Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2017 14:37:06 +0000
From: Secret Writer <Secret_writer@outlook.com>
Subject: Beyond a colour - 03

*----- Beyond a colour - 03
Hi
This is, a you probably know, a story. Fiction, not reality, and so no,
it's not about you, whatever you might believe. As usual, if you shouldn't
be reading this for whatever reason, or you don't like the idea of guys
being gay and falling in love, then don't stay here and read this.

If you enjoy this story, or anything else on this site, please donate at
http://www.nifty.org/donate.html

And finally, your (constructive) feedback is always welcome, you can
contact me at secret_writer@outlook.com

There's now a mailing list for (occasional) updates and new stories from
me, you can subscribe at http://eepurl.com/b1EzqL
-----*

So we're in a routine, of sorts.  I see Chris every day, at school, where
we casually acknowledge each other and talk a little, but nothing too
'serious'.  Most evenings we talk on the phone, and weekends too.  And of
course we message each other throughout all of this, creating the
multilayered fabric of our communication, and perhaps our relationship.
Not that the latter has been explicitly addressed since we first met over a
month ago.  Yes, it's wholly inadequate.  No, I don't know what to do about
it.  I want more, but I'm basically just too scared to do anything about
it.  And Chris, well I guess he's too nice to push it.  Or maybe he doesn't
want more, I don't know.  It's driving me a bit crazy, and I really don't
need any help in that department.

On this particular Wednesday lunchtime, things were going just as nothingly
as was now usual.  I was sat towards one corner of the room, on my own, and
there was no reason to suspect that anything even mildly unusual would
happen.  These are my favourite sort of days.  Until Chris arrived, later
than usual, for lunch.  I watched him from across the room as he queued for
food and then walked, carrying his tray.  We saw each other, smiled, felt
those stabbing pangs of pleasure and pain that seem to be the same thing
and are intimately connected with loneliness, fear, hope, and love, making
your throat swell up so that eating, drinking, talking, all become
difficult.  Well I did anyway, I don't know about Chris.  He was heading
towards a table full of others sports team people, mostly rugby I think.
I've been paying a little more attention to who is actually on the rugby
team recently.  But then he hesitated.  Turned.  And started walking over
towards me.  I knew at the time that I was being stupid and irrational, but
why?  Why was he coming over towards me?  What did he think this would do?
Did he even think at all?  He put down his tray and sat down, literally,
right opposite me.

"Hey."

"You don't sit here?  I mean, not usually.  I mean, hi."

"Yeah, well, I though I might.  Is that OK?"

"I guess, I mean, yeah, of course, but... yeah.  Sorry."

Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid Blue.  He's going to think you're an idiot.
In fact, why doesn't he already?  Despite these thoughts, Chris seemed
oblivious.

"So how's your morning been?"

"You know... boring, mostly."

"Yeah.  So... I was wondering, you think it would be OK if I sat with you,
like, every day?"

"But you usually sit with the other team guys?"

"And now I want to sit with you.  I miss you.  We talk and chat all the
time, but when we're here, every day, I feel like I hardly see you."

"Oh.  Then yeah, I guess."

"Great.  Because - and don't be scared, I promise I won't do it, but I want
tell you, I want to stand up on this table right now and tell the whole
fucking school how much I love you."

"Shit Chris!  Stop it."

I looked around, anxious to see if anyone had heard.  I don't even know
why, it's not as if I had any kind of reputation to be worried about.  And
why would I even be worried?  He's fucking gorgeous and amazing.

"I mean it.  And I know, I do, that you get a bit freaked out by this, and
you probably want me to shut up, but I want to ask you something."

"What!?  No.  Oh god Chris, what are you doing?"

I think my heart rate was up to about 250.

"Blue - I don't care.  I love you, and I'm going to start telling you more,
because I want you to really understand it.  But... Blue, will
you... please... just come and watch the match tomorrow after school?"

I hated myself for how anxious I had felt, and then how relieved.
Seriously, what is wrong with me?  I'm actually feeling scared that a
completely incredible guy is going to ask me out.

"Hello?"

"What?  Oh, sorry.  Yeah.  OK."

"Cool!"

He seemed to be able to be so crazily happy about the tiniest thing.  I
just seemed to be stupid.  We talked some more, and lunch seemed to pass by
quickly.  On Thursday it was still a little bit weird when Chris came and
sat down opposite me again.  Weird, but I kind of liked it too.  We talked,
not about anything in particular, and it felt good.

"So you're still coming to watch the game after school?"

"Yeah, of course."

Of course, because I'm such a big sports fan, and follow the school team
closely.  Well no, obviously not that.

"Good.  And, you know, maybe if you can wait around after?  We could maybe
hang out, or something?"

"OK?"

"You never know, it might even be not totally awful to spend some time
together."

I heard it, and from the instant look of regret, Chris heard it too.  His
not quite disguised slightly pissed off tone, which carried his unspoken
frustration, with me.  But it hurt, hearing it, from him.  It's not as if
I'm deliberately messing him around, leading him on, or playing games.
This stupid shit is properly hard for me to navigate, and I thought he
understood that.

"I have to go."

It wasn't a lie, although my departure also wasn't as urgent as I implied.
Fucking idiot.  Although already I wasn't sure if I meant him or me.  I put
in my earbuds and walked away, unsuccessfully attempting to stop my
thoughts from happening.  I tried the library first, because it was
marginally nearer, but one of the English teachers had decided to move her
class there, so that was out.  I cut across the quad and through the main
school entrance foyer, crossing the road and entered the lab building.  On
my way upstairs I could hear Kent was teaching.  Unfortunately it was a
practical lesson with some first years who were annoying and loud.  So I
passed through, as invisibly as I could, and finally found some space in
the back lab.  It's almost as if the universe deliberately makes my life
difficult.  Of course it doesn't, its just in my head, I know that.  I
tried to do some school work, but it was harder than usual to concentrate.
I debated, several times just giving up and going home.  But that felt too
much like an act of resignation.  Or at least giving in, to the
acknowledgment that maybe Chris was getting frustrated with me, and worse,
that this was actually an entirely reasonable response.  But I don't want
someone to be reasonable.  What I want, what I need, is someone who can be
better than that.  No, that's unfair, and stupid.  Reasonable would be just
fine.

I fought my way through some maths, and was grateful when I finally became
absorbed by it, occupying my brain with something other than whatever it
was that I had going on with Chris.  I was even able to turn off the music,
giving myself over to the beauty of integration.  It was fifteen minutes
after the final bell before Kent came in to kick me out for the day.  He
was busy tidying things away as he talked.

"It's always a pleasure Mr. Stacks, but shouldn't you have left by now?"

"Hi.  Yes, sir, well, actually no, I'm staying to watch the rugby game."

"Oh?  Very good, I didn't realise you were a fan."

"I'm not.  But Chri... Emmerson said, well asked... so, you know, I thought
I'd go."

"Excellent.  Emmerson?"

"Yes, sir."

"Oh, right..."

He paused his tidying, equipment still in hand, mid-way towards the
cupboard on the wall behind him, to look at me.

"Ohhhh.  Right."

I'm sure I saw him beginning to smile as he turned away and continued
tidying.  It wasn't an entirely unreasonable conclusion to jump to,
apparently, or at least according to my extremely limited enquiries,
Emmerson has been `out' throughout his whole time at school.

"It's not like that!"

"Stacks, I'm not here to make any assumptions, it's not the scientific way.
But then there are those times you get a hunch.  Sometimes they turn out to
be correct, and sometimes not.  Call it instinct if you like, but not an
assumption."

"OK, well, I have to go, sir."

"Very good, will we be seeing you tomorrow?"

"Maybe.  That'll be a whole week."

"Indeed.  Excitement is truly amongst us."

"Bye, sir."

I picked up my bag and turned to leave.

"Stacks?"

"Yes, sir?"

"I'm no expert on these things, but if you ever need to talk, you know
where I am."

"Thank you, sir.  Bye."

It was a surprising, and very nice, gesture.  Although I couldn't for one
second imagine having any kind of meaningful conversation with a teacher
about this stuff.  But I guess it was good to know that I had the option.

I headed out of the lab and back into the main school building, through the
front lobby.  A hideous glass and aluminium construction that was
presumably contrived as a way to join together several disparate buildings.
Past the stairs up to the Modern Languages block, turning left and heading
down one side of another quad, past the Maths rooms, past geography rooms
in their corner position.  There was something going on in the (sculpture
class?  Should I check it out?  Damn, I need to stop watching those old
music videos) main hall, so I turned right, more Maths, then History,
before leaving the building on the West corridor, outside again, but this
side of the school has more grass.  A lot more.  The school field is truly
huge.  There are literally fifteen football pitches and four tennis courts,
none of which were where I was heading.  There are four rugby pitches, one
of which is designated as `the stadium', which is somewhat grandiose
considering there's only a couple of small raised seating blocks.  Even
calling them grandstands seems like an exaggeration.

Having checked the school website I knew that this wasn't a particularly
special game.  Or is it match?  Who cares?  This meant that it wasn't at
all busy, so I was able to sit at one end of a row and not have anyone
nearby.  During my previous time with 'him' I'd actually stared to try and
learn about the game, and watched some stuff online, but I'd never actually
seen it for real.  And honestly, I still didn't really understand the game.
The rules seem completely arbitrary and the scoring is just senseless.  But
I know that the team with the highest score wins and that's probably enough
for now.

I spent the whole game only really watching Chris.  And worrying that he
was about to die.  It's crazy violent.  He was number 10, which according
to my quick web searching means he's the fly half.  I have no idea what
that means, but he seems to be very busy throughout the game.  I don't
think he sees me.  Honestly, it's a long 90 minutes.  The school team were
winning right from the start, but then, they usually win.  And it's hard to
stay focussed on something that you just don't understand.  Although, Chris
in that uniform was helping to keep my attention.  At the end everyone
started to leave, and things were bit chaotic.  I saw Chris looking around,
but he didn't see me and I wasn't near enough to catch his attention before
he turned away and headed back in to the school building.  I sent him a
message, although I knew he wouldn't see it straight away, and waited
outside the side entrance to the gym, sitting down against wall.  I could
have gone inside and found him in the changing rooms, but that would have
been weird.

It seemed like the whole team left before Chris did.  He hadn't replied to
my message and I was starting to think that maybe he'd gone and I'd missed
him.  Or maybe he had left school by another door.  Both were highly
unlikely.  I was sitting literally right next to the door, and leaving by
any other route just wouldn't make any logical sense.  But still I
wondered.

Another ten minutes passed, which I know isn't really a long time but it
can feel like forever.  And then, there he was, walking out of the door,
passing me, not seeing me sat down on the concrete.  I couldn't say he
looked sad, but he didn't look like someone who had just won either.  He
continued walking, passing right opposite me, but looking ahead.  I was
going to have to say something, or else he would just leave, not even
knowing I was there at all.  Oh god, that would feel awful.

"Hey."

He looked around, off to his right, and behind him before finally turning
towards me.  It was a nice feeling, seeing his face morph from mildly sad
to surprised and happy.  He dropped his bag and ran the few steps towards
me.

"Oh my god, I didn't think you were here!"

I was standing up by the time he was next to me.

"Of course I was here.  I watched the whole game and then just waited here.
I messaged you."

"What?  Shit, sorry I didn't see it.  I didn't see you and just
thought... Sorry.  I'm so sorry."

"It's OK, I've only been here a few minutes."

"No, I mean, yeah, but no, I'm sorry for this."

Chris gave me the biggest hug, not that I'm sure how you would quantify
that, there's no SI unit of hug-ness.  He was getting a bit carried away,
picking me up as he held me so tight.  We were both laughing as I squirmed
in his arms, pretending to be trying to get away.  We bumped into the wall
and he put me down, him leaning against the wall, arms either side of me as
I looked up at him.  We were both breathing fast.  I could smell him, all
clean and fresh from the shower, a thought I was happy to entertain, Chris
in the shower.  Damn.  This was getting out of control.  And then, his
hands were on my face, touching my cheeks and my ears as he held me there,
so gently, but oh so fucking good.  And again, the amazing sensation that
his touch was somehow able to block out all of the other voices that I'm so
used to being there.  His face was just a few centimetres from mine, I
could feel his breath on my lips.  My heart was pounding, but as I mentally
searched, there wasn't anything bad happening.  So maybe I was just
excited.  It's shitty to not feel able to know the difference.

"Are you OK?"

Am I OK?  How the fuck should I know?  But I think so.  Probably.  Or at
least maybe.

"Yeah."

Chris didn't move away, and I wasn't totally disappointed by that.  The
feeling of his hands holding my face, it was, well, it was fucking hot.
But as well as that, also immensely good.

"You should maybe try asking me now?" I said.

Although in truth, I wasn't completely sure what the answer would be, but
it was maybe around a 90% chance of being yes.

"OK, so, Blue?  I love you, and, god it sounds so lame now, but, will you
go out with me?"

I realised that my hands were gripping his shirt and I looked down briefly,
needing to avoid his gaze just for a moment.  I wanted to be sure of my
answer.  My throat was dry.  Oh god.  What an idiot.  I was actually
thinking about saying no and running away.  Stupid stupid Blue.  Come on,
get a fucking grip.  I pulled him towards me, our lips meeting, touching,
brushing over the others'.  And we kissed, properly.  Tasting, feeling, and
moaning softly as he stepped closer, pressing me against the wall.  I knew
I was somehow going to regret this moment, but it was too good not to
enjoy.  I heard someone else leaving the gym, the door only just avoiding
hitting us.  And then the voice, very clearly saying 'It's about fucking
time Emmerson!'  I tensed up immediately, and Chris just held me tighter.
Whoever it was had gone by the time I opened my eyes.

"So, just to be clear, is that a yes?"

"Yeah, looks that way doesn't it.  Yes."

"Good.  So, it's not exactly a first date, but I'm starving, you want to
get a burger or something?"

I might have followed him anywhere at all right then.

"Sure."

I texted my mum on the way to let her know, in case she was home, that I
was out with Chris.  She replied with an age-inappropriate number of
emojis.  And in case you're wondering, if you're over 40 that number is
anything greater than zero, or maybe one.  Smiley face, clapping, shocked
cat, rainbow, rainbow, thumbs up, snowman, rainbow, medal, traffic-light,
smiley face.  It doesn't even make sense.  I don't think she understands
this.  We didn't go to Andy's Big Gay Burger Bar, and no, that's not a real
place as far as I know, but we did have a perfectly ordinary really nice
time.  Chris tried to explain some of the earlier rugby game to me, and I
nodded politely for a bit before he gave up.  We didn't hang around for
hours, it was still a Thursday night after all, and Chris walked me all the
way back home, even though it was out of his way to do so.  He's sweet like
that.  We kissed again, briefly, outside the front door, and then he was
gone.  Mum was home, and so there was barely time for me to close the door
behind me before she was standing in the kitchen doorway.

"Hi honey."

"Stop it."

She was smiling, and had this slightly fake `nothing is happening here'
voice.

"Stop what?  I'm just saying hello to my baby boy."

"It's not a big deal.  So don't make it one."

"I'm not.  I just wanted to see how you were."

"OK, well, I'm good, I think."

"So, Chris is... what?"

"He's good too."

"Uhuh."

"Fine.  So, he might have asked me out again.  And I might have said yes."

"OK then."

"I'm going upstairs."

"Do you want dinner?"

"No, we went for food so I'm good good thanks."


It wouldn't last, but her questions didn't evolve into the full blown
cross-examination that was inevitably going to happen at some point.  She
seemed happy.  Once I was was in my room I called Ry and talked to him on
speakerphone whilst I got changed out of my school stuff.  He was
positively excited about the situation, and wanted to know way too much
detail, but it was pretty good to be able to say it out loud to someone,
I'm going out with Chris Emmerson.

Unfortunately, though predictably, the stupid fucking voices in my head
were much less enthused by the whole thing so it wasn't long before I had
to retreat to the almost peace of excessive noise.  It felt like they
finally had a foothold, from which to launch their attacks.  I really
didn't have the energy to fight them, so I gave in and just took the extra
meds.  The ones that, in my head at least, are in a big red `break glass in
case of emergency' box.  It wasn't really an emergency, things have been
much worse, but I just wanted to be able to sleep, and it seemed unlikely
that I was going to be able to achieve that without some additional help.

I did eventually sleep, although it was hardly restful.  I woke up feeling
already exhausted, and the incessant chattering was already in full flow.
Of course chattering makes it sound much less insidious than it is, but
it's a nicer description that I try and use in my internal self talk.  I
spent some time debating, both with myself, and actually out loud with my
mum, about whether or not I was feeling OK enough to go to school.  I
decided that I probably was.  After last time, with `him', I've had a lot
of very honest conversations with my mum, so she has some insight into how
something that looks good often then feels bad for me.

Seeing Chris stood outside school waiting for me made me feel a bit better.
We didn't kiss or hug or anything, he playfully shoulder bumped me, which I
thought had a boyfriendy feel to it.  Stupid isn't it, but it was nice,
experiencing his casual familiarity with me.  It's not a big school, only
about 800 pupils, which means that the rate of information dissemination
can be rapid.  And apparently it had been.  So being an all boys school,
the occasional rumour that someone was gay wasn't really notable in itself,
and usually disappeared just as quickly as it formed.  But of course, this
was different.  Chris was already gay.  And so was I, but I mean that he
was already `known' to be gay around school.  I wasn't even known.  But now
there was rumour based on what we knew to be actual fact.  That probably
means it's already not a rumour, but anyway, semantics are unimportant
here.  It was news, in that, most people seemed to know.  Apart from the
mild curiosity value, most people didn't seem to care.  I wasn't really
worried about what would happen at school, having already thought about it
and accepting that I can't do anything about it anyway, so what's the point
in getting additionally stressed.  It was still a bit of a relief though,
when things just seemed to be relatively `normal' as we headed our separate
ways for the morning.  I'd see him again at lunch, and again in class this
afternoon.

Unfortunately, not everyone was as OK with this as I would have preferred.
I was very aware of finding it more difficult that usual to `disappear' in
the school.  Suddenly it felt as though everyone was noticing me, which I
wasn't enjoying.  I'm reasonably certain that I heard someone shout `fag'
in the corridor, but my earbuds prevented any further infiltration.  So
yeah, it wasn't exactly good, but it wasn't terrible.  I spent the first
part of the morning in the library working on an English assignment, bloody
Jane Eyre, the syllabus here is very unimaginative.  During morning break,
a period of time that isn't actually long enough to do anything and I
suspect is designed only to enable teachers to get coffee, I was on my way
towards the physics lab, walking across the quad.  What was called the
`open quad' due to three sides being open corridors, as opposed to `the
quad' where all sides are closed in with windows.  Anyway, that's where I
was when my day started to go to shit.  There were a few people around, but
it's not a busy corner of the school, and I wasn't especially paying
attention, as is usually the way.  Out of nowhere, someone shoved me hard
against the wall, I almost fell over completely but managed to remain
standing.  I didn't manage to keep hold of my bag, or to stop my earbuds
from being ripped out and my phone consequently dropped on the floor.  I
looked up and realised immediately that this wasn't going to be good.  It
was Gardener.  Since the incident last week between him and Chris he'd
pretty much ignored me completely, which was fine.  Now, he was ignoring me
much less.  Which was not so fine.  He's not very clever, in fact I'm not
sure how he got in to this school as it's selective entry and I've seen his
physics work, he's terrible at Maths.  He's also apparently terrible at
English too because his best insult was to yell in my face.

"Fucking homo."

I still don't know why I did it, because I know I shouldn't have, but I
just couldn't help myself.  I suppose if I wanted an explanation, I didn't
have the option of running away because there was no way I could get past
him, so maybe I had nothing to lose.

"Do you mean, like, Homo Sapien?"

He looked slightly confused for a second.  What a tool.

"Yeah, you fucking homosa... what?  No, you fucking..."

I didn't laugh at him, because that was patently asking for trouble, but I
wasn't able to withhold a small smile at his idiocy.  Unfortunately his
resources were significantly less nuanced.  He punched me square in the
face, just above my nose.  I am in no way at all equipped to handle
physical confrontation, so after the back of my head hit the wall,
crumpling onto the floor as my nose was bleeding seemed like a predictable
and reasonable outcome.  The bell was ringing for class to start and I
watched as he ripped off my earbuds from their cable before walking off.
Even more annoyingly, a few guys were stood around, watching, and no-one
fucking helped, like, at all.  Bastards.  I was trying to hold my nose with
one hand to stem the flow of blood and limit the damage to my previously
pristinely white shirt.  It was already a bit late for that but it didn't
need to look any worse.  I found my phone and picked up my bag and headed
for the toilets, with most effort being expended on not crying.

After probably twenty minutes the bleeding had stopped and I was looking at
least mostly presentable.  I was reasonably sure that my nose wasn't
broken, not that I would know what that felt like, but it didn't seem to
hurt enough, physically speaking, to be serious.  I wiped off the last of
the blood from my face, and my tie covered the worst of it on my shirt.
It's wasn't a great look, but better than I had expected.  I mean, I still
looked like someone who had just been punched in the face, and I could see
what was probably going to become a black eye forming.  But at least the
mild to moderate head trauma had temporarily stopped the voices.  As I
passed through the physics lab Kent gave me a serious questioning look,
which I waved off as best I could.  Sat in the back lab on my own, I
wondered if I should just give up and go home, and then maybe just never
come back to school.  As far as I could see the only unreasonable element
of that would be that I'd see less of Chris.  I didn't get any work done.
The bell rang for the start of lunch.  I really didn't want to go to the
lunch hall, but it's literally the only place to get food, so I had to.
Kent stopped me on the way out.

"What happened to you Stacks?"

"It's nothing, sir."

"It doesn't look like nothing."

"No, I, I can't talk about it right now."

Which was true.  I was angry, about Gardener, about the fact that no one
fucking stopped him, or helped me, about everything.  Talking wasn't going
to help.  I got myself some lunch and sat in my usual corner area.  Chris
came in a few minutes later, he was always late getting there, and his eyes
found mine immediately.  I feel like I'm very aware of his presence in a
room, and maybe he feels the same, we always seem to find each other.
Apparently he hadn't heard about what had happened though, because
initially he was heading towards the queue to be served.  But when he saw
me, he came running straight over.  Followed closely by a couple of others
I recognised but didn't know.  Rugby team people I think.

"Oh my god, are you OK?  What the fuck happened?"

"Nothing, it's not as bad as it looks."

"Bollocks.  Who did this?"

"Please, just get lunch and come sit down."

I was trying to pull him towards me by bottom of his jacket, urging him to
just sit down.

"What?  No, this is not OK.  Are you OK though?  Really?"

"I'm fine.  Though I could use a clean shirt."

"Fuck the shirt, I want to know who did this.  It's not right."

I could see he was proper mad, and seemed to be struggling to balance his
attention between his concern for me and his anger about what had happened.

"Please Chris, just leave it, it's fine, I just want..."

I could see that I wasn't in control of this situation.  One of his friends
had been talking to other people and came over.

"Apparently it was Gardener."

"You've got to be joking.  Blue?  Was it him?"

What could I do?  I couldn't deny it.  Chris interpreted my silence and
conflicted look as a yes anyway.  And then things went properly fucking
crazy.

Gardener was sitting a couple of tables away and facing away from us, so he
wasn't at all aware of Chris striding towards him, ignoring my repeated
asking to just leave it alone.  All I actually wanted was for Chris to give
me a hug.  But what I got wasn't that.  No, I got to watch my boyfriend
walk up to the side of Gardener and punch him so hard he fell off his
chair.  He actually then picked him up off the floor just to hit him again
a couple of times, before kicking him, all the time yelling at him for
hitting me.

It was nauseating to watch, and in the abject chaos that had broken out,
with teachers and teammates trying to restrain Chris, I left.  I left the
canteen, and then the corridor, and finally the school, not stopping until
I was back at home.  I pulled the duvet off my bed and wrapped it around
myself as I settled in to the space on the floor between my bed and the
chest of drawers.  Fuck, I hadn't been here, either physically or
metaphorically for a long time.  I had my proper headphones on and rested
my head against the hard cool wood of the draws, zoning out into a place
that was neither sleep nor rest, just sort of staring into nothing.  I
wasn't keeping a track of time, but some had passed before the beeping
started.  Messages at first, then ringing, then more beeping of voicemails.
Saying that I consciously noticed them would be an overstatement, it was
more of a peripheral awareness, like something happening outside whilst I
was cowering at the back of a very big, dark cave.  I opened the draw now
slightly above my head and fumbled around until I found them.  Another
`emergency' requiring the intervention of some extra meds.  Another hard
lesson looming on the edge of my acceptance.  My fantasy, that having a
boyfriend again might actually help me feel better was turning out to be
just that, a fantasy.  I'm now using more meds than before Chris was any
part of my life.  Yes, alright, I fucking know OK, you don't have to keep
telling me over and over and over and over.  I'm better off without him.
But you can fuck right off if you think I'm going to cut myself again, no,
things aren't that bad.  Are they?  And at that moment, I was happy to give
in to the voices, defeated by their apparently sound logic.  I just don't
always have the energy to fight.

The combination of not being physically tired, and my brain just flat out
refusing to calm the fuck down meant that the meds didn't help me sleep,
but left me in a wholly less satisfactory position of just being very
sedated.  Imagine the feeling of having been out drinking all day, where
you get to that point when you actually feel sober again, so you have a
joint and then go back to the drinking.  It feels a bit like all the bad
bits of that.  And yes, I can say that with some authority, before I or
anyone else understood what was happening with me, I used to do all kinds
of stuff to try and find relief.  I don't hear the front door opening, or
the talking, or the hurried footsteps on the stairs, so my bedroom door
opening makes me jump, curling up to protect myself who who knows a what
kind of crazy imagined danger.  It was just my Mum, of course.  Her face
painted with worry and love.

"Oh god Blue, I've just heard, are you OK?"

I nod that I am, and make some sort of vaguely affirmative noise.  She's
checking my face, and then putting the box of tablets back in the drawer.
She takes too long and I know that she's counting them, to make sure I
haven't done anything stupid.  I haven't.

"Blue, I know you don't want to think about anything right now.  But Chris
is downstairs, he's been here for hours, since the end of school.  He told
me all of what happened and he seems really upset."

Oh he does?  Well poor fucking Chris.

"Do you want him to come up?"

My speech was a little slow, but I made the effort to be as clear as I
could possibly make myself.

"Tell him to fuck off."

There was a pause, maybe she was waiting for me to change my mind.

"OK sweety, I'll tell him."

I laughed, mostly just to myself.

"You won't, you're too nice."

"Well maybe I won't swear at him."

"See."

"I'll come back and check on you in a bit."

She left me, closing the door.  I don't know how long it was, but it was
definitely dark when she came back in.  At least it felt dark.  She was
talking but I couldn't filter out everything else enough to make sense of
what she was saying, and it was starting be to properly difficult to open
my eyes.  Thank god, I was either going to sleep or dying.  Either would
have been OK.  She lifted my head up and wedged a pillow in against the
draws before kissing me on the cheek.  I remember thinking that I'm
probably just going to sleep because there wouldn't be any point in giving
me a pillow if I was dying.  Unless it was just to make herself feel better
of course.  Like when you see people in films closing the eyelids of
corpses.  It's not for the dead guys benefit is it.  I guess I'll find out
in the morning.  Or not.

Another, admittedly quite late morning, another day of not being dead.  I
can't pretend like it was a good day, but it actually wasn't awful.  Just,
meh.  I didn't go to school, and Mum had chosen to work from home.  She
always makes out like it's just a coincidence that on days like this she's
working from home, but I know it's not.  There's no such thing as
coincidence.  I got undressed, finally, out of my school uniform and the
shower was helping me to feel slightly closer to human.  Although seeing
myself in the mirror wasn't a particularly thrilling experience.  I've got
one decidedly blackened eye.  Mum must have heard me because by the time I
was entering the kitchen there was a cold water and orange juice waiting
for me.  She's so great at times like this, or actually, most times.  I
usually don't feel hungry after episodes like the previous day, mentally I
mean, I don't usually get punched, and I try to avoid caffeine too, it
really is like a hangover recovery day.  She didn't gasp too loudly when
she saw me, and didn't fuss around too much.

"How are you feeling this morning?"

"Awful."

"That's good then.  At least things are improving."

I laughed half-heartedly.  She wasn't wrong.  She's been through this
almost as many times as I have.

"So..."

I tried to imagine what it was Mum was about to ask me, but couldn't narrow
the list to even make a guess.

"What?"

"Chris?"

"What about him?"

"He was very concerned about you last night."

"Good for him."

"Oh?  So has something happened between you two?"

I mentally filled in the missing word at the end of her question.  Already?

"This is his fault, he did this!"

"What do you mean?  He said that it was..."

"No, I don't mean like that.  But Mum, you should have seen him.  He beat
the crap out of that guy.  It was really scary."

"I see."

Her statement was full of meaning.  I just didn't know what it was.

"You know he's been suspended?"

"Who?"

"Chris.  He told me last night when I was, well, trying to explain to him
that you didn't want to see him.  Blue, you probably should try and talk to
him some time soon.  He was really upset."

"He was upset!?  I didn't ask him to turn into the freaking Hulk and get
all bodyguard retribution-y.  If he'd just have listened then he'd have
known that all I wanted was..."

"Blue, you need to tell him this, not me."

There was silence.  It might have been brooding silence, at least from me.

"Did he really get suspended?"

"That's what he said."

"Idiot."

I couldn't work out how I was feeling, angry, happy, sad, sorry for him,
proud of him, all of the above?  I finished the orange juice.  No, the
worse thing was that I did know really.  He'd failed.  For all of his good
points, and there are many, like being super nice to me, looking damn hot
at all times, and of course, being slightly magic in his ability to take
the voices away when he held me, all of those things had been cancelled out
by this.  Because he wasn't super-human.  He wasn't better than everyone
else, he hadn't been able to read my mind, and he behaved in a perfectly
normal-ish way.  And I needed him to be better than that.  Just in case I
wasn't aware enough of this, there were several other voices backing up
these thoughts, in my head of course.

"I'm going back to bed."

"OK sweety.  I'll be here all day."

I got undressed and picked up my phone and the duvet off the floor before
climbing into bed properly.  I read a few of the messages from Chris.  OK,
I was only going to read a couple, but I read them all.  It wasn't long
before my phone buzzed with a new message.

`OMG Blue, are you OK?  I've been worried, but now I know you at least
ready my messages.'

For fuck sake, I really need to work out how to stop that from happening.
I was just reading them, it wasn't an invitation to contact me.  I didn't
reply.

`I'm sorry, I don't know what to say, have I fucked this up already?'

Urgh!  Just please, leave me alone.  You want a conversation, fine!

`Yes!  You have.  I didn't want you to behave like that.'

`Sorry.'

`Yeah, you said.  About 80 times.'

`I couldn't help it.  It's not OK for someone to hurt you.  I hated seeing
that.'

`And it wasn't OK for you to beat the shit out of him.  *I* hated seeing
*that*.  I'm going to try and sleep.'

I turned off my phone and turned up the music.  I needed to disengage from
everything for a bit.

It was just after six in the evening before I made it out of bed again, but
I was feeling slightly better.  Like I'd recovered enough to now just feel
normally tired, without all of the other crap going on.  I looked at my
phone and thought about turning it on again.  I wanted to speak to Ry or
Jo, but I didn't want to face the possible barrage of messages from Chris,
so I grabbed my laptop instead.  But by the time it had booted, I already
couldn't be bothered to talk to them.  Besides, Mum will inevitably have
already spoken to Ry about the whole thing, and he will tell Jo as soon as
he see's him at work, so it's not as though they won't know.  I decided to
leave my phone off for the night and went downstairs to just hang out with
Mum.

It was easy spending time with her, and no matter how old I might ever get,
she gives good hugs.  She didn't actually say it, but there were enough
hints that she thought I should talk to Chris, and I perhaps knew she might
be right.  I mean, it wasn't actually his fault this whole disastrous chain
of events had started.  But then he didn't exactly help.  It went,
metaphorically, into the box labelled `too hard for now' where it could
wait until the morning.  This is the box that acts as a holding cell for
things that I can't put in the proper boxes.  There's one labelled
`control', which is for all the stuff that I can actually properly control.
There's more than most people think but still not very much stuff that
belongs in this box.  The next one is labelled `influence', for those
things that are just beyond my control, but I can have some impact on.
Quite a lot of stuff goes in that box.  The last box is labelled `accept'.
For the things that I can't control or influence, it's the only sane option
left.  Not that it's easy.  Acceptance is properly hard to do right.  These
are the boxes that help me make sense of my world, and it's important to
pay attention and put stuff in the right box.  Because when something goes
in the wrong box, those are the times that I can spend a huge amount of
time and emotional pain battling against an un-winnable situation.

I'll turn my phone on in the morning.  Until then, I can leave the rest of
the world on pause.

*-----
Don't forget to support this site:  http://www.nifty.org/donate.html

If you haven't done it already, you can now subscribe for (occasional)
updates and new stories from me, just go to http://eepurl.com/b1EzqL
-----*