‘No.Just busy with coursework.’
The lie is so smooth it scares me.
He doesn’t respond.
The gears. He leaves gaps and waits for people to fill them, except Ron’s worse than that. He’s family.
The gap stays empty.
‘Because if you were,’ he says. Slowly. Each word is placed like a brick. ‘You’d tell me. Right?’
How he says it. Lower than accusatory or suspicious.
‘Obviously.’
‘Because Manchester’s.’ He stops. Starts again. ‘You’re on your own up there, Ewe. And I know you think you’ve got it sorted but you’re eighteen and you’re?—’
‘I’m what?’
‘You’re my brother.’ Quiet. The blunt edge of him is softer than I’ve heard in months. ‘And if anything were going on, I’d rather hear it from you than find out some other way.’
The guilt arrives like a slow leak—the kind you don’t notice till your shoes are wet.
‘Nothing’s going on. I promise.’
‘Right.’ The disbelief packed into the syllable. TherightmeansI’m filing this. ‘Listen. I might come up in a couple of weeks. See the city. Check you’re eating actual food.’
‘You don’t need to do that.’
‘It’s not about need, Ewe. I want to see where my brother lives. That a crime?’
Laurence’s shower gel on my skin. Ron’s voice in my ear.
‘Fine. Let me know when.’
‘Will do. Get some sleep.’
He hangs up, and the screen goes dark.
I lie there and stare at the ceiling, and the guilt is not guilt. Something next to it.
Ron loves me. Ron asked questions I can’t answer.
Beside me, Laurence shifts. The mattress dips.
‘Everything alright?’
I laugh once. Wrong sounding.
‘Define alright.’
He pushes himself up onto one elbow, looking at me properly now. The marks from the pillow still across his chest, his glasses abandoned somewhere on the floor.
‘Ewan.’
That voice. Careful already.
And suddenly I can’t stand it.
