Chapter 34 - Resolutions
The summer holidays were the best that I had ever had. Conner and I had grown closer and closer to each other day by day and we spent all but two of the days that comprised the holidays together. So, we were pretty close. Both our parents had in fact complained that they didn't see enough of us. Well, not alone that is, parents have this weird thing that they want to spend quality time with their kids when they can, apparently no matter how much I tried to make my mother realise, Conner was not part of me. That was only a physical complication though, we weren't actually connected as one person. Well, not in public at least!
Scott had found himself a flat which he could live in and his grandma was helping him financially at the end of the holidays. She insisted that he went back to school and said that she would pay for the rent, he need only supply his own food with the money that he earned over the holidays. He worked damn hard just about all summer. He kind of drifted away from our group of friends slightly in that respect. He missed out on some of the in-jokes that we made and he seemed to feel left out whenever he wasn't included. We didn't do it intentionally and he knew that, but he did seem to get a little down sometimes. I was proud of the way that he had held himself together though and he came close to tears when I told him so. It was true though. He had been through so much in the past few months. Well, I suppose we all had, but Scott had had a hard hand of cards dealt to him. His mother cutting him out of her life, missing out on the fun that we had as a group of friends through work in order to survive the coming school year amongst other things.
Tristan had found himself a new look on life. He took women seriously it seemed. He treated his new girlfriend Jess with a respect that I thought would have scared him. He seemed to be enjoying being in a more adult like relationship though. Jess was a great girl too. She fit well into our group of friends right away and not a bad thing was said about her. Not that I heard at least. Another thing too, Tristan was what everyone seemed to call him now. He had introduced himself to Jess as such and it sounded weird when any of the rest of us called him Trix from then on.
Trace and Caz had lasted the summer holidays at least. They seemed to go well together. Caz had replaced the space that Trix had vacated when he became Tristan. He was loud, funny and undoubtedly male. You know what I mean! He just seemed to be like the epitome of a lad. He was great though.
Claire had slipped completely from our group of friends with no apparent reason as to why, she had just seemed to get bored of us. She had had a group of other friends that she used to hang out with every now and then but had taken to being with them when she would normally have been with us. No bitterness had separated her from our group, just time I guess.
Kate and Luke were still going strong, they rarely argued with each other and appeared to be the perfect couple. What the Americans refer to as childhood sweethearts I guess.
The real differences were with the remaining relationships. James and Ryan had split up, James and Scott had been going out with each other for about three weeks and then Ryan and Sean got together. That surprised most of the other people in our group of friends. They had never realised that he was bi. It was something that he had wanted to deal with when necessary and rather than conceal the relationship he decided to come out himself, he didn't tell mum though. I think that he was afraid of telling her. Something that we could all sympathise with. James and Ryan remained civil around each other but had become increasingly irritated with each other when they were going out. They both wanted different things from their relationship and I guess that it was inevitable that a certain amount of hostility would remain between them but they never made anyone else feel uncomfortable when they were in the same room. They spoke to each other, friendly like. They didn't seem too enthusiastic when in each other's presence though. It didn't bother anyone else.
Things had changed, we were growing up, all of us, and it scared the crap out of me. We were changing as people in front of each other's very eyes. That innocence that we had had remaining from our childhood was decaying fast and what was rapidly becoming apparent as a residue was couples. Individual couples that grew together and apart from the sanctity of our friends. There was nothing that could be done about it though. That scared me even more. I had to sit back and watch us be drawn from our strength as a large group of friends out to have a good time and into a collection of mates who talk at school or when their other half is out and you have to wear out the hours on the phone to each other catching up. I mean, catching up? What the fuck was that all about? We were always together as a group of friends, now we had to catch up with what each other were doing?
Mum had made her final decision, she was leaving Parkway. She had decided that it was time for her to move on. She hadn't set a date yet, but she was going over more and more often to LA to meet up with her boyfriend Steve. She had now admitted that she was dating him and she seemed happier than I had seen her in a long time. He came over three times himself to visit us. He was a nice guy, tall, blond, blue eyes, well built. He seemed good for mum. He treated her with respect, something that pleased me. It's what she needed. He made every effort to be a friend to Sean and I rather than a father, something else that I appreciated. I liked him better than I did dad's girlfriend. She was just a horribly false woman, one of those smiles which said 'I'm smiling because I have to.' I couldn't stand her in fact. I was more than relieved when I found out that my aunt would be buying mums house when she left rather than having dad and his tramp move in with us. It all seemed as if it would never really happen though, as if it was just something that would be planned and never make a difference when the time came. I didn't like thinking about it.
On a different front, most of us had made decisions about uni's. I was going to apply to read Law at Leeds, Nottingham, Manchester and Hull as a back up in case I did badly in my exams. I didn't want to use the other two applications requests that I was able to take as no other uni's interested me. Tristan had applied to Leeds for Psychology as a first choice uni too. James wanted English at Nottingham, Scott Psychology at Christchurch Oxford which was a high aim, Luke was applying to take Sports Science but hadn't chosen any institutes as of yet, Kate wanted to take an art foundation, Toby was taking a gap year and deciding about uni when he got back and Trace was just going to go out for employment. Conner had managed to strike up a set of two A stars, five A's and three B's for his GCSE's and Sean had managed the same grades but for one A being a B instead. They had both done damn well.
Summer was now drawing to a close and we were preparing ourselves once again for the routine of school. Things would be different this time though. I was about to enter my last year, Conner would now be able to join us in the common room as would Sean and Ryan and we all had the challenge of a new year ahead of us. We had all decided to get together and have a hell of a party on the Saturday before school started to kind of savour the last few hours of fun that we could before the ever pressing Monday that lay ahead.
"Hey, we're in here guy's."
"Hi all."
"Hey."
"Where's Conner?"
"Oh for Christ's sake! He's coming along later, you guy's are talking like we're joined at the hips or something."
"Well you are. Some of the time at least."
"Do you see me laughing?"
"Inside kiddo, inside."
"You wanna drink?"
"Bud?"
"I'll just get one. Jess?"
"I've brought my own drink thanks."
"Cool."
"So where is everyone?"
"On their way I guess."
"Scott's upstairs somewhere."
"Really? So how come James is downstairs?"
"Because I'm talking. He's using his phone anyway." Most of us had bought mobile phones this summer too. I think just about everyone of us had one, except for Ryan and Toby. Ryan couldn't afford it and Toby's mum didn't want him to have one.
"So what's up everyone?"
"Not much. Just enjoying the last few days of freedom."
"Fair enough."
"Ah! Danny, I bought this new guitar today. You should see it! Beautiful."
"He's shown more interest in the thing than he has in me today."
"Oh, you jealous of wood and metal hunny?"
"No baby, just tired of hearing Coldplays Yellow all day."
"I love that song."
"You know the words yet?"
"Not tonight Tristan."
"Oh come on Danny. We haven't done anything like that in ages, you still have the kit in the garage right?"
"I really can't be bothered."
"So that's what's become of Sunrise is it?"
"Not at all, we have nothing to play for at the moment though."
"Doesn't mean we can't do something."
"He's got a point there Danny. What about all those songs you wrote? You just going to let them remain as one off play things? You don't want to try and make something out of them?"
"Come on guys, be realistic. What chance do we have of becoming famous?"
"Every chance if we get serious about it."
"How?"
"We whack together a demo tape and send it to the record companies."
"You think it would be that simple? For a start don't you think that they get dozens of those tapes a day? Why would they listen to them all?"
"We could find someone in the industry to listen to them. Your mum's in advertising, doesn't she do any advertising for any music companies."
"I don't really ask her about her clients. I suppose she could do."
"Damn right she could do."
"I have someone I could try and get to listen to it." All eyes to James.
"It might not pull off because it's a friend of a friend's dad's uncles cousin type deal, but we could give that a go. Just give me a copy of the tape and I could see what they thought."
"OK, well if we did put together a tape like that, what songs would we want on it?"
"Fire, definitely. Err, Knowing That You Love Me to show them that we have a sensitive side too. What else? Oh yeah, Young Love, Showdown and Recognition."
"We could stick Sunrise on it too."
"Would that not confuse them? The band being called Sunrise and a song on our tape called Sunrise?"
"Why would that confuse them?"
"Because they might think that we don't have a name and that we called the tape Sunrise after the song."
"I don't think that it would. Green Day did it. On their first album they have a track called Green Day."
"Fair enough then."
"You planning a career in music again?"
"Something like that. How are you Scotty?"
"Not too bad. You?"
"Cool."
"Hi Jess."
"Hi Scott. Didn't you see me waving to you today?"
"No. When?"
"I think you must have been going home from work going past Showcase and I waved when I saw you and you never waved back."
"Sorry, I didn't see you."
"Thought not."
"Sorry about that."
"No need to apologise. You seemed happy singing along to whatever you were listening to anyway."
"Oh." A slight hint of blushing came over Scott's face at that point.
"So what are we doing tonight then?"
"I think we're staying here aren't we?"
"We could do. My parents aren't back until late tomorrow."
"Sounds good."
"When are the others turning up?"
"They should all be around sometime soon."
"I'm enjoying this guys. It's just like old times again."
"Yeah, that's what I was just thinking too."
"What's wrong with you guys? You sound like my dad. Just like the good old days."
"Cheers Tristan. It's nice to know that you feel the same way as we do about each other."
"I'm kidding Scott. This is good. Things should go back to normal when school starts again."
"What's going to happen when we finish school for good? In just two terms time or so we'll finish school and never go back. What's going to happen then? Do you think that we'll ever all be together as a group like this again?"
"Of course we will. Even when we're at uni we still get holidays when we can just all come back here to Parkway and hang with each other."
"But will we all want to? So much could happen. One of us might get a flat or a summer job in some other part of the country and we'll never see them again."
"Well, I can't speak for all of us but I've had the best school year of my life. I've found out who my true friends are and I know that I will never want to lose contact with anyone here tonight. So on my part, I'll always come back here even if at least to visit or for reunion type things or something."
"Yeah, me too."
"And me."
"I will."
"Count me in."
The night had gone by quickly. We had all been talking about times past and crap like that, catching up with what had been going on in the holidays for those of us who hadn't seen one or some of the others for a while. I had a really good time and everyone else seemed to be doing too. Tristan and Jess disappeared for some time, most likely for some nooky!
Admittedly I was reasonably inebriated, but as I sat there, I couldn't help but think back over the last year that I had spent with the people that were at present in my house, my relationship with them and what the future may hold. My brother had grown up much more than I would have suspected he would, he had had a lot of issues to deal with over the last year and he had managed admirably as far as I was concerned. Sean was turning into an adult along with the rest of us before his time. He was far more mature than the majority of the people in his year group at school and he had made me proud. I don't think that there are that many brothers who would admit that, not from what I've seen of other sibling relationships.
I sat there contemplating the way that my life had taken me down during this last year. I came to realise that despite the downs that I had had, there was one thing that made them all worth while. I guess that this is the part where I'm meant to say something that's really profound and try to dignify how I feel about Conner in writing. I don't want to. It isn't right, the way I feel is just that. It would be futile to try and make anyone else understand exactly what happens inside me when I think about Conner and it could never be put down in writing anyway. Conner and I share something which I can only describe as being the most important aspect of my life. Even that description pales in comparison to the emotions that I harbour for him. I love him with all my heart, if anyone knows what it is to feel that then I don't need to explain anything at all.
I took a look around and noticed that there was no sign of Conner and I realised that I hadn't seen him in a while either. I set about searching for him. I began to worry when I couldn't find him in the house and nobody knew where he was.
"Here you are. I've been looking all over for you. Are you OK?"
"Yeah I'm fine. I just needed a little fresh air that's all."
"Are you feeling ill?"
"No I just came outside for a little quiet time."
"You're not upset about anything are you?"
"No, really, I just came to sit down and have a little quiet time that's all."
"OK, I'll go back in then."
"No, come and sit with me for a while."
"You sure?"
"Of course." I sat next to Conner and put my arm around his waist as he leaned his head on my shoulder. I rested my head on his.
"So what were you thinking about?"
"You." He said it with a smile, I could tell even though I wasn't looking at him by the way he said it.
"Good things I hope."
"What else?"
"You not cold out here?"
"No. Why? Are you?"
"No, no. Just you've been out here longer than I have so you might have gotten a little cold. That's all."
"Nah, I'm fine actually."
"OK."
"Did you see Tristan fall over before?"
"No, what happened?"
"It was just so funny." The laughter in his voice made me smile ready to share the amusement he got out of what he was about to tell me.
"Go on then."
"Well we were standing there, me, your brother, Ryan and Scott and he came to join in our conversation. Anyway, he stood there swaying for about a minute, trying not to fall over and trying to keep his eyes open. He stood there with his eyelids fluttering trying to keep them open and he swayed a little too much and just went falling backwards, by the time he realised he was falling it was too late and the expression on his face was priceless. Just sheer shock from waking up to find himself falling to the floor. It was hilarious." We were both laughing.
"I would have loved to have seen that."
"Yeah, we'll have to see if he remembers it in the morning."
"He'll probably have a bump on his head to remind him."
"And on his elbows too thinking about the way he fell."
"Poor Tristan. He's such a fool sometimes."
"Yeah, he's a great laugh though."
"Tell me about it." We both fell silent for a short while. I sighed and pulled Conner and I a little closer together
"I know that this is all going to sound really sappy and everything, but I love moments like this. You know? When we sit and talk, just you and I about how we feel about stuff. I think it's really good for our relationship."
"I know exactly what you mean. It's perfect. Conner? You know I'm in love with you don't you?"
"Yeah. I know."
"I really do, I mean no matter what. I just can't describe the way I feel. You know that feeling you get when you're drunk and you feel really good about yourself and the people around you? That's how I feel all the time because of you. I know that things could go hideously wrong, that all sorts of things could happen but I'd know that I had you there with me. To help me I mean. I think about you when I wake up in the mornings, when I go to sleep at night, even when I'm asleep, I dream about you. When I eat something, I wonder if you would like some of it, if you'd like to try a bit or if you'd like it at all. When I look for new clothes, I wonder if you'd think that they look good on me or not. Before we first started our relationship I used to die a little inside every time I saw you with a girl, wondering if she was your girlfriend, whether she could possibly love you as much as I knew that I could. I love you Conner. I always have and always will. Don't think that I don't want it to or that I don't think it will, but, if for some reason our relationship didn't work out, I'd want to be your friend. Don't think that I'd like it, it would break my heart, it would rock my whole existence, but I'd still be able to go on. I know that I would, because I'd still want to be there for you. I'd want to be there in whatever way I could. And if you didn't want me to be, then I'd live to my dying day and I'd be able to look back and I'd have the memory of how you chose to spend at least a piece of your life being with me and knowing that you found something special in that. I know I'm kind of bearing my soul to you here, but I need to. Earlier tonight when you were flirting with those girls? I stood there and watched you and I felt so proud and blessed to be able to think to myself, 'He's mine. Even if only for now, he's mine.' And I hope that that never changes, but, if it does, then I'll always have that memory burned into my mind until I die and nothing and nobody can take that away from me. I love you so much babes. You're my everything, and I know that this all sounds cliched and that, but it's true. We've been through so much together and there is nothing in the world that I would trade those times for, not now, not ever. I love you."
I looked up and saw tears in his eyes. He sealed the emotional equilibrium once again that had formed between us over the last year, more so in the last nine months during our relationship as he simply raised his eyes to mine, leant forward and placing his hand on my cheek with his warm, soft and gentle skin, he gave me a kiss on the cheek. It was enough to let me know that he knew I loved him, and that he felt the same way. Nothing could take that away from us. Nothing. Simply because we had everything in each other.
"Come on. Let's go in before I feel the urge to take you by force right here in the front garden."
We walked back to the house to catch the last few moments of the gathering before we retired to our bedroom. Our friends having left and only us in the house with Sean staying at Ryan's we made the best of the remainder of the evening together.