Work Text:
I know what my heart is like
Since your love died:
It is like a hollow ledge
Holding a little pool
Left there by the tide,
A little tepid pool,
Drying inward from the edge.
(Ebb, Edna St. Vincent Millay)
It just fucking figures, doesn’t it?
Look at this. He has his shit together, finally. It’s taken years, but he’s in a good spot now. A great spot, actually. Job’s going well, and he really likes it. Feels solid, content. Mum’s happy with her new hubby, and Nick isn’t going to say it aloud because Pete is one of those old-school men who doesn’t say stuff like that, but he’s more of a dad than Nick has ever had in his life before. Far better late than never.
Nick’s even managed to mend a few fences with David. They’ll probably never be truly close, but they talk randomly on the phone these days, no occasion usually, just catching up a little. It’s so much better than it used to be.
And then there’s Rhys, and well. Could it be better? He’s asked himself this several times over the past year and change, and even right now he can’t think of any way it could improve much. Rhys isn’t perfect, but Nick isn’t anywhere near it himself. Rhys is who he wants, who wants him back, and what they have is good. Damned good.
So it figures that now, when he’s got a life he enjoys, people he loves and all that, his phone rings. The number looks familiar, but he doesn’t have it saved, and he’s tired tonight, full of Rhys’s excellent cooking. He frowns.
“H’lo?”
“Nick.”
It’s breathy, more air than sound. Nick sits very still for a moment, hears an indrawn breath. Something in his belly clenches, and he taps the disconnect button.
“Who was it?” Rhys is frowning over his glasses, his dark eyes looking tired. No wonder: He was up with Angharad all hours last night and still put in a full day’s work at the surgery today. Nick got home too late to help all that much.
He shrugs. “Wrong number, I think.”
Upstairs he undresses and gives Rhys a few minutes in the shower, then joins him.
“Cariad,” Rhys breathes against his ear, just audible over the water. “Ti mor ddel.”
His throat aches suddenly. “Caru ti.” He slides his arms around Rhys’s muscular middle, laying his cheek against his shoulder.
They both like sex in the shower, but Rhys is tired from farm and vet duties, and the phone call means Nick’s libido went into shock – temporarily, he hopes. So there’s soap and a rinse, but no happy ending; they’d probably both eat shit if they tried and wind up with matching concussions. They take turns drying each other off with the enormous new bath sheets Mum and Pete gave them, clean their teeth, and trudge to bed.
Under the covers, Rhys touches Nick’s cheek. “Who was it really? On the phone.”
Nick closes his eyes briefly. “Him.”
“You’re shitting me. That –”
“Don’t know how he got my number.”
Rhys’s cheeks have gone red. “We’ll change it tomorrow. Not having it.”
Nick pushes forward and kisses his lips softly. “Yeah. Sounds good.”
“You all right?” Rhys pulls him against his chest, broad hands spanning Nick’s back.
“I think I am,” Nick says, testing the words. “Didn’t give him time to say anything. Can’t imagine what he’d say, if I had.”
“Nothing you’d want to hear, I’ll wager.” Rhys doesn’t look as angry now, just a familiar shade of warm concern. He’s worn that expression too much, Nick thinks. “Want some melatonin?”
“Don’t think so. Byddaf yn iawn.”
But even after Rhys’s breathing lengthens and steadies with sleep, Nick keeps studying his handsome features. Colouring so much like He Who Shall Not Be Named – aw, have some balls, Nick, like Charlie’s – but in all other ways so very different.
What had driven him to call? The idea of it makes Nick’s skin prickle with gooseflesh. Maybe something happened, in Kent, or maybe –
He clenches his eyes closed. Doesn’t matter. If he needs to know, he’ll find out, or Mum will, or David. What was the old saying – bad news has wings, and good news crawls on its belly.
Charlie Spring wasn’t calling with good news. It has been a long time since Charlie brought anything good at all.
As tired as he is, it takes hours to relax enough to sleep.
~~~~~~~~~~
He feels his phone vibrate with a text at mid-morning a couple of days later, but the kids are wired today, two emotional meltdowns before 0900 and Rafael has been snooping in lunchboxes again, eating any sweets he can find. There’s no time for Nick to check his messages until the kids are sat at their desks with their somewhat depleted lunches, and Nick sits down with the food Rhys packed for him. Cheese and pickle sandwiches, the good crisps, and there are two Jaffa cakes in there for him, too. Rhys only does that when he thinks Nick needs an extra bit of energy.
He was right, Nick does.
It was Rhys who texted, he sees. Call your mum, he says. She’s trying to reach you, but you didn’t give her your new number.
Christ, he’d completely forgot. He texts his updated contact card to her and says he’ll go see her after school.
When he does, she doesn’t waste any time. “I got an interesting phone call this morning,” Mum says. She doesn’t laugh or say anything else.
Nick sighs. “I did too. Couple of days ago, actually.”
“What did he say?”
“Didn’t give him time to say anything. Hung up on him.”
She’s silent for a moment, and then says, “Good for you.”
His mum’s feelings about Charlie have been nearly as twisted up as his own. It’s been three years and she has mellowed a trifle, but Charlie Spring is still very close to the top of her shit list – probably second only to his dad.
Neither Mum nor Nick himself had wanted to believe Charlie could be capable of such behaviour, and it had taken her even more time to resolve it in her own head. Nick believed it sooner, mostly because he saw the cold look on Charlie’s face before he left, heard the distant tone of his voice.
But Mum had only known that the boy she’d taken under her wing all those years ago had evidently been a cuckoo, twisted by his own traumas into something so warped that he bore almost no resemblance to the sweet lad he’d once been. Mum had been deeply shocked, but after a day or two she had settled into quiet, deep rage on Nick’s behalf and her own.
After all this time, that has not substantively changed. Once a charter member of the Charlie Spring Fan Club, Sarah Nelson is now anything but.
Sometimes, in quiet moments when he reluctantly allows himself to ponder the entire situation – as he is perforce doing now – he recognizes how truly sad it all is. Not only for the despicable way Charlie treated their relationship, and Nick himself, but because they had loved him so much before. There had been few people in the world more staunchly devoted to him than Nick and Sarah Nelson. Probably only Tori, and maybe Tao.
That was then. Now, Nick is pretty sure his mum would eventually throw water on Charlie if she saw he was on fire, but he can’t be 100% sure of it. Any more than he can be of himself. As for Tori and Tao, who knows? He cut contact with them and almost everyone else he knew in Kent, years ago. Tara and Imogen each touch base occasionally, but the last he’d heard from either had been last year, almost fifteen months ago.
“He asked me to pass along a message,” Mum says now. Her expression is set, determined.
Dread is slowly curdling in his belly, like vinegar turning milk to clabber. “And?”
“I told him I wouldn’t, that he’d have to contact you himself. He said he’d tried but you didn’t want to speak with him.”
Boy, that’s an understatement. He can’t help a sharp little laugh.
“I told him that was his answer,” Mum continues in that same tight voice. “That if you didn’t want to speak with him it was your choice, and I didn’t appreciate him trying some kind of end run around it. If it was an emergency, then I’d see what I could do, but if not, that’s the end of it.”
When she doesn’t continue, he asks, “What did he say then?”
She sighs. “He said it wasn’t an emergency, no. He wants to – make amends.”
“Oh, now that’s just –”
“And I told him,” she continues inexorably, “that he could start only if you agreed to it. And he said he couldn’t get you to agree if you wouldn’t speak to him, and well.” She shrugs. “I’m afraid I was a bit tart after that.”
“Do tell.” He gave her a weak smile.
She reaches out to cover his hand with hers, squeezing warmly. “That just because you get an answer you don’t like doesn’t mean it wasn’t an answer. And a bit more in that vein. Let’s just say that I made it as clear as I could that I would not help him with this, and he was on his own.”
Nick shakes his head and says, “I don’t know why he’s doing this. ‘Make amends,’ I mean, I can see maybe having guilty associations, whatever. But he can’t think I’d want to see him, no matter what he says. What can he hope to accomplish?”
“I’m not sure. A more important question, Nicky – could you stand talking with him?” Mum’s eyes are damp-looking, worried. “Or would it send you – well.”
Nick meets her gaze. “Would it make me fall to bits again?”
Her face twists with pain. “Yes,” she whispers.
Now he takes her icy hand himself, sandwiching it between both his own. “No,” he says firmly. “No way. I was in a bad place, Mum, you know that. I’m not that guy now. Yeah? I have my life back, a better one.” He makes a face. “One that isn’t built on lies. I promise you; I’m not depressed anymore. Not like then. I wouldn’t – I would not do that to you, or Rhys.”
She nods, although her hand is still cold in his. “Do you miss him? Ever?”
After a moment, he shrugs. “Used to. But it’s like missing, I dunno, Santa. The tooth fairy, the Easter bunny. They don’t exist; they’re fantasies.” He draws a deep breath and lets it out in a whoosh. “Charlie – I’m not sure he was ever truly honest with me, the last year or two that we were together. And I can’t read minds, so I didn’t know that what I thought was happiness – was anything but.”
“Not as if it was your fault.”
“I’m sure I was part of it. I’m not claiming to be blameless. I just thought he’d talk to me if he had, y’know, concerns. But he didn’t.”
Mum nods again, slowly. “What if he says he wants to try again?”
Nick rocks back so sharply he almost tips his chair over. “Oh, fuck that,” he manages, shaking his head. “He can piss right off.”
“Good,” she tells him. “Glad to hear you say it.”
“I think Pete would kick my arse. And I wouldn’t do that to Rhys. Never, he’s a good man, he’d –”
“Of course you wouldn’t. I know that, HE knows it.”
Nick nods stiffly. “Charlie Spring,” he says, shaping the name carefully, “is a liar, and a coward. And somehow, after everything that happened, I’ve landed in a good life for myself. I’m not giving that up. Not for Charlie, or anyone else.” He snorts. “He wants to make amends? The best thing he could do for me is stay away.”
Mum nods, too. “Good,” she says again. “Remember that.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~
The following afternoon, while Nick watches over the kids getting collected by parents and buses, he sees Charlie in the car park.
His mind goes utterly blank. It’s horror, maybe, or terror, or possibly rage. Or maybe all three, so mixed up he can’t tell one from the other. His heart takes off in his chest, pattering madly, and he’s short of breath. The kids are mostly gone. The two remaining are waiting with his colleague Janis, who smiles at Nick and then sobers, brows drawing together.
Charlie looks a little different. Short hair, violently short, maybe a quarter of an inch, and it’s lighter than he remembers, too. He’s achingly thin, and an old, dark worry bubbles up in his stomach: Is he not eating?
“What’s wrong?”
He flinches and yelps, knees going wobbly. Jan is staring, outright worry on her face. “Fuck’s sake, Nick, are you all right? Come on, let’s go inside, have a cuppa.”
When he looks, Charlie’s frowning, too. His hands are jammed into the pockets of his too-large jeans, feet shifting from side to side like he wants to come closer but isn’t letting himself.
The worry wanes, and Nick swallows, taking a few long steps toward him. “Don’t call my mum,” he says hoarsely. “Don’t you fucking dare.”
The long thin column of Charlie’s throat works as he swallows, too. “I won’t,” he says. “I won’t call her again.”
Nick takes another step and stops. “You have no right, Charlie. Coming here. You said it wasn’t an emergency, so what is it? Why the fuck are you here?”
It’s grotesque, how much he notices how beautiful Charlie is. Still. After all this time, after all he’s done. He looks like when they first met, reed-slender and delicate, long fingers and skinny legs and those lambent indigo eyes. For a second Nick is fifteen again, too, feels a different tie around his neck, a shirt that’s too tight and this beautiful boy sat next to him. That breathy greeting.
Why are we like this. He wants to laugh, suddenly, and weep.
“I.” Charlie clears his throat. “Is there someplace we can talk?”
It feels like he’s being impaled on a long, slim icicle. Sharp point sinking into his chest, sliding slowly into his heart. “We’re talking now.” His own voice sounds odd to his ears. Airy, weak somehow.
Charlie’s face crumples a little, then goes familiarly stoic. “I’m afraid I need to sit down soon. Not a teenager anymore.”
“There’s a coffee place, not far. Bitter.”
“Huh.” Charlie’s lips twist in something between a smirk and a frown. “Not an auspicious name, but what the hell. Buy you a drink?”
He’ll need alcohol if this goes on very long, but he manages a stiff nod.
They don’t talk as they head up the street. Nick’s throat has tightened to the point where he isn’t sure he can drink anything at all, and Charlie’s unexpectedly out of breath, his pace deliberate. The impulse to check in, ask him what’s going on, is old, instinctive. He forces it down.
His mobile buzzes after another block. He watches Charlie sit on the nearby bus bench, perhaps gratefully, and says, “Hey.”
“Janis called me. Is he with you?”
Nick closes his eyes briefly. “Yes. It’s fine. Just going for a coffee.”
Rhys sounds more rattled than Nick has ever heard him. “Coc y gath,” he snaps. “Where? I’m on my way.”
“Cariad.” He pitches his voice low, even if there’s only a slight chance Charlie can hear him sat way over there. And he sure as fuck doesn’t speak Welsh, at least not that Nick knows. “Dim ond Bitter, i lawr y stryd.”
“Be there in ten.”
When he catches up to Charlie’s rest spot, the look in his familiar eyes is amused. “Still good with languages,” Charlie says.
“I suppose. You ready? Place is the next block. Not far.”
The colour’s back in his cheeks, and he follows without hesitating.
Bitter is dim and not very crowded this time of day. Nick leads them to a table near the back. His mouth is very dry, anxiety churning in his belly.
“So,” he says when they’re seated across from one another and they’ve ordered from the blond waitstaff guy. “Tell me what you have to say, Charlie. Just a couple of things first, yeah?”
Charlie nods.
“First, that was my partner on the phone. Rhys. He’s on his way here, will probably be along very soon. So if you need to say things in private – you have to understand that I don’t keep secrets from Rhys. He’s my partner, we share it all. Right?”
Charlie’s cheeks are red again. It’s impossible to read exactly what he’s thinking. “Right,” he says softly.
“And second, I can see how you are, physically.”
Charlie takes a long, deep breath and lets it out. “Didn’t think that would get past you.”
“I was there, Charlie, I saw you when it was at its worst. And if you’re much over 50 kilos right now, I’ll eat my wallet.”
“A little more than that.” He looks down at the tabletop. “But not much,” he adds very softly.
“You’ve relapsed, I guess, and you’re out of breath, look pretty unwell, and yet you’re here. An hour and a half by train, 240 klicks approximately.” Nick sighs. “So, it’s important, and you came in spite of not feeling well. Knowing I didn’t want to see you.” He lifts his chin. “So out with it.”
The wait staffer shows up with their drinks, black coffee for Charlie – some things evidently haven’t changed – and Darjeeling for Nick. Likewise. Christ, this is – He wants to leave, suddenly, needs to leave, this Charlie is too familiar, too much like the man Nick loved for years, who –
“Nick,” Charlie says, meeting his eyes steadily, “I wanted to –”
The bell over the door clangs, and Rhys bustles in. He spies Nick immediately, hurries over. “Hey,” he says, a little breathless. Must be going around. His eyes are creased with worry when he leans to kiss Nick on the mouth.
Tears fill Nick’s eyes. Don’t let me lose it now, he thinks, dear god please let me keep my shit together, I don’t want to go back, I can’t go back.
Rhys drops to his knees, gathers Nick into his arms. “Rydw i yma nawr, cariad,” he whispers against his ear. “Mae'n iawn.”
His words are so choked Nick’s hard-learned Welsh can’t make a lot of sense of them. Doesn’t matter, he buries his face against Rhys’s shoulder and breathes for a moment.
“I take it you’re Charlie,” Nick hears him say, and draws back enough to look around. Charlie and Rhys have locked eyes, each almost hilariously expressionless. Except Nick knows their tells, both of them. Charlie’s white cheeks, pupils so dilated they’re tiny abysses in his face, quite literally staring back, and Rhys with his strong jaw clenched, muscles twitching and his big hand squeezing Nick’s waist.
“I am,” Charlie agrees. “And you’re Rhys, I believe.”
“Have a seat, love,” Nick says, and swallows. “Charlie here was just telling me why he’s come.”
Rhys’s bulk makes the rather spindly chair creak, but it holds. “Let’s have it, then,” he says in the same gruff voice he uses with clients. “If you’re okay with it,” he adds with a glance at Nick.
“I am.” Nick looks at Charlie. “Mum said you wanted to make amends,” he says as calmly as he can. The words taste unpleasant in his mouth. “I don’t think that’s possible. There isn’t anything I can think of that you can tell me that will make what you did better. Believe me, I’ve had plenty of time to think about it.”
Charlie shifts on the hard seat. His colour has improved, but he’s still vaguely sick-looking. “I think,” he begins carefully, “‘amends’ is the wrong word. I’m not sorry for breaking up with you.”
At his side, Rhys shifts sharply. Nick lifts his chin. “Not helping your case.”
“I am sorry,” Charlie lumbers on, “for doing it the way I did. Do you see the difference?”
Nick stares at him, considering his words. “Contrary to how you perceived me, Charlie,” he says evenly, “I’m not actually a complacent moron. You thought I was dull, predictable, eternally unchanging. And maybe in some ways I was dull. I was certainly never smart enough for you. But I know a fucking hawk from a handsaw, all right? I can see you splitting hairs quite clearly.”
Charlie’s flush has deepened. “I didn’t mean to insult you,” he says. “I’m sorry.”
“Your presence here is already an insult. You hurt me badly enough to ruin my life for years, and you never once gave me a reason why, except that I was – lacking,” Nick spits. “Not worth your while.”
“Those things aren’t true,” Charlie blurts. “Jesus, Nick, they were never true.”
Nick glances at Rhys, sees his jaw working, grinding his teeth. But he hasn’t actually interrupted, which is good. “You sure?” he asks, smiling a little. “Because you made it pretty fucking clear before you left. You got bored and wanted out, Charlie, and that’s what you got. In exchange I got a room with the lock on the outside of the door.”
“I was going to visit you,” Charlie says hoarsely. “When I heard. But.”
Rocked, Nick stares at him. “Glad you didn’t. I’d probably still be there if you had.”
“I came here,” Charlie says, “because I’m dying.”
There is stark silence for a moment. Quiet as the grave. And then a high-pitched whine starts in Nick’s ears, growing louder. Charlie’s skeletal face, the breathlessness, his barbered hair. His parchment-pale skin.
“I have end-stage congestive heart failure, among other things. It happens with a lot of long-term anorexics.” His expression has gone familiarly stoic. “I was in and out of hospital the past couple of years. I got out last week, but I’m on hospice care now.”
The whine is loud enough to be a screech now, drowning out the ambient noise of the coffee house. Charlie’s lips – familiar pretty lips – are moving but Nick can no longer hear any words. Charlie’s teeth, showing in flashes, are poor, discoloured. He’s missing two more molars now. Vomiting, Nick thinks. Eats away the enamel, opens the door to decay.
Nausea blooms in his belly like a heavy malignant flower, pushing against the back of his throat. Without thinking he shoves himself up from the chair, moving with a vague memory of the café’s layout. A hand touches his but he shakes it off and staggers to the back, the barely remembered loo.
It’s a very nice, clean loo, he thinks for a split second. Then he drops painfully to his knees, grabbing the seat and heaving into the spotless bowl.
Tea and biscuits are much better going down than coming back up. He tastes ginger nuts and bile, and he sees Charlie’s bad teeth and vomits again, hard enough to send a bolt of discomfort through his abdomen. And again.
He closes his eyes, feels tears squeeze down his cheeks. He spits and there’s nothing left, but he heaves anyway. The ringing in his ears sounds like some mutant jungle bird, cawing and shrieking until he thinks perhaps he’s going mad again.
“Mae popeth yn iawn, cariad,” someone says. Warm hands stroke down his back. “You’re all right, that’s it. It’s all right.”
He sobs and then strains again, spit drooling from his open mouth.
Rhys vanishes at some point and comes back almost instantly, wiping Nick’s face with a clean damp bar towel and pushing his hair off his sweaty forehead, runs the cool cloth over the back of his neck. Nick wants his mum suddenly, wishes she were here with them, and his eyes produce another salty burn of tears.
The toilet flushes, Rhys’s work. “All right, love,” he murmurs. “Think that’s all. Come on, up you go. Off the damn floor.”
His legs shake beneath him once he’s standing, but Rhys is an immovable object pressed against him, arm like a thick band of steel around Nick’s sore middle. He holds up a glass of water. “Rinse your mouth.”
Nick rinses and spits into the sink.
It’s a shock all over again, seeing Charlie sitting at the table. His face is pale and twisted with sadness. Nick can’t stop the low noise in his throat, a whine like the ones Nellie made, when she was so sick and he and Mum were fighting so hard against the inevitable. The day he’d first met Dr Rhys Morgan, Nick weeping so hard he’d almost chundered then, too, and Mum and a rain of silent tears.
Rhys – he hadn’t been Rhys yet then, of course, still Dr Morgan – had been kind and gentle, explaining things while his enormous hands petted Nellie’s tired body, smoothed her old-lady fur until she almost looked like a young pup again.
His tea is long cold, but he picks up the cup anyway, only spilling a little as he drinks. The blond waiter appears with glasses of water, and a Brown Betty full of fresh tea. There’s a short conversation in quiet Welsh. Nick doesn’t bother to translate it in his head.
He drinks the faintly salty glass of water and looks at Charlie. He’s been crying too, maybe, because his eyes are red and cheeks blotchy over the general white palette. But he’s not crying now, just watching Nick with his beautiful dark-blue eyes, brows furrowed with sadness.
“I’m sorry for all that I’ve done, Nick.” Charlie sounds a little hoarse. “More sorry than I can possibly say, if I were to say it every minute of every day.” He glances down at his half-full coffee cup. “I’ve learned – or maybe relearned – just how messed up my thinking was back then. Still is, in some ways. Always will be.” He breathes in and out, slowly. “The doctor I see now says he believes part of that self-destructive impulse is my disease pathology. I asked him if anorexia is a self-fulfilling prophecy. He didn’t disagree.”
Nick’s throat aches savagely. There are gallons of tears poised behind his eyes, pints of unspent vomit in his stomach. He’s at his limit, he thinks distantly.
“I’m sorry you took the brunt of my shitty decision-making,” Charlie finally says, meeting Nick’s watery gaze without flinching. “I’m sorry I wasn’t strong enough to fight it when it started taking hold of me. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you what was really going on, long before I left.
“I hate everything about my mental health,” he adds, and swallows. “One of the worst things it does is make me a pathological liar. But I’m not lying now, Nick. Even if there were flaws in our relationship, you are still – always – the finest man I have ever known, and worth so much more than I could ever give you. That I ever made you feel as terrible as I did – I will never stop regretting that. It was cruel, unforgivably cruel. I’m not asking for forgiveness, I don’t think such a thing is possible. I just – want you to know.”
“You came close to destroying him,” Rhys says in a rusty, unfamiliar voice. Nick glances at him. His face is pale, but his blue gaze is fixed steadily on Charlie. “I didn’t see all of it, the fallout. But I saw enough. I thought if I ever clapped eyes on you, I’d throttle you myself before you could ever hurt him again.” He sits back. “I won’t, but that’s because Nick deserves better. Not because you do.”
“Nick does –”
Charlie doesn’t know Rhys; it’s clear he doesn’t realize what’s started. “You can blame your mental health all you want, lad,” Rhys continues as if Charlie hadn’t said a word. “And I’m sure that’s part of it. But not all. Nick had no defenses against you, and you knew that. Didn’t you?”
Charlie’s face is almost a normal colour now, which means he’s flushing, a flood of disarmingly healthy pink. “Yes,” he says thickly. “I wish –”
“My mamgu used to tell me to wish in one hand and piss in the other. See which one fills up first.” Rhys reaches over to take Nick’s hand, under the table. His fingers are so warm.
It’s just too much, Mum had known it would be. Rhys, too. When he starts to cry it surprises no one at this table.
“I loved you,” Nick chokes out. “I would have done anything for you. I don’t want you to die, Charlie. I’m sorry it’s –” He coughs out a sob, wiping his face blindly. “I don’t want this for you. But you didn’t give me a chance to help. I’d have tried. I don’t know if it would have worked, but maybe you wouldn’t be sitting here telling me you’re fucking dying and knowing there’s nothing I can do to fix that, saying you’re sorry like –” He has to draw a deep shuddering breath. “Like it matters, now that no one can do anything. Why? Why, what good did it do?”
Then he’s crying too hard to keep talking, and Rhys is gathering him in, pressing his face to Rhys’s chest and holding him tight.
“Charlie,” a woman says. He can barely hear her through the noise in his ears, but he thinks he knows her voice. Maybe. “It’s time to go. Come on.”
He turns to look, and sees Tori, older, short hair. Her face is blank, impossible to read. “Let’s go,” she says.
It bubbles up, like those lava pits he’s seen in movies and videos, the ones in the US, Los Angeles. Bubbles of baking hot magma, popping and vanishing: You will never see Charlie again. Charlie is going to die, soon, and you’ll never see his beautiful eyes again, or hear his sweet voice.
“Nicky,” Mum says, very close. Her hand is cold, thumb wiping away some of the endless tears. “Look at me. Look at me, baby.”
When he looks, he sees Pete looming behind her. His blond hair is mussed, his face dead pale. “Come on then, lad,” he rumbles, that deep voice that Nick has always thought belonged in radio, or narrating audio books. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Don’t let him do this to you, baby,” Mum says, while tears fill her own eyes. “You’ll be all right, I promise. You –”
The noise in his ears isn’t ringing. It’s himself, this high wail that he can’t seem to stop. He’s trying so hard to call Charlie’s name, but what’s coming out isn’t anything but sound. He looks around wildly, sees a flash of Charlie’s moon-white face and Tori’s – something, horror maybe. And then Rhys is scooping him out of the chair, a bridal carry like the wedding he’s never had, not to Charlie or to Rhys, either, carrying him over the threshold of this familiar, slightly worn-down coffee house down the street from his school.
“Charlie,” he tries to say again. “Char.”
No one says anything back.
~~~~~~~~~~
“He’s in Year 11, so only a year older than you!”
It’s strange to go to Kent and not automatically head for Mum’s house. He doesn’t know who lives there now. It doesn’t really matter, just idle curiosity, he thinks. He did most of his growing up in that house, after all. The longest home he’s had so far.
In the back of the car, Mum and Pete are huddled together like they’re year nine again and sneaking a snog. It’s one of the things Nick loves most about her marriage with Pete: They are ridiculously, transparently in love. Everyone notices.
Smiling a little, he turns to look at Rhys. “All right to keep driving, love?”
“Of course. Isn’t so terribly far.” Rhys reaches out to capture Nick’s hand. His fingers are warm and dry. “Teimlo'n iawn, cariad? Angen stopio?”
Nick shakes his head. “Dw i'n iawn.”
In his lap, Carys stirs, shakes her head with a rattle of tags. “Hello, love,” Nick murmurs, ruffling his hand through her sleep-mussed ruff. “We’ll put over here soon, let you stretch your legs.”
Mum and Pete left their three pups at home, but they had convenient in-laws to watch over them; Rhys isn’t about to saddle his elderly mum with a rambunctious six-month-old collie puppy, nor should he. Besides, Nick isn’t ready to be separated from her yet, either. He loves the weight of her warm body against him, her soft eyes and softer fur. She’s a bit puppy-fluffy still, and he’ll be rollering fur off his clothes here soon. But worth it.
“Haha! This is Nellie.”
“Bork!”
“Hi, Nellie! You’re so adorable!”
It’s past 1300 by the time they reach Maidstone. Nick’s pleasantish mood has waned; he’s tense now, a little snippy when Mum checks in on him, when Rhys checks a bit later. He doesn’t blame them for a bit of it – a part of him distantly grateful they’re so patient with him – but he’s stretched tight, a ball of dread and pain and a sort of bone-deep weariness he can’t explain without feeling as though he should apologise, excuse himself.
The grounds are already green, crocuses and daffodils and snowdrops, and what he thinks is lungwort. Trees are greening as well, first buds opening. It’s a beautiful day, warm and fresh.
He sees three cars in the tiny lot near the chapel. He doesn’t recognize any of them.
“Want to catch your breath?” Mum’s warm fingers squeeze his own. Her expression is smiling, but there’s dampness in her eyes, and he can see Pete standing silent at her other shoulder, weathered granite compared to Nick’s porous sandstone. “There’s no rush, baby.”
He glances at Rhys, who gives him a slow nod and takes Nick’s free hand.
As they walk, he wishes he’d worn a suit. Trousers and a sport coat are honestly fine – it isn’t as though anyone’s going to see him or judge him if they do. And his suits are too large on him, still, embarrassingly so. But he thinks it would have been nicer.
He isn’t sure precisely where they’re going; Mum’s been here already, so they’re following her lead. Ahead and to the left, beneath a clump of spring-green trees, are four people.
Nick halts sharply, drawing a fast breath through his nose.
“No rush,” Rhys murmurs against his ear. His hand slides about Nick’s waist. “We knew we might see them.”
Nick swallows and breathes and then walks forward.
“It’s snowing!”
Jane and Julio Spring look far older than they should. Both entirely gray now, and Julio’s spine has started to bend in an arthritic-looking way. Jane, always slim, is now nearly as thin as Charlie was at the last. Her face is gaunt, prematurely aged. Apple didn’t fall far from the tree, Nick thinks, and blinks away the sting of the first tears.
First of the day, at least.
Tori looks like herself. Composed, perhaps older but much the same, physically. She holds Ollie’s hand, Ollie who Nick cannot ever quite seem to see as adult in his mind’s eye. Eternally ten or so, evidently. He’s taller than Charlie was, and some part of Nick is bone-deep relieved that he is not thin. In fact his cheeks are a bit round, far more like Nick’s at that age than his own brother’s.
It’s a tight, awful silence, regarding one another. Rhys and Nick’s mum hang back. Maybe Nick should, too. Charlie was their son, their brother. And there really isn’t a rush. He isn’t going anywhere.
“Going out with you is like a dream.”
“Nick,” Tori says finally, clipped. Her reddened eyes flick over Mum and Rhys without any recognition, unsurprisingly. She doesn’t offer to shake hands. There’s no sign of Michael.
Ollie doesn’t hug him, either, but he gives Nick a tiny wave of his fingers, a shaky half-smile. It’s better than nothing.
“You’re looking well, Nick,” Jane says. Her expression is sour, as if she hadn’t wanted to see Nick any more than he, her, but that’s as may be. He nods cordially.
“Jane, Julio. How are you keeping?”
Neither of them says much. Julio pats Nick’s shoulder, looks briefly befuddled at the new faces. Jane goes back to studying the ground.
Charlie’s plot is shady, topped with a black marble headstone. There are fresh cut flowers, today’s no doubt, but a few bouquets of older ones, roses and carnations, some a little wilted and others honestly dead by now. As he watches, Tori nips over to clear out the old flowers, tucks them into a bin set next to the meandering cemetery road. It has the feel of a routine to it.
Julio bends effortfully to kiss his fingertips and touch them to Charlie’s headstone. Jane doesn’t follow him, but her lips form words Nick can’t hear. He hopes they’re kind ones. Even if the pain can’t touch Charlie any longer, it pollutes this final space in ways that set his stomach buzzing with old anger.
“’Char?’”
The Springs drift back, avoiding Nick’s eyes as they go, and he nods once to himself. Would it matter if he told them it was Charlie’s choice to leave, to abandon what they’d had for years? Would it matter to them at all? They loved him, too, after all, and
His cheeks are hot. But the shade is lovely and cool, sweet-smelling, and Charlie’s here.
His knees wobble worse than Julio’s, and without thinking he sits in the faintly damp grass, knee a few inches from shiny marble.
“Hey, Char.”
It had been a choice: Go on the anniversary of Charlie’s death? Or his birthday? He’s glad he chose how he did.
“I’m sorry I missed you,” he says now, and has to clear his throat. “I didn’t even know you’d – Not until a couple of months later. It would not surprise you, I don’t guess, since you saw me that day, but I wound up in hospital again for a while.”
He reaches out to tug at some blades of grass, and thinks about their spot at the park, their initials still carved into rough bark. “I got out last month, and I’ve been doing all right. Better, I think, in a lot of ways. Mum came to see you late last autumn, did you see her? She’s here today, too, but I think they all wanted to give me some privacy.”
He clears his throat again, and swallows. “I know what you meant, now. When you said you didn’t regret it. I took it – wrong, before, but I think I see what you were saying. We weren’t right for one another anymore, not like I’d pretended we were. I’m glad you said what you did about regretting the way you did it, mind. You were a right tosser back then.” He smiles and shakes his head. “But I get what you meant.”
His cheeks are cold, and he reaches up to wipe away the tears. “I wish you hadn’t had to go,” he whispers. “There’s always this – hole in everything, has been since you first left, years back. Always will be, I think.
“I don’t know if it would – make things better or not, but I wanted you to know, I’m doing all right. No more teaching, it appears, not after this last round in hospital, but that’s all right. I help Rhys with his practice, and we have all our animals at home. See that pup over there?” He points at Carys, straining on Pete’s leash. “She’s just a baby still, but she’s called Carys. She’s the best company.”
He nods slowly. “Rhys asked me to marry him two weeks ago. I said yes. I love him, Charlie, and I know he loves me. Didn’t run while I was away. Could’ve, but didn’t. And.” He takes a few breaths. “I made something. For you.”
It’s a smallish notebook, nothing fancy. Well-thumbed, crammed with his chicken-scratch writing. “I know,” he says, smiling, “my handwriting is horrendous. I wrote it in hospital, nothing much else to do except therapy or making, I dunno, crap jewelry or something.
“I have a printout. Lots easier to read. But this is the one I made for you. The publisher you used to work for – they’ve agreed to publish it. I didn’t think they’d go for it, but one of them – you knew her, Corinne, I remember you quite liked her – she called me late one night, just a day or two after I’d dropped off the printouts, and she – well, we both cried a bit, and she said that she would move heaven and earth if she had to, to make sure it got published. Must’ve worked, because it comes out next fall, before Christmas.”
He runs his fingers over the worn cardboard cover, wrinkles his nose at the spiral binding coming untangled at the bottom and always catching on his jumpers. “I wanted to tell your story, Char. Our story, I guess, but yours was important to me. To tell people what happened in secondary, and the ways that you overcame so much. And.” He nods slowly. “The rest of it, too, because it’s important in a whole different way. It’s not – I don’t guess it’s a very good book, probably. I’ve never really thought much about writing until recently. Maybe I just didn’t have anything important enough to say, yet? Not sure.”
He reaches back into the carrier and hauls out his glasses to put them on. “Yeah, need glasses these days. Okay. I don’t have the print copy yet, with like, a nice cover art and what. But I thought you’d like the title. It’s called Gay Panic. Appropriate, right? I remember that phone. I know you do, too.”
He opens the cover, smooths it to display that first grubby page. “Just the first few pages for now. So. ‘Ten seconds after meeting him, I realized Charlie was the most beautiful boy I had ever seen.
“’It took about a week for me to realize he was the kindest, too, and the smartest. For a rugby lad like me, it took longer to understand that I was in love with him.
“’Once I did, it changed everything. But this story isn’t about me, not really. It’s about Charlie. The boy who was going places. The boy everyone thought, deep down, most likely to succeed in life by a country mile or ten.
“’By the time we kissed for the first time, I was so in love with him I thought I’d die of it. But it wasn’t me who died. I’m left here, to tell you why you should care that a brilliant, lovely man left us far before his time. Before he had a chance to make more music or write one of the hundred or so books he had in him but never had time to set down. Before he could make his name so familiar you’d be nodding now. In that world, it might be the reason you bought the book. You knew that name.
“’That you don’t, is why I’m writing my own book. So that you’ll know what you missed. What everyone missed, except for a few lucky, lucky souls.
“’I thought I’d die of love for him, and I nearly did. But like the man said, What a way to go.’”
“I’m your boyfriend! You’re my boyfriend! We’re boyfriends!!”
Carys sidles up to him, creeping into his lap. He smiles at her, and draws a breath to continue.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Time does not bring relief; you all have lied
Who told me time would ease me of my pain!
I miss him in the weeping of the rain;
I want him at the shrinking of the tide;
The old snows melt from every mountain-side,
And last year’s leaves are smoke in every lane;
But last year’s bitter loving must remain
Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide.
There are a hundred places where I fear
To go,—so with his memory they brim.
And entering with relief some quiet place
Where never fell his foot or shone his face
I say, “There is no memory of him here!”
And so stand stricken, so remembering him.
“Time does not bring relief; you all have lied”, Edna St. Vincent Millay
~~~~~~~~~~
Ti mor ddel – you are so beautiful
Cariad – love
Caru ti – love you
Byddaf yn iawn – I’ll be fine
Teimlo'n iawn, cariad? Angen stopio? -- Feeling all right, love? Need to stop?
Dw i'n iawn. -- I’m all right.