The Fragile Ordinary(93)

Soon he was just a blur, walking away in the distance being chased by another blur, and it wasn’t until I felt arms around me and Vicki’s voice saying she was sorry in my ear that I realized I was crying and she was comforting me.





THE FRAGILE ORDINARYSAMANTHA YOUNG





29

He fell into Midnight’s dark embrace,

While I could do nothing to stop it.

I hope Midnight leads to a better place,

A heaven lush, sweet, peaceful and sunlit.





—CC


The turnout at Stevie’s funeral surprised me.

When a child died it was customary for the headteachers to arrange for the school to be closed so classmates and teachers could attend the funeral. Stevie’s funeral fell on a school holiday, so there was no need to formally organize anything or even to discuss it. Stevie’s closest friends were all in attendance, including Jimmy, Forrester and Alana. Where Jimmy and Alana looked uncomfortable being there, Forrester openly cried.

There were a few other classmates, but the only teacher in attendance was Vicki’s dad. When I asked him why he was the only teacher to represent the school, he didn’t answer me.

The cynic in me wondered if it was so the school could distance itself from the circumstances of Stevie’s death. His drug overdose hadn’t happened on school grounds, and as long as they kept their distance from it they could say that it was a singular case and that drugs were not a problem at Blair Lochrie. Maybe? Was his death even going to matter to them, or had it been swept under the rug to protect the school’s reputation and its ranking? Was that what mattered now? Statistics and rank protected at all costs over the welfare of the kids that walked through their bloody door?

Maybe not. Maybe Stevie just hadn’t made an impact on any of the other teachers.

But I was angry.

And not really at them. Because I should have said something. If I’d spoken up about Stevie, they might have been able to help him.

So I was angry with myself.

I was angry for the people who had been destroyed by stupid mistakes.

My gaze drifted over Carole and Kieran. Standing next to them was an older version of Stevie and very close at his side was, what I had discerned almost immediately, a plainclothes police officer. The man had to be Stevie’s father and, although he didn’t cry, there was a deep pain etched into his features that made my chest shudder as I tried to breathe out.

It was unbearable even looking at Carole and Kieran. She was frail and sallow-skinned, a black scarf wrapped around her head, and she was clinging to Tobias’s mum for dear life as she cried a continual flow of silent tears. Kieran clung to her hip, his face red and crumpled as he sobbed against her, watching his brother’s coffin as it was lowered into the ground.

The thought that Stevie was in there, gone forever, was hard to process, and as I stared across the grave site at my boyfriend, I wondered if that was how Tobias was feeling. Because I couldn’t know for sure. He wouldn’t talk to me.

It was mid-February and we were on a midterm break from school for the week. Tobias had ignored my calls and texts, so I’d tried going around to his house and his mum had said he was out with the boys. I’d asked Lena how he was doing, and she’d said he wasn’t good.

Still...he wouldn’t talk to me.

His rejection made me want to retreat into my bedroom and hide with my books like I had done before he blew into my life on a tornado of change. Staring at his stone-like expression as he, Stevie’s dad, Jimmy and Forrester helped lower the coffin into the ground, I felt a fear building in my chest. Panic.

I should have told someone about Stevie. Someone who could have done something. An adult. Teachers, his mother, police, someone! But I’d been afraid of getting Stevie in trouble...and wasn’t that just the most horrific, ironic piece of crap you’d ever heard?

Tears spilled down my cheeks and I felt Vicki squeeze my hand in hers. She’d been my support this last week, letting me grieve, letting me vent my fears over Tobias.

He regretted choosing me.

The thought turned me to ice, but I couldn’t stop repeating it in my head, over and over. Why else was Tobias avoiding me? He wasn’t avoiding anyone else. He’d chosen me over Stevie, leaving Stevie to that world, and it had killed him.

Tobias regretted choosing me.

Could I blame him?

I thought if we could just talk about it, we’d get through it, but it was getting him to stand still long enough with me to discuss it that was the issue. Months ago I wouldn’t have been brave enough to force a confrontation. I would have turned tail and locked myself in my room and found a book that made me feel better—I’d choose fantasy over reality any day. Yet, Tobias had come along and changed that for me and, as much as my instinct was to hide, I couldn’t if it meant losing him.

Hadn’t we lost too much already?

God, he’d lost so much already. The image of Tobias laying his father to rest less than a year ago made me cry harder for him. Then that image was replaced with the memory of Stevie smiling at me in gratitude when I gave him his scarf, hat and gloves. That dissolved into the memory of him hugging me tight in the corridor the day Tobias hurt my feelings. And the memory of him looking at me with such pain in his eyes and telling me he was sorry.

We should have gone after him.