Status: Completed

'Cause the Hardest Part of This is Leaving You.

Save Yourself, I'll hold Them Back. Part I

" I want Frank to move in. "

Mom turns from the sink, her hands dripping soap bubbles onto the floor. She looks utterly stunned. " Don’t be ridiculous! "

" I mean it. "

" Where’s he supposed to sleep? "

" In my bedroom. "

" There’s no way I’m agreeing to that, Gerard! " She turns back to the sink, clunks bowls and plates about. " Is this on your list? Is having a live-in boyfriend on your list? "

" His name’s Frank. "

He shakes his head. " Forget it. "

" Then I’ll move into his house. "

" You think his mother will want you there? "

" We’ll bugger off to Alabama and live in a trailer park then. Would you prefer that? "

Her mouth twitches with anger as she turns back to me. " The answer’s no, Gee. "

I hate the way she pulls authority, as if it’s all sorted because she says so. I stomp downstairs to my room and slam the door.
She thinks it’s about sex. Can’t she see it’s deeper than that? And can’t he see how difficult it is to ask for?

Three weeks ago, at the end of January, Frank took me out on the bike, faster than before and further – to a place on the borders where there’s flat marshy land sloping down to a beach.
He skimmed stones at the waves and I sat on the shingle and told him how my list is sprawling away from me.

" There are so many things I want. Ten isn’t enough any more. "

" Tell me, " he said.

It was easy at first. On and on I went. Spring. Daffodils and tulips. Swimming under a calm blue evening sky. A long train journey, a peacock, a kite. Another summer. But I couldn’t tell him the thing I want the most.

That night he went home. Every night he goes home to keep his mother safe. He sleeps just meters away from me, through the wall, on the other side of the wardrobe.

The next day he turned up with tickets for the zoo. We went on the train. We saw wolves and antelopes. A peacock opened its tail for me, emerald and aquamarine. We had lunch in a café and Frank bought me a fruit platter with black grapes and vivid slices of mango.

A few days later he took me to a heated outdoor pool. After swimming, we sat on the edge, wrapped in towels, and dangled our feet in the water. We drank hot chocolate and laughed at the children hollering in the cold air.

One morning he delivered a bowl of crocuses to my room.
" Spring, " he said.
He took me to our hill on his bike. He’d bought a pocket kite from the Post Office and we flew it together.
Day after day it was as if someone had taken my life apart and polished every bit of it really carefully before putting it all back together.

But we never shared a single night.

Then, on Valentine’s day, I got anemic only twelve days after a blood transfusion.
" What does it mean? " I asked the consultant.

" You’ve moved nearer the line, " he said.
It’s getting harder to breathe. The shadows under my eyes have deepened. My lips look like plastic stretched over a gate

Last night I woke up at two in the morning. My legs were hurting, a dull throbbing, like a toothache. I’d taken paracetamol before going to bed, but I needed codeine. On the way to the bathroom I passed Mom’s open bedroom door and Dad was in there – his arm flung protectively across her. That’s three times he’s stayed over in the last two weeks.
I stood on the landing watching them sleep and I knew for a fact that I couldn’t be alone in the dark any more
♠ ♠ ♠
any recommends for meh? plz