A sheaf of envelopes splashed to the floor as the material unfurled. Ignoring them, he bunched the shirt in his hands and held it to his face for a sniff. Flowers. A scent that smelled … his eyes shifted to the word on the wall … fresh! Like Freya.
October – 76 days before Freya left
The sky was trying to flush itself clean. Thirty seconds outside and your clothes would be soaked, skin pimpling with the cold of it, hair and lashes dripping.
Rain to drown in.
The doorbell went again.
Ryan was the only one home – Wednesdays Mam worked till the gym closed at ten and Jules went straight round their mate’s house for band practice that lasted till long after tea.
The front door always got sticky when it was wet and he had to yank it out of its frame before he saw who’d called. “What are you doing here?”
Freya shrugged. The rain had plastered her hair to her scalp, drops forming at the end of every sodden tendril, and she shivered inside the rain-stiffened shell of her denim jacket. “Thought I’d drop by.”
Her lashes bunched together, framing the challenge in her gaze as she waited for him to say something. To ask why she was there or make a joke, force her to beg for shelter.
Ryan pushed the door wide and, after a second more of that gaze, she stepped inside. He had to brush past her to shut the door, feeling the heat of her body beneath the chill of the rain.
“Well,” he said, standing back. “You’ve dropped. Now what?”
“Now I need to get dry. I’m soaked.”
“I can see…” Her jacket was open enough that he could see her school shirt sticking to her bra.
But that was all he saw before she tugged the jacket tight around with one hand, freeing the other to wallop him on the arm. “Don’t be a perv.”
“Ow.”
“You deserved it.”
“When do I not?” he threw back over his shoulder as he started up the stairs, then turned, waiting for her to follow. “Bathroom’s up here. So are all the dry clothes.”
After a moment, she came up after him, following Ryan into his bedroom where the walls were patchily papered with pages ripped from magazines – half-naked women laid over sweaty footballers in the world’s tamest orgy. Every surface was crammed with glasses or cans, plates and pens and paper, tatty school books and little models of old obsessions – footballers, Pokémon, Minecraft. A torch that needed a battery. A fake Fitbit with a broken strap. A pair of headphones, copper wire peeping out of the rubber.
Freya took it all in with a single glance.
“Newcastle?”
“Runs in the family – Dad’s side,” he added, before she pointed out that Kellan bled Boro red. “Why are you here, Freya?”
“You said something about dry clothes…?”
“Here at my house, not here in my room.” But he went over to the pile of clean clothes heaped on top of his chest of drawers and dug about for something she could change into before she left a puddle on the carpet.
“Me and Kellan fell out.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Don’t sound so hopeful.” She’d picked up an interlocking puzzle Jules had left on the window sill. “Kellan’s fine. You can’t hurt someone’s feelings if they don’t have any.”
“So you fell out with Kellan. What’s that got to do with you being here?” He balled the clothes he’d picked up in his hands. “Why not call your mam?”
“Don’t want the hassle.”
“Go round Sophie’s then—”
“I don’t want a friend, Ryan, or I wouldn’t be here.” She put the puzzle down a little too hard, the plastic slapping on the sill with a crack, either the cold making her clumsy, or anger making her careless. “I just want to be somewhere that doesn’t belong to the rest of my shitty life.”
Ryan looked at her, wondering how the hell someone who had everything she wanted could possibly call her life shitty when she was standing in his shoe-box bedroom on a carpet that hadn’t been changed since the last century and stank like stale socks.
“You mean you want somewhere to hide,” he said.
“And someone who won’t tell anyone about it.”
He didn’t know if she meant at all, or just Kellan. Either way, Ryan wasn’t going to spill.
“I can manage that.”
“I know you can.” Something that might have been a smile lurked in the shadows of her lips. “But stop pretending you want rid of me. You had your chance to tell me to jog on when you opened the door.”
Every word of that last sentence quivered as she fought to stop her teeth from chattering and Ryan thought better of forcing more out.
“Dry clothes. As promised.” He handed her a pair of tracksuit bottoms and a long-faded T-shirt with SECURITY: KRIKLER in cracked print across the back. A T-shirt that had lasted a hell of a lot longer than the job – Dad had never liked being told what to do.
“Thanks.” Freya was already undoing her shirt, as she nodded back out the door. “Bathroom’s the one opposite, right?”
Ryan nodded to hide the way his gaze had dipped down to where her fingers fumbled the button. “Right.”
RYAN
A knock on the door.
“Someone in here!” Ryan called out. “Go upstairs.”
There were three bloody bathrooms to choose from – they couldn’t all be occupied.
Leaning forward, he gathered up the envelopes that had tumbled out of the material. One for each of them – Sophie and Lucas and that girl Win. One for him. His gaze traced the “y” of his name, one long swoop that curled back on itself.
Ryan spent a long time trying to remember all the different ways his name could sound coming out of Freya’s mouth. The one everyone heard, of patience thinned too far…
And the other times, other ways Freya said his name, when there had only been Ryan to hear.
Tucking a finger under the flap, he tore the envelope open and went to lift out the letter.
THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.
“Someone in here!” Ryan yelled back savagely.
“Oh is there?” His cousin’s voice. “Hi Ryan. Having fun are you?”
And then THUMP. THUMP. THUMP. The envelope trembled, Ryan’s hands less steady than a second ago.
“I’m having a shit! Leave me alone!”
“Last time you took a shit this long you flooded the en suite.”
Kellan would only spin a tale like that if there were people other than Ryan to hear it. More banging on the door, some name calling and an overloud “Shitler!” that no doubt came from Jonno, who’d used the same insult many times in the past – usually when Ryan was caning him at Smash Bros. Giving up on his privacy, Ryan flushed the empty toilet and pulled his dad’s T-shirt on over the one he already wore. Better than trying to stuff it down his trouser leg, or explain why he was carrying it. The envelopes went in his back pocket to join the Haribo. He could deal with them later.
Now for Kellan.
Ryan squirted some air freshener into the air for authenticity and snatched the door open, with a, “Fuck off, will you?”
There weren’t many of them, just Kellan and his entourage: Jonno as per the “Shitler” dig and Kellan’s Fry-shaped shadow, plus a couple of other Campion hangers-on. Nothing to get worked up about.