The Devil's Trill Sonata (29 page)

“A day as a class,” Rachel challenged and relented a little. “I called Jayden. Some girl called Leah is bringing him down now.”

Leah? Well, Darren supposed, better Leah than Ella. At least Leah was genuinely all right. She was
real
. When she smiled, it reached her eyes. He’d only met her for maybe a minute, the morning they’d left Cambridge for Christmas, but she wasn’t like Ella, he knew that much. Jayden would be all right with her.

“That was a few hours ago,” Rachel said and grimaced. “It’s nearly noon. You took your time after…well. After.”

Should have taken sleeping pills
, Darren thought, but then he
hadn’t
been thinking, not really. Not properly. “Can you…” He paused, then carried on. “Just flat-sit for a few days? If Jayden doesn’t kidnap me after this, Scott will.”

“Scott?”

“My brother.”

Rachel scowled. “You didn’t tell me about Scott! I need to call him, I…”

“Jayden will have,” Darren started, reaching for her wrist as she half-stood. “He…knows who to call.”

Rachel bit her lip. “…He does love you, Darren.”

Darren closed his eyes.

“He does,” Rachel insisted gently, squeezing his hand. “He was so upset and worried and everything. I know it’s not been perfect, but…but, you know, he does. And I think maybe you should let him kidnap you. It’ll be good for both of you, get you back on track and let you…you know. Recover.”

Recover. Because that was ever going to happen. He’d learned that last night: the dream was over, and there just
wasn’t
a recovery from this. And how would Jayden deal with it? This wasn’t…this was new for him. Hell, maybe this was…well. Nail. Coffin.

“I’ll call work for you,” Rachel continued. “I’ll say you’re ill, that I don’t know the details. You can…say what you like, when you get back.”

Darren squeezed back. “Thank you.”

“And when you
do
get back, we’ll…”

Darren tuned her out sharply. He was a middle child; he had lived life long enough in a house of other marauding children to be perfectly attuned to particular sounds, and the heavy tread of boots that came filtering down the ward had just the right speed and weight to be…

“Speak of the devil, and he shall appear,” Darren murmured. Rachel stopped talking, and gave him a funny look, but then the curtain rattled back and Scott marched into view with a face like thunder.

“Um,” Rachel said.

“Just…go, Rach,” Darren said finally, when Scott stood at the end of the bed with his arms folded over his chest and glowered silently at him. “I’ll call you when I get sprung.”

“Which will be fucking
never
,” Scott snarled.

“Rach,” Darren repeated.

This, at least, was familiar. No matter how bad the bad days were, he had never become…harsh, perhaps, but like Jayden. He’d never weakened: bad day or not, he resisted doing what others said, and most of all, what
Scott
said. Some part of his brain—of
him—
didn’t succumb to moods, and that part was pushing to the front in response to Scott’s closed, hostile stance. Whatever state he was in, nobody else
ruled
him.

“As
soon
as you get out,” Rachel insisted, then bent to hug him once more, tight and reassuring and a little bit desperate, like she was trying to push some of her own strength across. Darren hugged back, and made a mental note to buy her the biggest box of chocolate liqueurs ever when he was out of hospital. He’d never thought about who was liable to
find
him, and of
course
it would have been Rachel. He’d not
thought
.

She slipped out and pulled the curtain to behind her. The moment she was gone, Scott occupied her chair, folding over the side of the bed and leaning on his elbows, glowering at his own hands. He looked furious, almost dangerous. Darren pulled himself a little straighter in the bed and steeled himself.

“I got a call from Jayden a couple of hours ago,” Scott said. “Want to know what he told me?”

“Not really.”

“He told me,” Scott carried on ruthlessly, “that he’d got a phone call from some bird who lives with you that you’d gone and downed a shit-ton of drugs…”

“Codeine.”

“…and were in hospital getting your stomach pumped until you fucking puked all over the fucking hospital.” Or that was a translation, because Darren was willing to bet Jayden hadn’t said any such thing. “He’d said you’d tried to
kill
yourself.” That was more like it.

“Well,” Darren said, picking at the thin sheets. This bit sucked. What were you meant to say to that? “It obviously didn’t work.”

Not that, judging by the way Scott’s face contorted. “It didn’t
work
? What, you actually
want
to…”

“I didn’t take them to see what they tasted like,” Darren returned, pressing back into the pillow and staring at the ceiling. This was why he never told Scott anything; he overreacted and shouted and generally acted rather a lot like Mother. Darren hated it. He wanted Scott to go away. He wanted everyone to just go away and forget about it and leave him
alone
. Was it too much to bloody ask to be left
alone
?

“Why?” Scott snapped.

Darren closed his eyes.

“Don’t
ignore
me, Darren!” Scott snarled, shaking his shoulder roughly; Darren winced as the old scar tissue rubbed around the joint. “What the fuck is going on with you? You went weird when you were like twelve and I put it down to being a teenager and all that shit and then you were gay or whatever, so I figured that can’t be easy when you’re a kid, and you lashed out a bit, sure, and those couple of times you broke your leg I swear weren’t accidents and…”

“They weren’t,” Darren interrupted quietly.

Scott paused. “You’ve done this before.”

“Yes.”

“How many times?”

“Three.” At least, although the first time was so pathetic it barely counted. Maybe four or five, if you counted the car, but he hadn’t even gone properly into the wrong lane, so Darren didn’t think those were real attempts. They hadn’t been the big thought-out things anyway, just…a lapse. A moment. So they didn’t count.

Scott sighed gustily and ran both hands through his hair. “
Jesus
, Darren,” he muttered.

Bitterly, Darren wondered why this came as any kind of surprise. He’d been in hospital three times because he’d tried to do it and failed. Once had even been from an overdose. How Scott was finding it a surprise now was beyond him—but then, that was Scott. The oblivious, cheerful, untouchable brother. The one nothing ever really affected, and if it did, not for long. The one who just
sailed
through fucking life, and…

“You’re coming home,” Scott said finally. “If you think I’m leaving you here to do it all over again, then…”

Oh, hell no. “I’m not going anywhere near Mother and Father in the middle of a
divorce
.” He wasn’t going anywhere near them without the divorce, never mind
with
it.

“You can’t stay here!”

“That doesn’t mean I’m going back to Mother’s,” Darren said sharply. Misha had turned into a tween-ager with an attitude problem worse than his, and Mother was the same obnoxious narcissist at Christmas as she’d ever been, and if Darren didn’t have to stand in the same room as Father and the disappointment that had shrouded him ever since the stabbing ever again, he’d die satisfied.

“Then you’re coming back to mine,” Scott said flatly. “You’re not bloody staying in bloody Southampton in the flat you tried to off yourself in, and pretending it’s all fucking okay!”

“If you can’t be quiet…!” a nurse shrilled, flipping open the curtain and scowling at Scott. She softened at Darren and added, “Would you like some tea, dear?”

“Coffee?” he suggested.

“Mm, I’ll make you a cup of tea,” she said, and Darren relented.

“Milk and sugar, please,” he added, and she nodded, scowling at Scott before twitching the curtain shut again and clacking away in her low heels.

“You’re coming to mine and that’s final,” Scott said sharply.

“No, I’m not,” Darren said equally sharply. Cooped up in Scott’s tiny flat in Northampton with his fury even for two days would be unbearable enough; for whatever Scott counted as a recovery would probably induce a homicide, not a suicide. “I’m leaving tonight, and if Jayden doesn’t strong-arm me into going back to his, I’m going to back to Rachel and my flat.”

“If you
fucking
think…!”

“If
you
fucking think that this means you can make my decisions for me, Scott, you’re mistaken,” Darren spat. “Even if they bloody sectioned me,
Mother
would make that decision. Mother, or maybe Father, but certainly not my
half-
brother.”

Scott flinched; Darren stared up at the ceiling and clenched his jaw, wishing he’d never had to say it. He’d never said it before.

“I’m going back home this afternoon,” he told the ceiling, “and you don’t get to make any other decision for me.”

“Darren…”

“No.”

“
Daz
.”

The pet name burned around the edges of Darren’s ears, and he ground his teeth. “
No
,” he insisted. “I…”

Then the curtain swept back, and every ounce of Darren’s resistance died. Because there stood Jayden, white-faced and red-eyed and silent, even as his mouth worked to speak, and just the sight of him, pinch-faced and distraught, made Darren feel instantly worse than he ever had before.

Darren looked ill.

Well, of course he does
, the little voice in his head piped up, but Jayden noticed it anyway. He was white-faced, dark circles under his eyes, and looked small and thin even though he couldn’t have lost any weight from an overdose. There was a cotton bud taped to the inside of his elbow, and a note scrawled on the whiteboard on the wall that he wasn’t to be given any painkillers or sleeping aids.

Jayden took a hitching breath and swallowed against tears.

“Scott,” Darren said quietly.

“Like fuck,” Scott said, standing. He couldn’t have been more than two inches taller than Darren—and therefore Jayden as well—but he somehow loomed, the dark expression on his face threatening. “Where the
fuck
have you been?” he snarled.

“Scott!”

He worked his jaw, and Jayden glowered back, affronted by the attitude. “Where were
you
?” he sniped and edged around him to snag his chair and pull it right up to the head of the bed.

“Scott, just give us ten minutes, Jesus Christ,” Darren muttered, rubbing the heel of his hand tiredly across his eyes.

Scott huffed and turned on his heel, storming out like a stroppy teenager, and Jayden promptly forgot all about him, folding himself up into the chair and fisting his hands into the sheets. “I…” he said and bit his lip.

“Rachel called you.”

“Yes,” Jayden said and took a shaky breath. “So did you. Last night.”

Darren grimaced.

“I…” Jayden shook his head. “Shit, Darren, I don’t know what to
say
.”

Darren shrugged wordlessly and eyed Jayden’s hands. He looked so oddly normal, and so off at the same time, and Jayden hesitated a moment before slipping a hand over Darren’s and squeezing his fingers.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered lowly, and Darren shook his head. “No, I am. I am sorry. I…I should have answered the phone.”

“You didn’t know.”

“You never call me,” Jayden whispered. “And I should have…been there. Earlier. And I’m…I’m sorry, for…for everything that’s happened since…since.”

“Since I started work and you went to Cambridge,” Darren muttered.

“Yes,” Jayden murmured. He started rubbing Darren’s fingers, trying to push warmth into them. They were cool—well, they were always cool, it was in bed that Darren turned into a radiator—and he didn’t like it. It seemed too close to…to what could have happened. “What…”

He wanted to ask what they were meant to do now. He wanted to ask how they were supposed to handle this. He wanted to ask what Darren needed, even if he didn’t really know, and what this meant for them, that it had happened at all. And yet he couldn’t force the words out, couldn’t push them past his teeth and say them, couldn’t do anything but hold that huge hand and try not to cry.

“Jayden…”

He shook his head. “I should have answered the phone.”

Darren didn’t say anything, and Jayden took a deep breath.

“We’ll sort this out,” he promised and dared to glance up. He then wished he hadn’t, because Darren looked so
shattered
, like all the lights were out, and Jayden had to look away again. “We’ll sort it out,” he promised Darren’s knuckles instead.

“I don’t know if I can, Jayden.”

Jayden’s heart clenched violently, his chest burning for a brief and dizzying moment, then he squeezed Darren’s hand in both of his again and said, “We can try. Come home with me for a bit, and just…I’ve missed you. We don’t…we don’t do so well apart, do we?”

“Apparently not,” Darren said dryly, and Jayden managed a little laugh that didn’t sound like how he felt: like crying, like panicking, like shaking him and screaming for an answer as to
why
, exactly, as to
what he’d been thinking
…!

“I…” he started, about to ask
permission
, for God’s sake, then gave up on the words and lifted himself onto the very edge of the bed, wrapping his arms around Darren’s neck and burying his face into his collarbone. He smelled of hospital and sweat, the tart edges of vomit and a thin overlay of cheap shower gel that said he’d bought a new bottle recently and used too much as usual. But Jayden didn’t care: he was warmer in the shoulder and neck, and there was a sluggish pulse in the artery, and he hugged back—a little stiffly, but he did, and he hadn’t…hadn’t managed it, he was still here, and…