Afire: Entire Blinded Series (5 page)

We were born for this—the way our bodies fit together and react confirms it
.

Ryan was where he needed to be, where he'd always wanted to be.

Sunday dawned bright but cold, the sun once again deceiving Ryan into thinking it would be warm outside. They'd eaten a cooked breakfast, packed up their bags, and now headed down the tree-lined path toward the village.

"We'll stop at Josh and Sue's to pick up my car,” Lee said, hands in pockets, large backpack bumping his spine. “They let me store it in their garage."

They didn't say much else, Ryan figuring Lee's mind was full of what was to come and the demons he had to face before he could put them to rest. Would he ever do that fully, or would some remain, taunting him at those times when he couldn't sleep, or in the idle moments when thoughts tended to run rampant? He didn't envy him the coming days, weeks, and months, but vowed to be there every step of the way. All it needed was for Lee to ask him to move to Biddingford.

Will he? God, I hope so, but if a long-distance relationship is all we can have, I'll take it.

Lee led him up the garden path of the house where Ryan had been given directions. Ryan marvelled at the way things worked out—how people came into your life for fleeting moments only to reappear later as more solid participants. Going by the greeting he received from Josh and Sue, he felt sure they'd become firm friends. He remembered his feelings toward Josh when he'd thought of him as Lee's lover, and once again shame burned inside him.

I shouldn't have been so quick to judge
.

Lee explained where they were going and why.

"You want me to tell the boss you're taking time off? Doubt he'll mind. Work's slow at the moment, isn't it?” Josh said.

"Yeah. I'll ring him myself tomorrow.” Lee scrubbed his chin. “But I need to get away today, and if he ends up giving me the sack, I've got a bit stashed away for emergencies to tide us over. I expect I'll be bringing Ryan back with me to live, eh Ryan?” He glanced at Ryan and winked.

Ryan nodded, his heart full and his mind going over what he needed to do before he could move in with Lee.
Shit, it's really happening!

In the car, with the road stretching ahead of them and the sun high in the sky, Ryan sighed with happiness. That road led to the end of some of Lee's suffering and the beginning of their new life, and he embraced the feeling of finally being where he should be.

"You all right?” Ryan asked, glancing at Lee.

Lee turned to him and smiled. “Yeah. I'm blinding."

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Dad fucked off years ago. I can't say I blame him really. Living with Mum is hard. She's a nutcase, I swear, ruling my life, telling me how she wants me to live it. But her way isn't my way. Her way is me finding a girlfriend and getting married, having babies, the whole nine yards. My way is being with Ryan, the guy who's been my best buddy since...shit, since we were little kids. I reckon Ryan feels the same way, what with him glancing my way when he thinks I'm not looking, the touches to my arm or thigh, designed to be taken either way. You know, man-to-man, matey kind of touches or...something more. We've never discussed it, so I don't know for sure, but I'd best my last quid—

"Lee? Get down here!"

Mum's voice, it grates on my damn nerves. She'll want me to clean up for her or go to the shop, be the good son I'm never likely to be. Not the one she wants, anyway. She'd have to gain my respect for me to act the way she'd like, but when you've had your arse unfairly tanned more times than you can count, respect kind of goes out the window.

I swing my legs off the bed and walk barefoot to my bedroom door, opening it a little to peer through the crack. There she is, standing halfway up the stairs, peering at me through the banister rails. Those curlers she puts in her hair, Jesus, they make her look so old, yet she's only forty-two. And the wrinkles around her eyes and mouth—some would say they're from laughter, but shit, they're from constant frowning and pursing her lips. At me. At anyone who doesn't meet with her approval. Oh, she's good at hiding that side of her personality, I'll give her that. She changes at the click of finger and thumb, depending on the company.

"Yeah?” I stare at her, willing the shudder ripping up my spine not to become visible. If she sees it, she'll start, and no way in hell do I want that. She'll accuse me of being a disrespectful little bastard, a pain up her arse, and any number of insults she can think of.

"I need milk.” She rests a hand on her bony hip, loose bingo wings flapping.

The blue flowery dress she favours disguises her thin frame, but underneath she's slim to the point of being unhealthy. Blue steely eyes bore into me, narrowed as though she's daring me to say I won't go to the shop. I want to say that, want to tell her to get her own skinny arse up there, but the reprisals just aren't worth it.

"Okay. Won't be a minute.” I close my bedroom door before she has time to say anything more. Talking to her isn't something I enjoy. Being in her company...well, let's just say I'd rather not.

She's prickly at the best of times. Like a rose stem, she's got thorns all over her, and you've just got to get lucky and touch the smooth bits. But, man, if she turns too quickly, you get stabbed, and she hurts.
Hurts
.

I slip on my trainers, grab my jacket, and pick up my phone, texting Ryan to see if he fancies a walk. He might not be back from work yet, but it's worth a shot. Message sent and jacket on, I swing open my door to find Mum still standing on the stairs, glancing at her watch. She looks up and frowns, shakes her head as if she can't believe how long it's taken me to come out of my room. A spike of hate pokes inside me. I wish I didn't have to live here. Wish I earned enough to rent someplace of my own, but in reality I haven't got the guts to leave anyway. A lifetime spent in fear does that to you, wondering what she's going to say, how she's going to react. Whether the thorns are going to jab, jab, jab, drawing blood.

"You won't be long, will you?” she snaps, waiting until I'm on the step above her before she shifts her arse downstairs. She waits at the bottom, back plastered to the wall, like me touching her as I brush past will taint her in some way.

Damn, she's already tainted. Doesn't need any help from me.

"Nope.” I walk out the door and inhale deeply, the fresh air like heaven compared to the cloying atmosphere indoors. She has the heating up so high I can't breathe sometimes. Maybe she's trying to kill me off.

I laugh, a dry-sounding burst that pains my throat, and walk down the road, my mind on Ryan and whether he's going to text back. I could do with the company, the laughs he gives me, the way he has the ability to make me light up just by seeing his face. We're close, always have been, yet I haven't gone into too much detail about Mum. I'd feel like I'd betrayed her if I did, and it's strange I should feel like that when she doesn't give a shit how she makes me feel. Well, she does—she enjoys making me feel bad—but what kind of mother does that?

I shove thoughts of her from my mind, walking with my head down and my hands in my jacket pockets. It's nippy, the autumn air cold on my ears and cheeks, and I wonder what she'll send me to the shop for when I get back. Oh yeah, she'll think of something while I'm out, and I'll obey and get what she wants. Again. Easier that way. Anything for a quiet life.

My phone beeps, and I take it out of my pocket and look at the screen. Laughter rumbles in my chest. Ryan's asking if this is my first trip to the shop or the second. I reply, and he comes back with the message that he'll meet me when I come out again. He's on the bus on his way home from work. Home to his own place, one that his parents helped him find,
and
they paid the first month's rent too. Nice couple, Jan and Derek, and I've wished they were my parents on more than one occasion.

Smiling, I keep walking and think on times past. Times spent at Ryan's house when we were kids, rough and tumbling in the back garden or playing computer games in his room. It seems like he's always been there, but there used to be a time when he wasn't. He arrived in school the new kid aged seven, the teacher clasping his shoulders and pressing him into the seat beside me. He'd been crying, that much was evident, his eyelashes wet and his red cheeks streaked with fresh tears. My stomach had contracted, I remember it as clear as day, and from that moment on I wanted to protect him, be by his side so no one could bully him like I was—at home and at school.

Shit, when I think about it, if Ryan hadn't been in my life I'd have had one sorrier motherfucker of a childhood. A loner before he walked into my class, I'd kept myself on the outskirts of life, there yet not, participating yet having nothing to do with it at all. I reckon the other kids knew I was different even back then, taunting me for my out-of-fashion clothes and embarrassing hairstyle. Kids, they can be so cruel, and some of them remained so even after we left school. Bastards.

I look ahead at the sky. A peachy-orange slash of pastel floats on the horizon, the blue of earlier dissipating as darkness makes itself at home. What I wouldn't give to be up there now, on a plane to anywhere, landing in a place where no one cares who or what I am, free to express myself. I'm stagnating, I know that, and risk going mouldy if I don't get the hell away. Ryan suggested I move in with him, but I declined, thinking it'd add fuel to the fire, the blokes from school getting confirmation that we're ‘bent'. I am fucking bent! I'm proud of it but can't admit it out loud.

A sigh gusts out of me, one that burns my lungs through lack of air, and I breathe in, wishing for the millionth time that things were different, that I'd grow a set of balls and tell them all, finishing off with “And fuck you if you don't like it!” But it isn't that easy. Not when you've grown up in the same town your whole life and everyone knows your shit before you even know it yourself. Fuck, I hate it here.

The swoosh of tyres brings me out of my thoughts, my attention now on the road. I wait for a space to cross, but the cars are coming thick and fast, bumper to bumper, and I'm mad if I think someone will stop and let me go. Still, hope's always there, isn't it, and I wait, knowing no fucker will slow down, knowing she's at home counting the minutes. It'll give her something to rant at me for once I get back. Never happier when she's got a bee in her bonnet, that one.

The line of cars thin out, and I take a chance, running across the road between two. A horn blares, and I fight the urge to give them the middle finger, instead reaching the other side and walking on, head down again. Ryan pointed out once that I always walk like that. Reckons I should hold my head up more, straighten my shoulders, and be proud of who I am. I don't want to harp on about the crap I've endured, but fuck, it's damn hard to act confident when whatever confidence I had has been knocked out of me.

My thoughts stray to Dad, to how things were so different back then. Always smiling, that man, despite how hard it must have been living with Mum going on at him every five minutes. Mind you, there
were
times he
didn't
smile. I'd catch him, mouth downturned, frowning, the lines on his forehead so sharp they looked like knife slashes in Playdoh. Poor bastard never won an argument, and in later years he didn't bother to try. I must have been about ten the day he left—a Saturday if I remember right. His bags piled up in the hallway gave me a clue he was going, but the eruption of harsh words earlier in the day had been the first inkling it wasn't one of their usual arguments. Mum's icy tones accusing him of having an affair, Dad's weary responses that he wasn't, never had, but wished he fucking was. I'd widened my eyes at his words, amazed he'd had the bollocks to utter them, and hugged myself while sitting on the sofa, attention focused on those bags.

He hunkered down in front of me, hands on my knees, skin warm against my own, what with me having a rip in my jeans from climbing trees with Ryan. I stared at the grass stains on the fabric covering my thighs. The swatch of deep green faded at the edges to yellow. I thought about Mum belting my arse over it later. I remember betting she'd really go to town. Dad wouldn't be there to protect me, and I didn't care, just didn't fucking care. She could hit me all she liked. Nothing would hurt as much as seeing my old man's eyes staring at me, moist, like he was holding back tears.

"I'm gonna have to go, son. I can't stay here anymore.” He sighed so hard, the breath reaching my face, and I wished for his arms about me, my face pressed against his chest, Dad's hand smoothing my hair and easing my worries. His fingers tightened on my knees, a quick squeeze that wasn't enough, didn't do anything much to dispel the fear inside me, the panic that unfurled in my gut and sent me lightheaded. “I'll work out something with your mum, for when you can come and stay with me, all right?"

I nodded, tears burning, and looked away, out the window to where kids played football on the green. Their shouts and hoots proved our lives were so damn different right then. I envied them their parents, ones who stayed together, ones who made home a safe place. Ones who didn't argue, their screams and jibes searing, hurtful, wounding.

Dad stood, leaned over and ruffled my hair, and I hugged myself tighter so I didn't jump out of my seat and grip him around the waist. I should have done it, I know that now—and damn that saying about hindsight!—but I remained in my seat as he walked into the hallway. He hefted a couple of bags over his shoulder and stepped over the others, the sound of the front door squeaking open so fucking loud it seemed to fill the house. Mum, she was upstairs, probably cursing the day she'd married Dad, telling herself she was better off without him. That he didn't deserve her, and why hadn't she listened to her parents all those years ago? Hadn't they predicted this outcome? Hadn't they told her Dad wasn't the right one for her? I frowned, knowing even at my young age that it was the other way around. Dad was better than she'd ever be, and there he was, back in the hallway, picking up a bag in one hand and a suitcase in the other. He glanced through the doorway at me, his expression one of utter sadness. My bottom lip wobbled. I ground my teeth together, silently cursing and relishing doing so, something Mum wouldn't have abided had I screamed those words aloud.