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Kyle
(boy with the lip piercing ) is staring at Theo again as we head back into the building for the fifth period. He's resting against one of the walls with a handful of friends when we climb the steps, ignoring them and watching Theo while twisting the ring on his middle finger absently.

My head is still buzzing with Theo's compliment.

So I don't tell him.

"Do you want to go up onto the roof?"

"You can..? Never mind, of course, you can. Sure."

Theo smirks and we head into his kitchen, back at his house after a day at school and a bus ride. Georgia is cleaning out the oven so doesn't look up as Theo yanks the fridge open.

"Do we have any more caviar?" he calls, his face lost in the middle shelf. He pulls it out and smirks when he sees my raised eyebrows. "Kidding. Do you like dragonfruit?"

"Do I like what?"

I can see him roll his eyes from inside the fridge. He grabs a weird spiky fruit thing, some chocolate, (plain and white) (I'm guessing the dark's for me. I told him randomly yesterday that it was my favourite) and a bottle of cider, glancing at Georgia as he does.

Because, yeah, we're gonna get pissed on cider. Note the sarcasm.

"Don't fall!" Georgia yells, more than halfway inside their massive oven. "Don't switch on the gas."

"Piss off."

"Piss off yourself."

Shaking my head, I take the cider from Theo and cradle it to my chest as we exit the kitchen and make our way up the stairs. He's already ripped into the white chocolate and sucks on a piece as we congregate on the landing. He tosses the other opened bar over his shoulder and I catch it deftly, biting right into it and humming as the flavor explodes over my tongue.

"Don't you break it off first?"

I try to say "What?" but it comes out more like "Horf?" with my mouth full. Theo takes my chocolate, disregarding the slobber, and breaks off a piece, sucking on it. When he smiles (widely, deliberately, so I get a faceful of it) his teeth are the same shade as his skin. I nearly choke on my chocolate. (From laughter. Yeah.)

"You literally bite into your chocolate," he says after swallowing.

I nod.

"You're awful."

Nod. I'm rewarded with a smile and a glance at his eyes as he brushes his hair to the right side of his forehead.

"C'mon, then. We can get there from my room."

I swallow the chocolate and follow him into his bedroom, which is in a state of disarray with clothes all over the floor and the bed unmade. He heads into his walk-in wardrobe and reaches up to grab a string hanging from a trapdoor nearly hidden by his painted ceiling. As he stretches, a strip of golden skin appears between his t-shirt and the waistband of his jeans.

The ladder. A ladder flips out from the trapdoor and lands in the center of the floor. Theo stops and grabs something that's square and covered in fabric and a fabric case from a corner then heads up. I stare pointedly at the bottom of the ladder.

When Theo's at the top, I follow. We emerge on the roof and the wind immediately bites at me, making me shudder despite my new leather jacket. Theo, as he did two days prior, steps right towards the edge of the roof but sits down this time, his legs dangling over the edge. I keep my distance.

The view's even more beautiful than the one in town. It's of fields: fields that stretch out to the horizon in shades of green, brown and yellow, decorated by hedges and the occasional tree. There's a farm on the hilltop but other than that we're alone for miles. The house doesn't have a garden - it just opens up to the world.

"Luke."

I look down at Theo, who's staring at me over his shoulder. He's settled the fabric-covered square and pencil case down next to him and is looking at me, his hands fitted snugly between his knees. The wind catches his hair, sending it into a halo around his forehead.

"Come sit," he says, patting the section of the roof next to him. I shake my head violently, even though part of me that isn't terrified out of my mind wants to.

"Why?" I just shake my head again.

"Are you... afraid of heights?" I take a step back, shame keeping my lips fused together

"Why didn't you say anything?" he looks at me like I'm stupid. "Do you want to get down?"

"It's a nice view," I say, my voice a little too high.

He shouldn't cosset me by letting me stay away from the edge. If I'm not allowed to be weak, I won't be weak. (That's what my dad always said, at least.)

Theo swings his feet off the edge (I feel my heart leap into my mouth because he's way, way, way too close to the drop) and walks towards me. Then he passes by me and sits down in front of a chimney that I didn't notice at first because I was afraid of how high up we were. He rests his back against the brick and raises his eyebrows at me.

"We don't use the fireplaces. This good?"

After a moment's hesitation, I nod and sit beside him, tucking my knees into my chest.

"Why didn't you say anything when we were on the roof on Tuesday?" Theo asks, so quietly that his voice is nearly snatched away by the wind. "I wouldn't've made you go up there if you were scared."

You were distracting me.

"I didn't think," I say. He frowns at me like I'm weird, which I guess I am. But I don't think. I never, ever think until it's too late. '

He shrugs. "Well, open the cider. I'm going to finish my painting."

"Of me?"

"Yeah. Shut up and be a good muse."

"How can you finish it if we're not even in the same place we were when you started?"

"Because I'm just that great." I roll my eyes and he laughs. "Kidding. I took a picture, but I'll look at you, too."

"Why, thank you."

"Shut up, shitty model."

I laugh and pop open the bottle, taking a swig straight from the neck. (Hopefully, he's not so much of a germaphobe that he can't share a bottle with a dead boy.) As I bite into the chocolate, Theo shuffles a bit so he's sitting away from me and pulls the fabric off the square thing, which I note a little too late is actually a canvas, the same one he was working on when we went to the art workshop.

"So... can I see it?"

"No!" I snort with laughter into the cider and the bubbles shoot up my nose, making me splutter. Theo looks at me sideways and laughs, taking the bottle from me and having a swig when he's sure that I'm not going to choke. (The cider disappeared from my throat and nose as soon as it started to bother me.)

"Now you've salivated all over it," he whines.

"Didn't stop you from drinking it." He hums, sticks a paintbrush in his mouth, shuffles away so he's sitting diagonally to me and proceeds to attack the canvas. For a while, the only sounds that reach my ears are the wind, the small scratch of brush on canvas and his occasional sigh when he messes up and has to rub some of the paint away. Soon, the sleeve of his expensive-looking hoodie is covered in streaks and splodges of paint. I watch the view, the pounding in my heartless severe with the fall more than ten paces away. He glances at me every few seconds. When we make eye contact, we both look away. I can't tell in the growing darkness, but I think he might be blushing.

"This is awkward," I say eventually.

"You're making it awkward."

"How can I be anything but awkward?"

"Just act natural."

"How can I act natural when you're painting my every move?" "Shut up, shitty muse." I laugh and he just smiles, distracted once again by his painting. After a while, he looks up from the canvas and squints at it. "I think I'm done."

"Can I see now?"

"No! Never. You can't ever see it."

"Why?" I grin slyly. "Were you lying about it being me? Is it actually something inappropriate?" "Yes." He gives me a deadpan look.

"Yes. I drew a massive, throbbing cock on it and I'm embarrassed to show you. Yes. That's it."

I smirk and hold out the cider to him, pulling my new beanie lower over my hair. After propping up the canvas (pointing away from me) on his pencil case, he shuffles towards the brick chimney again and rests his back against it, so close to me that I think it might be intentional.

We sit shoulder to shoulder, breaking pieces of chocolate off (because he insisted I stop biting it straight off the bar) and eating them between mouthfuls of cider.

As the sun dips lower to our right, the wind picks up. When Theo shivers twice in a row, I shrug my new jacket off and offer it to him. When he refuses, saying he doesn't mind, I offer him one half. It's certainly big enough. He concedes at this, shrugging on the left sleeve while I stuff mine back into the right. It means we have to sit even closer, my left shoulder overlapping his right, our hands very nearly touching

And as the sun begins to set, he rests his head on my shoulder like it's nothing.

"No homo," he mumbles, his breath making goosebumps spring up on my neck. "I'm super tired and you have soft shoulders."

"So I've been told." He hums in amusement and lets his eyes slide closed.

--------------------------------------------

"Dinner!" Georgia screeches, making Theo and me jump apart and nearly tear my new jacket. By the time we scramble out of it, she's already vanished back down the hatch with a smirk plastered on her cheeks.

"Thanks, for the, uh... you know, the jacket..." Theo mumbles, picking up his painting and clutching it to his chest. It's dark now and I can barely make out the lines of his face even though I can still feel the warmth of him coursing through my dead body.

He fell asleep with his head on my shoulder and I let him. Not for him, but for me.

"Don't mention it," I mutter, pretending to check my jacket for tears so I don't have to meet his sleep-heavy eyes. And I know it would be better if he didn't mention it.

(I can still stop this. This attachment. But do I want to? Maybe he's worth it.)

"Shall we go down to dinner, then?" he says, a bit too cheerfully, before practically sprinting towards the trapdoor and tossing it open. By the time I reach the hole, he's already down the ladder and making his way out of the closet.

But he waits for me by his bedroom door, canvas covered again and lying on his bed, and we go down together. When we get to the kitchen, Theo engages in a mock argument with Georgia where he begs her to let us eat on the sofa.

"Your father said that you should always eat properly when you're in," she says, grabbing three plates expertly (she's eating with us, apparently) and heading through the large door that connects the kitchen to the overly posh dining room.

"A rule he could enforce himself if he was actually here," Theo mutters, but it's only for my ears. I hold out my hand a little so it brushes his as he walks past, just so he knows I'm here.

When we walk into the dining room, Georgia's set the plates out and is in the middle of lighting candles. She looks up, grinning like a teenager. "I thought it would make for a more romantic atmosphere."

"Georgia," Theo sighs dramatically while I die inside, striding forward and blowing out the candles one by one as she lights them. They start going around the table in a circle, Georgia lighting a candle and Theo blowing or pinching it out immediately after. It's such a waste of lighter fluid.

Finally, I clap my hands and all the candles go out. Georgia looks up, surprised, and mutters something about the old house being draughty. She sits down at the head of the table and I sit next to her so she won't have to keep looking up at me during the meal and forgetting what she's doing. Theo sits opposite me and, as Georgia goes to grab a sneaky bottle of wine, leans over to me and whispers "Buzzkill."

I smirk. "It was painful to watch."

Theo flumps back on the chair, trying to look annoyed but failing as his thin lips curve upwards.

When Georgia returns we open the wine (which is more potent than the cider, even to me) and dig into the food, which is some kind of curry that makes my eyes water even though it doesn't seem to bother Georgia and Theo shoves it down like it's his last meal. Afterward, I collect the plates (which makes Georgia smile with cloudy eyes) and help her load them into the dishwasher. Theo pushes himself up on the counter, next to the drying rack, and chats to both of us while she washes up. I stand opposite and lean with my elbows on the side. Every now and then, Theo dips his hand into the suds and blows a bubble at me, which I pop with a lazy hand and a smile that doesn't seem to want to leave my face.

She's scolding gently. He's chatting. His eyes are lit up. He looks so happy. And I feel like I'm glowing.

Then a phone rings. We all fall silent. Even the song that we had been playing off Theo's phone ends abruptly. I don't know why they're so quiet all of a sudden - so tense - but it tightens my chest and banishes the light growing there.

On the third ring, Theo slides off the counter and walks to the phone like he's in a trance. Georgia goes back to the washing up, attacking the pans with a strange fierceness. I follow Theo.

"Dad's the only one who uses the landline," he mutters, without looking around. Like he knew I would follow.

Oh.

On the fifth ring, Theo picks up the phone - and puts it on speaker, just loud enough that I can hear but Georgia, who's bashing around in the kitchen, most likely can't.

It's a slap of reality. Suddenly, I remember that this man is the cause of all Theo's problems, a man who hit his son for being gay. But also the reason he was my newest soul. The reason I met him.

"Hello?" Theo says, and he sounds so vulnerable that I ache for him.

"Theo?" a voice returns. It's bright, chipper, like a businessman sealing a deal as opposed to a father talking to his son for the first time in days.

"Hey, Dad. How are you? How's work?"

"Good, good," his dad says. "Really good, in fact. We've been snatched up by that San Francisco group and I'm going to be representing the company in two weeks. Which means-"

"When are you going to be home, Dad?" Theo asks. There's tension in his voice that makes me reach out and grab the sleeve of his hoodie. "When are you going to be home?"

There's a pause confirming that Theo wasn't just jumping to the worst conclusion.

"It's a massive opportunity-"

"When. Are. You. Going. To. Be. Home?" The man at the other end of the phone sighs like he's being accosted by a baby asking for sweets.

"Three more weeks, Theo. Then I'll be back."

Theo visibly freezes. I let go of his sleeve and grab his wrist and that's when he moves; he shakes me off violently and grabs the phone with both hands, pressing the plastic into his cheek. "Mum... mum's..." he whispers, and it looks like he's breaking and I just want to hold him together

The man sighs. "Spit it out, Theodore."

Theo gulps then shakes his head and hisses into the phone so quietly that I nearly don't catch it. "Mum's birthday is in ten days. We need to visit her. The lilies-"

"Theodore," his father says, cutting him off. "This is the business opportunity of a lifetime-"

Theo's jaw tightens. Then he slams the phone down, cutting off the call.

--------------------------------------------

a note from me

woo hoo i updated 


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