“Sure.” I give him this death’s-head grin. “Can I get three flaming sambucas to start with?”
I have no idea what a flaming sambuca tastes like, but Chris has told me they’re the bomb. Anyway, my own personal cocktail waiter doesn’t blink.
“Coming right up.”
I wait, drumming my fingers on the sticky counter. In the mirror I see Mike walking over with these huge worried eyes. The fuck has he got to be worried about…? Oh God, what am I thinking? I feel thoroughly ashamed of myself, which makes me more bitter and more angry. In fact, I’m kind of surprised I’m not crying…but no, all I can do is replay the CCTV footage in my head.
I thought I was empty before today. I was wrong. Turns out there was a tiny part of me you hadn’t taken with you into the darkness, El. Well, you’ve taken it now. Scraped it out of me and left me hollow. You weren’t who I thought you were, Ellis Bell.
Mike pitches up just as the drinks arrive. I turn to him and slap his shoulder, as if we’re regular drinking buddies.
“Michael, my man. Flaming sambuca? It’ll put hairs on your head.”
Okay, I hate myself, but I said it. I can’t unsay it now.
“Dylan, don’t.”
As pleas go, it’s pithy and to the point. I hand him a shot glass and blow out my own blue flame.
“Don’t let me drink alone, Mikester.” I swallow and my whole head feels like it’s been pumped full of aniseed. It’s disgustingly glorious. “Dude! You have to try this.” When he doesn’t, I take back the glass and down it, then turn to the one on the bar. “I’m not kidding, Mike, you really need this awful stuff in your life.”
I gesture to the barman who nods, pours and ignites.
So which was your secret identity, El? Your Bruce Wayne? Your Peter Parker? Because if I had to make a guess based on what I’ve just seen, I got your mild-mannered schoolboy while the guy in the vid got your Dark Knight. It seems impossible that there was a side to you more intense, more passionate than the one you showed me. That first night, my birthday, when my parents were away, I thought that was as perfect for you as it was for me. But it fits, I guess. Your jackknife moods maybe echoed your jackknife affections, constantly and secretly switching. And now, downing my fourth sambuca, I remember what I once thought about you:El’s passions are intense but fleeting.I tried to fool myself then that I was the exception.
I stare at my reflection. I’m coming apart. I know it and I don’t care. But no, let’s be fair – I lift my glass and raise a toast to your ghost – I always knew this was going to happen. How many times did I tell myself you were too good for me? That it made no Earth logic, as Mike might say, that someone as talented and clever as you would ever look at someone like me. The shy, awkward, geeky kid who can’t even take a packet of sweets out of his pocket without turning it into a comedy routine.
In my mind I see Bradley Hinchcliffe’s video playing on an endless loop. You pressed against the boy in the denim shirt, mouths locked tight, your hand fisting his hair, his hands slipping under the band of your jeans.
I turn to Mike.
“He never kissed me like that. Not once.”
“I’m glad.”
“What the hell does that mean?” I throw out my arms, spilling a fifth sambuca.
“I mean—”
“New Year’s Eve,” I cut in. “We had two good weeks before all the weirdness started. You know when we got together properly?”
“Your birthday,” Mike says. He tries to put an arm around my shoulder but I shrug him off.
“Right. That whole time before school broke up was amazing. I still didn’t want to tell anyone, and El respected that, but every chance we could get… It wasn’t just sex. It was holding hands, talking. And then the holidays came and he just disappeared on me. It scared me, you know? I kept going over and over things, wondering if I’d done something or said something.”
“It wasn’t you,” Mike soothes.
“I thought so too, after all my usual self-accusing. You guys screwed up your last few games before term ended, and I know El thought he’d let you down. Then he was worried about his art project, with Mr Denman nitpicking all the time. So when he stopped answering my calls and texts, I thought I’d give him some space. Except it killed me, thinking he didn’t want me any more. That he’d got tired of me that quickly. I went round to his place a couple of times, but Julia always said he was out or asleep and that he’d call me later. I could tell she was covering for him because she’d give me this really guilty look.
“And then we got together again a few days after New Year and everything was fine. He was the same old El. But I could never get him to tell me what had happened over Christmas. Well, I guess now we know.”
I snag my fifth sambuca, or is it the sixth? Another thing I’m shit at: drinking.
“Nothing had scared or upset him, he told me,” I say. “He just wanted a bit of time to himself. Turns out he obviously got sick of all my amateur sex and wanted to fill his boots somewhere else. You know, he told me once that we all need this secret corner for ourselves that not even the people closest to us can invade. I guess this place was his corner.”
“Dylan, you need to stop this right now.”
I stare blearily at my best friend. “Stop what?”
