Noah needed to buy time. He needed to work things out. In the absence of any other options, the best thing to do was to continue kissing. There was literally no other option. If he stopped kissing, Harry might be offended or hurt. That would be bad. If this was his best friend coming out to him, he felt he should at least be supportive. If he broke it off, Harry might think it was because Noah was repulsed by it and was homophobic, which Noah was not. Noah was cool with it. It was cool.
Tongues! Gosh.
Noah knew he had arrived in some form. He was being a teenager. If his mum could see him now, how could she think he was “uptight” about sex? Here he was, doing kissing with tongues, with a boy. It was out there. It was daring. He was at the cutting edge of human sexuality … and stuff.
But this wasn’t about his mum, or anyone else.
It was about him and Harry.
And this would change everything.
And it didn’t feel right.
But it didn’t feel completely wrong.
And yet…
Was it possible that alcohol was responsible for this? They had been drinking a lot… Sophie had encouraged it… She… Sophie… Oh God… Sophie… He’d come here to kiss Sophie, and now he was kissing Harry. This wasn’t in the plan! He’d been ambushed by Harry … and now his first kiss was a big gay kiss and not a girl kiss, like he’d planned … like he surely wanted?
“Are you…” Noah began, desperate to buy time, “are you … are you gay … or…?”
“If wanting to do stuff with other boys means I’m gay, then yes, I’m gay.”
“Well, that is what it means. Unless you’re bi, or just experimenting. You know, trying things out…”
“No, it’s not like that. I’m gay.”
Noah nodded and swallowed hard. It all sounded very final. How had he missed this? How had he not realized? He almost didn’t want this to be true. If it was true, it had to be faced. He didn’t want to face it. He wasn’t ready. He didn’t know how. “So … is this a recent thing, or…”
“Not really. I’ve just never fancied girls.”
“Right. But maybe … that doesn’t mean you’ll never fancy girls. Maybe you just don’t fancy the girls at our school. Maybe that’s all.”
“But I fancy the boys. Some of them.”
“Right.”
“I fancy you,” Harry said.
They both stared at each other. Things were being said that Noah wasn’t ready to hear. People shouldn’t be allowed to just say stuff out of the blue. They should have to write it down first and send it to you. To give you time to prepare. Spontaneity was no one’s friend. Harry could have sent a note, or a text. Explained himself. And Noah could have thought it through. Worked it out.
Harry fancied him. It was a statement so bold, so extraordinary, Noah couldn’t compute its meaning. This was Error 404. This was why Harry had been in here, angry and upset.
Oh, good Lord, Harry was in love with him.
Silence.
What had they done? The cogs in Noah’s brain turned as he tried to make sense of it.
A kiss.
A long kiss.
That’s a lot more than “mates”.
They were close.
Now they were closer.
Nobody must find out.
Harry laughed first. “Oh, wow.”
“Huh. Yeah,” Noah muttered, dizzy with it all.
“That was mental.”
“Yeah,” he said, looking down at the floor, trying to work out how he felt and what would happen next.
“I’m so drunk.”
“Yeah! Me too. Yeah.” Was that why this happened?
Harry gave his leg a little stroke and it gave Noah butterflies. It felt really nice. It felt really weird. This was Harry. One minute they were watching SpongeBob together and the next, there were feelings and emotions and stuff that seemed really grown up. “Come here,” he said, pulling Noah towards him again.
And for a beautiful moment, it was him and Harry again.
Just them.
Together.
And there wasn’t anyone else. And he didn’t want there to be.
But it still felt…
Not entirely right.
Noah pulled back again. “I’m not sure I…”
Harry reached out and took his hand. “I know. It’s fine.”
“This is a surprise, right?”
“Right,” Harry smiled, gently stoking Noah’s hand with his thumb. That movement. So small. Almost imperceptible, but it sent waves of ridiculous pleasure right up his arm and down to his stomach. Made him catch his breath. It was crazy nice.
“Harry, I—”
“Hey, homos!” Jordan Scott was at the door. How long had he been there? Oh, God. “All looking a bit GAY in here!”
Noah snatched his hand away from Harry’s. “Oh, hi, Jordan. Hi. We were just—”
“Queering each other up?”
“Shut up, Jordan,” Harry said.
“Comparing hands,” said Noah. “That’s all.”
Jordan stared at them both, curling his lip slightly. “Everyone says you two are gay. This just proves it.”
“No, it proves nothing!” Noah said. “I had … a splinter and Harry was—”
“I am always walking in on people who shouldn’t be together!” Jordan shook his head. “Never expected it to be you two though.”
“Jordan, there is literally nothing—” Noah said.
“People like you –” Jordan gestured to them both “– should be dead. Just saying.”
And he walked out.
Noah froze, looking at the door.
He didn’t even know what he really felt.
He needed time and space.
He was drunk! He didn’t know what he was doing!
He’d come here to kiss Sophie. He’d come here to be normal. To be like everyone else. To not have drama, but just an easy life, a simple life. A regular, normal life.
Harry shouldn’t have kissed him. He should have picked a better time if he’d wanted to do stuff like that. How stupid can you be?!
He looked at Harry. “Do you think I’m gay?”
Harry looked back, blankly.
“Well, you must, else you wouldn’t have done it!” Noah said.
And with that Noah got up and, without looking back, walked out of the room and down the stairs, pushing through the drunken crowds, and headed straight out the front door, down the gravel driveway, round the corner and then ran all the way home.
He caught his breath at the corner of the alleyway that led on to his road. Jordan Scott would make sure everyone knew he’d seen him and Harry holding hands. Now he would be the talk of the school again. Now his life would be hell … again.
Now he’d probably gone and lost his best mate.
He kicked the fence in frustration. “YOU STUPID, USELESS, WASTE-OF-SPACE MORON!” he screamed, unsure whether he was talking about Harry or himself. “AAAARGGGHH!”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“What the hell time do you call this?” his mother demanded, flinging open the front door as he unsuccessfully attempted to get his key in the lock for the third time.
“I’ve been at the party!”
“Well, why have you returned? Get back there! It’s barely midnight!”
“No…”
“Noah!” she continued, barring his way into the house. “I thought we agreed? You wouldn’t be back until at least two a.m.”
“I never agreed that!”
“I am busy.”
“I just wanna go to bed…”
“This is me time. Time for me.”
“Let me in!”
“Piss off!”
“Please, Mum!” he pleaded, on the brink of tears.
“You’re as independent as a two-year-old child, do you know that?” his mother hissed in his face, the smell of cheap booze on her breath making him feel even more nauseous. “Ever since the moment of conception you’ve plagued me. Morning
sickness like you’ve never known. Ten agonizing hours in labour. Had to cut me open in the end, they did! I’m scarred. Scarred for life! Wait there.”
She slammed the door in his face while he wiped the spit from his eye. When she opened it again she was brandishing a tea towel.
“What are you doing?” he protested, as she tied it around his head as a blindfold. “It’s too tight!”
“Shut up. You know damn well I’m in here with my new man. That’s why you’ve come back early. Trying to catch us at it! Just can’t keep your nose out, can you? Well, you’ve not succeeded. You’ll wear this to protect our privacy, I’ll escort you right up the stairs and that’s where you’ll stay.”
With that she dragged him across the threshold, flung him in front of her and began pushing him up the stairs.
“Couldn’t even stay out at the party until a decent time!” she was muttering, jabbing him in the back as he tripped up the stairs. “I don’t know what’s wrong with you, I really don’t.”
“But I wasn’t enjoying it!”
“‘Wasn’t enjoying it!’ Can you hear yourself? I should take you to the doctor’s – you’re not a normal teenager!”
“Everyone’s different, Mum, it’s fine to be different!”
“No, Noah, it’s not,” she said, pushing him into his bedroom. “They just say that to make the weird kids feel better. And don’t come out!”
And with that she slammed his door. Noah untied the tea towel and listened as his mother dragged a cupboard from her bedroom across the landing and positioned it in front of his door.
“If there’s a fire you’ll have to jump out the window,” she shouted from the other side, once she was satisfied there was no way he could escape.
But the prospect of fire was the least of his reasons for needing to get out. He needed a wee. Quite badly. He hammered on his bedroom door. “Mother? Mum? MUM?! Hello? Help? MUU-UUM! HELP! HELP!” There was literally no response except the sound of her walking downstairs. He jigged about, continuing to bang on the door. “Mum! Listen to me now! This is serious! VERY serious! I’m in the midst of a LAVATORIAL CRISIS! It’s very urgent and very important that you let me out. It’s … human rights. You are IN BREACH of my human rights and the UN will arrest you.” He waited. Nothing. “Fire! FIRE!” He pretended to cough. “Help me! I’m dying! DYING!”
He frantically glanced around his room in desperation. He couldn’t pee in his bin; it was fashioned from wicker. And a mug that was half full of squash would hardly suffice. OH, GOD! GOD!
“Of course!” he squealed, remembering the window. Pee out of the window! Like they did in the olden days! And desperate times called for desperate measures. Noah could hardly contain his relief as he flung the window open, stood on his chair and was finally able to release an entirely free and unhindered stream of hot piss into the wild.
“Aaaaarrgh!” came a male scream from below.
“What the hell?” came his mother’s voice.
Noah froze before toppling back in horror, still spraying piss everywhere. As commotion ensued downstairs (“Aaarrrgh! It’s like acid or something … my eyes! My eyes!”), Noah lay on his back and shut his eyes, trying to pretend that absolutely none of that just happened.
“You BEAST! You ANIMAL!” his mother screamed, now outside his door. “You twisted little ANIMAL!”
Noah stared up at the ceiling. She was right. He was. He had not only pissed on his mother, he had pissed on her new boyfriend too. On the plus side, maybe that would put him off from moving in?
“It’s illegal to piss on people, you know?! Illegal! I could call the police right now. In fact, I will. I’ll call the police!”
That would be fine, he thought. They could take him away, far away. Lock him up. Life in prison would be a joy compared to life here. He would have his basic needs met. He would be well fed. He could study in peace. Alternatively, he could just phone social services and ask to be taken away. He was already lying on his bedroom floor, illegally drunk and covered in piss – what more would they want?
Oh, what was the point…?
Tears welled in his eyes as the events of the night all came back to him. He couldn’t make sense of anything that had happened or anything he was feeling. Confused? Yes. Horrified? Maybe. Scared? Definitely. He wanted someone to talk to, but who? His mum couldn’t care less. His gran had dementia. Dad had vanished. Normally, he would have Harry. Harry, who had seen him through so much in the last few years.
He curled up on his bed and cried, as the room spun round, and an aching dread filled his body. He stared into the darkness. Was this what being a “normal” teenager was meant to be like?
Empty.
Frightened.
Alone.
CHAPTER TWELVE
He writhed around on his bed in just his boxers. He was hot and sick, and his head was throbbing. What was this – cholera? Plague? He felt sure it must be fatal, whatever it was. His Casio digital watch told him it was 11:15 on Sunday morning. He let out a primal moan as a wave of hot nausea flashed across the aching, wasted shell of his body.
A good and attentive mother would have called an ambulance by now. But not his. She was probably too busy having a boyfriend to notice his plight.
“GRRRRAAWWWWWOOOOOOAWWWW!” he wailed, from deep within his gut, throwing himself over on the bed and suddenly seeing his mum and Harry standing at his door. “OH, GOD!” he screamed, sitting bolt upright.
“Hi, Noah,” Harry said.
“Hi, Harry!” Oh, God. He wasn’t in any state to face this right now. Everything was fuzzier than it had been last night. What was real? What actually happened? He wasn’t sure. He felt sick.
“Harry popped round to visit you,” his mother explained. “Why are you making those ridiculous noises? And open a window and spray something, it bloody stinks in here.”
He scrambled to his feet, haphazardly pulled on some jogging bottoms and a crusty old T-shirt, opened the window with one hand, and simultaneously sprayed some Lynx around the place.
His mother sighed. “Can I get you a drink, Harry? Tea, or…?”
“Yeah, I’ll have a cup of tea, Mrs Grimes, thanks,” Harry smiled.
“OK, I’ll bring it up. Noah?”
He couldn’t face this right now. Couldn’t face Harry. Couldn’t face the analysis of last night’s events. He needed to convince his mother he was too sick to take guests.
“The light is fading!” he moaned, draping himself back on the bed and staring into the middle distance like he was hallucinating. “I am dying… I die…” He coughed and gurgled. “Oh, life! Oh, death! Oh!”
“Shut up and stop moaning,” his mum said, backing out of the door and closing it behind her.
Great. Now it was just the two of them and a whole load of awkwardness.
“You’ve got a hangover,” Harry sighed, sitting on the edge of his bed.
Noah looked at him. “A hangover? Me?”
“Yep.”
“Oh, Lordy. I hope the school doesn’t find out. I’ll never make head boy.”
Harry smiled and glanced at him. “So, look—”
Noah sprang up off the bed. “I’m gonna stand, if you don’t mind? Ooh, that’s better. Stretch my legs a bit.” Sitting down, next to Harry, felt too close, too intimate. It might lead to … more kissing. More kissing would lead to more confusion and more feelings and that was best avoided right now.
“OK,” Harry began, as Noah stood awkwardly in the middle of the room with nothing to do. He should have stayed sitting down. That would have worked better. He was just standing, for no reason, and to sit down now would be odd because he’d just said he didn’t want to. Why was he such an idiot?
“I just wanted to say I’m sorry if I went too far,” Harry said.
“What happened after I left?”
Harry rolled his eyes. “Is that what you’re worried about?”
“Well, yeah, a bit. I mean, you know what school is like!” It was bad enough
to begin with. The type of boy who doesn’t like sport and hands in essays that are four pages longer than they need to be is the type of boy that attracts bullying. And the type of boy that also has a mum who does a Beyoncé tribute act and is spotted holding hands with other boys is as good as dead. “What happened?”
Harry sighed. “Absolutely nothing. I tidied up the bedroom, went downstairs, talked to a few people… Then a sixth former accidentally set fire to the shed, so that was drama. I walked Sophie home, and that was it.”
“You walked Sophie home?!”
Harry laughed. “You can’t seriously have a problem with that?”
Noah glared at him. If anyone was meant to walk Sophie home last night, and possibly kiss her, it was him. Harry had not only stolen his first kiss and made it a gay one, he’d probably stolen Sophie too and kissed her for good measure because he was clearly a hormone crazed, kiss-everyone teenager now.
“Noah, I’m gay.”
OK, so maybe he hadn’t kissed Sophie.
“Yes, well, I had sort of gathered that,” Noah huffed, playing down the fact his heart had just leapt into his mouth. This wasn’t the drink talking now. This was real, cold-light-of-day stuff. This was truth. Harry was gay. “How long … have you known?”
“A while. I didn’t plan to tell you like this.”
Noah nodded. But he had been planning it. This was one hell of a big secret to have hidden. It felt like a betrayal. Why hadn’t Harry discussed his feelings when he first started having them? Why wait for an all-or-nothing, dramatic revelation?
“I was scared,” Harry continued, “and for a long time, I wasn’t sure, and I didn’t know what I was feeling. That’s why. I wanted to talk to you about it, but I kept putting it off. And then … the party was happening, and you were talking about Sophie and how much you liked her, and I suddenly thought, that’s it. I’ve missed my chance. I’d had a lot to drink, and I wasn’t thinking straight, and I kind of went crazy. So. Sorry.”
Noah didn’t know what to say. What if he said the wrong thing and it made matters worse? And what about the really big questions? Did he feel the same? Was he gay? Being gay was not part of the plan. He dreamed of a normal existence – everything his own life hadn’t been to date. He would marry a nice girl, maybe Sophie, maybe have a couple of kids one day, and not get divorced, or go AWOL. They would have money and a nice house. Neither he nor his wife would do a Beyoncé tribute act.
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