Catboy

02: flashback

Lawrence stared through the shop's window, a sad sort of smile on his face. Inside the store, rows and rows of tiny little cakes shone in the pale afternoon light, decorated in roses and little sugar beads. 

With a slow breath, he forced himself to turn away, shoving his hands in his jean pockets. His hands closed around empty air. For one of the first times in his life, he was utterly penniless. Penniless- and alone.

He kept walking, but tears were beginning to prick at his eyes, and he tried to blink them back. It was no use. His breath came out in ragged sobs. 

He walked, almost blindly, to the park where he had slept, trying to find his bench through memory. His vision was obscured by tears. He made it to just under a tree before slumping against it, letting the sobs take over his body. 

Alone. Alone. Alone. 

And, all of a sudden, he wasn't alone, because two boys were standing over him. One of them wore a beanie and had light, silver-grey hair, and the other had red hair. One of his eyes was obscured by the mass of red, the other a bright, shining blue. He was the first one to speak.

"You okay?"

Lawrence glanced up, smiling bitterly. "Absolutely fantastic," he replied, his accent slipping over some of the words. He hadn't lived in Russia for a long time, but he carried it with him, a reminder of the family he had lost, that he had left behind. This was too much for him. He began to cry again.

The boy with the grey hair rolled his eyes, a particularly striking shade of orange-brown. "Look, dude, we're not here to try and turn you over to the police or whatever."

He recognised these boys. He had seen them before, maybe at the school he had gone to, back when there was enough money to go around. He remembered those orange-brown eyes. He remembered red hair.

He remembered a tree sticking through an eye socket.

"Lloyd?" he asked, his voice verging on disbelief. "Why're you out here?"

"Luckily for you," Lloyd replied smoothly, "Julian and I were just going on a run." And, with that, he held out his hand. After a few seconds of Lawrence's stare, he gave an exasperated sigh. "Come on, dude. Just come stay with us for the night."

"No!" The words slipped out louder than he had wanted them to. Lawrence clutched his own mouth, ashamed and worried someone might have heard. Thoughts raced through his mind. If he went to Lloyd's house, his parents would probably be there, and they'd see the state of Lawrence and call the police, and he would be sent to a foster home, or, even worse, moved back to Russia- "I can't stay with you."

Lloyd sighed again. "Christ. We live alone," he said, gesturing at Julian. "It's just us and his older brother."

"What? Why?"

"We have to move a lot for scholarship opportunities and stuff," Julian told him. "It's easier for us to just stick together until we get into uni." He tilted his head towards Lloyd's outstretched hand. "You're not gonna get caught out."

"What, so you're just gonna take me in out of the pure goodness of your hearts?"

Julian glanced over at Lloyd. "I mean, after we've gotten you settled, it'd be nice to have someone else to help pay our rent."

"I don't have a job."

Lloyd stared down at him, a tired, steely glare, and Lawrence remembered why the two of them hadn't been friends. To put it simply, Lloyd was intimidating, but only at times- and those times usually coincided with when Lawrence was around. "Then you can get a job," he said calmly. "Now, take my goddamn hand and get up. My arm's getting tired."

Lawrence took it. Rising to his feet, he was much taller than Lloyd, and only a few centimetres taller than Julian. "Fine," he said slowly. And then- "I'm sorry."

Julian shook his head. "Nothing to be sorry about."

And so the three of them headed off towards the apartment, the place that would become Lawrence's home for the next few years.