Chapter 1 #2
My old van lets out a death rattle, and Lenny wakes in a panic of his own, instantly on high alert. His eyes are so like our mother’s, wide and frightened like the last time I saw her.
“It’s okay, Len.”
It isn’t , his bruised doe eyes tell me.
I spin a quick story to distract him. “Honestly, it is okay, because that rattling sound? It was the van telling me all about Cornwall. About how safe it is here. Did you hear it?”
He nods slowly, wide eyes silvered by the moon and suspicious instead of their usual trusting amber. They shine, and so does the cape of the action figure he clutches as if expecting someone might snatch his Silver Man from him. No surprise when everything else he values has been stolen. Now his gaze isn’t only watchful, it’s worried.
I can guess why even if he won’t voice it, and now that he’s awake enough to really listen, I stop telling stories.
“Those men weren’t after you with their knives.”
His mouth opens, full lips parting, but nothing comes out, so I keep going.
“And you aren’t the reason the police have shut down your school for a few days. If you’re worried they’ll come after you too, you can stop right now. No one is going to hurt or arrest you.”
Lenny shrinks in his seat, maybe picturing the blade that really shut down his school.
A fucking machete.
“Someone probably didn’t pay their dealer, that’s all, Len. All of that blood will be gone when school reopens.”
I hope to hell that I haven’t been premature by packing our shit and running, but I’m not sure I’ve been entirely truthful about what Lenny witnessed.
What if it was actually a warning for Mum to keep her mouth shut?
“Look.” I point ahead, more than ready to swerve that subject. “You ever see this many stars?”
He peers up, then shakes his head, eyes widening for a much better reason, and I fill the cab of this old van with another story, this time about constellations. Miles later, his eyes are closed again. Lenny sleeps the rest of the way as I skim the edge of rugged moorland where granite giants rest like he does. Those Cornish tors are painted by moonlight. So is the beachside car park I pull into a few miles later when a dashboard warning light flickers. I turn off the engine to let it cool while I take a moment to stare.
The ocean is as silver as the moon, as sparkling as every single one of those stars, and I’m tempted to wake Lenny until I notice I’m not alone in staring skyward.
A man down on the sand does some stargazing too, and I can’t keep in a sigh at what Cornwall could also hold as well as safety for my brother.
Look at the size of those shoulders.
Whoever has come out for a midnight beach walk could fill the pages of one of the romance novels Mum used to mainline. He’s broad enough to be a hero until his shoulders bow and he stops stargazing, like he doesn’t deserve any of tonight’s glitter. That’s a fantasy I can roll with, especially when he runs both hands through thick, dark hair and shakes his head.
Because he’s angry?
Maybe yes—he breaks into a shadowboxing stance, light on his feet for a big guy, and I get a glimpse of raised fists and tattooed forearms guarding his profile when he gives the night air a volley of swift one-two punches followed by a mighty roundhouse.
Perhaps no—his guard drops and his head hangs again in a silhouette of disappointment instead of anger. I always appreciate a tortured soul in my bedtime reading, someone who needs all his angst banged out of his system.
I could help him with that.
I hold in a snort at my imagination running rampant as he walks away. He reaches the water’s edge, where I fully expect this story to end with him turning back and for the full moon to spotlight an average person instead of fictional boyfriend material.
Only he doesn’t turn back.
He peels his clothes off instead.
His T-shirt goes first, meaty biceps bunching then flexing as he shakes out tangled fabric. The moon showcases more ink splashed across his back before he peels jeans over the kind of quads sported by Lenny’s action figure. They’re thick. So is my blood circulation. It slows even more when he hooks his thumbs into the waistband of clinging jersey boxers, then bends, and I quickly check that Lenny is out for the count before taking a good long look at the second full moon of the evening.
Stop staring.
What I actually do is lean closer to the windscreen and swallow, my mouth as dry as my sex life since I became a de facto dad with zero warning. Lenny’s needed me this whole year. To growl at social workers. To snarl whenever they suggested foster care might be better for him. To be his lion—apart from the one and only time I let anyone see that I’m actually as weak as a fucking kitten.
That had been a disaster.
This striptease feels like a glimpse into a different future until I grasp exactly what I’m seeing.
He’s leaving everything behind.
Alarm bells ring at that neat pile of clothing. At him crouching beside it and crossing himself. And at his head hanging one last time before he stands to wade into night-dark water.
Almost a week ago, I sat in a library and wished someone would save me from drowning.
I can’t let a real one happen.
At least Lenny still sleeps. That means I can slide out of the van, quietly close the door, and take off running.
I pelt down a concrete slipway, skidding on dry sand, my arms wheeling for balance until I reach the beach, where I pound over firmer sand. It’s the second time today I’ve sprinted. The first was after getting news of a machete. I find some more fuel in my tank for another burst of speed and enough air to shout, “Stop!”
He doesn’t.
He wades out further, hip-deep now, and maybe unable to hear me over waves that crash like my harsh breathing.
“Hey! Stop!” I sprint past that pile of clothing, and I know what it’s like to be left with nothing but the contents of a wardrobe. To miss the person who should wear those left-behind clothes. I also know what a librarian once taught me—I find my voice and roar for a complete stranger.
“Don’t you fucking dare!”
He stops wading. Then he shakes his head as if I’m a buzzing wasp instead of someone with a hidden scar like Luke Lawson mentioned.
I couldn’t tell Glynn Harber’s headmaster what happened a year ago to Mum and has kept me on high alert ever since, trusting no one since Joe. Now the aftermath spills out, and forget me roaring like a big cat.
This rips from my soul the same way the police ripped Mum away from us with no warning.
“Someone’s gonna miss you.”
The breeze whips me with salted water. My eyes sting for a different reason.
“And they’ll wish to fuck they’d had a chance to turn the clock back. Don’t do that to them.”
I yell what a long twelve months with an increasingly quiet brother has taught me.
“Don’t leave them all alone with what they could have said or done to help you.” I make a desperate offer. My anger turns to pleading. “Come back. Talk. I promise I’ll listen.”
I only realise I’m knee-deep in the sea, my boots waterlogged and heavy, when I’m close enough to see those tattoos are actually a mess of healed flesh instead of ink work. Waves lick at old wounds as the man I yelled at stands stock-still. He’s carved from scarred and moonlit marble, and I have to tear away my gaze to glance over my shoulder. The van is where I left it, door still closed, as this also tears from me. “Don’t you fucking dare make me leave my brother. I’m all Lenny’s got.”
He turns then, and in the instant it takes to grasp that this is no stranger, a familiar voice rasps, “Isaac?”
“Joe?”
No.
I shake my head and back off.
My brother’s first-ever school welfare worker follows, wading slowly at first, then faster. Each splash showcases how those scars on his back extend to his midriff. They also give me a close-up view of him bollock naked.
That’s a lot.
So are all those scars.
I already knew Joe had some on the back of his hands and more on his forearms. Lenny used to trace those with the tip of a finger whenever Joe made a welfare visit. He’d explore the ruined skin that Joe’s sleeves usually covered. Even rest his head against Joe’s pitted forearm, using it as a cushion during meetings with social workers, so trusting.
But hasn’t trust always been our family failing?
Was our family failing.
I straighten my spine, repeating a silent promise: Not anymore and never again. That trust ended the night he walked away from us.
“Isaac,” Joe almost sighs. “Of all the places—” He stops himself. “How have you been?” He grabs his boxers and wrestles himself back into his underwear. I guess. I don’t stick around to find out. I march up the beach and harden the heart that used to melt each time Joe paid us a visit.
“Isaac?” he asks from much, much closer. “I asked how you’ve been.” My elbow gets hooked by one of those big hands that Lenny used to turn over to trace what looked like hardened lava. Now I take a turn at erupting.
“How am I? What about Len? How about you ask me about him? Actually, don’t.”
I yank my arm free and stalk away.
Just as quickly, I turn back, and thank fuck my old school librarian isn’t around to hear what would probably sound like weakness. The real truth is that I have to say this. “But I did mean what I said. Don’t…” I point at the sea. “Don’t do that. Nothing’s so bad that you need to?—”
“I was only going to swim.” He touches the edge of the scars that made such an impression on my brother that he had me draw them onto his action figure. Tonight the real version of Lenny’s Silver Man says, “I knew the water would be cold without a wetsuit. That I could wait until tomorrow and hire one. But I miss swimming without people staring. Without kids crying. Without having to cover up.” He frowns, and his concerned face shouldn’t still do it for me. Nor should moonlight slicing his face with all these brooding angles.
I back off in a hurry rather than let him see that it does, only my waterlogged boots are heavier than I expected, and I stumble.
Joe can move fast for a big man. Not that he’s taller than me. Heightwise, we’re matched, but his reach is longer—massive, like his shoulders—and so is the bare chest he hauls me against. “Listen to me, will you?”
“No.” I pull free, my T-shirt adhering to his damp skin like I once wanted to cling to him. I quickly add more distance. “You listen to me.” I cast one last look back at the van before facing the man who needs to hear this truth. “You walked away from Lenny. Now I’m walking away from you.”
I stride away then.
Each waterlogged step is heavy.
So is the stone at the centre of my chest where my heart used to clench each time Joe acted as if he cared about us. It had to toughen up in a hurry. I do the same on the way back to the van, where I wince as soon as I turn the key in the ignition, only not due to the van headlights spotlighting someone who once could have been a hero for me as well as Lenny.
I can’t care that Joe watches me leave like I watched him walk away from us the night before a judge banged a gavel and locked up the wrong person. And I don’t wince because he has to hear my van let out a coughing death rattle. I only care that Lenny isn’t frightened.
Too late.
He startles out of sleep. “Mum?”
“It’s okay. It’s okay.” I reach for him, patting blindly. “I’m here, Len.”
“Mum?” he asks again, ever hopeful.
“We’ll see her soon.” I hope to hell I’ll get to keep that promise. It’s the same one Joe made once, and he’s still there in my wing mirror until I take a sharp corner. Then he’s gone, and I tell myself to stop wondering what the hell he’s doing here in Cornwall.
A book slides along the bench seat as a good reminder.
Every Scar Tells a Story.
It’s way too late to believe any told by Joe da Silva.