Secrets - Robert And Gordon

Later, I check on Robert. He's sleeping in his room. 'Night, buddy,' I whisper, adjusting the brown teddy bear so it won't fall. 

It is quiet, far too quiet for me. The static stillness of the country gives the impression of time slowing down, stopping altogether. I find a beer in the fridge, sit on the sofa bed and drink. So much for good intentions.  Fitness, diet. I don't want to go to sleep. Sleep frightens me, has done ever since Vince Macarthur brought his crowbar down on my head, screaming his innocence again and again. My recovery from the attack took several years. Surgery. Headaches, double vision. I had to surrender my driving licence for a while, and I never played rugby or soccer again.  Oh yeah, and the doctors diagnosed me with PTSD. 

I slip in to an old jumper and a pair of boxer shorts and climb into bed, but for much of the night I remain awake, reading but struggling to concentrate, my thoughts going back to you and Gordon Day and the estate in Whaley where we grew up. How trusting we were then, thinking that no real harm would ever come our way, believing that Whaley would always be our home. At around two thirty in the morning, the text on the page becomes blurry and I begin to drift into a series of dreams, mostly about Gordon. In one of the dreams, Gordon and I are standing at opposite ends in the estate car park, both in navy secondary school uniforms. I go over to talk to him, but he turns his back on me.    

When I wake to the clock radio and weather forecast and the sound of someone slamming the main door in the entrance hallway, I can still see Gordon, an older Gordon with scraggly shoulder length hair and the beginnings of a moustache this time, standing by an open garage with a couple of lads, scowling at me from across the estate car park. He looks at one of the boys and laughs, then kicks an empty coke can at a garage door before pulling out a crumpled packet of cigarettes from his trouser pocket and lighting one with a match.

No, I decide, throwing back the bed sheets. Mel's right. Gordon treated me badly after the tragedy. I must leave him in the past, where he belongs.