by Alice Oseman
To my horror, the galaxy ceiling had been painted over.
“Feels very fresh, don’t you think? A cleaner, emptier space makes a cleaner, sharper mind.”
I forced out a “yes”, but I’m pretty sure it sounded like I was choking.
Aled was going to cry when he saw this.
She had taken his private space – his home – and destroyed it.
She took everything he loved and ruined it.
3.54AM
I probably worried my mum quite a bit when I got back to my house with the cardboard box under one arm and the cityscape blanket under the other, blabbering about room decorations.
Once I’d finished explaining the situation properly, Mum was making a face of absolute, unabashed disgust.
“She should be ashamed of herself,” said Mum.
“I bet that’s why he’s still at uni – I bet he thinks he can’t come home, he’s trapped there, he doesn’t have anyone to look after him …” I started blabbering again and Mum made me sit down on the sofa to calm down. She went into the kitchen, made me a hot chocolate and then sat down next to me.
“I’m sure he has friends at uni,” she said. “And there are so many support systems at universities – pastoral tutors and counsellors and anonymous services. I’m sure he’s not alone.”
“But what if he is,” I whispered, trying not to cry for the billionth time. “What if he’s … suffering …”
“Is there really no way you can contact him?”
I shook my head. “He doesn’t answer my texts or messages or calls. He lives six hours away. I don’t even know his address.”
Mum took a deep breath. “Then … I know you’re worried, but … there’s not a lot you can do. This isn’t your fault, I promise.”
But it felt like my fault, just because I knew about it and couldn’t do anything to help.
It was taking me roughly three to four hours to actually fall asleep each night by this point, but that night was particularly bad. I didn’t want to turn my laptop off because I felt too alone in my bedroom and I didn’t want to turn the lights off because I hated the dark.
I couldn’t stop thinking. I couldn’t turn my brain off. I felt like I was panicking.
I was. I was panicking.
The last time I failed to help someone in trouble, they ran away and weren’t ever heard from again.
I couldn’t make the same mistake this time.
I had to pay attention to what was happening and do something about it.
I was scrolling through my Tumblr, looking at all the art I had drawn. I imagined someone deleting it all, smashing up my laptop – even thinking about it made me angry. I loved my art more than anything, I enjoyed it more than anything. What if someone took that away from me, like Aled’s mum had taken his world away, his tiny little safe place …
I scrolled through my phone while huddled up in bed and found Aled’s name. The last time I’d called him was in October.
One more time couldn’t hurt.
I clicked on the phone symbol next to his name.
The dial tone sounded.
And then it didn’t.
A: …Hello?
His voice was exactly as I remembered. Soft, a little hoarse, a little nervous-sounding.
F: A-Aled, oh, Jesus Christ, I— I didn’t think you’d pick up …
A: …Oh. Sorry.
F: No, don’t apologise, I’m— I’m just— It’s so, so good to hear your voice.
A: Ah …
What was I going to say? This might be the only chance I had.
F: So … how are you doing? How’s university?
A: It’s … fine.
F: Good … that’s good.
A: It’s quite a lot of work.
He chuckled. I wondered how much he was still keeping from me.
F: But, you’re doing okay?
A: Er …
There was a long pause and I could hear my own heartbeat.
A: You know. It’s … tough. I’m finding it a bit hard.
F: Yeah?
A: I think lots of people are too though.
There was something weird about his voice.
F: Aled … you can tell me if you’re not feeling too great. I know we don’t really talk any more, but I still … I still really … like … care about you … I know you might still hate me, and I don’t know what you really think about me … and I know you don’t want me to just keep saying sorry. But I do … I do care about you. That was why I called you in the first place.
A: Haha, yeah, I thought you said you were scared of calling people on the phone.
F: I was never scared of calling you on the phone.
He didn’t say anything to that.
F: I went to your house today to see if you were there.
A: Did you? Why?
F: I … wanted to talk to you. You haven’t been answering my messages.
A: Sorry … I’ve just … I’ve been finding it a bit … difficult to, erm …
His voice faded out into nothing and I had no idea what he was trying to say.
F: Well, your mum … I spoke to your mum. She’s … she’s rearranged your bedroom. She’s painted over the ceiling and stuff.
A: … Has she …?
F: Yeah … but I saved a load of your stuff, I convinced her I’d use it all instead of it getting thrown out …
There was a silence.
F: Aled? You still there?
A: Wait – s-so, she just … threw out everything …?
F: Yeah, but I saved loads of it! I mean, I don’t know if I got all of it, but I did save some of it …
A:
F: Why— Why would she do something like that – without your permission …?
A: That’s …
F:
A: Haha. Don’t worry.
I had no idea what to say.
A: Mum’s always been like this. It doesn’t surprise me any more. It doesn’t surprise me at all.
F: Are you … going to come home for Christmas?
A: …I don’t know.
F: You could stay at my house, if you like?
I was almost certain he would say no, but then, he didn’t.
A: Aren’t you … Would your family mind?
F: No, not at all! You know my mum, and my grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins are all very loud and friendly. And we’ll just tell them you’re my boyfriend.
A: Okay … that’d— Yeah, that’d be really good. Thank you.
F: That’s okay …
He’d forgiven me. He didn’t hate me. He didn’t hate me.
F: What are you doing awake at this time anyway?
A: Er … I’m just … trying to write an essay … I had to get my deadline extended …
There was a long pause.
F: Ah … That sounds dull.
A: Yeah …
I suddenly heard him breathe in quite hard. I wondered whether he had a cold.
F: It’s quite late to be writing an essay …
A: (pause) Yeah …
Another excruciatingly long pause.
F: Is it … going okay?
A: Erm … well … not really …
When he next spoke, his voice was wobbling, and that’s when I realised he was crying.
A: I just … really— I don’t … I don’t want to write it. I’ve just been staring at the screen like— like all day …
F:
A: I don’t want to … do this any more …
F: Aled, it’s way too late to be writing an essay, just go to sleep and write it in the morning.
A: I can’t, it’s— My deadline’s at ten am tomorrow.
F: Aled … this is why you don’t save essays for the night before …
He didn’t say anything to that at first. I heard him take in another shaky breath.
A: Yeah.
F:
A: Yeah, sorry. Sorry, I shouldn’t have … yeah.
F: It’s okay.
/> A: I’ll see you later.
He hung up before I could stop him.
I looked at my phone. The time was 3.54am.
BURNING
“Holy shit, your hair.”
Aled got off the train on the evening of December 23rd with a suitcase in one hand and a rucksack on his back.
His hair was shoulder-length. It was also pastel pink at the ends.
He was wearing black skinny jeans, a beige corduroy coat with fleece lining and lime green plimsolls with purple laces and he had earphones in his ears. I was wearing my giant Topman coat, grid-print leggings and Star Wars Vans.
He smiled at me. It was a little awkward, but it was a smile.
“D’you think it looks okay?”
“It looks rad as hell.”
I stood in front of him for a few seconds, just gazing at him, before he took his earphones out. I could hear what he’d been listening to – ‘Innocence’ by Nero. I’d introduced him to Nero.
“You’re playing your music too loud,” I said, before he could say anything else.
He blinked, and then smiled a little. “I know.”
We walked back into the village and chatted about trivial things – his train journey, Christmas, the weather. I didn’t mind. I knew we couldn’t immediately go back to the way things were before.
I was just thankful to have him here.
We got to my house and Mum welcomed him in with the offer of a cup of tea, but Aled shook his head.
“I’m gonna go and talk to my mum,” he said. “Explain to her I’m staying here for Christmas.”
I blinked. “I assumed she knew already.”
“No, I think this is something I have to explain in person.”
He dropped his rucksack on to the floor in the hallway and leaned his suitcase against the wall.
“I’ll probably only be ten minutes or so,” he said.
I didn’t believe him.
After he’d been gone for half an hour, I was starting to panic. So was Mum.
“Do you think I should go over there?” asked Mum. We were standing at the lounge window watching Aled’s house, waiting for any sign of movement. “Maybe it would help if I spoke to her. Most adults prefer listening to other adults.”
And then we heard Aled scream.
It wasn’t really a scream. It was more of a long wail. I’d never heard anyone sound like that in real life before.
I pelted to our front door and opened it, just as Aled opened his and stumbled out of it. I ran to meet him and he was staggering and for a minute I thought he was injured, but I couldn’t see anything physically wrong with him except the fact that his face was contorted because he was sobbing uncontrollably, and I caught him in my arms just as he sank to the ground on the kerb, making the most painful noises I’d ever heard, like he’d been shot, like he was dying …
Then he started to cry out, “No, no, no, no, no, no, no …” the tears falling continuously from his eyes, and I started to ask him frantically what it was, what had happened, what had she done, but he just shook his head over and over and choked like he couldn’t form any words even if he wanted to, and then I heard it …
“Sh-she killed him— Sh-she killed him.”
I felt like I was going to be sick.
“Who? What happened, tell me …”
“My … my dog … my dog Brian …” And then he started to sob again, so loudly, like he’d never cried before in his whole life.
I stayed very still.
“She … killed … your dog …?”
“She s-said … she couldn’t look after him … because I was gone, and he— He was getting old, s-so She— She just— She went and … had him put down.”
“No …”
He let out another wail and pressed his face into my jumper.
I didn’t want to believe anyone was capable of doing something like that.
But we were sitting under the streetlamps and Aled was shaking in my arms and this was real, this was happening. She was taking everything Aled had and burning it. She was burning him, slowly, until he died.
RUSTY NORTHERN HANDS
“I’ll call the police on her,” said Mum for the fourth time. We’d been sitting in the lounge for over half an hour. “At least let me go and shout at her.”
“It won’t do anything,” said Aled. He sounded like he wanted to die.
“What can we do?” I asked. “There must be something …”
“No.” He stood up from the sofa. “I’m going back to uni.”
“What?” I stood up too and followed him out of the door. “Wait, you can’t spend Christmas up there alone!”
“I don’t want to be near her.”
We were all silent for a moment.
“You know …” he continued, “when me and Carys were ten … our mum burned a load of clothes Carys bought from a charity shop. Carys was really, really excited about these trousers she’d bought when she went out with her friends … they were made out of this galaxy-pattern fabric … but our mum said they were trashy and she just took them and burned them in the garden while Carys was just screaming and crying. Carys tried to get them out of the fire and burned her hands and Mum didn’t even comfort her.” His eyes were vacant, like there was nothing there. “I had to … I had to hold her hands under the … the cold tap …”
“Jesus Christ,” I said.
Aled looked down and his voice quietened. “She could have just thrown them away, but she chose to burn them …”
Me and Mum spent another fifteen minutes trying to persuade him to change his mind about leaving, but he wouldn’t.
He was leaving.
Again.
It was almost 9pm when Aled and I made it back to the station, and though I’d only met him two hours earlier, it felt like days ago.
We sat on a bench together. The countryside stretched out opposite us, the winter sky black and bleak.
Aled lifted up his legs so his knees were bent and his feet tucked up on the bench. He started fiddling with his hands.
“It’s really cold up north,” he said, and then he held out his hands in front of me. The skin of his knuckles was all dry. “Look.”
“Rusty northern hands,” I said.
“What?”
“That’s what my mum calls it.” I stroked the dry skin of his knuckles with one finger. “When the skin on your hands gets all dry. Rusty northern hands.”
Aled smiled. “I think I need to buy some gloves. I’d wear them all the time.”
“Like Radio.” In Universe City, Radio never takes their gloves off. No one knows why.
“Yeah.” He took his hand back and wrapped his arms around his knees. “Sometimes I think I am Radio.”
“D’you want my gloves?” I said, suddenly, taking mine off. They were navy and had a Fair Isle pattern on the back. I held them out to him. “I’ve got loads of gloves.”
He looked at me. “I can’t steal yours!”
“These are really old anyway.” This was true.
“Frances, if I take those, I’ll feel really bad about wearing them.”
He really wasn’t going to take them. I shrugged and said, “Fine,” and put them back on.
We sat in silence for a minute, before he said, “Sorry I didn’t reply to any of your messages.”
“It’s fine, you had the right to be angry at me.”
There was another pause. I wanted to know everything that he’d done at uni. I wanted to ask him to tell me everything I didn’t know about Universe City. I wanted to tell him how shitty school was these days, how I was so sleep-deprived that I’d started getting headaches every single day.
“How are you?” he said.
I looked at him. “I’m fine.”
And he knew I wasn’t. And he wasn’t either. But I didn’t know what else to say.
“How’s school?” he asked.
“Just can’t wait to get out,” I said. “But also … I’m trying to enjoy it.”
/> “You’re not one of those people who’s determined to lose their virginity before they go to uni, are you?”
I frowned. “Is anyone actually like that?”
He shrugged. “Not that I’ve ever seen.”
I laughed.
“So you’re keeping on top of your work okay?” he asked.
I couldn’t lie to him. “Not really. A lot of sleepless nights, I guess.”
He smiled and looked away. “Sometimes I think we’re the same person … but we just got accidentally split into two before we were born.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re literally me, but with all of the trash cleared away.”
I snorted. “Under the trash … There’s just more trash. We’re trash to the bone.”
“Ah,” he said. “The title of my debut rap album.”
We both laughed at that. Our laughs echoed around the station.
And then a voice sounded above our heads.
“The next train to arrive at – Platform One – will be the – 21.07 – to – London St Pancras.”
“Oh,” said Aled. He didn’t show any sign of moving.
I leaned over and hugged him. Hugged him properly, arms tight around his neck, my chin tucked over his shoulder. He hugged me back too. And I think we were okay.
“Are there people up there you can spend Christmas with?” I said.
“Er …” He paused. “Yeah, erm … I think there are some international students staying …”
And then his train arrived, and he stood up and took hold of his suitcase and opened the door and stepped on to the train. He turned back and waved and I said, “Bon voyage!” and he smiled sadly and said, “Frances, you really are …” But he didn’t seem to be able to finish his sentence and I had no idea what he was attempting to say. He put his earphones in and the door shut and he walked away from the window and I couldn’t see him any more.
