LOTF: Before and After

Phase 3: Chapter 33

It never got easier; saying goodbye to Jack. And somehow, even knowing that Jack wasn't going home to be with someone else didn't make Ralph feel any better about his departure.

Ralph hated school. He hated that Jack wasn't there, and Sam and Eric, even Simon and Piggy. He hated coming home with no idea of when the next time he'd see Jack would be. He expected things to get easier after the island, after Jack and Emma broke up, after those predicaments that kept him up at night began to fade, but it didn't. It didn't get easier. On the worst of days, it was actually harder.

What Ralph Langley hadn't been anticipating was the constant separation anxiety; the longing, the daydreaming, the counting of days, the extremely slow passage of time leading up to an undetermined day sometime in the future. It could be days, weeks even. He missed Jack. He craved Jack. He couldn't stop scratching at his skin every time he remembered what it was like to feel Jack's against his own. He'd scratched up his arms, his chest, stomach, his face even. Sometimes he'd even bleed, and scabs would form under dried blood. When Ralph looked in the mirror, his skin looked like that of a teenager who tried to shave for the first time, but his reflection was otherwise empty.

It had reached the point where Jack and Ralph's relationship could be considered long distance. Given that they were a couple of thirteen and fourteen-year-olds with no permits, licenses, or reliable mode of transportation, ninety minute's driving distance might as well have been a hundred thousand miles away.

Naturally, the boys' relationship stood on the legs of a telephone line. They were on the phone with one another every single day. Granted, Ralph had to get his parents' schedules down to a T to avoid getting caught. Usually, that meant calling Jack once his parents had gone to bed. Luckily for Jack, his house was big enough that he could use the phone without being noticed or heard. Ralph would only call Jack in front of his parents as often as he talked to the twins. Jack seemed thrilled by all the sneaking around, but Ralph was getting tired. He wished they lived closer to one another. That way, they could spend real time together and avoid all the secrecy and extra challenges.

Jack was only over at the Langley house a couple times a month, for a night or two at the most. He and Ralph made the most of it, of course. But Ralph was losing his patience. Every time Jack came and went, it was harder to say goodbye. He wondered how long it'd be before he could really hold him again, touch him again, feel the tingling inside his skin where it connected with Jack's. It wasn't long before Ralph began to exhibit serious symptoms of depression. He was never in the mood to hangout with his parents anymore. He'd come home from school and go straight to his room everyday. His grades started to sink a little, and his appetite became nonexistent more and more often. Jeffery and Laurie considered the PTSD he'd suffered after the island, and chalked it up to a delayed onset of symptoms.

About two months after Jack broke up with Emma the night of their school dance, Ralph's separation anxiety and depression were at an all time high. He couldn't get enough of his phone calls with Jack, and hearing his voice made it agonizing to have to hang up the phone. Ralph was starting to think it might just be easier to cut Jack off completely than to constantly hold the boy's existence in front of his face with long distance phone calls and short-lived visits that were weeks and weeks apart.

But of course, Ralph would never end things with Jack, no matter how much easier it might be. Despite the torture he endured at the hands of the ninety-six miles between East Point and Dalton, every boost of seratonin Ralph got from talking to and seeing Jack made it all worth it; every excruciating minute.

On a cold Friday afternoon in late November, Ralph boarded the school bus at Eastern Wooldland Academy, relieved that another school week was over. He tuned out the other kids' cheery voices and excessively loud conversations around him. He was one of the only kids on the bus who always sat in a seat by himself. It started to snow for the second time this week on the ride home, and Ralph was already dreading the half-mile walk from the bus stop to his house. Ralph picked at the little scabs on his neck as he rested his head against the cold window. He hadn't talked to Jack since yesterday morning before school, and it had only been for a few short minutes. He was starting to forget what his voice sounded like in person; it had been a couple weeks since he'd actually seen him.