The Fragile Ordinary(94)

Now it was too late.

I’d never get the chance to make it right. Neither would he. Or Tobias.

Gone.

He was gone.

Those three words just didn’t make sense. It didn’t seem possible that I would never see him walk through the school halls, or wink at a pretty girl, or laugh by the pool table. He’d never get the chance to find his way out of the mess his life had become. He’d never be able to protect Kieran, who would have no one when his mum died.

The pain for them all was too much, and I shook as I tried to contain the feeling that was desperate to burst out of me. Vicki’s arms banded around my chest as she held me to her. I shuddered so hard against her, she trembled trying to hold on to me.

“Shh,” she whispered, sniffling, and I realized she was crying for me.

But I wasn’t crying for me.

I was crying for all the days—just ordinary simple days with his family—that were lost to Stevie. Lost to them all. It sounds silly to say I was shocked by the revelation of loss, because I had read about characters dying in books, seen them die on film, heard about real people dying all the time on the news.

It was different when it was someone you had known, though. Talked to. Laughed with. Been angry at. Cursed. Hurt for. Someone who was flesh and blood and as real as myself. The reality of it was hard to wrap my mind around. My emotions warred between not feeling like it was real and feeling like it was a nightmare come to life.

Life was temporary.

That realization had never truly taken hold of me until that moment.

Life was temporary, and for most of my life I’d shied away from living it, preferring the company of fictional characters to real people.

Well, no more.

I gained control over the inner keening, breathing slowly in and out until Vicki’s hold on me loosened. Looking up from the hole in the ground to Tobias’s face, I felt myself tense with resolution. No more. Tobias and I would lose no more.

As if he heard my thoughts, his gaze jerked up from the grave to find me. His eyes seemed to burn into me, filled with so much turmoil I wanted to reach out to him.

And I would.

*

“Tobias!” I ran after him as he stalked away from the cemetery.

After the minister had laid Stevie to his final resting place, I’d watched as Stevie’s dad hugged Kieran tight and said something to Carole that made her crumple against Lena. When he’d tried to reach for her she’d flinched away and Lena had guided her from the scene while the police officer had urged Stevie’s dad away.

Kieran had clung to his dad, screaming, and breaking everyone’s heart and I’d watched as Tobias had just stared down at the scene, at Kieran, in horror, until Lena had returned to lift the squalling boy into her arms.

Tobias had turned in the opposite direction and started to hurry away.

This time I wasn’t letting him.

“Go back, Comet!” he yelled over his shoulder.

“No!” I stumbled up the hill after him. “Talk to me.”

“Look!” He spun around, glaring at me with tears in his eyes. He exhaled slowly and continued more calmly, “I just need some space right now. Okay? We’ll talk later. But not right now. God, Comet, just give me that.”

I bit my lip, unsure what was the best thing to do. If I pushed him harder, I’d maybe push him away for good. “Okay.”

Relief made his shoulders relax, and he gave me a brittle nod before he turned around and walked away.

*

Despite my numerous attempts to call him, Tobias didn’t answer. I received one text.

Tobias: I asked 4 space.

Although it hurt I decided to let it go and let him have his space over the midterm break. Once we’d returned, however, I was determined to get him to talk to me again. I couldn’t help feeling that if he hadn’t pushed me away, we’d both have had an easier time dealing with Stevie’s death.

I missed Tobias.

I felt like he’d been taken away, too.

The Monday of our return, Tobias didn’t even look at me when he walked into Spanish first period. An ugly feeling churned in my stomach the entire class, and I tried to tell myself everything would be okay. That was, until he stayed behind to ask Se?ora Cooper something, and I had no choice but to leave the class without talking to him. Was that deliberate on his part? Or did he really have something to ask her?

By the time English came around for fourth period, I’d worked myself into a jittery mess. I had a strategy to break the ice between us and I really hoped it worked.

He was there before I was, staring straight ahead with this cold expression that warned people not to approach him. I shot a look at Vicki and Steph who were already seated, and they gave me sympathetic smiles. They knew I planned to use this class to get him to talk to me if I could.

“Hey,” I said as I took my seat next to him.

He gave me a nod of his chin without looking at me, and I tried to batten down the anger that threatened to rise inside me.

We were twenty minutes into class when Mr. Stone left the room to collect some mock exam papers he’d forgotten in the English office. As the noise level rose around us, I slipped the bit of paper I’d been holding on to all day and placed it in front of Tobias. He frowned but opened it up to reveal a poster for Pan. They were hosting an evening event in a month’s time called Youth of Today and were inviting under eighteens to recite their poetry. “What am I looking at?”