And Yet | [boyxboy]

Prologue

The silence is suffocating. The tension so thick that Edwin, with his blocked nose, tries not to breathe. For even his heavy breathing is too obtrusive under the new perplexed situation laid out for the family to digest in the crowded dining room. His mother's hand seems fixed over her mouth as if trying to keep the air in her lungs. His sister's perfect eyebrows are drawn together, scrunching up her perfect face. Edwin's younger twin sisters sit with the exact same puzzled expression on their faces, too young to understand the world they're in yet. And Edwin's father, well, Edwin has never seen his dad look so sad.

Edwin's family was somehow starting to fall apart so suddenly and he didn't know how to process it.

Finally, his mum removes her hand from her rounded lips and composes herself.

"This isn't the end of the world. We can manage." She says reassuringly, nodding around the room trying to make eye contact. When this fails, she carries on. "There's bound to be other businesses needing someone with your skills, right Phillip?" She looks up down at her husband, hope in her eyes.

Edwins father looks up at his wife of twenty years with a tight-lipped smile. "Oh course Julia, we'll manage."

Edwin doesn't think his mother believes her husband all that much.

One month later

"Edwin!" Julia shouts up the old crooked stairs. Edwin's name bouncing off the walls and climbing the stairs until it rolls into his room.

Edwin sighes and puts down his book before bellowing back a, "what?!"

"Can you drop your sisters off at school on your way to the cafe? I need to go into work early today."

Edwin doesn't see the point in replying, his mother wasn't asking, she was telling. But he isn't mad at his mother, it isn't her fault she has to work two jobs now, even if technically, Edwin, at just seventeen, now runs his mother's coffee shop.

No, Edwin is mad that his family has to rush around everywhere. Rushing to save money, rushing to be on time, rushing to keep ahead of the bills, rushing so much that they don't have time to be a family anymore.

Edwin is mad that his dad has been made redundant and now has to work the same job at a different company at the other side of Leeds for nearly half the pay he was originally on.

Edwin's mad that his mother is now a cleaner for an overly-posh shopping centre and her dream as a coffee shop owner had to be put on hold so she could feed her family.

He's mad that his mother has decided to become a host family for an international student because Edwin will have to share his already cramped house with another person who will be a complete stranger. A stranger Edwin will probably be left to help settle in because everyone else is too busy rushing around the place.

But selfishly, Edwin is probably the most mad that he had to take a year out of his education, away from his friends and teachers, so he can work full time at the coffee shop his mother loves, while Edwin secretly hates. His family's life has been flipped on its head and there's nothing he can do but work at a coffee shop five days a week, seven hours a day.

Instead of screaming all this back to his mother, he simply replies with an, "okay mum."

At the same time Edwin's life falls more and more apart, at the otherside of the world, Thomas is trying to pull his mess of a life together.

"I want to go to University in England."

Thomas's father snorts like the pig he is. "And why the fuck do you want to go over there where they're all posh tossers? What, you think you'll learn some English manners and you'll become better than your already shitty self?" His father sniggers and takes another sip of his beer before carrying on. "Do you know what, Tommy-boy, do what the fuck you want, means I won't have to look after your worthless ass."

Anger rises in Thomas at the stupid nickname. "Good job you never have fucking looked after me then isn't it," Tom bites back.

"You little shit!" Thomas's father makes a move to stand up but forgets he left his beer resting on his lap, tipping it's contents all over his already stained top. "Fuck! Fucking see what you made me do! You owe me a new top you little shit."

Thomas rolls his eyes, "it's already stained from when you miss your big fat gob."

"Don't speak to your father like that." Great, his step-mother has decided to intervene.

"Doesn't matter how I speak to him anyway, I'm moving to England to get away from both of you as soon as I graduate."

"You're too thick to graduate, ha! I suggest you apologise to your father right this second before he gets really mad."

"Oh I think he's already mad," Thomas fakes a smile at her, "but I'm going to work, as someone has to earn the damn money in this shitty house, but guess who he's gonna turn that anger on as soon as I walk out that door?" Thomas smirks at his step-mother as her eyes widen just the tiniest amount.

Thomas gives them a two finger salute and spins on his heels towards the back door.

"Hey! I'm not finished with you!"

"Well I'm finished with you," Thomas whispers under his breath as steps out his tiny eye-sore of a house. "I'm so finished with you and this shitty town and my shitty life. I am graduating and I am getting into a University in England. I'm moving away as far as this world will let me."

And as soon as graduation came around, Thomas applied to different English Universities, half way through his summer of working full-time, he got an acceptance letter. He's going to move to England so he can attend the University of Leeds. He's finally going to be free.

This is how Edwin and Thomas find their messy lives entwined with each other. Finding comfort in each other, something neither boy could have counted upon, and neither could have anticipated the story they will make together.