Maudlin Melody

The bell rings and I’m shaken out of my daydream. This is how most lessons have been recently. If I haven't fallen asleep I've fallen into a trap; a nightmare parading as a daydream, and I just have to wait on the pervasive ticking of the clock until the school day ends.

Rich gathers his books up and starts trying to stuff them into his worn mud-brown bag straight away. I find myself staring at him do this for a moment without really seeing, before I snap out of my trance and follow suit. All I'd taken out was my maths book and a Biro, but the book had remained closed the whole period, the pen remaining in my clenched fist.

“This bloody lesson dragged on too long,” he mutters, referring to the Maths lesson we just had. I make a sound that shows I agree with him, but I hadn’t been paying attention anyway. It’s no surprise where my mind has been. It's been a month and I haven’t said anything. I haven’t told anyone. Harry keeps trying to talk about it but I refuse. I haven’t got anything to say.

What could I possibly?

“Is your brother picking you up today?” Rich wants to know. He’s standing by my desk, waiting as I stuff my lone pen into my blazer pocket and stand. I nod. Rich persists to get a reply from me; “D’you think he could drop me home too? He’s done it before, right? Do you think he’ll remember where it is?”

“I'm not sure, I’ll ask,” I reply. I stand and begin to follow Rich out of the classroom.

"Mr. Day?" I turn to see Mr. Lawson standing at his desk, frowning at me. He beckons me over with a slow nod and I glance at Rich, who has stopped noticing I'm not following him anymore, before retreating my steps back into my classroom and standing in front of my enduring maths teacher. He folds his arms behind his back, most probably stroking the elbow patches on his brown suit jacket.

He smiles wearily but I can't drag up the energy to do the same. Instead I let my head drop, pretty certain I know what's about to be said.

"Michael, I've noticed the quality of your work is dropping. Or... has dropped. Completely. Did you even do anything today?"

"No, Sir," I say.

His voice is confused this time, worried. "I don’t understand; you were doing so well, and you’ve got an important mock examination in less than a month. Are you alright?"

"Yes, Sir," I murmur.

"Are you sure? Is everything okay at home?"

I hold in a sigh, "It's perfectly fine, Sir."

There‘s a pause and he seems affronted. "Right. Well I'm going to have to call in and speak to your father if it carries on then. Do you understand?" I don't say anything. "Michael," Sir’s tone of voice is weary but firm. I glance up at him.

"I understand, Sir."

An unsure silence follows. I hear Rich shuffle by the door and feel trapped; closed in. "I have to go now," I tell him before backing away and turning to leave.

"Okay, I'll see you next lesson... Homework done, Michael!" I hardly take notice. I can feel Rich watching me from the corner of my eye, but I pretend I haven’t realised that either and keep walking toward the school entrance.

“So... Do you want to come over today?” he asks. I shake my head and adjust my bag. “Fuck, Mikey!” Rich turns to me and grabs my arm, forcing us to stop as we get outside. We‘re shoved aside as other students surge past, but it‘s nothing we‘re not used to and we hardly notice. “I don’t mean to keep going on at you, but there’s something wrong! I know there is. So get over your pride and just tell me, Mikey?”

“Rich,” I begin, my tone weary. I can already feel tears threatening to spill and my voice had wavered.

“Don’t even try to lie to me, Mike. Shit, what is it? You‘re fucking scaring me,” and when I look into his eyes I regret it, because he does look scared. And I don’t have the heart to lie to him.

But I’m not stupid enough to tell him the truth either. He'd never talk to me. He'd never ever talk to me again.

“Do you even realise how long you‘ve been like this?”

“Rich…” And he just stands, watching me… Waiting. I'm unsure what to say to him. “Just…" He continues to wait expectantly. And I can't escape it now. He won't back down, this I know. He's too stubborn. "I..." And it's a moment before I can speak again, "It's Harry,” I decide, emotionless still. It’s not exactly a lie- Harry’s linked to it, and it could be anything- but it’s far from the truth. It's just then that my brother's car turns into the school entrance.

"Harry!?" Rich asks, confused. "What--"

"Shut up about it, he's here."

I can tell that Rich is unsatisfied, and I feel slightly bad about lying, but I'm not telling him the truth. I want to forget it ever happened. The less people that know, the better. The easier I can do just that.

When Harry's beat up car, a second-hand Ford something, stops in a parking space, I am the first to head towards it as quickly as possible, leaving no space for Rich to think up another quick question. In seeing who was in the car beside Harry, though, I felt like slowing down and running the opposite way.

I open the door and hesitate before sliding in. “H-Harry?”

“Hey Mike!” he twists around in his seat to face me, his hand still clutching the wheel. I glance at Josh, sitting in the front seat beside Harry. He turns to face me and offers me an uncertain smile. I don’t like it. I don’t like the pity or concern I see in his eyes. I look away from him. I hate that he knows.

“Can you drop Rich off at his house? He needs a lift.”

“Yeah sure, get him in!”

I shuffle to stick my head out and give Rich a warning glare before beckoning him into the car. As soon as we’re all seated Harry starts the car and begins the reckless drive to Rich’s house. Rich grins, putting his seat belt on and gripping onto the seat in front of him. “Forgot how badly you drive,” he says.

Harry laughs outright, and Josh chuckles too. “Hey, I can kick you out of here if you don’t like it,” my brother jokes.

“I’m good,” Rich grins. All three of them continue to banter and tease and laugh, and I feel out of the loop. Stuck in a rut somewhere. I feel as if I’m hearing them from a bubble of protection I’ve built around myself. It seems a little pointless to build walls around a castle that’s already ruined, though.

I lean my head against the window, closing my eyes as the glass shudders against it. I like how the cold window feels against my hot forehead. I’m getting a headache. I have been pretty frequently recently.

I can hear Harry introducing Josh to Rich and vice versa. There are jokes thrown around and laughter coming from the three boys again. Constant. I’ve never understood how Harry and Rich get on so well. It’s not even as if they hit it off the minute they met, but they‘ve been quite friendly recently. I was happy at first. Harry is my best friend and brother, and Rich is the closest person to me other than him... But, sometimes, I feel if they become any closer I’ll be left behind.

Insecurities, insecurities.

I momentarily begin to open my bag in search for my MP3 so that I can drown out my thoughts with Elvis, but I left it at home today. Of course. I relax back into my seat.

“Thanks so much for the lift, I’ll see you later.” I open my eyes to offer Rich a nod but he’s talking to Harry. When he turns to me the concern in his face is evident. “See you tomorrow, okay?”

“Yeah,” is all I offer. Usually it’d be okay with me replying like that; I’m not a big talker, but this time Rich has a dubious look on his face as he says goodbye to Josh and slides out of the car. The door is shut behind him and Harry pulls out of the awkward space he’d parked into too casually. The journey carries on homewards, and the car is silent. I’m pretty sure I detect an uncomfortable atmosphere, and it’s clearly because of me. I squeeze myself even closer to the car door and close my eyes again. I don’t want to be here.



It’s constantly skin against skin, hands holding, pressing, squeezing- it’s all I can feel. And there are lips too. They’re grazing along my skin at first, and there are flashes of teeth- just touching, barely there, sending tingles all over, my nerves are shot. And then the lips are crashing against my own and a weight I almost can’t bear, but cling to anyway, is pressing down on me. My legs are being pushed open and--

“Mikey! Wake up!” A concerned voice is coaxing me out of my slumber.

I’m shaken and my eyes snap open as I choke and cough, throat and eyes stinging. Both Harry and Josh are staring at me, worried, kneeling on the floor with the car door to my side open. I push back, eyes frantic.

“Mikey?” Josh’s voice is low, uncertain. One of his hands has started to reach out to me but has stopped hardly an inch from his body. He doesn’t know what to do. I shrink away and turn me head to the ground, blinking tears away.

“Get inside, please, Josh,” Harry murmurs. I glance upwards, afraid of the tone in Harry’s voice; so final. He doesn’t even turn to his friend as he raises the house key and dangles it over his shoulder; his eyes are trained on me. There’s uncertainty in the shorter boy’s expression, but he stands with only a moment's hesitation and takes the silver object, backing away before turning and heading towards the house. I’m still struggling to breathe- to calm down- as Josh opens the door and disappears inside. Still reeling from a familiar dream that repeatedly plays, reminding me of the biggest mistake I've made in all my sixteen years.

Fuck.

Harry waits patiently until my breathing is steady. He settles on the floor in front of me as I slip my legs out of his car.

“Can you move please?” I whisper.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he says. “We’re talking about this first. Or I’m telling dad. And then I’m throwing Addison out of the band.”

“Y-you can’t do that,” I protest, mainly referring to his second threat, but he probably can. Despite the fact that Addison seems to be the front man of Naught A King, it was actually Harry’s idea to start a band in the first place and he got all the members together, he has a huge amount of respect and control.

“You’re not okay, Mikey. You’re not fucking okay,” Harry carries on, his voice calm despite his language.

“I am Harry, j-just leave me alone, get out of the way,” I hiss, wishing I could shout at him (because he hates it when I do), but dad’s car is in the drive way and he’ll want to know what’s going on. It’s Wednesday. His day off. Convenient.

“Mikey, shit, just say something… Anything about how you feel, what happened… I need to know. It’s fucking killing me that you’re like this and won’t talk to me about it. We used to talk and now you’re just... numb, and I already fucking blame myself but-”

“Stop it!” I stand up and try to step over my brother but he scrambles to his feet too and grabs hold of my shoulders, pushing me back until I have the roof of his car digging into me. “Get off,” I gasp, refusing to look him in the eyes. I feel guilty as it is. None of this is his fault, it wasn’t Harry at all.

“Please, Mikey…” and this time his tone is nothing but sad. And that’s the worst. “The truth.” I frown and Harry smiles a little when I push him away but move to sit inside the car. I shuffle further inside and watch him climb into the car, miserable. I think Harry sees me shiver because he shuts the door after a moment.

“Harry, I don’t want you to ever blame yourself,” I murmur, “It wasn’t you.”

“Yeah, I know that, Mike, but it was your fucking first party and I went to get off with Cara. I was fucking stupid. I mean, damn it, I hear about things happening all the time around Addison. Sure, I never expected Josh to leave you with him, and I never knew Addison would do this to my fucking brother, but I-”

“No, Harry there’s no excuse, forget it, it isn’t anyone else. I’m sixteen; I should be able to take care of myself now, okay? It was my fault in the first place. I wanted it. I did, I mean, not the… the thing with Addison necessarily, but I wanted to feel as old as I am. It was my first party, my first time taking weed-”

“You smoked weed?!” Harry exclaims. I ignore him and carry on as he mutters something along the lines of “I didn’t know that.”

“First time drinking socially with people who weren’t related to me in any way… I don’t know. I was hyped from the adrenaline a little. I’m not going to lie, I wanted something exciting to happen just so that I could mark my sixteenth birthday with something life-changing. I wasn’t really hoping for one, but,” I crack a small smile, “You know what people hear. I could’ve met some girl and wouldn’t have been gay anymore. I don’t know. I honestly don‘t know how I feel about it. I‘d rather forget it ever happened, to be honest, Harry. I want to pretend it hasn‘t.”

Harry is silent for a moment as he turns to look out of the window. He scuffs the top of his Vans against the seat in front of him and clicks his tongue. “Ignoring things won't make them go away, it doesn’t improve the situation.”

“Neither does dwelling on them. Shouldn’t you go back to Josh?”

“I should,” he says.

“Go on. I’m fine.”

Harry turns to me, “Who do you have? If you won’t tell me, would you tell Rich?”

“If I don’t tell you I would definitely not tell Rich, Harry. There’s nothing to say. I just don’t feel like talking about it.”

“You do blame me though. I know it because you spend all your time in your room now. You can’t even watch TV with me anymore. I hear more Elvis than I used to, and that can’t be healthy.” The last part was supposed to be a joke but his tone of voice was too morose, so it didn’t come out half as light as he probably meant it to.

“Maybe it’s because Elvis understands me,” I reply. I’m smiling a little. It's a joke too, but it probably holds more truth than I'm willing to accept. Harry shakes his head.

“Well, I’m going to make sure Josh hasn’t done anything stupid in front of dad.”

“Yeah.”

When Harry gets out of the car, I step out after him, my head facing my neat, black Oxford shoes. I remain like this too as I walk in through the front door and shout a greeting to my dad -who is in the kitchen as far as I can tell- and also as I ascend the stairs towards my bedroom. The second I’m in my safe house I shut the door and head over to play a tape; I skip over to Burning Love. I’m feeling more like Suspicious Minds, but I can’t really be bothered to look for it. Burning Love is one of my favourites anyway. Usually it makes me want to move, but in my current mood I throw my bag to a corner, unconcerned about where it lands. I feel myself flop face down onto my bed, humming along, my voice muffled by my pillows. I can already feel the stress rolling off my back, and I don’t think I care much about the fact that my glasses' frames are squeezing down on the bridge of my nose.

It wouldn’t be a lie to say that my room is pretty much a shrine to Elvis Presley. The walls are a boring cream but they are mostly covered in posters and pictures I’ve printed off the internet anyway. His confident, handsome face is looking at me with his sultry eyes and his hair slicked back everywhere I turn. It used to be scary to wake up in the middle of the night, but I’m pretty used to it now. Almost. My wardrobe is full of lyrics from songs and quotes by or about the man himself, stuck with blue tack. They’re beginning to curl at the edges, which irritates me to no end, but I can’t think of anything to do about it. I have a whole shelf designated to various books (from small to large) and I even printed everything Wikipedia had on him and slipped all the sheets into a binder.

(Call me obsessive, but…) I have an area for his music too. A corner of my room where I pile the records, CDs, DVDs and tapes I have. There’s a record player that dad had and decided he didn’t need anymore (so I buy Vinyl anywhere I can get my hands on them- Charity shops are quite good for that, not to mention eBay and Amazon) and I kept the tape player I had from when I was a lot younger. I’ve even got a discman that I used to listen to all my Elvis CDs in until I figured out the whole CD-Computer-MP3 thing. I’ve got an acoustic guitar next to that corner that’s red-brown, and a black electric guitar. There are several Elvis t-shirts which I hang in one side of my wardrobe and a notebook with his face on every page which, to this day, I have not used. I can’t think of something special enough to write in it. I have a Rock ‘n’ Roll banner across the wall my bed head is against and his face -with that crazy/cool bloody Elvis- smirk on, staring out at the lyric wardrobe wall. On my desk I only have school books and an Elvis doll.

Yes; an Elvis doll. He’s in a white jumpsuit, with gold rhinestones dotted around it, particularly around his flared trousers. He even has a Lei -those things Hawaiians wear- around his neck, and a microphone in one on his hands. Admittedly, I have a few more (even one that has a bloody guitar! Thank you eBay), but nobody knows about the rest of them. They’re hidden in their own respective boxes by my shoes in the lyrics wardrobe, and that’s where they remain. Unless I’m feeling a little sentimental. But for no other reason do I bring them out, ever. (Barring Christmas, but other than that...)

There’s a knock on my door. I sigh heavily. Burning Love has ended and Moody Blue is playing. I guess I must have fallen asleep because my mind is foggy and the patch on my duvet where my mouth is happens to be damp with drool. I groan and sit up, wiping the trail of drying spit on my chin. I fix my glasses, which are sitting askew, and kick off my shoes. They fall to the ground with two muffled thuds and I blink slowly once or twice before coming to my senses and responding to the knock. “Yeah?”

There’s a moment before my door opens a crack. I was expecting Harry, maybe dad, but it’s Josh looking a little sheepish. My eyes widen and I inch a hand over my patch of drool. His features seem to relax after a moment though, into something different. One of his eyebrows arch in amusement, and he’s looking at my tape player. Clearly it’s at my music choice. I blush.

“H-hi, Josh…”

“Mikey. Hey. Your dad says he got a call from your history teacher.” I groan again, running my hand through my hair, hitting my glasses on the way up, thus causing them to fall off. I rub the bridge of my nose because it’s pretty sore at this point. I feel uncoordinated and just way too clumsy in my sleepy state. Josh smiles a little -looking a lot friendlier, closer to how he looked at the gig, but still slightly nervous, cautious. “Yeah. He says he’s going to get dinner sorted out and then come speak to you.”

I return the smile, though mine is a little more hesitant. “Great. Looking forward to it.”

“Slipping behind?”

“Something like that.”

“Ah, well there was no slipping back for me in school, I started behind, stayed behind.” I can’t help my smile expanding but I’m not sure what to say so there is a lull in the awkward conversation. I wipe my eyes as I adjust my legs so that they fall off my bed and I can feel my toes stroking the carpet. Josh swaps the leg he’s keeping his weight on. He eyes rise, sweeping around my room, seeming to realise for the first time the name and face all over my walls. He laughs out loud while I blush again, much redder this time.

“I see what Harry was talking about!” he chuckles, holding onto the door knobs for support.

“Shut up,” I grin, “It’s not…” the end of that sentence was going to be “that bad” but I notice Josh is standing a little straighter, eyes on my beloved Elvis doll. It is. It really is that bad. I roll my eyes and sigh a little, but I‘ve got a smile tugging at my lips.

“Nah, it’s quite cool actually.” I can’t take him seriously with a smile as wide as the one he’s got now on his face. “At least you’ve got something you love, right? It’s pretty cool to love something like that.” He glances around the room again before his eyes land on mine. “Or, maybe not to this degree, but…”

My blush intensifies as I look around the room. I shouldn’t be embarrassed, but I am a little. Hardly anyone has ever been into my room. Harry, Dad, Rich and my only other close-enough-to-call-a-friend friend, Claire, have been in to too. My grandma back when she was alive, but it wasn’t to this extent, and she was half blind.

My mum had too. Back when she was alive. But, again, my infatuation with Elvis wasn’t this serious. Not yet.

“Can I come in?” Josh asks. I look at him, confused as to why he would ask (nobody else does,) but I nod him in regardless. I’m not quite sure how to react to Josh being in here to be honest. He sends what I can only guess is a grin of gratitude and steps in, shutting my door behind him. He makes his way slowly across the first wall, looking at each picture of Elvis stuck down. I blush, only just realising how many I clearly have seeing as it feels like forever for him to just finish that first wall. When he gets to the second -with my desk and the wardrobe- he pauses. Josh turns to face me.

“Can I touch the doll?”

“Uh, y-yeah,” I answer hesitantly, my eyes flicking to the almost £200 item.

Josh raises his hands to the air. “I don’t have to, I know how expensive these things can be,” he tells me.

“No, no, it’s fine.” I grab my glasses and fix them back onto my face before pushing off my bed and heading towards him. Biting my lip, I look down at the doll where it stands and smile before picking it up carefully. Josh opens his hands and I place the model of Elvis in his small hands. He looks a little hesitant at first, as if he’s scared he might drop it, but then he seems to relax and holds Elvis’ torso, moving his left arm into a different position. My eyes flick up to his face as his lips stretch wider absent-mindedly. His black hair is falling more and more into his face but he doesn’t seem to notice this, I glance back down at his hands to see he’s bent Elvis’ knees so that he‘s in a sitting position. He lifts the doll for me to see and looks up at me with grey eyes.

“He died on a toilet, right?”

“You’re such a child! He did not!” I protest. He fell off his toilet and drowned in his own vomit after overdosing on painkillers. I lay my hand out and Josh grins as he places the doll in my hand.

“That’s the word on the street, Mikey,” he says. I point in the direction of my Elvis library before placing the doll back as it was. Josh gives a low whistle.

“Impressive.”

“T-thanks…” But I'm a little horrified. I know I look obsessive-- am obsessive. With Elvis.

I can’t tell what Josh thinks about it though, because he’s constantly so calm and happy about everything.

Josh steps around me and stops in front of the wardrobe. He squints. “Quotes?”

“And lyrics,” I say.

“Mmm,” he nods. He lifts a hand and touches the flimsy sheets of paper, half of which I cut out with scissors (so they look shabby and stupid), following words with his fingers. I hear him mutter a low curse and furrow my eyebrows.

“Um…”

“Sorry,” he lets his hands fall and turns away, pretending to look at something else, I imagine.

“Are you...okay?”

“Yeah, fine. I’m kinda dyslexic, I should be better than this but, yeah, I’m not and it just gets frustrating sometimes.”

“Oh. Shit. Sorry, I… I could read some of them to you if you like? My favourites?”

The short drummer turns to look up at me, surprised. “Uh… Really?” I nod. “Sure… I mean, thanks. I just, you don’t have to do that, you don’t have to-”

“Um, a chance to tell someone who is actually willing to listen about Elvis’ songs and thing’s he’s said? Yes. Yes I do.”

Josh laughs at this, and I like how it makes me feel. It’s something that I can get used to. “Okay then. Go ahead.”

“Right, so,” I scan the text on my wardrobe until I found the lyrics to Paralysed. “This is from his 1956 album I think,” I tell Josh as I place my finger on the paragraph. I can see him nod from my peripheral vision and his eyes follow my finger as I trace across and read the words out as I do so; “When you looked into my eyes/ I stood there like I was hypnotised/ You sent a feeling to my spine/ A feeling warm and smooth and fine/ But all I could do were stand there paralysed/ When we kissed, ooh what a thrill,” Josh chuckles a little at this and I blush but continue regardless. “You took my hand and, ooh baby, what a chill/ I felt like grabbin’ you real tight/ Squeeze and squeeze with all my might/ But all I could do were stand there paralyzed.”

Josh smiles as he looks up at me hopefully. “Sing it?”

“No,” I say firmly, “That’s not going to happen any time soon. I wouldn’t do it justice anyway.”

“I refuse to believe this. Show me another one.”

I nod and search around before seeing one I like near the bottom. I crouch down and wave at Josh to do the same. He complies, and like this we’re pretty much the same height. I bat the thought away and lean my hand against the wardrobe to support myself. “This is a quote about the way he moves on stage,” I point at the quote in question. “You’ve seen him, haven’t you?”

“I think so?”

“Okay, well look, it goes like this; ‘Some people tap their feet, some people snap their fingers, and some people sway back and forth. I just sorta do them all together, I guess.’” I’m grinning when I turn to Josh. I’ve always liked that one. I can imagine him saying it. Josh laughs at me.

“You really like this guy,” he cleverly observes.

“No shit,” I remark.

“Just saying.”

“Mhmm,” I sigh, content, just eyeing the different words on the sheets of paper.

“Mikey?”

“Yeah?” I glimpse at Josh. He’s rocked backwards onto his bum and sat down.

“I’m really sorry. For leaving you with him.” I close my eyes and turn my head away. “Hey,” I feel a hand resting on my forearm and I can’t help flinching a little. “I won’t talk about it again unless you want me to. I promise. I just... I never got a proper chance to apologise, but I am sorry.”

“That's okay,” I murmur. "Thanks." I sit back as well and look back at Josh. Our eyes are locked for what feels like centuries and there’s something jarring in my chest. I swallow hard and Josh seems to be having the same difficulty as he looks pretty uncomfortable. I look down at his hand, still on my forearm, and there’s a pause before he takes it away. “Um,” I clear my throat. “Aren’t dyslexic people good at maths or something?”

“Um, not that I know of, but I’m not bad at it. Surprisingly. Why?”

“Maths homework that I have to do or I’ll be getting another call home,” I offer, glad the strange atmosphere around us is gone.

“Ah, well I’ll be glad to help. Dyslexic Dude to the rescue!”

Sometimes I wonder about the mental age of my brother and his friends.