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Chapter Text

NICK

“This one’s from your Dad”, Mum had said, gently pushing the present towards him.

Nick looked at the gift tag, and tried not to sigh. He knew his dad’s handwriting, and, more to the point, he knew his mum’s. Nick frowned. He still wasn’t sure how to deal with the fact that his contact with his dad was becoming less frequent – the visits less often, the phone calls shorter. He didn’t know what he’d done wrong.

“Mum, you don’t have to…” he flipped the tag between his fingers.

“Oh, Nicky, no. I promise you, this is from your dad. But it had to be a British one, so, I did wrap it on his behalf.”

Nick scrunched his face at that, confused. Keeping his focus on the gift, he unwrapped it, carefully. “Oh”, he stated, “it’s a laptop.”

This was… this was genuinely a really thoughtful gift. And he really needed his own computer. It was becoming a pain to have to use the desktop machine that was nestled in the corner of the kitchen-diner. It was especially annoying to have to share it, with his mum, and David. Not that he’d ever say that, not about his mum. Mum was great. Really great. It was just that David was… less than great.

~~~~~

“Now Nicky, I do just need to have a little word about the internet.” Mum had sat him down at the big table, and explained that she trusted Nick absolutely. But that there were some things that he was still too young for. So a service would email Mum every week, listing new web searches and websites that Nick had looked at. And if Mum thought there was anything worrying, they’d have a little chat…

********************************************

SARAH

Sarah had quickly become used to the fact that Nicky, at times, approached Google with a quite astonishing level of formality.

What is the plot of Oliver Twist? had been a memorable early search. From there, Sarah had noted a lot of visits to a site called ‘Spark Notes’ – the online version of the Letts Notes books she’d had, she quickly concluded. After that, it had been a stream of rugby related searches, and a seeming fascination with Doctor Who. The most worrying had been the search ‘Stephane Fournier’, which had led to some difficult conversations with Nicky about how he was feeling about his dad, and how much he missed him, and how he felt bad for missing him, because she, mum, was the one who was always here.

And that was how it had continued: ‘Ariana Grande’; ‘Six Nations Rugby’; ‘The plot of Twelfth Night’ – Spark Notes to the rescue there, once again, Sarah noted. And every so often, once every few months, Sarah reminded Nick that the service sent her the reports, and Nick nodded in acknowledgement, and they moved on.

~~~~~

She’d been expecting porn to make an appearance – had braced herself for the awkwardness of the conversation that would ensue. Either Nicky had found a way around the system, or he just wasn’t looking. Instead, the months after Nick’s 16^th birthday were just more of the same, as they had been for the last two years: ‘The plot of Macbeth’ – well, good luck with that one, she thought – and couldn’t the school have chosen a different option? Something less, well, bloody, perhaps?

‘F1’ and its various races featured a lot. ‘How to care for your older Border Collie?’, ‘What treats can you give an older Border Collie?’, and, ‘How many walks should an older Border Collie have each day?’ were perhaps to be expected, this many years into owning Nellie, and Sarah had spotted Nick looking carefully at the dog treats on a trip to Tesco, so she supposed it was good that he was doing the research. And Nellie was getting older.

Chapter Text

SARAH

A new year had rolled around. Suddenly, almost immediately after the new term had started, Nicky had seemed perkier. Which was surprising, given that he was doing his GCSE exams in only four months’ time. But she’d take it – he was so often quiet, and so often there was a sadness in his eyes, that she couldn’t ever seem to quite get him to talk about.

‘Is Broadchurch scary?’ was the first new thing Nicky had searched for this week. ‘The Five-ish Doctors Reboot’ the next. Ah, Sarah thought, David Tennant.  Again. Odd, but, OK. Sarah was pretty sure that David Tennant was an appropriate person – nothing dodgy in the background that she needed to worry about. Although maybe Nicky shouldn’t watch Broadchurch straight before bedtime.

‘How to watch Ducktales?’

Sarah remembered that from the late 80s. A quick Google search told her that there was a reboot. David Tennant once more.

Well, if Nicky was into something, he was really into it. His Rugby World Cup wallchart when he’d been younger was testament to that. ‘England v France 2022’ as the last new search for the week only reinforced Nicky’s continued focus on Rugby. At least he was also doing exercise…

~~~~~

A week later, Sarah was settling in bed, intending to read the next chapter of her book, when her phone notified her of this week’s report. Last week’s had nothing out of the ordinary, although Sarah had thought that the enquiry ‘How to ask someone to join your rugby team?’ seemed strange for someone as friendly as her Nicky, who she knew was good with his classmates, and his teammates. She wasn’t sure why Nick felt the need to search for that, or why he was trying to recruit anyone to the team. Didn’t they have lots of boys at Truham who played?

She scrolled down the email, and sighed. The investigation of the entirety of David Tennant’s career must be almost over. She hoped.

‘Is St Trinian’s a real school?’

Or maybe not.

She continued to read down the list of new searches.  She blinked, winched, and almost automatically buried her head in her free hand. Oh no, oh no, no, no…

********************************************

NICK

Mum had told him to put the kettle on after dinner, and moved around the table to be sitting next to Nick’s usual chair. She patted the table next to her as he crossed back from the kettle with the freshly brewed mugs. Mum had her tablet open, which wasn’t unusual, but she wasn’t looking at it, which was.

After he’d sat down, Mum had played with her mug of tea for a minute, before she began to speak.

“Nicky, sweetheart, I just need to have a little chat.”

Nick looked at his mum, confused. He didn’t think he’d done anything wrong, or broken any rules recently. Or possibly at all.

“You’ve not done anything wrong, Nicky, but it’s about what you’ve been searching for on Google.”

Nick was still frowning. He couldn’t think what he’d been searching for that could have led to his mum looking so skittish and nervous. He hadn’t searched for porn had he? He was certain he hadn’t. Maybe he’d accidentally searched for it? He knew his mates looked at it – Harry was quite blunt about that – but Nick wasn’t interested in any girls right now, so he wasn’t sure why he would be looking at it? Also, from what Harry had shoved under his face at the picnic benches, it all seemed a bit… fake.

Nick’s mind flitted back to his mum’s concerns. Oh! Maybe he’d accidentally watched a film that was an 18? That Broadchurch had been proper scary. But David Tennant had been very clever, being the Detective in it.

Mum was looking at him like he might take whatever she was about to say badly.

“Now, you know I’ll always support you Nicky, in whatever you’re interested in, and whatever you want to do. And I know it’s still January, and maybe it’s a New Year’s Resolution, or something, but I’m just not sure that a musical instrument is for you, sweetheart. Especially this close to GCSEs. I think it would be too much of a distraction.”

“What?” Nick asked, genuinely confused about what his mum was on about.

“Nicky, it’s nothing to be embarrassed about.”

Nick watched as his mum swiped the screen of her tablet, before opening her email. Turning the device towards Nick, she pointed at what he now realised was a list of searches he’d done. He hadn’t realised there’d been quite so many:

‘What are the parts of a drum kit?’

‘What skills do you need to be a drummer?’

‘How do music notes work for drums?’

‘Famous drummers?’

“This is a lot, Nicky. After these you move on to Ringo Starr, Phil Collins, and Dave Grohl”.

Nick’s eyes were huge now, he could feel himself panicking, but he wasn’t sure why. Mum continued to scroll down the list of webpages, Spotify URLs and YouTube links.

“Oh, no. No. That’s not. I’m not,” Nick stammered. Why was this so hard?

Mum looked at him, but didn’t speak. Mum was good at waiting for him to find the right words.

He took a few moments to order his thoughts, to try to explain. Nick took a deep breath and began to speak. “You know how they’ve changed our forms? One of the new boys plays the drums. So, I just wanted to know more about it. It… it’s cool.” Nick looked down into his cup of tea. His cheeks felt warm. He wasn’t sure why.

“Oh,” said Mum, setting her tablet down slightly away from them. “Well, that’s good. The new form things are OK, then?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Nick smiled. He was really enjoying getting to know more about Charlie. “And it’s OK Mum, I know music isn’t my thing.”

Nick was sort of regretting that now. He wanted Charlie to be his friend. Nick tried not to think about the fact that he didn’t feel quite as invested in most of his other friendships, as he did this one. It was just because it was new, he figured.

Chapter Text

SARAH

Charlie was a very charming young man. Very polite. A bit quiet, initially: perhaps a little on edge, but then he’d seemed to relax. And Nicky was smiling, so much. She watched them run off through the back gate at the end of the garden, and into the small copse of trees that lay behind the houses, as the snow fell to the ground.

It was almost an hour later when they came back, Nellie’s fur damp from the melted and melting snow as she scrambled around the kitchen, leaving wet paw prints on every single tile. Sarah stood and went to get the mop, as Nick offered to make them all hot chocolate.

Later, when Charlie left, Sarah noticed that he’d been wearing one of Nicky’s hoodies. Surely he’d been wearing a jumper of his own when he arrived? Maybe he’d got cold in the snow? That would also explain the hot chocolate. But not the squirty cream. Or the marshmallows. Nicky had really pushed the boat out there.

“Charlie seems like a lovely boy,” she said, when Nick was making himself a cup of tea.

She thought she saw something that looked like a blush, and a slight frown, possibly of confusion, cross Nicky’s face, as they continued talking. She wondered if he was the classmate who played the drums. She hoped Charlie would come round again. If he did, she’d try to ask him, try to find out more about him then.

~~~~~~~~

Half-term was upon them already, and Sarah didn’t have enough leave to take more than a day off to spend with Nicky. It was good that he was old enough to look after himself, at least for the time she was at work. It turned out, Charlie was coming around to keep Nick company. On Tuesday. And Thursday. And Saturday. And in what Sarah thought was both a miracle and a blessing, Nick’s half-term homework was complete by the end of Wednesday. Apparently, Charlie had helped Nick with a study schedule. Sarah decided she liked Charlie a lot when Nick had told her that.

Gentle prodding had revealed that Charlie was, in fact, the drummer. And a Year 10. Maybe this ‘vertical form’ idea really was working out then? Nick had only ever had friends from his own year before, and Sarah thought it was good for him to mix with boys from the other years. It would do him good for when he went to Uni in a few years’ time. And he seemed to be a little brighter, a little more bubbly, with each day that passed.

~~~~~~~~~~

The thing they don’t tell you about being a parent, Sarah mused, as she sat on the sofa in the lounge, very definitely not checking her watch every thirty seconds, was that you could never relax until they were safely through the front door, and back home.

Nicky was generally very good with his curfew – often arriving home a solid hour or more before the agreed time. But not tonight. Tonight, there were 15 minutes to go, and he still wasn’t here. Should she call him? Send a text? Maybe he was in trouble?

She shook her head. That seemed unlikely. He’d given her Charlie’s address, so that she knew where he was going to be, and it was only a ten-minute or so walk away. She wouldn’t panic yet. Absolutely not.

At two minutes to Eleven, the front door opened, and then quickly and quietly shut. She heard the sounds of Nicky taking off his coat and hanging it up.

“All right Nicky?” she called from the lounge.

The pause that followed was long enough to cause her to stand up and make her way to the doorway. She looked at Nicky, who looked at her in a way she couldn’t quite interpret. Scared? Upset? Worried? Anxious?

“Did you have a good day at Charlie’s?” she tried again. The silence continued.

Eventually, Nick spoke. “Yeah, yeah.” Nick looked at his hands. “I’m just gonna go to bed, Mum. Good night.”

“OK, of course. Good night Nicky.”

She watched as he trudged up the stairs, still wearing his Vans. She listened as the door to his room opened, and then closed. She heard the quiet thump of his shoes hitting the door frame. She heard the squeak of the mattress springs as he settled on his bed. And then, more silence.

She didn’t know what to do. He’d seemed cheerful when he’d left this morning. And now he seemed… well, that was the problem, she couldn’t say how he seemed. But not right. Not like her Nicky.

She sat back down on the sofa. Perhaps if she stayed down her for a bit, he might come back downstairs and talk to her? She picked up her tablet, and idly opened her Gmail app. She could at least delete some un-needed emails.

Checking her inbox, she noticed that the Net Nanny service had emailed her earlier that day, as usual. She sighed, and clicked on the email to read it. Good grief, how was he still on David Tennant? Well, he was in everything.

**********************************************

NICK

Eventually, he moved from the bed to his beanbag. He reached for his laptop, opened Google and just sat, staring at it, as the cursor blinked at him. He was so confused. That hug had felt… incredible. Amazing. Wonderful. Like Charlie was meant to be in his arms. But he didn’t feel like this with any of his other friends. And surely, surely, if he was…? Then surely he’d have felt like he did when he’d hugged Charlie, when he also hugged them? And he hadn’t. Ever. And he also didn’t want to hold hands with any of his other friends, like he did with Charlie. Maybe that was just because he didn’t know them as well as he knew Charlie? And why was that? He’d known his other friends for years, and Charlie for less than two months. How did he know so much about Charlie, and so little about the others who he’d been hanging out with every day since Year 7? Did you just want to hold hands with your friends when you knew them really well? Nick shook his head, a minute movement that he himself felt, more than consciously realised.

How did you know?

Tentatively, Nick’s fingers rested over the keyboard. Google knew everything. He googled his own name sometimes, and his dad’s name. But just that once, for his dad. He’d googled Charlie’s name just after they’d met. So Google would know. Or at least tell him how to know. A thought went through the back of his mind that mum would find out about this. Maybe he could pass it off as something else, if she mentioned it? Pretend he’d made a typo? He put the thought out of his mind. He raised his fingers and slowly, cautiously, typed six letters into the search box.

“Am I gay?”

He pressed ‘enter’, and closed his eyes.

***************************

SARAH

She was worried. Nick had been out of sorts all week. Not ill. And he’d not complained about going to school. But definitely…odd.

He’d been so quiet. Quieter than he had been towards the end of last year. She’d barely been able to get more than half-a-dozen words at a time out of him. She wondered if he’d had a falling out with Charlie. She’d tried to ask, and had received a hurried, ‘No, no, he’s fine’, before Nick had almost fled from the kitchen-diner back to his room.

Perhaps there was a girl? That would explain it. There hadn’t been a girl since Tara Jones back in year eight – and that had all been terribly innocent. And incredibly short-lived. If there had been any girls since, she hadn’t known about it. And he’d never acted like this before. But yes, she thought, that would all, what was it the younger women at work said? ‘Vibe?’ Yes, it would ‘vibe’ if Nick was having his first real romance. She’d just keep an eye on him, make sure he didn’t mope too much.

~~~~~~~~~

Sarah picked up her phone, and saw the email notification icon. She scrolled idly to her Gmail, and noticed that the Net Nanny service email had arrived yesterday. She pondered for a minute, hoping that ‘how to kiss girls’ was not what Nicky had been googling.

‘Am I gay?’

Sarah stared at her phone, and froze. Her mind kicked back in before her hand did, as her brain suddenly hit supersonic speed: Is Nicky gay? Have I completely missed this? Does he think he might be gay? Why does he think that? Maybe he’s not asking for himself? But, no…if he was asking for a friend he’d have put something like ‘how can you tell if someone is gay?’ or ‘is my friend gay?’… his friend… Sarah’s brain shuffled that line of thinking off into a metaphorical cul-de-sac, and parked it, as her hand caught up and automatically `started scrolling through Nick’s other searches:

‘What is conversion therapy?’

‘Is conversion therapy legal in the UK?’

‘How do I know if I like a boy?’

‘What were the Stonewall Riots?’

‘What is Stonewall in the UK 2021?’

‘When was gay marriage made legal in the UK?’

‘When was gay marriage made legal in England?’

‘What is the difference between a civil partnership and a gay marriage?’

‘What is Section 28?’

‘Is Section 28 still the law?’

‘I have fancied a girl, but now I like a boy?’

‘Gay rugby players UK?’

‘Currently playing gay rugby players UK?’

‘Currently playing gay rugby union players UK?’

‘How do I know if I want to kiss a boy?’

‘Does it definitely mean I am gay if I want to kiss a boy?’

‘Gay actors UK’

‘Sir Ian McKellen’

‘Jonathan Bailey’

‘Company musical’

‘Bridgerton’

‘The actors who play the Bridgerton brothers on Netflix’

‘Luke Thompson’

‘What is AIDS?’

‘What is HIV?’

‘What does it mean to be HIV positive?’

‘Who is Alan Turing?’

‘What is Cottaging?’

‘What was Enigma?’

‘What was Bletchley Park?’

‘Is Manchester known for having a lot of gay people?’

‘Social geography of UK High Streets’

‘Historic maps of Rochester Town Centre’

‘Old photographs of Rochester High Street’

‘Former cinemas Rochester Kent’

‘When was it illegal to be gay in the UK?’

‘When was it illegal to be gay in England?’

‘What countries is it illegal to be gay?’

‘Why is it illegal to be gay?’

‘Is Kiera Knightley hot?’

‘Is ‘queer’ different to ‘gay’?’

‘What does ‘queer’ mean?’

‘What is Drag?’

‘Famous Drag Queens?’

‘Famous Drag Queens UK?’

‘Paul O’Grady’

‘Paul O’Grady for the love of dogs’

‘What is the Royal Vauxhall Tavern?’

‘Vauxhall, London map’

‘Drag Race UK’

‘Ru Paul’

‘But I’m a Cheerleader film’

‘How do you kiss a boy if you are also a boy?’

‘What are Surds in Maths?’

‘Surds worked example’

‘Surds YouTube’

‘How can I tell if a boy fancies me?’

‘What does it mean if you hug someone and it makes your stomach feel funny?’

‘What is a Gay Hate Crime?’

‘Truham Grammar School for Boys Bullying Policy’

‘Truham Grammar School for Boys Diversity Policy’

‘What is a “Safe Space”?’

‘What do you do if you think you might be gay, but you’re not sure?’

‘Will my friends be able to tell that I am gay when they look at me?’

‘What is the plot of Brideshead Revisited?’

‘What does having a crush feel like?’

Sarah’s jaw had dropped. The searches went on, and on, and on. The list of pages Nicky had visited seemed never ending. She scrolled back to the top of the email. Last Saturday, just after 11.30pm, was when ‘Am I gay?’ had been Nick’s question. A week! She looked at the other details more closely – 4am that night had been the final one, which had been ‘Does it definitely mean I am gay if I want to kiss a boy?’. The others had started just after lunch on the Sunday, and then stopped later that night, and then started again at what Sarah could see would be the time Nicky got home from school on any particular day of the week.

4AM! Well, that explained why it had been impossible to get him out of bed on Sunday morning. And now, thinking about it – had it looked like maybe he had been crying?

What was she supposed to do? This was very definitely not in any of the books about raising a child that her mum had passed onto her all those years ago. What was she supposed to do?

She put her phone down on the bed in front of her, and took a deep breath. And another one. And a third.

‘Mumsnet?’, she thought. NO! No, absolutely not – some of the ‘advice’ on that site was shocking. And dangerous.

The things he’d googled! Sarah picked her phone up from on top of the duvet, and scrolled down to the websites visited. Oh god, he’d probably done an absolute number on himself if he’d spent, well, any time really, on some of these sites.

Should she say something? What could she say? Why hadn’t he thought that he could come to her and talk about all of this with her? Did he think she’d be angry? Or upset? Or that she’d tell him he was being daft and that he was plainly straight? What else was going on in his head right now?

It felt intrusive to have read all of this information – to have received such a deluge of insight into Nick’s mind for the last week. Although this definitely explained why he’d been so odd.

Deciding that she’d already read it once, and that therefore the damage was done, she scrolled back to the top, and scrolled back down again. Slower this time, more considered. First search – late last Saturday evening. She thought back. He’d come home late. Not past his curfew, but really close to it. And that had been the night he had gone straight upstairs. And now she knew why. Or, at least, she knew what he’d been doing up there. He’d been to Charlie’s for the day – the first time he’d been round to the younger boy’s house – usually Charlie came here. Charlie… Sarah’s thought from earlier emerged out of the No Through Road she’d parked it in, and roared back to life, accelerating as her brain provided detail after detail of the events of the summer term at Truham last year.

Sarah remembered the very stern letter that the school had emailed to all the parents. It had been very carefully, and somewhat vaguely, worded, but Sarah had sat Nick down at the time, and found out that a Year Nine had been ‘outed’, and then bullied for it. Quite significantly bullied for it. Sarah believed Nicky when he’d said that he’d had nothing to do with it. But, yes, he had also admitted – he had heard the gossip in school at the time.

She didn’t want to assume that all of that had been about Charlie, but it would make sense… And if Nicky liked Charlie… Well, yes, she could see why that would be confusing – and Nicky was obviously very confused. She’d assumed that Nicky was straight – she assumed he’d always assumed he was too. But of course, now she really thought about it, she never should have assumed.

And of course, it must be difficult, if you didn’t know anyone who was gay, anyone who you could talk to about it all, to understand that there were lots of people who were – and that it was fine to be gay. Or anything else. And even worse in school. And if Charlie was the only out gay pupil, well, she thought, Nicky couldn’t really talk to the person he thought he might fancy, about the fact that he thought he might fancy them, and that this was leading to a lot of confusion. The whole thing would become an awful mess. Which it plainly already was.

She took another deep breath and looked at the first question again. Really, it was one of those that you didn’t ask unless you had a very deep suspicion, was it? Of course, perhaps ‘gay’ wouldn’t turn out to be the answer – bisexuality was another possibility. Or pansexuality. Actually, Sarah admitted to herself, she wasn’t sure what the difference between those two was. She reached for her handbag on the floor, and pulled out a small spiral-bound notebook and a pen. She began to make a list:

Difference between Bisexuality and Pansexuality

Resources for supporting questioning teenager

TGS bullying policy

LGBTQ+ social activities in Kent for teenagers

Queer bookshop – London? Website?

Use of word ‘queer’?

Parents of LGBTQ+ teens – online forum?

She stared at the notebook, tapping it lightly with the end of the pen as she thought about what more she might need to know.

She needed a hug. She imagined Nick probably did too. Definitely did. She absolutely shouldn’t say anything. If he hadn’t said anything yet, then he plainly wasn’t ready, and she knew she shouldn’t push him. He needed time, obviously, to work out what was going on. And whatever happened, she wanted him to be able to come and talk to her when he was ready.

She got up off the bed, tucked the notebook and pen back in her bag, and walked across her bedroom. Opening the door, she continued along the upstairs landing, and adjusted her posture before she knocked on Nick’s door.

“Can I come in?” she asked to the closed door.

There was a small amount of sound from the other side, before she heard Nick say ‘yeah’ in response. Opening the door, she quickly took in the scene. He’d plainly been on the laptop, and looked a bit, well… stressed? Upset? She still wasn’t sure.

“Are you all ready for school in the morning?”

“Yes thanks.”

“Your lunch is in the fridge.”

“Thanks Mum.”

She hesitated, hovering in the middle of Nick’s rug.

“Could I have a hug, Nicky?”

Nick got up out of his bed and moved towards Sarah.

“Are you OK Mum? Nothing wrong?”

“I just need a hug. Sometimes mums just do.”

She held her arms out, and Nick took a final step forwards and wrapped himself around her. They stood there for a few minutes, as Sarah held her youngest son, and wondered when he’d grown quite so tall. He wasn’t her little baby anymore.

When she got back to her room a few minutes later, she took one last look at the email on her phone. What were Surds in Maths?

Chapter Text

NICK

Nick stared at his laptop, the cursor blinking at him accusingly. He groaned. Surely, he thought, there had to be better ways to figure stuff out. Why didn’t they teach you any of this stuff at school? What use were quadratic equations when it came to trying to calculate the impossibility of Charlie Spring? He huffed at his laptop before typing into the search bar the words ‘How do I invite someone I fancy to a party?’

SARAH

Sarah had concerns about Harry Greene’s birthday party. Specifically about the seeming lack of any adult supervision of the several hundred teenagers who seemed to have been invited. She also had concerns about exactly how long Nicky had so far spent getting ready for said party.

She glanced at her watch. He’d been in the bathroom for an hour, and in his room for another hour since. She’d heard the squeak of the hinge of his wardrobe door about a dozen times in that time. She glanced at her watch again. 7pm. She was supposed to be taking him now. As Sarah considered whether shouting up the stairs would be helpful or not, she heard the door to Nicky’s room opening. She listened as he bound down the stairs, seemingly suddenly in a hurry.

“You got everything Nicky?” she asked, as he appeared in the doorway to the lounge.

“Yes mum.”

“Wallet? Phone? House key?”

“Yes mum.”

She could hear the role of his eyes as she pressed the button to put her tablet to sleep. She looked up as she got off the sofa. “You look very nice.”

“Oh. Thanks mum.”

Was he blushing? She tried not to allow a reaction to show on her face. Over breakfast this morning, she’d managed to crow-bar out of Nicky the fact that Charlie had been invited to the party too. When she’d mentioned that she hadn’t realised that Charlie and Harry were friends, there’d been a stammering, quiet, bashful explanation that Nick had been the one to ask Charlie, as Harry had said that he could invite people who were ‘cool’, and Nick thought that Charlie was, in fact, cool. But Nick hadn’t been sure that Charlie would actually come. She really hoped he would – because she wasn’t sure that she could cope with Nicky tomorrow if he had to endure disappointment tonight.

~~~~~~~~~~~

She no longer had any clue what was happening. She did now know the difference between ‘Bisexual’ and ‘Pansexual’ – or, at least, what their different flags were. But when it came to Nicky, she was completely clueless. Another three emails had come in from the Net Nanny service, and Sarah had left them all unread in her inbox. It felt like an invasion of his privacy. And it felt more important to wait until Nicky was ready to talk to her, than to see what he might be trying to find out. But he really had looked very nice this evening – one of his nicest shirts, and his smartest Vans, and his hair was styled to within an inch of its life.

Sarah remembered being a teenager. Not that Nicky, or David, would ever believe it – but she did. She remembered parties, with dark corners, and quiet spaces. She remembered kissing Gavin Brown at the 4^th year disco in school. Gavin had been cute – a footballer: tall, with daringly long brown hair, and a proficiency in the sciences. He’d been her first real kiss, and it had been everything she’d hoped for, and not in any way like she’d thought kissing would be.

She still couldn’t assume of course that it was Charlie that Nicky had dressed up so smartly for. But everything pointed that way. She wondered, again, how Charlie felt about Nicky, and hoped that whatever feelings there were, were mutual. So devastating to have your heart broken so young, when you liked a boy, but he didn’t like you back.

She glanced at her watch. Should she go to bed, or wait up?

She’d relaxed Nick’s curfew for the evening. Tonight, he was allowed to stay out until 12:30am – which gave him thirty minutes to get home after the party was due to finish at Midnight. Or of course, to leave earlier, walk Charlie home and then make his way home. Sarah shook her head – there she was: assuming again. She should stay up – just in case Nicky needed her to come and pick him up. He’d said he wouldn’t, but you never knew when plans would change. Deciding to make a cup of camomile tea, she got off the sofa and went through to the kitchen. As she was pootling about, waiting for the kettle to boil, she heard the front door quietly open.

As Sarah moved towards the kitchen door, she glanced towards the clock on the wall. It was only just gone Ten Thirty.

Nicky was stood in the hall, his back towards her, and his hand, fingers spread, pressed against the door frame.

“Nicky?”

There was no response.

“Nicky?” She tried again. Silence.

She was becoming worried. He turned, slowly, his hand dropping to his side. Oh. He looked distraught. And also like he was desperately trying not to look distraught. Well, shit. She plainly couldn’t ask if he’d had a good night. She saw him glance up the stairs.

“Up you go. I’ll bring you a camomile.”

Nicky nodded, and went upstairs. She wasn’t sure he’d actually heard her.

NICK

He was sitting on the floor, back against the side of the bed. Knees clutched to his chest, staring at the wall next to his wardrobe. He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know…

Mum had come in and put a mug on his bedside table. Then she’d kissed his forehead and told him not to stay up too long. Well, that was probably what she’d said – everything was like he was in a sealed tunnel, with everything blurred and foggy. He wasn’t sure how long ago mum had been in here.

He fished his phone out of his pocket. He’d tried to message Charlie so many times, but nothing he typed was right.

He looked at his laptop, on the floor by his desk. Then he looked at his phone. Then at the wall next to the wardrobe once more. Whatever was in the mug that mum had brought him had stopped steaming. He touched the side of the mug. Just still warm. He swiped his phone screen, hoping Charlie would have messaged him. Nothing.

He looked at his unopened laptop once more. Then at his phone. Then the wall. How did he still not know?

Laptop.

Wall.

Phone.

He wanted to kiss Charlie. Again. And he’d quite like it if they could carry on kissing for quite some time. Without any of his prick mates interrupting them.

Laptop.

Wall.

Phone.

The mug of… he sniffed… camomile? was almost cold. He drank the contents in four big gulps. Why didn’t he know? Even after tonight? Shouldn’t he know? Shouldn’t it all have become clear, in that moment?

Laptop.

Phone.

Wall.

Laptop.

Nick slowly shook his head. Google didn’t know. That much was clear. He’d have to do this by himself.

SARAH

She was very confused. On Saturday night, when she’d stepped into his room, he’d been sat on the floor, just staring at the wall. As the night had drawn on, she could hear the silence radiating from his room. She’d eventually gone to bed at around midnight, when it had become obvious that whatever was going on, he wasn’t going to talk about it.

The next morning had brought more silence, until, suddenly, just before Eleven O’clock, Nicky had thundered down the stairs, shoved on one of his more battered pairs of Vans, and dashed out of the front door and down the drive. It had started raining thirty seconds later, and she’d assumed he’d come back – either for an umbrella or a coat, but he hadn’t.

Almost an hour later he had returned, now clutching a tiny umbrella that she’d never seen before. It had done absolutely nothing to stop him getting soaked to the skin. She’d made him stand in the hall on one of the towels they used for Nellie whilst she’d fetched his dressing gown and then made him strip off.

“I’m not looking Nicky,” she had responded to his embarrassed protests, “and anyway, I’ve seen it all before.” Then she’d ordered him into a hot shower whilst she attempted to deal with his sodden clothing.

Somehow, in that hour that he’d been out, his mood had perceptibly shifted. As if to demonstrate that all was well, he’d eaten his lunch so quickly, that she was worried he’d get indigestion.

Now, it was Tuesday, and he definitely seemed happier. But also like he was trying to mentally solve a really tricky maths problem. Had she got this totally wrong? Was it not Charlie? Was it instead a girl? Something had happened at Harry Greene’s party, and she had no idea what. She picked up her tablet and made her way to the online forum for parents of LGBTQ+ kids she’d found. Maybe they’d have some insight?

Chapter Text

SARAH

Well, Sarah thought, she’d definitely fucked up. She winched, as she opened the cabinet door, reaching for the mugs to make them a cup of tea. Definitely fucked up.

After Nicky had gone up to bed, she logged into the forum on her tablet. She checked in with the ‘good vibes’ channel, congratulating ‘Sarah18’ and ‘LouLouLou’ on the parenting wins they’d had in the last few days. Jumping to the ‘Support : Sexuality : Teenagers’ channel, she started to type:

Mrs_Fou: Hi everyone, hope everyone’s well. I think I’ve deeply messed up. BACKGROUND: Son was looking melancholy when I got home from work this evening. Turns out that a girl has asked him out (didn’t give her name). He said yes because, well… I think because of peer pressure, basically. And the girl has arranged the date for Saturday – which clashes with Son’s Friend’s birthday. Son’s Friend is the boy I think he might have a crush on / be quietly seeing.

Sarah18: Oh no!

Mrs_Fou: issue seems to be that Son doesn’t want to go out with this girl – but her dog died, so he felt obliged. I told him that he shouldn’t, and that ‘the right girl will come along’. And Son just went so, so quiet. And I should have said ‘person’ shouldn’t I? I feel so bad. I should have been gender neutral, and I wasn’t – and I’m trying to let Son see that I’d support him. If he’s trying to come out, or something. But also I’m really confused – I really thought/think there’s something going on with Son’s Friend?

LouLouLou: Hi @Mrs_Fou! don’t feel bad! we all slip up sometimes. Also, if son still hasn’t even dropped a hint to you, he might get freaked out if you said ‘person’?

RogerE17: Very true @LouLouLou. @Mrs_Fou I think you’ve said that Son hasn’t said anything at all, sexuality/questioning wise?

Mrs_Fou: Nothing at all. But I still think back to the report the internet monitoring service sent me. And it would all make so much sense, for him to be at least questioning.

Sarah18: Do we think SF knows that S is going on a date with Girl Whose Dog Died?

Mrs_Fou: Is this how teenage dating works now? Do they see more than one person at the same time?

LouLouLou: My word – to have the energy to see more than one person at once!

AnadoraM32: Maybe S and SF aren’t a thing anymore? Any intel @Mrs_Fou?

Mrs_Fou: Well, SF was round after school yesterday. I’m honestly pretty sure they were snogging in Son’s bedroom before I got home from work.

Anadora32: Ruffled hair?

Mrs_Fou: And SF’s school jumper was rumpled!

RogerE17: They always think they’re hiding it so well.

Sarah18: Oh bless them!

RogerE17: You said you think peer pressure made S say yes to GWDD?

Mrs_Fou: Yes. Apparently, all S’s friends were there when GWDD asked him out.

LouLouLou: Wait! ALL S’s friends? including SF? So he does know???

Mrs_Fou: Oh! Oh, I don’t know? I’m not sure when she asked Son? I presumed today? I don’t know how this works? Have I said that SF and Son are in different years at school?

LouLouLou: Ah, thanks for the reminder.

Sarah18: And never shall the year groups mix, yeah?

Mrs_Fou: Yes, I think outside of these ‘vertical forms’, there’s still not really much integration. Other than SF being on the rugby team with S, of course.

Sarah18: So SF might not know after all?

RogerE17: I’ve just asked Daughter – apparently you can be ‘getting with’ someone, without that counting as ‘seeing’ or ‘dating’ – and without it being exclusive. So you can be ‘getting with’ more than one person at once.

AnadoraM32: Whatever happened to just snogging behind the bike sheds?

RogerE17: Daughter adds that, depending on how the ‘date’ goes on Saturday, S might call it off with SF if GWDD goes straight to ‘dating’ or ‘girlfriend’ status.

LouLouLou: What exactly is ‘getting with’? Is that what they’re calling snogging now?

RogerE17: @LouLouLou – ‘one moment caller’!

Mrs_Fou: I’d worry about SF if Son starts dating GWDD. I realise that they’re not official. And possibly I’ve imagined the whole thing – but I like to think S has more respect than to mess people around like that. Of course, I’m not going to be able to say anything, either.

RogerE17: @LouLouLou – ‘getting with’ equals ‘snogging’, and possibly…some wandering hands.

LouLouLou: the scandal!

Sarah18: Ah, the innocence of youth! And I imagine that all of this is a hotbed of gossip and intrigue on the school playing fields!

AnadoraM32: Anyway @Mrs_Fou – to pick up on your much earlier point – I wouldn’t worry about the slip. You need to wait for Son to say something. And I know it is so, so hard, when you’re pretty sure that they’re going through something, but they don’t feel like they can open up. And you just want to tell them that, whatever it is they’re going through, they can tell you, and it’ll be fine, and the world won’t end. But if you push him, Son might well retreat into himself even more – if, as you suspect, he’s suddenly having a crisis over his sexuality, then this isn’t easy for him – he’s, possibly, suddenly having to rethink who he thought he was. And I know he’s 16, but you’ve said previously there haven’t really been many girls before now – so trying to work out if what he feels for SF is romantic, or sexual, when he might not know what that’s ‘supposed’ to feel like, is so, so difficult.

RogerE17: And you remember what it was like when we were teenagers – the thought of your parents ever being intimate was horrifying to you. Kids just don’t want to ask their parents what attraction, or love, or anything like that feels like – because we all languish in this lie that the generation before us couldn’t possibly understand what we’re going through.

LouLouLou: I know from everything you’ve said previously @Mrs_Fou, that you’ve raised your son to know he can always come and talk to you about anything, and I know that you must be desperately worried about him. You just need to hang in there. If you’re right, about the sexuality crisis, or him seeing his friend, or, well, all of it, then at some point, something will happen, and he’ll feel like he can open up to you. But it might take him a while. It took my youngest a year – and that was just from when I started noticing stuff – to feel like they could come and tell me about them being non-binary. And I think some of it was that they thought I wouldn’t understand what that means – again, teenagers think that we’re all awfully square, and don’t understand much that’s outside CompHet.

Sarah18: And what about SF’s birthday?

Mrs_Fou: Son is still planning on going! He’s had me promise to take him to the retail park tomorrow evening to ‘sort out a present’.

AnadoraM32: I know we shouldn’t but :popcorn:

Mrs_Fou: I’m not sure how much longer I can cope with this!

LouLouLou: I am begging you to let us know what happens!

Mrs_Fou: Will do. Thanks everyone, for all your wisdom – I thought this got easier as they got older, and could talk to you, but…

RogerE17: But when they won’t talk to you, well…

Sarah18: Everyone here is right though @Mrs_Fou – you just have to wait. Have some wine while you do!

Mrs_Fou: Will try for wine at the weekend. Thanks again, good night!

As waving hand emojis popped up to respond to her message, Sarah stood up from the sofa. Time for bed. She wondered what Nicky was going to buy Charlie for his birthday – and how on earth Nicky was going to be in two places at once on Saturday.

******************

NICK

Nick sighed, picked up his laptop and opened Chrome. He’d had a really good day. Winning at bowling, managing to convince Isaac to get them all squishy doughnuts with his winnings from the coin push machine. Kissing in the arcade. The kissing especially had been really great. And Charlie had been so understanding about the Imogen thing. And the ‘not officially dating’ thing. He wished he could change that – wished that they could, actually, be Officially Dating. But he’d have to be out for that to happen. Wouldn’t he?

Nick looked at the blinking cursor in the google search bar: ‘how to explain to a friend that you’re not who you thought you were, without outing yourself?’ he typed. What was he going to say to Imogen?

Chapter Text

SARAH

Mrs_Fou: Hi everyone – quick question – watched Pirates of the Caribbean with Son this evening – is it queer, and I never realised?

Sarah18: It was my eldest’s Pan-realisation!

AnadoraM32: It’s Orlando Bloom, apparently – my son realised he was gay when he watched it with all his mates, and they were losing it over Keira Knightley, and he, well, wasn’t…

RogerE17: Kiera Knightley for my daughter!

LouLouLou: It was my Later In Life Bisexual Awakening! Don’t show him The Mummy. Or do! But be prepared for Brendan Fraser to make your son break out in a sweat!

Sarah18: Also – Rachel Weisz – yum!

*****

She wasn’t trying to listen. She honestly wasn’t. But Nicky wasn’t using headphones, and the… video? was really quite loud. But, she reminded herself, just because he was plainly watching videos about bisexuality, didn’t mean that was what he was. It would make sense though. Certainly, it would explain his panicked looks throughout Pirates. And perhaps why he enjoyed musicals quite so much. No! That was stereotyping, she reminded herself. Not all queer people liked musicals. Just as they didn’t all hate sports. She went to bed hoping that maybe Nicky would confide in her soon. Charlie was coming round an awful lot, and Nicky was using his shower gel at a rate that threatened local supplies.

*****

Mrs_Fou: Evening all! Here’s something that’s never happened before – Son has gone to the school concert this evening!

Sarah18: I take it he’s not a musician?

Mrs_Fou: Not in the slightest – absolutely not his area of skill. But Son’s Friend plays the drums in the orchestra!

Sarah18: Oh bless, that’s so sweet!

Mrs_Fou: I know! I’m trying to remind myself that the orchestra is joint with the local girls’ school, but honestly, he mentioned his friend when he was talking about going – and they were going for milkshakes beforehand too.

Sarah18: Was it a date?!?!?!

Mrs_Fou: Unclear! But, in surprise news, the girl he was briefly involved with when he was 13 was also going – with her girlfriend!

AnadoraM32: That’s an unexpected development! Has Son said how he feels about that?

Mrs_Fou: He seemed very relaxed about it – was almost laughing when he told me – he said “apparently kissing me made her realise she didn’t like kissing boys”!

AnadoraM32: Oof!

Sarah18: Ouch!

Mrs_Fou: Well, from the fact that Son’s Friend and Son both continue to look…rumpled, when they emerge from Son’s room – I think Son’s kissing technique is probably fine!

AnadoraM32: Do you remember your first kiss? Mine was weird – I had no clue what I was doing! And I didn’t realise the whole ‘having to open your mouth’ thing!

Sarah18: My first one was really sloppy – put me off for ages.

Mrs_Fou: Mine was one of the football lads at school – in hindsight, neither of us had a clue what we were doing, and I ran away after it!

Sarah18: No! Was he mortified?

Mrs_Fou: I’m not sure. He never spoke to me again!

AnadoraM32: Oh no! Were you mortified?

Mrs_Fou: I think, at the time, I was really confused about the whole thing. Now I can laugh at it. Got my first real boyfriend a year later, and we stayed together until we went to uni. Different cities, and different timetables made it all too difficult!

Sarah18: Ah, no internet back then!

Mrs_Fou: And always a queue for the phone in the corridor in Halls!

AnadoraM32: Do you remember having to have a stack of 10p coins?

Mrs_Fou: Yes! And you’d hoard them so you’d have enough!

Sarah18: I had a mobile phone my last year!

Mrs_Fou: Wow!

Sarah18: It cost so much to make a call!

Mrs_Fou: Was it when texts still had to be really short?

Sarah18: It was! And 10p for each one!

Mrs_Fou: Son has a plan that costs £20 a month, and it’s unlimited phone calls and texts! Not that I think he actually uses anything as archaic as a text message!

Sarah18: It’s all WhatsApp now, isn’t it!

Mrs_Fou: Son seems to use Instagram DMs – which… whatever. He WhatsApp’s me though. Other Son does send texts – usually asking for money!

AnadoraM32: He’s the one who’s away at uni, yeah?

Mrs_Fou: Yes, up in Scotland.

AnadoraM32: Funny money up there!

Mrs_Fou: Still seems to take the English sort off me often enough!

Sarah18: Do you remember living off SuperNoodles once you’d spent all your Grant?

Mrs_Fou: SuperNoodles! Posh! I was on KwikSave’s own brand – something like 12p a packet!

AnadoraM32: Oh their Choc Chip Cookies were lush!

Mrs_Fou: They were!

Mrs_Fou: Oh – front door! Son’s back! Going to see how it went – talk later!

Sarah18: Bye @Mrs_Fou!

AnadoraM32: Night!

Chapter Text

SARAH

What on earth was going on? Why had she just received a phone call from Sai Verma, asking her to come and pick up Nicky from the cinema? She turned the car towards the shopping centre – she hated this one-way system – and why were the ramps so tight? As she approached the door to the shopping centre, she gasped. Her headlights had picked up Nicky, sitting on the kerb, with a tissue stuffed up his nose, Sai, Otis and Christian looking concerned, and, further along the raised walkway, Harry Greene and a group of boys she didn’t know the names of, also waiting. Harry was also sporting a tissue, and the way the two groups were looking at each other, it didn’t take much to guess that a fight had happened.

Sai had been very apologetic about the whole situation, and exceedingly grateful when she’d offered him, Otis and Christian a lift home. She’d ordered Nicky into the front seat, and moved Nellie in between his legs, and squashed the three other boys into the back seat. The boys had been strangely reluctant to talk, at all, as she’d driven them all to their respective homes. She could however feel the tension in the atmosphere, and see the three in the back looking at each other frantically, as they tried to communicate via what appeared to be an intricate series of shrugs and eye movements.

Nicky had offered some explanation when it had been just the two of them. The ‘bad word’ made her angry, and sad. She didn’t know precisely which bad word, and the fact that there were multiple options made her even angrier, and simultaneously also sadder. Was this the way teenagers reacted to any difference? She thought they were more enlightened now? And, plainly, the conversations at school last year had not had the desired effect.

She could understand why Nicky had reacted the way he had. Even if he and Charlie weren’t involved, they were obviously very close friends, and she was pleased that Nicky was willing to stand up for his friend. And, if they were… involved in some way, then she could understand it even more. She didn’t know how to deal with this, other than to try to talk to him tomorrow, and try to talk through how to react without… well, without using his fists.

~~~~~~~~~~~

NICK

He was in a daze. Not from Harry hitting him – the dickhead had barely made contact. He was just… confused, and angry, and upset. And missing Charlie. Who had left him on read on Insta. How was he still so confused? Why hadn’t he just been able to say something to Harry? Why hadn’t he just been able to say that he and Charlie were... what were he and Charlie?

He thought they were boyfriends. They felt like boyfriends. He wanted them to be boyfriends. He’d sort of thought that Charlie thought they were boyfriends. But plainly not. Or… but just… why hadn’t Charlie said that he thought that he, Nick, was hot? He was fine with being thought of as hot – especially by his… friend who was a boy? He thought, probably, that even if they weren’t… whatever they were, that he’d still be fine with Charlie, or any gay guy, or just… any guy, gay or not, thinking he was hot. It was a nice ego boost, if nothing else. It shouldn’t be a whole thing that led to jeers, and bullying. And fighting. People should just be able to find other people attractive, without it being a scandal. Or worth any comment at all.  

‘How do I know if a boy is my boyfriend’ he typed into the search bar. He sighed. He’d thought this would be the easy bit.

But the Harry Greene’s of the world were, just… always there. Ready to jump in, and shoot their mouths off, and spew shit. He didn’t want this to be his life. To have to punch some knobhead every time something dickish was said. Or leered. Or implied. Or jeered. How had Charlie coped with all of this? Was this as bad as it had been?

He knew, really, that this was probably barely scratching the surface of how bad it had been.

And suddenly, he realised why Charlie hid in Mr Ajayi’s Art Room. And why they were ‘gay’ pubs. And just how important it was to have a safe space, that you could go to, and be yourself, and where dickheads like Harry, and Ben – whatever the fuck was going on with that prick – couldn’t get to you, couldn’t hurt you. Literally, couldn’t have a pop at you, just for being you. Was there anywhere like that here, other than the art room? Was there anywhere outside school where he and Charlie, and Tara and Darcy could go, and just, relax? He realised that he was just tense, and nervous, and anxious all the time that someone would work out what he was, and tell him that he couldn’t be. That he shouldn’t be. That he wasn’t allowed to be what he was ever more sure he was.

So, right. What to do about Charlie then? He didn’t really want to tell Charlie that he’d punched Harry for him. It felt a bit, what was it - ‘saviour complex’-y. And he was pretty sure that, actually, Charlie could save himself. He’d shoved Ben into a wall, hadn’t he? And, actually, he hadn’t just punched Harry for Charlie, he’d punched him for himself. For Harry thinking he had the right to use that word, to say those things. To make anyone feel bad about themselves.

Harry was a prick. Ben was a prick. And, now that Nick had done some reading – Ben was worryingly aggressive, and didn’t really seem to understand much about consent. And he was pretty sure that he’d assaulted Charlie, actually.

He didn’t want to be friends with Harry any more. Or Ben. Or any of them really. None of them had said anything in the car when mum had driven them all home.

‘How do I make new friends?’ he typed into a new tab.

Why had none of them said anything? Saying ‘Harry was a prick, Charlie didn’t deserve that’, or, whatever, wouldn’t mean anything about any of them. It would just mean they had some basic human decency.

He also didn’t understand why he wasn’t grounded.  

**********

School had not gone well. He basically wasn’t talking to the rugby lads. And Charlie seemed to be avoiding him. Which was weird. Was Charlie afraid of him? Did he think he was like Ben? Too ready to use force to get what he wanted? He’d though that Charlie knew he wasn’t like that – that he tried, desperately, to avoid confrontation.

Huh, maybe ‘desperate need to avoid confrontation’ was something he needed to think about?

******

School had still been bad. Charlie had agreed to meet him for lunch. But in the canteen. Where he literally hadn’t eaten lunch since he’d been in Year 7. And he was pretty sure that Charlie had been trying to break up with him? Which… well, at least that meant that Charlie thought they were going out, yeah? That they were boyfriends? Because you couldn’t break up with someone unless you were, actually, going out, yeah? But anyway, that wasn’t the most important thing here, he reminded himself. The most important thing was that Charlie had been, he was pretty sure, on the verge of saying it was all over. And he absolutely could not cope with that.

He really liked Charlie. He didn’t think he’d ever liked anyone as much as he liked Charlie. He made his life better. He’d been happier, this year, and these last few months, than he had been for such a long time. And now Charlie wasn’t answering his DMs at all – and he hadn’t seen him since he’d pulled Harry off Tao, and Charlie had dragged Tao off to the side of the field. Charlie hadn’t even been in the meeting with the headmaster that he, Harry and Tao had scowled their way through. He was pretty sure Tao hated him, but at least Tao had said that this fight had been nothing to do with Nick. And, miraculously, Harry had agreed. Just before he got suspended.

Nick opened his laptop. ‘How to tell someone you still want to go out with them, despite everything’ felt like it was probably too vague. But everything felt too vague right now.

****

School had gone amazingly! Wednesday and Thursday had been shit, obviously – with Charlie ghosting him, and Tao both dealing some home truths, and confirming that Charlie’s self-esteem was, well, ‘pretty shit’ didn’t really seem to cover it. But it had all worked out today, at Sports Day.

He’d been trying to speak to Charlie all day today, and he’d had to take some pretty drastic action when he’d finally spotted him on the sidelines during the rugby game. He should probably go and apologise to Coach Singh on Monday, but he wasn’t sure how he’d even broach that, really.

Anyway, he thought, as he opened Google and typed ‘brilliant cute date ideas on a budget, in Kent’ into his search bar, the bollocking he was sure to get was totally worth it, to see the look on Charlie’s face when he’d run across the pitch, held his hand in a way that Nick was pretty sure everyone in both schools totally knew wasn’t platonic, and then, the kiss in the corridor had been amazing! It had been way, way too long since him and Charlie had kissed, and that one in particular had felt brilliant.

As idea after idea popped up in Google’s results, Nick tried to really think about what he wanted to do on Sunday. Kissing, obviously. Being with Charlie, of course. Talking. They really needed to talk at this point. Nick needed to just… lay all his cards on the table. He wasn’t sure what had pushed him into certainty, but he was definitely bisexual. He wasn’t ruling out anybody as a person he could, theoretically, fancy. Even though, right now, he only fancied Charlie. He needed to tell Charlie that. And he needed to make sure they were boyfriends. And he probably needed some sort of gesture. He’d think about that later.

He clicked his way to the BBC weather pages, and entered ‘Kent’. Too vague, apparently. He opened Maps, and looked at places near Rochester. He googled for a map of railway lines, and found his way to the maps page of the National Rail website.

He went back to the weather pages and typed ‘Herne Bay’ into the search bar. Mum had taken him and David there when they’d been younger. It was fun, he recalled. And you could get there on a train. And the weather for Sunday was supposed to be, if not blisteringly hot, then at least fairly warm, and sunny. Which was good - he didn’t want to end up looking like a lobster.

******

Mum had been great! She’d hugged him, and cried. Which was, to be fair, probably because he’d cried. Which she’d not mentioned. Then she’d asked lots of questions, about him, and Charlie, and him and Charlie, and their day at the beach. Then she’d ordered pizza. From Dominoes. And she’d let him order the big box of chicken wings. Now he just needed to figure out who else he wanted to tell. And how. He opened his laptop, and considered what to search for.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

SARAH

Nick had, perhaps understandably, been very quiet all week. And, she couldn’t help noticing, Charlie had not been round after school. She’d retreated to the Forum after the cinema debacle to seek advice. She felt that punishing Nick was wrong, but she needed to do something. Advice from Sarah, Anadora, Roger and Lou had concurred that outright punishment, when he’d been responding to what was, basically, a homophobic aggression, at the very least, was inappropriate. So instead, last Sunday, Sarah and Nick had engaged in a stunningly awkward chat at the kitchen table, where she hadn’t tried to hint that she suspected Nick wasn’t straight, and Nick had, very hesitantly, tried to tiptoe around why he was feeling particularly sensitive about Harry’s choice of words.

She wished he’d just say something. She’d tried, on the drive back from the cinema, to give him an opening to talk about it, to say that he was seeing Charlie. And he’d just gone quiet – in that way that she recognised was Nick overthinking, and not being sure exactly what it was he wanted to say. The others on the forum had been clear – she shouldn’t push. Shouldn’t just outright ask. She needed to let him come to her in his own time. Which was all well and good. But really, it had been almost three months since Harry Greene’s party, and she just wanted to be able to be there for him.

Having moped all week, Sarah had been surprised when Nick had come home from Sports Day practically floating on air. She’d thought, as he shovelled through his dinner on Friday evening, that he was close to saying… something. He’d just… paused every so often, and furrowed his brow, as if he was trying, once again, to solve a particularly difficult maths problem.

Then, after dinner, he’d disappeared into his room, and she’d heard frantic typing on his laptop. At one point, he’d emerged, and asked if she knew where his 16-17 Railcard was – which she’d duly found on his desk, under a pile of sprues from one of his robots. Gentle enquiries had revealed that he was going to be spending Sunday with Charlie. Extracting anymore details had been futile, even when she’d tried asking him during the ‘Lay All Your Love On Me’ sequence in this month’s re-watch of ‘Mamma Mia’.

And then, today, he’d been up, dressed, made his own breakfast, packed a bag and been out of the front door before 9am. Having finished her house work, she was taking a few moments on her tablet when she heard the front door open, then close, and then Nicky came into the kitchen, looking… very happy, and, somehow, very serene.

“You look very smiley. Have you had a good day?”

*******

Mrs_Fou: HUGE NEWS: My Son came out to me!

Sarah18: OMG! Amazing! How was it?

Mrs_Fou: I think it went well. I didn’t realise what was happening at first - because he’d just avoided saying something for so long now, that I’d just reached the point where I thought he was never going to say anything. So, I just let him talk, because it seemed like he just needed to get, well, everything out.

AnadoraM32: AMAZING!!!! And Son’s Friend????

Mrs_Fou: They are Officially Boyfriends! They’ve been ‘going out’ for a few months.

LouLouLou: Is that what we’re calling intense snogging these days?

Sarah18: Hey – they had that cute milkshake date!

Mrs_Fou: And they went to the beach today! Apparently, there was A Gesture. I’m not sure what it was, but I’m having to dry Son’s trainers on the radiator in the bathroom – absolutely sodden!

AnadoraM32: Did he run into the sea???

Mrs_Fou: I think he might have done. His shorts also show some signs of dampness!

LouLouLou: OMG - Did they go a bit ‘From Here to Eternity’?

Mrs_Fou: I hope not – Son’s Friend, sorry – Son’s BOYFRIEND(!!!!) is nine stone wet through – he’ll get a chill if he’s run into the sea in his clothes!

RogerE17: So Son is gay then?

Mrs_Fou: No! He’s Bi, actually.