He really is alone in whatever hell this is.
Completely and utterly alone.
It isn’t, he thinks, as he trudges back toward his house, the most unfamiliar feeling in the world.
18
“Shit, Sethy,” Gudmund said, his voice as serious as Seth had ever heard it. “And they blame you?”
“They say they don’t.”
Gudmund rolled up on one elbow in the bed. “But that’s not what they think.”
Seth shrugged in an offhand way that more or less answered the question.
Gudmund lightly placed the palm of his hand on Seth’s bare stomach. “That blows,” he said. He ran his hand up Seth’s chest, then back again to his stomach and carrying on farther down, but gently, tenderly, not asking for anything more again just yet, merely letting Seth know how sorry he was through the touch of his hand.
“Seriously, though,” Gudmund said, “what kind of country builds a prison next to people’s houses?”
“It wasn’t really next to our house,” Seth said. “There was like a mile of fencing and guards before you got to the actual prison.” He shrugged again. “It’s gotta go somewhere.”
“Yeah, like an island or the middle of a rock quarry. Not where people live.”
“England’s a crowded place. They have to have prisons.”
“Still,” Gudmund said, his hand back up to Seth’s stomach, his index finger making a slow ring on the skin there. “It’s pretty crazy.”
Seth slapped the hand away. “That tickles.”
Gudmund smiled and put his hand back in exactly the same spot. Seth let it stay there. Gudmund’s parents had gone away again for the weekend, and a stinging October rain swarmed outside, spattering the windows and raking the roof. It was late, two or three in the morning. They’d been in bed for hours, talking, then very much not talking, then talking some more.
People knew that Seth was staying over at Gudmund’s –Seth’s parents, H and Monica – but no one knew about this. As far as Seth knew, no one even suspected. And that made it feel like the most private thing that could ever happen, like a whole secret universe all on its own.
A universe that Seth, as he did every time, wished he never had to leave.
“The question, of course,” Gudmund said, idly pulling at the hair that tracked down from Seth’s belly button, “is whether you blame you.”
“No,” Seth said, staring up at Gudmund’s ceiling. “No, I don’t.”
“You sure about that?”
Seth laughed, quietly. “No.”
“You were just a kid. You shouldn’t have had to face that by yourself.”
“I was old enough to know better.”
“No, you weren’t. Not to have that kind of responsibility.”
“It’s just me, Gudmund,” Seth said, catching his eye. “You don’t have to pretend to be all wise. I’m not a teacher.”
Gudmund took the rebuke with grace and kissed Seth lightly on the shoulder. “I’m just saying, though. You were probably as weirdly self-contained back then as you are now, right?”
Seth nudged him playfully with his elbow, but didn’t disagree.
“And so your parents were probably happy they had this strange little kid who acted like an adult,” Gudmund continued. “And your mom thought – against her better judgment, we’ll give her that – she thought it’s only a few minutes and it’s an emergency, so our little Sethy can watch our little Owen for just a second while I run back to the whatever –”
“The bank.”
“Doesn’t matter. It was her mistake. Not yours. But it’s too big and awful to blame herself, so she blames you. She probably hates herself for it, but still. It’s a bullshit bad deal, Sethy. Don’t buy into it.”
Seth said nothing, remembering that morning more clearly than he wanted to or ever usually tried to. His mother had delivered a curse word so loudly when they got back to the house that Owen had grabbed Seth’s hand in alarm. It turned out she’d managed to walk all the way home without realizing she’d left a thousand pounds sitting on the counter at the bank.
Seth wondered now, for really the first time, what that money could have been for. Everything was done electronically, even then, cards and PINs and debits from your bank account. What was she going to do with all that cash?
“I’ll be right back,” she’d stressed. The bank wasn’t the one on the High Street, it was off of it and up, a lesser bank his mother had never taken them to before on any other errand. “I’ll be ten minutes tops. Don’t touch anything and don’t open the door to anyone.”
She’d practically sprinted back down the hall to their front door, leaving Seth holding Owen’s hand.
Ten minutes came and went, and Seth and Owen had only moved from their spot to sit down on the floor beside the dining-room table.
Which is when the man in the strange blue jumpsuit knocked on the kitchen window.
“I let him in,” Seth said now. “She specifically said not to open the door to anyone, and I did.”
“You were eight.”
“I knew better.”
“You were eight.”
Seth said nothing. There was more to the story than just the opening of the door, but he couldn’t tell even Gudmund that part. He could feel his throat straining, felt the pain rising up from his chest. He turned away and lay there on his side, shuddering a little at the effort of crying and trying not to.
Behind him, Gudmund didn’t move. “I gotta tell ya, Sethy,” he finally said. “You’re crying and I don’t really know how to handle that.” He stroked Seth’s arm a few times. “I really don’t know what to do here.”
“It’s okay,” Seth coughed. “It’s okay. It’s stupid.”
“It’s not stupid. It’s just . . . I’m an idiot about these things. Wish I wasn’t.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Seth said. “Just the beer talking.”
“Yeah,” Gudmund said, agreeing even though they’d hardly had four bottles between them. “The beer.”
They were quiet for a second, before Gudmund said, “I can think of a few things that might make you feel better.” He pressed his body against Seth’s, his stomach against Seth’s back, reaching around to grab parts of Seth that responded with energy.