Vivaldi in the Dark by Matthew J. Metzger

Author:Matthew J. Metzger [Metzger, Matthew J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2013-11-24T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 20

He chose Monday evening. That way, he reasoned, he could spend the whole week at school, and stay out late with Darren or Charley at least three of the four days, and avoid Mum and Dad. You know. In case it went wrong.

He told Charley he was going to do it on the way home from school, and she’d hugged him on the corner of Churchill Street until he could barely breathe and said, “It’ll be fine, Jay, I promise. Promise.”

He texted Darren—I’m going to come out to my parents, what do I say?—on the hundred-metre stretch between Charley’s house and his own, but there was no answer. There rarely was on Mondays. Vaguely in the back of his head, Jayden suspected Darren just abandoned his phone on Monday afternoons.

The house was quiet when he let himself in. Dad was still at work; Mum had been home, judging by the high heels on the mat, but had gone out again, judging by the lack of a coat. Jayden liberated a can of Coke from the fridge before she could come back and shoo him away to the fruit juice, and headed upstairs with his homework. He wouldn’t do it, but it meant they’ve leave him in peace to mentally rehearse what he was going to say.

He had no idea what he was going to say.

He ramped up the volume on his laptop and opened up his unfinished English essay, but let it sit there. He didn’t care about the sexual references in Othello. He stared at it, left it to stare out of the window, and ended up pacing absently around his room in circles. What was he going to say?

There wasn’t a manual for this. Until Darren, he’d never really thought about telling them because…because why? He’d always thought that it was something everyone worried about too much. He’d figured that once he had a boyfriend, he’d tell them. You know, maybe once he was in his twenties and had a job and a flat and didn’t have to actually rely on them for anything. Maybe then.

Well, he had a boyfriend now. So much for thinking that through.

And now he didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know how they were going to react. They had literally never talked to him about this sort of thing. He didn’t even get the talk from his parents—they left school to do it, and Dad awkwardly handed him a book about sex when he was eleven, and that was it. Discussion over. They’d never…

They’d never asked about him and Charley—in any sense. Charley’s Mum had guessed by the time he was thirteen, Charley had said so, but his parents had never said a thing either way. And not just to him, but…in general. Charley’s Dad was always ranting about what was going on in the news, but Jayden’s parents barely seemed to know the world existed north of Birmingham and south of the water. He didn’t know if Mum was going to cry or rush out and buy a rainbow flag to fly from the roof.

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