Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Harry (8)

Three forty, three forty-one. You’re awake, watch the last digit change. It’s a red light, stretching out over the room. You think of school, of Jessie’s blood. She lost some through her nose today.

John sleeps next door. He snores. (You don’t snore.) He’s five. Today he showed you a story he ‘wrote’ of his own, about an owl and a dog. It was a sad story. The dog died, and the owl was sad forever. He makes many mistakes, but he’s a clever boy. After kindergarten, he always reads a lot at home. He’s been reading for a year. He’s clever, but he’s still small for five. You like reading too, but you don’t like writing. You like drawing. You made him a picture of the owl and the dog holding hands. It’s on his desk. They’re laughing, they look happy. He was angry. He wanted them to cry. He said even if they’re together they’re always crying.

Three forty-three. The numbers look weird. They’re nicer when you write them. John’s look ugly. He makes them look like the block numbers of the clock, but at least they’re not like fire.

You’re tired, you should sleep. You’re awake. You think of the chocolate cookies Emma shared with you in school. John doesn’t like them, but he’s always eating other sweet things. You always tell him grandma will take him to the doctor and they will take out his teeth because all the chocolate and jam will make them black, but he still eats. He kicks your shin when you make the sounds, the bssssss! bssssss! that sounds like angry bees.

He kicks your shin often, especially when you call him small.

You want to sleep. Your blanket is scratchy. The shadows on the ceiling are tall and black. They come from outside, from the street. You don’t like them. They’re moving. One night you looked out your window and looked at the ceiling. You figured out they’re moving because the car lights make them move. You still don’t like them. They scare you.

Three forty-five.

John isn’t snoring anymore. Downstairs, there is noise. A door opening, a door closing. It sounds like thunder. Thunder is always too loud. You don’t like thunder, but the door-thunder is okay. When it happens, nobody hears John’s door opening and closing and your door doing the same. Your ears hear small steps and quiet breathing. You see a shadow moving towards you, try hard to make out the shape. John always looks taller in the shadows.

He climbs into your bed and curls into you, and you pull the blanket over him. He’s shaking, as if it’s cold. You put your arms around him, pat his back. Your head sticks out of the blankets, and you’re looking at the door. You feel like a tower. You’re watching out.

John is warm. He is small. He weighs almost nothing. He disappears under the blanket.

You’re a tower.

You’re trying not to shake, but you don’t know if it’s working. It’s not cold. Downstairs, there is more noise, other noise. You hear John’s breath, fast now. You see the shadows move on the ceiling. It’s a tower, it’s a tree, it’s a man, it’s a woman. The shadows scream and cry. It’s a nasty sound. The shadows laugh. It’s nastier.

You like ghosts more. Ghosts make no sound. They’re small, and quiet, like John.

But the ghosts never come, it’s always the shadows. Sometimes you think it’s good that the shadows are there, because then that means that nothing else is happening.

When they go quiet, there’s no other sound, and it’s too quiet.

You slip under the blanket and wrap yourself around John like that animal with the many arms that lives in the water. It’s hot with John’s small body against yours, with him breathing hard and hiccoughy. You try to pull his hands from your back. He holds tighter. It’s too quiet outside, and he’s too loud. You feel like that one tower now, the leaning one that isn’t standing straight. John weighs much now, and he’s pushing you to the side until you think you’re falling.

Things are running like panic through your head, but you see Hansel and Gretel walk slowly through the forest. Your chest is tight, and you don’t know if it is because of how quiet it is or because John is holding on so tight.

“You remember Hansel and Gretel?” you murmur, and it sounds loud. “Gretel gets Hansel out of the stable. And then they leave the house. Do you remember?”

John is shaking. His head is firm against your shoulder. His fingers hurt your back.

“I’m Gretel. You’re Hansel. Okay? And I’ll get you out of the stable.” Your voice is strange, and you think of the earthquakes you talked about in Geography in school. Mr Leeds showed you the Mercalli scale. You think of five. “And then we can leave the house together like they did. Promise.”

You keep talking. You say, “Shh,” and kiss John’s head. You say, “Gretel always gets Hansel out of the stable, doesn’t she?” and pet John’s hair. It’s soft. Your hands feel like your voice.

“We can leave the house, and I’ll break some chocolate for you from the door. You can have the chocolate,” you tell him like it’s a secret. With you under the blanket in the silence it feels like one. “I won’t make you go to the doctor. It’s okay. You can have the chocolate.”

You can’t think of anything else to say and keep petting John’s hair. After a while, his breathing becomes slower. His hands let go a bit, but still hold on. He presses his face against your throat. It’s wet.

“P-promise?” he says after a long time, and his voice is so small like he is. “Promise, Harry?”

“Of course,” you say immediately. You feel like fire when you speak, even though your face is wet too. “You’ll get all the chocolate you want. And no doctor.”

John giggles bit. There’s a puff of breath against your wet throat. It tickles. It makes you giggle too.

“No, not the chocolate,” he whispers. You feel him shake his head. “Hansel and Gretel. The house.”

You breathe in. Say, “Oh.”

When you walk home with your friends, they’re always trying to see their own shadows. You never play with them and always look ahead. You don’t want to see your own shadow. You don’t want to hear it scream, or cry, or laugh. Sometimes you look at the clock and see three forty-five even when it’s five fifteen or six thirty. Sometimes you feel like it’s three forty-five forever. Sometimes you imagine the tower falling. Today, after John read you the story, you imagined the owl dying too.

John is small. He’s five. He’s small for five. His head reaches your chest only. You will be taller even when you’re ten and thirteen. You think you’ll always be taller.

“Of course,” you say. Your voice is a nine now. In it, houses fall. People panic. Walls crack. You wonder if promises can be broken if the voice that speaks them is. “Of course, John. Promise. Promise.”

Your pinkies promise too.

When John falls asleep, you think of witches burning in ovens.

Chapter Text

Harry (11)

Grandma’s house doesn’t smell like cookies anymore.

You’ve always liked it here. It always did smell of cookies, and in winter nights of hot chocolate. The winter mornings tasted of clotted cream. John and you always fought over who would get more of it. Grandma’s house smells of Brussel sprouts, now. And the blanket of our sofa, the one everyone always sits on and nobody ever washes. You don’t think you like it here, anymore, which is good, because you won’t be coming back anyway. John and you won’t fight over clotted cream again.

The only good thing about it is that father was gone for the last days arranging the funeral.

“Harriet, will you please take care,” mum is scolding you. Her hands are wet from doing the washing-up. “Look at your dress!”

You look down at yourself. Your black dress is stained with suds of the washing up liquid and dirt from the dishes all over the front. You bite your lip to keep from grinning. You hate the stupid thing. Father isn’t here. You want to run outside with John and the other boys and get it dirty in the wet grass.

Not that John will get his suit dirty, anyway. The thought makes you pull a face.

“Mum, can’t I just go outside to play?”

“Not until you’re not done here,” she says, shaking her head. You stick out your tongue at her when she turns.

“John is outside,” you mutter resentfully and put the next plate too hard on the table. “He’s playing.”

John is eight now. You had to do the dishes when you were eight.

“He’s a boy,” mum says. “You’re a girl, of course you have to help me with the washing up.”

You hate this.

“But why?” Your voice is high now, loud. You’re demanding. It’s okay with mum. “It doesn’t even make sense!”

“Because I’m telling you to,” mum says, but she’s smiling slightly when she whacks you upside the head with the towel. “Now quit whingeing and go on.”

She’s wearing a black dress, like you. You both wear long sleeves. It looks right on her, but it feels wrong on you. You don’t know why. On mum’s front, a necklace with a silver cross glints in the kitchen light. She doesn’t wear it often, and it makes you think of church Sundays. You used to go regularly, but you don’t, anymore. You think father didn’t like the way everyone was looking at him or mum. When they started looking at you too, you stopped going. John and you are both sad about it. You liked being out of the house, and John misses the church. He likes the music and the stories. You think you both liked it best when you went with grandma.

“Harriet, stop daydreaming,” mum says. “The dishes won’t—”

Loud steps from the hallway interrupt her. They’re heavy, fast, coming towards the kitchen. You know them. You echo them. Your chest goes heavy, your heart fast. You feel like your hands are gripping your throat, but you see them hold a plate. The skin above your upper lip and your palms begins to sweat.

“Go,” mum whispers, hurriedly. She’s white. Her hands are on your shoulders, urging you towards the back door. “Go, go to John—”

There’s so much sweat on your hands that the plate slips from your fingers. It breaks at your feet. You both flinch away from it.

Father’s here.

He’s not touching you, but he hurts you anyway. His eyes are red, like his face. His hands are large. He is tall. He’s standing in the doorway. He’s angry.

He’s not touching you yet, but he hurts you anyway, inside.

And then he hurts you outside.

“No, no, no, it was me,” mum is saying, over and over. “It was me, let her go, it was me—”

Father isn’t listening. He says, “Whore,” and it sounds like a roar. He strikes her hard and she falls back, hits her head on the table-edge.

You begin to cry, but it’s quiet. If you’re loud it’s worse. Your hands are fists too, by your side. You keep them there. If you try to defend yourself it’s worse.

He is tall, and his hands as fists are large. They’re on your arms, your legs, your stomach. Places no one can see. Your dress is long, with long sleeves. He is spitting, “Good-for-nothing,” and “Can’t even do the fucking dishes,” and “What are you even here for!”

Your body hurts. It hurts so much. You’re crying, but it’s quiet. You’re not even saying “Please,” anymore. The last time you did he kicked you.

“Useless woman,” he says, and you are. He’s taller. His hands are large. Mum isn’t moving. You think it’d be nicer, if you couldn’t move. He’d stop then, if you weren’t moving. He hates you, and it hurts inside and outside. You like outside better because inside never stops hurting. Outside becomes numb, sometimes. He hates you. He’s hated you for a year. You don’t know if it’s because you’re a girl. You think if you were a boy he’d still hate you.

“Harriet!” comes from outside, a young voice. Excited. Happy. John. John, who comes barrelling towards the kitchen on his little feet. “Harry, Harry!”

“No,” you’re saying, your first word with father in the room. Your arms are weak and burn, but you lift them. Your hands grip your father’s wrist. It’s disgusting. “No, no, father, stop, no—”

He isn’t listening. He never is. He should.

Suddenly, in the doorway, John. His blue eyes are large, and he’s handsome in his suit. He sees your ceiling shadows in daylight. There is one more shadow now. Father never does this to him, never will. You’re so glad. He never does it when John is here, so John never sees. John. He’s too young. He shouldn’t see. He mustn’t see. He sees.

You’re crying harder, say, “No, no, no, look away,” your voice like trickling sand, and you’re a tower that falls, have leaned too much to the side.

You’re falling.

Your body must hurt, but you don’t feel much anymore. Father doesn’t let go. He stills, his hands on your neck. You’ll have to wear a scarf tomorrow, or they will see you’re blue and yellow. It’s not winter. This is also falling, but another kind. Father is looking at John. John, in the doorway, frozen and staring at you. As white as mum.

John, who could read with four, is stupid. He’s a stupid, stupid boy.

“Father,” he says, his voice trembling like so many leaves in the wind. “Father, please let her go.”

He’s small. He’s so small in the doorway, and so stupid, and so brave.

You don’t believe in God. You don’t like his commandments. The fourth says, honour thy father and thy mother, but it doesn’t say honour thy children. You don’t like it. You don’t like God. But you’re praying.

Please, don’t let John see mum, please, let him be safe—

“Get out, boy,” father says roughly. He’s looking at John. He isn’t moving. His breath is on your hands, hot, branding. You’re still touching him, gripping his wrists. It’s useless. You’re useless. “Get the fuck out of here. You’ve seen nothing.”

“Let her go,” John says. “Please.”

John doesn’t cry. He hasn’t cried since he was seven. Somehow you remember that some leaves in autumn are so dry they break upon touch.

“No,” you say, and father says “No,” too, and he takes a step towards John with your throat in his hand, and he says, “I thought you weren’t as stupid as the other two,” and John doesn’t cry, and he doesn’t move, and he’s shaking, and he’s small, he’s so small in the doorway.

“Get out!” you yell, scratchy and breathless. “Get out, get out, GET OUT!”

Before you think about it you kick father in the stomach, and your yell becomes a scream, and John can’t listen to screams that don’t belong to shadows. He understands, and he flinches away, he steps back, he turns, he runs outside and leaves—

and father stills, he stills, he stills and he turns and he looks at you, and, he, oh, oh, God, oh God—oh—God—

---

John doesn’t kick your shin anymore.

Chapter Text

Harry (14)

The sun is hot on your back. Ellie’s trousers are smooth against your cheek. You stare past her and Lily at some boys playing footie in the furthest part of the school playground. They’re always playing footie, and they’re always staring after girls. Must be pretty boring.

“Would you swallow?” Lily asks, all hush-hush, head bowed down. “I mean, isn’t that disgusting?”

Ellie says nothing. Maybe she shrugs. You can’t see her, with your face in her lap. You like Ellie. You like her more than Lily. Lily is always talking about boys. Ellie is too, and she’s just as excited, but she’s quieter about it, and she can talk about other things too. It’s best when Sarah and Bree are there, but they’re both skiving off school today. Summer hols are close. You’re not skiving off; you don’t want to be home. Your mum drunk more often than not, and father… is father. Even though you completely go by ‘Harry’ now, he still hates you. You still wear long sleeves in summer.

“Dunno,” you say. Lazily, you add, “Probably,” even though you have no idea what she’s talking about.

“Eww, really?!” Lily giggles. It’s shrill. “Would you really, Harry?”

“Yeah,” you say. “Course. Wouldn’t you?”

Lily gets all flustered and moves her hands about. “I, I don’t know, I mean, I’ve never…” When she glances towards the boys, you groan on the inside and bury your head further in Ellie’s lap. Of course it’s about boys. Mark kissed you last week, and it was boring. Boys are boring. Whatever. Next time you’ll say no.

A content sigh escapes your nose when Ellie begins scratching her nail over the back of your neck. Her other hand is fiddling with the laces of your scarf. It brushes against the skin of your throat, and something moves through your body when it does, like tickling. There’s warmth inside you that’s different from the sun’s warmth. It feels like it’s in your blood, not just on your skin. Like goose bumps. Like goose bumps on your blood. It’s lovely.

You could do that all day.

Ellie stops. You make a disgruntled sound, but Ellie says, “Aw, it’s your midget,” and your stomach contracts. You take another moment to steel yourself and then sit up, turn around.

John is walking towards you, his two friends in tow. They’re weirdos. They’re taller than John—not hard, that—but the fat one is always talking about insects, and the other one is quiet and doesn’t say much. John likes odd things, but other than that, he’s a normal kid. Well. Half-way. You guess he’s nice enough, and he doesn’t have many friends, and lately he’s started having quite a quick mouth and sometimes doesn’t know when to shut up, and he’s always wearing horrible jumpers, but he’s clever, and he’s a good boy.

He’s a good boy.

“Hey, John,” you say. “What you up to?”

“I have your lunch,” he says and holds up a plastic bag. “Just some sandwiches.”

He does that. He makes lunch for you, sometimes breakfast. You never take it with you and leave it standing on the kitchen table. You don’t want it. He thinks he has to do that for you, for whatever reason. Like he thinks he had to say ‘sorry’ that one time he caught father hitting you after grandma’s funeral. Like he thinks he has to follow you around everywhere at home, like father won’t touch you when he’s there. Father doesn’t, it’s true, but you don’t want that. It’s John. He’s eleven. He’s still small for eleven. You’re still taller than him. You’re the girl, and you’re older. You’re guilty, and you’re responsible. Not him.

He shouldn’t be doing these things. You don’t want him to be doing these things. You love him so much, and he’s ruining himself because of you. Sometimes it hurts, loving him so much. Sometimes you’re afraid it will break you. Sometimes you think that’s what love does, breaking people. It’s like a wave, pulling you under. If father ever loved mother, or you, or John, then that’s what love does. Then love breaks people.

“It’s fine, you can have it yourself,” you tell him. You shrug.

You want to say thank you, but you don’t.

“But.” John scowls. “I made it for you.”

“I know,” you say. You need to swallow. You make yourself say, “But I don’t want it.”

You’ve never said it to his face before. You want to take it back, but you don’t.

Ellie and Lily are quiet by your side. They know John, and they know you, but they don’t know about you. They don’t know what this is. They’re just looking at you like you’re mean. You are.

They don’t know.

“But you didn’t eat this morning,” John says, pushy the way he gets when he thinks he’s right. He’s shaking the bag at you. “You need to eat.”

Oh, John, you think.

You don’t have the heart to tell him to drop it. You don’t touch the food he makes for you with his little, clumsy hands. You don’t touch either breakfast or lunch, not once, and when he’s following you around, you ignore him. (Sometimes you feel like you’re his captain, in the game you used to play, when you were the captain and he’d follow you. You’re not playing anymore.) You notice he’s started talking less to you when you do it, like he doesn’t understand. Gretel never treated Hansel like that. But John doesn’t know that Gretel would have, if it would’ve saved Hansel. He’s still too young. He’s just eleven. And he’s the smallest of his class. He hates it when you call him small.

Your throat burns. You think whatever you didn’t swallow was fire.

“You need to stop telling me what to do,” your mouth is saying. Your hands are reaching for the fag behind your ear. You’ve never smoked one before. It makes you look different, when you have it in your mouth, and you like that. Your hand puts them into your mouth now. Something inside you is saying ‘no’ but your hands are moving anyway.

There seems to be more distance between you and John all of a sudden, like the ground has stretched. You see a bit of your leg, and it’s unnaturally large, out of proportion. John is even smaller than usual. He stands very far away, behind one of these invisible heat waves that pop up in summer and make the background shudder and move. John is shuddering, John is moving.

Your mouth says, “You’re just a midget.”

John doesn’t like it when you call him small. You’re teasing him when you do it, and he knows. You’ve never called him a midget before. You’re not teasing now. You want to. You can’t.

John needs to stay small. He can’t be taller than you. If he’s taller, father will see him more.

You blink, and you’re outside your body at the sidelines watching John and you. You’re not standing far apart. John, with his friends a head bigger than he, holding out a bag of food. You, tall and gangly, leaning back against Ellie with a fag in your mouth. You’re different. He’s a kid. You’ve got a fag in your mouth.

When you blink next, you’re back inside your body, and you’re cold. The sun is shining.

John’s face changes, and everything moves back into clear-cut focus. He’s white. His eyes are large. His lips are parted. He’s staring at you as if he hasn’t seen you before. You want to take his hand, see if he’s trembling. You want to put him in bed and curl around him like an octopus. He’d still be small against you.

John stares at you, but the words are still there. Midget. I don’t want it. You need to stop telling me what to do. They hang between you, can’t be taken back. They’re permanent, an invisible wall that changes sight. You’ll always see them now.

John can’t stare them away. After a moment, his hand drops to his side, and the bag dangles from his fingers. You know he’ll toss it into the next bin. John’s mouth closes. Something in his eyes changes, as if someone draws the shutters of a house closed.

You’re not standing far apart. You couldn’t be further apart.

When John says, “All right,” stiffly, and walks just as stiffly away from you, it almost feels like it was worth it.

Chapter Text

Harry (17)

Everyone is out of the house. John the entire day at rugby with his mates (he started playing it a year ago) and staying with, you think, Joe tonight; mum for the weekend with one of the few friends that will still have her; father working evening shifts again, not back until three forty-five in the morning. Everyone’s out of the house, so you’re alone, and because Jen shares a room with her brother, you came to your place to be alone.

You figured out a while ago that the weight of breasts in your palm and the roundness of hips and the smell of the place between a girl’s legs is the reason boys are boring to you. It’s hateful, makes you more different than you already are. At the same time, it’s wonderful. You didn’t know such a thing existed, and it’s yours. It’s yours completely. No one can take it from you.

Just after nine, you have your first orgasm at another person’s hand. You feel beautiful, and luxurious, and warm, all over. You never want it to stop. And it’s yours. You’re half-naked with a lovely girl on your couch on a safe night, and, God, it’s yours.

Just after nine, you bend over Jen, whisper, quivering, excited, “Let me,” and your breath mingles, and from the corner of your eye, you see a shadow in the doorway.

Father.

A numbness overcomes you, as if you’ve been standing in cold water for an hour.

Will I die? you think. It feels detached, like someone else is thinking it. Will I die now? Will I die like this?

You tell Jen to go. Something in your face makes her understand that she needs to. Father lets her pass. His eyes are on you. You dress, mechanically, but you feel naked. You feel so horribly naked.

When father takes a step into the room, you lose control.

Usually you’re quiet. You’re quiet, you’re stammering, you’re unmoving, because it’s worse when you say ‘please’ or try to defend yourself. Usually you’re letting it happen because it’s easier, because it hurts less.

But when father takes a step into the room tonight, everything’s different.

He snarls, “You’re an abomination,” and you snarl back, “I’m your daughter, of course I am,” and when he slaps you straight across the face, you strike back. You’re blind. You’re deaf. You’re rage. That he dares to come home tonight of all nights, that he dares to take this from you, this, God, no, he won’t, you won’t let him.

For the first time since you were eleven and grabbed his wrist to stop him from touching John, you touch your father back. You touch him back with your fist and your legs and your teeth and your feet, you kick him, you bite him, you claw at him, you drag your fingernails straight across his face until you draw blood, and it’s not enough. You want more, you want more, you want to see him cry blood from the eyes for all the tears you’ve cried.

First it’s good. First it’s violence and fury and adrenaline, first it’s you won’t and I’m not letting you, first it’s you screaming, “I hate you, I fucking hate you, I want you to die, why can’t you just die,” screaming out all your hate and hurt—

—until you’re screaming in fear and pain.

The adrenaline disappears. You can see again. You see his face, a demented, disgusted rictus. You can hear again. You hear, “You fucking dyke, on my couch,” and, “Fucking abnormal,” and the words are daggers that hurt more than his fists. Your rage stays, but it’s a rage so impotent you’re crying not just from physical pain but from helplessness. There’s disgust, not just for him but for you too, because you can’t do a thing. You can’t do a thing, he’s tall, he’s taller than you, he always is, always has been, and you can’t do a thing, he’ll kill you, all your screams and kicks and punches are useless you’re useless he’ll kill you—

You’re disoriented when he’s pulled away from you. You can’t feel a thing. Your body is numb, from something else this time. You can’t move. You don’t know what’s going on.

John’s there.

He’s hanging with his arms around father’s neck, tries to strangle him with his forearms. Father gives a shout, surges up and grips at John’s arms to tear them away. They’re fighting, not two feet away from you. You can’t move. You’re wet with your own blood, your face feels like pulp. A tooth is loose. You’ve lost a fingernail. John is fighting with father. Father is touching John.

A terror seizes you, so strong you struggle to your feet. You’re swaying. You’re saying, “John,” and, “John,” and you can’t think, and you’re moving towards them, and John is yelling your name, and father is roaring, and father’s fist flies out and into your stomach, and you double over, you’re retching blood.

Father pushes John away from himself so he stumbles into the table, and John, oh, God, John who is fourteen and only just growing into himself, whose shoulders have only just become a bit broader, comes to stand in front of you, and snarls, chin up, “Try to get past me,” like playing rugby for a year means he can take on a grown, enraged man.

Father starts laughing. “Do you know what you’re defending there?” he says, words full of dark relish. “Do you know what she is, John, your precious sister?”

Your terror turns sick. He’s going to say it. He’s going to tell John. John, who has started visiting the church on Sundays on his own. He’s going to know.

“Got that right,” John says. “She’s my sister.”

Oh, God. John, John, he can’t know. You can’t—you can’t lose him—

“She’s a goddamned dyke, your fucking sister,” father spits out. “A fucking homosexual.”

Everything comes to a standstill.

Homosexual. You’ve never said it. You don’t think you’ve ever even consciously thought it. Father’s the first. Homosexual. He’s the first, and he stole it. He stole it. He’s taken from you what was yours, and you can’t ever get it back. It’s dirty now. It’s bad now. It’s ugly now.

You think you make a sound. You think it’s a sob. You think it sounds like ‘John’.

John doesn’t speak. He doesn’t say a word. He’s just standing there, before you still, looking at father.

Father says, “So get the fuck out of the way,” and he moves towards you.

John is fast. He grabs the bottle of wine from the table, the one Jen and you had tonight. He slams it against the table, and it breaks apart. He’s holding the neck of it and points with the sharp, jagged glass edges towards father. “Take one more step,” he says. He says it very softly. His hand is very steady. “And I’ll hurt you.”

You feel chilled to the bone. You’ve never seen John angry. Not like this. This is his anger. Calm, soft, quiet.

Dangerous.

His lip is split. He’s bleeding. It’s dripping down his chin.

John, fourteen. His voice hasn’t broken yet. He’s standing before you, and he’s taller than you. It should be you. You should be standing before him.

John’s bleeding.

You feel a furious sort of humiliation you’re completely helpless to. Distantly, you hear steps retreating, and a door slamming. You remain sitting there, crying and bleeding, being protected while you could never protect him. (Could never protect yourself.) You feel weak with it, you feel weak, and for a moment you hate yourself so much for being a girl and for being gay, that it feels like a slap in the face when John kneels down next to you after some time and touches his hand gingerly to your shoulder.

You instinctually push him away from you, and he staggers back. You’re completely gone, completely lost in your humiliation and rage and hurt, that you don’t know what you’re saying until you do.

“I don’t need you,” you hiss, and it’s shrill and panicked. “I hate you.”

In the second that you speak the words, you mean them. In that second, you feel it all: you hate John, you hate him irrationally, stupidly, aggressively, selfishly. You hate him for being a boy. You hate him for being better than you. You hate him for loving you. You hate him for making you love him. You don’t want to love him. It hurts.

The words are more brutal than anything tonight, and John may be armoured against father’s physical violence, but he isn’t armoured against your verbal violence.

He stares at you with parted lips and wide eyes before his eyes shutter for the second time in his life. For the second time in his life, he says, “All right,” and turns to leave.

You’re alone with your blood and the shards of glass on the floor feeling like you just broke something you won’t ever be able to repair.

---

An hour later, you move. You don’t go to the bathroom, though you’d need it, and not to your room, though you want to.

You go to John’s room.

The door is ajar. You swallow. You can’t remember when you’ve last been here. John and you haven’t been talking much. (Lately.) (In general.) You push the door open. John is sitting on his bed, reading. It’s a small, thick book, with a dark leather cover. You recognise it instantly. You freeze in the doorway.

His face jerks up when he notices you. He says, “Harry,” all breath, and makes to get up, but you take a step back, your eyes on his book.

Now that father’s said homosexual, you feel it all over you, like it’s branded into your skin and everyone can see. It’s not yours anymore, it’s everyone else’s, and everyone can see. John does. He knows, now.

He’s reading the bible. You can’t find any words. You stand there with your pulpy face in your bloody clothes, and you can’t find any words.

John does. He shoots up and throws the book onto the bed behind him. He’s holding out his hand, palm down, as if to reassure you. He says, haltingly, “It’s not—it just…”

He stops. He takes a deep breath and swallows. Then he says, “It reminds me of grandma.”

A relief washes over you so intense that your knees buckle. You catch yourself in time, hand on the doorframe, and, head hanging, you slowly nod. You understand. You understand completely.

You have a vivid picture of him being in your arms. John would hold on tight. John would be warm. He is small. He would be shaking. His head would be firm against your shoulder, still. His fingers would hurt your back.

You wouldn’t let go.

You’re standing inside his door frame looking at the floor, and he’s standing in his room staring at you. Neither of you moves.

In the end, you don’t speak of any of it, and you don’t apologise. You just sit on his bed, and you allow him to take care of your face with the first-aid kit from the bathroom. His face is young, and his hands are gentle. They were steady earlier, and now they’re shaking. You feel you should shake too, as if in sympathy, but you don’t feel much. When John tells you to see a doctor next morning, you don’t refuse.

He cleans and treats your wounds. He takes care of you. You allow him to take care of you.

You’re not sure you like it.

You’re not sure know who of you needs it more.