Storms - 30. Loz

‘Why did you do it?’ he asked, looking at me over the top of his spectacles. This was my third session. They made me go twice a week.

I refused to meet his gaze. ‘I already told you. He was a bully. He hurt someone really badly. I wanted him to hurt, too.’

In my first session, we had talked about my family. My mum leaving, how I felt about that. Did it make me angry? Yes it did. It made me furious. I told him about how I’d pushed Jason when he mentioned her, how that pissed me off. A simple thing to admit to.

The second session was all about school, my friends. Turns out, I didn’t really have any friends, if I thought about it. No real ones, anyway. Jason, Alec, that bunch, they weren’t my friends. They were just people I hung out with sometimes. Mr. Morelli clearly found this very interesting, scribbling in his notes a lot. He kept trying to pick me apart, and I didn’t like it.

‘This boy, Daniel. He’s not a friend of yours.’ It was a statement, not a question. We had already established this. ‘Yet it was this that set you off, what happened to him. Don’t you think that’s . . . unusual?’

Objection, Your Honour. Leading the witness.

I shrugged. ‘I dunno. Is it?’

Mr. Morelli sat back in his chair with a sigh, removing his glasses and cleaning them with his handkerchief. ‘Lawrence—’

‘Don’t call me that!’ I spat. ‘It’s Loz. It’ll always be Loz!’ I narrowed my eyes, glaring at him. ‘You’re just calling me that to get a rise out of me, aren’t you? So you can analyse my anger.’

‘I don’t need to do that to see your anger. It’s plain as day. I just wish you’d open up and let me help you. It’s what I’m here for.’

I scoffed. ‘Well, I’m not. I’m here because school is making me, and my dad is making me. I don’t want to be here.’

‘Yes, I think we’ve established that. But we’ve also established that if you want to stay in school you have to be here, and I have to be able to write in my report that you’re making progress. You’re not making much progress.’

‘Progress from what? What do you want me to say?’ My voice was getting louder.

‘I want you to be honest.’

‘Yeah? You want honest? I’m angry because the kids at school are arseholes. I’m pissed off because my brother George is an even bigger arsehole and is always making fun of me. I’m angry cause my mum’s been gone for ten years and never, not once, bothered trying to contact me. I’m angry cause I’m in love with Daniel and Patrick fucking hurt him!’ I froze. I’d said it, out loud. Fuck, fuck, fuck!

‘I see.’ Mr. Morelli wrote something down. Defendant is queer, this can be used to the prosecution’s advantage.

‘Don’t—!’ I swallowed. ‘Don’t tell anyone.’

Mr. Morelli looked up at me in surprise. ‘Of course I won’t. Everything you tell me in this room is confidential. My report will be an assessment of your overall mental state, not a detailed account of our sessions. The specifics of what you tell me stay in this room.’

I looked away from him, down at my hands, and then . . . then the tears came, hot and ugly. ‘I hate it,’ I whispered. ‘I just, I fucking hate feeling like this!’ I buried my face in my hands and sobbed, angrier now than ever.

Something bumped my elbow, and I looked up to find Mr. Morelli offering me a box of tissues. I took a few, glaring at them like it was their fault I was crying. Then I laughed. ‘I’m so fucked up . . .’ I wiped at my face with a tissue.

‘Why?’

I raised an eyebrow at the man. ‘Why?’ I repeated. ‘Would I be here if I wasn’t?’

‘I feel like “fucked up” is an inaccurate term for what you’re going through, Loz.’ I hadn’t expected him to swear. He was so proper. In his fifties, dark hair greying at the temples, wearing a checkered shirt and knitted vest, and those unfashionable oval spectacles perched on his nose.

I shifted in my seat. ‘What do you call it then?’

He seemed to consider. ‘Troubled. Angry. Confused, perhaps. Fucked up suggests it can’t be fixed. I know it can. Not your sexuality, mind you, that doesn’t need fixing.’ I felt strangely validated at that. ‘But the rest of it. You can get better, Loz. You don’t have to be angry all the time.’

I shook my head. ‘Shit I’ve done . . . I hurt him, you know. Because I liked him. Like a fucking kid hitting the girl he likes on the playground. I was angry with him because I liked him. Like it was his fault. I don’t . . . I don’t want to hurt him anymore.’

‘You mean you bullied him.’

My mind flashed back to the showers, to Daniel’s naked body in my arms, not struggling but not . . . not really responsive. Faraway stare, teary eyes, trembling lips, which I kissed but which never kissed me back.

I closed my eyes, shuddered, and pushed the thought away. I couldn’t tell him that. But I could tell him about the other thing. ‘Yeah, something like that,’ I said. ‘Hit him. And I . . . I snapped this picture of him in the showers at school, and when he made friends with a guy I knew he liked, Michael, I printed out these posters with the pic on them and the text—’ I cut myself off. Didn’t want to say it out loud.

‘What text?’ asked Mr. Morelli.

I sighed. ‘“My name is Danny, I like taking it up the arse.” It was . . . I hung the posters all over school. Well, not all over, I only had about ten of them. Snuck into the library after hours and printed them out on A3 paper from the librarian’s station. But I did it, all by myself. No one suspected me. I didn’t get caught. Everyone thought Patrick did it, or Jason. But no one knew anything or admitted to anything, so no one got punished. Bet they’re all convinced it really was Patrick now, though.’

Mr. Morelli nodded thoughtfully. ‘So, tell me about Patrick.’

‘He’s a bully. I . . . kind of used to look up to him a little bit, but I didn’t know him at all. I think . . . I guess I maybe had a crush on him.’ I blushed; it was the first time I had said any of this out loud. ‘I don’t know, I dunno how to recognise this stuff. Anyway, when I saw that picture I was so angry, even though what I did was just as bad. And I was jealous, in a way, cause I felt like no one else is allowed to touch Daniel, for any reason. Not Patrick or Michael or anyone else. Cause . . . cause he’s mine.’ I let out a shaky breath and felt a tear roll down my cheek. ‘Only he’s not. He never was, of course he wasn’t. And after everything I did, how could I even think he’d—how could I believe that he’d want me? How could anyone?’

He cocked his head to one side, searching my face. ‘You don’t think anyone could want you?’

‘No,’ I said truthfully. ‘I don’t.’

‘And have you only ever liked other boys?’ No platitudes. No, ‘I’m sure that’s not true.’ I respected that.

I scratched the back of my neck. ‘I dunno. I . . . I think so. I don’t think I’ve liked a girl that way. Or, at all, really.’ I blew out a breath of air. ‘I fucking hate this. I can’t . . . I mean I can’t come out or whatever, I don’t even know—and my family would never be okay with it.’

‘Your father and siblings are homophobic?’

I gave a snort of laughter. ‘That’s an understatement. They’re always . . . I mean, they say these things, you know? George especially. And I say them, too.’

‘Internalised homophobia is a very destructive thing. This says a lot about why you’re angry, Loz.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Yes. And now that we know that, we can work on it.’ He sat back, smiled at me. ‘Our time’s almost up. How do you feel right now?’

I sniffed and considered for a moment. ‘I . . . I feel okay.’

‘Less angry?’

‘Less angry.’ I felt lighter, somehow. Like all of this had been weighing me down for so long and now it had lifted, at least a little bit, at least for a little while.

‘Good. Same time on Thursday, and then I believe you’re returning to school Monday?’

‘Yeah, if your report’s good enough, I guess.’

‘Have no fear,’ said Mr. Morelli. ‘We’ve had a real breakthrough today. You’ll go back on Monday.’

* * *

I didn’t want to go back on Monday. I dawdled at home for so long that the others had already left. I couldn’t go. Couldn’t face him. How could I? What would he even think? Say? What would I say?

I wanted to apologise. Needed to do it, let him know how sorry I was and how I’d never do it again. But how could I do that? Face to face seemed impossible. I had deleted his number, but even if I still had it, I felt like a text might be taken the wrong way, or freak him out, or just be ignored and deleted. I couldn’t expect him to accept an apology, or even listen to one.

At my last session with Mr. Morelli on Thursday, I had very nearly told him everything. What I had done. I hadn’t, though. I couldn’t voice it, couldn’t say it out loud, I was so ashamed. I had another session with him on Wednesday, though. A follow-up. Maybe . . . maybe I would tell him.

It was a bad idea, but I stayed home. At least for a couple of hours, until I realised that I couldn’t afford to miss my lessons if I wanted to stay in school. So I went anyway and arrived just in time for PE. This, I realised, was a mistake. I realised it exactly three seconds before I stepped inside the boys’ changing rooms, and then it was too late to turn back.

There he was. Daniel. My Daniel who had never been mine. He was facing away from me, lacing up his trainers, his t-shirt riding up to expose just a sliver of his light brown skin. Then he straightened, turned around, and looked straight at me. His eyes widened. I swallowed. Took a step forward.

‘Daniel . . .’ I didn’t know what I meant to say. Couldn’t really say anything here, in front of all our classmates. Just the fact that I had uttered his name like that must have seemed odd to everyone else.

He stared at me for just a moment longer, and then he bolted, pushing past me out into the corridor, and vanished, but not before I’d seen it, the pain reflected on his face. Right here, in the changing rooms where we had last been face to face. Where I had tried to . . . what, exactly? To be kind to him? By pressuring him, forcing him to have sex with me and kissing him against his will? This was the worst possible place for us to see each other again, after all that.

I realised I was clenching both my fists and tried to relax my hands. They were trembling.

‘The fuck was that, Loz?’ said Jason. I turned to glare at him. He almost recoiled.

‘Fuck you, Jason,’ I said. I looked around at the others. ‘Fuck all of you.’

I walked over into a corner to change. I saw someone come up to me out of the corner of my eye. I was ready to tell him to piss off, but before I could he spoke. It was Oliver. ‘I don’t know what just happened, but . . . I just wanted to say that I think it was really good, the way you stood up for Daniel against Patrick.’

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, held back the anger and the despair and the tears. ‘I . . . It wasn’t a good thing, what I did. Shouldn’t have done that.’

‘Maybe you went a bit overboard, but . . . Seriously, he deserved it.’

‘I deserve worse,’ I muttered under my breath.

‘Pardon?’

‘Nothing. Look, I appreciate it, but I’d rather be alone right now.’

Oliver nodded once. ‘Okay.’ Then he walked away, leaving me to my thoughts.

‘Hey, guys.’ Kareem, who had already left for the gym, returned. ‘Griffiths says we’re on our own for a while. He had to go do something. Said someone will be along in fifteen minutes and to go out there and warm up on our own.’

‘He’s probably talking to Hartman,’ said Alec, and I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye.

‘Shouldn’t he be going to the nurse or something, if he’s sick or whatever?’ asked Aziz.

‘What, you hadn’t heard?’ Jason scoffed. ‘Hartman’s living with Griffiths now. His mum’s like a junkie or something, so Griffiths is his foster parent now or something like that.’

Oliver spoke up. ‘She’s not a junkie! She’s just depressed.’

‘Whatever,’ said Jason. ‘Doesn’t matter. She’s a fucking wreck, anyway. Explains why he’s such a fucking loser, don’t it?’

‘Dan is not a loser!’ Oliver sounded pissed off. ‘He’s a really cool and nice person, actually. And he’s friends with way cooler people than you, anyway. Michael and them.’

‘Then they’re not cool anymore, are they? Probably all faggots, just like him.’

I wasn’t sure what came over me, but I rounded on him and growled, ‘Shut the fuck up, Jason!’

‘Or what?’ But Jason looked less sure than he sounded.

‘You’re such a little bitch, you know that? You and your friends. Brave, picking on the smallest fucking kid in the year. Brave of you to beat him up like you did that one time, three against one. Pathetic, the lot of you. I should do the same to you that I did to Patrick.’

‘You wouldn’t,’ said Alec. ‘They’d fucking expel you.’

I made myself as tall and menacing as I possibly could. ‘Do I look like I give a shit?’

Jason licked his bottom lip. Then he turned away, backing down.

‘Nice one, Loz,’ said Oliver. I ignored him. Maybe I couldn’t apologise to Daniel. I could probably never make up for any of what I’d done. But this one thing, I could do.

I wrote a little thing about Stephen and Lewis, in case anyone's interested. Was gonna include a link a couple of chapters ago, but forgot. 
 
 
Thank you, as ever, for all your comments and encouragements! It is deeply appreciated.