‘All the kids were afraid of you after that, me included. But the longer you and I spent time together in detention,the more my fear disappeared. I realised that you didn’t want to be noticed either. By that point I couldn’t help it, I noticed you all the time. And whenever you looked at me, I didn’t mind so much any more. I started to like you, even if we barely spoke.’
And here we have it, the answer to why we don’t exchange casualI-love-yous. The beginning of our friendship was forged in mutual silence. We kept our feelings to ourselves, to avoid a target on our backs, one that would lead to us getting called gay in a voice that made it clear it wasn’t a good thing. I guess we never learned to shake that habit. And now they call us gay anyway.
‘After that first month, the day the detentions finally ended, Dad picked us both up after school. He took us for ice cream, like a proper bad parent. I think he had his suspicions about who had really done it, but he didn’t say. Two scoops each, he said, and you went first. You chose chocolate chip, not once, but twice. And I honestly remember the moment so well because that was my standard order. I looked at you standing next to my dad, and I felt so . . . complete. I didn’t need anyone else, because I had the two of you.’
His voice gives out at the end. Breaks and falls apart. His lashes flutter, quick like a hummingbird. I spot the tears before he wipes them away with the back of his hand. ‘And now . . . now I have grandparents.’
The words float between us, meaningless at first. The conversation has taken such a turn that it takes me several seconds to catch up. When the realisation hits, my head rocks up so fast that my neck cracks.
‘But they’re dead,’ I exclaim. ‘You said they’re dead.’ I can’t help that it sounds like an accusation. When we first became friends, there was little that connected us. Luca had lived a sheltered life, still does. He’s never known the weight of grief, how it drags your body down, rids you of reasons to get back up. I try not to resent him for it, and I truly hope he never finds out how it hurts, because ‘hurt’ can’t begin to describe it. But I always thought the gaps in his family resembled mine. His grandparents were irrefutably absent, and nothing could bring them back.
‘I don’t know,’ Luca says. ‘My grandmother seemed very alive when she strolled into the cafe earlier. That’s what they should put on the noticeboard: “Luca’s grandparents rise from the grave!” Or “Maz Dean is a rotten liar!” Both would be accurate.’
Understanding dawns on me, slowly at first, until I grasp the true extent of what he’s telling me.
‘He lied to you? For your whole life?’
When I met Maz for the first time, I wasn’t sure what to make of him. I had only ever known parents as pillars of authority – caring, yes, but voices of reason and enactors of rules that stood firmly apart from children. There was no such distance between Luca and Maz. They talked like brothers and joked like friends. Maz rarely played the dad card, and he told the truth even when it was uncomfortable or embarrassing. To keep up a lie of such nauseating proportions isn’t like him.
‘Makes you wonder what else he’s hiding,’ Luca says grimly, voicing my thoughts. ‘But here’s something else: my formerly deceased grandparents have moved into HiddenHouse. They’ve bought it. It’s theirs now.’
There’s an entirely fake smile stretched across his face. And I get it, there’s only so many shock reactions you can have before the revelations start sounding too ridiculous to be real.
I point over my shoulder towards the mainland, unable to form the question.
‘Yup, the manor,’ Luca confirms with an empty laugh. ‘The one with the turrets and the tennis court and the private sea access and the ballroom bigger than our flat.’ He turns sober. ‘I can’t go home, Simo. I don’t want to see him. I’d rather camp out here.’
I know things are dire when Luca considers camping. He may be a small-town boy, but he’s not exactly the nature type. Seeing the way he buries his fingernails in his own palms, I swallow my words. I take his hands and gently force his fists open. Red half-moons cover his palms, and I trace the shape of them, carefully, so as not to hurt him more. His skin is cold, despite the heat of the day.
‘You’re staying with me,’ I say without thinking twice. I might not be on speaking terms with my parents, and Luca is half the reason why, but his home has been my safe haven for years. There’s no universe in which I wouldn’t offer him shelter in mine. It’ll force my parents to talk, because they might be mad at me and out of their comfort zone around Luca, but they would never dare to be impolite. Also, in light of Maz’s lies, they currently don’t seem so bad.
With the horizon turning scarlet and the sea mirroring its burning hues, we make our way back across the island. The sight of Hidden House halts us in our tracks. From thisvantage point, the trees part to reveal a centuries-old stone building that dominates the landscape. Two turrets point sharply into the sky, and the many dark windows appear like eyes.
Luca bites his lower lip, eyes on the manor. He shakes his head and descends to the walkway. I follow close, and we make it to the mainland minutes before the tide starts to claim back the causeway. We take the quiet route through town, which is deserted, as people are gathered on the beach to watch the sunset.
Less than two weeks ago, we were part of that crowd, blissfully oblivious to the brewing storm. Now there’s a tremor, a coil of fear nestled tight in my chest that won’t dissipate, regardless of how many deep breaths I take. It tells me that the worst hasn’t hit us yet.
Luca is so deep in thought, I can almost hear him ponder. Instinctively I want to reach out, take his hand. I crave the physical reassurance that he’s beside me. So I lift my hands and shove them in my pockets.
Braving a storm is one thing. Tempting it, quite another.
CHAPTER 9 – LUCA
There’s a photo album that sits on Simo’s bookshelf. Regardless of how often he reorganises, the album never leaves its spot in the top-left corner. Kids’ books go, classics move in, poetry collections push novels off the shelves, but the black leather album remains. Dust never settles on it, so I know that Simo pulls it out regularly, but he’s never done so when I’m around.
The spine is embossed with five golden letters that form canyons in the thick leather. The only reason I know Simo’s brother’s name is because these letters spell it out. They’re the sole evidence that he ever existed. The rest of the house holds no signs of him, no pictures, nothing.
I’ve been lying on Simo’s bed like this all night, facing the wall with the bookshelf, the desk, the corkboard decked out in Simo’s memories. My eyes dart from the selfie of us on a class trip to a couple of ripped tickets from the play we saw in Granada. I didn’t understand a thing, but the costumes were pretty and so was Simo, his face glowing, captivated by the stage actors.
I haven’t slept, only pretended to when Simo climbed off the bed and shuffled out of the room an hour ago. Myphone lies in a bundle of clothes, but I haven’t touched it since I turned it off last night. I didn’t want to hear from Dad. And when I saw that Mum had tried to call, I realised that she must haveknownabout my not-dead grandparents, that she’d helped Dad keep up the lie. I wasn’t going to speak to her either.
It’s not like I haven’t thought about it. Opening the album, I mean. Whenever I’m in here, there’s a third boy in the room, one whose presence we can’t deny but don’t acknowledge. The mere thought of prying into parts of Simo’s life he doesn’t offer willingly feels like betrayal. And as it stands, I’ve got plenty of things to keep me up at night; I can do without adding more guilt to the mix.
A soft knock pulls my attention from the album to the door. Simo pops his head in. Only he would knock before entering his own room.
‘Hungry? My parents made breakfast,’ he says. I lift my eyebrows, which prompts him to enter fully and close the door behind him. ‘They’ve gone all out,’ he explains. ‘I’m not sure who they’re trying to fool with the pretend family harmony, but I’m not about to say no to the food.’
My stomach rumbles, and I get a whiff of fried eggs in the air that must have snuck into the room with Simo. It’s my body’s way of telling me I skipped dinner and need to eat, though I’d rather stay here, tucked away in Simo’s room, in Simo’s bed.
