This is Not a Love Story (31 page)

Maybe I was being naïve earlier, and it’s not my old life that’s shattering to pieces at all. Maybe it’s Julian that’s falling to pieces, here, in my arms, and how can I ever be strong enough to hold him together?

Eventually, his breathing becomes steadier, and I feel his lips move warmly against my ear. The sensation is so much what I’ve missed and craved and ached for—I want to pull him down on top of me, tumble into some netherworld of touch and feeling—that I almost don’t hear his words.

“You don’t owe me anything, Remee,” he murmurs, trying to hide the pain in his voice by speaking quietly. “Please, please just go back to them. You deserve more than this.”

I grip him tighter, but I can’t stop the words searing whitely, cutting deeper than they should because it feels like he’s trying to say good-bye.

How does he think I can leave him like this? Doesn’t he realize I think
he
deserves more than this too?

He pulls away to look at me, his hand shaking as his fingers touch my cheek in a single hesitant gesture. I blink back my tears and look away, too upset to try and sort my feelings out, to try and convince him how wrong he is about this right now.

We clean ourselves up as best we can—I don’t touch my side. I’ll sort that out later—and we go back out into the cafe.

The food is cold, and Julian’s words are still echoing around my head, but I sit down and eat methodically, without tasting a thing, until it is gone. Out the corner of my eye, I see Julian slowly eat the toast and then the bacon. But I know that this isn’t all that he needs. That his shaking isn’t just from hunger.

I don’t look at him until he has finished. Instead I text Crash.

I’m coming back,
I write, my fingers moving stiffly across the keys, knowing I am forcing a choice I might later regret.

I ask him what bus I need and what stop to get off.

He texts back immediately, and I can sense how happy he feels through his words.

Julian watches from across the table, though he pretends not to—I can tell this hurts him.

I pile our plates together and help him up. He doesn’t ask where we’re going. And although he doesn’t outwardly protest as I lead him to a bus stop on the river, I feel the resistance in him.

The motion of the world outside is a blur I don’t recognize anymore. Everything has lost its meaning. The weight I feel threatens to crush it all.

We are not alone at the bus stop, but I don’t pay any attention to anyone else. There is just him and me, and I have things I need to say, and my heart aches that he will understand. I push him down into one of the uncomfortable red plastic seats and stand in front of him.

You said I don’t owe you anything, but that’s a lie, and more than that, you owe me!

His tired eyes widen at the direction I’m going in, and his drawn expression tenses. But I hold my nerve. I can’t pretend that beneath my relief to have found him I’m not angry with him, that I don’t want him to fucking know that, because I am and I do. And I need to touch the surface of it before it starts to consume me.

You promised me that you’d be there.
I shake my head as his hand reaches out to me. I don’t even bother to wipe away my tears.
That you’d do anything for me.

He nods, hurt, and then looks at me, really looks at me for the first time, and I know the traffic, the people, the whole fucking world has vanished for him too.

I don’t want him to ever stop looking at me like that.

I’m not getting on this bus,
I sign.
Unless you get on it with me and you stay with me tonight. If you want to go in the morning, I won’t stop you. After everything, you owe me this much.

I fold my arms stubbornly, trying to appear as strong as my words, but tears are still rolling down my cheeks. This is it, all I have, and if he doesn’t want me….

Julian drops his head, and for one awful second I think he’s going to say no, but instead of saying anything, he pulls me into his arms and rests his head against my stomach—so, so careful of my side.

I can’t bear the thought of anyone ever knowing me like he does.

The bus comes, and we get on it.

I pull him with me down the aisle, and we tuck ourselves away on the worn back seats, the floor sticky beneath our feet. Closing his eyes, Julian wearily rests his head on my shoulder, and I put my arm around him and pull his skinny frame against my good side. His chest rises and falls shakily but steadily beneath my hand—I don’t know where we are with one another, but this, at least, is a start.

London moves slowly beyond the window; the black fumes of the traffic stain the air. If I never saw this place again, I don’t think I’d miss it.

Without wanting to, I start to worry about what I have just done. There are no guarantees that Kay and Peter will want to take in yet another homeless kid, even for a night. I don’t even know whether Pasha is still with Crash, though I can’t imagine Crash letting them turn him away. And I expect Estella will have to be involved.

And even if they do let Julian stay for the night, what then? What becomes of us tomorrow in the cold light of morning? What do I do if he just wants to leave? I said I wouldn’t stop him, but they were just tiny words, and the promise I made to myself to always be there for him is much, much bigger.

E
VEN
IF
Crash weren’t standing on the pavement, leaning against the sign indicating the bus stop, I would have remembered it from this morning.

Whatever happens, I will never forget this treelined street, its huge set-back houses, the unreal expanses of green under the endless gray of the sky. I feel calmer and more contained amongst all this green than I have ever felt before in my life. I’m starting to realize maybe I need it in a way I never imagined I would need anything apart from my drawing. Not neat manicured lawns and well-clipped hedges maybe, but wilder places I’ve never been—forests, copses, woods, glens—the quiet, ancient beauty they contain, more a feeling than a fact, something to banish the dead weight of concrete that has crushed me for so long. Somewhere free.

We pull up alongside the pavement, and Crash anxiously scans both decks of the bus before he sees me and his face relaxes. And all at once I am struck by how very different he is from the boy by my side, how young and full of boundless energy, a force always moving forward, never looking back, strong enough to erase whatever mark the streets left on him. Whereas Julian’s energy is more inward, always thoughtful and serious, his warmth a light that has shone in so many dark places, his need to take on the weight of the world his most damaging attribute. And his pain will never be gone. The scars are too deep—like mine.

We step off the bus, gripped at once by the frigid air. Crash smiles brightly—though that brightness dims ever so slightly when he sees Julian pressed against my side, barely able to hold himself up.

Immediately, Crash steps forward to help, hooking his arm around Julian’s waist and taking his weight.

I feel Julian tense at his touch and pull himself upright, removing Crash’s arm.

“I’m okay,” he says quietly, though it takes him some effort, and he can’t hide how much he’s shaking.

Crash nods, looking embarrassed, and steps away.

This is Julian,
I sign.

I guessed,
Crash signs back quickly.

They glance warily at one another, and I’m shocked at the slight fizzle of tension, like a crackle of static electricity flickering between them, as though they don’t know quite what to make of one another and have to be on their guard.

I didn’t expect this.

Reaching out his hand, Julian grips the signpost. I watch him, worried he’s going to fall over.

Are you okay?
Crash signs at me, frowning.

Fuck, he’s staring at his coat.

Yeah… I’m sorry about your coat.
I chew my lip, not sure I want to tell him about the knife that went through it.

Don’t worry about it,
he signs.
Is that blood?

I shrug uneasily.
How’s Pasha?

Sleeping, back at the house.

“Pasha?” Julian asks, confused.

I nod, not wanting to relive the moment I found him down there in that dark, cavernous room but not being able to stop. It terrifies me how close I thought he was to being gone—though not as much as when I thought Julian
was
gone when I found him. I never want to go through anything like that again.

I found him this morning under the embankment, freezing and sick. I thought he was dying.
My gaze flicks out to the road, unable to meet Julian’s eye as I sign that word.

Distressed, Julian rakes a shaking hand through his hair. I just want to get him inside.

“Is he okay?”

I think so. Crash brought him here.

I see Crash nod on the edge of my vision, his soft hair falling across his eyes.

“I told him not to go back there. I told him to go to Cassey,” Julian mutters, more to the uneven pavement than to us.

But whatever was said, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that Pasha is here, safe.

The sky is brightening, but it’s still so cold, and Julian’s clothes are not warm enough, and he’s not well enough for us to be stood out here like this.

Taking a deep trembling breath, I sign to Crash,
Julian needs to stay here too tonight.

Wide-eyed, Crash looks between us as though he doesn’t know what to say.

Nothing is going like I imagined. I thought he would have anticipated me asking this.

Kay called Estella about Pasha. She’ll be here soon.

My stomach fills with something heavy and turbulent. He knows I can’t ask him again. I look away, afraid he’ll see how anxious his words have made me.

When Estella gets here, everything will have to be official and complicated, and I know she’s just doing her job, and she wants to find kids like Pasha, like me, somewhere to live, but it’s not enough to fill out all the correct paperwork and tick all the fucking boxes. And I know sending Pasha with Crash was a shot in the dark, but I just hoped…

…I don’t know what I hoped, just that it’d be simpler than this, that we’d have more time.

Worst of all, she’ll probably want to ship Julian off to some shelter too, and that will be it. He will be gone.

I feel helpless.

This is all going wrong.

My side begins to throb painfully, but I grit my teeth. If Estella finds out I’m injured, she’ll want to know why.

I take a deep breath of clear, grassy air. There are hardly any cars around. I can hear the birds and the quiet snatches of silence that follow their calls.
It’s okay,
I tell myself. Julian catches my eye. I don’t know whether he feels nature calling to him like I do, but I want to show him.

No one talks for a while. It’s as though we’re all finding our equilibrium.

Crash eventually turns to Julian, and I can see he’s trying.

“Do you want to come and get cleaned up, then?” he asks in his careful way.

Thank you,
Julian signs.

Crash points up the pavement to where I know there is a gate hidden in the dark tangle of hedge.

Briefly, Julian’s gaze flicks over mine. Behind the cool front he’s trying to show the world, I can see he feels helpless too, only for different reasons than I do, and I want to wrap my arms around him and bury my face in the warm skin of his neck and let him know it will be okay, that
we
will be okay, just as he used to tell me.

But it doesn’t always work like that. There is no easy fix, though I wish there were.

We follow Crash up the street and through the garden gate. Julian’s movements are stiff and uncoordinated, as though every step hurts. Cautiously, I put my arm around him again, comforted by the fact he doesn’t push me away. But also scared by the distance between us that makes me think he might.

The mist and rain have left the garden such a deep, resonant green; it’s as though all the music inside me is, for once, in the right key, and the smell of the trees and grasses is so pure it affects all my senses, and I feel I am seeing things clearly for the first time. Nothing like the downpours we have lived through in the city, the gray rain sluicing across the dirty streets, stirring up the griminess but never taking it away.

I know I’m no longer the only one feeling as though I shouldn’t be here as Crash pushes open the heavy front door and we step through into the dark-wooded hall. I wonder if I’ll ever get used to being in a place like this, ever take all this for granted, if I’ll ever not feel out of place, and now Julian is beside me, if I’ll ever not long for somewhere that’s our own. Just us.

If you both want to go and get cleaned up, I’ll talk to Kay. There are towels in an airing cupboard on the landing,
Crash signs, barely looking at me, and I’m suddenly scared how this is all going to turn out, but I don’t offer to go with him and explain to Kay. Instead I take Julian’s cold hand in mine and lead him up the stairs.

I run a bath for him, going through the cupboards looking at all the different bath salts and bubble bath, while Julian sits on the closed lid of the toilet, his head in his hands. They say different scents can make you feel differently, so I pick out a jar of salts that says
invigorate
. I pour them into the water. They smell as fresh and hold as much promise as I imagine the sea does, though I’ve never seen it. I would love to slip in there, to just lie in all that warm water, suspended, in heaven. Showers are nice but not the same thing at all.

I touch Julian’s arm.
Do you want me to leave you alone for a bit?

I don’t want him to say yes, but I sense he wants to do this on his own. I sense there are secrets, things he might be ashamed of, that would be revealed on the map of his skin.