Page 17 of Pansies

“Yeah, I can see that. I was hoping she’d tell me how to find you.”

“I never want to see you again.” Fen sounded calmer, but his knuckles were bloodless against the bucket.

This wasn’t going well. But Alfie wasn’t ready to give up yet. They’d held each other and talked to each other and shared something that mattered, even if it was nothing more than a moment of unexpected connection across the years that separated them. If only Fen could understand… He held out his hands. A peace offering of air. “Look, Fen, mate, I fucked up. I fucked up badly. Before, and last night. I just really want you to know that I meant what I said: I’m not who you think I am. Not anymore.”

“I don’t care. Don’t you get it?” Fen was yelling now. “I don’t fucking care.”

“Yeah, but you have to know that I’m sor—”

Suddenly Alfie was drenched. In freezing, foul-smelling water, and it was everywhere. Stinging his eyes. Soaking through his clothes. Dripping from his hair. The shock of it hit him first. Hard enough tohurtsomehow, like a punch in the face. Followed by the cold and the stench, and the sour taste filling up his mouth and nose. And only then the slow realisation of deep, physical discomfort. The sort that wouldn’t go away until you got in a really hot shower.

He tried to wipe his eyes. The liquid clung to his fingers, slimy with rotting plant matter. The smell made him gag. God,he’d probably swallowed some. He spat on the floor, but that only made it worse. When, finally, he could see and breathe and think again—at least a little bit—the first thing he focused on was Fen. Standing in front of him, trembling with fury, the empty bucket hanging from one hand.

“I said get out.”

So Alfie got out.

Stood for a while by his car, wondering what to do. He knew he could go to his parents’ house for a shower, but on balance, he preferred driving all the way to London in wet, smelly clothes to facing his family. And there was Kev, of course, but the last thing you needed the day after your wedding was your best mate turning up on your doorstep. Especially when your best mate had fucked off in the middle of said wedding.

In the end, he covered up the driver’s seat as best he could, sacrificing his wedding suit to save the interior of his car, and headed for home.

He knew it would be a miserable journey. But he didn’t look back.

4

Dear Mum,1

I’ve done the most messed-up thing.

You remember that boy, Alfie Bell, who used to tease me all the time? Well, I met him again the other night. At the Rattler of all places. I don’t even know what I was doing there. I just had to get out. So I started walking, and that was where I ended up.

And he came in, and I recognised him straightaway. He hasn’t changed. Well, he has, but only in the sense of being more somehow—more everything, more like himself, as if the boy who used to hurt me all those years ago was just a rough cocoon for the man. The ridiculously beautiful man. If you like them big and dark and rough-hewn, that is, which—God help me—I always have.

He walked right up to me and asked if he could buy me a drink. And, you know, all I thought was that it’s been something like fifteen years, and he was still finding new and special ways to make me feel worthless.

I thought he’d finally worked it out. And come back all the way to South Shields just to taunt me. But it wasn’t someimaginative new torture. Or a cruel joke. He didn’t even recognise me. Which was really its own cruel joke.

But he wanted me. He really wanted me. So I went with him.

I’m such an idiot. I know I shouldn’t have gone. But I did. And I’m so completely ashamed. I was pathetic. I can’t even bear to think of it. Thank God nobody will ever know. Well, except me and him, and when it comes to him, what’s one more humiliation or one more hurt?

I’m writing that, but I don’t believe it. I can’t make myself believe it, no matter how hard I want to. And he’s probably sitting in his fancy car right now, laughing at me. Remembering all the things I did and said and let him do.

It wasn’t like I thought it would be. He was…kind to me. Why? He’s not kind. He’s Alfie Bell: an arrogant, thoughtless, bullying, cowardly caveman. But I just needed someone to touch me. Someone to make me feel warm. And it was like he knew. Knew all the terrible, messed-up, shameful things I’ve never admitted.

I never told you. I never told you how bad it was. And how much I dreaded, God, I dreaded everything. Waking up in the morning, knowing he would be waiting for me, him and his friends, and all the rest of them. Old taunts or new ones, it didn’t matter, I never learned to shrug them off. I never learned not to care. I didn’t dare tell you. You would have been so sad. You would have wanted to protect me, but you couldn’t. Nobody could. But at least I got to save you that heartbreak. It’s the one thing I’m proud of. In all this weakness.

And it gets worse.

I don’t know if it was because of or in spite of, but I really thought I was in love with him back then. For all those years. Because he was the only boy who touched me. He was all I had. His hand on the back of my neck, forcing my head down thetoilet. Or his body shoved against mine to stop me fighting. His bruises on my skin. His fingers in my hair.

I’d lie awake in bed, terrified of tomorrow, and I’d think about him touching me. I’d dream about him and want him. And imagine how it would feel if he was gentle with me. If he gave me all his strength. If maybe he put his hand on the back of my neck because he wanted to kiss me and his arms around me because he wanted to hold me.

So there. That’s the truth I could never tell. A sickness I would have lived with safely if Alfie Bell hadn’t walked into my life out of nowhere and pulled it right out of me and made me look at it. And now everything’s stirred up again. Bad memories and good memories, and I’m so messed up, feeling things I don’t want to feel.

Except he made me. Or, no, I let him. Truthfully, I begged him. I just didn’t think he could…that I could…that anything could be so good again. It was too much, sharp and awful like peeling off a scab before it’s ready. So that underneath there’s nothing but a wet wound.

Oh, what’s the matter with me? Alfie Bell is supposed to be my past. But he’s left me bleeding all over again.

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