Silent Child(89)

“Stay there, Aiden,” he says in a croaky voice. “Wait at the back for a moment.”

It doesn’t feel right. He’s different today. I’ve been wondering for a while whether he’s trying to figure something out, like he’s been struggling to make a decision. Now, watching him, it seems to me that he’s made a decision and it isn’t a good one. It isn’t a decision like whether to eat pizza or Chinese takeaway, it’s something horrible. I can feel it. My insides are all squirmy, like they’re moving. I’m not hungry anymore. I just want to throw up.

The door swings open and he stands there looking at me. There are tears in his eyes.

“You’re a good boy, Aiden. You’ve always been a good boy. We’ve loved each other, haven’t we? You’ve loved me? I love you?”

I don’t answer. I’m not sure I know what love is anymore. I don’t think it’s this, though. I don’t think love should make you feel dirty like I do now.

He takes a step back, with his eyes all shiny and wet. He’s looking at me now. He won’t stop looking at me. His arm reaches back behind him and his fingers fumble with the pizza box.

I don’t think there’s pizza in there.

The lid flips open and he grabs the wooden bat inside, like the kind I used to play sports with. Rounders. That’s what it was called. We ran to bases after hitting the ball with the bat. I was always good, I got picked first. I cower away from him. That squirming feeling in my tummy is gone, instead I feel like a large, cold hand is gripping my stomach, squeezing tighter and tighter.

“I’m sorry, mate,” he says. “But I have to finish it. I can’t go on like this anymore. You’re too old now. It’s time to stop. I want to let you go, but I can’t. I just can’t, I’m sorry. I wanted to get a gun, you know, to make it quicker, but I don’t know how to shoot one. I tried to learn about pills and poisons but they can go so wrong and I didn’t want to do that to you, mate. So I’m going to do it like this. One quick blow. I can do this. I can end it this way. I know you want to die. You tried that time with the pencil. You could’ve hurt me but you did it to yourself instead. This way we both get what we want. Don’t we?”

I lift my hands to my face and realise that I’m crying. My throat is raw.

“You don’t really want me to die,” I say.

He shakes his head. “No, I don’t. But this is the way it has to end.”

“I still miss the times before. I miss the camping holiday.”

He lets out a sob. “I know you do, but I don’t. This has been everything… You’ve made it so I could live.”

“You took my life,” I reply. “I don’t love you.”

Snot trickles out of his nose. “Don’t say that, mate.” His head lowers and he pushes his blond hair away from his eyes. He wipes his nose with the back of his hand. He’s in his smart clothes today. A soft maroon jumper and trousers with the crease down the middle. He looks like someone from the telly. Someone who belongs inside the movies on his tiny phone screen. A person with their life all sorted. Doctors. Lawyers. Businessmen. He’s one of those. Outside here, he probably looks like everyone else. He’s normal.

“I still hate you, Hugh,” I say. “I always have.”

He begins singing that song, the one he sang to me when I stayed over at his house. The one he sings to me at night when he’s telling me about Josie and Mum and Dad. Dad’s in the army now. He’s a soldier. Sometimes I think about how he could shoot Hugh down with his machine gun.

He grips the bat with both hands, widens his legs and squares his shoulders. I take another step back. My legs feel like jelly and I’m either going to be sick or wee my pants. I don’t want to die, I don’t want to. But he’s bigger than me. If I fight him, would I win? I have to try. I have to.

“You should hate me, Aiden,” he says. “I thought I wanted to kill you. I was so sure.” He lowers his head and pauses. It feels like the moment is all stretched out, like it’ll go on forever. But then he says, “It has to end all the same.”

He lifts the bat like he’s going to hit me, but just as I’m bracing myself to fly towards him, to hit him first, he swings the bat upwards. He screams loudly as he hits himself in the face, smashing his nose. I scream with him, afraid of the blood spurting from his nose. Afraid of him swinging the bat again, hitting himself in the head.

Hugh falls down. He drops the bat on the ground. I run over to him and bend down.

“F-f-in-ish-it.” Bloody spit dribbles from his mouth.

I shake my head.

Hugh reaches out and pushes the bat towards me. “H-it-m-me.”

There are tears running down my face. Snot comes out of my nose. I’m scared. I don’t know what to do. I almost trip over the bat as I step away. Hugh lies there with his face all broken and bruised, with his eye all swollen. If I took the keys and left, he’d lie there in pain for hours and hours. I don’t know how hurt he is. He could die on his own. Or I could go and get help. My mind feels all weird, like it can’t cope, like it doesn’t want to make the choice.

I don’t want to make the choice.

I want it to all go away.

I bend down and pick up the bat.

I lift it over my head.