Not What We Expected

16: Boys Don't Cry

I know nothing about their parents, this is fiction and I have nothing to do with real Ant and Dec's real relationships to their real parents because that's a thing between only them and it has nothing to do with me or anyone else.

"Declan poppet", is the first thing Dec hears when he steps through the door just as he has got home from school some weeks later. "Please come and join me in the kitchen, I have a few things to tell you."

So Dec walks into the kitchen and sits down on the chair his Mum points at, very nervously waiting for what she's going to say. He could hear on her voice that it won't be any good news.

"You're not going to like this but I've talked to your Father and we both agree that we want you to stop hanging out with Anthony."

"What?!", she can't be telling him that, this must be a joke, she has no rights to restrict his friendships, "He's my friend! I thought you liked him?!"

"Declan son, please keep your voice down a bit. He's always very polite when he's here, he seems like a good lad, and that's why it made me so sad to hear that your Father had seen him and some of his friends down in city centre, and they were clearly drunk. And they were smoking!", she says and looks seriously at him, "I don't want you to hang out with that kind of person. Do you even know how dangerous passive smoking is?"

"I'm 16, you can't choose my friends!", he screams at his Mother and angrily gets up from the chair with such a force that makes it fall. "He's one of my few real friends!", he leaves the kitchen, walks to his room and slams the door the hardest he can.

He's sitting with his blazer and backpack on, on the bed, hugging his pillow very hard when the door, only a minute later, opens by his Mum. He tells her to leave him alone but instead she just walks in and sits down on the bed beside him.

"I should have told you about the Anthony-thing another day because there is another, worse thing, I need to tell you about."

Dec pretends he's not hearing, even pretends she not there at all. He looks in another direction and picks up the math book from his floor.

"Declan, please look at me?", but he doesn't look up, the square root of 99 divided by 2 and then to the power of 2... "It's about your Nan", and then 20 added upon that... That's too hard, he needs a pen and a paper. "Declan, are you listening? It went very fast and they don't know exactly what happened... But Nan stopped breathing and unfortunately she's not with us anymore.", 99 over 2 is 49,5 and that times itself...? It something ending with point 25, and plus 20... But to find the square root of that number he also needs a calculator.

"Declan.", she says his name again and she puts a hand on his arm to get him to look up. He has heard the information, he just doesn't want to take it in, not jet. Doesn't want to cry in front of her either.

"Don't touch me and leave me alone!?", angrily he shakes off that hand and throws the pillow at her, "Leave me alone!"

His Mum makes one more attempt to calm her youngest boy by stroking his back but when he has pushed away her hand again, she seems to give up and tells him that she will be in the kitchen if he later feels like he needs her. But Dec just sits there, keeps staring at the numbers in his book and when he eventually leaves his room, after hours of just staring into space, he does that to go and get the telephone.

"Alexander", he always only presents himself with his first name.

"It's me", Dec says with a small voice at the same time as he hears Alex telling someone in the background to keep quiet because he's speaking with Dec. "Please, can I come over, I need you.", he whispers on the verge of tears.