Chapter Text
‘I would say I'm sorry
If I thought that it would change your mind
But I know that this time
I have said too much’
—Boys Don’t Cry, by The Cure
Saturday 15th August
In one moment, it was six in the morning, and dawn was breaking. The world was awakening, the birds were stirring and flourishing their silvery feathers, but all the coming of dawn did to George was shine upon his sun-kissed blemishes, was trace his weathered and stress-torn features, as though mirrors weren’t enough to show him what the past few months of life had done to him. The next moment George’s eyes tore open, night time was gracing the world, and the stirring of all the nocturnal creatures were all he had as company in the dark.
The journey to America had been a long one. He’d caught a bus to the centre of the city, where smoke from the cigarette clutched by the man beside him clung to the itchy fabric of his jumper, as though looking for sanctuary. He’d sent a stiff smile to the bus driver, who’d given him a pitying, sympathetic one back, eyes vanquished to deep pools of thinly veiled worry and concern.
And so, he’d hopped onto the train to the airport, this time keeping his head down and his smile even lower, out of fear of being on the pitiful end of one of those smiles once more. Once he’d finally, finally reached the airport, he’d been so trodden down by exhaustion he was close to falling asleep where he stood, buying confirmation for his flight to Orlando, Florida.
As time trickled on and on, each daunting second fuelled by his yearning for time to thrive, crumble, and burn, his phone—his sole means of communications—lying discarded and heavy in the seams of his shorts.
He had missed calls. He knew that; he could hear the buzz of his phone, the vibrations trembling and quaking through the fabric of his shorts, yet he ignored them. It was clear it was his mother, but even the idea of George trying to bring himself to talk to her—to hear the sound of her hoarse, bleeding voice begging him to come back home—it was unimaginable, though it ached.
Instead, he tried desperately to push down the cloying guilt seeping through his bloodstream like a steadily exuding toxin. He claimed he was trying his hardest to do so, but every crack on the wall of the airport was beginning to look like her face, and every soft hum of a woman’s voice made him jolt, and look around with shining, dewy eyes. All he could feel was the familiar, twisting, stabbing ache that called home in his heart.
“Boarding call for flight 16,” came a tinny voice scraping through the microphones around the airport waiting room. George started in his seat. “Repeat: boarding call for flight 16, headed for Airport of Orlando, Florida.”
He didn’t have much luggage. In his rush to leave, he’d managed to pack one small bag, yet this didn’t hold near enough as it should. He ignored the odd looks he got from the airport staff as he showed them his passport and quickly boarded, swallowing down the cloying taste of guilt on his tongue.
//
Sunday 16th August
The cab car smelt of cigarette smoke and traces of alcohol. He’d always found a weird comfort in the smell of cigarettes, because it had reminded him of his father. Yet now, it just deepened the stinging wounds in his skin, like salt water burning at the traces of blood.
It was not comforting, and did nothing to dilute the inevitable terror sitting in his stomach at the prospect of being in a completely new place, surrounded by strangers.
At first, he had attempted to strike up feeble small talk with his cab driver, but his attempts had been futile, and instead, he just sat back into the leather seats, shifting uncomfortably. He tried to find something (anything) to calm the racing tempo of his weak heart, feeling the arteries and chambers trembling and quaking in his fragile ribcage. He could feel the perpetual stinging of tiredness behind his eyes, bringing hot dampness to the corners of his tear ducts.
He ran a sweaty hand over the side of his face, over acne scars and ribbons of silver from childhood recklessness. He couldn’t afford to be reckless now, not when he was alone in a new place, utterly alone.
Soon enough, the city around George started to look familiar from images on the school website, and he leaned forwards, calling hoarsely to his cab driver.
“Uh, can you pull up just outside please?”
To George’s relief, there didn’t seem to be many people around, if any, at that, apart from a group of shadow-painted figures huddled by the gate, talking in loud, slurred voices. George thought they were probably drunk. He considered this may be similar to the evenings back in London, where the overwhelming scent of alcohol and cigarette smoke would be all you could smell in the dark air, probably until dawn came, and the drunks of London would hibernate back into their squats.
That was until, of course, night came again, and out they would come, looking to drown their sorrows in a fresh serving of ale and beer.
Hawthorne’s Liberal Arts College. That was its name—the name that George would remember forever and ever, the school that would echo through his mind for all eternity. Every syllable only aided the stabbing puncture wounds he himself inflicted upon his chest; every letter like an accusation.
It was a name he’d repeated over and over like a chant, whispering it to himself as he washed away thoughts in a cold shower, uttering it down the crackling line of his phone as he negotiated deal out of deal and loan after loan with tired, pitying school board members.
As George rather hastily got out the car, scrambling to get his limited amount of luggage, he looked up at the gloomy-looking exterior of the school. In its pictures online it looked much grander, much nicer than it did now, with its looming air of wealth. It exuded intimidating and intoxicating fumes of strangeness.
George could feel the vines of trepidation settling in his stomach as he stared out across campus, muscles and tendons aching beneath his skin. He was deep in now. There was no backing out, there was no second option—he was in America for good, and suddenly, staring at the hazy outline of the school felt far more surreal than ever before. And just as the grounds were stroked by darkness, George felt his insides welcome exhaustion with open arms.
It took a lot longer than it should have for him to get into the building.
Everything was dark, everything looked tauntingly like people, watching him with prying eyes. When he finally got to the front desk of the building, he was given a key to his dorm room by a grumpy, less than pleased receptionist, and he took it, refusing to look back up again until he’d reached the dorm block.
To his silent relief, when he entered the darkness of his new dorm room, he waited a few seconds in silence, but thankfully heard a soft symphony of little snores from the other side of the room, and he presumed his roommate was asleep.
As quietly as he could, he shuffled around the room, not bothering to sort anything out yet, but just wanting to find comfort in sleep. But he could smell the cloying scent of sweat mixed with smoke from the cab, so he dragged his heavy legs across the darkened room and into the bathroom.
George felt the familiar ache returning to his chest as he stared, horrified, at himself in the mirror. An ache of loneliness, revelling in the shattered trails of glass bottles on the ground in front of George, ones that mirrored what he felt to be the heart beating weakly in his chest, in its sharp-edged glory but brittleness.
All he could feel was mismatched, mistaken, mislead.
It had been his decision to leave, his choice—and he had known the consequences of his actions, he had known the repercussions his mother would feel, leaving so soon after dad left. But he did it anyway.
It was like since breaking to America, he’d changed drastically. In the months of being stuck mentally in their house back in England, George hadn’t glanced at a mirror, probably out of internalised fear of what he may see, of what his father left behind. And now, as he stared, aghast, at the reflection he’d seen so little of in the past few months, George could see why he’d been rightfully afraid.
Only a boy stared back.
He was eighteen, for God’s sake, but he looked skinnier than he’d ever been before, and it was only accented by the way his baggy t-shirt hung off his body; the way he seemed to drown in the ugly thing. Only the tremendous fragility of himself shone in his dark eyes. Only the dusted version that came with lack of sleep and lack of motivation to do anything about his appearance.
And there grew a point that he could look at himself no longer.
His weighted fingertips found the light switch, and he stood in the dark for a few seconds, basking in the lack of his reflection in the mirror. But that was until he found himself swaying slightly on his dead feet, probably out of exhaustion, of jet lag stabbing him cruelly in the back.
So, with a heavy heart, he clambered into his new bed, allowing sleep to conquer him within minutes of his head hitting the pillow.
//
Waking up had felt, momentarily, like waking up from a nightmare.
When his body had roused, and the traces of sleep had been vanquished from his mind, he had known that none of it had been a dream. Flashes of empty airports and moonlight lingered at the front of his mind, and deep in his gut, he knew his longing for dreams came from this change.
He didn’t open his eyes just yet, but he knew the bed he slept on now was not his own. The room he was confined in was not one he felt at home in, and as much as people wanted to tell him that his only boundaries were mental, the four walls around him felt suffocating.
It took him a long, lingering moment to pick up on the reason that he had woken up—there was motion around the room, and strained voices that were low, distorted hisses.
Fucking hell, George groaned internally, fighting the urge to chuck his rock-solid pillow in their direction and hope it lands. Can nobody here whisper?
One voice asked thoughtfully, “How do we know he’s not just… some rando?”
A second one grumbled, “Sapnap, were you not listening? Hardy said my roommate was meant to be here yesterday.”
A pause. George imagined they were staring at him. He fought the urge to roll over.
“I guess this is him. Josh, or—something.”
Josh? The audacity.
“He wasn’t there when you fell asleep, was he?”
“No, flight must’ve been delayed or something.”
Another pause.
“Flight?”
“Yeah, Hardy mentioned he’s flying here from abroad. No clue where from.”
“Poor soul, going through the effort of flying to this shit hole. You think we should warn him it all goes downhill from here on?”
“Language, Sapap,” a new, third voice hissed. God only knew how many there were.
“Come on, now, you’ll wake him up. We can just go to your room.”
Then came the sound of muffled footsteps, padding across the room, followed by a door opening and closing. The closing of the door plunged George into an odd silence, one coated by his thoughts running wildly through his mind.
It was calm and it was peaceful, but it wasn’t comforting. In fact, George almost instantly wished he was somewhere louder and more chaotic, somewhere more suited to his own nature. Everything was too quiet, and he felt so fucking out of place, lying there with his scruffy outfit, and his backpack of not-many-things on the floor by the bed. He didn’t think he belonged here. But then again, he didn’t know where else he would anymore.
Ever so slowly, George opened his eyes, squinting in the light, despite it still being relatively gloomy.
There were lingering thoughts of embarrassment in his mind as he blinked groggily, mortified at the fact there had been at least three people watching him sleep. Frankly, he was surprised he slept through most of it. However, all those thoughts washed away once he blinked again, and took in the room he was in, not in darkness like the night before, but exposed in the daylight.
His first disgruntled thought was, God, I’m bunking with a hippie.
It was a stupid thought, of course, but in his sleep-strung mind, he didn’t question it at first as his eyes darted around the room.
The curtains were partially open, allowing a sliver of bright sunshine to flood into the room, streaking the walls, washing them in saturated brightness. With this hazy light, he could just make out his roommate’s side of the room, which could be explained as nothing but alive.
It was chaotic, but relatively tidy in its own, crazy little way. The desk was cluttered, clearly not in use as a desk, but rather a place for storage—every surface of it was covered in bits and bobs, from books to potted plants to flyaway sheets of paper, to a pile of neatly folded clothes, and a large scarlet stereo and slightly scruffy-looking vinyl record player.
That was what intrigued George the most—forget the questionable taste in books—but the music most definitely caught his eye. He spotted a stack of vinyls, and he longed to look through them, pushing down childish jealousy at the pile of clearly used and clearly loved records.
Upon the walls above and around the roommate’s bed, posters covered every inch. They ranged from band posters (he saw The Rolling Stones and Queen with much joy) to space posters, to more academic ones. So far, he didn’t quite know what to think of this roommate of his. A nerdy punk? Or a fake-it-‘til-you-make-it geek?
Gradually, and with slight reluctance, limbs heavy, George began to get out of bed.
He pulled the curtains open fully, and stretched out his pale limbs, yawning behind one of his hands, and rubbing the dampness and sleep from his eyes. Then he turned to the task of unpacking, wanting to keep himself constantly moving, hoping he’d trick himself into feeling like he knew what the fuck he was doing. Unfortunately, it didn’t take him long to unpack, and fold his clothes away into the wardrobe by the door. After all, he didn’t have much. Just the necessities.
Once he was done, he no longer knew what to do with himself. He just stood there for far too long, the walls around his bed looking awfully bare, making something pang in his chest. The room around him felt tauntingly large.
Suddenly, the door was flung open, breaking him from his thoughts.
“Sapnap, come on, I’ll only be a second—”
Body raked with alarm, George spun on his heel, eyes darting to the doorway, where the door was now flung wide. Said doorway was no longer empty, but rather, there stood a bloke around George’s age, looking at him like he’d just seen a ghost.
“Oh, I’m so sorry, I should’ve knocked.”
The stranger-boy stood there, waveringly, hand still clutching the door knob, his American accent making George’s mind momentarily trip over itself. In the clear light of the room they were stood in, George could study him, just like he felt his dark eyes do in return. He let his own eyes wander, catching onto the polite smile the boy wore.
This boy looked relatively tall, taller than George at least, and was slim, but not like George, who never quite managed to grow into it, but instead felt cursed with knobbly knees and bad posture for all eternity. A spark of unfortunate, inappropriate jealousy ran through George’s bloodstream, as he looked at the tanned boy, with dark hair that framed his face, and round glasses that rested wonkily on the bridge of his nose.
Awkwardly, he shifted, very aware of the lankiness of his limbs, and the skinniness of his torso. Like he always had, he held his chin up like his dad had taught him to, looking across at this stranger wordlessly.
It took a moment for George to remember this was his cue to talk. But it didn’t matter, because the boy was reaching up to adjust his glasses and continuing on anyway.
“I still need to, er, get used to Dream having a roommate again, I’m sorry,” Bad replied, tone friendly, and there was a little smile still perched on his face. It was like he didn’t know what other expression to wear. George blinked. He didn’t even know who Dream was. “And there I go—I’m rambling again. Sorry.”
Trying to offer the boy a smidgen of mercy, he smiled a stiff smile
He settled on a small, “S’alright.”
All the boy did was stare—on and on, like he hardly realised he was doing it. It felt like George was being torn limb from limb, suspended beneath a watchful gaze. His skin crawled, he shifted on his feet. Tried not to clench his jaw.
Thankfully, when the boy spoke again, his gaze felt less watchful.
“It’s nice to meet you,” the stranger smiled, kind and warm. “The name’s Bad Campbell, I’m in the room just across the hall. Is it, uh, Josh?”
It took everything within him not to laugh.
Something really must be wrong with him, because George seemed to have reached the point of insanity. He was almost wishing he was back in that grotty cab, with the driver who never responded, because he didn’t think he’d be able to get through any half-arsed introductions today.
Chewing on the inside of his cheek, he corrected the boy, Bad, bluntly, “George. George Davidson.”
There was something odd in Bad’s gaze again as he adjusted George’s response into his mind, that made George want to turn away—anything—to get him to stop looking at him like that. There was something akin to thinly veiled curiosity, like perhaps there was something about him that stood out.
Perhaps it was the thin scar marring his skin above his left eyebrow from scrapes he didn’t even remember anymore, standing like a battle wound. Or, perhaps it was the warm brown of his eyes—the bright warmth of them that his mum always told him made him look younger.
George had always quite liked his eyes, but he’d stubbornly decided if they had made him look younger, he’d firmly dislike them. His mum had always just chuckled at him, telling him there would come a time he’d wish he was young still.
Now, he didn’t know how to feel about that.
The silence stretched out, and George felt horribly hot and bothered.
The boy, Bad, took notice of his stiffness, it seemed, because his gaze sharpened momentarily, and his limbs looked to simultaneously stutter, hesitantly moving backwards. Even though Bad still held his smile, it didn’t quite meet his eyes.
George didn’t know what to say, or what to do. It felt like under this boy’s gaze, everything about him was being examined and ridiculed, only magnified by the boy’s glasses. A hand subconsciously came up to George’s hair, his fingers locking to his short strands, tugging at them as his mind desperately fought for words.
Then, a third voice broke through the silence, though George didn’t know whether to feel relieved or not at this, as Bad seemed to start slightly.
“Bad, come on, man, what’re you doing? Dream told us to meet him in like, five minutes.”
The voice was slightly muffled, coming from further down the corridor, and George watched as Bad’s expression turned into one of barely concealed disappointment.
There were sounds of echoed footsteps and Bad turned his head slightly, and called over his shoulder.
“Dream can wait—we might end up being a little longer than five!”
“...What the fuck are you on about?”
George wanted to die.
He heard Bad scoff, and the boy looked back at George with eyes singing unspoken apologies.
“Can you just—just come in here, will you?”
There were even further footsteps sounding, muffled but loud against the floor, and George felt the familiar, ugly feeling of panic rising in his gut as a second boy entered the room, swinging on the doorframe playfully as he came into view. George then suddenly found himself under scrutiny of a curious, watchful look.
“Huh,” the newer boy said promptly. There was a pause. Then, in a slow, American drawl, “So you must be the new roommate.”
He appeared to be relatively short, a similar height to George, with dark hair that seemed to defy gravity, sticking out in every direction it wasn’t supposed to. The messiness was only added to by the wide strip of fabric that ran around his head, tied in a hasty knot.
Warm, dark eyes, cradled by quirked lips—the boy never looked away.
“Sapnap,” Bad broke in, thank the Lord, his voice dripping in something like amusement as he said, “stop eyeing him up like a piece of meat.”
All he did was laugh.
The boy (Sapnap, apparently. Who the hell names their child that?) allowed his face to break into a wide grin, and step forwards boldly, offering a hand to shake in a way George could never have.
“What’s up, man? Sapnap Lippett.”
George swallowed thickly and stepped forwards to shake his hand, feeling far too formal for his liking, and trying not to wince at the aggression at which Sapnap shook his hand. “I’m good, thanks… Nice to meet you, I’m George.”
As soon as George spoke, Sapnap’s eyebrows raised, and his mouth flopped open, almost comically.
“You’re British?” he demanded.
Surprised and stumbling over his own words, George managed to get out, “Yeah?”
“Was that.. an answer or a question?”
George felt his eyes narrow slightly, before he could stop himself, which was probably a bit rude, but Sapnap look undeterred. “An... answer?”
“There you go, answering with another question,” Sapnap tutted, shaking his head playfully, and George felt his own lips threatening to tilt upwards. Before he could ponder over it for much longer, Sapnap was asking curiously, “Where in Britain?”
“Uh, England,” he answered, slightly unsure of himself. When Sapnap didn’t respond and just stared at him slightly unnervingly, he added, “London.”
At that, the boy’s eyes lit up, evidently because he recognised it. “Where in London?”
“East?”
Unimpressed, Sapnap rose his eyebrows.
George cleared his throat, “East.”
Nodding and probably trying to appear nonchalant about the whole thing, Sapnap said, “That’s cool.” There was a dip of silence, before Sapnap was looking at George slightly suspiciously, and saying, “You don’t sound like the Brits on TV though.”
In the background, George felt like he heard Bad make an indignant little sound, like he thought Sapnap was being rude. Which, to be fair, it could have been considered it. But George didn’t mind at all. He could handle a little rudeness far better than strained politeness. It was strange the way his mind functioned that way—rebelling at calm, thriving in chaos.
George choked on a laugh, unable to stop himself grinning as he said, “That’s because I’m not a posh twat.”
There was a moment of stillness, in which George felt a flicker of concern in the hollow of his chest, like he was worried he’d misjudged the humour of the moment. But then, Sapnap’s face broke out into a wide, victorious grin, a warm one that upturned the entirety of his face into a landscape of joy, his eyes dancing with mirth.
Behind him, Bad made a strangled noise of complaint.
“Ignore him,” Sapnap said cheerily, still grinning, “he has a weird thing about cursing. Such a pious little man.”
Another squawk of indignation followed.
George found himself stranded in between them both, backed into a one-way system. A closed circuit with no way out.
He was witnessing a strong friendship between them, he realised stupidly, and all of a sudden, his head was screaming outsider, outsider, outsider. As much as he willed for it to stop, it never rested. His mind had a way of ruining the fun. As soon as the smile had slipped onto his face, he felt it fall again, descending into shadows, as an expression he couldn’t even name reigned over his face once more.
In search of something to do to fill the blankness inside his chest, his eyes fell, gaze landing on his legs, of all places, but even then, his mind didn’t rest.
Even then, his legs seemed out of place. Even then, they didn’t feel like his own—an attachment to a body that was running on autopilot.
His own legs were bare, like the two boys’ in front of him, but his own were pale, littered with fading cuts and scrapes testimony to recklessness. The others’ were smooth and tanned a pleasant golden brown, traces of odd tan lines here and there, like they had fallen asleep in obscure positions, lounging in the sun. As minimal as it sounded, George found himself yearning for that simplicity. He took temporary glee in imagining a world where his biggest concern would be the misshapen tan lines on his legs.
It wasn’t exactly like George had many opportunities to sunbathe in London.
Bad was the one to break the silence, with a clearing of his throat, making George look up, though Bad wasn’t looking at him, but instead allowing his eyes to travel around the room.
“Er, we actually came here for Dream’s wallet… he forgot it and asked us to bring it for him.”
George did let slip an embarrassing flush onto his cheeks this time, the embarrassment too much to bear, as he stood aside and backed accidentally into his bedframe.
“Oh, yeah sure. Come in, sorry.”
As Sapnap brushed past him and properly entered the room, George felt so out of his element it was painful. Behind him, he had Sapnap rummaging round the chaos, humming a tune he didn’t recognise, ad before him was Bad, who was still watching him slightly unnervingly. Now, though, his gaze was thoughtful, a single finger pressed against his lips, staring at George as though awaiting an answer to a question he hadn’t even asked yet.
Eventually, Bad spoke, though when he did, George decidedly felt more confused than before. Bad asked with a sly smile, “Do you like records, George?”
With Sapnap unavailable for input, George stumbled over his words, trying to push away confusion, but he couldn’t help it seeping into his voice as he answered. “Uh, yeah?”
“Good,” Bad said bluntly, smiling fully as he asked, “D’you wanna come with us then?”
George found himself frowning. “Come with you?”
There was a sense of dread now settling in the pit of his stomach, slithering down the curves of his spine, settling down in his abdomen, residing there like a dark weight of stress and tension. The mere idea of mingling with strangers, in a completely new country, with no knowledge of who these people were, going to an utterly new place, scared him. Even the idea of it was overwhelming, as much as he hated to admit it.
Behind him, Sapnap had evidently found Dream’s wallet, and came up behind George, slinging a friendly arm around George’s shoulder.
“Yeah! Join us.”
Trying not to focus on the uncomfortable weight of Sapnap’s arm round his shoulder and the way it made his skin crawl, George swallowed and asked hesitantly, “Where are you going?”
“Just down the road to McCarthy’s record shop,” Bad spoke fondly, glancing out the window, gesturing to the outdoors, as if the shop was in view. He added, “Dream loves his records. We go there at least once a week, to have a look around.”
He gave a vague gesture to the desk with the stacks of records and record player, and George followed his line of sight.
Sapnap spoke again, allowing his arm to fall off George’s shoulders, much to his secret relief, “And since it’s our last day of freedom before the semester starts, Dream’s adamant on going.”
George blinked, not being able to help the surprise he still felt. “Oh.”
When he heard they were ‘going out’ George expected them to be going to the cinema, maybe, or going to a sports game; doing something he expected American teenage boys did in the old movies he used to watch at the Odeon. Going to a record shop wasn’t one of them.
Of course, it was a dumb train of thought, and he embarrassedly looked away from Bad opposite him, as though the boy would be able to read his stupid thoughts if eye contact was maintained.
He jumped as Sapnap gave a low chuckle behind him, grinning as he said sarcastically, “Do try and conceal your excitement.”
“No, no,” George stumbled over his words, as Bad chuckled too, and he felt pink pigment flooding his cheekbones, though the thrumming voice in the back of his mind reminded him to relax.
“I’d, er, I’d love to come,” he added hastily as the words came jumping to mind. He wasn’t sure if that was truly truthful, or whether the fear of being around strangers was overwhelming the joy he anticipated getting from going to a record shop.
He added, unsurely, “…If you don’t mind me coming?”
“Well, that is why we asked you,” Sapnap grinned, tongue curving in teasing sarcasm. “We’ll wait outside whilst you get changed.”
Suddenly George felt very self-conscious of his clothes. Back in England he’d wear a pair of jeans, a t-shirt or hoodie, and a coat depending on the weather. But here in Florida it was hot. He’d nearly had a heart attack earlier when he’d checked the weather app on his phone and it said the temperature in Orlando was ninety degrees. That was unimaginably hot to him, until he realised it was reading in Fahrenheit rather than Celsius. Even then, he found it to be far hotter than England was in August.
In the end, he just hurriedly tugged on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, though he could feel it messing up his hair, sending it into a static, scruffy mess. He ran his fingers through it desperately, but he could feel that there was a singular strand of hair that kept tumbling onto his forehead, and no matter how many times he pushed it back, it sprung back again.
Eventually he gave up with a groan of frustration, slipping on a pair of tatty trainers, and trying desperately to push down the sense of trepidation and worry in his gut. He was moving so quickly he could barely think about the cruel possibility that they were inviting them just for a joke, and for that, he was almost thankful as he came out into the hallway.
Sapnap and Bad were stood out in the corridor, leaning casually against opposing walls, chatting quietly and chuckling.
They had known each other for a while, and that was all too clear as George watched them.
“Oh, here the man is,” Sapnap grinned, and the two boys beckoned him over. “You look like a proper Floridian, you do,” he eyed George’s trainers with a little smirk, “Except the shoes; wear funky-looking sandals and you’d fit right in.”
“Oh, lay off him,” Bad said kindly, as Sapnap chuckled, “It’s not like we wear sandals.”
“Nah, well I’m not from Florida, am I?”
Before George could stop himself, George looked over at the boy with questioning, large eyes, scanning his face as the exclamation slipped past his lips, “You’re not?”
Sapnap looked slightly affronted, and Bad snorted in amusement.
“I’m a Texas boy, born and raised,” he said as he puffed his chest out proudly. He looked almost offended that George had assumed he was a Floridian, staring adamantly at George until the Brit couldn’t take it any longer and had to force himself to look away, threats of embarrassment rising up the back of his neck. “I only came here to Florida for schooling, and my mom knew Dream was coming here, so she decided to ship me off too, I guess.”
He finished with a slightly disgruntled look, and there were tones of thinly veiled emotion behind his words, like he hadn’t been happy with that decision made for him. But, George knew the reluctance to talk about topics like that, and didn’t press it any further.
After a beat of silence, Sapnap asked, tone now curious, “Why’d you come here from England?”
Instinctively, George felt himself tense up, muscles and tendons running taught beneath his skin as he clenched his jaw, looking over in alarm. He had foolishly hoped beforehand that the question would just never come up in conversation, but of course, deep down he knew curiosity was an essential human emotion, and humankind thrived upon it.
George cursed himself for not coming up with a lie beforehand as to why he was in Florida; one that wouldn’t arise questions.
In desperation, he looked past the prying eyes of Sapnap, and over to Bad, as though, miraculously, the bespectacled boy would sense his discomfort, and tell him words of reassurance. He thought that maybe Bad would jump in, and remind him he didn’t have to answer the question, but to his dismay, Bad looked just as curious as Sapnap did, though it seemed to be hidden behind a polite mask he put up as guard.
George felt the steady itching of stress at the back of his throat, and he looked back down at the carpet as they walked down the corridor.
He started speaking, finally, sensing he couldn’t be quiet forever, “Well, it was more just... needing to get out of Britain,” he said, willing his heart to return to a steady pace, “Just sick of the country, er, and Hawthorne’s seemed to be a good school.”
“Wait, so you were sick of your country and you decided to come to America, of all places?” Sapnap scrunched his features into a look of mild disgust, making Bad laugh, and after a beat of hesitation, making George laugh too, a blossoming smile creeping onto his cheeks.
In all honesty, Sapnap made a good point.
The three boys walked through the school, and George felt pleased to admit that Hawthorne’s looked slightly nicer in the daylight than it did in the darkness of the early morning. The campus was reasonably large, not as large as the old college George went to back in Britain, but still big enough that he was scared of getting lost in it.
When he voiced this cloying concern to Sapnap and Bad, they waved their hands with little worry.
“You’ll be fine, that’s what everyone thinks when they first come here,” Sapnap said, appearing unbothered, but it did not much to soothe the worry in George’s chest.
They took a deemed ‘short cut’ through a hole in the back of somebody’s fence, something Bad told George in a hushed voice was Sapnap’s find. Apparently, he found the hole after he was chased by campus security for using spray paint on the chemistry block. It was becoming apparent to George that his newly found acquaintance seemed to be a bit of a troublemaker.
“So, where is this record place?” George spoke up rather hoarsely, the blaring sunlight blaring down into his skin. It made him feel sleepy, and it didn’t help that he only got around five hours of sleep that night.
Bad answered, “McCarthy’s is just around the corner.”
There was a pause, before George timidly asked, the words sounding so foreign warped around his tongue, “And is, er, Dream already there, then?”
Sapnap clearly heard his timidity, and looked at him in amusement, making him embarrassed once more. It felt so weird bringing up the name of someone entirely new, who he knew absolutely nothing about, except for the state of his half of the dorm room. In George’s mind, he had built up an impression of his roommate, but it was foolish and obscure.
Bad answered for him yet again, when Sapnap didn’t look to be doing so, “Yeah, he always gets there when the shop first opens. He says that’s when there is the best pick of records, when there is the least amount of people there.”
This time, Sapnap jumped in, adjusting the band of white around his head once more, clearly thinking he looked very cool. He spoke with a humorous scoff, “Nobody else even goes there, it’s literally just us. He doesn’t need to go early when the competition is between us and Miss McCarthy’s cat.”
“Don’t make fun of him,” Bad said kindly, “He loves his records.”
He snorted loudly in response, “I realised. He spends all his savings on them, the idiot.”
McCarthy’s was in a rather run-down state, George realised as they stood in front of it. Its front was painted in what once was probably a vibrant, bright red, the colour of the prettiest of poppies, but was now a coat of peeling, washed-out red paint. The words ‘McCarthy’s Records’ were attached to the front in large, yellow letters, but a few of the letters had gone missing. The windows, however were squeaky clean—something the owner clearly took pride in. Signs were hung in the window, reading ‘SALE! 50% OFF’ and ‘Last Chance!’ in bright colours, but the edges were scrapped and slightly rusted.
George tried to keep the slight judgement he felt off of his face as he stared up at it.
“Welcome to McCarthy’s,” Bad said to George.
He was clearly trying to sound enthused by the prospect of the shop, but George still couldn’t help but notice the slight wariness with which Bad was looking at him with. It was as if McCarthy’s was a sacred place they had grown to love, and sharing such a private location with George, a boy they barely knew, was a matter to be cautious with.
When Bad caught George looking at him, he gave him a smile, but it was still done with stiffness, and a horrible edge of politeness, like George had watched his mother use when meeting people she didn’t know well. George probably would’ve preferred if Bad had simply just glared at him.
Bad added finally, “You’ll love it.”
With heavy feet, George followed Sapnap as the boy entered the shop, pushing the door, and George heard the tell-tale ring of a bell as Bad followed behind him.
And as soon as they entered, George was engulfed in an odd sort of comfort. The walls were a warm red, just like the outside, but it was richer, darker. The walls were lined with shelves, each holding an unimaginable number of vinyl records. Pushed against each wall were cabinets, all holding vinyl, sorted in alphabetical order. In the very centre of the room were more cabinets, and two plump armchairs. They were antique-looking, with patchy velvet fabric, but they looked to have once been grand and regal-looking.
It smelt of roses. George smelt the familiar scent as soon as he entered, hitting him like a kick to the gut. There was the faint scent of cigarette smoke, too.
“Ah, boys!” came a loud, yet hoarse and scratchy voice from the other end of the shop, and an elderly woman emerged from the back room.
Her hair was speckled with dark roots, but was mostly a silvery grey. Her eyes had crinkled edges; it made her look intimidatingly jolly as she smiled toothily at the boys that just entered. She had plenty of wrinkles, each carved into her tanned, weathered face, dotted with freckles and moles.
“G’morning, Miss McCarthy,” Sapnap called back, stuffing one hand in his pocket as he waved rather vigorously to the elderly woman, who was making her way towards the group.
“Good mornin’ sweetheart,” she gushed, bringing one skinny, weathered hand up to pat the top of his head, which Sapnap accepted, ducking down slightly so the shorter woman could do it easier.
Her accent, George realised with a pang, wasn’t American. Rather, it sounded Welsh, and suddenly, his heart was bleeding into his windpipe, and it felt like he couldn't breathe.
It sounded like his dad's accent—rolling and softened; rising cliffs and sinking hills. It sounded like the accent his dad had always tried to wash out his mouth, embarrassed by it for reasons George never understood. Yet he could never get rid of it; it curled at his vowels and flourished his consonants, picking up tempo in his sentences and lifting the ends of his words.
At his side, his fingers flexed and fidgeted, trying to get rid of the burning in his chest, but to no avail.
Then came the moment George had been bracing himself for; the woman, Miss McCarthy, as Sapnap called her, looked over, and her eyes fell on him. Instantly, her eyes filled with curiosity, a small barrier building upwards in her gaze, around the unknown.
She raised her eyebrows only slightly, glancing over at Bad and Sapnap fleetingly, “Oh, and...”
He could feel her piercing blue eyes scanning him, like an x-ray, really, looking over his body. And right away, the hairs rose on his arms, and discomfort clawed at his insides, the confidence he’d attempted to show upon entering dissipating instantly, ripped into shreds. Her eyes followed his bone structure, dancing up to his face, and searching his eyes.
“And who’s this?” She finally spoke, after what felt like forever.
Whilst her voice was still pleasant and her tone dripping with unsuccessfully hidden curiosity, it held a slight edge she hadn’t used with Sapnap. It seemed to George like suspicion, maybe, or slight caution. He wondered feebly how he’d managed to fuck up without even speaking yet.
Bad cleared his throat, filling the awkward silence when George made no move to speak. “This is Dream’s new roommate. Remember he was getting one today? Just across the hall from us.”
It seemed as simple as that; it was like the comfort behind Bad’s words had been magical, because the previous tension on her face dissipated, and her eyes lit up with bright surprise. She bustled over to him, at remarkable speed for someone who seemed so frail, a sweet, toothy grin present on her face.
“Oh, yes, I’m sorry, dear! Dream did mention he was getting a new roommate, it must’ve just slipped my mind.”
Her wrinkled hands clasped on his, holding them tightly. Her hands felt soft, but her fingers were laden with so many odd-looking rings her hands were heavy and slightly cold. Gingerly, he tried to relax his hands into her palms and gave her a faint smile.
“Good morning,” he said in painful politeness, forcing himself to hold eye contact. “Nice to meet you, I’m George.”
As soon as he spoke, her eyes lit up with excitement and enthusiasm, and he clasped his hands even tighter. He could feel her rings digging uncomfortably into the skin of his hands.
“Oh my! You’re a Brit?” She looked at him with wide eyes as Sapnap snorted.
He nodded timidly.
“Oh, bless your soul, what in the heavens are you doing here in America?”
Now when she spoke, her Welsh accent was becoming even more prominent, ripping through her voice as if begging for attention. George struggled to speak, feeling very taken aback.
“He’s at Hawthorne’s now, remember?” Sapnap jumped in, much to George’s relief.
“Oh, yes, yes, of course,” Miss McCarthy smiled with the same enthusiasm at George, her eyes warm. “Bless you... so soft-spoken and polite too, like our Bad here..."
George could see Bad blush furiously, and Sapnap stifle a snicker behind her.
Bad spoke, as though wanting to change the subject. “Hey, where is Dream anyway?”
Miss McCarthy gestured behind her with one hand airily. “He’s in the back—”
“I’m here.”
The voice broke through the conversation, interrupting Miss McCarthy effectively, despite not being very loud; it did, however, hold a divine confidence and serenity that made everyone look over to the source of sound.
George tensed once more as he looked at the person, and their eyes clashed, his eyes finding a pair already looking over at him, and not looking away.
“Ah,” the spokesperson said. “You must be my new roommate.”