I walk the night thin and, reaching my destination, sit on a tombstone and wait for morning. I leave it until 10.30 before taking out my phone and calling Mike. I tell him I need to see him, but only if he’s up to it.
“Give me an hour,” he groans, and hangs up.
I know, El, you don’t have to tell me. He’s a better friend than I deserve.
I try not to look at our place. Not until Mike’s here with me and I can take some of his strength. I try not to think or remember anything at all. I just sit and wait…
Something pale circles and snuffles through the mid-morning mist, threading between the trees, picking its way over the tumbledown wall until it finds me. I reach down and cup my hand around Becks’s snout. Dogs never judge, do they? Not even when you’ve been the most unholy of dicks to their master.
“Hey,” I say, as Mike steps into the graveyard.
He moves slowly between the stones, his gaze drifting from inscription to inscription. I know he can’t read them. You and I examined every crumbling slab during our hours here and, even crouching up close, could only ever make out a few random words and dates. I wonder how many love stories have been worn away in the years since this place was abandoned. Their grief must have seemed as powerful and unique to them as mine is to me, and yet now their romances are forgotten. Ours will be too, one day. This should give me some perspective, I guess. It doesn’t. It’s still wrong that the world hasn’t stopped and broken into pieces because you’re no longer a part of it.
Mike takes the tombstone next to mine and hands me a thermos and something warm and delicious-smelling wrapped up in tinfoil. My stomach grumbles. While I unwrap my bacon sandwich, Mike fills two plastic cups with hot sweet tea.
“Have you been home?”
“Uh-uh.” The bacon’s salty and crispy and the nearest thing to heaven I’ve ever tasted. Mike lets me finish.
“You’re an unbelievable tool, Dylan. You know that, right?” I wipe my mouth and nod. “Okay, just as long as that’s clear.”
I feed Becks a bit of bacon rind. The sun is throwing long graveyard shadows and the mist is starting to clear.
“Mate, I’m sorry.”
He sighs. “All right. But you do realize what this calls for?”
“Dude, no.”
He licks his forefinger. “Take your punishment like a man, Dylan.” I sit perfectly still while he waggles a wet digit in my ear. Becks yips at us and chases his tail, wanting to show that he can pull off slapstick humour too.
“Am I still one of the Incredible Twat Brothers?” I ask.
“The twattiest.” He nods.
So I dive straight in. I tell him about my encounter with Raj, leaving out the part with George and the aborted BJ in the cubicle, because there’s only so much shame a boy can bear. Mike listens, fussing with Becks, throwing him bits of stick. Then I tell him about my renewed certainty that whatever scared you over the Christmas break must be connected to the thing that freaked you out at the Easter dance. He nods, thoughtful, so I know these aren’t just drunken ramblings.
“I should get home,” I say. “Another page from the journal might have turned up. You know, it’s crazy, but it doesn’t feel as if this thing only started two days ago. It feels like I’ve been receiving these pages forever.”
Mike shoots me an uncertain glance. “Dylan, you know that none of this is going to bring El back.”
“Jesus, Mike.” I stare at him. “I get that I’m an idiot, but I’m not that stupid.”
He runs a hand under his baseball cap and fixes his eyes on the old church, the western elevation black as night in the morning glare.
“I don’t know, mate. All this stuff, it’s like it’s freezing you in the moment. You’re not grieving, not properly. You’re—”
“Not moving on?” I don’t want to argue, not when we’ve only just made up; and anyway, I don’t have the energy for this. “Listen, I’m not letting this go,” I tell him. “I won’t ever stop, Mike, not until I find out what happened to him. If I don’t understand what scared him, I think I’ll go mad. But you don’t have to help me.” I reach out and rub his shoulder, and feel sharp bone where healthy muscle once sat. “I can do this on my own.”
He breathes deeply, and despite what I’ve just said, I feel kind of terrified, because I honestly don’t think I can do this on my own.
“Then we go on,” he says at last.
He puts down his tea and rummages in his coat pocket, bringing out his phone. “Now you’ve stopped being a colossal dick, there’s something you need to see.” He thumbs his gallery and brings up a blurry image. “You were so focused on El and that Raj kid that you didn’t see what was going on in the background of the shot. I tried to tell you in the bar, but you weren’t having it. Now look, I don’t know what this means, but it’s weird, right?”
He hands me the phone and points to a figure in the background of the video snapshot. At first I don’t understand what he’s trying to show me. And then I recognize the wavy hair that almost curtains his eyes, and that weirdly defensive way he always stands, one arm draped across his stomach. He’s half-turned away from El and Raj, as if he isn’t really interested in what’s going on. Except that would be odd in itself, because practically everyone else in the place is gawping at the show. And anyway, the act isn’t convincing, because Ollie Reynolds is filming the whole thing on his phone.
I turn to Mike and see my disbelief reflected back at me.
“What the hell does this mean?”
I sit on a tombstone, hands between my knees, breath billowing. There’s hardly any wind and the countryside all around is crisp and white and still. Even the abandoned church, which is always creaking and groaning, keeps its silence. I check the road for the fiftieth time. No car belching its way down the lane, bringing El back to me. I kick my toe against all the junk at my feet and pray he’ll show up soon and tell me what I did wrong.
For twelve days we were happy. Julia had started her treatment and was doing well, Ellis was working hard on his sculpture, and we were grabbing every second we could to be together. Twelve days of free periods when we’d race back to mine before my parents got home and tear off each other’s clothes. Twelve days in which we talked politics and movies and music and history and all the weird stuff I thought I’d never share with anyone. Twelve days in which we didn’t talk at all, but just lay there, lost in each other.
Okay, so we had the odd disagreement. El couldn’t understand why I didn’t want to tell my parents. He hadn’t met them properly yet, but from everything I told him I guess they sounded fairly cool. I just couldn’t make him understand what telling them might mean for us. Anyway, he accepted my decision and assured me that, whenever it felt right, he’d be there for me.
Then term ended and everything changed. We were supposed to meet the following day. The new Star Wars movie was out and I’d convinced El that adventures a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away were not just for little kids. In fact, they weren’t for little kids at all, and if some snot-nosed brat started talking during a lightsaber battle? Well, I would not be held responsible for my actions. El laughed and promised he’d be there.
He never showed. I called and texted. Nothing. It was weird. I thought about calling Mike and offering him El’s ticket, but two things stopped me: first, Mike hadn’t been feeling all that great and was off school the whole last week of term; and second, suddenly I was stupidly worried about my boyfriend. In the end, I abandoned the movie I’d been waiting two whole years to see and headed over to Mount Pleasant.
I wasn’t bothered about Julia being there because El had already told her about us, and of course she was cool. In fact she gave me this very random double Snickers bar as a coming-out present, even though I’m not out, and kissed my cheeks until it looked like I’d been mauled by a grizzly wearing Ruby Woo red (I now know heaps about lipstick, thanks to El). Anyway, I realized on the way over that Julia was on a late shift at the bakery.
The “123” on the door of 123 shuddered a little when I knocked. Just like with the phone, no answer. I was about to knock again when I glimpsed a shadow wavering under the door.
“El? El, it’s me.” The shadow froze. “Is everything okay? We were supposed to meet for the film, but if you’re not well…? Come on, El, this isn’t funny. Is it…” I tried to swallow but couldn’t. “Have I done something? Are you upset with me?”
Silent darkness under the door.
“C’mon, are you messing with me?” I tried on a grin but it slipped like water from my face. “Ellis, what have I done? Why won’t you talk to me?”
I’m Dylan McKee, I don’t make scenes, but right at that moment I started hammering on the door.
“El, please, just say something!”
But he didn’t, and in the end I had to stop because neighbours were poking their heads out of doorways and throwing glares at me.
Another twelve days passed, this time spent in hell. I texted and texted and texted, but the only messages I received were from Mike and a couple of kids at school asking about essay deadlines. So the days crawled by and I did what I could to reach out. I sent emails, even wrote a letter, and all the while the ingenious little torture device between my ears went into hyperdrive: Dylan, it was the sex. Hey, he tried his best, but there’s only so much he could do with a pure clueless virgin… Dylan, it was the comic-book stuff. You bored him rigid, and not in a good way… Dylan, it was you. Weird, klutzy, awkward little you. He came to his senses at last, that’s all.
I listened to these scenarios daily as I trudged over to my spot outside Mount Pleasant. Even on Christmas Day, I haunted the pavement while little kids wobbled their new bikes around me. And though I bumped into Julia a few times, who always said you were ill, always avoided my gaze, I never once saw you. I didn’t think then that I could ever be more miserable.
I was wrong.
The day after New Year I was sitting on Mike’s bed, beheading vampires, when I tossed the controller onto a pile of pillows and turned to him.
“Mike?”
“Yup?”
His tongue was clenched between his teeth as he executed a sweet headshot. I took the controller from him and he started to complain, then clocked my expression and frowned.
“Are you okay? Mate, what is it?” He turned his body towards me. It was now or never. If Mike ended up hating me, I wasn’t sure what I would do, but I couldn’t get out of it now. There was no revelation about myself that I could substitute and that he’d believe…because, you see, I was crying.
“I’m not straight,” I said.
He laughed, because how I’d said it was perfectly Dylan-ridiculous. Then he stopped abruptly and nodded.
“So you’re gay?”
“I am.”
“Are you sure?” He lifted a quizzical eyebrow.
“Why wouldn’t I be sure?”
He puffed out his cheeks. “I don’t know, bro, you are like the least stylish person I have ever met. Plus your dancing is atrocious.”
“Hey.” I elbowed him, grinning. “You know it’s kind of homophobic, presuming that all gay guys are amazing dancers?”
His smile faltered and he gave me a long look. “I’m sorry, Dylan.”
My heart went right through the floor. He was sorry. Sorry he couldn’t be my best friend any more? Sorry I was a freak? Sorry, but he’d pray for me?
“All those stupid jokes,” he sighed. “All that crappy gay banter stuff. Christ, it’s making me cringe, thinking back. You know if I’d had any idea, I would never…” And suddenly he was crying too and throwing his arms around me and crushing me in a typical Mike bear-hug. “I’m just so sorry, dude. Me being a complete moron must have made this even more difficult for you.”
“It’s okay,” I said, patting the blond head that was now tucked into my neck. “I accepted you as a complete moron when we were three.”
He laughed and drew back. “You know, whenever you want to come out, I’ll have your back. Any idiot messes with you at school?” He made a slicing motion across his throat. “And…” He made the same motion across his groin.
“You’ll cut their dicks off?”
“Damn straight. Or damn queer. Or whatever you prefer.” Then he dabbed a finger in his mouth and waggled it in my ear. “I love you, bro.”
“Thanks, mate.”
“So.” He let go of a huge breath. “Gay. Cool. Have you told anyone else?”
That was when it all came rushing out about me and El. As I recounted the early days of teasing and flirting and me retreating – or the Dance of the Dylan, as El liked to call it – Mike sat there with this cringing grin on his face. Then I reached our first twelve days of being boyfriends and, in my torrent, I let one or two pornographic details slip. Mike buried his face in a pillow and mumbled, “TMI, dude. T-M-fucking-I!” and I could feel the mother of all blushes sheet my face.
Then we came to the past week. Mike listened and slipped a hand around my shoulder.
“Bud, I don’t know what to tell you. El is a good guy. Honestly, I’ve got to know him a bit on and off the field, and I couldn’t have picked a better boyfriend for you. I just don’t understand.”
“That makes two of us.”
We sat there for a while, listening to Mumzilla downstairs practising for choir. Carol has this amazing melodic voice that I’ve always found really soothing. But not today.
“Dylan,” Mike murmured.
“Yeah?”
“As it’s a coming-out kind of day—”
I spun towards him. “You’re not!”
“Nah.” He gave me this sad smile. “But I do have something to tell you…”
I check the road for the fifty-first time and bolt to my feet. A beat-up old Nissan is trundling towards the church. My heart jerks against my ribs. I think back to the phone call this morning; the call where I could barely get the words out for crying.
“Ellis, please pick up… It’s not about us. It’s Mike… I don’t care if you don’t want me any more, but I have to talk to you. Mike. He’s…he’s not well. In fact, he’s really, really sick. Please, El… Please.”
“Dylan?” Your voice when you finally, finally called me back, enough to collapse me. “Are you okay? What’s up with Mike?”
I didn’t want to say that scary word, but somehow I managed it, and El went so quiet I thought he’d hung up. Then:
“I want to see you, Dylan.”
“Where?”
“You choose.”
So I stand at my tombstone, not daring to move. The car brakes. El gets out. He comes around to the front and – I can’t help it – I run to him.
He catches me and holds me tight, hands gripping all across my shoulders and back and neck as if he’s terrified I might slip away. And I know right then that all the poison my brain’s been spewing this past week or so is bullshit. He loves me. He does. I pull back and take his face in my hands. He tries to look away but I won’t let him.
“What happened?”
“I’m sorry.” His face screws up and I thumb hot tears from his cheeks. “It was the first Christmas away from my family, from my sister, and…I don’t know, I kind of lost it for a few days. Can you forgive me?” He cups my hand and kisses my palm, then looks sort of disgusted with himself, as if this was a cheap ploy. “Shit, what am I saying? I wouldn’t forgive me, so why should you?”
I want to believe him, I really do, but the way he vanished on me was just too extreme.
“I could have helped,” I say, turning and taking a couple of steps away. “Like I said in the billion messages I left, if you had something going on, I’d have been there for you.”
He catches up with me, grabs my hand. “I know. I know. I’ve been an idiot.”
“You have.”
We stand in silence for a time, just the skitter of leaves between our feet.
“Have I lost you?”
I shake my head and stretch onto tiptoes. A tear – his tear –
slides between us when we kiss.
“Are you sure you don’t want to tell me anything else?”
“No. No thank you.” He nods. “And I won’t ever shut you out like that again. I promise.”
And although I know he’s holding something back, I also know that’s all I’m going to get. Because, just like his journal, El has this secret space inside him that I don’t think he will ever let me into. It hurts my heart, but I guess I can live with the majority of him in my life. And the honest truth is, I’m a coward – I’m frightened that if I push too hard I might lose him forever.
“So,” he breathes, “Mike.”
We sit among the tombstones and talk. I give him Mike’s diagnosis and he holds my hand as I rehearse all my hopes and fears for my best friend. El can’t make this better, he can’t guarantee that Mike will be okay, but he listens and comforts and in doing so he does make it better. A little.
“We’ll see him through it,” he says. “He’s a strong mofo is Michael.”
After a while we get up and I collect the provisions I’ve brought along, just on the off chance that today would work out. El grins as I drop half the bags and trip over the rest, then glances up at the boarded doorway of the church.
“So what is this place?”
I stumble after him, throwing a bag his way. He collects it with ease.
“You have your Moodles and Doodles…well, this is my secret place. I’ve been coming here ever since I spotted it on a family bike ride. Don’t ask. We abandoned them after Chris blindsided my dad and broke his ankle. Anyway, I kind of thought it looked romantic so I started imagining all these histories for it in my head.”
“I bet you researched the hell out of it. Typical Frecks.”
Hideous Beauty Page 15
