Charlie leaned on the doorframe, taking comfort in the cool, peeling paint against his cheek. Leo and Lila had been with them for less than forty-eight hours, but everything already felt different. Kate and Reg. The house. Even Fliss. The world had shifted, but Charlie couldn’t figure out why. He took a shaky breath and stared at Leo, like he could see through his skin and decipher the boy behind the sullen glares, occasional smirks, and the sad smiles he saved for Lila.
What happened to you?
The unspoken question went unanswered. Leo was curled on his side, his bandaged arm cradled close to his body, like it had been since Charlie had first peeked in on him after school. Charlie gazed a moment longer, before he admitted defeat and returned to his own room, seeking solace in the dark.
A strange noise woke him sometime later. He sat up on his elbows and blinked away sleep. Then he waited, unsure of what had woken him, but silence reigned. There was nothing to be heard save the arthritic creak of the central heating pipes.
Charlie lay back down, unnerved. He usually slept like the dead, convinced he’d blinked and the night had melted into a new day. He closed his eyes. Lethargy washed over him. He was halfway to sleep when he heard it again . . . a soft moan that cut through the stillness of the house and gave him goose bumps.
Alarmed, he scrambled out of bed and across the landing. In the murky darkness he could hardly make Leo out, but the moan had come from him, Charlie felt it in his bones, and when Leo cried out again, he was across the room before he knew he’d moved.
But he faltered at Leo’s bedside. Even in sleep, Leo’s demeanour told the world he didn’t want to be touched. Charlie crouched down and absorbed the tremble beneath Leo’s skin, and it shuddered through him.
Why am I shaking with him?
Charlie had no answer to that. Maybe he should say something, but what? Leo didn’t seem the type to be easily comforted, and Charlie didn’t know how anyway. Instead he sat on the floor and leaned back on Leo’s bed. It was a while before he realised Leo was staring right at him.
“Splash me a fag, mate?”
The boy in the bomber jacket eyed Leo suspiciously, like every other person at Heyton High had since he’d walked through the gates that morning. A new kid on the block was apparently big news, but Leo didn’t much care. Bollocks to them. All of them. He was only here ’cause he couldn’t stand another day stuck at home dodging Kate’s smothering affection.
And you want to be where Charlie is. . .
Wherever that was. Leo hadn’t seen Charlie since they’d parted ways at the school’s reception that morning, Charlie to his tutor group, and Leo to a meeting with the head of year ten.
Charlie, Charlie, Charlie.
Get a grip.Leo tried to tune out the devil on his shoulder. Focussed on the kid who was buckling under the weight of Leo’s patented blank stare and reaching for his battered packet of Mayfair.
Charlie, Charlie, Charlie.
His deep brown eyes.
His endless long limbs.
His gentle, probing gaze when Leo had woken a few nights ago from the worst nightmare he’d had in months.
In the darkness, Charlie had scrambled back to the doorway the moment he’d realised Leo was awake, and they’d hardly spoken since—at least, Leo hadn’t—but Leo hadn’t forgotten it. Hadn’t forgotten lying awake for hours after, and feeling the roiling turmoil in his belly calm with every slow whisper of Charlie’s breath.
“Do you want a fag or not?”
Leo cut his gaze to the kid proffering his open pack of smokes. The cigarette in the back row was turned upside down for luck. Wendy had always done that, saved it till the end, promising it would be the last one before she gave up for good. No one had ever believed her. Leo claimed the smoke next to it, took a lighter from his new friend, and lit up. He glanced around as he blew smoke into the grey sky. The tennis courts at Heyton High were teeming with teenagers, the boys playing football, fighting, or smoking. The girls standing around in groups, watching . . . seeing everything, like girls always did.
“So who the fuck are you, anyway?”
Leo cast a bored glance to his left. “Leo. Who are you?”
“Wayne, innit. Think I saw you in physics this morning. I’m gonna jump the fence and get some chips. Wanna come?”
Not particularly.Leo hadn’t been hungry since he’d started taking the pills the GP had given him. They hadn’t done much to help him sleep, but late at night while he waited for Lila to join him, he found himself enjoying the scratchy, numbing buzz that tickled his brain.
Still, with forty-five minutes left of lunchtime, he had nothing better to do, so he followed Wayne across the tennis courts to the school boundary and considered the fence. It was seven foot high with plenty of handholds to aid a quick scramble over the top. An easy feat six months ago, but now? Leo flexed his damaged arm. He hadn’t tested his weakened muscles since the fire, hadn’t cared enough to bother, but suddenly, with the fence right in front of him, he couldn’t wait a moment longer.
Hungry or not, hehadto get to the other side.
Mindful of Wayne watching, he stuck his smoke in his mouth and launched the messenger bag Kate had bought him over the fence. It landed in a bush, upside down, zips swinging in the wind.That could be you in a minute.Leo pictured himself careening through the air and landing smack on the concrete below. He imagined the impact. Felt it spread through him, cracking his bones—
“Are you coming or what?”
