Platform's Edge - 1. Chapter 1

I stood on the edge of the platform, as I watched the train approach. Why am I doing this?

To understand how I came to be standing here, I need to look at where my life went wrong – and to understand that, I need to see where my life went right. Not the typical question a fourteen year old ever has to ask themself.

I was born in West London in 1997 (score one for where my life went right). My parents loved me in the “they are my parents so they have to love me” kind of way, but I don’t think they particularly cared about me. I had the feeling I was the most unwelcome thing to ever be dropped off at my house – and I’m including the time my pet cocker spaniel Lucy took a dump on my mum’s £800 Persian rug.

My parents never particularly loved each other; and if there was ever two people who should never have procreated (let alone gotten married) it was those two. Things finally came to a head when I was eight years old and my parents divorced. My mum moved back home to Aberdeen to be with her family after she said she had nothing left in London to stay for (kind of reinforced my belief that she loved me in the “she is my mum so she has to love me” way but that she also didn’t particularly care about me) and so I was left to live with my dad - score one for where my life went wrong.

So I was raised (well, dragged up would be more accurate) by my dad. I was swearing like a trooper by the time I was nine, smoking by the time I was ten, and drinking by the time I was twelve. About all of which, my dad did nothing – he didn’t even care about the ever increasing mound of smut magazines in my bedroom, which I no longer bother to even hide. The only time he ever punished me was when I was suspended from school (I was the biggest bully in my primary school, and the first two years of secondary school) – and he actually punished me not for beating up kids smaller than me, but because he had to take time off of work to be at home with me (score two, three, four and probably five for where my life went wrong).

At the start of this school year, I made a new friend called Timothy. Whether he actually wanted to be my friend, or whether he wanted to be my friend just so I wouldn’t beat him up I didn’t know; but I actually found myself enjoying our time together, and we quickly became true friends. He also started accounting for some positive changes in my life: I stopped the smoking and drinking completely within a few months of befriending him; I still beat up the littler kids (but not so often as I used to) and I still had my smut magazines - but you can’t change everything. I suppose score two, three and four for where my life went right.

We spent more and more time together as the school year progressed, and we started finding we had more and more in common – we both liked sports; we were both as useless as each other at schoolwork; both our parents were divorced; we were both living with our dad; and we both loved to skip school.

Things changed one morning when were at his place – we were skipping school again, as we had done together for months. We were watching one of his smutty movies (his dad like mine didn’t worry about such things; after all nothing wrong in a healthy full-blooded male having an overt interest in pussy). All of a sudden he moved closer to me and he kissed me on the cheek.

“Why did you do that?” I asked him.

“I like you Marcus,” he said, hanging his head.

Well, that shocked me. I knew I was gay (I only kept the smut magazines to throw dad off), but I had assumed Timothy was straight – that was why I’d never said anything to him before, and didn’t moan about the film we were watching. I think that was also probably why I was such a bully - if I had the kids going in fear of me, then none of them would dare call me queer.

“Like me how? Like a friend? A brother? What?” I didn’t want to out myself to Timothy, unless I could be sure he was gay as well.

“I like you like you. Like I should like a girl.” He started trembling; I could have sworn he was starting to cry.

I moved nearer to him. He looked up at me, his eyes wide as saucers and I read the fear there. “Please don’t beat me up,” he begged, “I’ll leave you alone and never speak to you again. Just please don’t beat me up.”

I wrapped my arms around him, leaned forward to kiss him on the cheek and whispered, “I could never beat you up. You have nothing to fear from me.”

He looked up at me, still crying and trembling, and saw that I was telling him the truth. Emotion overcame him, and he pulled me on top of him, kissing me on the cheeks, the forehead and finally gave me a lengthy kiss on the lips.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get that out of control. I was just so glad you’re not going to put me in the hospital.”

“You can get that out of control with me any time you like,” I said. And this time, I pulled him on top of me and covered him in kisses.

“We have to keep this to ourselves, and only do stuff like this when we’re at home and our dads aren’t in,” he said.

A big tick in the plus column of my life.

After that, my life really starting around, and all the better for those I had terrorised. I stopped the bullying completely and even starting looking out for the littler ones. Both Tim and I stopped cutting class, and although our grades didn’t really pick up, our teachers were impressed by the work we were putting in and we’d stopped disrupting the classes we did go to. I didn’t really count this as a tick in the positive column, but I’m sure our teachers would have.

The day things took a big turn for the worse, and probably the biggest cross in the negative column of my life happened just last week, on the first day of the school holiday.

Tim and I were at my house and we’d been fooling around in my bedroom all morning long. We were so wrapped up in pleasuring each other that we didn’t hear my dad come in. We had no reason to listen out for him, after all with today being Monday he’s supposed to be at work all day long. Needless to say he caught us; just walked into my bedroom unannounced. He absolutely flipped. Tim was manhandled and physically bundled out of the house, with his undies and joggers still around his ankles. My dad, for once his life, felt he had found something that I needed to be really punished for. As a result of my dad’s tender ministration I ended up spending the entire school break in my bed, licking my wounds.

Ultimately that leads back to the start of the story.

I stood on the edge of the platform, as I watched the train approach. Why am I doing this? Well I have no choice. My dad has thrown me out, and told me he doesn’t want a fairy for a son. He’s told me, if he ever sees me again he’ll kill me.

That’s why I’m doing this. This is probably the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make, but my life here is over. What other choice do I have? It’s either this or live on the streets. I know I’ll never see Timothy again, but to quote myself “What other choice do I have?”

The train slowed as it approached the platform. I took a deep breath, steeling myself for this most monumental of decisions. I allowed a silent tear to fall.

The train came to a halt and I boarded it, to be carried on my journey up to Aberdeen; to live with my uncaring bitch of a mother.