The Burden of Secrets

Chapter 13

"You know about me?"

Zach looked away shyly.

"Not really...just that I have two half brothers."

"Right."

I felt awkward then.  I had presumed he didn't know about us but now I wasn't sure why I would have made that assumption.  Maybe his Mum had told him the whole story, whatever that was.

There was an extended pause.  He looked away from me to the floor and I realised that I was staring.

I looked down at his beaten up vans.

"Your school lets you wear those?"

He nodded.

"Lucky, mine is super strict." I gestured to my feet. "You have to have 'proper' black shoes. No trainers, nothing."

"Yeah my school is fairly lax with uniform.  Where do you go?"

"Whitwell."

He looked surprised.

There was another pause.  I tried to find something to talk about to fill the silence.

"Is your guitar ok?"

He looked down at the case, and dusted some debris from it.

"It should be fine.  You really didn't have to get into it with Bryan.  He just likes to muck around with me sometimes."

Picking on him more like.

"So he is your friend?"

"Um, yeah, well, we all hang around in a big group most of the time."

The protective feeling I felt towards him rose again but I swallowed back any comments.

"I'm sorry he hit you."

His reminder seemed to bring the pain into my consciousness: the adrenaline that had been masking it now long gone.

My cheek throbbed and I rubbed my aching hand.

Zach hesitated for a second, glanced at his watch and then spoke:

"I don't live far.  Do you want to come back to mine and get some ice?"

Ice sounded good right now:  I nodded.

I followed him - walking by his side this time.  I kept sneaking looks at him when I thought he wasn't looking.  I guess he was doing the same as our eyes met once and he reddened slightly, and pushed his black hair out of the way of his eyes again.  I noticed finer details now.  A few stray hairs going the opposite way from the rest of one eyebrow: a small, silver scar running at the top of his cheekbone near to his eye.

It was only a few minutes until he reached into his pocket and pulled out some keys.

"It's just in here."  He gestured to the small block of flats in front of us.   I followed him to a ground floor doorway.

He opened the front door and poked his head in first, before letting us into the flat.

There was a small corridor with the kitchen to the left.

"Go sit down, I'll get some ice." 

 I went ahead to the small living room that he had gestured towards.  There were two old couches and a TV in the room.  A small table covered in newspapers was up against the wall, with three chairs neatly tucked underneath.

There weren't any pictures on the walls or anything much at all really. The curtains were half drawn, making the grubby interior look worse.

Zach came back in with some ice in a bowl and some wrapped in tea towel.