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June 16th,
Roger had found out from the group chat, which somehow happened to be worse than not finding out at all. Not even from the source itself.
Sam: “anyone know why Maurice isn’t at school 👀”
Eric: ‘thought he was at the dentist? 🥹’
Sam: ‘that’s not what ms. campbell said’
Jack: ‘he texted me lol. he’s gone to portugal.’
Roger: ‘portugal??’
Three dots. Right under Jack’s name, and they disappeared twice before anything came through. Roger was close to fuming at that. The second his fingers slid across the keyboard, a message was sent.
Jack: ‘yeah. his mum’s work sent her out there for like a job thing and maurice went with her. hes back in a few weeks. don’t exactly remember how long.’
Roger read it about four times. He was sitting on the end of his bed with his shoes still on; his school bag was on the ground beside him, a tripping hazard. His chest felt tense; it felt stupid, like he’d swallowed one of his rocks. Roger doesn’t feel this way.
He didn’t reply in the chat. He opened his direct messages to Maurice. Usually just voice notes and awful memes, the occasional, truly important thing buried in 40 or more stupid ones.
Roger: ‘portugal? mate.’
Roger: ‘You Were Meant To Be Coming To Mine Friday’
No response for two hours. Roger’s homework was finished terribly. He drank tea without even tasting it and told his mum he was okay when she asked twice.
Half nine and his phone finally buzzed.
Maurice: “sorry. it was mental. Mum found out tuesday and we flew out thursday. didnt even have time to pack proper”
Maurice: “i wouldve text you i promise”
Maurice: “i dont know it was a lot”
Roger stared at the screen. A long moment passed. He thought about typing something curt, whatever it was, to let Maurice know exactly how he felt about hearing the news from SamnEric in the group chat before he heard it from Maurice himself. He typed “cheers for the heads up” and deleted it. He typed “its fine” and deleted that too, because it notably wasn’t. Roger had never been very good at saying things that weren’t true, even in text, unless it were to gaslight others.
In the end, he wrote and sent before he processed the way it sounded.
Roger: ‘just call me.’
Maurice called a second later. His face filled the screen, a sunburn lying across his nose already. The light behind him was gold and low in a way that made it quite obvious it wasn’t late where he was. Or maybe it was; Roger didn’t actually know how many hours Portugal was from home. Most likely less than he’d have guessed. Everywhere always felt further away than it was until you saw someone’s face and realised the sun hadn’t even properly gone down yet. Original experience, perhaps, considering he was the one living it specifically.
“Alright,” Maurice said. He had the nerve to look sheepish about it, mouth doing that thing where it wanted to smile, but wasn’t sure if it was allowed to. Though Roger loved his smile, he’d also chew it off in a second.
“You’re terrible. A nightmare,” Roger told him, “y’know that?”
“I know.”
“Portugal. 3 weeks.”
“It’s not 3 weeks, it’s like…” Maurice pulled a face, doing maths with fingers and his mind. “2 and a half.”
“Oh, 2 and a half. That’s completely different, aye, my mistake, really.”
“Rog—”
“You couldn’t have texted me from the airport? You were at the airport for hours. You’re literally always groaning about how long airports take.”
Maurice rubbed the back of his neck, looking at the camera through lashes. Behind him, Roger could see a balcony railing. Sure, there was a strip of the white building and somebody washing on a line two or a few floors down. It looked like nowhere Roger had ever been and, gee, everywhere he’d seen in advertisements for a package holiday.
“I know,” Maurice repeated. “I’m not being funny, I just… Mum was in a state, my nan had a fall the same day, and EVERYONE was on the phone at once. I just sort of happened to forget to tell people until it had already occurred. And then it felt weird to text you after just to be like ‘sorry, bro, I’ve gone to Portugal, byeee.’ I dunno. I felt like an asshole, so I put off telling you, and that made it worse.”
It was the truth. Specific and faintly embarrassing but the truth nonetheless. That Roger recognised, because it was exactly the kind of thing he’d do himself. So his anger, which hadn’t been enormous to start with, mostly escaped him at once. The same way it always did with Maurice, no matter how long or hard he could hold a grudge. It was infuriating how quickly that could happen.
“Your nan alright?” the blond asked instead, shifting the entire topic.
“Yeah, she’s gained a bruised hip, nothing broken. Parents are stressed about work stuff on top of that, so it’s been a lot the last two days… though I haven’t seen my father in a while.”
“Right,” Roger shifted, pressing his back against the headboard properly with the phone propped against his knees. He was beginning to relax now. “Well, tell me everything then. Genuine everything, not just the ‘Portugal is nice’ everything.”
So Maurice did. He truly likes to ramble. The flight had been delayed 40 minutes, and some man behind them had had a full meltdown about the delay as if shouting at an agent would move the plane faster. His mum’s job was some kind of auditor position that Maurice didn’t fully understand and didn’t pretend to. Roger didn’t correct him on anything. He’d randomly research things when bored, yes, but never that.
The apartment they were staying in had a broken shower door that allowed water to hit the floor, and Maurice almost slipped the first time. He met a cat that hung around outside, and Maurice started leaving bits of ham for it. Now it waits for him at roughly the same time each evening, which he seemed excessively proud of. He was successful in taming a beast less worse than Roger.
Roger told him about school. About double Chemistry with Ralph, who had actually taken real notes for once, because there was a test coming. He spoke of how Jack had got in trouble again for ragebaiting a Year 9 in the corridor. The conversation led to Piggy (or Nicky, as Ralph called him since about Year 7, and it had never once caught on with anyone else). Piggy had brought in ACTUAL homemade pancakes for the whole class, because his grandmother had made too much. Everyone was suspiciously nice to him for the rest of the day as a result. It, of course, went away by the next day.
“Sounds like you’re just having a great time without me,” Maurice said, grinning. Roger reminded himself that the butterflies and warmth within his stomach were merely his nervous system yelling at him to evade.
“Uh-huh, brilliant, can’t imagine why I’d ever want you back,” Roger shook his head faintly.
The other just snorted in response.
They talked for 2 hours and 53 minutes, which Roger only knew because he checked the call timer afterwards, in slight disbelief, and found it entirely apparent. It hadn’t felt like 2 hours and 53 minutes. It had felt like the normal amount of time for a single conversation, which apparently happened to be a lot. With Maurice, he wasn’t just having a conversation; it was a check-in on the fact that he’d vanished to another country with two days’ notice.
It became a habit just after the first call, before either of them decided to make it one. Because according to Roger, most real habits are intentional.
Maurice would text around half seven, his mum’s time, which gladly put it around half seven Roger’s time too. He might say something like “you around or about?” or send a photo of whatever nonsense had happened that day. For example: a lizard on the balcony rail, an ice cream so large it needed both hands, and last but not least, always the cat. Maurice, by Wednesday, named the feline Gary for reasons he refused to explain and which Roger refused to stop asking about specifically, because Maurice refused to explain them. The blond finally inferred that it was a reference to SpongeBob.
Then they’d call.
Sometimes it was 20 minutes. Sometimes, more often than not and as the weeks went on, it stretched long past anything either of their mother’s would have approved of on a school night, except it wasn’t a school night; it was the summer holidays, so there was nobody telling either of them to get off the phone and go to sleep. That absence of any adult drawing a line meant the line simply didn’t get drawn. Roger always loved to cross lines.
“You’ve got hella bags under your eyes,” Maurice told him one night, squinting at his own screen like Roger’s face was a photograph he was trying to read a tiny caption off. The other boy’s face was smushed against his pillow, eyes flitting across the screen as light from TikTok shone brightly in his eyes.
“You’ve got bangs that need better sorting,” Roger mumbled, which wasn’t a denial nor a real protest of anything. It was a little half-assed and dismissive. He was tired, and he was fully immersed in whatever showed on his screen.
“That doesn’t even— I’m being serious. What time is it there?”
Maurice literally knew what time it was there. It was obvious sarcasm, considering they still remained in the same shared timezone. Roger would’ve been annoyed if he wasn’t so damn comfortable.
He glanced at the clock on his bedside table without really needing to, because he had already glanced at the numbers on his phone. Either it was to delay or to distract. “Ten to two.”
“Roger.”
“Maurice.”
“You’ve got to sleep, you baby, you’ve got football training in the morning.”
Roger faltered because he unfortunately had heard that wrong. Obviously he was calling him a baby, not a cheesy pet name. It made Roger feel sick and queasy. He wanted to throw up, but the burning in his stomach was giving mixed signals.
“I know when my own football training is,” the blond boy choked those words as if nothing affected his brain. It did, oh God, it really did. Roger never likes anyone, but when he does, his mind goes through roller coasters and never has a complete thought towards someone. He gets attached terribly and will never let go till that person wrongs him. Maurice didn’t have to know that. He didn’t have to know anything.
That pretty brown-haired boy spoke so softly Roger almost didn’t notice, “So go to sleep, then.”
Roger didn’t move for a moment. Neither of them ended the call. There was something particular to the silence that followed. It was not awkward, nothing even close to awkward, just a haze of tired in a way you’d be channelling through that company; It was the same quiet two people could sit in together without feeling the need to fill it.
“Just talk about something boring,” Roger asked eventually, eyes half shut. “Put me to sleep.”
“Wow, great use of my lucidity, appreciated.”
"I mean it. Tell me about the audit thing your mum does. Tell me about tax.”
Maurice snorted, “Rog, no one wants to sleep to that.”
“I won’t get nightmares about paying taxes,” his eyebrows furrowed despite his eyes staying shut.
“I genuinely do not know anything about taxes. I’ve told you this four times—”
“Make something up then.”
The tone in Roger’s interruption shut him up immediately.
So Maurice spoke in a quiet voice, some verbosity story about a fictional tax law that made no sense and required no sense. It was fine because Roger had no clarity this late into the night. Somewhere in the middle of a sentence about using biscuits as allowances, Roger’s breathing changed, now slower. Maurice trailed off and just watched the small shape of him on the screen for a while. That boy’s messy hair spilt against the pillow with the device’s brightness throwing a faint hue across his face.
Maurice always called the worst ones ‘angels.’ Roger was driving him crazy, but who cares for the toxic traits when he was too far in to pull himself out. The one time he managed to swim to the surface and attempt to dry himself off from the struggle the other threw towards him, he was dragged back through a series of guilt-tripping.
Maurice fell asleep not long after, the call still running between them, while pounds and pounds of data circulated until one phone or another died in the small hours and cut it off on its own.
They did call every night. Some nights Maurice’s mum wanted to go out and about with him, or the wifi went down at the apartment for hours. Purely out of spite. Once, there was a two-day gap that Roger didn’t say anything about, but which sat in his chest anyway. A stupid, small, dull weight, until Maurice texted “sorry, wifi died, this place is falling apart lol. think mother’s furious” and the weight went away like it was never there.
But it happened most nights. And the group had obviously noticed.
Eric: “roger you look like death warmed over 💀”
Roger: “thanks sam.”
Sam: “hes been on the phone every night 😭”
Roger: “its not every night”
Jack: “its every night bro. we can tell.”
Roger: “stfu, you need a hobby”
Ralph, who wasn't often serious in the group chat unless it was ACTUALLY necessary, sent a single message a bit later that evening. It was after the others had moved on to arguing about something else entirely.
Ralph: “You genuinely alright though?”
Roger looked at it for a moment. No one in his life has ever asked him if he was alright…
That's quite an abysmal lie. Plenty of people ask him; he's the one who accepts the way he is. Regardless, he wished he didn't accept THIS way, too.
Roger: “yeah. maybe i miss him. its dumb and cliché ofc”
Ralph: “It’s not dumb, it's not too cliché either.”
Ralph: “He’s your best mate, I'd be surprised if you didn't miss him.”
Roger didn’t reply to that, and he didn’t need to. Ralph wasn’t inevitably the type who needed a reply to know he had been seen or heard. Unlike Jack.
Simon and Jack had their own version of that summer, which displayed a slower, quieter cycle that involved sharing bus routes into town and gaining unreasonable numbers of excuses to walk the long way back. Together. Simon lent Jack a book, a jumper a bit too small for the curly blond, and the sweetest lollipops he could ever manifest.
Jack pretended not to have read the book and then, four days later, was able to quote a line from it. He acted as if the jumper with the warm and savoury vanilla scent hadn't replaced his oldest teddy bear in his arms at night. And the lollipops, he had said they were given to Percival or put away in a cabinet. A lie, because all Jack likes to do is lie, until he is speechless and worried. He consumed Simon's favourite flavour over and over again, and he imagined that he tasted the same way if he were to kiss him like the brown-haired boy kissed his forehead the days he was sick.
That is a story running parallel to Roger and Maurice’s, far from being tangled up in it. Instead, all of them were friends, all of them were in the same year, and all of them existed in the same small web of a town where everybody knew everyone else's business within a few days.
Which was how Maurice ultimately found out that his absence had become a topic of general discussion. Perhaps it's because Roger was not himself without his other side.
“Apparently I’m the reason you look like a zombie,” he laughed, overly amused one night near the end of his final week. “You going to eat my brain or my heart?”
“Who told you that...?” Roger completely ignored the last part. A useless reference to a song, yet the meaning had him wanting to devour Maurice.
“Jack. Via Simon. Via your cousin, I think. Really, it's gone around a little.”
The other scrunched his nose. His cousin had not been here. She was up in Scotland, potentially brewing soups that had him drooling. That had to be a joke; Simon wasn't even in contact with her… hopefully. Roger groaned and put an arm over his eyes, “It’s not that deep. I just don’t sleep well when— ” He quit in an instant.
“When what?” Maurice drawled out, tilting his head like a dog. It made Roger press his lips hard together, till they turned white.
“Nothing, Maur.”
“Roger, wh—”
“It’s nothing, drop it.”
He had said it quick and sharp. This bothered Maurice, because all Roger does is constantly interrupt him. He couldn't get him to be vulnerable for a second, not for a significant and soft conversation. Maurice wanted to pry into his ribs, grab his heart, and pull it to his ear till he could hear every whisper hidden beneath that stone wall.
So, he didn’t drop it, not exactly, but he didn’t push either, which was how they understood each other. Roger didn't have to spell it out, because if he did, it'd be a rock to the head, not words. Besides, they'd been close since 8 years old and stood next to each other in a PE line, because their surnames were close together within the register. Some other things, by 15, have simply been established without ever needing to be said aloud.
Roger didn't always say things out loud.
“I don’t sleep well either,” Maurice blurted and looked at a wall off to the side of the camera. “The bed’s weird. There are odd noises. And the cat won’t shut up some nights.”
“Gary,” Roger sighed. It came out fonder than he meant it to. Suddenly, he felt like a stranger in his own body. He'd have to peel at his skin and shed it to his public form the second he walked out of the house.
“Gary,” Maurice agreed. “An absolute menace to the world.”
This time, Roger allowed himself a smile, and he earned one back in return. The brightest thing he's ever witnessed.
The last week approached faster than either of them tracked; counting made it worse, so they had stopped. Time passes quickly when you're enjoying life.
“Three days,” Maurice stated, relevant to literally nothing. It was random in the middle of the call that had zero importance. They were having a watch party, some show they're both half-watching. The boy in Portugal was too busy stealing glances at the one stuck in the UK. There was an argument about whether pineapple belonged anywhere near a pizza that neither of them had any real stake in. Maurice had said to ask an Italian rather than a Secondary schooler.
Roger looked over when he heard the sudden talking, “Aye?”
“Three days and I’m back.”
“I know how to count, Maurice.” He glared.
“I know you do, I'm just saying it.”
“Well, lowkey DON’T. It’s bad luck or whatever saying it too early.”
Maurice snickered, then let out a real laugh. The tinny little speaker crackled slightly alongside it. “That’s not a real thing, babes.”
“It is where I’m from.”
“You’re from Kilmarnock, Roger, not Narnia,” Maurice scrunched his nose so tight his eyes nearly crossed.
“Exactly. I hold ancient wisdom, so don’t jinx it.”
Neither of them said much else for a while after that. They didn't hang up. To be honest, for the past 2 and a half weeks they've been calling constantly. Roger would shower and have the call still going on the toilet lid. He'd immediately turn the camera off when he hopped out, and Maurice would complain about already seeing his torso before when they'd swim. The time reached as much as 16 hours combined, going all day and all night, minus the very few hang-ups.
On the final night, Roger’s mother gently knocked on his door, just around 12 o'clock, to check the light coming from under it. She found her son asleep sideways in bed with his phone still lit up against the pillow beside his head. A small face showed on the screen, also asleep. Maurice, or the boy that had always been by her little Roggy’s side.
Mrs Connor did not quit the call. Instead, she walked out just as silent and swiftly as she entered.
Two days later, Maurice Brandreth walked out his arrival looking quite red. A sunburn he never expected to get. Roger, who had absolutely NOT been standing there for 36 minutes because his mum had insisted on leaving early in case of traffic, saw him before Maurice saw him. The blond didn’t wave, nor did he shout; he just stood there with his hands in his pockets and a look on his face that he would have denied completely, because he was not used to this. He'd protest, with a straight face, to literally anyone who asked him to explain it.
“Alrighty,” Maurice hummed, dropping his bag and grinning like an idiot.
“You’re a wee bit late,” Roger told him with a blink of his blue eyes.
“Nuh uh, plane landed early actually.”
“Aye, well, uh.. it felt late.”
That was the whole conversation. Everything else from before had folded itself quietly back into the ordinary: the 24/7 calls, the moments of aching silence, and the random ass cat named Gary. It felt like a fever dream for Roger.
And they low-key kiss. (not yet, guys, not yet).