AFTER
It's like getting hit by a truck but it's quick and fast and you don't have enough time to really know the pain, really feel it. 'Course I've never been hit by a truck and no one I know has either so I can't even say for sure what that sort of pain must be like or if this is even the right comparison to make.
But that's the only way I can picture it - if you can picture pain - and it's a big, violent red truck heading for me, honking its horn - beep, beep, beep, move, move, move. I've never been quick at reacting to things. I'd be the idiot in the disaster movies that doesn't move when the tsunami comes hurtling down on me. Crash.
I can't fucking believe I've spent the last two weeks thinking about red trucks when I should be thinking of Adam. Apparently this is normal.
"It's natural to block the grief out at first," I'd heard mum whisper to dad when they thought I hadn't been listening. Adults really are as dumb as they look. "Matt's been quiet," she continued, "but it's normal, Alf. Trust me."
"I've watched three of my five brothers die growing up." Dad heaved a great big sigh. That's when I knew this - me - was being taken really seriously. Dad wouldn't talk about them before - not like this, so openly, so bluntly. "I think I know what normal grieving is, Diana."
Mum sniffed. "Just leave him be, Alfie," she said. "Our boy's strong. He's...he's going to be fine, I know it."
"It's been two weeks since Adam-since he...Matt hasn't said a word to anyone."
"I told you it's normal."
"He needs help," Dad said. "A psychiatrist. A doctor. And he can sit his GCSE exams next year. The trauma's too much to handle, he can't cope."
I smirked when I heard him say that and, because it'd been a habit of mine to do so, I mentally thanked Adam for giving me a one-way ticket out of doing my exams. And then I heard a voice in my head.He's dead, Matthew. Then, I let out a hollow laugh, disgusted at myself.
I think Adam would've cried by now. He was always the emotional one.
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School.
I finally go to school. Dad is not happy.
I've always hated school even before all of this. You know those really awkward, goofy looking guys in those low-budget high school rom-coms? The ones who don't really have much of a part in the movie, except maybe to crack a few bad jokes that no one actually laughs at? Yeah, you could say I was one of them - maybe marginally better looking-also, minus the stereotypical buck teeth and glasses.
I'm not popular at school but not a social reject either. People would say 'Hi' when I walked past, but then roll their eyes back as they tried to recall what my name was. Some wouldn't bother. Others would give up and stalk off sheepishly. It was okay. They didn't remember Adam's name either.
Today, his name is the only thing that rushes past everyone's lips when they see me.
I'm not sure whether Adam would've been happy or embarrassed about this.
"Hey Matt," Kelly from my Maths class says, clapping me on the back, like she's forgotten that the last time we had a proper conversation she'd told me to fuck off. "I'm sorry about your friend," she says. "Adam right?"
I nod, wondering to myself if it's okay if I return the favour and tell her to fuck right off too.
"So..." And she leans in and for one startled second I wonder if she's going to kiss me. "Adam," she repeats instead, "d'you know why he jumped, then?"
I am disgusted by the curiosity that she's so desperately trying to hide.
This is the part where I'm supposed to give her a clever answer and walk away, leaving behind a stunned audience of spectators. This is the part where everything is supposed to start being okay again. This is the part where I want Adam to walk in and tell everyone, tell me, that we've made a right fool out of ourselves. He's been alive all along. He hasn't jumped off that cliff, Ridge Raymond. And you all fell for it. Har har.
But before all of that happens, Hina Farooqi joins Kelly and asks me the same question again. And I'm reminded that it's not Adam that's making a fool out of me. I'm doing that all by myself, deluded into believing this is really - this is really just...all a dream. A really long, terrifying, gut-wrenching dream.
I say nothing. Because that's what they deserve - nosey Kelly and dim-witted Hina - all of them, my classmates, my teachers. Fucking nothing.
They're all long stares, sympathetic smiles, awkward nods and condolences that hang emptily in the air. Exactly like how I'd expected it to be. Just a big ball of cliché. Fake. Meaningless.
Almost laughable. But I don't have it in me to do anything of the sort.
They can't get a reaction out of me and I'm not crying either, and I can tell that confuses all of them. They tip-toe around me, careful not to say anything that might set me off, like I'm an explosion just waiting to happen. Mrs Macmillian, our English teacher, who is an atomic bomb herself, doesn't even bat an eye-lid when I don't hand in the essay that was due in two days ago.
I'm sure that eventually people will just shut up and leave me alone if I continue to do this, avoid them like the plague, meander around the school halls like a zombie, unresponsive but then Oliver happens. Then Oliver decides to remind me of his disgusting existence.
The infernal dickhead approaches me at the end of school and he looks thin and colourless and his eyes are hard with something unrecognizable. We've always hated him, Adam and I, and the feelings are mutual. But I never supposed he'd hate Adam even when he stopped being alive.
He doesn't even smile when he says it.
"So the fag's dead then."
I'm happy I don't hesitate when I launch on him.
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We're sitting outside the head teacher's office and two weeks ago I would've been scared shitless about what this would mean for my squeaky clean school record but, when your best friend kills himself, stuff like that doesn't really matter anymore.
Oliver has an ice-pack over that beautiful black-eye I've given him and I keep glancing over to look at him. He doesn't seem aggravated at all but rocks back and forth on his chair. He's whispering but I don't care enough to listen in. I think he's crying.
That punch must've been a fucking painful one then.
I smile for the first time that whole day.
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