More thank-you’s…

I didn’t want to leave out anyone who donated after I finished the story, so thank-you to:

Nikolay
Lesbianne (her spelling of her name not mine)
Chazz
Bronwyn
Laura
The Nanorilla Crew
Justin
Jay… for even more money!
Lauren for going way above and beyond anything I ever expected
Dawn
Russell

Money raised so far: £550.00

Part 30

Words: 2,078 (without the song lyrics at the end)
Total words: 50,031 (without the song lyrics at the end)
Money raised: £369.00
Thank-you to: Absolutely everyone who donated and supported me

My Dearest Eric

Oh my god, it sounds so daft writing that at the top of a letter, as if we were in Victorian times writing each other sneaky love letters, although I’m pretty sure if we were caught writing to each other back then we would have been put to death or something. Kind of romantic the secrecy, don’t you think?

Anyway, that’s not important right now. We can play Victorian star-crossed lovers on another day. I know right now you probably want to strangle me for hiding this from you but you know how much I love surprises and it seemed like sticking it in your cello case was the perfect place so the next time you decided to play me something beautiful you’d find this and then you could keep it and this silly little letter from me (if you wanted to) forever and read it back when we’re old one day and be like, “Ant remember before you were fat and bald we used to write each other letters?” Lol! And we could totally reminisce about how we met and all that. Look at how much I’m rambling!

So getting to the point, yes it is what you think it is. It’s your acceptance letter from Kings College. You’re in. Full scholarship, the works. They’re so into you that they’re even giving you housing in halls. Not that you’re going to need that, cos I’m not letting you out of my sight… or my bed. I got your letter and mine yesterday and I know it’s not cool to open other people’s mail and you can give me that disparaging little look you give me when you think I’m being a giant loser later and give me a lecture and I promise I won’t smile once through the whole thing. And then afterwards I’ll get to say I told you so because I knew we’d both gotten in all along.

All of this uni and future stuff aside, I wanted to tell you that when I met you my whole life changed completely. I know you kind of know that I was lonely before I met you and that my parents were a bit useless but I don’t think you have any concept of how lost I felt before you came into my life. I probably should say all of this stuff to your face but every time I want to I get all shy and stupid and it just seems much easier to write it all down where I can put my thoughts in a logical order.

You are the only person who’s ever really understood what it feels like to be completely ignored by the people who are supposed to love you more than anyone else and protect you and keep you safe. My whole life I’ve made excuses for my parents because I felt like there was something wrong with me that made them not want me and not want to be with me. I thought if I admitted that they literally just couldn’t be bothered that people would realise that it was me and not them who was fucked up but then I met you and your situation was different enough from mine but similar enough that you knew what I felt like instinctively. I’ve never had to hide my life from you and there’s never been anything I couldn’t tell you and so being with you has been the most freeing experience of my life.

I’d never really been close to anyone before I met you. I’d make friends with people on the surface but hold them at arm’s length because I was convinced that if I let them know me, they’d be just like my parents and take their love away from me and I never wanted to risk it. When I met you it seemed like any risk would be worth it and it didn’t matter how I had you in my life, whether it was as a friend or a brother or a lover, just as long as you were there.

On the night that we kissed for the first time and you left I felt like I had made the greatest mistake of my life and that I would regret forever the fact that I’d given up the best friend and the only real family I ever had for the sake of a second of passion. I had moments where I contemplated just ending everything. Don’t laugh… because I know you and I bet right now you’ve got a big dirty grin on because you get to call me a giant emo loser and sing me that Adam And Andrew song that you hum every time I listen to My Chemical Romance. You think I don’t notice but I do.

I knew we were stronger than that though and even if you never came back, if I was gone the memory of who we were to each other even as friends would be lost and nothing would be worth that. Thank god you came back though because I was properly going mental and considering shaving my head or getting a tattoo or something.

It’s not just you though… it’s Kayla too. I can’t tell you how much it’s meant to me to be able to get to know her and have her trust me and have you trust me with her. I know she’s not my sister and it’s only been a few months but I can’t imagine what life would be like without her. I hope that between us we can give her a life that was different to ours before we found each other and that she’ll never feel unloved or unwanted or as if she’s anything except the most special little girl… well until she’s a teenager and she’s completely embarrassed by us.

I think what I’m trying to say is that I love you and I would do anything for you. It doesn’t matter what I have to give up or who I have to face, you’re the most important thing in my life. You and Kayla and… us always being together. I know that’s kind of heavy and I don’t want to freak you out but I can’t imagine me without you anymore. From the first time I met you, when you came riding in on your proverbial white horse and saved me, every future I imagined had you in it.

I will never, ever leave you. No matter what happens. I’m making you that promise right now. I will always be beside you and from now on we face everything together.

Yours always
Ant.

P.S. I’m throwing away all your holey pants before we go to Australia, they’re embarrassing and I hate them.

It was impossible not to laugh, even through the tears that were silently running down my cheeks. How typical of Anthony to throw in a comment like that at the end of a long emotional outpouring where he thought I wouldn’t notice. The letter read almost like he had known I would need a record of his feelings for me. Something to hold onto in case things went wrong.

I took out the acceptance letter and read it. It said exactly what Anthony said it would. I had been accepted into the Kings College music programme with a full scholarship. Absolutely everything would be covered. I didn’t need a student loan or even a job. I could go and study without needing any help from anyone. I could leave this flat behind me. They were hailing me as some kind of musical second coming. The whole situation seemed strangely familiar and new opportunity and a loss, next to each other in stark juxtaposition.

I suddenly felt as if he were standing right beside me, watching me quietly like he so often did and I wished I could say all of the things he had been to me. How he had rescued me from the person I was turning into and made me feel whole after a life of incompleteness. I wanted to tell him that although I was more angry at the world that all of this pain was completely worth it for the time that I had had him and that there was nothing I would take back except that one decision to go and see my mother.

I took out my phone and looked up Alison’s number.
“Eric,” she said. “You didn’t answer the phone earlier. I was worried about you.
“You know you said once that if I ever needed to talk that I could talk to you.”
“Of course,” she said. “Are you okay?”
“No,” I said. “I’m not okay. I was… I was… I had all these painkillers and I was going to take them.”
“Oh my god! Oh my god!” she said. “Okay just stay there. Just stay there and I’ll drive over there, don’t do anything. I can be there in an hour.”
“No, no,” I said. “I’m okay now. It’s just, I opened my cello case and I found a letter in there from Anthony with my acceptance letter for Kings College.  He had our entire futures planned out. He really believed we were going to be together forever.”
“Did you believe that?” she asked.
“I think I did,” I said. “I think that’s what’s making this so hard. I didn’t just lose the physical presence of Anthony right now, I lost the entire future I had built in my head and I just have absolutely no idea what to so with myself.”
“What would Anthony have wanted you to do?” she asked.
“He would have wanted me to live,” I said. “He would have wanted me to write and go to uni and have a really intense exciting life.”
“Maybe you should do that then,” she said.
“I feel selfish right now,” I said. “And kind of angry. He said he would never leave me but he did. I know it’s not his fault that he left me but it’s like he showed me what it was like to have someone and to be someone and he left me with nothing and I’m angry that I never got to tell him how much I loved him. I’m angry with everything.”
“I think he knew,” said Alison. “And it’s okay to be angry and to feel lonely and selfish but it’s not okay to give up.”
“Can I speak to Kayla,” I said.
“Of course,” she said. “I’ll call her.”

“Eric,” said Kayla. “I wanted to talk to you this morning but you didn’t answer the phone.”
“I know kiddo,” I said. “I was feeling a little sad.”
“I was feeling a little sad too,” she said. “I feel sad when I think of Anthony.”
“Do you know,” I said. “If you think of him everyday you keep him alive with you in your heart.”
“Hmm,” she said. “Kind of like the goldfish.”
“Do you think about that goldfish a lot?” I asked her.
“Of course,” she said. “He was the best goldfish ever.”
“Do you think I should come and visit you this weekend?” I asked.
“Yes,” she squealed. “You have to come and bring the cherry so we can teach Meggie about Bug. It’s very embarrassing. She only likes Kylie. She doesn’t even know Ironing Maiden or The Horrors.”
“She’s three,” I said. “She has lots of time to learn.”
“I knew lots more music than her when I was three,” she said indignantly.
“That’s because you’re a genius,” I said.
She giggled. “Eric, you’re very silly.”
“I know,” I said. “I’m very silly indeed.”

Anthony had thrown me down a challenge. When I left him he had kept himself going. He had taught me that nothing goes the way you planned it and it is impossible to predict how things turn out but you can’t use that as an excuse to stop yourself from living or to close yourself to experiencing things. I think we taught that to each other.

***
Walking up to the gates of Kings College reminded me a lot of walking up to the gates of Benridge Hall. I didn’t know anyone and I felt completely unprepared for what I was about to face only this time I wasn’t alone. I had Anthony’s Horrors t-shirt on and Bear-Eric in my cello case, right next to me where they belong.

G.I.N.A.S.F.S

I’ve loved everything about you that hurts, so
Let me see your moves,
Let me see your moves
Lips pressed this close to mine,
True Blue

But the prince of any failing empire knows that
Everybody wants, everybody wants
To drive on through the night
If it’s a drive back home

Things aren’t the same anymore
Some nights, they get so bad
You almost pick up the phone

Trade baby blues for wide eyed browns
I sleep with your old shirts
And walk through this house in your shoes,
You know it’s strange
It’s a strange way of saying,
I’m supposed to love you
I’m supposed to love you

I’ve already given up on myself twice
Third time is the charm, third time is the charm
Threw caution to the wind
But I’ve got a lousy arm

And I’ve traced your shadows on the wall
Now I kiss them whenever I’m down
Whenever I’m down
Figured on not figuring myself out

Things aren’t the same anymore
Some nights, they get so bad
I almost pick up the phone

Trade baby blues for wide eyed browns
I sleep with your old shirts
And walk through this house in your shoes,
You know it’s strange
It’s a strange way of saying
That I know I’m supposed to love you
I’m supposed to love you

Born under a bad sign, but you saved my life
That night on the roof of your hotel
“Cross my heart and hope to die
Splintered from the headboard in my eye”
Photo-proofed kisses I remembered so well

Trade baby blues for wide-eyed browns
I sleep with your old shirts
And walk through this house in your shoes,
You know it’s strange
It’s a strange way of saying
That I know I’m supposed to love you
I’m supposed to love you

Now press repeat

- Fall Out Boy

THE END… FOR NOW

Part 29

Words: 3,152
Total words: 47,936
Money raised: £369.00
Thank-you to: Sarah and Celine. Does silhouette count as a French word?

The next day they took the splint off my nose. The nurse kindly brought me a mirror without me asking for one. She must have assumed some kind of vanity would make me want to check what damage had been done to my face. I held it up and turned my face from one side to the other. There was still some yellowing under my eyes but the worst of the bruising and the swelling was gone. My nose now had a distinct broadening at the bridge and it was immediately evident that it had been broken. I realised I no longer looked exactly like my mother, the change in my nose threw my face off just enough to truly make it my own and that made me smile ever so slightly.

“We can fix your nose, you know?” said the nurse. “If you give it a couple of months to heal up you can easily get an NHS nose job, especially considering how it was broken.”
“It’s better like this,” I said, lifting my hand to touch the scar that still stood out white from my eyebrow.
“They can clean up that scar too.”
“That scar is the only part of my face I actually like, “ I said.

The nurse appeared to have taken a shine to me and popped around way more regularly than she was supposed to. I’m pretty sure she told me her name but I hadn’t managed to remember it.

“I saw the police were around again this morning. What did they say?”
“The case won’t come up for another year and even when it does go to trial the chances of them getting more than a couple of years is unlikely, considering that they’re all minors.”
“That really seems so unfair,” she said.
I shrugged. “I don’t care. Nothing they do to them will bring him back.”
She put her hand on my shoulder. “When are you getting out of here?”
“Thursday,” I said.
“You should keep in touch,” she said. “You know, I’d like to find out what happens with the whole thing.”
“Yeah, sure, whatever,” I said, no longer listening.

On Thursday morning the doctor gave me a once over and declared me fit to leave the hospital.
“Is there someone to help you out at home?” he asked. “Just until you’re at your full strength again?”
“No,” I said. “There’s no one.”

I went straight to his house. I didn’t even bother to cut off the hospital bracelet attached to my wrist. In the past coming up to the home where I had fallen in love with him and eventually shared with him had filled me with butterflies. I used to be overtaken with excitement just at the thought of going through the front door. I had butterflies now but they were of a totally different kind. I was so nervous I had to constantly swallow back the nausea that was threatening to make me throw up all over the bus. The clothes that the hospital had given me to go home in were way too big. All that had survived our attack was the big black trench coat. That didn’t show bloodstains, even though I knew that no amount of dry cleaning would ever take out all the traces. I had Bear-Eric in the pocket and I clenched my hand around her as I got off the bus.

The walk up to the front door was both too long and too short. I was torn between the desire to put this moment off forever and to get it over as quickly as possible. I didn’t dare to use my key but it felt strange ringing the doorbell.

They opened the door together, her standing slightly in front of him. Seeing them there took my breath away and I had to concentrate not to completely lose it. Anthony had been the perfect combination of his parents. His wide green eyes had definitely come from his father and his mother had the thick sandy hair. Her smile was frozen on her face; a tiny dimple popping out at the side of her mouth but it only took seconds for her expression to sour.

“Eric Hayes,” she said as if my name was something so filthy she could barely bear to utter it.
“How did you know?” I asked.
“My sons whole bedroom is full of photos of you,” she said. “Photos of you and him.”
“Oh,” I said, thinking about how Anthony drove me mad with his camera, constantly wanting to document every moment of our existence.
“I came… I came to… when is his funeral?”
The truth was I wasn’t sure why I had come. I felt like I needed to reach out to them, to connect with the only people who might have had any chance of loving Anthony as much as I had.
“The funeral?” asked his mother, incredulously. “You are not welcome at Anthony’s funeral and you are not welcome here.”
“Anita,” said Anthony’s father, putting his hand on Anthony’s mother’s shoulder. “Don’t upset yourself.”
“Don’t upset myself?” she said, coldly. “He murdered our son.”
“I didn’t mean for anything to happen the way it did,” I said. “I loved him.”
“You loved him? How can you tell me you loved him when you let him go to that neighbourhood with you? When you let those people attack him! I know what happened here. You found Anthony with all his vulnerabilities and you used him. You lived in this house, you brought in your family, you ate our food and slept in our beds. You took money from him. He was so blinded by some kind of stupid teenage infatuation that he didn’t realise that you were like a sponge on him. Don’t think you can come here and getting anything from us. We know what you are. You killed him. His blood is all over your hands.”

I felt that rage coming back, burning in my stomach. I wanted to shout, you didn’t even know him. You couldn’t tell me his favourite food or what he was afraid of or the stupid things that made him laugh. You didn’t give a shit about him until it was too late. You have no concept of love or family. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. There was a part of me that felt like I absolutely deserved everything Anthony’s mother said to me. I needed to be punished and tortured for the situation I had created and the more she yelled at me the more I felt like she had every right.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I just thought… I thought maybe you would want to know some of the things I remember about him.”
“I can’t look at you,” said Anthony’s mother. “You make me sick. You disgust me.”
She turned on her heel and went back into the house.
“Look,” said Anthony’s father, his arms folded. “I don’t know what you’re trying to do coming here and upsetting my wife. I think we’ve been through enough without having to deal with this as well. You should leave and please don’t come back again. I asked Iva to collect up the things you left here. You can see her at the back door. She’ll give them to you.”
He stepped back and closed the door in my face.

I suppose I had had some kind of desperate notion that they would be kind and soft like him and that they would let me come in and lie on his bed and touch his things. I thought they might let me remember him with them and that we could all be in pain together. I don’t know where I got the idea from since the picture Anthony had painted me was exactly what I had just seen.

Before I even knocked at the back door, Iva had opened it. She was an absolute mess. Her hair was dishevelled and her eyes were red and swollen. It looked like she had aged ten years. She grabbed me and pulled me into a fierce hug.
“Oh Eric,” she said. “This is most horrible, terrible thing. My heart, it is completely broken.”
“Mine too,” I said.
“You not listen to them,” she said, passionately. “You not listen to what that witch say to you! I hear all of it. She is not a mother. She does not even know what means the word!
“You not angry with me?” I asked.
“Oh, obi, no,” she said. “Me, I live with Anthony from when he is seven and they leave him the first time. He always sad and lost child and Iva do best to make him smile but he never happy till he meet you. You were best thing ever happened to him. He was new boy with you. What happen it not your fault. Is nobody fault but those bad bad men that hurt you. I tell the witch the same thing but she ignore me. They give me the sack. Iva go back to Bulgaria tomorrow. They say it not right I let you and Kayla stay here.”
“Oh Jesus,” I said. “I am so sorry. This is my fault.”
“No!” she said even more vehemently. “This last time, happiest time ever with you and with Kayla. I still young. Go back to Bulgaria, maybe meet nice man have babies of own.”
“I think that’s a great idea,” I said. “You’d be the best mom in the world ever.”
“Where is Kayla?” she asked. “I so scared when you not come back from go visit your mother. I not know what to do so I call police. I hope I not give too much trouble.”
I told her about Ross and Alison and how Kayla was with her new family, starting again.
Iva shook her head. “Is not right you not together!”
“I know,” I said. “But she needs a real family. I can’t give her than on my own.”
“I have for you some things,” said Iva, turning to the cupboard in the hall.
“This your cello and your clothes and some photos… and also… also this.”
She held up Anthony’s Horrors t-shirt. He had almost lived in it and he was always anxious when it was in the wash.
“You have about fifty t-shirts,” I’d tell him.
“I like that one,” he’d always say.
It was black with a white square that had a silhouette of the band on it, with Faris Rotter’s big hair standing out, making him look a bit like the offspring of Robert Smith and a broom.
“For to remember,” she said. “He would have want you have it.”
“Thank-you,” I said taking the t-shirt and holding it to my face. Even though it was clean it still held a slight residual smell of Anthony and I inhaled deeply trying to fill myself with it.
“Thank-you,” I said, feeling the constant ache in my chest turn into a flood of pain so intense that it briefly blinded me. “I’ll miss you.”
“Me also,” she said, opening her arms for me to hug her again.

Going back to my old flat felt like returning to a battlefield after the war is over when the smell of blood is still thick on the ground. It was familiar in a way that was unsettling rather than comforting. My mother was very obviously gone. Her bedroom had been hastily packed up and there were still random bits of her clothing hanging out of the dresser and trailing across the floor, as if it had vomited. I was not surprised to find that there were dirty dishes in the kitchen and an ashtray full of cigarette ends on the coffee table.

I set my possessions down in my bedroom, which was in pieces. My mother must have given it another good going over after I left to make sure there wasn’t anything else of value that I might have returned to collect. I went into the kitchen and got a bucket and a broom. It didn’t matter that my ribs ached in protest, I needed to distract myself. Between the pain and the urge to scrub every surface of the house, I could bleach my mind blank.

I cleaned for twenty-four hours straight before I eventually realised that a whole day had come and gone. A cleaned behind and under things. I scrubbed the skirting boards and picture rails. I pulled the fridge and the cooker out and cleaned behind them. I even climbed on a chair and wiped the ceiling with a mop head. I didn’t bother to go to my bed to sleep, I just lay on the couch where I had come to a stop and passed out into a dreamless slumber.

I tried to find myself things to do to create some kind of normality. I made myself get up and get dressed. I showered. I ate. I slept. But I felt like a reflection of myself. I was completely insubstantial, sleepwalking through and existence I didn’t belong in day after day. I had never been alone like this before. Before this I had not even understood the concept of loneliness. Not this kind of loneliness where their was no prospect of connecting with anyone else anywhere on my horizon. When I was a young child I had had LeRoy and his gang and even though they weren’t particularly good friends, they were a place to go when my house became too much for me and I had had Finn and then Kayla and Anthony. There had always been somewhere to go and someone to focus on or turn to but now the flat felt oppressive as if it were full of ghosts.

My phantom father lurked at every corner, Finn hid behind the doors and Anthony was everywhere. Everything reminded me of him. Every smell, every sound, every thought I had could be connected to him in some way and so he filled every space around me until he squeezed all of the air out of every room and I couldn’t breathe and they all whispered together to each other about how I had failed every one of them.

Alison rang me every night so that I could speak to Kayla. She was uproariously happy, telling me long protracted stories of her adventures with Meggie and the puppy and learning to swim and how she was going to school in the autumn. I forced myself to sound cheerful and to focus and listen and be engaged and present. She asked me every time when I was coming to visit and I told her soon. And then Alison would tell me I was very welcome to come and visit absolutely any time I wanted to and I did want to, I suppose. But the thought of conducting conversations with her and Ross and being polite and friendly and engaged was more than I thought I could possibly manage. I didn’t want to be a dark, miserable spectre in Kayla’s life. I was afraid if I visited I would unsettle equilibrium she had managed to find.

They tell you that when you lose someone you love it’s supposed to get better. Time is supposed to heal things but I didn’t feel better. Everyday I felt worse. Every moment it felt like the dark was encroaching on me and threatening to completely overwhelm me. My getting up and getting dressed and eating and sleeping was a farce and there was no one to watch me trying to be alive and I couldn’t do it anymore.

When I did my massive clean up of the flat I had found a bottle of vodka that someone had hidden behind the sink. It might have been my mother hiding it from one of the boyfriends or just as easily one of them hiding it from her but it was there, wedged against the pipes. I had put it on the kitchen counter where I could see it. Common logic told me that I should pour it down the drain but I had put it there like a strange sort of beacon and it would catch my glance occasionally, watching me like I watched it.

And so on the third of August 2009 I sat down on the kitchen floor with the vodka and the little plastic bottle of painkillers the hospital had send me home with. I hadn’t been taking them. I’m not sure if I was subconsciously saving them or if it was just another way to cause myself more physical pain and in so doing be distracted from my feelings but the bottle was still full. I laid them out on the floor one after the other in a line. There were twenty-six of them, gleaming white perfect little orbs.

I thought about all the things that they represented. Silence. Nothingness. Cold. Escape. Freedom. Conclusion. I had not written a note. There was no one to read it. Now that Kayla was no longer with me and she was safe and happy. She didn’t need me and she didn’t need to know what had made me do this. What would I have written in a note? “I was alone. I was incomplete without him and I was too weak to live like this. I’m sorry.” But I wasn’t sorry. I was excited. I suffered no illusions that I would be reunited with Anthony. I don’t believe any of that stuff, when you’re dead you’re dead but the prospect of nothingness made me feel fully awake in a way that I hadn’t since before the attack.

It had to be done properly though and so I put on Anthony’s t-shirt and I picked up my cello. I wanted to play it one last time before this all ended. I would only be able to play my bits of course but it had unintentionally become our swan song. Our Sonata, “I Love Everything About You That Hurts” by E. Hayes and A. Hawkins.

I had not touched my cello since I had brought it back from Anthony’s house. I hadn’t wanted to play. Every note was attached to him but now it seemed right. It seemed like I should open up my soul completely before I closed it forever.

When I opened the cello case there was an envelope tucked under the strings on the neck with my name on it in Anthony’s wispy, looped writing. I stared at the envelope for a long time. It was the last thing I had expected and my stomach churned at the idea of what might be in it. Eventually I picked it up and opened it. There were two pieces of paper in it. One was full of Anthony’s handwriting and the other was something official looking. I read Anthony’s letter first.

Part 28

Words: 2,270
Total words: 44,802
Money raised: £354.00
Thank-you to: My dad and Jenn… oh and Lauren who owes me another £1 for junta. Freemonius look out for puppy dog’s tail

I didn’t sleep that night. There were no dreams and by the time the sun started to come through my window, I had made my decision. It was the only decision that had ever made sense and now there were just the hours of lying in bed feeling nauseous, waiting for Ross and Alison to arrive with Kayla.

This time they didn’t come alone. Ross led Kayla by the hand but Alison had a small blonde girl on her hip. She was almost an identikit of Kayla and seeing her reminded me of a much earlier time, when Kayla had just learned to talk and would enthusiastically come up with random words and then demand approval. Her first word was, of course, Bug. I noticed that Kayla was holding Bear-Eric under her arm.

“Hi Eric,” said Alison. “I hope you don’t mind but we couldn’t find anyone to look after Megan today so we brought her along. She will hopefully be on her best behaviour.”
“I remember when Kayla was that age,” I said. “They’re pretty unpredictable.”
She smiled. “I forget that you’re a dad,” she said.
I was overtaken by her effortless warmth and her ability to empathise so naturally and I wondered what it might be like to have a mother like that; one who would cherish you and keep you safe in the face of any adversity.
“Hi Megan,” I said.
Megan did the typical two-year-old thing and turned her face into her mother’s shoulder and ignored me.
“How are you feeling today?” Alison asked.
“Sore,” I said. “I can see out of both eyes now and they’ve said the splint is going to come off my nose tomorrow but my ribs are still killing me. I always took them for granted, I didn’t realise that they were so quintessential in terms of things like being able to cough and sneeze and… breathe.”
“And… and otherwise?” she asked.
I bit my top lip. “Numb. That’s the only way to describe it. I feel like nothing is real. Like huge parts of what happened before and are happening now are part of a dream and I’m kind of sleep-walking through everything.”
She came and sat next to me and put her hand on my arm.
“I know you don’t know me, but I do care about you and what happened to you and if you want to talk about anything, I’m here to listen.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I appreciate it.” And I meant it.
Ross was starting to look edgy.
“Can I speak to Kayla alone please?” I said.
Ross pulled a slightly annoyed face. “I’m not sure that…”
Alison cut him off with a look. “Of course you can. Come on, Meggie,” she said. “I think I saw a balloon in the gift shop with your name on it.”

They left and I motioned for Kayla to come and sit on the bed with me. She scrambled up and sat facing me.
“Kayla,” I said. “You know sometimes before we went to live with Anthony we were very sad and sometimes mummy’s friends weren’t nice to you and it was cold in the house and all we had to eat was cereal.”
She nodded.
“And then when we went to live with Anthony everything was lovely because you could play with all of Anthony’s toys and Iva made us nice food…”
“Soup,” said Kayla.
“Yes,” I said smiling. “Lots of soup. And she taught you how to make brownies and you got lots of cuddles not just from me but from Iva and Anthony too and we were like a real family.”
“Except we didn’t have a puppy,” she said.
“Um, no,” I said. “We didn’t have a puppy.”
“Alison and Ross and Meggie have a puppy,” said Kayla. “I saw a picture of him and Alison said he’s very good and he doesn’t bite unless you pull the puppy dog’s tail.”
“Did Alison and Ross show you where they live?” I asked.
Kayla nodded enthusiastically. “They live by the seaside.”
“Do you remember when we went to the seaside?” I asked.

When Kayla turned five I had snuck her onto a train to Brighton and the two of us had gone paddling in the sea. She had never been so excited in her entire little life. It was the one and only time she had ever seen the sea but I couldn’t get her out of the water. We had stayed until the sun eventually went down and we had to sneak back onto the train, me holding her against me, wrapped tightly in an old towel. She had told me that she wanted to stay at the sea forever and ever.

“Of course I remember,” she said in a way that was meant to indicate don’t talk to me like I’m five.
“I remember that you wanted to stay at the seaside.”
“Yes,” she said, wistfully.
“Kayla, do you think you might like to go and live at the seaside with Ross and Alison and Meggie and the puppy.”
“Junta,” she said.
“The puppy’s name is Junta?” I asked.
“Uh huh,” said Kayla.
“Okay. Well yes, do you think you might like to go and live at the seaside with Ross and Alison and Meggie and Junta.”
“Not until you are better enough to come out of the hospimal,” she said. “Then we should go because Ross said he would teach me how to swim and you can learn too.”
“Oh baby,” I said, a thick lump forming in my throat. “Baby I won’t be able to come.”
“No,” she said. “I don’t want to go.”
“But sweetheart,” I said. “If you stay with me we have to go and live back in our old house and it will be cold and dark and horrible.”
“I don’t care,” she said glaring at me. “I want to stay with you.”
“Kayla,” I said. “You know love you more than anything, right? More than the sun and the moon and the stars.”
“More than your cherry?” she asked.
“Even more than my cello,” I said. “And you know I would always do everything I can to make you happy. If you go and live with Ross and Alison you’ll have a real mummy and daddy and a proper house and a puppy.”
She frowned, on the verge of tears.
“I’ll come and visit you,” I said. “I’ll come and visit you all the time and I will always be your big brother and we can do lots of fun things together.”
“Why can’t you come?” she asked.
“Because Ross isn’t my daddy,” I said. “And because I’m all grown up now and I have to look after myself. Ross and Alison don’t want a big, ugly boy taking over their whole house and scaring the puppy.”
She giggled at the idea of me scaring the puppy.
“You’re very silly, Eric,” she said.
“I know,” I said.
And then very thoughtfully. “I miss Anthony.”
“I miss Anthony too, baby,” I said.
“If I go and live with Ross and Alison and Meggie who will play me Bug?”
“I’m sure I can get them to play you Bach on the radio,” I said.
“It’s not the same,” she said.
“I know,” I said. “But you have to be a very brave girl for me.”
“Okay,” she said.
“Come here and hug me,” I said and she put her head on my chest and her little arm around me and she laid Bear-Eric on my stomach.
“You have to look after Bear-Eric,” she said.
“I can’t do that, you’re her mummy.”
“She’ll look after you when I’m not there,” she said.
“Okay,” I said. “But just for now. Just until you want her back.”
We lay like that for a long time in silence and I refused to let myself cry because if I broke down she would break too and I needed her to be strong, stronger than I could ever have been.

When Ross and Alison came back with a balloon for Meggie, one for Kayla and one for me, she had all but fallen asleep, muttering into my chest like she always did as she drifted off.
“Kayla,” I said, shaking her slightly. “I think you should go and play with Meggie while I talk to Alison.”
“I think I should be here to discuss any decision you’ve made,” said Ross.
“I’d like to talk to Alison,” I said.
“Fine,” said Ross and walked out.
I suppose I will never get over my need to create power for myself in situations where I feel powerless and kicking Ross out of the room made me feel like I had some control.

“So,” I said. “The dog’s name is Junta?”
Alison laughed. “It was Meggie’s first word. We were watching the news and they were going on about Papua New Guinea and she suddenly just started saying Junta. It was so random that when we got the puppy we decided to name him Junta.”
“Kayla’s first word was Bug,” I said.
“That doesn’t surprise me,” said Alison. “She has a phenomenal knowledge of music for such a small child. Although she keeps insisting that she wants to listen to someone called The Horrors and I’m at a bit of a loss.”
“That’s Anthony’s influence,” I said, still surprised at how I felt this sharp jab of pain every time I said his name. “It was his favourite band. I always used to tease him about them but they’re actually not all that bad.”
“I’ll look them up,” she said. “I’ve got to admit, I’m a bit useless. My music taste more or less begins and ends with whatever’s on Capital.”
I took a deep breath. “I’ve made a decision,” I said. “And I want you to know that it wasn’t one I took lightly. I know that technically me making any decision is academic because I have no right to Kayla legally so I appreciate that you took the time to make me part of all this.”
“I know how Ross might come across,” said Alison. “You just remind him so much of your mother and it’s a time of his time that he really struggled to put behind him. He really respects you, he just doesn’t rally know how to show it. We never would have wanted to take Kayla away from you by force. That would have been way too traumatic for her. You’re everything to her that a parent could possibly be to a child and more no matter what any piece of paper says.”
I want Kayla to live with you,” I said. “And it’s not because I can’t take care of her or because I don’t want to. It’s because I want her to have what I didn’t have and what Anthony didn’t have. I want her to have two parents who really love her and I believe that you and Ross can give that to her.”
“Eric,” said Alison. “I can’t imagine how hard this has been for you. We’ve only known Kayla for a few days and she has completely stolen our hearts. What you’ve done is very, very brave and we will do everything we possibly can to give her the best possible life.”
“I know,” I said, my voice cracking. “I didn’t do this for you. I did this for her.”
“You are the best brother that any little girl could have,” said Alison and she stood up and put her arms around me and I sobbed like a small child on her shoulder not just about Kayla but about everything until I could barely breathe and her jumper was wet through.

“You can see her any time you want,” she said. “You’ll always be part of her life and of our lives. I think Meggie could benefit from a cool Uncle Eric.”
I smiled. “Is my mascara running?”
She laughed. “No, you’re beautiful.”
“When are you leaving?” I asked.
“Tonight,” she said, with a sigh. “We can’t leave the bed and breakfast for much longer. We have some friends helping out but they’re getting to the end of the time they have available.”
“It’s probably better,” I said. “Can I say good-bye to her?”
“Of course,” said Alison. “I’ll bring her in.”

Kayla came back and got on my bed.
“Now,” I said. “You have to promise me some things. Firstly, no pulling Junta’s tail, secondly you have to listen to what Ross and Alison say and remember all your manners I taught you, thirdly you have to remember me everyday and finally, no tears.”
“No tears,” she said, already sniffing.
“You’re going to have the best time ever,” I said. “Now give me a hug.”
I forgot about my ribs and let Kayla crush herself against me.
“Come on, honey,” said Alison. “I think it’s time to go. Well call you tomorrow.”

After they left, I lay on my bed with Bear-Eric in the crook of my arm staring at the ceiling and felt like I was floating in a white sea of nothingness. I had never been so jealous of Anthony, free from all this. To be in his arms right now would instantly close this open wound that split me in half . To listen to him whisper into my ear, while he stroked my hair would quiet every last one of the memories that were warring at the edges of my thoughts trying to see which would be the first to destroy me. I think I slept… eventually or at least I just stopped thinking.

Part 27

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Total words: 42,530
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Thank-you to: Freemonious French, Pete, Jodi and Sue

My next visitor was so unexpected that for a few minutes I thought I was still dreaming, but as the rush of pain twinged across my ribs and the hospital smell worked its way into my nostrils, I realised I was completely conscious. My mother, slumped slightly in her chair, fidgeting fit to bust.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“That’s nice, Eric,” she said. “Very nice. I came all this way to see you and that’s the best you can do. Do you know they won’t even let you smoke in here?”

She laced and unlaced her fingers, flexing them, picking at imaginary lint on her clothes.

“It’s a hospital, mum,” I said. “There are sick people here. Of course you’re not allowed to smoke and I’ve been in hospital for a week and you’ve only turned up now. You’re not exactly in line for the mother of the year award, are you?”

My mother grinned, showing off her yellowing teeth. “Yeah but I’m pretty sure Kerry Katona or that Jordan bitch won that last year so I’m in good company.”

“No jokes,” I said. “My ribs are killing me.”

“I told you not to get involved with those posh kids,” she said. “I told you it was a mistake. You mess with the wrong people and you get hurt. I blame this all on Finn. He never should have filled your head with all that music bollocks.”

“Here we go again,” I said. “You can say I told you so until you go blue in the face mum but if that’s why you’re here just go rather. I don’t know if I can cope with you gloating right now. So fine you were right, I dared to dream and look, I came crashing to the ground.”

My mother sighed. “You really do hate me, don’t you, Eric?”

“No, mum,” I said. “I don’t hate you. I just don’t get you.  It’s you who hates me. To this day I have no idea why you even had me.”

“I see we’re being honest,” said my mother. “I was eighteen when you were born. I was so out of it most of the time that I didn’t even realise I was pregnant until it was too late to have an abortion and then when you were born I got a flat and a childcare benefit and it was more money than I’d ever had in my life. It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“Again I have to ask why the hell you’re actually here,” I said.

“You’re going to give Kayla to Ross and his wife, right?” she said.

“I don’t know yet.”

“Eric,” she said. “You and me. We’re bad seeds. Look at us, we even look like we grew out of the same dark place. It’s too late for us. You’re going to end up just like me and you know it. You’ve got that anger inside you that’s like a bottomless pit and no matter what you throw into it it’s always empty. Kayla is not one of us though. She’s like this little piece of sunshine. If you keep her you’re going to put her sunshine out.”

“What would you even know?” I asked. “You ignored Kayla from the moment she opened her eyes.”

“I loved Ross,” said my mother. “I actually thought that maybe he and I would be able to fix each other and every time we got high, I promised myself it was the last hit. When he went into rehab and I found out I was pregnant I wanted to follow him but he wouldn’t have anything to do with me. I figured if I had his baby, I would have something of him and that would give me the strength to give it all up. But then when she was born she looked just like him and every time she looked at me, I saw him and I saw what I didn’t have and it just made me want to do anything I could to silence how I felt.”

“You are our mother,” I said. “You were supposed to put us first no matter what.”

“And I didn’t,” she said. “And I never will. I can admit that now.”

We were both quiet for a long time. My mother and I had never spoken honestly with each other. We’d barely ever spoken to each other at all, just walked around each other like two great big cats preparing for an attack. She hadn’t said anything I didn’t already know but hearing her admit that she was always going to be who she was, was like a door closing somewhere, never to be opened again.

“Anyway,” said my mother. “I wanted to tell you that I’m leaving. I kind of met a new man and he’s based in the States so I’m going to move to America. He has his own church there.”

“Are you mad?” I said. “You’re joining a cult?”

She shrugged. “It’s not a cult. It’s just an alternative spiritual path and anyway neighbourhood’s not safe anymore. Not since the trouble you caused. They locked up LeRoy and Dennis but his friends are looking for someone to blame. If I stay in that flat, I’m next. Plus no one will even deal to me because of you.”

“So this is what this is all about?” I asked. “You want me to hand Kayla over to Ross and Alison so that you don’t have to worry about her?”

“The thing is, Eric, you don’t actually have a choice. You don’t have any parental rights to Kayla and I’ve signed mine over to Ross already. They’re just being polite to you cos they’re nice people. If they want to take Kayla they can do so by force.”

The way she said it was so matter-of-fact, as if Kayla were a second had sofa. I realised just how powerless I was.  I felt like there was a weight in my stomach holding me down. The decision wasn’t mine at all. It was over.

“Look, I have to go,” said my mother. “Hank is waiting for me. You get better, okay? The flat’s still there if you want it.”

She leaned over me as if she might kiss me good-bye and then she turned and walked out of the room without another word.

Part 26

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Total words: 41,466
Money raised: £263.79
Thank-you to: Jodi

This time I dreamed about Finn. We were on a boat at sea with no land in sight. The water was flat and colourless like glass. There was not a cloud in the sky and it was a bright blue day, almost unnaturally fair.
“Fine mess you’ve made of all this, haven’t you boy?” asked Finn.
I realised I was ten again and small and skinny.
“It’s not my fault,” I said, barely recognising my own voice.
Finn laughed and wheezed. “People like you and me, boy, it’s always our fault. It doesn’t matter if we meant it or not, that’s just the way the world is.”
“I couldn’t save him,” I said.
I noticed that the wind had picked up and that the sea was starting to ripple under the boat, a few wispy white clouds forming above us.
He shrugged. “Can’t undo what’s been done.”
The boat started to bob up and down, as the waves got bigger and the sky bean to turn grey.
“Everybody leaves me,” I said.
“Everybody leaves everybody,” he said. “And you’ll leave her.”
“I won’t, I won’t!” I shouted as the rain started to pelt down and the boat threatened rocked back and forth, waves breaking over the bow.
“You will,” he said. “You can’t save me, you couldn’t save him and you won’t save yourself but you can save her.”
It was now raining so hard that I couldn’t see Finn anymore. We were separated by a curtain of rain.
“Don’t go,” I said, but Finn had already jumped overboard, leaving me alone as the storm raged, eventually capsizing the little boat.

I woke up with a start just as Ross came through the door holding Kayla by the hand.
“Eric!” she squealed, wrenching herself free of Ross and launching herself onto my bed, landing on my aching ribs.
“Oof, kiddo,” I groaned. “Careful, my tummy is very sore.”
“What happened to your face?” she asked suspiciously. “Has Gary been here?”
“No, baby,” I said. “I had a bit of an argument with some bad people and I got a little hurt but I’m fine now.”
She touched my nose gingerly. “Poor, Eric.”
“Yup, poor Eric indeed,” I said.
“You didn’t come home,” she admonished. “Iva and me were very, very worried. We even had to ring the police and they came to fetch me. I was very scared, even when Ross came to fetch me.”
“I’m sorry, baby,” I said, feeling the familiar wash of guilt. “But I was here in the hospital with the doctors. They said I couldn’t come home until they made me all better.”
“Where’s Antknee?” she asked. “Is he in the hospital too? Can we go and see him?”
“You didn’t tell her?” I asked Ross, who was quietly watching from the corner of the room.
“We thought that you might want to tell her.”
I felt nauseous. There was no right way to do this, no way that prevent me from doing damage. I took a deep breath and tried to steady my voice.
“Kayla, do you remember when Freddie had that goldfish and he was swimming around all day and you and Freddie gave him food every morning when you woke up.”
“Uh huh,” she said.
“And remember one day the fish didn’t feel so good and then he went to sleep and he didn’t wake up.”
“And we flushed him down the toilet,” said Kayla.
“Well, yes,” I said. “Baby, Anthony was with me when I had the argument with the bad people and he also got hurt because he was trying to help me. Except Eric was like the fish, he went to sleep and he didn’t wake up.”
“Why?” asked Kayla.
“I don’t know why,” I said, not managing to stop the tears. “I thought about it over and over again and I don’t know why.”
“Is he coming back?” she asked.
“No, baby, he’s not coming back.”
“He didn’t say good-bye.”
“I know,” I said. “But he told me that he loved you very, very much and you were the most beautiful girl in the whole world. He told me that all the time.”
“I want him to come back,” said Kayla tearful.
Not caring about my ribs, I pulled her against me and wrapped my arms around her, not sure which one of us was taking more comfort from the other.
“I want him to come back too, baby girl. I want that more than anything in the world but we have to let him go.”
“Can I still draw pictures of him?” she asked.
“Of course. You can draw as many pictures as you want.”

“Eric,” she said in her token stage whisper that is not a whisper at all as she continued to cuddle me. “Ross says he’s my daddy.”
“He is your daddy, Kayla.”
“I thought I didn’t have a daddy,” she said. “Mummy said that I didn’t have a daddy.”
“You know what mummy’s like. I said. Sometimes she gets confused and she says funny things.”
“But why didn’t you tell me that I had a daddy?”
“Because I didn’t know, sweetheart.”
“Is Ross your daddy?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “He’s just yours.”
“And Megan’s,” said Kayla. “But she has a different mummy. It’s all terribly confusing.”
“Yes it is,” I said. “Even for a grown up.”
Kayla laughed, obviously amused by the fact that I was just as confused as she was.
“Megan’s mummy’s name is Alison,” said Kayla. “She’s very nice. She took me to see the fishes in the aquarilum. I told her we were going to see kangaroos with Antknee but she said that you were too sick and that we would have to go another time one day.”
“She’s right I,” I said. “I think right now I would scare the kangaroos with my ugly face.”
“Alison said you were very brave,” said Kayla.
“Well you can tell her I say thank-you,” I said.
“She wants to come and visit you too but Ross said no. He said just him and I must come because you get very tired now because your tummy and your face is so sore and he said that I was special and you’re my big brother so I could come just with Ross.”
It was too much. It was all too much to cope with. I just wanted to switch off everything and go back to sleep but this time with no dreams, just an endless stretch of silence and darkness.
“She can come and visit,” I said. “I don’t mind.”

“Kayla,” said Ross. “I think Eric is very tired. Maybe we should let him rest.”
“No,” I said, fighting the waves of exhaustion rolling over me. “Don’t take her away.”
“Well why don’t you lie here with Eric quietly until he falls asleep and then Alison and I will come and visit him again this afternoon.”
I fell asleep with Kayla’s head on my chest and her little hand clutching my collar, just like I had when she was a baby and this time I didn’t dream. I slept in absolute peace for what felt like an entire lifetime before a nurse eventually shook me awake for lunch.

Ross was back in the afternoon with a woman who looked exactly like I had imagined Alison to be. She was just as blonde as he was and somewhere just exactly the right side of the line between plain and pretty. She was attractive enough that a beautiful personality would have intrigued any man enough to fall in love with her but plain enough that she would never turn heads and intimidate potential suitors. Her face was round and sweet and her eyes big and blue and in her floral cotton dress and little pink pumps everything about her screamed mum.

“Hi, Eric,” she said.
“Hi,” I said.
“I feel like I already know you,” she said. “Kayla talks about you non-stop. You’ve almost taken on the status of some kind of mythical figure in our conversations. Superman couldn’t have garnered more praise. I don’t believe there is anything Kayla believes you can’t do.”
It was impossible not to smile.
“Well in a life that’s been filled with villains,” I said. “It’s hard not to impress.”
Alison sat down next to my bed and took my hand. There was something so incredibly warm and sincere about the gesture that I didn’t resist, instead I squeezed her hand.
“I wanted to tell you,” she said. “That no matter what I say I realise there are no words that could possibly make you feel better at a time like this. I can’t imagine what it must be like to lose someone that you love with the absolute purity and intensity that you seem to have loved Anthony but I want you to know that my heart absolutely goes out to you and the last thing that Ross and I want to do right now is cause you more pain, although I know it will be unavoidable if you agree to our proposition. Kayla is a very, very special little girl and in the week that we’ve known her she’s completely stolen our hearts in no small part down to how much love and care you’ve lavished on her.”

I didn’t try and stop myself from crying now and I didn’t try and stop her from talking either.
“When I met Ross, he was the last person I wanted to fall for. When you become a nurse they tell you that the lines between patient and caretaker should never be blurred and professionalism must always be maintained and even though Ross wasn’t my patient, he was someone who needed help. But I saw something so unavoidably good and strong in him that I couldn’t stay away. He is a good man, Eric and a very good father.

We got married three years ago and left our old lives behind. We bought a big old house with a sea view in Brighton and opened a bed and breakfast. We make a good living from our little business and the environment is perfect for a family. We want Kayla to be part of our family.

I can promise you that I would love her and treat her as if she were my own daughter and that I already don’t see any distinction between her and Megan. I know that you have done everything you can for Kayla and she’s grown up with more love than many children who have two parents do but the best gift you can give her is a family.”

It echoed everything Anthony had always said to me. All he wanted was a family. He wanted to belong to a unit, to people who would love him no matter what and if I let Ross and Alison take Kayla they could give her that. They could give her the family that I could never give her now that Anthony was gone but that would leave me alone.  I would be completely alone.

“We would never try to keep you out of Kayla’s life,” she said. “We know how important you are to who she is and how important she is it you. You could see her absolutely any time you wanted to.”

“You don’t understand,” I said. “She is all that I have left. I know what it’s like to be left by the people you love and I don’t want Kayla to think I’m giving her away. I don’t want her to think that I gave up on her quit because it was too much.”
“Eric,” said Ross, but Alison held up her hand to stop him.
“I know,” she said. “I know how scary this must be for you, especially since you don’t know us at all but look in your heart, Eric. You know what the right thing to do is.”
“Will you bring Kayla to see me tomorrow?” I asked.
Ross sighed. “We have to see some lawyers tomorrow but we can bring her on Tuesday.”
“Okay,” I said.
“Oh, I wanted to ask you something,” said Alison. “She keeps going on about wanting to hear bugs and that you used play them for her an on a cherry?”
“She means Bach,” I said. “I play the cello and I always used to play her Bach when she was upset or grumpy. It always soothed her and put her to sleep. That and Iron Maiden and she likes stories about trolls. Anthony always used to read them to her.”
“I’ll make a note of that,” said Alison.

Would Kayla understand if I let these people take her? Would she know that I was doing it because I loved her and because I wanted her to be happy and because I knew that I was poison and that if I kept her with me I would destroy her just like I had destroyed Anthony. I remember Anthony telling me that children and resilient and they recover and grow way faster than adults do and that I shouldn’t underestimate Kayla.

I pictured Kayla with Ross and Alison in their house in Brighton and then I pictured her in my mother’s derelict flat with me and finally I pictured her somewhere completely new with me and Anthony. It would have been perfect, just the three of us. I let the little fantasy completely wash over me. I imagined Kayla older and going off to school, Anthony and I watching her at the back door arm in arm, proud. It didn’t take much to change the picture so that it was Ross and Alison waving her off to school and me sitting alone in my mother’s flat.

Part 25

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Thank-you to: Natalie

“I have a proposal for you,” said Ross.

“A proposal?”

“I don’t want Kayla to grow up like I did… like you did. We have a chance here to give her a normal life with a real family.”

“Stop right there,” I said, those little flickers of rage licking up my bones through my veins. “I am not you and I am not my mother. Kayla never wanted for anything in her life. I might not be the perfect or ideal caretaker but I have done everything I could to give her a good time.”

“I know,” said Ross. “She’s a remarkably well-adjusted child considering what she’s been through. She’s talkative and confident and well-spoken and she’s very polite. You’ve done an amazing job.”

“That must have some as a shock to you,” I said. “Considering what I reprobate I clearly am.”

“You’re very defensive,” said Ross.

“Because everyone keeps attacking me,” I said. “Do you know I’ve never taken any drugs. I’ve never even touched alcohol unless I knew there was someone else to look after Kayla. I’m not you!”

“I’m not attacking you,” said Ross. “I’m just asking you to consider the idea that Kayla might benefit from a more traditional family unit.”

“I am her family,” I said. “Anthony was her family. Do you want to know why she’s so confident and engaging? It’s because of him!”

“I respect everything you’ve done for her and everything you’ve given up. Kayla adores you. You’re her hero. I couldn’t have done that when I was your age. I’m just asking you to think about it.”

“I’m not thinking about anything until I see my sister. My sister. Do you hear that? Mine!”

“I’ll bring her tomorrow,” he said.

“Now get out,” I said.

There had been times before where I had wondered if me being Kayla’s primary caretaker was the best possible thing for her. When she was really, really tiny there were days where I had no idea what to do with her. She screamed and screamed and screamed and I fed her with stolen formula and changed her using stolen nappies and burped her just like Mrs O’Flaherty had taught me to do but it made no difference. She screamed anyway. Occasionally on one of her good days my mother popped in and held her and soothed her but on most days she just yelled at me to shut up that goddamned screaming baby because she had a headache.

I made lots of mistakes. I didn’t take Kayla for any inoculations because I was scared if I took her to the doctor without my mother, they would come and investigate our living conditions and take her away from me. She got measles when she was two and nearly died because she was so sick. I had never forgive myself for that.

When she was three I put her on the kitchen counter while I was making us dinner and she fell and hit her head because of my negligence. I kept her in a home where there was violence and abuse and drugs. Where people shouted and fought and destroyed things. Where I had to clean and disinfect things before she could touch them. These last few months had started to take away my doubts though. Anthony had treated Kayla as if she belonged to him as much as she belonged to me and Iva had showered her with motherly affection. I was starting to believe that maybe everything had happened the way it had for a reason. It wasn’t a normal family but it was a family, one that had love in place of convention.

Now Kayla would be stuck with an older brother who was emotionally vacant, lost and in constant pain and with, essentially, nowhere to live. After the flourish I had stormed out of my mother’s flat with, I doubted she would take us back, if she was even around since the police had indicated that she had vanished. I would have to apply to get primary guardianship of Kayla. I’d need to forget uni and find some kind of job to support us.

There was never a question that it wouldn’t be worth it. Anything for Kayla would be worth it. The first time she smiled at me, I fell completely, hopelessly in love with her. Even then I knew it was a selfish kind of love. I loved Kayla because she gave me an anchor, a buoy to cling to in a life where I could have gotten completely lost so easily. Kayla was a reason to keep getting up and trying and moving forward. I needed her way more than she ever needed me.

The question was if keeping her with me when there was another alternative was motivated by a need to take care of Kayla or a need to take care of myself. I knew that having her with me had been better than letting her be taken into care. I knew all the stories about kids being taken into care, enough of my neighbourhood had spent some time in the hands of the authorities and for the most part no matter how awful your family was it was better than that. Every time we had been without heating or very much food or my mother and the boyfriend of the hour were destroying the flat I told myself that it was better than her being taken away. This was different though. This was the offer of an actual family with a mother and a father. If I denied Kayla that then was I as guilty of neglect as my mother?

The thoughts tore around in my head intermingled with memories of Anthony and Kayla together and how the two of them would gang up on me to get what they wanted. They both had deplorable taste in Disney cartoons and would sit next to each other with their bottom lips pushed out whenever I refused to watch The Little Mermaid with them. I thought of him sitting with her in his lap as he read her stories with actions and different voices for the different characters and how she would squeal with delight when he put on his best troll voice. I thought of them falling asleep on a picnic blanket with her little head on his stomach and how with both of them being so fair she looked more like his than mine. I hadn’t just lost a lover; I had lost an entire future.

Part 24

Words: 1,255
Total words: 38,091
Money raised: £243.79
Thank-you to: Jen for this.

True to his word, Ross Bathurst was back in the afternoon at three o’clock for visiting hours. Seeing his way too familiar face made me miss Kayla desperately. I wanted to hold her and have her safe with me. She was the only thing I had left and the urge to protect her was more intense than ever before. I was worried about her. These people had no idea what she had been through or what she needed. I wondered what they had told her about Anthony and about me. I wondered if she understood where I was and why I hadn’t come to get her yet.

“Can we talk now?” asked Ross.
“I don’t care what you do,” I said. “Talk if it makes you feel better.”
“I wanted to tell you about myself and what happened between your mother and me to try and help you understand.”
I shrugged. “Whatever. Just as long as I can see my sister.”
“I promise I will bring her to see you tomorrow,” he said.
“Fine,” I said. “Talk.”

“My life wasn’t so different from yours. Although from the outside it must have seemed like another world. I grew up in Kent in one of those towns where everyone pretends to be perfect but under the surface it’s a seething mess of secrets and lies. My parents were absolute pillars of the community. My father was a stockbroker who helped run the local business association and my mother was a florist who headed up the parish’s Sunday school. Everyone compared themselves to us and wanted to be just like us but behind closed doors my father drank heavily and he beat up my mother in front of me and my sister.

My mother told us it was her fault that she hit him and that she would never leave him but I eventually realised that her constant domestic “accidents” gave her the opportunity to go to the doctor and get more and more of the painkillers that basically kept her going.

I never told a single soul about what happened in my house because I knew if anyone found out that they would know we weren’t perfect and that they would separate me and my sister and lock my father up. Better the fucked up life you know, right?

When I was sixteen my mother finally lost the plot. Somewhere between the Demerol and the constant blows to the head she completely snapped and she shot my father in the head before turning the gun on herself. My sister was in the room with my parents when it happened. She was ten years old.

They took my sister into care since she was so psychologically damaged by the event that she needed to be hospitalised where she remains to this day. I was declared old enough to look after myself and since I was now in possession of a what seemed to me to be an absolute fortune of an inheritance, I didn’t resist the idea of continuing my life with no further adult interference.

I was adamant that I was going to prove to everyone that what my parents had done had no affected me and that I was absolutely fine no matter how fucked up they were. So I bought myself a little flat and I got five A-Levels and went to The London School Of Economics.

After I graduated I got into a high power programme and within five years became a sales director in a high-flying multinational company. I was what you might call an overachiever. But you can’t run from the past or from who you are and the nightmares followed me around. I started to make mistakes. I couldn’t cope. The strain of work and the strain of keeping my family secrets was turning me into a basket case.

I was at a party another sales director offered me cocaine. I swore I would never touch drugs but he managed to convince me that everything would be clear if I just tried it and that everybody did it. In fact he found it laughable that in my position I had never tried coke since it was almost expected that you would need it to survive. He made it seem so logical and simple and so I had a line. And he was right; it made everything seem clear and completely surmountable.

Within a month I had a thousand pound a week habit. When I met your mother I was completely off the rails and living exactly the same kind of double-life I had grown up with. On the outside I was a respectable businessman, smashing my sales targets and en route to becoming the youngest CEO in the history of the company. Behind closed doors I was a coke fiend burning my six figure salary on drugs without a second thought. I was drawn to your mother because she was an absolute mess and didn’t seem to be making any attempt to hide it. She was on the outside, exactly how I felt on the inside and that made her irresistible to me. It was like being able to hold up a mirror and say this is who I really am. I didn’t have to pretend in front of her. I could tell her all of my horrible stories and she had worse ones. I could do line after line in front of her and she did more. She knew what it was like to crave your next fix and to hate yourself and hate everyone else and so we egged each other on to greater and greater levels of absolute debauchedness.

I think I would have ended up exactly where your mother is now if I had not met my wife. I still used to go and visit my sister in hospital and Alison was one of the psychiatric nurses. She instantly recognised the signs of addiction in me and she convinced me that I was ruining my life and that I needed to get help.

I tried to get your mother to go into rehab with me but she laughed in my face. She said she didn’t need anyone telling her what to do and that she had managed perfectly fine for thirty years on her own without anyone else and so I completely cut her loose, just like the programme I was in told me to do.

She tried to contact me a number of times but I ignored her because she was part of the me I was trying to escape and heal. What I didn’t know was that she was pregnant with Kayla. She never told me. I promise you, Eric, if I had known I never would have run away like that.”

He seemed close to tears now and as much as I wanted him to just go away and leave my sister and me alone, I didn’t doubt his sincerity.

“I can’t tell you how sorry I am that it’s taken the loss of someone close to you for me to find out I had another daughter and to finally meet Kayla. When the police rung me to tell me that my name was on her birth certificate I was in absolute shock.”

“It’s a total soap opera to be sure,” I said. “And I’m sorry your life was a total fuck up before you went to rehab but what does any of this actually have to do with me and Kayla?”

Part 23

Words: 1,160
Total words: 36,824
Money raised: £243.79
Thank-you to: Tash and Kelly

In the next dream I had I was sitting with Anthony in the studio of his house. It made sense, the studio was the heart of our relationship, a representation of everything that brought us together. All around us the house was on fire. Flames licked the walls and shimmered around all his equipment, slowly eating away at the mixing desks and the guitars. One of his eyes was swollen shut and his face was bent and disfigured from being beaten, just like it had been the last time I had seen him.

“This is the end,” I said

“I know,” he said. “But this is how it was supposed to happen.”

“No,” I said. “I don’t believe you.”

“We were like stars,” he said. “We burned so brightly that we burned out.”

“I don’t know who I am anymore without you,” I said.

“You were someone before me,” he said.

“I was someone I didn’t want to be. I don’t want to remember you like this. You’re all broken. Why is your face like that?”

“Because this is how you left me,” he said.

The flames crackled and got closer so I could feel the heat from them searing my arms and legs.

“I can’t let you go,” I said. “I don’t want to wake up. Can I just go to sleep? Can I just sleep here next to you forever?”

I reached out to touch him but the flames sprung up between us creating a wall that I could just barely see him through. I tried to look away as the flames crawled over his hair and face and ate away the flesh that made up his features but I was fixed to the spot, eyes glued to the skeleton that was slowly appearing before me as everything that made Anthony, Anthony disappeared. I opened my mouth to scream and found myself jolted back to consciousness in my hospital bed.

When I opened my eyes there was a man standing in my room. He had his back to me but I could see that he was tall and built like a rugby player. He was yellow-blonde and dressed in the uniform of the upper-middle class, tailored blue jeans, Paul Smith striped shirt with matching pastel jumper and loafers.

“Who the fuck are you?” I asked him.

Oh, you’re awake,” he said, turning to face me.

I was getting sick of people’s shocked exclamations at my state of awareness, like I had woke up from a ten year long coma.

As he faced me, it felt like I had been smacked in the face all over again. His face was painfully familiar; the hint of a curl in his fair hair, his wide-set baby blue eyes, the fullness of his cheeks, leading to a slight point in his chin.

“I’m Ross Bathurst,” he said. “I’m Kayla’s father.”

“Kayla doesn’t have a father,” I said.

“We’ve done DNA tests,” he said. “I am, without any doubt, Kayla’s biological father.”

It was hard to keep the bitterness out of my voice. “Do you honestly believe that forgetting to wear a condom when you fucked my junkie mother six years ago makes you anything to Kayla? Do you know how to get her to sleep at night? Do you know what she’s afraid of or what music she likes or how she got the scar on her left knee?”

“I understand that you’re upset and angry, Eric,” said Ross.

“You understand absolutely nothing about me,” I said. “And even less about Kayla.”

“I know that you lost your… partner in the attack.”

“Don’t,” I said. “You don’t get to say his name. There’s only one other thing you get to tell me and that is where exactly my sister is.”

“She’s with my wife and our little girl. We’re all staying in a hotel a couple of blocks away.”

“As soon as they let me out of here, I’ll come and pick her up,” I said.

Ross sighed. “I’ll bring her to come and see you,” he said. “But I want to tell you some stuff first. There are things I need to explain.”

“You really don’t,” I said.

“I can see that this is too much for you right now,” said Ross. “I’ll come back when visiting hours open again this afternoon. Good-bye, Eric.”

I turned over with an immense amount of effort as my ribs screamed in protest and faced the wall so I didn’t have to look at him.

The truth was now that I had seen Ross Bathurst, he looked familiar. I remember him coming to the flat a couple of times with my mother. She had never introduced him to me, I had just passed him in the hallway occasionally as I got ready to go to school. I remember knowing he was there because he would leave his briefcase on the kitchen table, in fact I was pretty sure I had rifled through it on a couple of occasions and liberated some of his change from the pockets. He was the businessman who had completely broken my mother’s heart. I wondered if she had felt at that moment the way I felt right now. I wondered if she had felt like someone had ripped out her heart and told her that she should learn to carry on living without it, moving like some kind of ghost-shell in amongst the living but not one of them.

She was the lucky one. I think I could have bourn it if Anthony left me. If he had turned around one day and told me that he didn’t love me or that he had fallen in love with someone else and he didn’t want me anymore I would have been angry. I would have been crushed. I would have wished just as hard as I wished now that I could wake up and discover that I had imagined the whole thing. But I could have survived. Knowing that he was alive somewhere under the same stars that I was, breathing the same air would have been enough reason for me to keep bothering to exist.  I could have spent my time imagining what he was doing and hoping that whoever was holding him made him smile wide enough to make that dimple pop out next to his mouth. And I could have held alive a dream that one day, some day that he would come back to me and forgive me and love me again or even that he might just ring me and let me hear his voice. It would have been enough. This existence where he had vanished, where I knew that he would never utter another word again or smile another smile or ever let me earn his forgiveness for what I had done, made it feel like there was nothing beneath my feet and if I took a single step I would fall through the universe.

Part 22

Words: 5,087
Total words: 35,664
Money raised: £218.31
Thank-you to: Lauren, who now owes me another £1 for amanuensis. Bex, look out for magniloquent (which is a real word believe it or not)
Author’s note: However you feel after you read this part… remember that I had to write it and whatever you feel is about a thousand times worse for me. I’m sorry. I’m so very, very sorry.

I woke up before Anthony on my eighteenth birthday. He was fast asleep on his back next to me, his hands behind his head. It was a quirk of his that Iva claimed he had had even as a child. I couldn’t resist pulling back the covers and looking at him. I never got tired of admiring Anthony. It had gotten to the point where he would become embarrassed and pull his scarf over his head or duck under the duvet, but my fascination with him was never quite sated.

I was very careful lifting back the covers because I didn’t want him to wake up and ruin the perfect picture in front of me. I had lost some of my skinniness under Iva’s constant over-feeding but the difference between my body and Anthony’s was still so evident. Where I was long and lean and bony, he was compactly muscular  and although I might have looked much bigger than him, he was considerably more solid that I was. Where my skin was almost translucently white, his was slightly olivey, giving him a caramelly glow even though neither of us had seen any sun in a while.

I let my eyes wander up from the little lines framing his hipbones to the trail of light brown hair snaking from beneath the covers up to his belly button, to the depression created where his abs rose under his skin and I resisted the overwhelming urge to touch. I remembered the first time I undressed him being surprised that he had a liberal spread of chest chair, looking so young and innocent but now it was one of my favourite things to run my fingers through it. I wondered as I had many times before if it was possible to fall in love purely with someone’s collarbone. There was something about the way the light fell over that little ridge of bone that made it more beautiful, more perfect that any other collarbone in the world.  It rose and fell gently with his deep, sleepy breaths and just knowing that he was alive and breathing next to me made my heart swell in my chest. I was about to run my finger over his collarbone to the little dusting of freckles on his shoulder, when Anthony interrupted me.

“Go on then,” he said. “I know you’re staring at me.”
I looked up at him but his eyes were still closed.
“I thought you were asleep,” I said.
He smiled. “Nope.”
“Hey,” I said, “It’s my pretty and I’m allowed to look.”
“I’m not stopping you,” he said. “After all it is your birthday.”
“I’m old,” I said.
“Can we not do that,” he said, finally opening his eyes and bringing his hand up to my neck to pull me down for a kiss. “I’m almost a year older than you and I don’t want to think about how old that makes me.”
“Funny how you’re older than me and you’re still my bitch,” I said.
He laughed. “Only in your head, Mr Hayes. That’s just what I want you to think.”
“I don’t think, I know,” I said, tickling his stomach.
“Eric,” he said, suddenly serious. “What are we going to do next year?”
I had been managing to avoid the topic looming over us so far. Next year… uni..
“We’re going to start a band and call it the Ultimate Fist Of Despair and we’ll go on tour and Kayla will be our roadie.”
“Be serious, E,” he said. “We have to decide.”
“It depends on my grant,” I said. “You know that. I’ll have to go wherever they offer me a place and I’ll have to apply to be Kayla’s guardian and take her with me. She has to start school in September.”
“If we both get into Kings that won’t matter.”
I sighed. “If you get into Cambridge you should go to Cambridge.”
“Fuck Cambridge,” he said. “I want to be where you are. If you get into Kings, then I go to Kings and then we can stay here and Iva can look after Kayla and everything will be fine.”
“I’m not having you jeopardise your whole career over me,” I said.
“Oh come on, E,” he said. “I’m a decent piano player and a pretty good composer but you, you’re on a different level. I’m probably not going to make it as a classical musician on my own and I’m fine with that. This is not my dream, it’s my parents’. I want to be in a band one day and I want to be with you and with Kayla, everything else is just details.”
I sighed. His ability to be so sure about things and to believe so wholeheartedly that things would work out was one of the things that made me love him the most.
“Okay, so let’s say that all works out, what happens when your parents get back in the middle of the summer and realise that you’ve taken in two strays and their housekeeper is basically being paid to baby-sit the five-year old daughter of an enraged heroin addict who wants her back.”
“You can be very melodramatic for someone who claims to be the man in this relationship,” he said. “My parents only see what they want to see and believe what they want to believe. They’ll be back here for a week tops and then they’ll leave again. They might as well meet you now. They’ll probably just be relieved that there’s someone I actually care about and as long as the house is kept in good shape what do they care what Iva is actually doing? If they do decide for some reason that they don’t want you here, then we move out. My parents might be funding me but I have my own money too.”
“You do?” I asked surprised.
“Sort of,” he said. “I have a trust fund that my grandfather left me that matured when I turned eighteen. That money they can’t touch and we can easily live off it before you write a symphony and you start keeping me.”
“Why haven’t you mentioned this before?”
“Because I didn’t want you to think I was some kind of trust fund baby and that my promises to give up everything for you were hollow.”
I laughed. “You’ve thought of everything, haven’t you?”
He shrugged. “Maybe. It’s all on one condition though.”
“Oh really?” I said. “Well you know you don’t have to trick me into that…”
“I’m amazed sometimes by how sex obsessed you are,” he said, deflecting my attempt to kiss him. “Not that Eric. I want us to go and see your mother.”
“What?” I asked. “Why?”
“Because no matter how much she’s screwed up, she is still your mother and she needs you. I want to check up and make sure she’s okay. Maybe there’s something we can do to help her. I don’t know, get her into rehab or something.”
“No,” I said. “You don’t know her like I do. She’s a lost cause.”
“E,” he said. “I don’t feel right about how we stormed out of there when you left. I don’t feel right about the fact that she doesn’t know where Kayla is. I’m not saying that I want you to reconcile with her but it’s your eighteenth birthday. She deserves to see me.”
“Did you not hear her call me a sick waste of space?” I said.

I felt nauseous at the prospect of seeing my mother. I had not ventured anywhere near my old neighbourhood since I moved in with Anthony. It was amazing how quickly living this life where I was safe and things were predictable and calm and hopeful had made the past feel like I had dreamed it. If I went back I was scared that it would all come back and destroy the peace I had created.

“She’s your mother,” said Anthony. “I don’t want you to lose her completely. I don’t want Kayla to lose her.”
“I am not taking Kayla to see her,” I snapped.
“I’m not suggesting that right now,” he said soothingly. “I’m just saying let’s go and see her and if it’s that bad, we’ll leave and I’ll admit that I was wrong and we won’t have to ever do it again.”
“I don’t like it,” I said. I had a horrible, dark feeling about the idea of seeing my mother. A feeling that sat lodged in my stomach like something bad I had ingested that needed to be thrown-up.
“Do it for me,” he said, leaning over me and kissing my neck, in a spot that he knew made me vulnerable to pretty much any suggestion. “I think you’re about owe me one.”
“Oh really, your magniloquent highness,” I said. “What makes you think that?”
He gave me a devilish smile and pushed me onto my back, kissing his way down my chest.
“You’ll see.”

‘Eric,” squealed Kayla at the breakfast table. “Anthony and I got you the bestest birthday present ever!?”
“Shh,” said Anthony. “It’s s surprise, remember.”
“Oh yes,” said Kayla. “I remember now. I won’t tell him about the trip.”
“The trip, huh?” I said.
Anthony sighed. “Sometimes I forget that she’s five.”
“I am almost six,” said Kayla.
“Yes you are,” said Anthony. “And when it’s your birthday, I’m going to tell you exactly what you’re getting.”
She stuck her tongue out and him and he leaned over to cuddle her. She sighed, happily and pressed her forehead against his.
“It doesn’t matter,” said Anthony. “I was going to tell you after breakfast anyway. There’s an envelope under your plate.”
I lifted up my plate and took out a long letter envelope, tearing the back open using the breadknife as a letter-opener. Tickets. Three tickets, first class to Sydney.
“I wanted to show you the happiest place I ever lived,” he said. “So I can share it with the person who has made me the happiest and can you please be careful with that knife? If you slice off one of your fingers, you’re hardly going to be able to get an amanuensis to play the cello for you.”
I had no idea what to say. I was completely surprised and impossibly touched. I bit my lips trying in vain to stop tears.
“Eric,” said Kayla, aghast. “Don’t cry! We’re going to see kangaroos!”
“I’m crying because I’m excited,” I said.
“Do you like it?” asked Anthony, eagerly.
“Yes, baby,” I said. “It’s the most amazing present anyone has ever given me. You didn’t have to do this.”
“I know, I know,” he said. “I’m not allowed to try and buy you.”
“I’m glad you did though,” I said.
“We’re leaving in a week,” he said.
“My passport is at my mother’s house,” I said. “And Kayla doesn’t even have one.” And then it dawned on me. “Ah, that’s why we have to go and see her.”
“It’s one of the reasons,” he said. “I have the forms and everything for Kayla but I also want you to make peace with her.”
“She’s never going to agree to this,” I said.
“There’s a back-up plan,” he said.
“You want to buy her off, don’t you?” I asked.
“Only as a last resort,” he said.
“What have I turned you into?” I asked.
He smiled. “I just want to go on holiday with the two people I love the most,” he said.
I shouldn’t have liked this side of him but it was strangely sexy having Anthony be so forceful and devious.

We decided to go and see my mother on the way to going out for dinner. We didn’t take the car to Harlesden this time. I think the lesson was learned after the first incident. This time we took the bus. I held Anthony’s hand in full view of anyone who might see us. I didn’t care anymore who knew we were together. He was mine and I was his and there was nothing that could take him away from me. Well I believed that one hundred percent at the time.

We never got to my mother’s house. When we got off the bus it was already dark. I was so busy chattering away to Anthony, still holding his hand that I didn’t see LeRoy come out of the alley behind the bus stop until it was way too late.
“Look who’s back,” he said.
“LeRoy,” I said. “Leave it alone. I’ve just come to see my mother and get out of here.”
He laughed. “You don’t belong here anymore, money. You and your batty boyfriend. You should go back to your fancy house. Didn’t you learn when we smashed up your car? We don’t want you here.”
“I don’t fucking want to be here either,” I said. “Back off before I drop you.”
I felt a surge of the rage that I had managed to keep quiet for so long.
“Not this time, money,” he said. “Not this time.”
Anthony squeezed my hand nervously and Dennis and two new characters that I had not yet encountered came out of the alleyway.
“Let’s just go,” said Anthony. “We’ll just leave.”
“That’s right, sweetheart,” said LeRoy. “Take Ricky and go back to where you belong.”
“Or what?” I said, the rage flaring up in me again. “You think I’m scared of you LeRoy? You think I’m scared of you and these little tagalongs you have running around here taking money off kids and old ladies.”
LeRoy squared up to me. “You should be scared, Ricky. I might have let you off with disrespecting me before but not again.”
“Eric,” said Anthony, urgently. “This is not worth it. Let’s just get out of here.”
I shook him off.
“Listen to your bitch, Ricky,” said LeRoy. “Run off with your tail between your legs like the fag you are.”
“Guys,” said Anthony, in his calming town. “Look no one wants a fight. Can everyone calm down.”
“Ooh,” said LeRoy, to the amusement of his crew. “Listen to the posh bitch talk. I think she’s been let off her leash. Maybe we should listen.”
They all roared with laughter.
Dennis stepped forward and shoved Anthony, who recoiled in horror like anyone who has never been in a fight before would.
Shut the fuck up, bitch,” he said.
And that’s when I lost it.
“Did you just touch him?” I asked Dennis, standing to tower over him. “You’re going to be so fucking sorry you even looked at him.”
“Eric! Don’t!” shouted Anthony, but I was beyond any reason.
I hit Dennis so hard that he dented the car that he bounced off. LeRoy was instantly up and in my face, his two other henchmen behind him. I got ready to attack but the two new guys were quicker than me and they managed to get hold of me on either side before I could get to LeRoy. He picked up the baseball bat he had been hiding in the alley.
“Where should I hit him first?” he asked Dennis, who had managed to pick himself up off the ground and was holding his sleeve to his bleeding mouth.
Dennis gave a dark smile. “Knock his teeth out,” he said.
“Nah,” said LeRoy, as I struggled. “Let’s break his fingers. Then he’ll never play that fucking cello again. Although, I like the idea of working my way up to the fun bits.”

He swung the bat back and crashed it into my ribs. Pain exploded all over my chest, knocking the breath out of me completely. I slumped, staying upright only because of the two guys holding me.  I looked up to see Anthony rushing at LeRoy. I wanted to shout to him to stop. I wanted to tell him to run, that I wasn’t important enough. It didn’t matter what they did to me as long as he was okay but as much as I gasped, I could not get enough breath into my lungs to get out a single word. LeRoy turned and crashed the bat into Eric’s face with a sickening crack. The sight of Anthony in danger tapped into a reserve I didn’t know I had and I managed to pull together just enough strength to stamp on the foot of one of my captors, making him release his grip long enough to get an elbow into his partner’s face. As he went down, I turned to the other one and delivered the ultimate weapon Dave had put into my arsenal, a perfectly placed Glasgow kiss. I threw LeRoy off Anthony but he had already laid a number of crushing blows to Anthony’s face and one of his eyes was swelled shut.
“Hold on, baby,” I whispered to him. “Just hold on. I’ll call an ambulance.”
I didn’t notice Dennis coming up behind me with the bat until he hit me on the back of my head.

I dreamed I was sitting at a table with a man I knew was my father in that way you know who people are when you’re in dreams. He was wearing a Cossack’s hat and he had a handlebar moustache and piercing blue eyes.
“Why did you leave me?” I said to my father.
“Because I didn’t want you,” he said. “No one wants you.”
“Anthony wants me,” I said.
“You don’t deserve him,” said my father.
“I know,” I said. “But he loves me.”
“You’re going to die alone,” said my father. “Because this is all your fault. You destroy everything you touch. I left you because you’re cursed. You’re poison and death. Just like your mother.”
“No,” I said.
My father smiled and I realised that all his teeth were black and rotting away.

It was the beeping that woke me up. Beep. Beep. Beep. Over and over. Before I registered that I was conscious, I registered pain. Every part of me hurt. My head felt huge, like it had swollen to three times its size and someone had tried to make it smaller by drilling a hole in it. Every breath I took set a fire in my chest that felt like someone was hecking the muscle off my ribs with a circular saw. And then I registered a burning aching thirst, so bad that I was forced to open my eyes. Well one eye, the other one wouldn’t open.

The smell of hospital was unmistakable. That disinfectant mixed with decay, mixed with sick smell. There was a nurse in the room, busying herself with the piece of equipment making the beeping sound.
I opened my mouth to draw her attention and registered a croak.
She turned around.
“You’re awake,” she said.
“Where’s Anthony,” I croaked.
“Who, dear?” she asked.
“Anthony,” I croaked.
“I don’t know who that is,” she said.
“He would have come in with me,” I said. “I need to see him.”
“No one came in with you,” she said.
“Where is he?” I asked more aggressively, feeling panic rise up in my throat.
“You need to calm down, Mr Hayes,” she said.
“I will fucking calm down when you tell me where he is,” I shouted.
“There’s no need for that,” said the nurse.
It took everything I had to sit up. I scrabbled at the drips attached to my forearm, finding that even trying to pull them out felt like lifting a tonne of bricks. I only managed to get one out before the nurse plunged a syringe into the bag hanging above my head and sent a wave of black rolling over me.

When I woke up again there was a different nurse in the room. She seemed startled when I woke up.
“Are you in pain?” she asked me.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “Just tell me where Anthony is.”
She looked around nervously.
“He would have come in with me,” I said. “Look I know he was in a bad way. Just tell me where he is so I can go and see him. He needs me.”
“He didn’t come in with you,” she said.
“Why not?” I asked. “Did they take him somewhere else? Is he in some posh private hospital?”
She sighed as if she was psyching herself up for something.
“They didn’t bring him with you because he was already dead when you were found.”

Her words sounded like they were coming from very, very far away, like she was shouting them from the end of a tunnel. My head was full of static, Everything around me slowed down, until there was nothing but one word that became my entire consciousness. Dead. Dead. He was dead. He was already dead. He was dead when you were found.

“No,” I said. “No. No! NO! He is not dead. You’re lying. You’re a fucking liar!”
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” the nurse said. “But you have to calm down.”
“You fucking calm down,” I shouted.
This time I managed to get out of the bed easily. The pain I felt in my body was absolutely nothing. The drips ripped out by themselves and I didn’t even notice the blood spurting out of my arms where they had come out. I picked up the drip stand and smashed it to the ground, I picked up the instruments and threw them down. I tore at the charts, until two orderlies came in and held me down while the nurse injected something into my bicep, knocking me out again.

The next time I woke up, there were restraints around my wrists and I couldn’t move. There was a new nurse in the room.
“Hi,” I said.
She looked at me nervously.
“I’m calm, okay?” I said. “They’ve chained me up. I can’t move.”
She came and stood next to my bed. The nurse was young and pretty and she smiled at me.
“You can’t be getting out of your bed like that again,” she said. “You have a severe concussion, four broken ribs, a broken nose and some very serious facial bruising. You need to rest. Are you in pain?” she asked. “I can give you something for it if you are.”
“I’m okay,” I said. “I just want someone to tell me what happened to Anthony.”
“Was he a close friend of yours?” she asked.
“He was my boyfriend,” I said. “He was absolutely everything.”
She bit her lip.
“He was very badly beaten,” she said. “He drowned in his own blood before they found you.”
The eerie silence that descended on the room was broken by a sob that I couldn’t hold back. Memories rushed over me and I did nothing to stop them. The little dimple next to Anthony’s mouth. The way it felt when he slipped his hand into mine. The first time I heard him play. The way he charmed Kayla the first time he met her. How he slept with his arms behind his head. All the times he told me that he loved me and he would never leave me. That little face he pulled when he was just about to come. The first time we made the love. The last. Going to sleep in his arms and feeling absolutely at peace.

“I killed him,” I said to the nurse.
“No you didn’t,” she said. “They arrested the guys who beat you both up.”
“I killed him,” I said. “I killed him. I killed him. I killed him. It was all my fault.”

When the nurse left I lay in my bed, my arms still pinned down and stared at the ceiling. I suppose I should have made an attempt to hold off all the memories but I let them torture me. I focused on all the things I would never have again. I thought about how I would never hold him, never kiss him, never tell him that I loved him. I would never be able to show him something I had written and see his eyes light up. I would never hear him play again. I let my heart open until my chest was a raw, bleeding cavity and then I poured salt on it and let the pain take me over in the hope that if I allowed it all in it would destroy me too. I refused any painkillers. I refused to eat or drink anything until they eventually started feeding me intravenously. I didn’t deserve anything but pain. I wished someone would tear off all my skin and leave me in the sun and even then how I felt on the outside would not come close to the exposed void that my soul had become. They took off the restraints.  Think it was pretty obvious that I had absolutely no fight left in me and that even if they had set me on fire I would not resist.

It took me three days before I remembered Kayla. The concussion made everything seem weird and out of shape. Time blurred and flexed.
“Where’s my sister?” I asked the next nurse that came in.
“Your sister?” she asked. “There wasn’t anyone else with you when they found you.”
“She wasn’t with us, when… when it happened,” I said. “She was at home with Anthony’s housekeeper.”
“I’ll have to find out for you,” she said. “There’s no mention in any of the records of a sister.”
I realised that Iva must have been absolutely freaking out wondering why we hadn’t come home. Kayla would be so confused. I wonder what on earth Iva would have told Kayla about where we were. She must be terrified. I had never left her before. By now it must have been at least a week that we had been missing. Oh god what would I tell Kayla about Anthony? I had promised myself that her life would be different from how mine had been. That it would be free from pain and death and heartbreak. I had lied to her. I had lied to myself. I had told myself that I didn’t break everything that I touched. I had told myself that I could have something beautiful that I didn’t destroy. I told myself that I could add something to someone’s life and make having me there make things better rather than worse. I had forgotten who and what I was. Damaged, cursed, poison. Just like my father had said.

A couple of hours later the nurse came back.
“Your sister is fine,” she said. “Her father came to pick her up.”
“Her what?” I asked.
“Her father.”
“You must be mistaken,” I said.
“Nope,” she said. “I spoke to Iva Petrova and she said that she eventually rung the police when you and Mr Hawkins disappeared and that they came and collected Kayla. So we contacted the police and they said that she had been collected by her father.”
“Kayla doesn’t have a father,” I said. “What the hell is going on?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I’m just telling you what the police told me.”

All kinds of dark scenarios crowded my mind. Who on earth could have gone to collect Kayla? Was it one of LeRoy’s henchmen. Had he sent someone to hurt her so that I’d keep my mouth shut about the attack? Or even worse had my mother sent Gary or whoever the latest boyfriend was to get her back? God, Anthony would have known what to do. He always knew what to do. He would have known how to fix this.

The next day the police came. I gave my statement and did my best to explain what happened. It was still hard to get all the events out in the right order. The doctors had told me that my memory would be a mess for awhile until the concussion completely wore off and that I would have headaches and dizziness to look forward to for months afterwards.
“Can someone please explain what’s happened with my sister?” I asked.
The policeman sighed. “Her father came and claimed her.”
“I don’t know who that is,” I said. “My mother never actually told me who her father was and we never met him. I’m worried that whoever this person said he is, he’s not her father.”
“His name was on her birth certificate,” said the policeman.
“What?” I asked.
“When Ms Petrova handed your sister over the authorities we tried to find your mother but it appears that she’s abandoned her flat. There was no sign of her. So they checked Kayla’s birth record. There was a father listed on her birth certificate, a Mr Ross Bathurst. He was contacted and he came to collect your sister.”

None of this made any sense to me. If my mother had known who Kayla’s father was all along why had she not hit him up for money? Surely he must owe her some kind of child support for Kayla. My mother had never passed up any attempt to get something for free. Unless… I remembered how upset she had been when the businessman I had always suspected as Kayla’s father had left. Was my mother too emotionally scarred by his departure to actually contact him? Had her broken heart actually instilled her with enough pride to resist stalking the man?

“How long till I get out of here?” I asked the doctor.
“A couple of weeks at least,” he said. “You took a very powerful blow to the head. We need to keep you under observation.”

When I managed to sleep, I dreamed about Anthony. I dreamed about everyday things, of us in the studio playing together, us eating together and laughing and watching TV. I dreamed that he was lying in bed next to me with his head on my chest and when I woke up and he wasn’t there, I’d be overtaken with loss, with emptiness with a feeling of being shattered into a million pieces, scattered so far apart that no one would ever be able to put them back together again. I allowed myself to explore what-if scenarios. What if I had refused point blank to see my mother? What if I had done what Anthony asked and walked away from the fight? What if we had just stayed in bed all day on my birthday? He would be here now. We would be in Australia with Kayla seeing kangaroos. He would be lying in bed next to me with one of his hands resting proprietarily on my chest.