The Devil's Trill Sonata (28 page)

He’d never
actually
…not since before
them
, he’d never…

“All right.” Leah stopped him in front of his door. “Get some clothes together. Your friend told me what’s happened, and frankly, you look like you’ve been slapped with a tank, so I’ll drive. Come on, get a bag together. You won’t be back tomorrow, you know.”

“I…what?”

“I’ll drive,” Leah repeated simply, rubbing his arm comfortingly. “You need to get down to Southampton, you need to do it
now
, and you’re not fit to go on your own. You need someone. So I’ll take you.” She then took his keys and proceeded to walk him right into his room.

Jayden sank down onto the edge of the bed, the cold sinking into his bones. His room had never looked so small, and it had never looked so
painted
with Darren. The green Oxford hoodie was slung over the back of his desk chair, his comfort blanket in the evenings when they were on the phone or Skype, and they hadn’t done that in ages. Too long. He snagged it and dragged it into his arms, crushing the fabric to his chest and smelling it. He could smell Darren’s aftershave, very faintly near the hood. And he had
pictures
, pictures he barely remembered putting up, paper printouts stuck around his computer screen and tacked above the window like a big, messy frame. And his
favourite
picture, framed and positioned carefully on the side table: a photo of
Darren
, of himself with Darren, of Darren at his very best, from school when they went to the coast with Paul and Ethan. He was soaking wet, the sky was overcast, he was wearing a coat two sizes too large that he’d nicked from Scott, and he was grinning. Properly grinning, that huge ridiculous smile that took up his entire lower face because he had a big mouth as well as big hands, and he’d looked so beautiful, and he’d tried to kill himself, and Jayden hadn’t answered the fucking
phone
.

Oh God, what if he
died
? Rachel didn’t say what he’d
taken
, she didn’t say what was
happening
, had the hospital called his parents and his brother? What if he
died
, what if they
sectioned
him, what if they took him away and drugged him up and Jayden hadn’t answered the fucking
phone
…

He gave Leah two hitching breaths in warning, and then he burst into tears.

* * * *

Theoretically, it was about two and a half hours drive to Southampton, or at least it would have been in decent traffic and a reasonable hour. At half past nine in the morning, which was when Jayden had managed to collect himself back to something resembling a human being, throw together a bag of his things, and let Leah drag him by the wrist to her clapped-out car, it took closer to three and a half.

For the first hour, Jayden could do nothing but stare blindly at his phone and try to think beyond the looping mantra of
Darren tried to kill himself
that was circling in his head. He couldn’t wrap his brain around it. Darren had tried to
kill
himself. He’d taken an overdose and tried to…he’d felt so bad he’d
wanted
to die, and how had Jayden let it all go this far that his
boyfriend
wanted to die? How had he let go enough to let Darren get to that point, how had he not
realised
? Darren didn’t
call
. He didn’t do it! He called if Jayden told him to, and he called if Jayden had said something particularly offensive or mushy in a text, but otherwise he just
didn’t do it
, so
why
hadn’t Jayden answered?
WHY?

And it hurt. The idea of breaking up was nothing compared to this. The fear when Darren had not gone home that awful night in Year Eleven and had been found covered in blood in the park—that was nothing compared to this. This was…this was indescribable. This was the worst Jayden had ever felt, and he didn’t know if Darren was going to die, and what if he did? What if he didn’t? Suddenly, Jayden’s brain and heart and lungs and
chest
decided to remind him just how much he
loved
this frizzy-haired idiot he’d found himself with three years ago, and the idea of losing him,
proper
losing him, losing him
forever
…

Eventually, he brought himself to make the first phone calls. Rachel wouldn’t know them, he suspected, and Darren had never kept his home phone number saved in his mobile anyway. So Jayden had to do it. He had no idea what to say—or whether to say it—to Darren’s parents, and he didn’t actually have the phone number for the house at Hayley Lane, but he had Scott’s, and Paul’s, and Ethan’s, and…

In the second hour, he called Scott and Paul. He had to make Paul promise to tell Ethan, because by the end of that, Jayden wanted to cry again: Paul had been floored, furious, and begun making arrangements to come up immediately and promising to strangle the pair of them, and it hurt all over again to re-realise just how much Paul and Ethan loved Darren, just as much as Jayden did if not in the same way. And then Scott’s reaction—his disbelieving, furious reaction—brought him to the edge of tears. Scott hadn’t been worried, hadn’t been upset, he’d been
furious
, because he was Darren’s brother and they shared a tendency to get mad instead of get upset, and Jayden deserved it, he really did, but
God
he didn’t want to hear it. When he hung up, the first tear escaped and ran down his cheek.

“Hey,” Leah reached across to squeeze his arm, “it’ll be okay.”

“Scott’s on his way,” Jayden croaked.

“Who?”

“Darren’s brother.”

“Well, that’s good,” she said encouragingly. “He’ll need lots of people who love him, your Darren. And don’t worry about Cambridge. I can call the college dean and everything for you, once we get there. I’ll sort it out for you. Don’t worry.”

Jayden nodded, chewing on his lip, but it was in one ear and out the other. He couldn’t focus, because Darren had taken an
overdose
, and he was in the
hospital
, and the heavy ball of fear and dread had lodged in his throat like a golf ball.

“Jayden.” she squeezed his arm again before returning her hand to the wheel. “You said Darren’s depressed, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“So…I mean, has he ever…?”

“Not this,” Jayden whispered. “Not…not since we got together, anyway. When he was younger, there were a couple…”

“How?”

“Jesus, Leah, I don’t know! I didn’t
ask
. I can
guess
, but…”

“But he survived those, didn’t he, so he’ll sur…”

“Just because you survived the last car crash doesn’t mean this one won’t kill you,” Jayden returned bitterly, and she fell silent. He squeezed his phone in his fist, and took a deep breath, willing it to ring. Willing Rachel to call and say Darren was okay. Willing the hospital to call—not that they’d even know to call him, or want to. Waiting for Scott, even though he could only be a half hour ahead of them, even if he’d jumped straight in his car and gone immediately. Waiting for…for
someone
, for
something
, for…

“I can’t lose him, Leah,” he whispered, and it was true. “I
can’t
.”

It had
always
been true. He just hadn’t
known
it.

On the last day of their exams, Scott had given Darren his old car. It had been a present, sort of, and he’d promptly bought a new monstrosity, because if Darren had a limited sense of fashion and design, Scott’s was even worse. The new car had been a bright orange sports car with lurid yellow racing stripes, and the moment Leah turned into the hospital car park, Jayden picked it out.

“Scott’s here,” he croaked.

His throat still ached, and his face felt puffy and raw, but he didn’t care. He was all cried out—at least, until he saw Darren for himself—and now he itched to
know
. Not to have to think and worry anymore, but get answers and hold him and
know
what had happened. The phone hadn’t rung once for the entire journey, and he was twitching against the seatbelt before Leah even parked. He barely waited for her, striding off the moment she had the pay and display ticket on her dashboard. He snapped at the nurse at the reception desk when she took more than a minute to call a ward, and broke into a jog down the relevant corridor when she gave him a cold look and pointed a manicured nail off to her left.

It was a large hospital, and the smell of it took Jayden straight back to that long spring night when Darren had been attacked on his way home, but at least
that
time it hadn’t been
Darren
doing anything, he hadn’t
chosen
it, he hadn’t…

But
this
part, the uncertainty, was the same. Maybe this time Jayden knew more about
why
he was in the hospital, but he knew nothing about
how
he was. An overdose could be anything, he could have
taken
anything, he could be dying or he could be fine, and
ward three
didn’t mean anything,
ward three
just meant ward-bloody-three, and…

He stopped dead in front of the double doors to the aforementioned ward, and felt suddenly sick. Leah rubbed his elbow, but said nothing, and Jayden wanted to hug her and make
her
go and find out instead. He was scared: his stomach churned, his head ached, and his feet felt glued to the floor. He was terrified to move, and terrified to stay, and…

“Come on,” Leah said and pulled slightly.

She asked at the nurse’s station; another long finger pointed them towards a bay, and then Jayden could hear Scott’s deep voice, and plucked back the curtain. Scott sat beside the bed, looking rumpled and haggard, but Jayden looked right past him to tired, sea-green eyes and sheet-white skin, and the world narrowed to Darren, and Darren alone.

Jayden opened his mouth and didn’t know what to say.

* * * *

It had been like dreaming.

Darren didn’t believe there was any such thing as ‘the last thing one remembered…’ because it never seemed to work like that. The last
clear
memory, the last
proper
one, he’d been popping pills like a junkie in his room, but everything between then and now had been
there
, just…hazy. Dream-like. Real, but not quite real.

He’d heard a girl crying, and his face sort of stung, and a lot of lights. Dizzy lights, really, because they’d kept flashing past and whirling around his head and he’d not been able to keep track of them. Some woman had kept calling him ‘Darren-my-love.’ Then there’d been a lot of pain, from his hips to his ribs, and someone petting his hair.

The smell of antiseptic really woke him up, though, chasing out the dreams, and there was still someone petting his hair. It was jarring, as though the world had changed from one blink to the next, because they were two different hands, the first in a glove and all stubby, the second familiar. Long, narrow fingers and bony joints and a little twitching tic in the thumb. A left hand. Rachel.

“How are you feeling?” she whispered, because Rachel was a lot sharper than she gave herself credit for, and Darren sighed.

“Like shit,” he croaked. He did. His throat burned, his stomach hurt like he’d taken a beating, and he still felt the piano on his chest. Still felt heavy and lethargic, still felt like the curtains had been closed on the entire bloody universe and he was no closer to escape than when he’d started. When he was younger, attempting had kick-started his brain, forced out the darkness in the wake of the survival instinct that had kept him alive at all, but this time…this time he’d failed. Again.
Again
.

He cracked open his eyes. The curtain had been pulled around the bed, and he had no restraints. Ah, the NHS. Busy and anonymous; he could go by this evening. They couldn’t stop him. They were too busy and too apathetic to stop him. And they wouldn’t stop him even if they wanted to, because if he stayed, they’d have a psychiatrist in the chair by the morning, and be discussing various anti-depressants, and Darren did have a little pride left.

“I called Jayden,” Rachel whispered, looking pale and drawn in the visitor’s chair, and Darren closed his eyes. Jayden. Oh Jesus, Jayden. What the hell was Jayden going to do?

“He’ll kill me,” he joked feebly, then Rachel twisted into the side of the bed to hug him, planting her face into his neck and grimacing into his skin.

“I’ll kill you first,” she promised softly. Somehow, the edge of kindness dug into Darren’s skin and he felt the warning burn behind his eyes.

“Rachel, I…”

She squeezed. “I
understand
, Darren,” she said in a low and significant tone, and Darren folded up an arm to grasp her elbow and squeeze it. Her hair smelled of cheap supermarket shampoo, and she was warmer than the bed. Warmer than him. “I do understand.” Of course she did. He’d seen the very edges of her moods too, recognised something in her that mirrored himself. Seen a reason to know her, the odd woman in the flat next door with sex issues. Maybe their reasons were different, but the outcome was the same.

“Why aren’t you at work?” he asked eventually, and Rachel snorted before sitting up and folding her arms.

“I
found
you,” she said tartly. “By the time the bloody
ambulance
arrived I was late anyway, so I might as well hang for…for…”

“A sheep as a lamb,” Darren finished, clutching on to the normality of her ranting. He just wanted normality. He’d been here before: the worry, the fussing from friends and family, the bullying nurses and arrogant doctors insisting on him
staying
, and the amount of fit-throwing he’d have to do to get out…it was all coming, all waiting outside the ward, and he wanted desperately for it to just go away. Had someone called Mother and Father? God, he hoped nobody had called Mother and Father.