Storms - 31. Daniel

Sunday evening the realisation hit me that Loz was going to come back to school the following day. Like a tonne of bricks, just when we were having our tea.

‘Danny? You all right, kiddo?’ Lewis placed his hand on my shoulder.

I had put down my fork and stopped chewing. I swallowed the piece of roast chicken I had in my mouth. ‘Yeah. I’m . . . I’m fine. Just, tomorrow . . .’

‘Patrick will be back,’ said Stephen with a sigh.

I blinked. I hadn’t even thought about that. Patrick seemed like a distant memory, and his posse had stayed well away from me for the past two weeks. ‘Yes, Patrick,’ I said.

Tell them! said a voice in my head. Tell them about Loz! I shook my head. No. I could deal with it myself. I’d tell him he had nothing on me anymore, that I was out to lots of people and no one cared. I could do that, and then I’d be well shot of him. That would be the end of it. I could handle it, and I had Michael to back me up.

‘If he says anything, or does anything, you’ll come straight to me, right?’ said Stephen, seriously. ‘Little shit’s out on his arse if he hurts you again.’

‘Stephen!’ There was disapproval in Lewis’s voice, though I got the feeling it was for the language rather than the sentiment.

‘Thanks,’ I said to Stephen. ‘I promise I’ll come to you.’

‘Good lad.’ Stephen smiled.

I slept poorly that night and woke up from a nightmare around two in the morning. I felt sick, but I swallowed it down, refused to run to the bathroom and risk waking up Stephen and Lewis. I didn’t want to worry them. It would be okay. I could handle it.

I didn’t eat much Monday morning, and I could tell that Lewis was concerned, but he didn’t push the matter. Stephen took me to school, and as I entered the building, I braced myself for the inevitable meeting with Loz. We had Core Science together, after all. But Loz wasn’t there. The relief was palpable, but a small corner of my brain also worried about him. That was insane. I ignored it.

When I entered the changing rooms and started to undress, I was feeling downright chipper. My mood was made better by Oliver coming over to change next to me, chatting about his weekend and asking me about mine.

I laced up my trainers and turned toward the exit, and then I saw him. He was standing in the doorway, and he looked as stricken as I felt when our eyes met. I swallowed, tried to look away, but I couldn’t seem to manage. Then he took a couple of steps toward me and said, ‘Daniel . . .’ I couldn’t imagine what else he was going to say, here, in front of everyone, and at that point fight or flight kicked in and I bolted from the room.

‘Dan?’ Oliver called after me, but I couldn’t stop. Couldn’t breathe. Had to get the hell away. I felt sick. I couldn’t breathe!

I crashed into something solid and looked up to see Stephen’s concerned face. ‘Daniel? What’s the matter?’ I sobbed and buried my face in his chest. Almost reflexively, he put his arms around me and stroked my hair. ‘Shh. It’s okay, Danny. It’s okay.’ He let me go and held me at arm’s length, searching my face. ‘What happened?’

A swallowed several times. ‘I—there’s something, someone . . .’

‘Did someone hurt you? Has . . . has someone been hurting you?’

I nodded. ‘Someone . . . for a while.’

‘Okay. All right. Go to my office, okay, Danny? I’ll be with you really, really soon.’ He fished his keychain out of his pocket and gave me the key.

I nodded again and, in a daze, I headed to Stephen’s office. A safe place. His place. Unlocking the door, I stepped inside and sat down in the chair facing the desk. I sat there quietly for a few minutes, mind empty, feeling outside my body again. Then Stephen showed up.

‘I just have to make a quick call.’ He picked up the phone, talked to someone. ‘Need someone to take my PE class for a bit, please. Yeah, don’t know how long. Got a student who . . . my foster son, he needs me. Thank you.’

Son. The tears started to fall. Sad ones, and angry ones, and happy ones, all at once, because even though the word ‘foster’ had come before Stephen had just called me his son.

He hung up, and instead of sitting down in his chair he came back around the desk, knelt before me, and hugged me. He stroked my back. ‘It’s okay. Just let it out. You’re okay here.’

I nodded into his shoulder, and after a few moments the sobs ceased and I managed to straighten up. He let go but still stroked my shoulder. ‘You ready to tell me what’s going on?’

‘Yeah. Okay.’

‘I’m gonna go sit down. That all right?’

‘Yeah.’ I watched him walk around the desk and sit in his chair. ‘You’re allowed to hug me now?’ I asked, sniffing and wiping my nose with my sleeve.

Stephen chuckled. ‘Yeah, I don’t know. Am I your teacher or your foster parent right now?’

‘Both, I guess.’

‘This is why they said me being your teacher was problematic, I suppose.’ He sighed. ‘All right. Go on.’

I took a deep breath. If I could tell people about my stepdad, about Mum’s boyfriends, about what Patrick did . . . I could tell Stephen about this. ‘Back in October, he came into the showers when I was alone. He . . . he touched me, and he made me touch him, and after that . . . every week, after PE.’

Stephen’s ice blue eyes seemed to darken. It was clear that he tried to keep his face impassive, tried not to let his rage show. ‘Who? Another student?’

I nodded. ‘Yeah.’ I couldn’t bring myself to name him. Not here. Not right now.

He sighed, buried his face in his hands and muttered, ‘Shit . . .’ He looked up at me. ‘Daniel, I am so sorry. I should have—’

‘You couldn’t have known,’ I said.

‘Who was it?’ he asked, voice firm.

I shook my head, looked away. ‘I can’t. I don’t . . . I just can’t, not right now.’

‘Danny, if you don’t tell me I can’t stop it. I can’t help you if you don’t tell me.’

‘I know. I . . . I will tell you. Just . . . not here. Not with him out there, in the . . . in the changing room.’ I swallowed. ‘I’m gonna be sick.’

Stephen stood at once, helped me out of my chair, and rushed me to the nearest toilet, where I dropped to my knees and emptied the meagre contents of my stomach. Stephen stroked my back, the way he had in Hugh’s office. ‘There. You’re all right, son.’

Son. Parent. Family. Real words. Real concepts, now. Things I could feel. It had only been a week, but what I had with Stephen and Lewis truly felt like a real family.

When I was finished, I grabbed some toilet paper, wiped my mouth, blew my nose.

‘Come on,’ Stephen said and helped me to my feet, leading me to the sink. ‘Rinse out your mouth. Splash some water on your face.’ He sighed again, and in the mirror, I saw him drag his hands down his face. ‘I’ll call Lewis. He’ll come get you, and I’ll be home as soon as I can. I just have to make sure my lessons are covered this afternoon.’

‘Okay.’ I felt empty. It was a good feeling in a way. Maybe that’s why my instinct, my natural reaction when I panicked badly enough, was to throw up. To empty . . . everything. Get everything out. There are animals that do that when faced with a predator. Instead of fight or flight, just, blurgh. Or, blurgh and then flight. I did flight first.

I dried my face with tissue paper, and Stephen took me back to his office again.

* * *

Lewis arrived on foot, and we took the car back home. While I was fastening my seatbelt, he and Stephen talked outside the car. Lewis got the same dark, angry look on his face that Stephen had, gave a curt nod, and kissed him goodbye. Then he got in the car and fastened his seatbelt.

‘I suppose “are you okay” would be a stupid question.’

I laughed in spite of myself; a short, humourless laugh. ‘Yeah. I’m . . .’ I sighed. ‘I’m not okay.’

Lewis started the car. ‘Let’s get you home, get you a cup of tea. Maybe something to eat if you can stomach it. Sound okay?’

I remained silent and nodded.

‘And if you want to talk, we can, but you don’t have to. I promise I won’t push.’

I took a breath. ‘I want to talk. There’s . . . stuff I didn’t tell Stephen. I just, I want it out. Want it gone. Maybe if I just say it, all of it, it’ll be over.’

As promised, Lewis put the kettle on when we got home. ‘Do you want to wait until Stephen gets home?’

I shook my head. ‘No, I have to do it now, or I’ll . . . I won’t manage.’ Still, I paused, gathered my thoughts, tried to figure out where to start. Stephen had clearly told Lewis what I had told him, so I decided to begin in the middle. ‘He knew, or guessed, I dunno, that I liked Michael. And when I made friends with him, he . . . it got worse. He hurt me . . . worse.’

‘You mean . . . he didn’t just make you touch him anymore.’

I shook my head. ‘He . . . had . . .’ My face felt hot. It was embarrassing, saying it. Especially since I still wasn’t sure. I wasn’t sure that I hadn’t gone along with it. I hadn’t said no, and I felt so ashamed. I took another deep breath. ‘He had sex with me.’

Lewis sighed. He looked a bit like he wanted to cry. ‘But you didn’t want to. Daniel, if you don’t want to, it’s not sex. It’s assault. It’s—’ He seemed unable to say it.

‘But I didn’t say no,’ I whispered. ‘Not . . . not really. I let him. He . . . he said he’d tell Michael I was gay, and I thought he would . . . I thought Michael would hate me, and I didn’t fight him and I didn’t say no.’ I felt the tears again, pressing at the corners of my eyes. I held them back. I didn’t want to cry, didn’t want to be weak. Loz hadn’t broken me. He hadn’t. I kept telling myself that.

But Lewis echoed Michael, echoed what he’d said in his room the night of the party. ‘If you don’t want to, if you’re being threatened or coerced, it doesn’t matter if you say no or not, Danny. It doesn’t matter if you fight back or not. It’s still what it is. It’s still . . . rape.’

I broke down, then, couldn’t hold it back anymore. I buried my face in my hands and swore, tears running down my face. Lewis had his arms around me almost immediately, rocking me like a child.

‘God, Danny . . .’ His voice broke. ‘This shouldn’t happen to anyone. Not to anyone.’ He pulled back to look into my eyes and I saw that there were tears on his face, too. ‘Can you tell me who it is? Who did this to you?’

I let out a shaky breath, tried to speak, and cleared my throat. ‘It . . . it was Loz.’

Lewis frowned. ‘The kid who beat up that Patrick?’ I nodded. ‘But that’s . . . why would he do that? Attack him for attacking you?’

‘I don’t know. I mean . . .’ Maybe he’s in love with me. The thought was ridiculous, because how could anyone be? Except Michael was, he’d fallen in love with me. Still, how could a person do what Loz had done to someone they had feelings for? It didn’t make sense. But . . . ‘Maybe he . . . likes me, or something. Like, like like. I dunno, that’s stupid.’

‘Maybe not so stupid,’ said Lewis. He let me go and sat back in his chair. ‘Kids, they can . . .’ He sighed. ‘When I was a teenager, I didn’t want to admit to anyone that I was gay, not even to myself. Then I fell in love with a boy and I didn’t know what to do with it. I was so confused, and I blamed him. I mean, I didn’t do anything to him, I mostly just ignored him and stayed away. But we were friends before that and he was hurt. We met again, a few years later. I was out by then, knew myself a lot better, and so I told him. He didn’t take it very well. First I thought he was disgusted by the idea of a guy being in love with him, but . . . he was just angry that I stopped hanging out with him over something that stupid. He said if I’d told him he would’ve just turned me down gently and we could’ve talked about it and stayed friends.’ He glanced at me. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to compare my situation to yours, they’re not even remotely similar.’

‘That’s okay,’ I said. ‘He . . . Loz, he kissed me a few times. He always seemed so angry after. And he was so possessive. When I became friends with Michael he just lost it, he told me I wasn’t allowed to be his friend. And then, the last time, he acted like . . . I don’t know, he acted like he was my boyfriend or something.’ It seemed so improbable. I found myself saying, ‘Poor Loz.’

Lewis stared at me, incredulous. ‘You feel sorry for that little—?’ He cut himself off before he could call Loz something offensive. It was sweet, the way he avoided swearing and told Stephen off when he did it.

‘Well, if he hates himself that much, if he can’t accept who he is . . . isn’t that sad?’

‘It’s sad, but he doesn’t deserve your sympathy, Danny. There are many ways of dealing with that kind of internalised homophobia, some less healthy than others, but what he did, that’s something completely different.’ Lewis frowned, searching my face. ‘How are you this calm right now?’

I shrugged. ‘I dunno. Just am.’

Lewis hugged me again. ‘I hope you realise that you don’t have to be strong all the time. You don’t have to repress your emotions, here with us. You’re allowed to feel, and express those feelings in any way you need to.’

‘I know,’ I said, and I did know. I knew they’d accept me no matter what I did. ‘I guess right now I just need to . . . not.’

He smiled at me and combed back my curls with his fingers. ‘That’s okay, too. Just wanted to be sure.’

The front door opened, and a minute later Stephen appeared in the doorway to the kitchen. He rushed to us, hugged me, and kissed Lewis more thoroughly than I was entirely comfortable with seeing. It was okay, though. Everything was all right, as long as I could have this. Family. I wanted to stay forever.