Everything in Transit

So who are you when the party guests go home, who are you when the lights turn off and you're in the dark? Who are you when you are the only person in the room? Who are you when the sun comes out from behind the clouds and bathes you in light? Who are you when you are with the person whom you love most?

John O'Callaghan thought he knew the answer to every one of those questions. And yet it was obvious to everyone around him that he didn't.

Everyone around him at present was shaking their heads and muttering in low, almost hostile voices. From his band mates to his mother, everyone had something bad to say about John and that was something quite new. Generally speaking John was the sunny boy, the one who could never do wrong and even if he did, he did it with that adorable faces of his that made you forget any grievances that he might have caused you.

But right now grievances was the wrong word to use when talking about John seeing as grief was a raw emotion that seared through him at every waking minute and second of a twenty four hour day.

John O'Callaghan was meant to be at a funeral.

Everyone had made him feel like the biggest piece of shit for not going. Pat, Garrett, Kennedy and Jared, they all sent him reproachful looks when he had announced that he wasn't going. Pat had even dug out John's homecoming tux so that he had something all black to wear, and had hung it on the back of John's white washed wall but it made no difference. John didn't go.

Going to the funeral would be sure conformation that she wasn't coming back. That she was gone and not to ride on the back of clique, but it was his fault that she was gone. However the emotional rollercoaster that John was on, was not an excuse for him to be left alone. In fact the doorbell rang at around three in the afternoon the day of the funeral, which John was supposed to be at.

Pat had opened the door and Hurricane Kay stormed through the apartment that John had been leaving to fester and fall apart, his usual meticulous manner being eaten up by sadness and anger, leaving him uncaring as of his physical appearance and own comfort.

But in all honesty Kay couldn't have given a damn, the pounding on his bedroom door and the furious shouts at him made this beautifully obvious.

"John O'fucking Callaghan if you do not get your sorry ass out of that room so help me god!"

Garrett, Kennedy, Pat and Jared just stood in the living room and watched with awe filled eyes as a hysterical Kay Corlett, still in her funeral attire, pounded on the door with tears in her eyes. The boys felt some sort of obligation towards her and yet they were sacred of coming too close to her, just in case she took all her despair out on them, rather than John.

The minute John heard the hysterical voice that belonged to Katherine Corlett shamed completed flooded him. He heaved himself off his bed and walked towards the door that was shuddering in its frame due to the force that it was being attacked with on the other side.

He eased the door open and was almost punched in the face by Kay who hadn't expected John to give in so easily.

If she was taken aback by his appearance she didn't let on. She ignored the black bags underneath the usually bright and mischievous eyes, she ignored the sallow cheeks and the limp hair that was usually freshly washed and styled. She ignored the crumpled clothes, which stank to high heavens, and she ignored the bloodshot eyes.

Kay completely ignored how John felt at this precise moment because right now she didn't give a shit.

"Just who the hell do you think you are?" She shrieked at him the minute he sheepishly walked through the door.

John chose not to answer her and instead looked down at his bare feet and anywhere else, just to ignore the piercing steely blue glare that he was under fire from. John swallowed twice to clear his throat and tried to force words to come out, but in vain.

The silence in the room created a heavy pressure that lay thick and brutally on everyone person on the room, causing Pat to become increasingly antsy and wanting to say something but Kay beat him to it.

"You don't turn up for Elaine's funeral, your own girl friends funeral!" Kay shrieked again, taking out all her anger, grief and trauma out on John. "My god I had to explain to everyone where you were and why you didn't come you asshole!"

"Hey easy there Kay," Garrett began to say. Even though he had to admit that his friend hadn't done the right thing there was no reason, or so he felt, for Kay to call John an asshole. But that was another thing that Garrett was completely wrong about.

"Don't you tell me to take it easy!" Kay shouted turning on Garrett. "If John had one sympathetic bone in his scrawny body then he would have been there today, regardless of what went on between him and Elaine. If John had one sympathetic bone in his body then he would be helping me out! I can't be a mother to this baby!"

With that the whole room went deadly quite, all eyes fixed on Kay and her stomach, which to the disappointment of Kennedy, Jared, Garrett and Pat was still flat and showed no tell tale signs of what Kay was insinuating.

John's eyes went wide with confusion.

"You're…"

But Kay cut across him.

"You've missed your chance O'Callaghan. Get your life sorted again and then we can talk." Kay said abruptly and with some venom before turning on the heels of her grubby plimsolls and marched out of the apartment, leaving in her wake four stunned boys and one heartbroken and completely devastated boy who had no idea where to go from now.