today. Yesterday, this homeless guy had bought him a coffee. When did that ever happen? Tay needed a friend. Why not Ink? Why not give an out-of-luck guy a chance? Jonty would be proud of him.
His mood slid straight downhill. Fuck off and get out of my head, Jonty. He almost laughed at himself. He had Jonty’s wave of sea glass on the wall as a constant reminder of how he’d fucked up.
“You’ll have to share the bathroom,” his mother said. “Please remember Tay is going to be slower than you.”
“At what?” Tay snapped.
“Everything,” his mother said quietly.
Ink shot him a glance, and out of sight of his mother, his mouth quirked in a grin. “You’re taller than me. A couple more inches to wash?” His gaze slid to Tay’s crotch and Tay gulped as his dick twitched. Oh my God. What the hell was that?
After that comment about gay porn, Tay assumed Ink was gay. Tay, on the other hand, wasn’t sure what he was.
Liar!
But Tay had never had sex with anyone, male or female. Words that would never come out of his mouth. Ever, ever, ever.
He was happy with his own hand.
Am I?
Yes, usually.
He should have picked the oldest, ugliest guy. Not Ink.
But…
How long am I going to lie to myself?
As long as he needed to.
Did he really think that if not for that long-lasting, futile attraction to Jonty, he’d consider himself straight? He’d tried to be straight and failed. But he was too afraid to be gay.
Ink and his parents went out into the garden that Tay never used because it was down a set of steep worn steps. Tay watched from the back door. There was another door to the garden from the hall for the other residents. The communal laundry was under the stairs. Tay had never even seen anyone use it apart from him. If it hadn’t been for the noise from the flat above his, he might have thought he was the only one in the building.
The outdoor space was shared among the three flats. A company came to cut the grass, but it had been a different person each time. Tay had never met any of the other tenants. No one had ever knocked on his door, and with two flights of stairs to reach their flats, Tay hadn’t thought knocking on their doors was worth the effort, even to tell the person above him to turn the noise down. He’d just ordered earplugs online.
His daily dose of exercise only came after he’d psyched himself up to go out—and it seemed to him that he was going out less and less, which was a bad thing. It wasn’t just because it was an effort to get his wheelchair up and down the steps. There just seemed no point in leaving the flat unless he needed something. He’d lost interest in life. The effort to appear upbeat to his parents for the past couple of days had taken its toll, and he could already feel himself sliding back into thick mud. He didn’t know whether his lack of concentration had more to do with his depression than his brain injury. He didn’t want drugs to be the answer, but they currently were because they made life tolerable. More than tolerable, if only for a brief time.
At least he’d got to the high street on his crutches yesterday, even if he’d had to ride back. That was progress, wasn’t it? Except the cost of yesterday’s excursion was him taking more tablets than he usually did, and now his body ached and he was exhausted. He thought about the pills in his drawer. Thought about that sample Lennie had gifted him that he’d hidden in a shoe. He had to get rid of that. Soon. He just wanted everyone to leave him alone.
They came back into the flat after inspecting the garden. A patch of lawn, a wooden seat, a couple of small trees and a high wall at the bottom and one side wall covered in ivy and vines. A view beyond of more houses. I miss the sea. But how happy would he have been to be looking at it, unable to go into the water? How would he have coped, knowing Jonty was still around? With fucking Devan. Devan fucking him. He shuddered. He might have told his mother he didn’t want to know where Jonty was, but he knew Devan and Jonty were together. More to the point, if he’d stayed