Chapter 2
The town is sandwiched between two massive cliffs, with a golden beach in front. The main strip of the town looks vibrant and full of life. I can almost smell the Cornish pasties from here. Pasties don’t taste the same away from home.
We reach the bottom of the hill and take a right turn. We stop outside Kai’s flat, and my heart leaves my chest. I hope this goes okay.
“Do you want me to wait outside in case it all goes wrong?” Harry asks, standing at the side of his car with his arms folded. He’s big and muscular now, so he’d definitely be a good bodyguard. Hopefully I’ll have no need for one, but I appreciate the offer.
“You have no faith in me man, I’ll be fine. Kai loves me,” I say, exaggerating the word love to further prove my point. I send Harry on his way and make my way to Kai’s flat.
This could go one of two ways. I knock on the door, he opens it, we hug, and we’re friends again.
Or I could knock, he tells me to fuck off and he slams the door in my face.
To be honest it’s fifty-fifty. Just saying that in my head stirs my stomach. I haven’t seen him in a year, so he might be a completely different person. I’ve changed a lot too, so what’s to say he hasn’t?
The flats were modern once, but now the wood and railings are all rotting. His flat is number twenty-seven. I walk up the rusting metal stairs to the second floor of the complex. It’s in an L shape, with Kai staying on the top floor of the longer side.
As I knock on the door the metal number seven falls onto the floor and hits my toe, causing me to yelp in pain. There’s a quick moment of panic as I kick the silver (well it used to look silver anyway) number seven to the side of me.
Kai opens the door and I feel myself become paralysed. I should have been preparing a whole speech before this. Like, hey I know this is weird but , hey, I’m back.
I don’t have anything planned so of course I say the dumbest shit ever.
“Hey Kai.” Who the fuck am I? Hey? That’s it? I attempt a smile but it definitely doesn’t look like that. People don’t smile the way I just smiled. It’s almost as if I’ve forgotten how to be human. What is wrong with me?
“Noah?” He asks, studying me. He’s definitely different.
There’s dark stubble on the top of his lips and on his chin.
His hair is shaggy and coloured green, but the colour is faded.
He has a couple more piercings now, a black lip ring, an eyebrow one, and a dangly upside-down cross on their left ear.
They’re wearing black jeans with the knees blown out, and a green hoodie with ‘love and peace’ written on it.
I can’t help but notice the yellow paint on the wrists of his hoodie.
I guess that means he still paints, which is good. I always loved his paintings.
“Do you, uh… want to come in?”
“Yes… yes please,” I stutter.
He shuts the door behind me and the living room is covered in paint buckets, blank canvases and bright colourful ones that make me smile. They’re a messy swirls of colours that most wouldn’t call art, but something about them makes me feel something bright.
“I love your paintings,” I say to Kai, who replies with a smile. We sit down opposite each other on the couch. Something hard pokes against my thigh and I stand to pick it up. It’s a bottle of pills.
“Oh sorry, they’re my meds,” Kai says, taking the bottle off me.
I give him a small smile as I sit back down.
I take a look around the room. There’s no TV, just a record player and tons of records in a cabinet.
He’s always loved music, which is something we have in common.
Going to gigs was a monthly thing for us back in the day.
His flat is messy, but it feels homely. You can tell an artist lives here.
“Do you want something to drink? I have lemonade, I think,” He asks, attempting to get up.
“Oh, no, I’m fine,” I reply. He then decides to sit back down and licks their lips a little. It makes me realize how dry mine are too. My throat feels like it’s closing up.
“How are you?” I ask, shifting in my seat.
“I’m okay,” he says with a few nods. “Yeah I’m just… getting on with life, you know?”
“Yeah, I get you. I’m glad you’re doing well.”
“Thanks, Noah.” The air is thick and I can feel my palms become sweaty. This is my best friend. Why am I struggling to talk to him? It hasn’t been that long, has it?
“What about you?” he asks, eyeing me. His hazel eyes are like a bar of milk chocolate. I almost forgot what his face looked like. It has been too long.
“Yeah, I’m okay. I just… I think I need a fresh start, to be honest with you. University wasn’t great,” I say, as Kai reaches for a lighter.
“Aw, so that’s where you ran off to,” Kai says, as he opens up a pack of cigarettes. A nervous laugh escapes me. He points to the open pack in his hand and asks if I want one.
“No, I’m okay, I have one actually.” I pull out the cigarette Arthur asked me to smoke when I arrived. I notice what he was trying to do and it makes me smile.
“So… fresh start… does that mean you’re staying?” Kai asks me, taking a draw of his cigarette. He places an ashtray in front of me and I give him a thankful smile.
“I want to, I think it’s what I need,” I say, before lighting my cigarette. The room fills up with smoke. It’s been so long since I did this with Kai. I’ve really missed it.
“Why don’t you stay here? I have a spare bedroom,” Kai proposes, his eyes locked on mine. I feel a weight being lifted off me. He must not be too mad at me if he’s willing to let me stay with him.
“You’re sure you wouldn’t mind? You’re not mad at me?” I ask before taking another draw of my cigarette.
“Why would I be mad at you?” He asks, not looking at me now.
He sits with his legs in a basket before tipping more ash in the ashtray.
His coffee table is a gorgeous wooden one with some space underneath for storage.
There are a few different ashtrays - probably bought from some of the small businesses on the main strip of town.
“Harry kind of told me that you were,” I tell him slowly. My leg starts bouncing up and down. I don’t mean to throw Harry under the bus but I would rather get this out of the way rather than bottle it up.
“Well…” he begins, but takes another draw before he continues. “I was at first, but I got over it. We just didn’t expect you to just… leave like that. We just wish you had told us you were going,” he explains. I take a moment before replying, trying to get a concrete sentence out of my mouth.
“I just… I was devastated. I just wanted out of here. I regret not saying anything to you. I regret not staying in touch either. You didn’t deserve that,” I explain, the words falling out of my mouth. Sometimes I just speak until the right words eventually come out.
“It’s just… I wanted to be there for you. I didn’t want you to do this by yourself. You get what I mean? I didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye. And I didn’t know if you were ever coming back. It just… it hurt, but like I said, I got over it. I always do.”
“I really shouldn’t have done things the way that I did,” I say, my tongue laced with regret.
If I could go back and do things differently, I probably wouldn’t have left home at all.
I don’t think it was healthy for me. Then Jonathan would never have been in my life and I wouldn’t be so broken.
I don’t think I’ve been doing anything right for a while. I have a chance to change things now.
“I’m sorry, Kai,” I tell him, his demeanour changes to something more lighthearted, which puts me at ease. My leg stops bouncing on its own.
“Honestly Noah, you’re a bitch, but I still love you,” he says, making us both smile. A small giggle escapes us both and I instantly feel relieved.
“So… you need a place to stay?” He asks again, looking at me in a way that reminds me of home.
I miss having someone who cares so deeply and knows me so well.
Arthur and I became really good friends, but growing up with Kai meant that we saw every side of each other - the good and the bad.
He was the first person I told I was gay, and I was the first person he told he was trans.
We trusted each other so deeply, and I’m glad that hasn’t changed. We’ve never been one for secrets.
“I do. I’d really like to be here. I want to be friends with you again,” I say, and I mean it. I let something golden end when it didn’t have to. I want to fix this.
“Me too,” Kai says with a smile. “Are you going to be okay here though? You know, after everything that happened?”
“I want a fresh start, man. I want to fix our friendship as well. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want a little bit of closure.
I want to try and mourn Mum properly. I just ran away thinking it would fix everything, when really it just made it worse.
” Kai stands up and stubs his cigarette out in the ash tray.
“Promise me you’ll tell me if you’re struggling?” He asks with his pinky extended. We pinky promise then I’m pulled into a hug. I can smell their sea salt shampoo and all I want to do is cry tears of relief. I didn’t expect this to go so well.
“So, are there any boys coming to stay with us that I should know about?” Kai jokes, playfully punching my shoulder.
“Unfortunately no, I just… haven’t really had the time,” I say, staying hopeful. In all honesty, I want nothing more than to fall in love with someone and have a ‘proper relationship’; not whatever I had with Jonathan. That was just abuse.
“Yeah, someone will just pop up, and it’ll feel like you’ve known them forever,” he says, picking up a wet paintbrush from the floor, the yellow paint dripping onto their shoe.
“I’ll not give my hopes up,” I say in a tone that indicates I’ve already heard this a million times before.
I’m the type of person that’ll fall in love with strangers on the bus just because of what they’re wearing.
I’m a people-watcher. I study everything about their demeanour, hunting for something deep and profound.
People are a secret of the universe I’ve yet to unravel.
Maybe if I can understand other people, I can start to understand myself.
“There was a cute boy at the train station I was talking to,” I say, Kai’s eyes light up. He waves his arms like he does when he gets excited.
“Okay, do tell,” he says, grinning from ear to ear.
As much as we’re both gay, Kai and I are never going to date.
We’re best friends, and we love talking about boys and going on double dates.
We were each other’s biggest supporters.
Whenever one of us had a date, the other would cheer us on beforehand.
How did I go on for so long without him in my life?
“I was just sitting on one of the benches and he sat next to me… then we started chatting,” I say with a smile. An image of Edward appears in my mind. I think about what he was wearing and how nice he was to me.
“Go on…” he says, taking another draw of his cigarette. He holds it between his lips and takes a lighter to it when he realises it’s went out.
“Well I didn’t get his number,” I say, and Kai sighs. He puts his head in his hands.
“Oh Noah, you never change,” he jokes, shaking his head. “It’s not hard you just say, hey I think you’re cute, can I have your number?”
“But I got nervous,” I groan before finishing my cigarette.
“I know what you need, you need—”
“Jesus?”
“I was gonna say a wing-man but maybe both, who knows,” he laughs, causing me to do the same.
We stay there for a while, just relaxing and talking. Eventually, Kai gets up to show me my room, he doesn’t use it for anything, but it has furniture in it just waiting for someone to use it.
We order a takeaway and catch up. Our go-to is always one cheese pizza and a pepperoni one.
We put music on the record player and we dance like idiots.
It’s dark out now, only bright and colourful lights from around the apartment stream in.
As the night goes on we slowly get more comfortable with each other.
The nerves and awkwardness from when I first arrived are almost gone entirely.
When I lay in bed later that night, I can’t help but think that maybe things will be okay.