Storms - 14. Loz

My hands shook. I couldn’t seem to breathe properly, or think, the events of the last half hour playing in my head over and over, in fast forward motion.

I sat on a bench in the schoolyard, staring at the ground. Break was almost over. I couldn’t go back to class, couldn’t look him in the eye, Daniel. How could I ever look at him again, after what we’d done?

‘I’m not queer, I’m not queer, I’m not queer . . .’ If I repeated my mantra often enough, in my head or out loud, it would become true. It was true. I wasn’t queer, no fucking way. I wasn’t.

‘Okay, okay, don’t panic,’ I told myself, entirely aware that I was talking to myself like a crazy person. ‘It’ll be okay. Just act like nothing happened. Because nothing happened, right?’

But that was no good. I could convince myself I wasn’t gay, but what had happened couldn’t unhappen.

I clenched my shaking hands into fists, and that made me feel better. I stood up, and that gave me resolve. I left the school, leaving all my things but what I had with me—my coat and my PE kit—and went home.

They’d call my dad. He’d call me. That was okay. I’d explain, tell him I was sick. Sudden explosive diarrhoea or something. And he would buy it.

* * *

Dad did buy it. Not ten minutes after I got home, he rang me, wondering where I was. I lied through my teeth.

Then I showered, scrubbed myself clean of everything, and went to bed. It wouldn’t be hard for Dad to believe I was sick if he came home and found me already in bed. That would still be a couple of hours, though. As I lay there, the tears came. I tried to choke them back, but I couldn’t. Again, there was the feeling that I couldn’t breathe. I gasped between sobs, and then I was hyperventilating and shaking. That went on for a few minutes before it finally died down, and I could breathe again. I felt exhausted, drained.

I got up to piss and then got back into bed. My mind was a haze of images and thoughts, blending into one another. Laughing with my dad and my brothers one moment, fucking Daniel the next. Daniel. Sweet, beautiful Daniel . . . I fell asleep with his name on my lips.

* * *

I woke up when Darren got home. He came into the room and sat down at the edge of my bed. His voice was much softer than usual when he said, ‘Hey, little bro. How you doing?’

I shrugged one shoulder as well as I could lying down.

‘Dad texted me. Stomach bug, huh? Sucks balls. Need anything?’

‘No thanks,’ I mumbled.

‘I’ll bring you some water, at least. Make sure you don’t dry out, yeah?’ He stood up, and I heard him leave the room.

I was actually surprised at his tenderness. I hadn’t been properly sick since I was a little kid. I suppose I was still the baby, really. As much as my dad and my brothers postured, they still cared about me. Well, Darren and Dad did, anyway. I wasn’t so sure about George. It made me feel a bit bad about lying, but it’s not like I could tell them the truth, why I was really feeling this way. If they found out what I’d been doing . . .

A hot, angry feeling rose in my chest, and for a moment I hated them. And I hated Daniel, for doing this to me. He’d made me queer.

‘I’m not queer, I’m not queer, I’m not queer!’ I murmured under my breath. Then I heard Darren’s footsteps in the hall and fell silent. A moment later the door opened again.

‘Here you go,’ he said, placing the glass of water on my bedside table. I grunted my thanks. ‘You sure you don’t need anything else?’

I shook my head.

‘All right. I’m gonna get changed and go for a run. Shouldn’t be too long. Dad will be home in an hour, okay?’

I nodded. ‘Thanks, Darren.’

‘Hey,’ he said, placing a hand on my shoulder. ‘You’re my baby brother, right? Gotta look out for you.’

It was as close to saying ‘I love you’ as anyone in my family was likely to get. The anger I’d felt in my chest was replaced with a different sort of pain, and I thought I might cry. That would probably have been one step too far. Darren might not make fun of me now, but he’d take the piss out of me tomorrow, relentlessly so.

I closed my eyes again, heard Darren move about the room, changing his clothes. I heard him leave, and as soon as the front door slammed shut, the tears came. Ugly, hot, painful tears, and I sobbed out loud, turned over on my stomach, screamed into my pillow.

‘Stop it, you baby, stop it!’ My voice broke, and I fell into silent sobs, my body shaking with the effort of shutting up.

As I drifted off to sleep again, a new memory floated through my mind, turning into dream. Warm arms around me, a voice whispering, ‘Hush, it’s all right. I love you, baby. Mummy’s here.’

I missed Mum, more than ever.

My brothers had real memories of our mother. I was only five when she left, and my memories were hazy at best. No one had ever told me why she left. Perhaps they didn’t even know. She’d left a letter for each of her sons, and just a short note for my dad. I’d tried to read the letter, but at five it didn’t make much sense to me. I kept it, though. George burned his. Not sure what Darren did. The note to dad read simply:

I’m leaving. Don’t come after me. I can’t take it anymore, and I need to go my own way. It’s not really your fault. Take care of the boys. Especially Lawrence.

Abigail Saunderson

She’d signed using her maiden name. The divorce papers arrived in the mail a year later. Dad signed them immediately, and that was the last we’d heard from her.

* * *

I was right that George didn’t care as much. He made fun of me, when he got home, coming into my room and saying, ‘Letting yourself get knocked out by a stomach bug like some faggot. Grow a pair!’ Dad chastised him, though, and he didn’t say anything else.

The next morning, Dad was ready to call school and say I was staying home, but I said I wanted to go. Then, when I was about to leave home, I started to shake again, and ran into the bathroom. I sat on the toilet for a long time, rocking back and forth, sobbing. I felt sick. In the end it was easy to stick my fingers down my throat.

Dad called school, and I stayed home.

Later, much later, I would recognise these moments as panic attacks. At the time, I hated myself for being so weak. And I hated myself more for thinking about Daniel. Every time I let my mind wander, every time I was falling asleep, there he was, his long, slender back as I pushed him up against the tiles of the shower. Only in my thoughts, in my dreams, he kissed me after. And before. And he smiled at me. Daniel had never smiled at me.

Whenever I awoke, I was rock hard, and in the end, the third time, I gave in.

* * *

Wednesday, I went back to school. I felt like a zombie. I ignored Daniel any time I saw him, pushing him out of my mind like a bad dream. At dinner, I listened to Alec and Jason’s inane chatter, agreeing with whatever they were saying whenever they addressed me. In the end, though, I got tired of their company. I dumped my tray and went meandering through the corridors, not really thinking of where I was going, just wanting to be alone.

I was very annoyed, therefore, when someone said my name. ‘Loz!’ I turned towards the voice. Mr. Griffiths stuck his head out of his office door, smiling his good-natured smile. I stopped myself from scowling. ‘Come in here for a minute, please. I’d like a little chat, if you don’t mind.’

I did mind, but he was a teacher, so I simply shrugged and went inside.

Griffiths bade me sit down and offered me a biscuit from a tin in his bookshelf. I thought I might as well, and took one.

He didn’t waste time on any other pleasantries. ‘So, Monday was very unlike you, wasn’t it?’ It was a rhetorical question. ‘Never known you to be a bully, Loz. But then, I gather you weren’t feeling all that well? You left school without even telling anyone.’

I cleared my throat. ‘Er, yeah. I was sick. Stomach bug or something.’

‘Sorry to hear it.’ His blue eyes were penetrating, his look unreadable. ‘If you don’t mind my saying, though, you’ve seemed a bit off colour for a while. I feel like you’re no longer applying yourself in my lessons. You’ve always been a superior athlete, Loz. I hate to see you begin to lag now.’ He paused. I said nothing. ‘I hope you know you can always talk to me if there’s anything that’s bothering you. Or you can speak to the counsellor, or the nurse. Is there anything you’d like to tell me?’

I shook my head, remaining impassive. ‘No, sir.’

Griffiths’s mobile phone rang just then, and he looked at it. ‘Sorry, I have to take this,’ he said. ‘Let’s continue this conversation later, yeah? You can let yourself out.’ He answered the phone. ‘Hello?’ Getting up from his desk, he turned towards a bookshelf.

I stood up, and then I saw the folder lying open on his desk. It was a list of my classmates; names, addresses, and phone numbers to students and their parents, in alphabetical order. H. Hartman, Daniel. Throwing a quick glance at Griffiths, I pulled my phone out of my pocket and quickly photographed Daniel’s entry. Then I left.