He looked at me at last, his pale blue eyes shy and questioning.
‘How was today?’ I said.
He shrugged. ‘Okay, I guess. At least . . .’ He stopped.
‘At least what?’
‘Nothing.’ He looked down.
‘Hey.’ I reached over and prodded his chest. ‘I thought we were friends?’
Leo looked up.
‘So spill. What happened?’
‘I just . . . I meant that it was a quiet day. No one . . . you know, no one hassled me.’
I suddenly remembered how close Leo had come to being beaten up by those guys in the trees at the party. My whole body flooded with shame that I’d forgotten – and that Leo must think they only knew he was gay because I’d spread the information at school.
‘Leo, I never told anyone what you told me . . . about . . . you know . . . What those guys in the orchard—’
‘Don’t.’ Leo held up his hand, his face bright red. ‘I know you didn’t say anything.’
I frowned. ‘But those guys . . .’
‘. . . thought I was gay? Yeah, I know.’
‘But how . . . ?’
Leo took in a deep breath. His chest heaved. ‘They assumed I was gay, just like people did in my last school. Some of them in our class have been saying stuff since the first week, though up until the party it was just nasty comments and a bit of pushing me around. Those guys were different . . .’ He tailed off.
I couldn’t believe it. How come I’d never noticed Leo being taunted and bullied at school? Had I really been so wrapped up in Flynn that I hadn’t seen? I knew most of the people in our class thought Leo was weird but, as far as I was aware, he’d been ignored, not picked on.
‘I had no idea,’ I gasped. ‘Oh, Leo, I’m so sorry. Why didn’t you say something before?’
‘What would you have done?’ He paused. ‘If I’d told you, you’d have just asked Flynn to sort them out.’
I looked away. I wanted to deny what he said, but I knew it was true.
‘Flynn asked me back in our first week if I was okay,’ Leo said, his voice dull and flat. ‘He offered to deal with anyone who had a go at me . . . but I told him to get lost.’
‘But wouldn’t his protection have been better than—’
‘No.’ Leo got up. ‘Look, it’s nothing personal, River, but I don’t want to talk about this right now. I’ll read to you later.’ And he walked out.
I sat back, baffled. Leo had been so open last week. Why didn’t he want to talk now?
25
I got up later and went downstairs for the evening meal with everyone at the commune. They all seemed pleased to see me. Ros gave me a hug while Leo’s dad, John and the nerdy IT guy all said hello then carried on their animated conversation about the best place on the commune to use our home-grown leaf mould – with interjections from John’s wife Julia on the state of the potatoes from the vegetable garden. I sat next to Leo and tried to eat my supper. Gemma had made vegetable lasagne, which was one of my favourites. I was sure she’d done it specially and I tried to eat more than a few mouthfuls, but once I’d had enough to stop feeling hungry, the food tasted like slime.
Dad talked to me after dinner. He said he was pleased I was up and eager to do chores. ‘Focusing on physical and mental tasks will help give you space while you work through your feelings,’ he said. ‘Plus they’ll give you balance: schoolwork to tire out your mind and chores to tire out your body.’
I nodded, only half listening. I was wondering if Flynn had found a job, or somewhere permanent to stay I was wondering if he was thinking about me. I was wondering if he had found someone else.
Dad and I agreed that I should go back to school in a couple of days. He also wanted me to see a counsellor. ‘Gemma’s found someone she thinks will be helpful at the therapy centre. You can start seeing her next week.’
I didn’t want to do it. After witnessing Flynn’s anger management session, I’d kind of lost faith in the whole idea of counselling and therapy. In the end I agreed, reluctantly – it seemed to mean so much to Dad and Gemma.
Later, Leo read the first few chapters of Jane Eyre to me. He seemed tense and awkward when I tried to talk to him afterwards and soon left, saying he was tired after going back to school.
I sat on my bed, feeling miserable. Dad and Gemma were great but I missed having a friend to talk to. So I called Grace.
She started crying when she heard my voice. Soon we were both sobbing. She kept saying she was sorry about everything that had happened. I asked her and James to come up at the weekend – and not to tell Emmi.
The next day I helped Gemma prepare the evening meal. Then I did some of the schoolwork Leo had brought home for me. I wasn’t looking forward to going back to college tomorrow and I wanted to be as prepared as possible. I didn’t read any more of Jane Eyre though. I was hoping Leo would do that. After feeling miserable that he’d been so awkward last night, I’d realised just how important his friendship was to me.
‘I’ve got a favour to ask you,’ I said, when he got home that afternoon. ‘Can I come up to your apartment?’
Leo’s eyes widened in alarm. ‘Sure.’ He started running towards the stairs. ‘Er . . . just give me five, yeah?’
I wasn’t sure why he needed a head start but I waited five minutes then climbed the stairs and knocked on his apartment door.
He opened it, and stood back to let me in. I looked around, curious. I hadn’t been inside Leo’s flat since he and his dad moved in nearly six months ago. Well, there hadn’t been any reason to. It was on the opposite side of the building from Dad’s place and I’d spent all my time with Flynn. But now it seemed important to come here. If Leo and I were going to be friends, I wanted to see where he lived when he wasn’t in the communal areas.
The flat’s central living room was massive and bleak – a TV in the corner, two big sofas and a table with four chairs in the corner. There was no rug on the floor, no pictures on the walls, and no books or ornaments on the single empty shelf. It didn’t look very different from when it had been empty.
‘Where’s your room?’ I asked.
Leo led me to one of the rooms on the right. It was completely different than the living area, with virtually every centimetre of wall space covered with posters of the sea and printouts from websites and photos, most of which I was sure Leo had taken himself. The room itself was neat and much tidier than I was expecting. A single bed with a plain blue quilt cover and an old wooden wardrobe stood along one wall. At the end of the room was a long, low window with a padded seat. I crossed the room and sat down. I could see right across the fields, past the oak tree and down to the edge of the apple orchard.
I caught sight of the barn roof and looked away, a sick surge of misery bringing new tears to my eyes. I forced a smile onto my face. I’d done enough crying for a lifetime.
‘This seat is so cool,’ I said. ‘You could sit and read here for hours.’
‘I do.’ Leo was smiling but underneath I could see he felt really awkward.
My heart sank. Why was this so difficult? I looked over at the photos and pictures closest to the bed. There were several of a pretty woman with delicate features like Leo’s and the same soft, shy eyes.
‘Is that your mum?’ I asked.
Leo nodded. ‘Dad threw out loads of stuff – he said it was too painful – but I saved some of her things.’ He took a shoebox from under his bed and offered it to me. I took the lid off and peered inside.
There were more photos and a gold chain and a china teacup with a chip in the side. I lifted out a tube of hand cream. It was twisted and scrunched, almost empty. I opened the top and sniffed at the cream inside – a faint scent of lily of the valley.
‘It’s how she smelled,’ Leo said.
I looked at him. ‘Do you miss her?’
He met my gaze. ‘Every day.’
I put the hand cream away and the lid back on the box. Leo placed it back under the bed and we sa
t in silence for a moment. Strangely Leo seemed less awkward now. I knew it was special that he’d showed me that box – and I was glad that he had.
I glanced at the photos by his bed again. There were several of the oak tree and the apple orchard, and then a gap where it looked like a photo had been removed.
‘What went there?’ I asked.
Leo shrugged. ‘Nothing.’ He paused. ‘What did you want to ask me?’
I smiled. ‘I just wanted to ask you if you’d have lunch with me tomorrow in the cafeteria at school. I’m just feeling weird about going back. I mean, I know it sounds a bit pathetic but . . .’
‘I’d love to.’
Leo’s face creased with such obvious relief that I laughed. ‘Jeez, what did you think I was going to ask you?’ I said.
He mumbled something incoherent and blushed again.
I rolled my eyes. ‘Look, Leo. I really like you. I don’t care if Flynn didn’t. And if you don’t want to be friends that’s fine but I’d rather you told me to back off, instead of one minute making out like you want to talk, and then going all weird on me the next. If we’re friends you should be able to tell me what the problem is. I mean, I don’t care if you’re gay or straight or whatever, I just want to hang out with you.’
Leo stared at me. ‘I’m not gay.’
‘Really?’ I frowned, feeling confused. Hadn’t Leo more or less told me he was gay? Wasn’t that why those stupid guys wanted to beat him up? ‘But before you said . . . I don’t understand.’
Leo leaned forward, his head in his hands. ‘I did wonder if I might be gay a while ago. Not because I liked boys. But because I didn’t really like girls. Not like other guys did. And then, well, then I realised I did like girls. A lot. At least, some girls.’ He looked up. ‘Sorry, I know it doesn’t make sense. You’ll probably hate me now for being stupid . . .’
‘I don’t hate you.’ I sat back in the window seat, hugging my knees. ‘What made you know for sure that you liked girls?’
Leo gave me a long, miserable look. ‘You,’ he said.
26
‘Me?’ I could feel my cheeks getting hot. Was Leo saying he liked me? I’d had suspicions months ago – as had Flynn – but I’d totally put them out of my head.
Leo nodded, his own face now reddening. It’s kind of ironic,’ he said. ‘For years I was bullied because I like reading and poems and I’m not into stupid team games where the point is for one set of macho jerks to beat up another set and I’d started to think maybe I actually was gay like they said, and . . . and then I got here and I knew for sure that I wasn’t but I couldn’t say anything.’ He paused. ‘I actually told you I thought I might be gay so that you wouldn’t stop being friends with me. How screwed up is that?’
I bit my lip. What on earth did I do now? The last thing I wanted was to hurt Leo’s feelings but I couldn’t let him think that just because Flynn had gone there was any chance of us getting together.
‘I didn’t realise,’ I stammered.
‘Flynn did.’ Leo’s voice hardened as he spoke.
There was an awkward pause.
‘What do you mean?’ I asked.
‘Flynn saw . . . how I felt . . . and he made it clear I had to keep my distance.’
‘He said that?’
‘No, not exactly’ Leo sighed. ‘But he still made it obvious. That’s why I kept away from you all summer.’ He hesitated. ‘I think that’s why he hit me too.’
‘No,’ I said, my head spinning. ‘No, he was just mad at me.’ The memory of the evening Flynn had been in a bad mood after counselling flashed into my head. He had asked me then if anyone else had ever tried it on. I closed my eyes, remembering how I’d lied and told him I’d never kissed any other boy.
‘Was that why you were so angry when I got rid of those guys at the party?’ I asked. ‘Was that about Flynn too?’
‘That was the most humiliating moment of my life,’ Leo said, his voice barely a whisper. ‘Think about it . . . me being rescued by you because of him. I couldn’t bear what you’d think of me. How pathetic you must think I was.’
‘I don’t think you’re pathetic. I think you’re . . . great. You couldn’t help those guys picking on you. I’m the one who screwed up that night.’
‘No, you didn’t do anything wrong. Flynn had no right to be mad at you.’
‘Yes, I—’
‘No,’ Leo interrupted. ‘I heard that whole story about you getting drunk at the party months ago and asking James for a stupid kiss. It was nothing . . . nothing that any sane person would have minded.’
My stomach knotted. Leo was saying Flynn had overreacted . . . that I wasn’t guilty of betraying him. But I had. I’d kissed his best friend and I’d lied about it.
‘Nothing Flynn did was right,’ Leo went on bitterly ‘I hated the way he swaggered around all the time, doing his tough guy thing, making out he was better than everyone else. And the way he’d look at you – like he owned you – I hated that.’
I stood up. I couldn’t stay here and listen to Leo saying these horrible things.
‘You didn’t know him,’ I said. ‘You didn’t understand him, nobody did.’
‘Right.’ Leo pressed his lips together into a thin, angry line.
I took a step to the door.
‘So does that mean you don’t want to be friends anymore?’
It sounded so childish, the way he said it, that I almost smiled.
I turned and faced him as I reached the door. I wasn’t prepared to listen to Leo dissing Flynn like he was vermin but I wasn’t ditching my only real friend over it. ‘We’re mates,’ I said. ‘That’s that.’
The next morning, Leo and I took the bus to college together. Dad had offered us a lift but Leo wasn’t bothered and I wanted to keep everything as low-key as possible. I was dreading being back at Norton Napier and my arrival was as bad as I’d expected. People pointed and whispered as Leo and I walked along the corridor. Later, in class, was just as awful. Everyone acted really weird around me, even Kirsty It was like I had some terrible disease they were scared of catching. None of them suggested meeting up after school. And when they asked me questions about what had happened I didn’t feel they cared about me – they just wanted information.
Lunchtime came and I found Leo at a table on his own in the cafeteria.
‘I feel like a leper,’ he said. ‘You know, something untouchable. Everyone’s still staring at my face. How about you?’
‘Leprosy would be a breeze after this,’ I muttered.
I’d decided the fairest thing I could do with Leo was be all jokey and matey. There was no point talking about his feelings for me. And I certainly wasn’t going to talk about Flynn with him anymore.
I looked around the canteen at the various counters. Flynn had come up behind me so often as I queued at them, grabbing me from behind and pulling me into a kiss, not caring who saw or what they thought. I felt a sudden stab of misery. How was I going to get through the rest of my life without him?
After a few days, college life settled down. Leo’s bruise finally faded away and people stopped staring at me as I passed but I still felt there was a huge distance between me and everyone else at Norton Napier.
I looked forward to seeing Grace at the weekend. She and James were planning to drive up for the whole of Saturday and I imagined that hooking up with old friends, even ones as involved with my past with Flynn as Grace and James, would be just what I needed.
It wasn’t.
Both James and Grace seemed awkward around me, right from the start. I knew that James hadn’t seen or heard from Flynn since the night of the party and I wondered at first if he blamed me for what had happened. But as our time together went on, I realised that far from being resentful towards me, James was furious with Flynn.
‘He totally blew the whole thing out of proportion,’ he said. ‘Running off in the middle of the night and leaving you in that state.’
‘But . . . but he thought we’d be
trayed him,’ I said.
James shook his head. ‘You made a tiny mistake, River. Way tinier than most of the mistakes Flynn’s ever made but he was only seeing it from his point of view. It was really selfish.’
I tried to explain that Flynn had resented other stuff too – his life at the commune and his counselling sessions – but James didn’t want to hear it. I gave up completely when Grace started hinting that maybe I’d soon be ready to make up with Emmi. As far as I was concerned, I never wanted to set eyes on her again.
Grace and James left early after a few hours, and I felt relieved. It wasn’t just that we saw my fight with Flynn differently . . . In the past couple of weeks I’d been in a place Grace didn’t know existed. She had no understanding of what I’d gone through – and that changed our friendship. I remembered the coach journey to the Romeo and Juliet auditions just over a year ago. That seemed, now, to belong to another lifetime. Even then I knew I was different from Grace and Emmi. I’d wished for love. Deep, true love.
And I’d found it.
Grace had no idea.
After she and James had gone, I went up to my room. My thoughts, as always, turned to Flynn. He would have understood the darkness of my life at the moment. Maybe he was in that darkness himself. I lay down on our bed and curled up. The pain of missing him washed over me in waves.
It was as bad as it had ever been. My mind whirled with memories until I fell asleep, crying into my pillow.
27
Several long weeks passed. I went to school. I avoided people and got on with my work. The girls who’d been so eager to hear all the details of the party incident when I’d started back at Norton Napier now thought I was stuck up and unapproachable and cold-shouldered me.
Which was fine.
I didn’t want to talk to anyone.
Of course, I had to talk, some of the time.
I talked when I was asked questions in lessons. I talked to reassure Dad I was fine. I spoke to Mum on the phone every few days, telling her what I was studying and how I was learning to bake at the commune. And I answered politely when the commune residents asked me things. I discussed homework with Leo, texted Grace from time to time and charted with Gemma and Ros about recipes.