iBoy

110

I've been used/been abused/I've been bruised/I've been broken

Pennywise

'Broken'

It was around seven thirty in the evening when I knocked on Gram's door and went in to see her. Her curtains were still open, and through her window I could see the orangey-red glow of a distant sunset fading over the horizon. Gram was sitting at her writing desk, surrounded by papers and books and ashtrays and empty coffee cups.

'How are you feeling?' she asked me.

'All right, thanks.'

'Did you get any sleep?'

'Yeah, a bit.'

'Are you hungry?'

'No ... no, I'm fine, thanks.'

She smiled at me. 'What's on your mind?'

'Well ...' I said, 'I was thinking of going up to see Lucy, you know ... just to say hello, see how she's doing. What do you think? Do you think that'd be all right?'

'I don't know,' Gram said hesitantly. 'I suppose so ... as long as Michelle thinks it's all right... and Lucy feels up to it. She might not, you know. I mean, I don't think she's been out of the flat since it happened ...' Gram looked at me. 'She might not want to see anyone, espe­cially a boy ...'

'Yeah, I know. But I thought if I asked her mum first ... just ask her if Lucy wants to see me ... and then, if she says no, I'll just leave. I won't push it or anything.'

'What about phoning her first?' Gram suggested.

I shook my head. 'Yeah, I thought of that, but some­how it just doesn't feel right. I'd rather just go on up.'

'Well, all right ... but be careful, Tommy.' 

    'Yeah.'

As she reached out to put her hand on my cheek, I concentrated hard on not giving her an electric shock. I'm not sure how I did it, but it seemed to work. She didn't yelp or snatch her hand away or anything.

'Are you sure you're all right?' she asked me.

'Yeah ...'

'Positive?'

'I'm fine, Gram.'

'Well, like I said, be careful. All right?'

'Yeah,' I told her, putting on my jacket. 'I'll see you later. I won't be long.'

'Have you got your phone with you?'

'Uh, yeah ... yeah, I've got my phone.'

There were two boys in the lift when I got in. One of them was a youngish black kid from Baldwin House whose name I didn't know, the other one was a boy called Davey Carr. Davey lived on the twenty-seventh floor, and when we were at junior school he used to be my best friend. We were always hanging around together — at school, at the kids' playground, around the railway tracks and the wastegrounds. Davey used to be OK. But a couple of years ago he'd started hanging around with some of the Crows, older kids mostly, and although he'd kept trying to persuade me to join them, I really couldn't see the attraction of it, and after that we'd just kind of drifted apart.

'Hey, Tom,' he said to me as I got into the lift. 'Y'all right?'

'Yeah ... you?' I said, pressing the button for the thirtieth floor.

He nodded, smiling. But he looked a bit anxious.

I nodded at the other kid. He stared back at me, sniffed, then looked away.

The lift doors closed.

Davey grinned at me. 'Where you going, Tom? Any­where exciting?'

'I'm going to see Lucy.'

His grin faded. 'Yeah?'

'Yeah ... any idea who did it?'

'What?'

'She was raped, Davey. Ben was beaten up. I was just wondering if you knew anything about it.'

He shook his head. 'Why would I know anything about it?'

I just stared at him.

'No,' he said, shaking his head again. 'No, I don't know anything ... honest. I wasn't even —'

'Hey,' the black kid said to him. 'You don't have to tell him anything. Tell him to fuck off.'

I looked at the black kid.

The lift stopped.

Floor 27.

The black kid grinned at me. 'Yeah? What you looking at?'

The doors opened.

I homed in on the mobile in the kid's back pocket, and in an instant an absolutely timeless instant — I'd downloaded and scanned everything on it. Names, phone numbers,, texts, photos, videos ... everything.

'You're Jayden Carrol, aren't you?' I said to him as he walked out of the lift with Davey.

'So?' he said.

'Have you answered that text you got from Leona last night?' I said casually, pressing the button to close the doors. 'You know, the one where she asks you if you love her?' I smiled at him. 'Better not keep her waiting too long for an answer.'

'What the fuck —?' he started to say, but the lift doors closed on him, and I carried on up to the thirtieth floor.

I knew it was a stupid thing to do, egging him on like that. I knew it was pointless, and kind of pathetic. But I didn't really care. It made me feel good, and that was all that mattered just then.

Lucy's flat was right at the end of the corridor, and as I walked down towards it, I realized how nervous I was feeling. I always felt a little bit nervous when I was about to see Lucy, but this was different. This was an anxious kind of nervousness, a fear of the unknown. What would I say to her? What could I say? How would she be? Would she have any interest in seeing me at all? I mean, why should she? What was so special about me? What did I have to offer her?

I stopped at the door to her flat.

The word SLAG had been sprayed across the door in bright red aerosol paint. I stood there for a while, just staring at that ugly scrawl, and for a moment I felt angrier than I'd ever felt before. I wanted to hit someone, to really hurt someone ... I wanted to find out who'd done it and throw them off the tower ...

My head was aching.

My wound was throbbing.

I closed my eyes, breathed slowly, calmed myself ...

'Shit,' I muttered to myself. 'The bastards ...'