Chapter 34: Chapter 34

“You’re quiet,” Tom observes. “S’up?”

Even with that—and for Tom, that is the height of observational skills—Ryan says nothing. He doesn’t mention Alex, he doesn’t mention Appington, and he doesn’t mention clubbing. He doesn’t even make the vaguest of hints towards having gotten drunk and near drugs—and that is something Ryan’s social standing would undoubtedly benefit from.

He says nothing at all.

To admit what he’s done—or what Alex has done to him—would be to commit suicide. Things would never be the same. He’d be one of the poufters mincing down Canal Street, with too-tight shirts and lips like a girl’s. He’d be weird, unnatural, creepy—he’d be like Mr. Hanson from Year Eight English, or Andy Sutherland.

Andy Sutherland would have left for university by now, if he hadn’t killed himself.

Ryan won’t do that to himself.

The problem—the biggest problem that Ryan faces now—is Tom.