Boys Don't Cry (27 page)

‘Run away, Emma,’ I tried to tell her telepathically. ‘Or else brace yourself. Aunt Jackie is about to descend.’

I took a couple of steps, then stopped. What was it Aunt Jackie had said?

You men can’t stand to ask for help
. . .

It struck me that I wasn’t the first guy to be a single dad at eighteen and I certainly wouldn’t be the last. But there wasn’t an awful lot of information out there written specifically for us. Maybe . . . just maybe I could do something about that? I shook my head, putting the idea on a back burner.

At this precise moment, I had more urgent things to worry about.

It was evening before Dad arrived back home, and thank God he wasn’t alone. Adam was with him. I was surprised to see my brother back home so quickly, to be honest. I thought they’d keep him in overnight at the hospital at least. But I guess they needed the beds. I studied Adam but he didn’t really look any different. Unlike Dad. Dad looked beyond tired, like he’d aged at least five years.

One of Dad’s favourite sayings crashed into my head:
Another five years off my life
. . .

Only this time, it wasn’t even close to being funny. I remembered when Emma had almost tumbled down the stairs, when she’d banged her fingers with the toilet lid, when she’d fallen off the end of the slide in the children’s playground.

Five years off my life
. . .

I wondered with a wry smile, would people be immortal if they didn’t have kids?

‘Hey, Adam,’ I said.

‘Hi, Dante,’ Adam replied faintly.

‘Adam, are you OK, love?’ asked Aunt Jackie, emerging from the sitting room carrying Emma.

‘I’m fine.’ Adam didn’t hang around to answer any more questions. He headed straight up to his room.

‘What happened at the hospital?’ I asked Dad.

‘They pumped his stomach and gave him some kind of charcoal concoction to stop him absorbing any more into his bloodstream,’ Dad replied. ‘Luckily he took the tablets early this morning. If he’d taken them late last night and then choked . . .’

Dad didn’t need to say anything else. He looked up the stairs after Adam, like he was at a loss as to what to do next.

‘I’ll go and speak to him, Dad.’ I started up the stairs.

‘No, I should . . .’ Dad began.

‘Please, Dad. Let me,’ I said.

Dad sighed. ‘OK. God knows I’ve tried but I just can’t seem to reach him.’

I headed upstairs. Knocking once, I entered Adam’s bedroom. He was back in his chair looking out over the back garden.

‘Hey, Adam.’

‘I don’t remember inviting you to come in.’ Adam didn’t even turn around to look at me.

I sat down on my brother’s bed. ‘How’re you feeling?’

‘My throat hurts,’ Adam replied. ‘And I’m really not in the mood for another lecture.’

‘I wasn’t going to give you one,’ I denied.

‘Good, ’cause I just want to be left alone.’

No. Not any more. ‘I read Josh’s letter,’ I said.

Adam stiffened for a moment. ‘You had no right.’

‘Neither did you.’ And we both knew I wasn’t talking about reading Josh’s letter. ‘Tell me something. Did that
letter have anything to do with . . . with what you did?’

Adam finally turned round to face me. ‘Dante, I can’t live like this,’ he said. ‘Look at me. Look at my face.’

‘You are more than just your damned face. There is more to you than that!’ I shouted at him. ‘Is that why you did it? Because of how you look?’

‘No.’

‘Then why?’

‘Because Josh was right, Dante. What’s the point? When you get right down to it, what’s the point?’

I looked down at my lap trying to frame the right words.

‘The point is, you have a family and friends who love you. You have a world out there just waiting for you to conquer it. You have a life that will be anything you make it. That’s the point.’

‘But the world is full of people like Josh who hate everyone – including themselves – because it’s too much effort or they’re too scared to do anything else,’ sighed Adam.

‘And how are the cowards who live like that your problem?’ I asked.

‘Dante, don’t you get it? Look at my face. Take a good look. That’s how they’re my problem.’

And I did take a look. I clenched my fists and took a good look. My lips clamped together and I took a good look. My eyes narrowed, and still I looked. Anger, like a trapped bird, flitted inside my chest. Anger at Josh and Logan and Paul, anger at the whole world. Anger at myself.

‘That’s why you can’t let them win, Adam,’ I said at last.
‘That’s why you’ve got to keep getting up when they knock you down. But you don’t just give in.’

‘Dante, I’m tired.’

‘So am I. D’you think this is where I saw myself at eighteen? D’you think this is what I wanted? But I’m not giving up.’

‘’Cause you have someone to fight for. You have Emma.’

‘So do you,’ I replied.

‘It’s not the same. And I’m scared, Dante.’

‘Everyone’s scared, Adam. If this last few months has taught me nothing else, it’s taught me that.’

‘But you’re not,’ said Adam. ‘You’re like Dad. You get on with life, no matter what it throws at you.’

I laughed harshly. ‘Are you kidding me?’

‘What’re you scared of?’ Adam asked, surprised.

‘Damn, we’d be here until well into the next century if I went through the entire list,’ I told him. ‘I’m afraid of being a father. I’m afraid of being a bad father. I’m afraid of not being able to support my daughter properly. I’m afraid I might never meet a girl who wants a relationship with me ’cause I have a daughter to look after. I’m afraid that if I put my dreams on hold I might never get them back again. But most of all, I’m afraid of what will happen if Melanie returns and she wants Emma back. I dream about Melanie coming back and taking my daughter away and I wake up in a cold sweat.’

Adam got up and walked over to sit next to me. ‘Don’t let her. Take her to court if you have to.’ He frowned.

I sighed. ‘Melanie is Emma’s mum.’

‘Yeah, but Melanie abandoned her and you’ve been a great dad.’

‘Have I? I came that close’ – I put my thumb and index finger together and held them up for Adam to see – ‘that close to losing it and hitting Emma earlier today.’

Adam stared at me, shocked. ‘But you didn’t?’

‘I didn’t. I walked away. But that’s something else to be afraid of. I’m scared of turning into the kind of low-life scumbag who hits his kid,’ I admitted.

We sat in silence for a while.

‘You know what else I’m afraid of?’ I asked.

‘What?’

‘Losing you.’

Adam looked away from me and down at his hands which were twisting in his lap.

‘Please don’t ever do that again,’ I said quietly. ‘What on earth came over you?’

‘Jealousy.’

‘Huh?’

‘Emma came in my room, she kissed my cheek and hugged me and then you both left – and I was alone again. And I’ve never envied you before, Dante, but when you left with Emma, I was so jealous.’

Pause.

‘Adam, I’ve been jealous of you my whole life,’ I admitted.

‘You have?’ Adam said, surprised. ‘Why?’

‘You’ve always been a glass half-full kind of guy. My glass is always half-empty. And you’ve always been able to see the best in people. I’d hate to see you lose that.’

‘Maybe I’ve lost it already,’ Adam whispered.

‘I don’t believe that. I don’t believe that for a second.’ I shook my head, adding with a wry smile. ‘According to Aunt Jackie, your trouble is you’re being too much of a man. You think you can’t ask for help and that you have to go through all this alone.’

‘That’s how I feel,’ Adam admitted.

‘Oh, Adam, you’re not alone. Don’t you know that?’ I said, my eyes stinging. ‘But that’s what you wanted to do to me and Emma and Dad. We’ve already lost our mum. Not a day goes by when I don’t think of her. But you obviously don’t give Mum a second thought.’

‘What the hell are you talking about?’ Adam said furiously. ‘I think about her every day. I miss her every second. You and Dad think that I was too young to remember when she died, but losing her was like having a hole shot through my heart.’

‘Then how dare you?’

‘Huh?’

‘You remember what it was like to lose Mum and yet you wanted to inflict more of the same on Dad and me? You wanted to leave us behind to try and go on without you?’

Adam stared at me as my words sunk in.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said softly, looking down at his hands again.

‘Adam, look at me.’ I waited until he lifted his head and looked me in the eye. ‘Adam, you’re my brother and I love you. Very much. I don’t want to lose you. I couldn’t bear it.’

Adam’s mouth fell open. He was staring at me like he’d never seen me before.

‘It means that much to you?’ Adam asked in wonder. ‘I mean that much to you?’

‘Of course you do, you super massive arse hole!’

‘You’d better lower your voice before Dad charges up here thinking something is wrong,’ said Adam, the merest trace of a smile on his lips. ‘Potty-mouth!’

‘It’s not funny, Adam,’ I said.

‘I know. I’m sorry, Dante. I won’t do it again.’

‘Promise me.’

‘I promise. You’re not going to lose me.’ Adam smiled. His hand moved up to my face. He wiped his hand across my cheeks. When he pulled his hand away, his fingertips were wet. Only then did I realize why.

‘Don’t you know that boys don’t cry?’ Adam grinned.

‘Shall I tell you something I’ve only recently discovered,’ I replied, not attempting to hide the tears rolling down my face and not the least bit ashamed of them. ‘Boys don’t cry, but real men do.’

My brother and I hugged each other. It was spontaneous and simultaneous and it felt really good.

‘I guess I’d better go and help with dinner,’ I sighed. ‘Will you be OK?’

Adam nodded.

‘Are you going to join us downstairs?’

‘I . . . maybe tomorrow.’

‘Definitely tomorrow. OK?’

‘OK,’ my brother agreed.

‘I’ll bring you up some food on a tray,’ I said.

‘Thanks,’ said Adam.

I headed for the door but was reluctant to leave.

‘Adam, I . . .’

‘Dante, I’m not going to do it again. I promise,’ said Adam. ‘You’re going to have to trust me.’

‘I do.’

Glancing down, I noticed the bathroom mirror was still leaning against Adam’s wall. ‘I’ll just take this away.’

‘No, leave it,’ said Adam.

After a moment, I left the room, quietly shutting the door behind me.

The moment the door shut, I leaned back to retrieve Josh’s letter from beneath my pillow. I hadn’t been lying to Dante about throwing it away. I did chuck it in the bin unread the moment I realized who it was from. But after a minute or two, I’d fished it out of the bin again. And I read it and reread it, waiting for the words to stop hurting.

But they hadn’t.

Now my initial intention was to read it again, but once I had it in my hand, I was reluctant to even unfold it. I didn’t want to read it any more but I wasn’t capable of throwing it away either, at least not yet. In the end I buried it at the back of my bottom drawer, beneath a couple of jumpers I hadn’t worn in years. The letter had brought back so many thoughts and feelings that I thought I’d dealt with.

Too many.

I’d taken the first couple of sleeping pills each night when Dad gave them to me, but after that I reckoned I didn’t need them any more. And I never did like taking tablets, so I just collected them in some tissue paper and pushed them to the back of a drawer. But Josh’s letter
and Emma’s visit had knocked me flat again. Not that I’m blaming either of them, and certainly not Emma.

She was so lovely. And I realized as she hugged me that it was the first time I’d been held in months. It was no one’s fault but my own, but at that moment I’d felt so incredibly alone. Like I’d been buried alive and had a ton of loneliness smothering me, crushing me. I missed my friends, I missed school, I missed my life. The world was happening outside my door and I wasn’t a part of it. And more than ever, I missed my mum. I missed being held and kissed and comforted by her. Whenever I was hurting she’d hug me until I felt better. But she’d died. And the hugging had stopped.

I’d lain awake all through the night just thinking how everyone, including me, would be so much better off if I wasn’t around. And then all the pain and the loneliness would stop. And early this morning, I’d remembered the sleeping pills . . .

It was a stupid thing to do.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

I’d realized that as I fell asleep. Tears of intense regret had escaped from my eyes as I’d lain in my bed, my head on my pillow, my eyes closed. I’d thought of all the things I had and all the things I would now never have because I’d taken those pills. I really had thought that was it.

But I’m still here.

I’m not sure if Dante believes my promise that I’ll never try that again. But I do mean it. I’m not going anywhere.

I sat, surveying my room. The cream walls which had comforted me over the last few months now seemed
claustrophobic and oppressive. I walked over to the mirror, still resting against the wall. My right eye drooped and my right cheek still had a couple of noticeable scars. But only a couple.

Hell! I was still standing. Ha!

Opening my door, I headed downstairs. I heard voices coming from the kitchen. Aunt Jackie’s was the loudest as per usual. And I could hear Emma laughing. I love to hear her laugh. Something else I’d missed all these months. Taking a deep breath, I entered the room.

‘Hi, all.’ I smiled. ‘D’you mind if I join you?’

Dammit! Adam’s voice was so unexpected it actually made me jump. I stared at him like he was a ghost or something. And I wasn’t the only one. Emma regained her composure before the rest of us.

‘Unckey,’ said Emma, toddling towards him, her arms outstretched.

Adam scooped her up, grinning at her. ‘Hiya, Emma. How’s my favourite niece? The rest of the family are doing really great impersonations of goldfish at the moment.’

My mouth snapped shut.