Valediction

"I don't know how I can tell you this," I said nervously. "I'm...not going to be here much longer, I'm being transferred to a new job."

The look on his face was strange, an unlikely mixture of shock and teenage indifference. "What do you mean? You'll still be living here, won't you?"

I drew a deep breath before I thought of continuing, more to delay the moment of having to speak than for the need of oxygen. "Nicky...I...I'm sorry, sweet boy, I'm...going away." Tears were close, but I was trying to be as strong as I could.

"You are joking, aren't you? This is April Fools' Day, and my calendar is wrong, that must be it." He laughed, a forced, humourless sound.

"There's nothing I can do about it, my job here has finished, the next contract is in Surrey. I have to go where the work is, you know my job is so specialised that I can't pick and choose - it's my fault, I thought this day would never come, even though I knew it was inevitable. I should never have got involved with you, it was a disaster waiting to happen, for both of us. I'm so sorry."

Nicky buried his face in his hands, breathing raggedly - I couldn't tell whether he was laughing or crying. Long seconds passed, building into minutes, still nothing except the gasping sibilance from behind his fingers.

"Nicky..." I began, uncertainly, "Nicky, please say something, even if it's only an insult, even if you want to tell me to go to hell."

"I don't want you to go to hell, Rich, I don't want you to go anywhere. You're the only person in the world who cares about me, my life will be over if you leave. I don't know...I don't know what I would do without you."

I knew his words were coloured by the emotion of the moment, but I also knew he wasn't exaggerating very much. His parents were divorced, his father had left the country, last heard of as a bouncer at a nightclub on the Costa del Sol, his mother had a new partner, another divorcé with two kids of his own, much younger than Nicky, who got the best of everything, material and emotional, while Nicky was seen as an embarrassment to the family, very bright, certainly, but unconventional, not seen as a good role model for his younger step-siblings, never abused, but decidedly neglected, especially in terms of love and affection. I'd first met him, nearly a year earlier, a slight, rather fey figure, with dyed hair and clothes which, on first viewing, seemed not to match, but, on closer inspection, had been chosen with fastidious care, to create a specific impression, that of someone who wanted to be noticed, but in a way that made the observer have to think about what they were noticing. I couldn't have missed him, literally or figuratively, because he walked straight into me, just near the medieval bridge in the centre of his small home town. He'd stammered his apologies, but it was hardly necessary, it was obvious his mind was elsewhere, not least because he'd evidently been crying - it transpired that he'd had another in the lengthy and lengthening series of arguments with his mother, about his appearance, his supposedly uncooperative attitude, his lack of respect, but this particular argument had got far more personal than its predecessors, his mother had shouted that she didn't want anything to do with a son who walked round looking like a rent boy, at which point he'd stormed out of his house and into my life. We ended that afternoon by having coffee and cake in the 'award-winning' local café, finding that we had much in common and arranging to meet again the next day, a Saturday.


One of the things that we had in common was conflicted sexuality. Nicky, at 15, had had girlfriends, he was a more or less averagely good looking boy for his age, no Adonis, but no ugly duckling, either, but wasn't convinced that girls were going to be the story for him, he found them physically attractive but intellectually uninteresting, he told me, and the intellectual was always a big deal for him - he'd been the bright boy at primary school, always at least a year ahead, academically speaking, of his coevals, and had gone on to be the bright boy at senior school, the only pupil in his year who'd been put forward for the regional 'Gifted & Talented' student programme. His intellect was a double-edged sword, needless to say, he'd found what appeared to be friends, but who were only interested in parasitising his intelligence, to do their work for them, while having to also having to contend with snide remarks, often from the same people, about being a 'nerd' and a 'Teachers' Pet'. Partly because of his school experiences, and partly because of his unhappy home life, he'd become an internet afficionado at an early age, and in the course of his random 'surfing' and more detailed research, real research, not simply cruising around the usual teenage haunts online, he became convinced that he might like to at least try a same-sex relationship, feeling as he did that he was far more on the same wavelength with his own gender than with the opposite. My teenage experience was a close parallel to Nicky's, exaggerated still further by the fact that I went to a single sex school - I was almost infeasibly successful academically, but socially gauche, had tried going out with girls, had found the experience unsatisfactory, but didn't know whether that meant I wasn't inclined towards them, or simply couldn't cope with the social situation. I'd gone on to university much the same person as I'd been in my earlier teens, a high achiever, but completely inept in dealing with people. Now, in my mid-twenties and with a master's degree in information system management, I was in Nicky's home town working at the head office of a large company on a contract to completely overhaul their I.T. infrastructure, bringing it from the 1970's into the 21st century, still on my own and still with little idea of where I wanted to be on an emotional level. 


Our relationship was something that we both desperately needed, but it took us some time to both realise that fact, and the fact that it could actually happen. We were both so starved of love and affection that we had to proceed like famine victims saved by an aid convoy, painfully slowly, as though too much closeness too soon could kill us by surfeit. We spent a lot of time together, virtually all of it either in the café in town or at my rented flat, talking about anything and everything, a lot of it on a level that Nicky had never had the opportunity to operate on for any length of time - his intellect was being challenged, and he proved himself more than capable of coping with that challenge. The first time things moved from ivory tower purity to the much messier realms of everyday emotion came as a huge surprise to both of us.


I hadn't seen Nicky for a few days, because I'd had to go to my company's head office in London for a series of meetings about the progress of the work I was undertaking, things, largely, that could have been discussed on the phone, but the etiquette of company politics seemed to demand face-to-face contacts periodically, a kind of 'This is what we do, because this is what we've always done' mindset. I arrived back on the last train on a Friday evening, well after 11:00, the only passenger to alight, although a few weekend revellers noisily boarded, no doubt on their way to the nearest nightclub, in the slightly larger town a couple of stops further down the line. My flat was only around five minutes' walk from the station, and I was thinking no further than heading there, having a cold drink, and going to bed, when I was stopped in my tracks by a voice from the shadows.


"Hi, Rich."


"Nicky! It's a nice surprise to see you, but I wasn't expecting the pleasure of your company until tomorrow."


"Home isn't a good place to be right now, the little angels have dropped me in it again and SHE has taken their side, just for a change." Another row with his mother, undoubtedly. "Can we go to yours?"


Nicky had been to my flat in the evening before, but never as late as this.


"I guess so, but, at the risk of sounding like an old fart, it's pretty late."


My hesitancy was evidently clear in my voice, because Nicky reacted badly to what I'd said.


"Thanks a lot, I sit on this bloody station for an hour waiting for your train to arrive, and you want to send me to bed like a 5 year old. Don't worry about me, I'll find a park bench to sleep on!"


"Hey, hey...Nicky, come on, I didn't say 'no', I just don't want you to be in any more trouble with your mum."


He snorted. "She doesn't care if I live or die, as long as that bloke and his kids are happy. I don't know why she doesn't just sell me into slavery, and have done with it!"


It was obvious that he had no intention of going home, and I knew that he didn't have any other friends that he could turn to, so I had no real alternative, however reluctant I felt about having a 15 year old in my flat at that time of night.


"Come on, then, it's cold here, let's go and get out of the weather."


He smiled, briefly, before lapsing back into his dark mood. We hardly spoke on the short walk to my flat, and not for several minutes after we'd arrived. I made him a coffee, and he sat on the sofa sipping the hot brew while I drank a cold Coke, and regarded him levelly. The tension in his demeanour seemed to ebb slightly, but I was still on edge, as though a single misplaced word could snap the mousetrap of his anger into action again.
He finally spoke.


"I...I missed you, Rich."


"I missed you too, Nicky - you're my best friend at the moment, the best friend I've ever had, I think."


"I've got something for you." He set down his mug and stood up. I stood as well - there were only a couple of inches difference in our heights, so it wasn't a case of my adult trying to dominate his child, we were equals, and had been from day one. He reached in his pocket, and pulled out a small jeweller's box.


I took it from him, and opened it slowly. Inside was a thin gold chain, long enough to form a bracelet, obviously not too expensive, but still a big investment for him, in more ways than one.


"Nicky...it's really nice. I don't...I don't know what to say."


"I bought it because...because..." His voice faltered, his brain not seeming to have the power to compel his lips to frame his thought. "Because..." Another agonising moment of uncertainty. When he spoke again, it was almost inaudible. "I love you."


I was stunned. No-one had ever spoken those words to me in the way that Nicky just had, I had no words in my vocabulary to respond appropriately. My lack of reaction was evidently been taken by Nicky as bad news, and he looked as though he was about to cry.


"I'd better go, I'm sorry, Rich, I should've known I was wrong. I've ruined everything."


He started towards the door.


"Nicky..." I began. He stopped and turned to face me. "I think...I love you, too."


We stood there, ten feet apart, looking into each others' eyes. Finally, impossible to say on whose initiative, we came together, and each wrapped the other in our arms, his head laid on my chest, my face pressed into his bleach blond hair. Our lives as lovers had begun.


****


For the next nine months or so, our lives seemed to be lived within a cocoon, just large enough for the two of us. Apart from my work and Nicky's school days, we spent virtually all our time together. I've no idea what Nicky had told his mother and her partner, or even if he told them anything - I never once met them. They must surely have known that he was more or less living with someone, but maybe he was right, maybe they didn't care, and were pleased that he wasn't around. Virtually the only time he was at his family home was when I was away on my occasional trips to London, and it was on the last of these trips that the bombshell, which I was too wrapped up in myself and my love for Nicky, and his love for me, to see, fell upon us. Before I'd met Nicky, it would've been 100% good news, the job had gone remarkably well, finished a month ahead of schedule and on budget, the customer was delighted, my boss was delighted, talking about a large bonus heading my way, but all the words clanged against my head like rocks against a suit of armour, because the bottom had just fallen out of my world, with the news that my boss already had my next project lined up, at a large local council office in Surrey. I was just the man for the job, my boss was saying, after the contract I'd just completed, this one should be a walk in the park. 'Surrey' was the only word that registered in my mind, at least 250 miles from Nicky. How could I have been so besotted not to have seen this coming, how was I going to deal with it, how the hell was I going to tell Nicky?


When I saw Nicky, and told him, I had immediate visions of calamity. I was distraught at the prospect of being parted from him, but he seemed to be on the point of losing his reason completely.


"I can't Rich...I can't live without you. I'll come with you."


"Nicky, you know and I know we can't do that, not at the moment. I want to be with you, too, but you're not 16 for another month, I'm not telling you you're too young because I want to reject you, but because it's just not feasible for us to be together yet. Finish your schooling, then we'll find a way to make it work. Two years, that's all, and I'll see you as often as I can in the meantime."


"How can you not understand, you're the cleverest person I've ever known, I CAN'T. I'll die without you, can't you see that. You're my only reason to live."


"Nicky, Nicky, please, sweet boy, please calm down." I was trying desperately to follow my own advice and keep calm, if both of us became hysterical who knew what might happen.


"I thought you loved me, you'd never leave me if you really loved me." He flung himself face down on the sofa and completely broke down, sobbing uncontrollably.


I put my hand gently on his back, but he wriggled violently until I withdrew it.


"I do love you, Nicky, I really, really do. Think about it, and you'll see it's true. I love you more than anyone else in my whole life."


"But you're going to leave me," he choked out, "you're going to say goodbye."


"Not goodbye, sweet boy, just au revoir. I promise you, it won't be goodbye."


He turned and sat up, ramrod straight, and looked into my eyes, almost through my eyes, into the centre of my skull. "If you go, it will be goodbye."


"Are you telling me that you don't believe me?"


"You don't believe me, I told you I'd die without you, but you don't believe that."


"Nicky, I have to work, to earn a living. You have to get an education so you can do the same. It's not a case of loyalty or betrayal, it's just part of the practicalities of life. We've been living a dream for the last year, nearly, we have to bow to real life sooner or later."


"You really don't understand, do you Rich?"


Nicky's tone of voice had changed, had become ominous. He leapt from the sofa, and almost before I had a chance to move, he'd dashed to the kitchenette in my flat, then reappeared in the living room brandishing my largest cook's knife.


"Nicky, please, don't do anything silly." I'd never been involved in anything remotely like this in my life, and if anyone had asked me how I'd react, I'd have expected to panic, but, in the face of reality, I felt preternaturally calm.


Nicky lurched towards me, but I forced myself to stand my ground, even though I couldn't take my eyes off of the blade in his hand, now only inches from my face.


"Nicky, put the knife down, please."


His response was to draw the knife back, and to thrust it towards my chest. I closed my eyes and flinched, waiting for the blow. The blow never came, instead a groan, and a single, strangulated word.


"Goodbye."


I opened my eyes, to see the handle of the knife protruding from Nicky's chest, as he slumped to the ground.


Goodbye, sweet boy.


****


Author's note - I can't seem to get the font size right for this post. Apologies to all


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Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B