The Rent Boy (EDITING)

Chapter Thirty-Five: The Jumper-

     For the past few days I'd just laid there, on Nate's sofa. Lifeless - Nate had used that word in a sentence, when trying to get me to talk to him, but it didn't work. I couldn't concentrate long enough to form a word, let alone converse. Sleeping had become increasingly more difficult. Every time I closed my eyes I saw his face. 

    The worst thing I felt, was the regret. I know his mum was right, Logan wouldn't want me to blame myself but - it was true, it was my fault. If I'd have been there, he would never have ended up in that hospital. Or maybe, he might have, but he would have gotten there in time for the doctors to help him.

    If I hadn't overreacted and been a complete twat, actually stayed to hear him out, this all wouldn't have happened the way it did. It still didn't feel real, almost like it was some sick joke that I couldn't quite wrap my head around. Almost like, if I closed my eyes for long enough he'd come back. 

    I laughed at myself; a twisted, dark laugh that sounded anything but amused. The laughter reverberated around the walls of my mind, the sound had never left my mouth but I heard it just as loud and real and there, in my ears, as if it had. 

    My eyes widened, catching on the brightness of the light bulb, that's intensity burned into my sight and made shadows dance upon the walls wherever I looked. If I looked hard enough, I could almost see his face, like he was here, and I could pretend for a while that he'd never left.

    But a tear escaped from the corner of my left eye, without any kind of permission, and with every second that it burnt a trail down the curve of my cheek, I was reminded he wasn't back, and he never would be back. I just needed to get over it, as a voice, I barely remember from my past, had so delicately put it when I'd lost my parents. 

    Lost. Lost. Lost. All I ever do is lose people. I find them, and it's great, and sometimes they make me believe that everything will be okay and maybe one day things will sort themselves out and I'll be happy, but then I lose them and that scenario becomes so ridiculous that it physically hurts.

    I caught the second tear with my sleeve, half-way down my cheek, and pulled my arm back just enough so I could see the damp spot soaked into the dark fabric. And that was everything Logan, caught into that tiny teardrop that I'd wiped away. All the memories, all that smiles, all the silence, the moments where we just laid wrapped around each other, eyes closed and breathing so soft you could barely hear it. 

    I stared at it for a long moment, wondering how exactly I'd come to the conclusion that, that damp spot on my sleeve resembled Logan in any way. It just did. It didn't make sense, but it didn't have to. It just did.

    I closed my eyes and gently shook my head, brushing that thought aside and trying to cling to the last remaining sanity I had. I let my head fall back against the arm of the chair, my hair sticking to my forehead from not having washed it in a few days. My eyes flew straight back to the light bulb, and the shadows danced across the walls and memories flashed behind my eyes.

    Then I realised the jacket I was wearing, wasn't the right one. It wasn't Logan's, and that was wrong, because I should have been wearing it. The panic rushed beneath my skin, and my heart beat in my chest, heat burning inside me as I grasped my phone and dialled a number I knew from heart, as frantic as though my life depended on this one phone call.

    I didn't know why, and it didn't much matter, but in that moment the most important thing in the world to me, was getting that jumper. Because if I didn't have that jumper, then what did I have of him except memories? And memories only lasted so long before they grew faded and more like a dream you couldn't remember, when you want to remember everything, down to the smallest detail.