
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