He found himself scared, and he didn’t like it in the slightest.
He switched his TV on—a hand-me-down from his cousin the previous Christmas—and turned down the sound low on some unrecognisable film on BBC 2. By the time he turned back to the bed, Darren had finished changing and stood twisting his balled-up socks in both hands, staring blankly off into space.
“Here.” Jayden took the socks and dropped them, tugging on the hem of Darren’s T-shirt. “This too. Trust me.”
He had expected some resistance. He almost wanted it. But Darren shrugged out of that too, and when Jayden slid his arms around Darren’s waist and pulled, he went into the hug almost…heavily. Like he was being dragged. When he dropped his head onto Jayden’s shoulder, he dropped half his weight too, and suddenly it just up to Jayden to keep them standing.
It wasn’t okay. It wasn’t all right. And Jayden couldn’t say that it was going to be, because what the fuck did he know about this? He couldn’t ask questions, because Darren sure as hell wasn’t up to answering them, and he couldn’t say nothing at all because it felt so wrong to let Darren just wander off inside his own head and wrap himself up in God-knows-what thoughts had been boiling over since yesterday afternoon—at least.
“I’m here,” he settled for eventually, whispering it into Darren’s hair, and the hands that had been splayed on his back shifted until he could feel the pressure of Darren’s arms instead. “I’m here,” he repeated softly. “You’re not alone, you’re not ever alone, I’m right here…” And maybe it wasn’t the right thing, or the best thing, but it was something, and it wasn’t making it worse.
They stood and simply hugged until Jayden’s knees ached from supporting them both—because he knew now that Darren wasn’t thin but lean, and lean meant muscle, and muscle meant weight, and Darren was obligingly heavy—and when the pressure got too much, he dropped them almost too suddenly to the bed, and whatever little trance Darren had gone off into was momentarily broken. He looked vaguely surprised as they hit the mattress, but righted himself without protest—and without comment, like Darren wasn’t even in the room, like he’d loaned his body and wandered off without it.
“Come on,” Jayden coaxed, sliding back the sheets, and tugging until Darren settled under them with him. His bed was a single, but a wide single thanks to a childhood habit of what Mum called ‘severe restlessness’ and Dad called ‘spazzing like whoa, kiddo.’ To sleep without touching would have been impossible, but to do it like this, with Darren’s face tucked into the top of his shoulder and neck, and one of those lean arms slung over Jayden’s bare chest—this was manageable.
Darren had pinned both Jayden’s arms to his sides with that arm, and so Jayden simply folded his own up until his hands could curl around Darren’s elbow and bicep, and turned his head to tuck his cheek against the top of that wild hair. It wasn’t a full hug—and he really wanted to put his arms around Darren’s shoulders again, like really—but he had the impression from the dead weight and the way Darren was steadily curling into his side that this was what Darren wanted. And right now…right now, Jayden would have given him anything.
“Sorry,” Darren murmured finally, just as Jayden had decided to leave him to drop off to sleep and watch the confusing and near-silent film.
“Don’t be,” Jayden replied, equally quietly. “I know…I know I said I didn’t think I could handle this, but…I want you to do this. To come to me. I want you to. I don’t want you to…you don’t have to be alone with it. You know? You don’t, ‘cause…”
Darren tightened the arm over his chest, face completely hidden, half in the pillow and half in Jayden’s beck. “Stop talking,” he said hoarsely.
Jayden shut up, rubbing his fingers lightly across the light haze of hair on Darren’s forearm. He hadn’t checked for new marks. There weren’t any really fresh ones, he would have noticed that, but he hadn’t checked in a little while because Darren had been so…so okay lately. He’d have to check in the morning. He couldn’t move them now, not…
Something in his chest cracked when the first shiver rocked down through Darren’s shoulder to the elbow he had captive, and the sob was only audible because of its proximity to Jayden’s left ear.
But he didn’t say a word as Darren pulled himself impossibly closer and the hot dampness of tears began to collect in Jayden’s hair and on the pillowcase. He didn’t say anything as the shaking became more violent. He kept quiet as that arm pinned and clung for dear life, and he held his tongue when the sound of Darren crying, actually crying, ripped into his own chest and burned a path up to his throat. The ceiling swam blurrily above them, and Jayden said nothing.
He did unwind his right arm to twist it over his own chest and press his hand over the exposed nape of Darren’s neck, holding him into this tangled embrace, pressing his cheek down hard onto his dried hair, trying to cling to him without untangling them enough to do it properly.
He tried, however pathetically, to comfort.
Chapter 27
On Friday afternoon, Jayden ducked out of the classroom as quickly as possible after the bell rang, skipping his usual locker visit and long circuit round to avoid the smokers. He hadn’t seen Darren all week—he’d skipped Tuesday and Thursday at The Brightside, and had ignored all of Jayden’s messages. It had been lonely, trying, and kind of scary.
But this afternoon he had replied to Jayden’s invite to come over after school with a simple k c u l8a xxx so maybe the dark spell was over? In any case, Jayden wanted more than anything to just hug him, even if—especially if—he was still…off.
There was a mini-heat wave; it had been unseasonably muggy for days, and the figure by the treeline cut not a dark shadow but a white silhouette. Darren’s arms had freckled since Jayden had last seen them; he had removed his tie, unbuttoned his collar just the way that suited him best, and when he smiled, it wasn’t full, it wasn’t quite the way it usually was, but he looked…better.
“That was quick,” he drawled.
“How do you even get here for three-thirty?” Jayden grumbled.
“St. John’s lets out at three.” Darren grinned. There was still a slowness to it, and it didn’t quite make his eyes, but he was getting there. Jayden itched to hug him.
“Do you want to go straight home, or…?”
Darren grimaced. “Have to be boring and say yes. I have maths revision to do.”
“Okay.” Jayden squeezed his bag strap to avoid trying to take Darren’s hand in front of the school. Even if the smokers weren’t here, it was still a really stupid thing to do. “Are you going to stay for dinner when Mum accosts you?” he added as Darren fell into step beside him.
Darren shrugged. “Depends what’s cooking.”
Jayden laughed. The sun was bouncing off Darren’s curls, striking off the tropical sea of his eyes. He was a quiet sort of beautiful, even with the depression dampening the edges of his expression.
“All right, fairy, ‘ow’s the boyfriend!”
Jayden stiffened, the jeer ricocheting across the street from the newsagents. Canning’s voice, Stapleton’s laugh, a couple of the idiots from their form group in tow…He didn’t dare look up to count.
Until Darren twisted on his heel, throwing, “Fine, cheers, how’s yours?” over his shoulder like it had been a genuine query.
Jayden glanced back, in time to watch the scowl ripple across Canning’s face, and the half-step that one of his nameless thugs took towards them—and he saw, clear as day, Canning’s arm shoot out to stop him, and the wordless shake of the head.
“Oh, my God,” Jayden breathed and turned away, tugging on Darren’s elbow to make him keep walking. “If it was just me, they would have started…”
“Like I’ve always told you,” Darren said easily, “Canning’s a coward. Now can we hurry up? I want a hug or something but you’ll freak out if I do it here.”
* * * *
Darren felt…a little guilty, truth be told.
The late
st rough patch had been rough—he had eventually succumbed on the Wednesday to the call of the penknife and dug a single, simple slice into the crook of his left elbow with the favoured blade. The shock of doing it, for the first time since August, had rattled even the heavy weight across his chest and head, and he’d woken up on Thursday to the grip of it easing. Slowly, but easing.
The way Jayden folded around him in the requested hug the moment they were inside the Phillips house that Friday was tinged with a little relief and a little desperation, and Darren felt bad about that. He always got so self-involved and stupid on his dark days, and he wasn’t quite used to Jayden wanting to be let in yet. He wasn’t quite used to someone knowing yet.
He squeezed back, and tried to push across a quiet apology for the lost week.
The afternoon was uneventful until six. They ended up in Jayden’s room, sprawled on the floor doing revision together (Jayden really was utterly hopeless at maths), and breaking off every so often to exchange slow, lazy kisses. It was a nice atmosphere, really, and Darren appreciated the quietness of it. He still felt a little funny, and Jayden’s mute presence at his shoulder was fortifying. It wasn’t until the door downstairs slammed that Darren remembered Jayden’s question, and he frowned.
“Is your mum really going to accost me?”
“Yeah, sorry,” Jayden pulled a face. “She’s insistent that she and Dad have to meet you properly.”
“…They’ve both met me.”
“I don’t know what she means,” Jayden said and grimaced. “Seriously, I’m sorry, they’re going to be really embarrassing, and…”
The bedroom door opened, and Mrs. Phillips’ fluffy ginger hair preceded her into the room. “Hello, darling.” She beamed at Jayden and turned those big dark eyes on Darren. “And hello to you, dear.”
“Hi, Mrs. Phillips.”
“Livvy!” she insisted. Darren nodded, but didn’t repeat it. She’d been doing it ever since they met, but it was kind of weird to call her Livvy. She was, like, forty or something. Way younger than Mother, but still. He couldn’t imagine Mother inviting Jayden to call her Alison. “Jayden, come and help me with dinner.”
“Mum…”
“Come on, both of you!” she insisted and trotted off down the stairs. Darren smirked at the look on Jayden’s face.
“What, she think we’ll end up shagging on the floor if she leaves us alone?” he asked.
“Urgh, I don’t even know,” Jayden mumbled. He looked faintly pink and flustered again, like when they’d first met.
“I could go for that,” Darren admitted, even though he probably couldn’t with the faint edges of the dark still in the back of his head plucking out some random Vivaldi concerto on an imaginary violin. And wow, that made him sound even crazier than usual.
“Just come on,” Jayden said and dragged him downstairs by the hand. When he didn’t let go as they entered the kitchen, Darren squeezed it and watched him go slightly pinker.
“Jayden, put the kettle on and make some tea,” Mrs. Phillips ordered, and waved Darren to the tiny plastic table with a wet dishcloth. “Sit, darling. I want to ask you a few things.”
“Mum, leave him alone!”
Darren could have laughed. Or possibly run away. He liked Jayden’s mum, but she was absolutely nuts. Or maybe Mother was nuts for not being like this, but either way, it wasn’t what Darren was used to, and he hadn’t yet decided whether that was just as well, or unfortunate.
“I’m just asking him a few questions, darling!” Mrs. Phillips overrode her son effortlessly before pulling out the chair opposite Darren and folding her hands on the table. “So, are you in Year Eleven as well?”
“Yeah.”
“Doing your GCSEs then?”
“Some of them. St. John’s stagger it.” Darren shrugged. “I did about half of them last year, and I’m doing two AS-levels this year.”
“There’s your competition, darling.”
Darren raised his eyebrows. “Competition?” he asked as Jayden went purple.
“Mum, I haven’t…”
“Jayden’s taking the scholarship exam at St. John’s for the sixth form,” Mrs. Phillips said smoothly. “And…”
Darren tuned her out briefly. The scholarship exam. Jayden hadn’t said anything about it, but…it made sense, he supposed. If he wanted to get into Cambridge, he had to do one better than Woodbourne and the subjects it offered there, that was for certain. He wasn’t paranoid enough to think that was why Jayden was always pulling help from him for revision, but it did explain the fact that he’d asked a lot of questions about St. John’s in the last couple of months.
Huh. Well then.
“Mum, I hadn’t told him yet!”
“Well, maybe you should have done, darling; you might end up in the same classes.”
“I doubt it,” Darren said without thinking. Jayden’s face twisted, and he groaned. “Not like that, Jayden. I mean unless you suddenly decide you want to be a brain surgeon and take all the sciences, you won’t end up in any classes with me.”
“You’re a science enthusiast?”
“Nerd,” Jayden supplied, but the hurt expression had gone, and when he plonked the mugs of tea on the table, he slipped into the seat next to Darren and took his hand easily. “He’s going to be a famous engineer or something.”
“I'm thinking about doing mechanical engineering at university,” Darren supplied, and Mrs. Phillips looked lost. “So I have to take maths and science at school. Not English and history and whatever.”
“English is a good subject,” Jayden retorted.
“If you want to write plays all day,” Darren fired back.
“Is it a good school?” Mrs. Phillips interrupted, and when Darren looked carefully enough, she had the same wary expression that Jayden did sometimes, when she was trying to figure something out that she didn’t like the look of. “You know. Fair?”
Darren stared at her blankly, and she huffed a sigh.
“Is there bullying?” she asked frankly.
“Mum, it’s…”
She shook her head at him; Darren shrugged. “Well, yeah,” he said. “Every school has bullying. Nobody’s going to carve things into his locker door, if that’s what you mean.” Or dump coffee on his head or shout at him in the street, but he didn’t add those bits. Jayden would strangle him. Or pour the hot tea on his head.
Mrs. Phillips raised her eyebrows. “Are you out at school, dear?”
Well, he hadn’t been expecting that question. Maybe Mrs. Phillips wasn’t as soft and fluffy as Darren had decided. Still, it was hardly a horrendous question. “Not really. It’s not a secret, but I’ve never said anything either.”
“Why not?”
“Mum, it’s…”
“None of their business,” Darren said, leaning back in his chair and stretching. Despite her being there, and despite the heavy conversation, he noticed Jayden’s gaze flicker along his torso, and he smirked.
“Bastard,” Jayden muttered lowly.
“Do your friends know? Your family?”
“His friends do,” Jayden said, and Darren laughed.
“Yeah, well, it’s not possible to keep anything from those two.”
“I’m sure I’m missing something,” Mrs. Phillips muttered and adjusted her grip on the mug. “I just don’t want to be sending Jayden to another school where it’s going to happen all over again.”
Darren shook his head. “It won’t. It’s not a haven at St. John’s, but any bullying is low-level and tends to be restricted to the lower years. Sixth form won’t be a problem. The dickheads grow up by that point—or get kicked out.”
“Did you ever get bullied?” she pressed.
“Once, for about ten minutes. In first year,” Darren said. “They’re not sensitive at St. John’s, but they’re not bullies either. Most of them wouldn’t know how to be aggressive if they were offered lessons.”
Jayden snorted; Mrs. Phillips’ mouth twitched, but she asked, �
�Insensitive?” like the joke had never been cracked.
“If you get in,” Darren said, eyeing Jayden, and suspecting it was really a case of when, “I guarantee you that the first two questions will be ‘what’s your name?’ and ‘are you gay?’. They’re not tactful.”
“Hmm,” Mrs. Phillips said, finishing her tea and rising from the table. “Well. It’s better than Woodbourne.”
“I haven’t even taken the exam yet, Mum.”
Mrs. Phillips rolled her eyes. “I have no doubt you’ll pass, darling. You’re head and shoulders above the other idiots at your school.” Darren had to agree with that one. “Now, I’m going to change out of this stupid bloody uniform, and then I’ll get some dinner on. If your father comes home, send him upstairs; I want a word with him.”
She was barely gone five minutes before the colour flooded up Jayden’s face and he thumped his forehead down on Darren’s shoulder with a loud groan. “I am,” he said there, “so sorry.”
“Why?” Darren asked.
Jayden flushed and mumbled, “I mean…is it okay?”
“Is what okay?”
“St. John’s. I mean, me going—well. Maybe going. I mean…”
“And here I was thinking we were past the stuttering,” Darren said distractedly. Jayden’s hair was tickling his neck and it was actually kind of unpleasant, with the hairspray and all. Stiff and scratchy.
Jayden bit his lip and took a breath. After a moment, he sat up and wound his hands around one of Darren’s. “I mean…I might end up at your school, and…do you mind?”
Darren eyed him. “Why would I mind?”
“Well…you’re not out there, not fully, and they’re your friends, and, I don’t know, maybe you don’t…”
Darren shrugged. “If you want me to come out at school, I will.”
Jayden slid his foot across the tiles and slotted it between Darren’s shoes. “You gave me a look when Mum told you I was going for it,” he admitted.
“I was surprised,” Darren said. “You never said anything.”
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