The Sky Is Dead (20 page)

“No.” I walk away as quickly as I can, furious at him out of all proportion.

“David, wait up, what’s wrong? I thought you’d love it if we stayed together?”

I can hear the hurt in Jack’s voice but…. I stop suddenly, turning to face him. “You can’t just change your whole life on the basis of one fling.”

Jack stares at me with huge eyes. “Fling? Is that all I am to you? I thought you loved me.”

I shake my head. “It’s too much, Jack. You don’t know me. You think I can deal with this? No, no, no.”

“David….”

“Leave me alone.” I walk off as fast as I can, desperate to get away.

Why don’t these people understand? They’re stripping away every layer of independence I have. I’ve got nothing left. Nothing of me, and nothing of Danny/David—whoever the fuck I am.

I can’t go back to the flat. Briefly I contemplate going to the park, but my chest hurts too much. Instead, I go to the one other place I feel safe.

Ben looks up as I walk in through the shabby door. “Hey, David.” He seems about to say something else, and then he catches sight of my face.

“Need to talk?”

I nod tightly, holding myself together with an effort.

Ben looks over to one of the girls behind the counter. “Kisa, take over here, will you?”

Kisa nods, looking at me curiously. I don’t recognize her.

Ben leads me into the office and offers me the armchair. I sit down on the edge. Ben sits on the office chair and looks at me expectantly.

“I can’t do this,” I burst out.

“Do what?” he asks.

“This. All of it.”

“David, take a deep breath and start at the beginning. What’s happened?”

“I….” Ben waits patiently as I try to collect my thoughts. “Jack wants to transfer over here to a local university. Mary wants me to see a psychiatrist. You want me to start school.”

Understanding dawns in Ben’s face.

“You feel trapped?” he asks.

“You have no idea how I feel,” I yell. “Everyone’s making decisions for me except me.”

“No one can force you to do anything,” Ben says gently.

“It doesn’t feel like it.” I wrap my arms around myself, feeling like I’m going to fly apart at any moment. “I was free in the park.”

“David, I know how you feel. You know I do.”

I stare at him blankly. “I need to get away.”

“Running away isn’t going to help. You need to talk to people, and you’re going to have to listen to people as well.”

“No one is listening to me.”

“Yes, they are, David. You’re just not talking. All you do is burst out when they suggest something.”

I laugh sharply. “Jack wasn’t
suggesting
.”

“Jack’s eighteen. He’s still a kid and overenthusiastic. He’s thinking with his dick.”

It’s the last thing I expect to hear coming out of sweet and gentle Ben’s mouth, and I say so.

Ben shrugs. “I remember that age. I’d just discovered what it was for, and I was determined to use it.”

“It doesn’t help that I’m being hassled on all sides. I need a break, Ben. They all tell me what to do, what to wear, when to fuck. I can’t breathe.” And then I really
can’t
breathe, and I’m clutching my chest in pain.

Ben’s at my side immediately, rubbing my back in small circles. “Okay, you just calm down, David. I’m going to handle this with you.”

There’s a knock at the door and Kisa pokes her head around. “Ben, Mary’s on the phone, looking for David.”

Ben looked up. “Tell her David’s fine, and he’ll be home later. He’s just giving me a hand with the new cupboards.”

“You don’t look so good, David,” Kisa says. “Panic attack?”

“That, and a chest infection,” Ben agrees.

“Okay, I’ll tell her.” She nods and closes the door.

“She’s a good worker,” Ben says.

I slump against the back of the chair. A short attack this time. I should be relieved.

“I think you need to see the doctor again,” Ben says, moving back to his chair. “I can hear your chest rattling from here.”

“They said if I got pneumonia again, it would kill me.”

“You’ve had two months in the dry and warm, and spent most of it asleep. You’re not in the same position you were in last time you were taken into hospital. Let me call Doc Roberts.”

I shake my head, not wanting to disturb the poor man. “It’s New Year’s Day. Let him have the day off.”

“He’s on call for the shelter,” Ben says as he reaches for the phone.

“I’m not one of the clients anymore.”

Ben looks at me seriously. “Yes, you are. Until you’re settled at Mary’s house, you are one of my clients.”

“I am settled,” I protest.

“No, you aren’t. If you were, you wouldn’t be having a panic attack and running back here.”

“I’m fine,” I say, and then I spoil it by coughing so hard I end up doubled over, holding my stomach as I retch.

Ben waits until the coughing fit subsides, then hands me a drink of water and calls the doctor. The conversation is short and sweet, and within twenty minutes, Dr. Roberts is listening to my chest for the second time in three days.

He frowns as he takes his stethoscope out of his ears. “You need a chest X-ray,” he says. “Did the antibiotics help at all?”

“I don’t think they’ve had a chance to,” I say.

“You need to have your sputum tested and have a chest X-ray. With your history, we need to get you back to hospital.”

“I’m fine!” I stand up, ignoring the fact I feel like shit.

Ben presses me back into the chair. “This is not telling you what to do. This is saving your life. David, you can walk out that door, but there’s a chance you’ll die without proper medical attention. Everything else can wait. Jack, the psychiatrist, Mary and Sylvia. All of them can wait. Go to the hospital and get checked out.”

Dr. Roberts keeps quiet while Ben gives his speech. When Ben falls silent, the doctor looks at me. “You coming?”

I nod. What else can I do?

As we leave the building, Jack rushes up to the door. His brown hair is plastered to his red and sweaty face.

“David, where are you going? Talk to me?”

Ben deliberately steps between me and Jack. “David needs to go to the hospital to get his chest checked out.”

“I’ll come with you,” Jack says immediately, trying to step around Ben.

Ben opens his mouth to speak, but I hold up my hand. “Not now, Jack. You don’t need to spend the day looking after me. Go home. I’ll call you when I get back to Mary’s.”

Jack steps forward and grabs hold of me, screwing up his face with worry. “I want to come with you. I made you run off.”

I lean forward and kiss him, a gentle brush of lips. His mouth clings to mine. “It’s not your fault. I was being an idiot. Let me get this X-ray over and done with and we can talk.” I don’t tell him I might end up being admitted again. He doesn’t need to know that. I’m starting to realize there are limitations to my love. I can’t take on his issues as well as my own.

He steps back. “If you don’t call, I’m coming to the hospital,” he warns.

I bite my lip. I might have limitations, but this boy is going to bulldoze through them all.

“Jack, let’s get David sorted, and I promise one of us will call you,” Ben says.

It’s obvious he’s reluctant to let me go, but he steps back as Ben guides me to the car.

“Call me,” he mouths as we drive away.

T
HE
hospital keeps me in—surprise, surprise. Bronchitis and pneumonia. I’m hooked up to an IV and told to sit, stay. Woof!

To be honest, I’m so tired and emotionally knackered by the time I get through A&E and into a bed, I don’t have the energy to do anything else except sleep. I don’t even have the strength to be worried about the death sentence the doctors laid upon me last time.

I can’t say I’m particularly surprised to see Jack sitting beside the bed when I wake up. He’s reading a book and doesn’t notice immediately I’m awake.

“Hey.” My mouth is dry and it comes out as more of a croak, but Jack looks up, a smile across his face.

“Hi. You’re awake.”

“I’ll get back to you on that. How long have you been here?”

“Half an hour.”

I roll over, wincing as the stent pulls in my hand, and look outside. It’s already dark. “What’s the time?”

“About six.”

“Shouldn’t you be at your grandmother’s?”

“Yep.” He sounds odd and he looks away.

I sigh. “You in trouble?”

“Yeah. Grandma is annoyed with me.”

“You should be there,” I say as gently as I can. I don’t want him to get into trouble with his family because of me, and I don’t want to fight with him.

Jack pulls up a chair to the bed and reaches out to hold my hand. His skin looks very tan against mine. “I know this scares you, but you are more important. You are my lover, and we are going to be together forever.”

“You’re eighteen and just a kid. You can’t say things like that.”

He looks fierce as he holds on to me even tighter. It hurts, but I don’t want him to let go of me. “What do you want me to say? I feel like I’ve known you forever rather than just a week.”

“You don’t know me.” It sounds weak and pathetic even to me.

“And whose fault is that? You’re so fucking full of secrets, David.”

“I’m….”

He glares at me so fiercely I shut up. “You’re going to lie there, and get better, and I’m going to sit with you, and we
will
be together. Do you understand?”

I look into his tired eyes, and suddenly I realize this boy is determined to keep me. Me. Loser. Hooker. Jack or Harry, he doesn’t care who I am. He just wants me. I don’t believe it will last. I don’t have that naïve innocence he does.

Jack leans forward, holding my wrist tight. “I lost my mum. I’m not going to lose you.”

And then maybe he isn’t so innocent after all. He has lost, and now he knows what he wants. Jack wants me. Why am I putting up such a fight? I have a home, I have a family of sorts, and I have Jack.

I yawn suddenly and his face softens. “Go back to sleep, David. I’ll read for a bit and go home for dinner. Then I’ll be back this evening.”

“You should see your friends.”

Jack shakes his head. “I’ve seen them. Tonight I’m spending with you.”

I close my eyes, aware he’s still holding my wrist. Jack’s lying, of course. He has no intention of going home. He’ll be there when I wake up. He’s a Klingon.

“A Klingon? You think I’m a Klingon?” Jack sounds really offended.

I open one eye. “Did I say that out loud?”

He nods, and then he shrugs. “I don’t mind being your Klingon.”

“Do I get a choice?”

Jack brushes my ear with his lips. “No. After all, I am yours… sir.”

A smile curves my lips. Jack is mine. I like that idea.

Epilogue

August 2012

I
WAIT
.

The silence is overwhelming in the tiny room. I don’t dare look at his face—haven’t, in fact, since I started my story. Jack hasn’t said a word, hasn’t tried to interrupt. Not even a gasp at some of the less savory parts.

Jack speaks eventually. “You knew it was me.”

“Yes.”

“All this time you knew I was Harry.”

“Yes.”

“And you never told me that the boy in the park—
my first love
—was you.” The words come out on a breathy gasp, and I can tell he’s fighting back tears.

“No.”

“Would you have ever told me?”

I sigh, and decide to be honest, even if it means losing Jack for good. “Probably not. No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I never want to remember what it was like to be that boy.”

“Even if it means forgetting me?”

I look up then, making sure he can hear the sincerity in my voice. “I will
never
forget you,
never
. You were the only shining moment in three years of misery.”

“But not enough to tell me the boy who looked after me for so long, who gave me my first blow job, the one I treasured in my heart as my first, the one I
told
you about….” Jack runs out of breath before he can finish the sentence. Or maybe he just runs out of strength.

I reach out a hand to hold his, trying not to show how hurt I am when he flinches away. “Jack, please….”

“Please what?” he roars, getting to his feet. Then he’s leaning over me, anger radiating from every pore.

It’s my turn to flinch. I’ve never been scared of Jack, even though he’s much bigger than me. The willowy youth has been replaced with a man of solid muscle, born of many hours at the gym. But after the hours of talking about my past, I’m vulnerable and he’s too big as he looms over me.

“You think I’m going to hurt you? Me? I’ve never even… God!” He runs his hand through his hair, leaving it sticking up in all directions. “I would never lay a finger on you, David, you must know that?”

“I do,” I admit quietly. Jack’s the gentlest man alive, and he would never hurt me physically.

“Then why did you flinch away from me?”

“I don’t know. I thought… just… you were so angry. I was scared.”

His face crumples at my words, and Jack falls on his knees in front of me, burying his face in my lap. I stroke his head, smoothing his hair from where he’d ruffled it before, murmuring soothing noises as he shakes with pent-up emotion.

“I thought I’d never see you again. I just wanted to say thank you for everything you’d done for me. It all happened so fast.”

“It wasn’t your fault.” Hell, I don’t blame him for disappearing. The poor guy lost his mother in a car accident and then was shipped off to America by a father who didn’t know which end was up. Jack’s father is a good man, but his handle on his son’s psyche is tenuous at best.

Jack raises his head, his large green eyes filled with tears. “Why didn’t you tell me it was you?”

“I thought you’d recognize me, and when you didn’t, I thought maybe it was for the best. Why would you want anything to do with a bum like Danny? In the beginning, I was going to tell you and then it got harder and harder to be honest with you. And we’d been together for so long I thought you’d forget about Danny and just concentrate on me.”