Lies Like Love

SEPTEMBER: LEO

LEO

‘So.’ Graham looked at Leo. ‘How’ve you been?’

Leo rubbed his hands through his hair then grinned. He picked up his glass of water and drank it down in a long gulp. Graham watched, waiting.

‘I’m OK, I think. No, actually, better than that. I’m fine,’ Leo said, clearing his throat and nodding as if to assert the truth of his words. Graham sat forward, pleased. He liked this lad.

‘Yeah? Good, that’s what we want to hear. You’re sleeping all right?’

‘Yes. Fine. It’s all the running.’ Graham laughed and Leo smiled, a small grudging smile. You had to when Graham guffawed like that; the noise was so large it demanded acknowledgement.

‘Ah, yes, the power of fresh air and exercise. It’s underestimated, you know, Leo. You’ll be joining me, then, for the marathon, this year?’

‘No. I’m not a fanatic, unlike some.’ Leo met Graham’s eye. His therapist had a rosy face, blunt nose and a wide laughing mouth. He could say anything to him.

‘All right, well, we’ll see. You’ll be a convert yet.’

Leo shrugged.

‘What about friends? Found any of them yet?’ Leo wasn’t really interested in any of the kids round here or their lives. But Graham said that wasn’t a healthy attitude, that he needed to interact and make an effort. It was a theme.

‘Yeah, sure, I have friends.’

‘I don’t mean kids you pass the time of day with, Leo.’ Graham leant forward again. ‘I mean people you talk to, open up to.’

‘I know what you mean. And I have you for that, don’t I?’

‘No. Not all the time.’

Leo thought about it. Since he’d come to live here, he had his aunt, and Graham, and that was about it. The guys at school were all right, he’d been out to a few parties and so on and there were plenty of invitations and some girls who’d been friendly too. Too friendly, some of them. Like Lizzy Carr. But mostly he had lost touch with his past and that meant there wasn’t really anybody to text or call, or just sit and talk about nothing with for a while.

‘All right,’ he told Graham, ‘point taken. I will make an effort.’ He saluted, made a serious and determined face and Graham nodded and the consultation time was up. Leo wandered out to find his aunt, who’d been browsing in the small art gallery in town while he’d had his therapy. The word made him feel ridiculous, but Graham didn’t; Leo always came out feeling just a little bit more certain that the days were going to get brighter and better and the past was just that. Past.

They drove home to the farm through the rich, thick brightness of the afternoon, the sun shining on turning leaves that tunnelled the lanes back into the country. The feeling that summer wasn’t quite done with, not yet, that he could snatch a bit of that time back, hold the green for a while longer, made Leo itch to get home and out into the last of the day. He’d spent July and August outside, in the woods, the fields, cycled some days to the sea, throwing himself into the rising waves, hot and tired after the ride. And now, in mid September, he was thinking of what lay ahead, not behind.

He thought about school. Friends. It was an easy way out, to say you didn’t like something therefore you didn’t need to bother. Leo decided he would have to try.