A Long Way Back (Unfinished Business #2) - Barbara Elsborg Page 0,1
reach for memories of Jonty.
*
Tay wondered how he’d let Jonty talk him into making a birthday cake for his mum. Well, he knew why. Because Jonty didn’t have a mum, not at home anyway, and Tay would do almost anything to make Jonty smile. Jonty smiled a lot, though it wasn’t always genuine. But he was happy now, even in the mess of Tay’s mother’s kitchen. Tay had tried not to react as Jonty had used almost every implement in the drawer.
“It’s going to be great,” Jonty said.
The cake was in the oven and Jonty was scraping out the mixing bowl and licking the spatula. He offered Tay a mouthful. It tasted…slightly unusual. Jonty didn’t seem to be bothered.
“Actually, I don’t know why we didn’t just put a bowl of cake mixture on the table and give everyone spoons,” Jonty said.
“Where would you have put the candles?”
“That’s true.”
Tay wasn’t sure how his mother would react to the blazing inferno she’d soon be faced with, but Jonty had used his precious money to buy forty candles and there was no way they weren’t going on the cake.
They cleaned the kitchen together while the cake was cooking. Tay took a peek in the oven and winced.
“What?” Jonty asked.
“You did follow the recipe exactly?”
Jonty couldn’t afford to buy Tay’s mum a present. He’d wanted to make the cake on his own so Tay’s only involvement had been to tell Jonty where stuff was in the kitchen.
“Yep. Well…”
Tay didn’t ask, but whatever Jonty had done probably explained what was happening in the oven.
“It has another fifteen minutes to go,” Jonty said.
“I’d check it. It’s escaping from the tin.”
Jonty took it out of the oven and groaned. “It looks like a chocolate brain’s exploded. Maybe it tastes nice.”
“I’m sure it will.” Hopefully.
After his mother had managed to blow out all the candles, she and his dad, Tay and Jonty had a slice. Jonty had disguised the brain-look of it with a lot of pink icing, but the cake tasted wrong.
They all ate it, because Jonty had made it. Tay’s mum said it was delicious. It wasn’t.
*
One day, Tay remembered that he’d fallen, but nothing more. So here had to be a hospital, not an alien spacecraft. He was almost disappointed. But that explained why people were doing…things to him. Nurses, doctors… Gradually words began to make sense, voices became familiar, but touch remained scary. He was still spending longer under the surface than above it.
His family came to see him. And Jonty. My best friend. Tay tried so hard to open his eyes and speak. He wanted to tell Jonty not to cry, wanted to tell him more than that, things he should have said and never had because he’d been scared. There was a lesson to be learnt in this, but would he ever get the chance to show he’d learned it? When he got better—if he got better, he’d tell Jonty how much he loved him.
In the fog of his life, Tay understood the fall had done something to his brains as well as his body. For the time being, he was having trouble communicating, but that had to be temporary—right? He wasn’t paralysed. He could move a little, though not, it seemed, when he told himself to. He lay in his nest. A broken-winged bird waiting to see if he’d ever fly again.
*
When Tay found out at school that Jonty had been taken to hospital, he pleaded with his dad to drive him there. Don’t want to remember this. Tay had been horrified when he’d seen him. His sweet face all battered and bruised. A split lip. Broken arm. Black eyes. Jonty’s dad had been sitting next to him and Tay’s dad had persuaded him to go for a coffee while Tay stayed with Jonty. The moment the men left, Jonty opened his eyes. They filled with tears.
Tay caught hold of his hand and squeezed gently. “Well, your looks were going to go eventually.”
Jonty laughed, then gasped in pain.
“Who did it?”
“You can’t tell anyone. Swear.”
Tay nodded.
“I told my dad I liked boys.”
Rage consumed Tay.
“No,” Jonty said. “You promised. Obviously, I’m not gay anymore.”
Tay released a strangled laugh. He wanted to tell Jonty how he felt about him, but the words wouldn’t come out. He might put Jonty in more danger.
Tay didn’t tell his parents that it was Jonty’s dad who’d put him in the hospital, because even if he begged them not to, they’d tell the police.