Notebook [Book One]

Thirty

"She was so adorable!" Aiden gushed again as he wandered around the bedroom, slinging items of clothing over the back of his desk chair, trying to decide what to wear to the restaurant. He had never been to a party before, so deciding what to wear was a little overwhelming.

Nathan nodded in agreement, his fingers fiddling with the fluffy material of the blanket that the Lewis family gave him that morning.

The deep, black material felt like satin under his hands, like the most precious thing he owned. He was so transfixed in his thoughts that he didn't notice the orange-haired boy watching him with complete adoration in his eyes.

The older boy seemed calmer and at peace since leaving Matt's house.

Spending time with his best friend and his little sister helped his dark mood and stopped him from spiralling into sadness. Instead of hiding in the bedroom and breaking down in isolation, he tried hard to be present and feed off the surrounding positivity.

Seeing the boy she had treated like a son for years, even when he rejected and pushed away her maternal advances, filled Matt's mother with pleasure. The tall, slim woman smiled with something like pride when she saw Nathan take Aiden by the hand and lead him upstairs.

The couple looked around the room, which the older boy had used as a bedroom until a few months ago.

It was a plain, cream-coloured room decorated more like a guest bedroom than something belonging to a teenage boy.

Nothing in the room gave away the dark-haired boy's personality. Nothing in the room screamed his name. Despite being given permission, he'd been living in a plain box room, unable and unwilling to personalise it to his taste because Nathan never felt as if he was home.

A small part of Aiden felt sad about that.

When he moved from Croydon, the first thing his parents focused on was making sure his room was the way he wanted it, hoping that the change in the environment would make him comfortable.

They let their son pick the rich green colours for the rug and the walls, placed the furniture wherever he wanted, and carried his books to the bedroom as he slept on his new bed.

The orange-haired boy remembered that first week fondly now, even if it was difficult at the time.

Aiden was a nervous wreck during the first few weeks after the attack, which heightened especially during the unsettling move.

Every sound and noise set him into utter panic.

The boxes scraping as they opened, personal belongings clanging together, and books thudding on the desk made his heart race. He couldn't look in the bathroom mirror for the longest time without triggering violent flashbacks, so it stayed covered until the day the towel fell off.

But the first day of seeing Evan helped bring him back to some kind of normality.

When his younger cousin came in with a bright smile on his face and lay on the bed, pulling Aiden into a tight hug, he felt more human.

Evan didn't know then what he knew now. He had no idea that the then pink-haired boy was hiding his face, but he knew that he had been bullied and hurt, just not the extent of the situation.

So the younger boy spent all day with Aiden, several days in a row, until he could communicate without freaking out or shutting down. All that came from the sanctuary his room provided him, and Nathan never had that.

He didn't have a space where he could feel secure and relaxed, even at Jago's.

Jago let his friend stay whenever he wanted; he didn't need to ask or even tell him he wanted to stay, even so, it wasn't a place he could decompress and deal with his feelings in privacy.