BEFORE I DIE, I PRAY TO BE BORN | ✓

▬▬ 36

FRIDAY
15 NOVEMBER, 1996
DORIAN

               'My parents said they'd get you expelled if I kept talking to you.'

Isaiah freezes. Fear swallows him. He shakes his head, silently begging me to shut up, to not tell him this, but he's right, I do have to participate in my own life. I've always cared more about him than I do myself, but I won't bend to his comfort this time.

There's no place I belong but him and I can't fathom the torment that awaits if I never get to touch him again. Six years passed like a century in a desert; what will the rest of my life be? I have to tell him everything.

'Well, what she said is they'd revoke your scholarship but even I'm not daft enough to miss what that actually meant. My family are Coeus founders, this town's founders. My dad was best friends with Zelikowitz when they attended. You know all it would take is one word. You only got in because of me, it wouldn't be hard to kick you out.'

His lips form a single plead that leaves him without sound: don't.

Battling the ache in my chest that agrees with him, that implores me to be quiet (because his eyes glisten and I've already hurt him enough, haven't I hurt him enough?), I stand.

'I couldn't be the reason you got stuck here. So I left and I made sure you never wanted to talk to me again.'

Tears clog his lashes but don't fall. Isaiah staggers into the chair I sat on only yesterday to work on my music (was that really only yesterday?), and, throwing a nauseated glance at my notebook of score paper still open on the table, buries his face in his hands.

Every cell in my body wants to break it and I twist my limbs, contort my fingers to fight the urge.

Isaiah puts me out of my misery with a jaded question: 'Why are you telling me this now?'

I'm not sure what he means until explains.

'Why didn't you just tell me this from the start? If your muma ain't want me to talk to you, we could've pretended till graduation.'

My muscles slacken. The stillness is equally unbearable.

Tongue clamped to the roof of my mouth, I turn to the window. We arrive at the true cause of my shame and I'm unable to look at him. Somehow him thinking I'm a coward, my mother's puppet, an all-around arsehole aristocrat was better than him knowing what I really am is an idiot. There's no artistic way to spin that.

'I thought it would be kinder to let you hate me.' It leaves me exactly like it should: a pathetic whimper.

'What the fuck, Dorian?' I don't have to look at Isaiah to know his state is the opposite of my molten one: his voice is taut, spit through a clenched jaw (a migraine is guaranteed, pray that's all he'll get). 'Do you have any idea how badly you fucked me up? On what fucking planet was that kinder?'

The wilting flowers of the common gorse lining the opposite side of the road blur behind my tears. 'Somehow it felt like a good idea at the moment. I regretted it as soon as you left but then I reckoned the damage was already done and I would just be pouring salt in the wound or giving you emotional whiplash if I came after you.

'I kept telling myself to phone you, to tell you, to apologise. But it got harder with each day and then... then six years had gone.'

A new silence settles into the room like dust from a beat rug. The floor is clean at the sacrifice of breathing. I glance at Isaiah as he sits up and peels his hands from his face to massage each bone in his fingers.