CRAIG
CRAIG
“TATE!” His name explodes from me before I can check it. My call draws no reaction. But then, I was dumb to expect it to.
Slamming the car door, I sprint to catch up to the hunched figure determinedly walking away from me along the pavement. His head doesn’t lift or turn at the sound of my approach; his pace doesn’t falter.
Because he doesn’t hear it , I snuff out an instinctive flicker of annoyance. He can’t . This understanding I now have of him is still too raw.
The rain has him drenched, his jacket sleeve ice against my fingers as I grab it.
A sharp tug forces Tate to acknowledge me. Tearing his wrist free, the impact of his challenging eyes slams me back a step. It’s been two years since I was an exception to his stonewall glare, and still, I’m unable to brace myself against it. “Fuck, Craig! What are you doing here? What is it you want?”
My throat constricts. Neither of those questions spurs an answer readily to my tongue. Only…
Fate.
I was in the right place at the right time last week, outside of YCS, when Gary Tinwell was throwing him around like a ragdoll. Created the distraction that gave him an escape.
I was in the right place at the right time that day a few weeks ago, when he’d fallen down the stone steps on Hutchings Avenue, sliced and bleeding and convulsing in the street, in such a bad state that just five minutes longer could well have been the end of him. Took him to the hospital. Stayed with him. Learned his awful, secret truth.
I was in the right place at the right time two years ago, when he was breaking down behind the science block because of a fallout with his dad. I comforted him through his anger and shared his confusion, forging the connection that disrupted the course of my life.
Now, this.
Pit stop cut short at Scotty’s accusation of me being a killjoy, I’ve spent the past hour driving. Aimlessly navigating Yoverton’s familiar night-time streets, blanking out all beyond the powerful purr of Roxy’s engine, the patter of rain on her body, and the rhythmic swish-swash of the windscreen wipers. I can’t blame Tate for perhaps thinking I’d planned this encounter, but there’s no way I could have anticipated our paths crossing alone on a random wet night along a random dark street.
I almost missed him at first pass and would have driven straight by him without a second glance had he not looked up — directly at me — the exact moment the traffic light pulled me up on red.
I nearly didn’t stop, knowing full well I shouldn’t.
Of all the people I’m no longer supposed to see, Tate ‘Mac’ McAllister is at the top of the list. Yet, once again, here I am.
As absurd as the notion might be, I can’t help but feel that sometimes a day’s sequence of events—every screwup and rash decision—is played out precisely to guide me to a certain point. And today is one of those days.
I make an attempt to wordlessly communicate my offer of a lift.
“I can read your lips just fine, Craig.” His accusatory stare doesn’t let up, and I can sense rather than see his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides.
“I’ll take you home. Or anywhere. Save you from the rain. Nothing more.”
He looks so tired, as miserable as I feel. I only want to help him, that’s all; move that tiny bit further toward righting my wrongs. I nod my head back toward Roxy, making my meaning expressly plain, and give him a minute to deliberate. There’s no outward sign of his resolve cracking, but as I turn away, moving for the car, relief rushes me as he follows a few steps behind.
Tate jumps into the passenger side the instant I unlock the doors, as if he were to give himself even a second’s pause for thought, he’d change his mind. When I take my seat behind the steering wheel, he’s tight as a coil, watching me.
I make no move to start the car. I also barely move my head to look at him. “Rough few weeks, huh?”
He says nothing but continues to stare.
“Heard about the gig. About what Tinwell did.”
Still, he says nothing.
“Or almost did, if not for you.” The half-smile I flash doesn’t quite reach him. “You know what Lyndsay means to me. So, thank you. For saving her from him.”
“You’ve got to stop this, Craig.” His voice is ripe with scarcely tethered aggression.
“I don’t know —”
“Yes. Yes, you do.”
“This, it’s just a lift.”
“Is it?”
My jaw ticks, and my head gives a stiff nod. “Yeah.”
“Then, please, shut up and drive!”
I can feel his eyes drilling the command deep inside my skull, his agitation rising, but Roxy’s key remains wrapped in my hand. In the tense silence that follows, I concentrate on the sound of the pattering rain, watching the drops track down the windscreen. It’s taking some time for me to collect myself.
Tate snaps before I do. “You think I launched in to rescue Lyndsay like you did for me? You’re wrong. Want to know how it really went down?” Leaning in, he shifts to better eye-scold me, and I work to keep my face in check. “I didn’t know what the fuck I was walking into. Gary threw me off a wall, and then I seizured.”
“You… what?”
“Yeah,” he nods, leaving a slight pause for his words to sink in. “I freaked him the fuck out. Oh, what a hero I am!”
I realise what he’s about to do just a split second before he moves to do it. One click of a button renders his tug on the door handle futile. He gives it several rough yanks before giving up and slamming his fist against the dashboard.
“Fuck’s sake, Craig!”
“He’s dead,” I seethe. “Swear down. He’s so dead.”
Tate swerves back around on me. “To be absolutely clear here. I don’t need you to look out for me. I don’t need your concern. And I sure as shit don’t need your gratitude. You want to thank someone on Lyndsay’s behalf? Thank Mikey.” The slight kick to his lips is enough to tell me he notices the reflexive curl to mine. “Mikey’s the one who was there for her.”
Magpie Alston , my teeth clench against the name. ‘Thanks’ is not a word that prick will ever hear from me.
“I took you up on this ride only because I need to get home, okay? It’s been a long-ass day, and I’m done with it. So, please.” He tries the handle again in frustration. “Please either take me home. Or let me the fuck out.”
“Does he know?” A frown nips his brow as I finally swivel to fully face him, and despite his warning glare, I push on, “Choirboy. Does he know? About you?”
“That I’m fucked in the head?” His nod makes me flinch. “Mikey knows everything.” And then I flinch again, snapping my mouth shut when he gives the dashboard another thump. “Shit, Craig! But you are really making me wish you didn’t!”
I want to tell him I’ve kept my promise. I’ve told nobody about the secret he’s worked so hard to hide and never will. I want to reassure him I understand how he feels, the fear of being viewed differently. I need for him to accept we’re not enemies.
“Yeah,” he doesn’t let me speak. “You treated me like shit. And yeah, now pity has you feeling guilty. I get it. Fine. Except, here’s the problem. What I went through back then — that had nothing to do with you. What I’m still dealing with —” he snarls, pinching his ear between his thumb and index finger, “not even remotely about you either. So how much more of this crap are you going to burden me with, huh? Before the message gets through I just. Don’t. Care?”
“That’s not —”
“I thought for sure last week’s episode would’ve ended it.”
“Last…?” Something dark twists my stomach. “What?”
His expression becomes one of furious disbelief as he takes in the confusion of mine. “You don’t even remember it, do you?”
I can only stare at him, drawing a horrible blank.
“Of course not. You were fucking hammered.”
Dropping my head back against the headrest, I squeeze my eyes shut. The question that’s been bugging me for days is no longer one I want the answer to.
But Tate gives it to me anyway. “I didn’t ask you to fight for me, Craig, and I sure as shit owe you nothing for it. But steaming drunk, there you stood outside my house, having your sorry say. Again.
“Fuck knows what you were thinking of. Because according to Dad, you made noise enough for the entire street to hear.” Horrified, I dart him a glance, and he catches me out on it, giving his earlobe another deliberate tug. “Everyone but me.”
I’m quick to blink away again.
“I’d have missed the whole thing. Except, your squalling terrified my little sister from her bed into mine. It took the threat of a police call-out to shut you the fuck up, and—” He doesn’t finish.
A weird sound, like something has clogged his throat, jolts me up, my elbow cracking off the steering wheel. A stream of curses erupts from me as I cradle my arm to my chest, but as I turn to Tate, I’m instantly struck mute.
Where he was angled in his seat, drilling his gaze into my face, he’s now board-stiff, straining against his seatbelt, his every muscle jerking as though tasered. His eyes are rolled back in his head, face twisted tight and drained of colour.
“Tate? Shit. Tate!”
He’s breathing like his chest is struggling to remember how.
I reach out a hand to take his shoulder but pull it back at the last minute as a vicious spasm wrenches his body away from me.
“Shit, shit, shit!”
My heart is racing, my pulse is pounding, and I fumble the key into the ignition.
Roxy roars to life.
“You’ll be okay, Tate, okay?” I check his seatbelt, assuring myself he’s secure, and then I fasten my own. There’s no point to the words, but there’s no stopping them either. “I’m taking you home. Or the hospital, I don’t know. Just…shit. You’ll be okay.”
My voice does nothing to drown out the ‘Dying… Dying… ’ chant of the windscreen wipers as the ugly memory of our last drive together plays on a stubborn loop through my head — a terrifying echo. His doctor at the hospital that day reassured me most epileptic fits are not life-threatening. Still, when my only previous experience was the exception, it’s a fight against my every instinct to not panic and floor it.
I count aloud, too.
But I can’t unsee his blood-soaked shirt or the copper-stained glass shard I pulled from his side at the foot of those treacherous steps after witnessing him fall. Or the seizure after seizure after seizure that wracked through him, horrifyingly, across Roxy’s backseats. I can’t unhear his breakdown as I sat by his hospital bed, unravelling me from hatred to guilt two years too late. And I can’t unknow that — for all the times I’ve been there for him — the one time he truly needed my support, I’d been too caught up in my own battle against Gary’s runaway mouth to spare him anything other than blame and bitter contempt. Meningitis ravaged him, stole from him, and nearly took his life, while my blinkered sight had perceived nothing but his desertion of me.
For two full years, I’d damned his name, blind to the hell he was already in, and it’s a nauseating awareness to live with.
I’m gripping the steering wheel painfully tight.
The episode’s over within fifteen seconds, although each of those seconds feels a lifetime long.
I’ve driven just one street closer to Tate’s house when, out of the corner of my watchful eye, I notice the tension easing from his body. His breathing deepens, regulating, and he sinks down in his seat, eyes blinking before he presses them closed. Air floods my lungs, and it feels like the first breath I’ve taken for a very long time.
“Tate?” I slow down, looking for a place to pull in. My senseless talking kicks back in. “Bear with me, alright? Take it easy. I’m just going to—” But as I start manoeuvring the car toward the curb, a hand clasps my arm.
“No,” he says, voice strained, as I swallow my heart back down to my chest. “We’re not friends, Craig. We’re not anything anymore. It’s a mistake that we ever were.”
They’re my own words he’s thrown back at me. Injected with exactly as much venom as I used on him. The sting is vicious. And he knows it.
“Home. Take me home.”
I nod, not turning to him, and swerve Roxy back onto the road.