Us Against The World

At least I had my trusty iPod for company… As well as a book, although I did have to read that by torchlight. After I’d been stranded by the dick-head in the middle of a crowd with no idea where Emerson and Ceri had disappeared off to, it had taken a good hour and a half to make my way through identical looking rows of tents until I finally found ours. It was, I eventually reasoned, inevitable – I was always going to be the one who ended up inside with a fantasy novel whilst everyone else were enjoying themselves. Even so, I was enjoying rereading Harry Potter far more than I probably would have having to watch Ceri make out with a guy I already disliked. It was getting fairly late – maybe elevenish or so – and the noise from outside still hadn’t quietened down, when I heard the sound of the zip being opened.

Expecting to see Ceri, coming to get her stuff to spend the night with Darrell, I was surprised and entirely disheartened to see the somewhat relieved-looking face of Cyrus as he crawled through the gap. Turning back to Lupin and his Patronus Charm, which was very much more interesting than Cyrus, I simply said “Your fleece is in your tent.” After drying my own over the gas cooker, like he’d said to, I was more than happy to get rid of his damn jumper.

Choosing to ignore me, he finally clambered inside, and sat with his knees bent up to his chin. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere.“

The complete and utter cheek. Even so, I managed to sound fairly nonplussed when saying "And now you’ve found me. Kindly leave now."

"Ceri and Emerson said that you hadn’t seen you all evening."

And that was when my anger overtook me. Slamming the book down upon the tarpaulin matting, I looked up to where he was squashed up, looking fairly innocent, with wind-swept hair all over the place. "What did you bloody well expect?”

“Woah,” It was only then that he became surprised. “What’s wrong with you?"

"I wonder Cyrus, I really do. Might it be something to do with leaving me stranded with no idea where our camp was?"

All he could do was blink. ”… But you had Ceri and Emerson.“

"I didn’t know where they went after they met Darrell. I certainly didn’t want to go looking through random people’s camps, trying to find them.”

“Oh, well… I didn’t know that."

"Of course you wouldn’t, because you disappeared.” Sarcasm was very much my only friend by this point. For a moment, he was silent, a slightly confused frown upon his face as he sucked his lower lip into his mouth, biting down upon it. “Please leave me alone.” And with that, I picked my book back up, choosing to ignore him. It was shortly ripped put of my hands and thrown behind him. “For once, will you just fu-"

"No. I want to talk to you."

If there was ever a man designed to be infuriating beyond belief, it sure was him. "Since when have you ever been sociable?”

“Since you suddenly developed some sort of pathetic hostile attitude for no grand nor particular reason-"

“Pathetic! Do you have even the smallest idea of how fucking scared I was when left there? It was pitch black, full of senselessly drunk people and I didn’t even know where I was. I lost count of all the fucking lewd remarks I received when trying to find my way back here! Maybe I am the ‘stupid little kid’ that you think I am, but then why the hell did you just leave me there alone?“

The silence which followed my outburst seemed the longest of my fairly screwed-up life. It was only a good thirty seconds later that he looked up from staring at his sock-covered feet, his words sounding slightly strangled. "I’m sorry. For leaving you and calling you that. I don’t feel that about you… I just couldn’t let her think anything different."

Why was it that my anger wilted at the mere sight of him looking so feeble? ”… Who is she?“

"Jennifer?” I nodded. “Oh, just an old… Acquaintance. I hadn’t seen her in years."

There was silence once more. I simply watched the flickering flame of the gas lamp hanging from the central support of the tent, whilst he found something extremely interesting on his fingers to pick at. "You know Cy,” I slowly began. “I really thought that you were my friend. Someone who actually cares, even if only a small amount-"

"I do, I just-"

"Please listen for a minute… I actually considered you to be someone who would be there if I needed you. I don’t know what made me think that, but I did. I suppose I thought that we understood each other, in way or another. I was obviously wrong, but that still doesn’t explain it. You were the one person that I thought I could trust with anything… That would always be there.”

He simply shook his head, jaw loose whilst looking down at the ground. "I’m sorry."

"No… You had the perfect right to say what you did and mean it. It’s my own fault for believing something stupid. I really should just give up on the idea of having a friend. It’s ridiculous, really."

"What about Ceri and Emerson? Aren’t they your friends?"

"They’re friends, but not friends. They’ve known each other since they were toddlers – I’m simply the third wheel. Back when I first joined the school back in first year, I was a complete loner – I’d always been known as the freak of an orphan. I made up lies about my life in secondary school to anyone who bothered to ask; that everything was simply fine and normal at home. That’s all I’ve ever wanted to be – normal. I didn’t fit in at school because I was some kind of poor freak, and I didn’t at any Home I was in because I didn’t want to sneak out at night and go robbing peoples' houses like most of the other kids. Ceri took notice of me when I accidentally bumped into an elderly teacher, ending up shoving them down a flight of stairs. I felt guilty about it for weeks, but Ceri took a shining to me because of it. The three of us became what I hoped was friends. I kept up the lies about my life out of school though – I didn’t want them knowing. I declined their requests to come back to my house and meet the fake and perfect parents that I’d made up. For months, it worked, but in her own way, Ceri did some worming and found out the truth. They stopped talking to me and that was that. Then, out of the blue, they came up to me in the corridor and acted like it had never happened. I thought it was their way of accepting me, but we never talk about my private life – it’s just like a taboo subject which is ignored. Even last year, when I told them about Stephen and Melanie fostering me, the most I got as a response was an ‘okay’. It’s as if they’re pretending that I’m someone that I’m not – it’s entirely fake. Sure, we have a laugh and a joke about, but I could never tell them anything serious. But with you, everything I ever said to you was real. I wasn’t pretending to be someone else. You seemed to accept me for who I was, and I idiotically thought that that meant something. I’m so fucking stupid for even considering that.” All he could do was to continue to look at me, his odd eyes, which I had formed a soft spot for at some point, loosing the hardness for the first time since I'd met him. "Life is just so lonely."

He slowly nodded, raising a hand to take off his glasses, eventually beginning to clean their lenses with the bottom of his shirt. "I do understand that. It's one of the few things that I do - friends have never played a great part in my life."

"What about Stephen? You seem pretty close."

"No, Stephen doesn't truly like me. Well, he likes me, but not completely. He blames me for a lot of things. It’s only out of guilt and an old stupid promise that he puts up with me in the way that he does."

"So you've never had a proper friend, either?" I gave him a wry smile - it seemed so fitting for him.

However, instead of joking as well, he carried on to stare down at his feet. "... I'm not sure." Taking a deep breath, he looked back up, slotting his glasses back onto his nose and blinking a couple of times. "My Grandmother was the only person I'd ever call my friend... My Nana... She died a year or so before my parents. I spent most of my time with her; my parents weren't ever home much - their business called their attention more than I did. But I loved my Nana, and I suppose she must have loved me too - but I can't remember her ever telling me that. Then again, it probably wasn't something that I was likely to remember her saying at that age. Very much an austere woman - a heart of granite to anyone apart from me. She was Slovakian, had an arranged marriage to my Russian Grandfather and moved to Moscow with him. She was a famous concert pianist; she taught me to play at a young age."

I couldn't help but smile, regardless of his serious expression. "You play the piano?"

He nodded, gently chuckling as he shifted positions to sit beside me, stretching out what was probably very stiff legs. "It's one of the few things I love more that mathematics."

"Yeah, I can't understand how you even like maths in the slightest."

"It's because it makes clear sense. The answer is either right, or wrong. Nothing else is like that, especially life itself." His face clouded over once more. "It was my Father who pushed me to be good at maths... I suppose it's one of the few things that I'm actually grateful for, from him. But Nana had a zest for life, despite the trying times she'd been through. My Grandfather, I suspect, was an arms dealer for the soviet union in the cold war. He was assassinated in the nineteen fifty-three, just before my Father was born, but he had it coming to him, dare I say. War never solved anything. Anyhow, Nana moved over to Britain in the early sixties with my Father, changed her surname by poll default, and left control of the weaponry factory back in Russia to her brother-in-law, wanting nothing more to do with it. My Father took it over when he was of age, drove it into the ground a little, lived a wild life and ended up getting a young girl pregnant, who per say, turns out to be my mother. Nine months later, I pop into the world and basically mess up the life he thought was so perfect. It isn't a wonder that he always resented me so much. The best I could to was to grow up and take over the 'family business', but even at such a young age I hated the idea of weaponry. Or maybe that was just what Nana installed into me. Either way, I'm happy if she did."

Saying that I was surprised at him opening up so much was an understatement. In only five minutes, he had told me more about himself that at any point before. "So you had a lonely childhood?"

"Frightfully so. Most of it was spent trying to play Beethoven for Nana who could no longer play because he arthritis was so bad. That and studying hard for my Father. Even then, I still wanted to impress him somehow, but I could never quite manage it. I never did him proud. Looking back on it, that gives me some comfort because I now would never want any admiration from such a lowly specimen who could hardly pass as someone of the human race." He spat out the few last words, as if they left a nasty taste, before regaining composure once more. "What about as a young child? Were you lonely then?"

I shrugged. "I don't think that children know what loneliness is. When I was eight, I was placed in a particularly grotty Home. I made 'friends' with a boy names Austin, who was about the same age as me. We played together a lot and everything seemed great. One day, he was kept back at the Home when I went to school. I didn't think much of it, until I came home and found out that he'd been adopted and gone to him new home with his lovely family, without ever telling me about it. No-one's really stuck around in my life much."

"Another thing I can relate to." He hesitantly reached out and placed his hand on top of mine, giving it a gentle squeeze. "Well, I'd like to be your friend."

"I'd like to be your friend as well."

He chuckled once more - a deep, throaty sound. "Give me a hug, then."

"You know, I've never actually hugged anyone before. Not properly."

"Then let me be your first." He reached an arm out, wrapping it around my back and pulling me towards him. Placing my own arms around his waist, I laid my head against his chest, hearing the steady rhythm of his heart beating through his clothes. The tightness and warmth of his embrace, as he rested his chin on top of my head, was strange - more strange than anything. But it was comforting beyond anything that I ever thought would come from a hug. Alarmingly so, my eyes began to dampen at the entire experience. "I know that life seems pretty shit right now," He mumbled into my hair as I stiffed back tears. "but it'll get better, I promise." A laugh was impossible for me to hold back at that. "...What?"

"You just said 'shit'." I explained. "I never thought that word would ever come of your mouth."

He, too, softly laughed. "Oh be quiet, you profanity-loving idiot... But just so that you know, that's one of the things that I like about you."