2011

September:

Luca Dale had little experience in matters of life and death, but here he was, sitting in a hospital waiting room and anxiously waiting for the news which would forever change his family life. His grandma, a woman of immeasurable concern for others, had suffered a stroke. The prognosis wasn’t good: at worst, death; at best, lifelong round-the-clock care.

Aged thirteen, he was fully aware of death as a concept. Until that moment however, it had always been something metaphorical, something which happened in the movies, or at the very least to other people - not to him. These things weren’t supposed to happen, yet they were happening, and it hurt. It hurt bad. He cried, cried so hard that his brown eyes became bloodshot and his black hair clung to his sweaty forehead. He’d never cried so much in his life.

There was a heavy silence as Luca and his parents entered the ICU. They were far from an emotional family, certainly not the type to cry in front of each other, but this was different. Death, even the mere prospect of it, had a cruel way of bringing people together. Luca’s parents hugged, whilst he simply stared and looked on in pure horror. It was a long, thousand-yard sort of stare, the kind which had no place on a young boy’s face.

“H-Hi, Mum,” stammered his mother, biting back tears. “How y-you feeling?”

Luca’s grandma was usually so full of life. Overnight, it had seemingly evaporated, disappearing like a puddle of water under the summer sun. Tubes and wires ran across her body, connected to a variety of monitors and machines which presumably kept her alive. They beeped intermittently, interrupting the otherwise silent room, and then - all so suddenly - they didn’t. The doctors came running in.

##

Sleep that night was difficult. Luca changed into his pyjamas early and settled into bed, wanting nothing more than to find an escape in his dreams, but it didn’t come. There was no escape. Instead, as he looked across to his alarm clock which read 12:00am exact, he sighed hopelessly.

Come morning, he filed into his first class of the day, French, with trepidation. Not only was he exhausted and still nervously awaiting further news of his grandma’s condition, but French was simply an awful class. The teacher was a middle-aged woman with frizzy, grey hair and a permanent scowl on her face. She clearly hated her job, probably just waiting it out for retirement, and lessons were predictably boring because of it. Bored students would always misbehave.

“Faggot,” murmured Joel, the resident school bully, as he walked past Luca’s desk. It was a sadly common occurrence, but Luca didn’t rise to the occasion. There was no point. Joel was one of those kids who hit puberty early, towering over classmates, and from then onwards it was just like those nature documentaries on TV. Luca was the dainty gazelle hiding from the lion. It was mother nature in action: prey and predator. And, if those shows taught him anything, it was that fighting back was a lost cause for the prey - always.

Thankfully, French continued without further commotion after that. There was an easy pop quiz on food vocabulary. Luca made his way to the day’s next two classes, until finally the bell tolled for lunch and hordes of hungry teenagers descended on the canteen.

“What you getting?” asked Leo Clarke, Luca’s best (and only) friend. He was a chubby, potty-mouthed teen with a penchant for drawing. The pair had been friends since toddlers and were practically inseparable, but there were still so many things that Luca couldn’t really tell him - or anyone for that matter. He didn’t feel close to anyone like that.

Luca just shrugged; he wasn’t hungry.

##

Grandma was going to be okay. He told himself that as he ran, ran so fast that his legs screamed in agony and his lungs felt close to bursting. It was the best possible scenario: she’d need constant care, but she was still herself - mental faculties and all. He needed the strength which that good news brought him.

Luca felt their hand on the hood of his jacket first, then in one swift motion he was pulled backwards and onto the ground. The biting cold tarmac tore into his hands as he tried, and failed, to cushion his fall. There was a disturbing cracking sound as his head hit the ground. Blood tickled his skin and the world began to violently spin, his head suddenly feeling heavy.

In the distance, birds chirped innocently in the treetops, car engines hummed along the road, and the rest of the world went about its business. However, for Luca, that world had fallen silent, as if time itself had stopped. He was rooted in place, body trembling with fear, and mere minutes seemed like hours. Still, the silence continued; dead silence, save for the sound of jangling metal. Even through the numbness which consumed his entire body, he felt their hands, roughly undoing his belt buckle.

##

October:

Life was different after September. Luca’s mother took up a second job; it was no secret that the family was in financially dire straits and in risk of losing their London home. Both parents began talking in hushed whispers, thinking that somehow Luca wouldn’t hear and he’d remain blissfully unaware, but he did. He heard it all. At the weekends, they each helped care for grandma as she underwent rehabilitation. It was a gruelling month and having to put on a brave face for Leo’s birthday only made it worse.

“You okay, mate?” asked Leo. “Been a downer all night.”

“Yeah, fine.”

Luca simply twiddled with his sleeping bag’s zip, letting out a quiet sigh in place of any words as the sound of the rustling blanket filled the room, and stared up at the ceiling. He began counting the grains in the paintwork, aimlessly. Part of him hoped Leo would hear that sigh, so full of misery and longing, and realise something was wrong. But that wasn’t like Leo; Leo was nothing if not oblivious. Besides, Luca didn’t want to ruin his best friend’s sleepover.

“So… Anna’s pretty hot, right?”

“What!?”

“Anna, the blonde one, in English class. She’s fit.”

“I… I need to piss.”

The Clarke household, modernist with a sleek and contemporary interior design, was so different to the Dale’s which hadn’t even seen a fresh coat of paint in years. The bathroom was no different to the rest of the house: a luxurious, free-standing whirlpool bathtub stood in the centre of the room; there were various designer cosmetic products by the sink; and the flooring looked to be black marble. It all felt so extravagant. In a way, despite all their similar interests, it was funny just how different Luca and Leo’s lives really were. They seemed to operate in separate worlds.

The Clarke family weren’t millionaires, not by any means, but Leo would never know poverty - never know the fear of losing his home, the guilt of his parents working two jobs just to pay for heating during the winter months, or the indignation of showing up to school in shoes two sizes too small and riddled with holes. What’s more, now Leo was talking about girls like all the other boys at school.

Luca lay down on the cold floor. It felt nice; it made him feel alive, as if he were still a normal human being capable of normal feelings. Only, he wasn’t - not really. He was dead inside. Ever since the incident, he’d been erratic. Why did Leo talking about girls bother him anyway? It was perfectly natural. All boys their age did, except for him, and that hurt. It hurt so much that tears began to well in his eyes. More than anything else, Luca just wanted to feel normal.

##

The nursing home was horrible. It wasn’t just the ageing décor or prison food, but rather the whole ambiance. The place was death. Those unfortunate enough to end up there had already died - perhaps physically, perhaps mentally, or perhaps both - and were simply waiting for whatever came next. Luca, and not his grandma, belonged here. She had so much left to give the world. He was the one who was dying, the one who had nothing left to give, the one who was ready and willing to move on. Why wasn’t it him instead?

“You’re doing great,” encouraged the physiotherapist, a young and petite Asian woman. She was very pretty; someone like Leo might even go so far as to call her ‘fit’. Luca wouldn’t. “That’s it! Just a few more steps.”

Grandma was walking with the assistance of a Zimmer frame to a chair across the room. It was painful to watch. She looked so frail, so old, so unlike herself. Her legs were swollen from poor circulation, trembling with every step, and her speech was still heavily slurred. Conversation was difficult.