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“No.” He shook his head. “This is me, it’s who I am. You never saw…thank God…what’s come before.”
He fidgeted, and with a sinking heart I thought he would push me away. Instead, he wriggled closer. “When I was a kid, I walked a tightrope, every day, just to survive. And I can’t do it anymore. I can’t take any more of Cartwright’s bullets. So, no, I’m good as I am. Living quietly, getting through the day-to-day.”
I thought about Ryan, and how his mum and I instinctively knew that no matter how messed up our relationship had become, trying to do the right thing by him was paramount. All of us were born without preconceived ideas of the world. But the world already had preconceived ideas about children such as Matt before they could even talk. Quick to learn that his background—the torment, the poverty, the neglect, being gay, looking gay; those things were woven through his every layer. Like a stick of Bournemouth rock. And the world treated him harshly because of it.
I imagined our future stretching out, filled with moments like this, with Matt’s warmth tucked under the covers with me, his low voice reverberating through my chest. I didn’t tell him now, but we were going to be doing a hell of a lot more than getting through if I had anything to do with it. I yawned; good sex with the love of one’s life could have that effect on a man.
“You’re my stick of Bournemouth rock,” I informed him drowsily. “And I love rock.”
That had him chuckling. “I’m surprised a posh boy like you has ever tasted rock. It’s dreadful for your teeth. Isn’t it just peppermint-flavoured sugar?”
“You’re my only sugary treat.” God, we were talking drivel at each other, and I bloody loved it. Post-sex pillow talk was almost as much fun as pre-sex dirty talk.
“Actually you’re more than that, my love.” I dropped my lips to his mouth. “You’re caviar and champagne.”
I FEEL LOVE
(BRONKSI BEAT)
EPILOGUE
MATT - ONE YEAR LATER
There once lived an unhappy, seventeen-year-old boy who fell head over heels in love. He loved with a passion both spectacular and devastating in its intensity, and like all first loves, it should have been nothing more than an opening chapter. A short prologue even, before the real tests of adulthood began.
But what if that chapter never closed?
I began to sink around four months later. With no rhyme or reason—there never was. In fact, Alex and I had recently returned from a week in Berlin, where we’d alternated between fucking like horny teenagers and inhaling the awesome history of the place. Alex’s appetite for me was insatiable—as if he tried to make up for a quarter century of lost love in a single week. In other words, I’d been in heaven.
Like quicksand, my descent into depression sucked me in by minute degrees, grain by sorry grain, until I hit the bottom. A persistent mild annoyance with the world one day, a flash of irrational temper the next. Inexplicable weariness. Loss of appetite. A few nights spent tossing and turning, churning morbid thoughts around my head, attributing it to the unseasonably warm weather or the regular snores emanating from the hot water bottle next to me. Morbid thoughts lingered into the daytime; stuck on a never-ending loop, my brain insisted on touring the past and questioning the present. I felt jaded. Hopeless. What was I doing with this lovely man? What was this lovely man doing with me? I held him back, a malign influence on his son. I was weak, ugly. A parasite and a drain on them both. And so on.
All things considered, Alex recognised my depression sooner than I did, not that I showed any gratitude for his perceptiveness. His solicitousness irritated me; I wanted him to take his anxious frown and helpful suggestions elsewhere; his thoughtful touches made me squirm. The sound of him chewing, the sound of him singing in the shower, even the sound of his breath fucking sawing in and out set my teeth on edge.
In summary, I had become desperately poor company. But he couldn’t accuse me of not having warned him.
I buggered off. Like I’d always done when I couldn’t hack it anymore. My sick, black mind convinced me I was undeserving of all the niceness at Alex’s house, and that included the occupants. Though, this time I didn’t go far, only to my caravan. I told myself I hadn’t officially moved in with him anyway, although I had a key to his front door, drawers in his bedroom, and space in his wardrobe. I had a favourite mug.
Back in my lair, I regressed even further. My stomach became indifferent as to whether I fed it or not. Personal hygiene fell by the wayside. Website correspondence remained unanswered, several of my newer subscribers unsubscribed. Essay deadlines came and went. When Alex visited, I lay curled on the bed, facing the wall, and gave monosyllabic responses to his efforts to bring me out of myself.
He kissed me anyway, despite my vileness and sour body odour. He held my hand and promised me he had enough love for both of us. That we would get through this. That the days waiting for us on the other side of this dense cloud of fog were filled with golden sunshine. That his strong arms would pull me out of the mire. That his broad shoulders would carry me upwards to higher, firmer ground. But first, I had to go with him and visit a doctor.
And so I did. Most likely because I was too weak to oppose him. Too weak to fight his sensible, affluent, take-charge mentality. His relentless positivity. We sped up the motorway for an appointment with a world-renowned specialist, recommended to him by a colleague who had a friend, who knew someone else, who promised she was the best. Because that was how his sort of people worked. If I summoned up the strength, I could end my miserable life splattered on the tarmac of the motorway, like Brenner. Lacking the energy to unbuckle my seatbelt, open the door and jump out of the Audi, I planned how I’d do it in my head, instead, all the way up to London.
The specialist poked me and prodded me. She asked me questions, so many hundreds of fucking questions. She studied her computer screen a lot. She wanted to admit me to her fancy hospital, but I declined in a rather ungracious manner. Alex chastised me for behaving rudely and so I behaved rudely to him too. He held my hand anyway. Right in front of her, he kissed me and told me how much he loved me. She took some blood from my arm and changed my meds. She charged Alex a hell of a lot of fucking money. We made an appointment to see her again, and then again after that. And once more after that. I lost count.
And, over a few months, bit by bit, I began to feel better.
Ryan helped by being his usual, sometimes grumpy, sometimes happy, teenage self. At some vague moment while I was trying to drown in the brain bog, he passed his driving test. And to his dismay, discovered that his dad, in his neurotic, paternal wisdom, refused to let him go cruising with his mates until he’d gathered a few more miles under his belt. Which meant that, clutching at straws, he picked up yours truly from my stinking pit, and two or three times a week took me for a random drive around Dorset in his little blue Ford Fiesta. Which was kind of cute and almost fun, once I’d sorted out his Spotify playlist and turned up the volume. And then denied all knowledge to Alex that I’d introduced his son to Rage Against the Machine.
Depressed passengers are not too dissimilar to crash test dummies. For instance, they don’t care if you practise donuts for an hour in an empty rugby club carpark, even if they do feel a little nauseated afterwards. Neither do they tell tales if you reverse into a ditch and are then obliged to dip into your savings to phone a nice man with a tow truck to pull you out. And they are good listeners when you need to confide in someone that you have a new girlfriend but don’t want your parents to know yet because…ugh.
After one of our aimless drives and without seeking my permission, instead of dropping me back at my caravan he took me to his dad’s place, then drove off. The old man had missed me, apparently, and his mooching about had started to get on Ryan’s nerves. I used my key to discover Alex cooking dinner for one. He was a big guy with a big appetite, so that dinner easily stretched into enough for two. As I tucked in, I almost found myself smiling, because even Alex couldn’t come up with an exotic name for sausage and chips. Though he had a whole list of pet names for the weird, skinny guy who’d crawled into his lap after dinner. And plenty of kisses too. Later that night, I rediscovered the twin wonders that were the safe harbour of Alex’s arms and the firm pillow of his chest.
Time marched on and we were six months later. Thanks to Alex’s patience, kindness, and what others might label boring solidity but I labelled fucking perfection, I was back to my own peculiar brand of normal. My demons had disappeared to torture some other poor soul. And so far, so good. I needed to stay that way, because doing a runner would be tricky. For a start, I gave up my caravan. I had a shared bank account, and a teenage lad had come to rely on me as a confidante and friend. His hunky dad wasn’t too bad company either, even if he did insist on referring to cheese and ham toasties as croque-monsieurs.
I also had a plain gold band, slotted so tightly on the fourth finger of my left hand I’d have had a devil of a job trying to take it off. And I had a fancy new name on a shiny new marriage certificate.Matthew Valentine-Leeson, which even I agreed had a nice ring to it. He’d popped the question in the dairy aisle of Waitrose, which is how I rolled these days. One minute he’d been debating the relative merits of Duchy Organic Free-Range Eggs versus some other poncy overpriced variety, the next he was kissing me like the supermarket wasn’t full of gawping middle-class retirees and telling me he’d booked us a slot at Bournemouth registry office and a honeymoon in Hawaii.
Which wasn’t adorable at all.
THE END
