He wouldn’t even have to say a single word to do it.
He’d touch a finger to his lips, only Adey keeps backing away, and I can’t keep my silence.
“Don’t go.”
Adey flicks a look across the street, then backs away even faster, and I see why. Blake is on the move, heading our way, a squadron of nosy fuckers quick marching behind him.
“Wait.” I close the distance between us. “I… I, uh… I wanted to ask you something.”
The traffic chooses now to stop, a sudden lull in London’s perpetual movement that means every Ex gets to cross the road in time to hear me virtually bellow, “About your teaching.”
I must sound desperate for Adey to stop in his tracks.
I’m aware of Dair beside me.
Aware too of a circle of Exes forming around us on this busy pavement, and of Adey drifting back in my direction.
“About my teaching? What did you want to ask about it?”
Right up until this moment, I wouldn’t have said he was the same height as me. Maybe I’m shrunk by the thought of sharing what Kev always told me was no one else’s business.
I’m usually the biggest man in this group.
The broadest.
Someone built to carry heavy shit for other people.
Right now?
I’m a weedy kid having a hot and prickling panic the same way I did in so many classrooms as Adey murmurs, “Go ahead, Vincent. I’m listening.”
Heat flares across my chest and my mouth dries so fast I’m croaky. “I-I wanted to ask how you did it.”
Exes circle.
I’m surrounded.
Trapped.
There’s no running from this. No escape, even without leather reins to hold me in place. I’m more exposed than I know how to handle.
I’m also shielded.
Dair steps in front of me, and we’re back where we started, only now he’s the one doing all the supporting by being a barrier between me and a teacher who asks, “How did I do what, mate?”
I got nothing. No oxygen to suck in, no CO2to exhale, until Dair reaches back. His hand finds mine and I can gasp, “How did you teach those kids?”
It’s wild that just a few minutes ago, I tucked Dair close to my chest. Even wilder that he looked up to me like I was the one and only person who could solve his problems.
Regrets?
I got so many.
Most of them revolve around how much I’ll miss the way Dair sees me, but when Adey asks, “Which kids?” I have to tell him.
Ihaveto, no matter what Kev always told me.
The pen in my pocket anchors me in place. Or maybe it’s theBrave Boysticker in my wallet gluing me to this spot to tell my truth in public.
