The End of Summer

Chapter 20- 'Keep Watch? What are you a Cowboy?'

I sighed as I realised he was still pissed at me. He always seemed to be pissed at me. To think, we started off the night by getting on so well. We even dry humped for Christ sake.

I layed down on the bed. Even from this position I could still see him sitting by the door. The longer you're in darkness the more your eyes adjust and I could now make out the features on his face.

My eyes glanced to Alex.

“Do you think he’s okay?” I found myself asking quietly. He didn’t reply straight away, and at first I wondered if he actually would.

“I don’t think he’ll ever be okay.” His voice was so low I barely heard it. My eyes were now on him.

“What happened to him?” I asked Archie the same question I had asked Alex earlier in the toilets. I had no idea what caused Alex to become like this, and it suddenly dawned on me I had no idea if Archie knew either.

“I wish I knew. He wasn’t as bad when we were kids. Then as we got older, he got worse and worse.” Archie told me “My mum told me he wasn’t always like that. I was too young to remember but apparently he was okay. It was like he just snapped overnight.”

“Do you think something happened?” I asked him, because from what he was saying something like this happening overnight is not your standard mental illness. That takes a long time to build up and get worse. It was like something caused Alex to snap.

“If it did he hasn’t told me.” Archie confessed, before adding quietly “He hasn’t told anyone.”

I stared over at Archie and was mesmerised for a second. He was looking at his sleeping brother, so much sadness in his eyes. He could do nothing to help him and he knew that.

I looked up at the window.

“What time do you think it is?” I asked him, genuinely wanting to know how long we had been trapped here for now.

“Do I look like Tim the talking f*cking Clock?” Was his gracious reply, and I closed my eyes to take a calming breath.

“So is this going to go on the entire time? You being a bitch to me?” I inquired.

His eyes were on me “How does it feel having the shoe on the other foot?”

I let out a growl of annoyance.

“You actually make me want to rip my hair out Henderson.” I hissed through gritted teeth, getting seriously agitated with his stubbornness.

He didn’t reply, and the silence echoed around the room for a good few minutes as my mind started to wonder off, thinking back to the conversation I had with Kevin earlier. I let out a small sigh as I stared up at the ceiling, knowing what I had to do.

“I’m sorry.” The words were a whisper, but I knew fully well he had heard me. I didn’t look at him to see if he was even staring my direction, but just kept my eyes planted on the ceiling as I carried on saying what I knew I should have from the very beginning of this God forsaken night “I should have told you guys. I know it wasn’t up to me to keep it from you, and then it wasn’t right for me to kick off at you when you got pissed off. It’s as much your business as it is mine.”

He still said nothing.

I let out a humourless laugh “When I first decided I wasn’t going to say anything I actually convinced myself it was because I didn’t want to ruin your weekend. I thought I was doing it for your benefit. I didn’t even know Alex was out. I thought if you just enjoyed the weekend, hooked up and got f*cked up then come Monday it wouldn’t be my responsibility to tell you because it would all be out in the open already.” I opened up and I realised the only way this boy would ever consider forgiving me was if I told him the truth, which is what I should have done from the get go “I gave him a deadline. I told my dad he had until I got back to tell my mum. I thought I could come here, take my mind off of it and it wouldn’t be my responsibility to tell everyone.”