SEBASTIAN
SEBASTIAN
"Oh no," Craig stares at me aghast. "Oh, hell no, are you for real? This is absolutely not happening!"
"Just a two-second crawl, and you're through." I gesture him forward, the little light angled down to expose a gap in the hedge a short way further along from where the truck's parked. Honestly, it's a smaller hole than I remember it being, but then, it is tunnelling through a living thing, and that thing has had plenty of time to grow since last I was here. "Trust me."
"Why on earth would I do that?"
Rolling my eyes, I hand the torch over. "Fine. I'll lead."
"This is absurd," he scoffs, but he's at least intrigued enough to hold the beam on me as I sink down to my knees and edge my arms cautiously forward into the tight space. "And you say I'm unpredictable."
Ducking my head into my chest, I forge through. It's decidedly not a painless endeavour. "Nothing to it," I call out as I straighten up on the other side, brushing myself free of leaves, twigs, and dirt. "Your turn."
I'm almost convinced I'll hear my truck start any second, and I'll be the one left here stranded. Instead, there's a long stretch of silence, and then the bush rustles. "Better be worth it," I hear him mutter. "Ouch. Ow, shit. Son of a —"
"Need a helping hand?"
"No!" The torch emerges first. I bend to snag it back from him, pressing my lips tight at the look on his face as he breaks free, scrambling to get his feet back under him. He dusts the muck from his jeans and straightens his sweater, inspecting his hands for scrapes. "What is wrong with you, Bas?"
I turn away to illuminate the area ahead of us. We're standing on top of a small bank overlooking a cluster of gnarled old trees, their spindly leafless limbs creating a somewhat creepy atmosphere in the torchlight. I pick out a particularly misshapen tree toward the far edge of the cluster — its trunk hunched over, branches scraping the ground. Perhaps a tiny negative part of me had thought the haggard oak may somehow have gone, and a comforting warmth fills me at the sight of it.
"This way," I say, darting a glance past my shoulder before making a start down the bank. Obedient but dubious, Craig follows. Crossing a narrow dirt track at its base, I guide him into the trees.
Our destination is the hollow beneath the oak's widely drooping boughs. I move in and around the vast trunk to its far side. Here, a huge fallen branch is laid to rest against the knotted roots in such a way as to form a bench, the trunk a solid backrest. Craig steps up beside me, and I motion for him to sit. He doesn't, so I take a seat first, clicking the little LED off and shoving it back into my pocket; there's no need for it now.
"Uncle Kye used to bring me here," I look up at him. "It'd been his thinking place ever since he was young."
Taking in the view, his expression is exactly as I hoped it would be: Awed. He stares, saying nothing, his mouth agape.
Barely eight feet beyond the drape of branches, the land falls away from us, down to a thin stream. Across the stream, it falls further still, much steeper, a bank of packed dirt and rock patched with tufts of long grass. Stretching out from its base to the horizon is acre upon acre of open fields and untamed meadows. Far off to the distant South, in the dip of gently rolling hills, our little town of Yoverton is marked only by its countless tiny pinpricks of light, a beautiful display of land-bound stars.
It's an entirely different scene during the day, no less stunning for the visible detail, but the night visits are my favourite—especially when the sky is clear and the moon is close to full, as it is tonight.
I continue in his silence. "The farmhouse would always be manic, you know? Full of kids and noise and chaos, and it might surprise you to hear, but my temper management skills weren't so great. So, my uncle started inviting Dobby and me along with him whenever he sensed that things were maybe getting too much. We'd come out to this spot and just take some time to breathe. Sometimes we'd talk. Other times, he would sketch or paint while I worked through whatever I needed to on my own."
With a heavy sigh, he finally relents and settles down beside me. He leaves a healthy gap between us, leaning forward to prop his elbows on his knees. "This is the painting—the one up in the lounge."
There's no question to his statement. I answer anyway, nodding, "I came out to my uncle right here when I was fourteen. A rainbow was in the sky, and I took it as a sign. He sketched it, saying it was a moment to remember. Years later, when he started to get really sick, he gave me that painting so I wouldn't ever forget how proud he was of who I am and the courage I'm capable of."
"Why bring me here now, Bas?"
That's a definite question, and it has a subtle edge. "It's a major trek to get here without a vehicle. I've missed the place."
"Okay, but…" he trails off, tilting his head slightly my way. "You know that's not what I mean."
This time, I leave him hanging for a short while, looking out through the boughs toward the bright toy town. "You said earlier you wanted to understand, and this place—I think it explains me better than I can."
"You're lording it high above everybody else up here, that's for sure."
Flicking him a glance, I catch the smirk crooking his lips. "See, perfect! Because I'm truly that uncomplicated."
He doesn't nudge me to elaborate further, and we fall into a lull. But it doesn't last. I've long sworn the old oak to have a certain potent energy to it. There's more that I feel needs saying, and I don't know if I'll ever get another opportunity like this again. Watching as he loses himself to his own private thoughts, the count of two minutes is as much time as I'm able to hold back.
It's my turn to ask. "If I hadn't pulled away, Craig, you would have let me kiss you. And you'd have loathed yourself for it. Why did you stay?"
Craig lurches to his feet before I'm done. I make a grab for his arm in a bid to waylay the flight I'd anticipated from him hours ago. I miss, pouncing a heartbeat too late. However, the direction he turns won't take him far.
Passing free of the tree's shelter, he stops daringly close to the edge of the bluff, his back set to me. He can go nowhere else from there unless he jumps. "You're wrong."
"Am I?"
"You're wrong in what you think about me," he clarifies, dipping his head to look down at the stream below. "I know who I am, Bas, okay? I just… it's not so easy for me to be who I am."
I spare a moment for his words before I stand and make a hesitant move to join him. He visibly flinches away from me as I stop. Tugging him back a step isn't an easy urge to resist. "It's fine that you're not ready to come out, okay? That is not an issue. That call is yours alone to make. But no amount of this self-denial you're rocking will change a damn thing. If you know who you are, Craig, then a good first step would be to just let yourself accept it."
"There you go again, trying to fit all my broken pieces together."
"I don't see how I'm doing anything different to what you've subjected me to tonight."
"I haven't made assumptions."
"You insinuated, not five minutes since, that I have an elevated opinion of myself!"
"That was a fucking joke!"
"Why did you stay?" I repeat, softening my tone as he folds his arms across his chest. "You stayed, and you fixed my truck when you really should have fled. Why?"
It would seem he has nothing more to say, his jaw hardening as he stares out over the brink. Then, "Your truck was all I had going for me," I barely hear, "and that was about to be taken from me too."
"What? By who?"
My heart skips an irrational beat when Craig plummets. He drops himself onto the scrubby grass, looping his arms around his raised knees and toeing the jagged line where land meets air. Face lifting up to me, his gaze is ice-hot. "I'd give anything to be like you, you know? Be able to choose a girl."
Catching my breath takes an almighty effort. "That's not how it works, Craig. There is no choice in who you fall for."
"Yeah," he nods and cuts away from me, returning his attention to the landscape. "I know."
As tempting as it is to prompt him, I don't. Whatever comes from him next needs to be given willingly. I do sit down beside him, though, crossing my legs and angling in close. Probably closer than he's comfortable with. But we're not quite touching, and he doesn't move away. He doesn't keep me waiting long before he next speaks.
"Tate's the only boy I've ever kissed," he says. I hold very still. "My first and only for everything. Except for… we never did, you know." A rolling hand gesture fills in the gap. "And like, I always felt there was something off about me, but it wasn't until him that I knew what it was. We weren't ever together, not really, never a couple. We just made each other feel good; we had an understanding. He's the biggest mistake I've ever made."
"Craig…"
His head shakes, lips thin. Swallowing, he goes on. "No one was supposed to know. It wasn't much of anything, so long as it was a secret. But we were stupid, and we got reckless."
"What happened?" I can't help myself.
My teeth grate over his reply. "Tinwell happened."
"You weren't doing anything wrong."
"Tinwell told everyone. Everyone . And—" the laugh that escapes him is humourless, a distorted echo of the one we shared in the shed— "if it wasn't wrong, then why did it hurt so many people? Why did it lose me so much?"
Silence falls thick, and for a while, Craig seems content to let me drown in it. Whatever he's thinking is a blank on his face.
I've no idea what more to expect when he takes a deep breath, his head slanting toward me, and continues. "Mum pretended I didn't exist anymore. For months, I lived in that house like a ghost. She wouldn't look at me, wouldn't speak to me. And I tried to explain. I told her it didn't matter, that it didn't mean anything. I even managed to convince myself. You know, Tate was one boy, and so what if he made me feel more than a girl ever had? That wasn't enough to prove anything, right? So, I turned to my best friend. Because I thought that if I could feel something for any girl, it would be Lyndsay. But…"
"Damn, Craig," I blurt, not helpful.
"Yeah. Well." Another harsh bark erupts from him. "Needless to say, it didn't end on a happy ever after." He releases his legs, shoving a hand into his jeans pocket, and his knee falls to brush against mine. Barely seeming to register the contact, never mind sever it, he draws out his phone and stares at its darkened screen.
For a split second, I could almost believe he meant to launch the thing into the stream. Instead, he grips it all the tighter. "I gave up everything for Mum. School, my friends, my freedom… Tate. And Lyndsay. I'm in college, acing a subject Dad picked out for me. Still, after all that silence, the first thing she said to me was, ' Learn from this, Craig. Be careful about who you're giving time to. You shouldn't throw your life away on a whim '. On a fucking whim! It's been almost two years, and I feel nothing but her disappointment and suspicion every goddamn day."
My mouth opens. Then shuts, no words making it out. The sharp jerk of his head, turning pointedly away from me, is a patent warning to withhold comment. Just as I didn't want his platitudes, he has no desire to hear mine.
Never before, though, have I felt quite so fortunate for the unerring support I'm surrounded by. Ashleigh saw through his shiny armour in one glance across a lunch hall years ago — this boy who appears to want for nothing. What good would it do him to be told his internal battle isn't one he can win? That's not my place.
His leg shifts, bearing a discomforting weight down on mine, as he leans to tuck his phone away, and I become keenly aware of a raw sting across my thigh where the hedge must have grazed.
"But hey," he says at last to the oak's farthest stretching limb. "Guess we can call it even now, right? Your truck's done, and you can be done with me. I'm nobody's problem but my own again."
When I don't respond, I'm side-checked, and I raise a sardonic brow at him. Because, yep, as if it's that simple. Dislodging his knee from my own and pushing to my feet, I hold a hand out to him. "Key."
His baffled frown fixes heavily on my open palm. "What?"
"I have work enough for two men to get done tomorrow. Can't do it on no sleep."