Page 25

When Zeph got back home on Sunday, he was in such a good mood, he found it hard to stop smiling.

Even being told to weed the borders didn’t dampen his high spirits.

I have a boyfriend! Someone on my side. Someone to talk to.

It had all been so…perfect. His heart thumped when he thought about it.

Jack had been into it just as much as he had.

But when he went in for lunch, he could hear Alice crying upstairs and wondered what had happened now. He didn’t ask. He didn’t want to hear it had something to do with him. Not yet anyway. Not while he was thinking the world was a different place because Jack wanted him.

It was like diving into a warm pool.

Soaring higher and higher on a swing until all he could see was sky.

Basking in the heat of the sun.

Feeling safe.

That was huge. Jack made Zeph felt safe.

Right until he had the phone call that evening.

He’d been excited when he answered it but almost at once, he knew by the tone of Jack’s voice that something was wrong.

“I have to leave the school,” Jack said. “We’re moving away.”

For a moment, Zeph couldn’t speak. “Where?” They could still see each other. Maybe have to stay over a weekend but—

“America.”

“Oh.” And Zeph’s new world lost all its colour. He slumped onto his bed.

“I’m sorry,” Jack whispered.

“It’s not your fault. We can email. Call each other. Maybe I can save up and come and stay. We can—”

“I can’t.”

It took Zeph a few moments to understand what Jack was saying. That they wouldn’t see each other again, they couldn’t keep in contact. But he didn’t understand why. He mouthed the word why but it didn’t come out of his mouth.

“I’m sorry. I don’t want to go but I don’t have any choice. I’ll miss you.”

The call ended and Zeph felt as if part of him had ended too.

He stayed in his room the rest of the night. No one came to see if he was okay.

The next morning, it was hard not to see Jack waiting in the yard. Although Scott and Rufus had left him alone. Maybe they could tell that he wasn’t to be messed with at the moment.

The first lesson was maths. When the teacher made a comment about Zeph not having someone to challenge him now Jack had left, he thought he was going to throw up.

He couldn’t concentrate and asked to go to the bathroom.

Only there did the pain escape, a wounded sob that he couldn’t hold in.

He tried Jack’s number and found it blocked.

So that was that.

He still tried to send a message, just in case.

Zeph hardly spoke all day. He sat in the cafeteria at lunch and ate nothing. He was so deep in grief, he was unaware of almost everything, though he’d jolted at Alice’s piercing cry in computer studies when she was told Jack had left. Zeph wondered how she was going to make it his fault.

He didn’t want to go home. But he had no choice.

He didn’t catch the bus. Instead, he walked, even though it was a long way.

He wanted time on his own. Why couldn’t Jack keep in touch?

Why had he left so suddenly? It hadn’t been planned.

His uncle wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of getting him a place and then yanking him out again.

Thomas’s job had changed, maybe? But that didn’t explain why he could no longer talk to Jack.

When he reached the railway bridge, he found a place to sit on the embankment where he could cry unseen and unheard.

He wanted to wish he’d never met Jack, but he couldn’t.

He found himself torn between thinking Jack hadn’t known what Thomas planned and believing he had known yesterday morning and hadn’t wanted to spoil things by telling him then. That was why he’d not gone too far.

Whatever the truth, Jack had no choice but to go with his uncle. It would be the same for Zeph if his father decided to move to the north of England. Though that made him think again about his own situation and his decision to stay in the house.

He pushed to his feet and wiped his smeared glasses with the bottom of his shirt.

A branch cracked behind him and as Zeph turned, he was given a hard shove.

He cried out as he tumbled down the bank toward the train tracks, his glasses flying from his fingers.

His foot caught, then wrenched free as he kept falling, rolling.

Then his head slammed onto something hard and everything went black.

The next time he woke, he was warm and in a bed. He could hear beeping. He forced his eyes open. Hospital. Still alive then. He half-wished he wasn’t. His eyes closed. Zeph drifted in and out of consciousness.

It took a while for him to register how much was wrong with him. A broken pelvis, a head injury and something the matter with his hands and arms and legs. All of him. Everything hurt. He caught snippets of conversation, occasional awareness of people at his bedside other than doctors and nurses.

Apparently…

He was lucky to be alive after the fall he’d had.

Lucky he’d been seen lying there.

Lucky to have been pulled off the train track before he’d been hit.

But…

He hadn’t fallen. Zeph remembered that. He also remembered who’d pushed him. But he kept quiet because that revelation would be world-changing. Better to claim he remembered nothing, only that he’d turned to go home and tripped on the slope. For the time being, he kept quiet.

A psychiatrist sat by his bed and Zeph, by her questions, guessed what she was trying to find out.

If he’d been trying to kill himself. If that had been the case, he’d have picked a better method than throwing himself down a slope on the off-chance he landed on the railway line. He didn’t speak to her either.

His father and Elisa never spent long at his bedside. He was fine with that. He didn’t want them there at all. Silence was his way of dealing with this.

“We bought clothes for when you can come home,” Elisa said. “We’ll buy you a new outfit for school, once you’re fit enough to go back.”

“Your backpack’s in the locker. You might feel like doing some reading,” his father said.

Georgia and Alice were with them. Alice was so pale, she looked translucent.

“Does he have brain damage?” Georgia asked. “Why can’t he speak?”

“The doctors aren’t sure,” his father said. “They say it might be shock.”

Zeph’s head ached but his brain was fine. He just didn’t want to say anything, not yet. He wished he felt strong enough to get his phone out of his bag, assuming it hadn’t been taken by his father. Maybe tomorrow.

He was stunned when Rufus and Scott turned up at visiting the next day. They’d even bought him a packet of Minstrels, which Scott sat and ate after Zeph didn’t reach out and take them.

“Can you remember what happened?” Rufus asked.

Partly, though he hadn’t yet put all the pieces together. He’d been told Rufus and Scott had dragged him off the track.

“You fell,” Scott blurted. “All the way down the embankment. It’s really steep. The rail company’s going to be in trouble for not fencing it off more securely. Or you’ll be in trouble for trespassing. Maybe both.”

“We pulled you off the rail,” Rufus said. “You’d hit your head. They’re talking about us getting an award.”

The irony. It almost made Zeph smile.

He needed to speak to Alice on her own. He also wanted to speak to his Uncle Martin. It was time to talk.

The next time the family came to visit, Zeph spoke.

“I want to speak to Alice,” he croaked.

Alice looked horrified.

“On her own,” Zeph added.

She looked even more horrified.

When the other three had left the room, he stared at her. “I know what you did.”

“What are you talking about?” She stood twisting her fingers together.

“Did Rufus and Scott tell you to push me?”

“No, they pulled you off the track.”

“Did you want me to die?”

She shook her head. Tears were falling now. “I saw you. You and Jack.”

“Saw us where?”

“In the beach hut. I followed you when you went to Wisby. I saw you take him to the hut and I looked through the window.”

Oh God.

“He’s gay?” she whispered. “You’re gay?”

“Yes.”

“Does Dad know?”

“He suspects.”

“Why didn’t Jack tell me!” Her face screwed up as she cried.

“Because this was new to both of us. It was our secret until we were ready for it not to be a secret. But he had leave. Move house. So…”

“I can’t… I was going to kill myself,” she whispered.

Zeph’s lungs locked.

“I wanted to die.”

“I know you’re unhappy. I’m unhappy too, but you have to look forward. Decide what you want in your future. Something or someone attainable.”

“Easy for you to say. You’re good at everything.”

“Not at dancing.” Zeph made himself smile.

“That’s true.” Her lips curved up for a moment.

“I’m not going to tell Dad or Elisa what you did,” Zeph told her. “You’re the only one I’ve told that I’m gay. Secret. Okay? But you have to get help, Alice. You’re too thin.”

“I’m not.”

“You are. You just can’t see it. Promise to go and see someone and I swear not to tell anyone you pushed me.”

She sucked in a shaky breath and nodded.

“Would you look in the backpack that’s in the locker and see if there’s a phone in it, please?”

She handed it to him. “This isn’t yours. I thought Dad still had it.”

“I got another.” Zeph hid it in the bed by his leg.

“I won’t tell him. What are we going to say we were talking about? Mum will ask.”

“Tell them it was something to do with Rufus.”

Alice blushed and Zeph dared to hope things would be better now. For her at least.

When everyone had gone, he checked the phone. Jack hadn’t seen the message he’d sent. A painful lump formed in his throat. He had to face this, just like he’d told Alice she had to. Jack was no longer in his life. He lay with his face pressed into his arm and cried.

Once he’d calmed down, he phoned his uncle.

“Zeph! How are you?”

“Not so good.”

“Why? What’s happened?”

“I’ve had a fall and I’m in hospital. I wanted to ask if you’d still let me come and live with you, please?”

“Yes, of course. But a fall? How badly are you injured?”

“I’ll tell you everything later.” Almost everything. “I think they’ll let me out in a couple of days. I’ll go home and phone you to come and get me when they’re out.” He didn’t want his father and uncle in a bust up.

“Do I need a van?”

“No.”

“I’ll come as soon as you call.”

“Thank you.”

Zeph wanted it all to go smoothly, so he knew he had to hide what he planned.

His father couldn’t make him stay at home, not now he was sixteen, but he’d be beyond furious Zeph wanted to live with Martin.

On his first day home from the hospital, Alice had announced at dinner that she’d made an appointment to see the doctor.

Elisa and Georgia had showered praise on her.

More praise for that than for anything Zeph had ever done.

But he knew it was a big thing and he hoped Alice got the help she needed.

The following morning, after his stepsisters went to school and his father and Elisa had left for work, Zeph called his uncle.

His father had given him back his phone but Zeph would never use it again.

While Zeph waited, even though he was using crutches, he filled black bin liners with clothes.

He was supposed to be resting, but he couldn’t keep still.

Martin arrived with Paulo and they pulled Zeph gently into their embrace.

“What the hell happened?” Martin asked.

“I’ll tell you when we’re in the car.”

“I’m not sure I can wait that long.” Paulo rubbed Zeph’s back.

“I’ll tell you everything, I promise. I want to leave here.”

He slowly made his way back upstairs, sat on his bed and directed what needed to be packed. He looked at the phone that had been returned to him, wondering if his father would call to see if he was okay. He doubted it.

There wasn’t much to take when it came down to it. He didn’t want the keyboard because there was a piano at his uncle’s house. But he took the box of his mother’s things, all his books, his notebook from under the mattress, his music, his stone collection and his Lego.

When they were downstairs and the car was loaded, Martin looked at him. “You need to leave a note for your father. We don’t want him calling the police.”

Zeph nodded. He’d have spoken to his dad if he hadn’t worried he’d find a way to keep him in the house, or that he’d hit Martin, or make up some lie to hurt him. So, he sat at the kitchen table and wrote:

I don’t want to live here anymore. I’ve gone to stay with Uncle Martin and Paulo. I can never be what you want me to be. I don’t want to try. Please leave me alone. Zeph

He left the house key on top of the note.

Zeph breathed a sigh of relief when Paulo had driven away from the house and they were heading for the motorway. He was sitting across the back seat with his legs up.

“What happened?” Martin asked. “Do you still have hospital appointments?”

“I had a pelvic fracture that didn’t require surgery. I’m supposed to rest for six to twelve weeks, not put any weight on it. Broken leg—”

“Your bad leg?” Paulo asked.

“No, the other one. I wrenched my arm too and fractured my skull. I do have follow up appointments but I can do them at another hospital. I asked.”

“What the hell happened?” Martin turned to look at him.

“If I tell you the whole truth, you have to promise to never say anything.”

“I don’t think it’s fair to make us promise when we don’t know how serious it is,” Paulo said.

“I’m guessing someone did this to you.” Martin sighed. “Those boys that were bullying you?”

“They might have been involved. I’m not sure. I was pushed down an embankment onto a train track and lost consciousness, then pulled off the rail before I was killed.”

“You know who pushed you?” Martin asked.

“Yes. I swore I wouldn’t tell.”

“Oh God. Who was it?” Martin turned again to look at him.

“Promise never to tell.”

“Zeph!”

“It was Alice.”

His uncle looked astounded. “Why in God’s name would she do that?”

Zeph knew he’d have to tell them all about Jack, so he did, though not every detail. “He left and he blocked my number. I walked home, trying to get my head straight and that was when I was pushed.”

By the time he’d finished, he was crying.

Martin reached back to take hold of his hand. “You deserve better.”

“Jack wouldn’t have had any choice about moving,” Zeph said.

“Probably not, but what’s the harm in keeping in touch,” Martin pointed out.

No harm at all.