Chapter Sixteen Creep
Chapter sixteen
Creep
“How did that make you feel?”
If Aaron heard that question one more time, he’d explode. Burst his insides all over the shitty yellow covered walls and let his entrails slither down into a heap on the floor.
“Why is everyone obsessed with feelings?” he shot back in exasperation. “Sometimes people don’t feel. Don’t want to feel. They want to shut off. Pain? Who the hell wants to feel pain? Love? Fuck love.”
Here he was again. Another Friday afternoon and another fucking welfare session, and he slouched in the rickety low-slung chair in Drew’s office, scanning the cheap posters on sexual health and the ones plastered over them about the Samaritans, conveniently posted after Rahul’s death. They were nothing but empty platitudes designed to fix broken souls. But some souls didn’t need fixing . Some were supposed to be shattered.
Like his. He was an egg.
Eggs taste better broken.
“There should be an off switch, you know?” Aaron wasn’t sure if he was speaking to Drew or just voicing his own thoughts.
In therapy, Aaron usually donned a mask, pretending everything was fine. It was exhausting. Like a full day of manual labour. He had to work hard to keep his facade intact. That was the point of counselling. To break him open and watch his innards spill onto the pristine carpet. But he never would. His shell was dense, fortified. His protective box sealed shut with superglue.
Unless Dr Kenneth Lyons touched him.
And keeping all that inside was becoming more difficult. A challenge. Because Kenny had wormed it open. Had ripped off his top as if he was opening his box, spreading pesky feelings all over the place. Then he’d turned his back and answered a call from his fucking girlfriend when he’d been standing there, begging him to take him. When the last person who had, hadn’t asked or been invited.
“Why would you want to switch yourself off?” Drew asked, pen poised above his notepad, twig-like legs crossed as he peered over his glasses. Aaron kept his head thrown back, staring at the ceiling, trying to escape the intensity of Drew’s stare.
“It’s easier.” Aaron shrugged, as if dismissing the topic. “Emotions are like little prickly ants crawling over your skin.” He ran his fingers over his bare arm. “Or an irritating prick prodding your temple.” He thudded his forehead with his finger. “They’re useless. The world would be a better place if humans didn’t feel. I mean, look at the animal kingdom.” He straightened up in the chair, as if preparing for a debate. “Lions. Do you think they give a fuck? No. They sleep, hunt, and eat. You don’t see a lion in a cage crying, do you? Even in a zoo. They roar. If one of their own dies, they just move on. Death is part of life.”
“Are you not saddened by death?” Drew’s question cut through Aaron’s bravado and he remained stoic, a slight eyebrow twitch the only sign he was listening, allowing Aaron to pour out his emotions like a vomit of words.
“Don’t paint me as a psycho,” Aaron snapped.
“I’m not implying that.”
“Yes, you are.”
“No,” Drew continued calmly, “I’m merely curious if recent events have affected you. Aaron, you came to me because you had a heated exchange over the smell of curry that wasn’t even yours. Then again, over a jar of Marmite. Also wasn’t yours. Those seem trivial, don’t you think? If such inconsequential things can trigger such a wild reaction, then perhaps something deeper could cause more anguish? More destruction.”
Aaron ground his teeth. “It wasn’t just a jar of Marmite.”
“What was it then?”
“A principle.”
“Ah.” Drew scribbled something down. “So your principles are important to you?”
“Aren’t they to everyone?”
“Not everyone.”
Aaron fell back into the seat. God, he fucking hated therapy. Was so damn bored with therapy.
“What about rules?” Drew probed further. “Injustice? Are you triggered by those?”
“No.”
“So what was it about…” Drew skimmed through his notebook, “…Archie, that made you angry enough to step in on behalf of someone else? Someone, you say, you weren’t friends with.”
“Entitlement.”
“So entitlement bothers you?”
“Not that entitlement exists. I mean, people can’t help being born into privilege. What fucks me off is people looking at me like I’m not one of them.”
“And you feel you are? That you are…entitled. Privileged. Superior ?”
“I’m from care. I’m none of those things.”
“But you feel you are?”
Aaron shrugged. “It just pisses me off.” Everyone knew he struggled with outbursts, many of them he couldn’t explain himself. It was as if he had a ball of rage inside him and anything was likely to tip it over the edge. The devil knocking to be set free. Tap. Tap. Fucking tap. “You try living in a home where all the kids are damaged, all kick off, yet the staff are terrified of you. The quiet one. That’s some fucked-up shit.”
Drew leaned forward, curiosity dancing in his eyes. “Why were they scared of you ?”
Aaron chewed on his bottom lip, unwilling to answer. “You’d have to ask them.”
“But they’re not here. I’m asking you . Why do you think they were frightened of you?”
“Because of my astounding beauty.”
Drew chuckled, jotting something down, which made Aaron’s stomach churn. He glanced over at him, annoyed Drew found any humour in this. In him. His predicament. His past. And how he’d coped. Still coped.
“How did Rahul’s death make you feel? Honestly. There’s no judgment here. Just a chance for you to express what you need.”
“I didn’t know him.”
“There are hundreds of students laying flowers at the scene who also didn’t know him, yet they’re sharing their feelings. Why do you think they’re doing that?”
“What’s the point of laying flowers now? Maybe they should have brought him flowers when he was alive.”
“Maybe they should have. It’s a lesson for us all: love thy neighbour.”
Aaron shot him a look, and Drew held his gaze with unsettling intensity.
“A death so close to home has hit the student body hard. It’s natural to feel shaken, or want to hide, or lay flowers. It’s also perfectly natural to feel numb. To close off. To not want to think about it. There’s no right way to respond to murder.”
“Who says it’s murder?”
“You must have heard about the roses?” Drew’s eyebrows knitted together.
“What roses?”
“The rose vines wrapped around his neck.” Drew doodled absently on his pad.
Aaron gulped, throat dry. He leaned back in the chair, desperately counting the stains on the ceiling to calm his racing heart.
“Are you close to Dr Lyons?” Drew’s voice sliced through the fog of Aaron’s thoughts.
Why were these questions hitting so close to home today?
“What? No.” Aaron blinked, willing the tears to stay away. They were angry tears. Tears of resentment. Not sadness. Not vulnerability . “Why?”
“He’s been asking for the notes on our sessions.”
Aaron snapped back to look at him, the tension in his body coiling tighter. “That usual?”
“No. But he is a trained psychologist. Perhaps he’s concerned for one of his students.”
“Concerned? More like obsessed .” He smirked, then shook his head. “Will you give them to him?”
“Not unless you give me permission.”
“I don’t.”
“Then, anything you say about him, about anything, remains in this room. How do you feel about Dr Lyons? About him asking for these notes? Asking about you?”
Aaron clenched his jaw, heat rising in his chest, and the need to deflect, to push back, was instinctual. But Drew was patient. Too patient. He waited, probing for a crack in Aaron’s defences. Not in the same way Kenny had. This was way more professional than yanking off his top and tweaking his nipple piercing.
Because it made him think . How did he feel about Kenny? Fucking livid. That’s how he felt. Was he close to him? No, he wasn’t close enough . Did he want to get closer? Hell to the fucking yes . Or was it because he liked the way Kenny made him feel ? Seen yet controlled? A part of him enjoyed the way Kenny was obsessed with figuring him out, like he was some kind of puzzle. But another part of him, the part he hated, liked the power he held over Kenny. He revelled in watching Kenny struggle with his attraction and guilt.
But when he’d fled his house the other day, it wasn’t just the gut-wrenching suffocation he endured at Kenny having answered Heather’s call as he’d stood right there in front of him, exposed and vulnerable. No, that would mean he felt something. He’d wanted to punish Kenny for tearing open that wound. The one that reminded him of how easy he was to shut out. With one simple gesture, Kenny had closed the door, locking Aaron away from being part of something that everyone else had. From laying himself bare.
So how did he feel about Kenny?
Fucked right off .
When Aaron refused to voice any of that, Drew went somewhere else with his questions. “Are you aware of Dr Lyons’ involvement with the police?”
“He’s a criminal psychologist. Of course, he’s involved with the police.”
“But how he’ll be feeding them information, ideas, theories about Rahul’s death?”
Aaron sat up, curiosity piqued. He glanced at Drew. “Your point?”
“How does that make you feel?”
“Fuck’s sake.” Aaron slammed his head back.
“Okay, let me ask something else.” Drew took off his glasses to wipe the lenses on the bottom of his jumper. “What’s bothering you right at this very moment? And you’re not allowed to say me.”
Aaron huffed, glancing back at Drew to see his twisted smile. He probably thought he was being funny. Trying for a rapport. Prick .
“Heather.” There was some honesty. He was proud of himself.
Drew put his glasses back on. “Who’s Heather? A girlfriend?”
“Someone else’s girlfriend.”
“Ah.” Drew nodded, pursing his lips. “Unrequited love.”
“I’m not in love .” He wasn’t. He was sure of it. Because love meant he felt something. And as he’d established in his own head while Drew spoke drivel to him, he only felt fury. “I just don’t think it should be her who gets to be.”
A timer went off, indicating the end of their session, and Aaron stood, grabbing his bag from the floor. “How many more sessions do I have to keep coming to?”
“Until I think you’re stable.”
“So, forever then?” Aaron threw the bag over his shoulder and marched toward the door.
“Aaron?”
Hand on the doorknob, Aaron turned over his shoulder.
“There is a switch.”
“What?”
Drew sat forward, pointy elbows resting on his bony knees. “A switch for your emotions. Once you find it, you’ll be untouchable.”
Aaron furrowed his brow. “Yeah. Okay.” He then yanked open the door, but something caught him off track, and he hesitated, glancing back. Drew was nose down in his notes, so Aaron shook off the unsettling weirdness to flee into the corridor.
The stark fluorescent lights blinked overhead, causing him a headache, and the dull beige walls, adorned with posters promoting various campus events with their edges curling from years of neglect, were closing in. So he hurried past the bustling student canteen, where murmuring voices, clattering trays and students laughing, had him tense and annoyed. He envied how their lives were untroubled. Because the darkness shrouded Aaron like he was born into it.
Would he ever be free of it?
Did he want to be?
Or did he want to dive headfirst right into it?
He chose not to think about that as he pushed through the double doors leading out of the student centre and stepped into the crisp air of the campus, trundling down the concrete steps to the expansive green lawn stretched out before him. The students lounging in the unprecedented warm late October sun felt almost surreal after the claustrophobia of the counselling room, and he stormed past, heading to fuck knew where, when someone leapt up from the grass and called after him.
“Aaron!”
Aaron stopped, turned. Taylor.
Taylor stroked his arm. “Hey. You okay?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Just…didn’t the boy found in the river live in your flat?”
Shit. Fuck. “Yeah.” Aaron rubbed his temple. “Next door to me.”
“Fuck, Aaron.” Taylor squeezed his arm.
And whether it was fate, the world fucking with him, or something deeper he refused to acknowledge, but Kenny, along with other faculty members, walked past him right then, heading toward the canteen. He met his gaze as he strode past, and with his hair down, glasses on, in casual chinos and shirt combo, Aaron couldn’t tear his eyes away. Why was he attracted to that when he had a literal model in front of him?
“Come round mine tonight,” Taylor said. “No strings. No expectations. Just come round. Me and the boys will get some drink in. Chill out with us.”
Aaron forced himself to stop watching Kenny jogging up the steps to address Taylor, a man offering him something he could take. “Yeah. Yeah, all right.”
* * * *
Against his better judgement, Aaron did go round Taylor’s.
And had far too much to drink whilst there.
He rarely drank to excess. Didn’t need to. He was numb enough. Drinking made him think. Talk. Lose control.
Yet tonight, here he was, on his fifth JD and Coke, though it was mostly JD at this point, resting his hand limply on his glass as Taylor, next to him on the tatty sofa, kept inching closer, dropping his hand on his thigh. Aaron barely registered him. He was just a prop. Something to keep him upright as the room tilted around him. There were other people scattered across the floor, none of them familiar, none of them important. It was just noise, bodies in the background.
Taylor’s housemates, George and Max, tangled together on the loveseat under the bay window and wrapped in a lazy embrace, whispered to each other in between kisses that should have been for the porn channel only. Apparently, they had some weird fucked-up relationship thing where they were with other people too. Sometimes separately. Sometimes together. But Taylor had explained how they were madly in love with each other, but too stubborn to admit it.
Somewhere near the TV, another bloke with a weird nickname— Ratty ?—sprawled on a beanbag, cycling through music on an app, mumbling to himself about how The Cure were misunderstood geniuses.
“Oi, Ratty!” Taylor kicked the bloke’s back with a socked foot. “Turn this shit off.”
Ratty swatted Taylor’s leg away. “Fuck you, I like The Cure .”
“Yeah, but we want upbeat music, right?” He angled his head at Aaron, teeth gritted, a silent gesture that meant Taylor believed him fragile.
If only he knew just how fragile Aaron was.
“Why don’t you take him upstairs?” someone muttered, laughing. “Do what you want there.”
Aaron fluttered his eyes shut for a moment, head swimming from the drink, the room fading in and out. He didn’t care. He didn’t even feel the hand on his leg anymore, didn’t care enough to push it away. Maybe he should just say yes. It might be nice. He hadn’t got off since Inferno. Hadn’t had another man touch him since Dr Kenneth Lyons had stroked his hands under his top, tweaking his nipple bolt.
Maybe Taylor was good in bed?
Then Taylor’s voice drifted closer, warm and teasing in his ear, “Wanna go upstairs?” And his breath brushing down Aaron’s neck caused nothing. Not even a slight twitch. “We could just cuddle? I’m a good cuddler.” He then gave a stern glare at the other two snorting in amusement at Taylor’s clear seduction technique. “Fuck off.”
Aaron turned his head to look at him, eyes bleary and unfocused. Taylor smiled, hopeful. If Aaron agreed, if he went upstairs with him, he knew what would happen. And he knew, in his current state, that he would wreck Taylor. Ruin his entire existence. Drinking should make him careless, selfish. But right now, it was making him moral, making him pause. And aware of the destruction he could cause if he let himself.
Before he could respond, his phone buzzed in his pocket, breaking through the fog. He fumbled for it, glancing at the display.
Fuck .
“I better take this,” Aaron said and hefted up from the sofa, the world lurching beneath his feet.
“Yeah, yeah, sure,” Taylor said, dipping to the edge of the seat. “You can take it in my room. Upstairs.”
“I’ll go outside, need the air.” Aaron stepped over the bloke on the floor, falling into the flailing legs of the happy couple, out to the hallway, where the kitchen opposite was a mess of opened bottles of spirits and beer cans. Aaron grabbed the half empty JD, then stepped outside into the cold night, fresh air slapping him in the face. He stumbled to the end of the yard, into the main street.
“Hey,” he mumbled into the phone. He supposed it didn’t matter if he sounded drunk this time. He was old enough now.
“ Aaron? It’s Jervine.” Her voice was soft, like a tickle from the past, but there was something in the tone that made the hairs on his arms stand on end.
“Yeah.” He ran a hand over his face. “What’s going on?”
There was a pause. “ Romeo Oscar Charlie. Can you give me the code, love ?”
He rubbed his forehead, the alcohol blurring his thoughts, but somehow the code fell from his lips automatically. “Alma Zulu Foxtrot.”
A beat. Then Jervine chuckled. “ Alma ?”
“Alpha,” he corrected, shaking his head as if that would make him sober up.
“ Aaron, eh? Nice shiny new name. Let me guess, first name on the form they gave you?”
“Yeah.”
“ It’s like I know you .”
Aaron snorted. Yeah, she knew him. Half social worker, half police. She’d been there since the day the police handed him over to the protected person’s unit. She’d given him his first name, which he’d liked better. Daryl. It had felt different. Exotic. He’d traded on that for a while. Until that fucker of a foster father ripped him apart, then sent him back into the system. After that, he couldn’t give a fuck what name they gave him. Aaron was as good as any, he supposed.
“ Anyone else around?” Jervine’s voice was serious now, cutting through his daze.
“No. What’s this about?”
She hesitated. “ I’ve got some news…wanted you to hear it from me before it hits the media .”
Aaron tightened his grip on the phone, a pit forming in his stomach. “Go on.”
There was a long silence, then, “ Your father’s dead .”
The world narrowed, the sounds of the street and the faint music from the party fading into nothing. All that remained was the numbness that had always sat at the edges of his mind, creeping in deeper now. He should have felt something—relief, anger, anything—but all he felt was the same emptiness. The same cold, hollow feeling he’d carried with him for years.
“ Aaron ?” Jervine’s voice brought him back, faint and concerned.
“I’m here,” he said, swallowing hard. “How?”
“ Hanged. In his cell .”
Aaron closed his eyes, rubbing a hand over his face, but it did nothing to erase the creeping cold in his chest. “Suicide?”
“ Officially .”
The silence stretched between them, loaded with all the things left unsaid. Jervine, ever the professional, gave him space to process, but she didn’t hang up. She knew better than to leave him alone with this. Because there would also be an unofficial stance on Frank’s death.
“Thanks for letting me know,” Aaron managed to say, though the words felt empty.
“ Of course. It’ll be on the news soon. Do you need anything ?”
“A large whisky.” He tightened his hold on the bottle of JD clutched aptly in his hand.
“ Go get one. Then forget the fucker.”
Aaron closed the call, her words ringing in his ears. Forget him. How could he? His father’s ghost had haunted him his whole life. Why would it disappear now he was actually dead? So, tucking his phone in his back pocket, he took a swig straight from the bottle. Another one. A third. Fuck. His brain was like electric static. He couldn’t function. And his eyes stung. He felt sick.
The door clicked open. “Aaron?”
Aaron turned to Taylor in the doorway.
“You all right, mate?”
Was he all right? No. He wasn’t. But how could he tell Taylor the intricacies of what had just happened? He’d never understand. The confliction. The hurt. The goddamn pain . Matched with the relief.
“I’m going back,” Aaron slurred.
Taylor jumped down to the step, his socked feet soaking into the wet pavement. “Don’t go. Stay. I want you to stay.”
Aaron took a swig from the bottle, eyeing him.
“I won’t make a move. I know you’re dealing with shit. You’re drunk. Don’t go.”
“I’m doing you a favour.” Aaron staggered off, clutching the bottle of JD as if it would help keep him balanced. Stable. “Trust me! I’m a creep.”
His feet moved on autopilot, carrying him further from the noise of the house and deeper into the silent void of the night. If Taylor called for him again, he wasn’t aware.
The street was a short walk from the campus, so there was no real danger to be walking home alone at night. Rahul might have thought that, too, though. Maybe his father had, when they’d closed the door to his unbreakable cell. Aaron couldn’t muster the strength to care, and the streets blurred past him, the lamps fading, replaced by the eerie stillness of the riverbank ahead. Shadows clung to the trees, their gnarled branches twisting overhead like skeletal arms.
It was a shortcut. That was all. Through the woodland. Back to campus.
By the time he reached the river, the air had turned damp, cold enough to sink into his bones, and he could see the spot where Rahul had taken his last breath. The faint outline of scattered, wilting flowers visible on the edge of the bank along with tea lights illuminating the area in a faint glow. Aaron’s heart pounded. The river itself was a dark, sluggish ribbon, reflecting pale streaks of moonlight barely cutting through the dense canopy above.
Had it been a night like this when Rahul had met his end?
Had it been as beautiful?
Cold moisture seeped through his jeans as he collapsed onto the wet grass, clutching the bottle of Jack Daniels between his awkwardly sprawled legs. He stared at the river, watching the water ripple and swirl in the moonlight for a while. Then, raising the bottle to his lips, he took a long swig, liquid burning its way down his throat. Sadly, it did nothing to numb the ache in his chest.
The surrounding woods seemed to press in the longer he sat there, suffocating him, like a beast laying in wait. The silence was deafening, punctuated only by the occasional rustling of leaves or the faint splash of water against the bank. A tear slid down his cheek, unbidden. He rarely cried. Too many years of burying his emotions had left him hollow, numb. But tonight, the alcohol unearthed something he couldn’t push back anymore.
Was it the alcohol? Or was it something disturbingly closer to home?
Whatever it was, he’d let it take him.
Right here. Right now.
He deserved whatever came.