Skye started setting up the condoms and leaflets as my phone started to vibrate against my chest.
“Hey. What’s up?”
“Just checking if you’ll be home tonight?” Gavin, my flatmate asked.
“No, mate. I’ll be in Brighton this weekend.” Gavin and I shared a flat in London. We were colleagues who knew each other in university and due to the high prices of accommodation it seemed a good fit to share the rent.
“I should have guessed. What is it this time? Cinema with Skye? Or perhaps a spot of dinner…with Skye?”
“Nope. Tonight, I’m handing out condoms.”
“Jesus.” He laughed.
“Anyway, what’s that supposed to bloody mean?”
“Nothing! You just spend all your free time there and Skye happens to feature a lot.”
A guy came into the room, he looked completely overwhelmed and blew out a breath when he saw Skye smiling and welcoming him over to her. “I’ve got to go, mate. I’ll see you at the office on Monday.”
“Got it. Oh…are you coming to the meeting about that promotion? They’re going through some general info and clarifying the application process.”
I hadn’t realised Gavin was interested in applying for the senior journalist position. I’d had my eye on it for some time. It meant more money and more creative freedom. “Yeah, I’ll be there.” Cue barely tolerable silence. “I didn’t know you were interested.”
“Thinking about it,” Gavin replied. This could be awkward. Skye shot me a look that told me to cut the call before she twisted my balls into her fist.
“I’ll talk to you later.” The line went dead.
Skye was deep in conversation with the guy who had come in earlier and now had a few of his friends joining him. They all looked in their late teens and I was immediately reminded of Skye’s brother, Elliott.
“I’m not going to patronise you,” Skye said. “You know what these are for and how to use them. I’m just offering you a reminder to wrap it up.” She pointed to his groin and the group started to laugh. “How old are you?”
“Seventeen,” he replied as his mates nodded. Skye had a look on her face that showed she knew what they were up to and were on to them. It was obvious they had all had an alcoholic drink.
“You know it’s illegal to drink,” Skye said.
“Yeah. I get it,” he replied, withdrawing. “I come here to unwind along with hundreds of other underage people. Are you going to tell give them all the same lecture?”
She shook her head and put her hand on his arm. “I looked after my brother until he was around your age. It’s easy to fall into the nagging sister role.” She looked down before gathering strength through a deep breath. “He used to come to this club until he…passed.”
“Sorry,” the guy replied. “What happened to him?”
“Overdose,” she replied, her voice shaky, but only in a way that I would notice. “He struggled with… everything, really. His sexuality mainly.”
“Fuck,” he whispered. The crowd of guys gathered around and choruses of sorry led to Skye biting her lip.
She was so fucking brave.
We were together when we found him, lying on the bed, peaceful. The only sign something was wrong was the blood trailing from his nose. I’ll never forget the sound she made. A high-pitched howl. Sobs. Cries of “no”. Complete and utter devastation. She was mine from that moment, in my head and heart at least. More than friendship. A desire to heal, to protect. To wrap her up and tuck her inside me, even if she fought against it. An instinct kicked in; nothing would hurt her again. I’d protect her from what was to come because she’d already experienced the worse. I was there for her when she cried, arranged the funeral when the burden became too heavy for her to handle. I held her up as we walked behind the coffin, me on one side and Stacey on the other. I sat at the graveside with her, read the notes on the flowers, found her drunk and alone when she lost her way. In those raw moments I almost told my feelings, but as she finally fell asleep, my hand stroking her hair and wiping her tears away I played it out in my head, ordered the words, rehearsed it until I watched our friendship blow up around me. A slow-motion action scene where we were both blown to pieces. A fiery wreckage in the background. Nope, couldn’t tell her. Skye was in my life in the truest form, telling her how I felt could lead to her walking away. How could a friendship come back from that? The destruction of a one-sided love affair?
She caught my eye and I smiled, boosting her on to tell her story.
So fucking brave.
“That’s why I do this. My brother left me a letter. He was still trying to come to terms with his sexuality, but he’d had unprotected sex for the first time a few weeks before and he was convinced he’d contracted HIV. He didn’t have the knowledge or support to help him through, to answer his questions, and he became fixated. I can’t let that happen again.” She handed the guys some leaflets about the support services the clinic provided and talked through the groups that she had been instrumental in developing since Elliott’s death. “You don’t need to struggle. Support is out there, if it’s about safe sex or accepting your sexuality, there is help.”
“I think you’re amazing to do this,” one of them said.
“Can I bring my mum to a group? She’s having a hard time accepting I’m gay,” said another.
“Yeah, of course. I did that with my brother too,” Skye said, handing him a leaflet. “This is the supporter’s group. We’re constantly looking at adding to it and looking at different types of research.” She stopped and looked around before grabbing a notebook from one of
