These Days

vii

IT'S JAMES WHO SLAMS HIS ENTIRE BODY AGAINST THE BATHROOM DOOR REPEATEDLY UNTIL IT WITHERS IN DEFEAT AND IT'S JAMES WHO GRABS THE SKELETAL, LIFELESS BODY OF HIS BEST FRIEND IN HIS ARMS AND IT'S JAMES WHO PRACTICALLY LEAPS DOWN THE STAIRS, FACE THE SAME COLOUR AS THE TAN PORCELAIN MESS THAT HE CLUTCHES TIGHTLY TO HIS CHEST. It's James who lays the boy down on the sofa and who rings 999 and who fills the paramedic in on every little detail that he can think of.

Daniel sends the twins upstairs.

Priyanka sobs into her sleeves.

"He's not dead," James assures her, shaking his head as though he's trying to get it to sink in, as though he doesn't quite believe it himself, as though the body he threw into his arms might as well be a corpse. "He's fine, Priya, I promise. He's not dead."

But Priyanka Charter just sobs even harder.

He's not dead he's not dead

he's

NOT DEAD.

Daniel buckles his wife into the passenger seat of their estate car and motions wordlessly for James to follow suit. But he doesn't.

Instead, he jumps into the back of the ambulance just before they shut the doors. It takes a while for him to sit. Everything is blurry. The lights are blurry, their complicated words are blurry and he can still taste the remnants of various Indian spices tingling in the back of his mouth. He wishes very much that he had stopped Aaron back then, that he had grabbed his hand and forced him to sit and share some of the chicken off his own plate.

He knows that it wouldn't have gone down well but then this wouldn't have happened either.

He could survive Aaron hating him. He could never survive losing him.

James blinks hard, fighting back tears. Everything is so loud, pounding against his ears, mumbling along to the bass drum of his stilted heart. The men keep saying things, turning to look at him every now and then with cautious gestures but alarmed eyes. James just nods his head. He has no idea what they're saying.

Oh God, please don't let him die on me.

He reminds himself to breathe: in, out, in, out, IN, OUT. It's hard. It feels like he's drowning, like a gigantic ocean wave of guilt is suffocating him.

He should have done something.

"Has he eaten anything today?" The question is blunt and urgent and it makes James feel like he wants to vomit.

"I - I don't know," James admits, stumbling over his words.

He turns away, burying his head in his hands as the frantic voices blur into the background. The siren keeps screaming up then down then up then down and James half wishes it would just pick a note and keep it instead of warbling in its warning.

They come to an abrupt stop and one of the men reaches past James to open up the back doors. "You're going to have to move," he says pointedly so James jumps out, landing shakily on trembling legs. The world is spinning around him, the car park a blur of concrete grey, the hospital doors a mesh of silver and ugly blue.

He doesn't know how he missed the warning signs. He doesn't know at which point Aaron's excuses for avoiding food became plausible - and when did he become so thin?

How did James not notice?

Aaron gave up football last September, James remembers. He'd said he wasn't good enough. James had tried to convince him otherwise.

And the last time that he'd actually changed in front of James had been way back in July. James had thought nothing of it at the time, but now, he can picture the skeletal ribs that bruised Aaron's dark skin; now, he can recall all of the time that Aaron wasted shivering away despite it being the middle of summer.