I sit next to him on his double bed, and my first thought is how incredibly grown-up it is to have a double bed, and that I really need to speak to my parents about that.
I don’t have to ask – he tells me exactly what Dylan said to him, word by horribly cruel word. And I’m struck again by the thing Dad said before I left, about how Jack has done everything on this trip to try to make me happy, and now again, when Dylan suggested my life would be made hell back at school, Jack’s only thought was to stop that from happening by trying to put some space between us.
“You’ll be better off if you don’t hang out with me, Nate. That’s just the truth.”
“No,” I tell him. “I don’t care.”
“But you will,” he says.
“Thing is, Jack,” I say, standing up, and starting to mooch about his room, “if this trip has shown me anything, apart from the arse ends of various parts of the UK, it’s that I never needed to be scared of what other people said or thought, because when I’m with you…” I pause, because there, on top of his chest of drawers, is a photo in a frame of me and him when we were twelve. We’re grinning at the camera, arms around one another’s shoulders, faces red and slightly sweaty. I trace my fingers over our faces. We were so happy.
“My birthday party. We’d just done Laser Quest,” Jack says, behind me.
I put the photo back. “Where did you find it?”
“It’s always been there.” Jack shrugs.
I swallow and look at him. It’s always been there. Through all the years we never spoke, all the years I thought he hated me, his dull, boring, one-time friend. But he never did.
“I remember, we were a team of fearless twelve-year-olds, and we had to play against that group of, like, uni students because they’d screwed the bookings up.”
“We annihilated them.”
“We may have been small, but we were fierce.” I smile. “I’m ready to do that again, Jack. I’m ready to be fearless. As long as we can be fearless together. I don’t give a toss what Dylan says, or any of the LGBTQ plus society, or anyone else. If it’s just you and me against a constant shitstorm, I don’t care. As long as it is you and me. Like before. Like it always should have been.” I look at him. “Agreed?”
He doesn’t look convinced. “Nate…”
“No, you need to agree, Jack. I’m not taking any other answer, so you either agree, or—”
“Or what? What you gonna do?”
I chew my lip a bit. “Well, you’ll leave me no option. I’ll have to wrestle you. Don’t make me wrestle you, Jack.”
He laughs. “Look, maybe … maybe if I tone it down a bit, you know? Next year at school? I could … you know, be less … I could be less.”
My eyes widen. “Why would you even say that?”
“Because like everyone has always told me, I make myself a target. I’m too gay.”
I scowl at him, then glance at a very noticeable blank space on his wall. “What should be here?”
“Oh. It was a Beyoncé poster. I took it down.”
“You’d better not have destroyed it.”
“I’m not a monster, Nate.”
“Where is it?”
He indicates his desk. “It’s—”
“Put it back up,” I tell him. “Right now.” I glance around the rest of the room while Jack Blu-Tacks the poster back on the wall. His fairy lights aren’t even on, so I immediately rectify that, the string of twinkling white lights immediately creating the vibe of classy gay teen boy this place was lacking.
“That’s better,” I say.
Jack sniffs. “Maybe.”
“You don’t have to change a thing, Jack. You’re living your truth, and no one should take that away from you. Me, I don’t even know what my truth is, but…”
He raises his eyebrows.
I swallow. “But when I’m with you, I feel like I’m … finding out. I feel like I’m getting to know it. I feel like I don’t have to pretend, I can just be me, even if I’m grumpy sometimes, even when I’m in a bad mood, and you don’t seem to mind, and I like that. Just me. No filter. Not the highlights reel, the whole thing, the whole … messy, chaotic, happy, sad thing I call me. And, Jack?”
His eyes widen, his mouth open a little, waiting.
“Just so you know, Jack, your truth, you with no filter, the real you, maybe some people like Dylan don’t like it, maybe they’re scared of it, maybe you shine so brightly for them they know they could never compete. But me, I like it. I love it. And I should have told you that. I should have told you that ages ago. You’re epic, Jack. You’re fabulous. And please don’t ever stop.”
He looks like he might start crying again.
“OK,” I say. “OK, I’m going to hug you, is that OK?”
He vaguely nods.
“OK.” I wrap my arms around him and pull him close. His onesie is crazy soft. It’s like hugging a giant guinea pig.
He sinks his face into my shoulder.
I grab hold of him with both hands.
And I never intend to let go.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
JACK
I was not expecting Nate to turn up here today.
I was not expecting him to say what he said.
I was not expecting to go from feeling like I’d lost everything to feeling like I’d won the lottery.
The other thing I was not expecting was the news that we were both to return to the trip tomorrow, by taking a train down to Plymouth for some unspecified and vague finale to this whole thing. But OK. And then I was not expecting Nate to say that he needed to stay the night at mine because while he had keys to his place, everyone was away and he didn’t want to be by himself because ghosts. I sense a bullshit excuse, but maybe I’m just being optimistic.
So, fine, so
