Ollie staggers backwards at the first blow, tripping over the loose footballs. He almost regains his balance but then Mike punches him again and this time Ollie hits the deck. At first I can’t seem to move. I just stand and stare as Mike presses his advantage. I don’t care what happens now. In fact, I’m enjoying the show.
And then I hear you, stern in my head: Stop it, Frecks. Stop it before it goes too far. You’re right, El. This isn’t like how you schooled Alistair Pardue at the bonfire – that single, smart, prove-a-point punch. This is manic and I love Mike too much to let him do this, both to Ollie and to himself. It takes all my strength but I manage to scoop Mike under the arms and drag him away.
We all take a minute. Mike and I standing together, breathing hard, Ollie on the ground, bleeding, shaking. After a while I go over to him and help him to his feet. He wipes his nose on his bare arm and stares at the blood.
“Is it broken?”
He shakes his head. He’s hurt but he seems to accept the hurt.
“Ollie…” I close my eyes then open them and stare at him. “What the hell?”
He looks at us with such a face. I don’t know. Even Mike has to turn away.
“I liked him,” he sobs. “I liked him, that’s all.”
Mike looks skyward. “You idiot.”
“I know,” Ollie says, touching his cheek and hissing. “I know… It’s why I broke up with Gemma. El, he made me realize. I don’t mean we had some big talk and I had a eureka moment about myself. Not that. It’s just, when I looked at him, I felt these things that had only been, I don’t know, like background shadows before. Maybe I kept them that way on purpose. My parents…” A single tear tracks down the side of his face. “They drag us to church every Sunday, and then it’s prayers every mealtime, and I just always knew what they’d say if I ever turned out to be… And so I made-believe I wasn’t. You know, you can convince yourself of anything if you try hard enough. But then El. He just…”
“Bursts in.”
Ollie looks up and gives me a smile that makes me want to hug him. I don’t, but still.
“Yeah. I think ‘bursts’ is the word. There was no hiding any more. Not from myself anyway. So I called it off with Gemma. I thought I was being noble, not using her as my alibi. I wasn’t ready to come out so I told her I wasn’t good enough for her, some crap like that, but I think she knew what was really going on. You can’t hide the stares when you’re obsessed with someone, can you? On the field, in class…”
This echoes so much of those klutzy days before El and I got together it almost feels like an invasion. I thought I was the only one stealing glances.
“She knew why,” Ollie continues, “so all I got from her afterwards were these little innuendos. ‘Oh, Ollie, yeah, I guess I was too much of a woman for him.’ Crap like that. She had some grief with El before we broke up, so this just added to her hating him – though how any of it was his fault, I don’t know. Gemma logic,” he grunts, then suddenly tries to reach for me. My hand flies out, pushing him away, and he nods. “Dylan, can you understand? He was everything I wanted to be. Out and proud and brave. But I’m not brave. I know my parents would just sit me down and say they still love me, and then we’d get together with our pastor and I’d get the talk: You’re confused, Oliver. God never made you this way. Now let’s pray for His guidance.”
“Okay,” I say, “but they wouldn’t break your teeth and throw you out, would they? El had it harder than any of us, and he was still El.”
“I didn’t know that. About his family…” He balls up his hands like a frustrated child trying to understand. “I was obsessed, okay? And I know it’s mad, but yes, I started following him around. Taking pictures and… God, I’m sorry. It sounds so weird.”
“It is weird!” Mike snaps.
“What do you know about anything?” Ollie shoots back, but there’s no anger in his words, just a sadness that I recognize all too well. “When you can’t be all of who you are, I think it does things to you. Twists you somehow. Drives you crazy. I know what I did was wrong, but even to have his picture… And following him was my way of building up some courage.”
“To do what?”
“To ask him out? To tell him how I felt?” He shrugs. “I don’t know. Eventually I did get my shit together, the day before the Easter dance. It was after practice and we were joshing about, just us two, putting some gear away. I leaned in and he… Dylan, he told me no. I knew about you two by then, of course.”
“How?”
“Like I said, I followed him about. You were careful, but there’s only so much hiding you can get away with. I saw you together one night out by the old Megadeal supermarket.”
My breath catches. I remember:
It’s March, long after the weirdness of Christmas and just before the Berringtons’ barbecue, and you’re taking your life in your hands. You’re teaching me to drive. Not a single obstacle in the abandoned car park, yet I’m certain I’ll hit something. On the Nissan dashboard, the gangsta-elf-on-the-run seems to be winking at me.
“Ignore him.” You reach across from the passenger side and plant a hand over the wicked imp. “Hands at nine and three on the steering wheel. Then mirror, signal…”
My foot jolts against the accelerator and we bunny-hop to a standstill.
“Manoeuvre.”
I shrug. “At least I didn’t hit anything.”
“I’m afraid you did.” You look down into your lap, gaze full of sorrow. “Frecks, I’m sorry to tell you this, and it will affect your no claims bonus, but your reckless driving has bruised my dick.”
I arch an eyebrow. “Is this some kind of fake claim?”
You make this little outraged “O” with your mouth. “I am shocked and offended. I swear, your honour, on the holiest of holies that the seatbelt cut right into my package and I am now in mortal fear that my dong will drop off. Unless…” You smile mischievously. “…it gets some emergency attention.”
“Well,” I say, shrugging off my seatbelt, “you are the instructor…”
I stare at Ollie. “You were there that night?”
He closes his eyes. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to—”
“So El rejected you,” Mike cuts in. “Just finish it.”
“I misinterpreted stuff, all right? It was just El’s normal kindness, I know that now. But I thought he was flirting with me and I…I put my heart on the line. That sounds lame, but it’s true. I tried something and he put a stop to it.”
“Why didn’t he tell me?”
“He knew me and Mike were friends,” Ollie says. “He probably didn’t want to make things awkward for everybody.”
“But you didn’t take El snubbing you well, did you?” Mike says.
“You want the truth? I hated him for it.” Ollie wraps his arm around his stomach, a defensive gesture that reminds me of Mr Denman. “I’d already dumped Gemma and she was spreading shit about me. I was jealous of what you guys had, Dylan. And I just felt so…lonely, I suppose. All I could ever think about was El – so when he shot me down, yeah, I wanted to vent. I followed you that night onto the school roof and… Well, you know the rest.”
“But Ellis must have known it was you,” Mike says, “or suspected anyway, when the video was put on Instagram.”
“Maybe he did. I thought he would and so I stayed away from the dance.”
“You wanted to punish us,” I say quietly. “Because we were happy.”
“No, Dylan. Because I was unhappy.”
I nod. It kills me to admit it, but I understand. If I’d been in Ollie’s place – and I could quite easily have been – then… I don’t know.
“And this was why you were so defensive of Dylan at Gemma’s party?” Mike says. “You felt guilty.”
“I’d like to think I’d have stood up for him anyway.” Ollie nods. “But yes, I suppose.”
“And the flowers and the card at the lake?” I ask.
He’s sobbing again, quietly now.
“If I hadn’t posted the video you wouldn’t have felt forced to come out, Dylan. And then El wouldn’t have taken you to the dance to make that big show of being together. You’d never have been on the road later and the accident…” He draws back and covers his face with his hands. “It’s my fault. I killed him.”
“You didn’t kill him,” I murmur. “You hurt us very badly, Ollie, but you didn’t kill him. Don’t carry that weight around, it isn’t yours.”
His fingers part and I almost break. I don’t hate this kid…but no, I can’t forgive him. I just need to close the book on Ollie Reynolds.
“Is there anything else you want to say?”
“No,” Ollie says quietly. “Except…Dylan, I know I was obsessed with him. I think in a way he inspired obsession. Not deliberately, not consciously; he was just Ellis. But maybe being Ellis could be a dangerous thing. Obsession can turn to hate. It did with me.”
Mike and I leave Ollie alone on the field and traipse homeward. Mike’s knuckles are raw and bruised, but he doesn’t complain. While we walk, Ollie’s words float around in my head. You inspired obsession, El. Is there some clue in that? Some larger message that I just don’t understand yet?
We’re at my door and Mike looks like he’s about to drop.
“Mate,” I say, “are you okay?”
“Yeah.” He shakes his head wearily. “I’ve texted Mumzilla to pick me up. She’ll be here in a sec.” He claps my shoulder and sets off down the drive.
I feel like collapsing too. I watch until Carol draws up and give them both as cheery a wave as I can muster, then I take a deep breath and head inside. It’s time for the McKee showdown, invitation by fridge door. I don’t really know what my parents want to say to me, but I feel certain it must end with my bags packed and at least a night or two on Mike’s camp bed.
The hall’s empty. I dump my coat on Mum’s alien sculpture and wander into the kitchen. I’m drifting over to the kettle with vague thoughts of tea when I see the post lying on the countertop. A familiar brown envelope pokes through the heap. The third envelope in three days. Will this one finally give me the answers I need?
My hands don’t shake this time. I’m too tired to be nervous. I rip open the envelope and a single yellow sheet flutters out. I unfold the carefully torn-out journal page and your artwork stuns me, as always. This time it’s a series of Disneyesque cartoons. In the first panel an exaggerated, red-faced version of my father is outside your door at Mount Pleasant. He’s jabbering away while you stand before him, shaking your head as gluts of money pour from his lips. In the next panel, you’re weeping, thrusting the money back at him, and then Julia is there beside you, indignant, furious, screaming at my father to leave…
Our front door opens. I hear Mum and Chris bustling through with shopping, then Dad’s voice following them, asking if they’ve bankrupted him again. They all chuckle. Ha-de-fucking-ha. And then the chatter stops. They’ve seen me, but I can’t turn and look at them because my eyes are resting on the last panel of the cartoon. You, alone in your beautiful bedroom, holding your bleeding heart in your hands. A price tag is attached to it: £100.
“Honey?” Mum says. “Are you okay?”
“Dylan?”
“Bro?”
I turn around slowly.
“What did you do?” I say. And when they don’t answer, I scream it: “What did you do?!”
“Frecks, you’re being silly. I think we should just tell them.”
We’re catching a quiet five minutes in Mike’s kitchen, sitting around the breakfast table that’s been the scene of a kajillion Marvel vs DC action-figure wars. Because practically everyone he has ever met loves Mike, there are about two hundred people in the Berringtons’ huge garden, all bearing gifts for the birthday boy. As it’s weirdly warm for mid-March, no one’s even close to the house, so I lean in and grab a kiss.
“Don’t push your luck,” I tell El. “I agreed to you meeting my incredibly lame kinfolk today on the basis we’re friends.”
“And I agreed to leave the pearls at home. Which feels all kinds of weird, by the way.”
I hold his hand to my cheek. I hate this. Asking El to adapt because I’m too much of a coward to allow him to be himself in front of the people I love. It’s wrong and selfish, but I can’t seem to get past this pathetic version of myself. Other than this, things couldn’t be better. It’s two-and-a-bit months since the Christmas weirdness, and although it still bugs me that El won’t fully confide, I’m ridiculously happy. Just spending time with him is sort of magical (I know, barf bags ready) and the sex is pretty freaking awesome!
So okay, it was awkward and klutzy at first, but the second, third and every other time has been amazing, mainly because El is a very tender teacher, and I guess a slightly embarrassing and slightly painful first experience goes for straight sex as well as gay (not that I ever plan on finding out). Anyway, last night is still playing on a loop in my mind, not because it was ultra-romantic or anything – the gearstick stuck into my backside and left a bruise – but it was still pretty hot for a Friday night in an abandoned supermarket car park.
At that moment Mumzilla and Big Mike bustle in, bickering in that adorable Berrington way of theirs. Seeing them laden down with boxes of burgers from the freezer in the garage, El jumps up to help.
“Thanks,” Carol smiles, then turns to her husband. “I swear to god, Michael, you did not tell me you’d invited your idiot running-club friends. Now it’s going to take at least an hour to get all these extra people fed, and I just…”
Big Mike plants a kiss on Mumzilla’s brow. “Light of my life, can we agree to differ? We have company. So, Dylan, are you going to introduce us?”
I turn from unpacking a stack of burgers. “Oh. Course. This is El. Ellis.”
Big Mike grins. “I’m kidding. I know this guy. Carol, I want you to meet one of the most spectacular strikers ever to grace Ferrivale High. Honestly, bit of a rough patch before Christmas, but you guys really pulled it out of the bag in the new year. It’s just a shame Mike couldn’t…”
His smile becomes tight and the crinkles around his eyes deepen. Carol steps forward and rubs his arm.
“Mike’ll be out there with us soon enough,” El says. “We actually really need him, so after his last chemo session, I’m not accepting any excuses. It’s practice with me, one-on-one, every day after school.”
Big Mike rubs his eyes, then slaps his hands together. “Right,” he announces, “burgers.”
El and I pitch in with Mumzilla cutting rolls, while Big Mike hooks his Hot Stuff Comin’ Thru apron around his neck. There’s a picture of these impossible abs on the front, and Big Mike knows his son finds this mortifying, so of course it has to make a birthday appearance every year. El chatters away to Carol as we slice, joking and lifting the mood. When he goes to the bathroom, Carol nudges my elbow.
“I love him.”
I stare at my pile of rolls. “Oh, you mean El? Yeah, he’s cool.”
I can feel her watching me, and when I dare a sideways glance she wrinkles her nose and gives me this impish smile. So my surrogate mum knows, and I’m one hundred per cent certain Mike hasn’t told her. Mumzillas have psychic powers, it seems. Anyway, she’s sensitive too, so changes the subject.
“How’s my little dude doing?”
Mike is now a head taller than Carol, but he’ll always be her little dude.
“He’s playing Subbuteo with some of the footie lads. He seems in good spirits, doesn’t he?”
She stops handing me rolls and places both palms flat on the counter, then nods, head down. “Thank you, Dylan.”
“Don’t be silly.” I nudge her. “I’m only cutting bread. Although it is cool you trust me with a knife again after the ninth birthday A&E incident.”
“You daft apeth. I mean thanks for coming to his chemo sessions. They’re hard days for him, for all of us, and you sitting with him all that time, making him laugh…really, I don’t know what we’d do without yo
u.” El walks in at this point to find both me and Mumzilla blinking hard. Carol gives this shivery laugh and holds out her hand to him. “Thank you, both. Mike told me how you’ve been a good friend to him too, Ellis.”
She draws us into a huge hug. And with my arms wrapped around my boyfriend and my second mum, I take a moment to imagine how easy everything would be if I really was a Berrington. I certainly wouldn’t waste another minute of my life pretending. I’d tell Carol and Big Mike everything and I know there would be zero awkwardness, just laughter and love and support.
“Anyway,” Carol giggles, “stop helping. Go play.”
“You know we’re not eight any more, Mumma Z?”
“You’ll always be eight to me, Dylan.”
We’re about to head out the patio door when Big Mike sticks his head in for more rolls. I say I’ll grab some and tell El to go see how Mike’s doing. He gives me a scout’s salute and I walk with Big Mike onto the terrace.
“How’re your folks, Dylan?” BM asks. “Has Chris got a job yet? You know, I’d kill that boy if he was mine.”
“The position of Chris-assassin is open and very well paid,” I tell him.
I stand with Big Mike for a moment behind his pride and joy: a gleaming barbecue of almost impossible size. We chat about my school work, plans for uni, my love life. It quickly becomes apparent that Big Mike does not possess the mind-reading abilities of his better half. Anyway, I’m just telling him about El’s amazing 3D collage project, a replacement for the harpy sculpture he junked just after Christmas, when I see my boyfriend in deep conversation with my parents. My blood freezes.
“Gotta go,” I babble, and launch myself across the terrace.
I take the steps down to the garden three at a time, my gaze never leaving that terrifying huddle of four standing by Mike’s old trampoline. I dodge between Berrington family friends I vaguely know, smiling as best I can, when Gemma Argyle steps into my path.
“Gemma,” I breathe. “Hi.”
“Dylan McKee.” So it seems she’s finally learned my name. She presses a gaudy yellow and pink flier into my hand. “Easter Dance. Couple of weeks’ time. Be there. It’s for a good cause.”
Hideous Beauty Page 17
