Falling (19 page)

The knock on my door a few minutes later makes me jump.

Oskar.

“Is Angus here?” he asks with a frown, shifting from foot to foot on my doorstep. “He’s not home, and he’s not answering my texts.”

Oskar is wet and shivering, and I could easily invite him in and make him a hot drink and some toast. But I don’t. I shake my head.

I need to worry alone.

Despite that, an hour later I find myself perched on the arm of the sofa with my phone in my hand looking up Soren’s number. I’m not sure if I want to call him. He’s just going to think I’m being ridiculous, surely, but for the first time in my life I feel like I need a friend. I need someone to interrupt my spiraling thoughts, to tell me to snap out of it, tell me that I’m worrying for nothing.

Angus is eighteen, and old enough to do as he pleases. I just have a feeling he wouldn’t want either Oskar or me to worry. Plus he has no other friends nearby that I know of. I know he left me a message, but I think he would have checked his phone again by now and seen all the missed calls and the texts Oskar and I have sent him—though batteries die, phones get lost, and networks go down, so I tell myself I can’t be too worried about that.

But I am worried because of how we left things. I am worried I upset him this morning. I’m worried I pushed him away too far. And I’m worried because
he
was worried. I may be paranoid sometimes, but I’m enough of a realist not to jump to the conclusion that Angus has been kidnapped or anything. Though the thought is there, lying in wait, biding its time.

I just don’t know what to think. Because for the first time, it feels my focus is wholly outside myself—I couldn’t care less about
me
. What I want or feel or think or do no longer comes first. My worldview has shifted, my heading subtly altered course.

“O
H
MY
God!” Soren answers his phone with an explosion of sound. “I’ve seen you use phones, but I never actually thought you’d put that skill to use to phone me!”

“Don’t be a dick, Soren.” I run my hand down my face. I can’t seem to control the shaking any other way. My stomach is churning and I think I might throw up.

“Everything okay?” he asks, suddenly serious. Despite his tendency to gravitate toward the center of attention, he is at least perceptive.

“I’m worried about Angus.” My voice won’t rise to above a whisper.

“What happened?”

“Nothing, he just… he hasn’t come home. His exam finished hours ago, and he’s not answering his phone. Oskar hasn’t heard from him either.”

I wander into the kitchen and turn the lights off. I feel safer in the dark, more dreamlike, less real.

“It’s 45 Conyers Road, right?” Soren says, reeling off my address.

“Yeah.” I’m not sure what I’m agreeing to.

“I’ll be there in twenty.”

S
OREN
DOESN
’
T
drive—I don’t know why, I’ve never asked—so I don’t recognize the black saloon that pulls up outside. Before he gets out, I see him lean over and kiss the blonde girl driving, and I assume she must be Lucy, his girlfriend who, despite Soren’s continuous invites, I’ve never met. Downstairs I pause outside Angus’s door before letting Soren in. He’s wearing the same clothes he had on at work, though his impossible energy seems a bit more controlled. Dampened, maybe.

“Hey,” I say. I try to smile as I hold the door open, icy rain hitting my skin. “You didn’t need to do this, you know.” I’m being polite, and Soren knows it.

“You don’t reach out to people much. I’d be a pretty shitty friend if I didn’t turn up in your hour of need.” Soren rolls his shoulders. I get the feeling he wants to hug me, but I know I’m giving off don’t-touch-me vibes.

I must look like crap. I certainly feel it. If Angus walked up that path right now, I would be utterly relieved for about a minute and then completely embarrassed about my behavior for hours.

Please walk up the path right now, Angus.

U
PSTAIRS
, I
make us both a drink of hot chocolate. Though I don’t drink mine, I just grip the warm cup, feeling as though the world is spinning around too fast.

“Why in here?” Soren asks curiously, looking around.

I know he means the walls. The porn.

“I like to jack off in the kitchen, what can I say?”

I mean it to sound more wry and less depressing, but I just feel too heavy.

This was always the answer I planned to give should anyone ask. Anyone except Angus, who got the truth.
That beauty pleases me.
And these scenes are beautiful. Every one. To me anyway. The ones I wrote are just words on a page. I work in a shoe shop, and I don’t have any creative flair, but the things they describe, yeah, in my head it’s beautiful.

Soren leans against the table, his long caramel hair falling in his eyes as he sips his drink.

“When did you expect him back?”

“I missed his call this afternoon about half three, and he left a garbled message, but neither Oskar nor I have been able to contact him since. He’s normally home when I get in from work after six. He waits in the hall for me. And he has his phone with him at all times.” Especially now because of Eleanor, in case someone from the hospital rings.

I
should ring the hospital, make up a lie so Eleanor doesn’t worry. Or perhaps that’s where he has gone. Perhaps the hospital has called with an emergency… but surely, if anything were wrong, the hospital would have rung me too. Angus made sure we were both on the contact form.

Soren looks at his watch. There is a clock on the wall behind him. It’s about half nine.

“I’m being ridiculous, aren’t I?” I say. A part of me wants him to laugh at me and tell me yes, of course I’m being ridiculous. The other part of me wants him to confirm that something isn’t right here.

Soren shakes his head. “It’s out of character, I agree.”

“You think I should be worried?” I run my hands through my hair and get up, trying to take a deep breath.

“No, I didn’t say that. But you seem, I don’t know… is there something else? I mean, did something happen between you?”

I shake my head, then hear myself mutter, “I slept with him last night, and I didn’t handle it very well this morning.”

“Oh.” Soren gives me an infinitely knowing look that I can’t bear.

“It wasn’t like that. I would never use him.”

I walk over to the window and look out at the starry dark.

“So what went wrong?”

“Nothing. It was good.” I cringe inside at how much of an understatement that is. It was fucking
amazing
. “But when I woke up beside him this morning, I couldn’t handle it. It was too much, and I think I might have pushed him away.” I turn around and close my eyes, my hands gripping onto the cold kitchen counter behind me, needing something solid to hold on to. I definitely pushed him away. “I just needed him to go. I was overwhelmed. I needed to get my head around it. It wasn’t like I just chucked him out or anything. But he said he was scared that once I’d shut my door, I wasn’t going to open it to him again.”

“You think he might have taken what happened a bit hard?”

“I don’t know. He surprises me all the time with how levelheaded he is about things, like dealing with his mum. But then Oskar came into the shop to tell me that Angus is absolutely terrified that someone is watching the flat, and he doesn’t want to be there on his own.”

I can’t believe all these words are spilling out of me. That I’m finding words to describe the things that are worrying me. And more than that—crazily, it seems to be
helping
.

Moving toward me, Soren puts his hand on my shoulder, and I immediately shrug it off. It’s one step too far.

He sighs.

“It’s normal to be worried, Josh. Thousands of parents probably feel like this every night when their kids don’t turn up ’til late.”

“Jesus, Soren! I’m not his fucking parent, okay! And I don’t want to be his fucking parent! And how is any of this normal? Nothing I’m feeling is normal!” I glare at him. “Don’t look at me like that, like you know exactly what’s going on in my head. You have no fucking idea.”

Soren raises his eyebrow, completely unfazed by my outburst.

“You’re in love with him.”

My eyes go wide and I open my mouth to snap something like
You have no idea how I feel
, but the words won’t come, and Soren’s mouth works much faster.

“Josh, I won’t believe you if you deny it.
Look at you
, for God’s sake! When you love someone, you worry about them. It’s normal…. It’s fucking horrible, but it’s completely, completely normal. I
do
know how you feel. I worry about Lucy all the time. More so now we’re trying for a baby.”

Shocked, I stare at him. With one sentence, Soren has managed to completely knock the wind out of me. Soren just shrugs as though he’s told me he likes to go to Ikea on Sundays. And all I can think is Soren,
a father
. As I think about it, it strikes me that he’d make a pretty good one. And him laying off the weed suddenly makes complete sense.

“Might be a good idea to make a list of places he could possibly have gone,” he carries on calmly. “And close your mouth,” he adds, looking secretly pleased by my reaction. “It’s not that shocking that I want to reproduce.”

S
OREN
GOES
downstairs to talk to Oskar and check the flat while I phone the psychiatric hospital. I ask if Eleanor’s okay and if Angus has been in to see her. The duty nurse checks the visitors’ book, but although Eleanor’s fine this evening, Angus has not been in to see her.

It doesn’t make any sense.

But if Eleanor’s okay, I see no point in making up a lie as to why he’s not been in, so I hang up.

When Soren returns it is with Oskar in tow. Oskar is worried too. Soren is beginning to look like he’s in his element.

I phone the college to check Angus actually turned up at his exam, but the place is closed at this time of night and all I get is an answerphone message to call back in the morning.

I pace the flat, feeling better that we’re doing something, but worse that Angus still isn’t home. And I don’t feel as willing to let my guard down around Oskar, so all my thoughts are churning around inside me.

“How about his dad’s?” Oskar asks.

“Why would he go there?” I say dismissively.

After everything he told me the other day and how unhappy he seemed, I can’t believe he’d want to go back there.

Soren gives me a quizzical look.

“He doesn’t get on with his dad,” I explain.

I don’t know how much Angus has told Oskar, but that afternoon Angus took me to see his old house feels like a precious secret, and I’m not willing to share any of it with them.

“Yeah, I don’t get on with my dad, but I go to see him in the nursing home every Sunday. He’s still my dad,” Soren says matter-of-factly. I wonder if he’s just feeling the whole family thing or if that’s the way things are for most people.

I
DON
’
T
really want to go and see Angus’s dad, but it’s the only solid place we manage to come up with. If I am going to go, I want to make the drive on my own. Soren doesn’t think it’s a good idea, but when have I ever listened to anyone else? He walks with me to my car. Oskar watches us from my living room window.

“Sure you don’t want me to come with you?”

I shake my head. My hand is on the car door handle.

“It’s going to be okay, Josh.”

“Don’t,” I whisper. “You can’t know that. No one can.”

This time when Soren puts his arm around my shoulders, I don’t push him away.

T
HE
RAIN
turns into sleet. The half-frozen droplets smearing across the windscreen make it difficult to see. I try not to think about anything as I’m driving, but it’s hard.

I’m scared Angus’s disappearance is triggering something deep inside me, something I have no hope of controlling. Even more terrifying is the fact that I don’t think I really care as long as I find him before it happens. Nothing is more important than him being okay. After that, the emptiness is welcome to consume me.

Dark street turns into dark street. I don’t really know where I’m going. In the end I think I find the estate mostly by sheer luck rather than out of any sense of direction. After passing a few hooded, faceless figures, I remember to lock the car doors. But it’s not a priority anymore.

The house that Angus told me he grew up in is imprinted on my memory even in the dark.

T
HE
STREET
is full of cars. I park in the mouth of an alleyway at the end of the row and walk. I don’t anticipate this taking long. If Angus is there, he’s there. If he’s not….

Ghostly white light flickers through the living room curtains into the front yard. I rest my hand on the gatepost, knowing as soon as I put my foot on the path, there is no going back. The hum of television chatter floats in the air, the sound interrupted by the distant crack of cheap fireworks that don’t even reach above the rooftops, though I still smell the acrid smoke they give off drifting on the breeze.

I peer in at the living room window. The eerie television light is still dancing between the shadows. The curtains don’t quite join, and through the narrow gap, I can see part of a sofa with a shoeless foot hanging off it.

My fingernails dig into my palm as I make a fist and knock on the front door. The door hinges look recently lifted and inexpertly fixed back down again, the reinforced glass window smashed. I’m unsurprised when there is no answer, but still hopelessness wells up inside me—a wall of darkness I cannot surmount.