Becoming P.T. Lyfantod - 18
A serial fantasy novel
What follows is Part 18 of Becoming P.T. Lyfantod
If you missed Part 1, start there:
Chapter Six:
Another Friday Night
“So this just how it is now? Forever?”
Stuart frowned at me. “What do you mean?”
“Come on, Stu. You know what I mean.”
It was Friday afternoon, and we’d just left band practice. The school grounds were empty. I could still see Iain’s back. He’d given a lame excuse and drifted off towards home. “Got to help dad with his bike.” Neither of us had tried to stop him.
I nodded at Iain, now rounding the corner onto Sketty Park Drive. “It’s Friday. Argon’s been sulking for weeks. Merry has abandoned us for you-know-who, and you seem content to stay home writing papers or whatever it is you do. But I’m tired of spending the whole bloody weekend by myself. It’s depressing. I’m bored! If this keeps up much longer, I’m going to have to start dating someone from the football team. Dafydd Roberts, maybe?”
Stuart made a face. “Please don’t. And it’s not that I prefer to be doing homework. Granted, I don’t mind it as much as you do, but it does need to get done. Our A levels—”
“Can wait till Monday. Bloody hell, Stu. Don’t you care that our gang’s been broken up?”
“Of course I care! But what are we supposed to do about it?”
I inclined my head at the corner. “Merry’s a lost cause. That’s obvious. We’ve gotta wait for her to come around on her own. She’ll realize Tom’s a toad sooner or later. But if we leave him till then, all that’s left of our fearless leader is going to be a sad, empty shell.”
“But Iain clearly wants to be left alone. He says—”
“He thinks he wants to be left alone, but he’s wrong. And we’re going to show him.” I took Stuart by the shoulder and dragged him after Iain.
“Would you look at that?”
A tarpaulin in the corner of Iain’s driveway covered an old bike. I didn’t know a thing about motorbikes, but this one looked like it’d been built sometime around the First World War, and Iain’s dad had been fixing it since we were in primary school. Or more accurately he’d been talking about fixing it since we were in primary school. There was an accumulation of grease and rust underneath, and as far as I could tell, it hadn’t been moved in years.
Iain’s dad opened the door when we knocked. Mr. Lloyd was tall and well-built with broad shoulders, big hands, and the hint of a belly. He looked like an older, larger version of Iain. He blinked down at us. “Oh, hullo boys.”
“Good afternoon, Mr. Lloyd,” I said. “How’s the bike coming along?”
He raised his eyebrows and glanced over our shoulders. “That old thing? I’ll get to it eventually, I suppose. To be perfectly honest, I’d as soon be rid of it. But I’ve been talking about fixing it so long, I’d never hear the end of it from Mrs. Lloyd if I sold it. You’re looking for Iain?”
We nodded.
“He’s upstairs.” He stepped back and beckoned us in. Then in a lowered voice he added, “Mind your fingers. Boy’s been a tad moody of late.”
“Thank you, Mr. Lloyd. We will.”
We jogged upstairs and rapped our knuckles on Iain’s door.
“I said I’m not hungry!”
I snorted. “Guess you won’t be needing any of these choccy cupcakes.”
A startled silence led to squeaking bedsprings. The doorknob rattled, and the door opened to reveal Iain, who was somehow already in his pajamas, though he couldn’t have been home for more than five minutes. We regarded one another.
“I don’t see any cupcakes.”
“I lied. We’re going out.”
“We are?” Stuart looked at me, wide-eyed.
Iain was already shaking his head. “Whatever it is—”
I pushed past him into his room and sat down on his bed with my arms crossed. Iain whirled around, reddening. He really was quite menacing when he was angry. “Listen, P.T.—”
“No, you listen. You’re down about Merry. We get it. But y’know what makes you look real attractive to women? Laying about in your nightclothes, turning slowly into a pasty noodle. Nobody likes a loser, Iain, and right now you’ve got loser written all over you.”
Stuart stepped inside and closed the door behind him. “P.T.…”
I held up a hand to silence him. Iain looked like he wanted to punch me. I soldiered on because he needed to hear what I had to say.
“I’m serious. You’ve been in love with Merry for as long as anyone can remember. You know it. I know it. Stu knows it. And most importantly Merry knows it. But here you are, at home alone on a Friday night. And where’s Merry? Probably out sharing an ice cream with Tom Firth. And everybody knows he’s a git.”
Iain clearly wanted to argue. The trouble was, I hadn’t said anything that wasn’t stone cold fact, so he ground his teeth instead. Stuart stood by the door, probably imagining being on the other side of it, and maybe a few miles down the road. Truth be told, I was a little worried that Iain really was going to take a swing at me. And given that he was shaped like a full-grown man and I more like a broomstick with hair, I would surely regret it if he did. But I was angry, and apparently that had nullified my sense of self preservation.
It wasn’t only Iain I was angry with. I was mad at Merry for knowing that Iain liked her and not liking him back. For liking Tom bloody Firth instead, of all people! At the two of them collectively for breaking up our group and forcing me to spend all of my time alone. For ruining our game, because I liked being Eremin, adventuring with Argon, Dona, and Hurlin, who were the best, most interesting versions of ourselves. And though it had nothing to do with the present situation, I was angry at my mother for everything she had done and hadn’t.
If I was honest with myself, she probably had more to do with my short fuse and missing filter than anything else. But Iain couldn’t know that. All he knew was that the girl he liked, one of his best friends, had rejected him, and he was gutted over it. All he wanted to do was wallow in misery, and I was standing between him and his wallowing, telling him things he didn’t want to hear but couldn’t very well deny either. So he stood across from me, fuming.
“What’s your point?” he demanded.
“That you need to be doing the exact opposite of this.”
Iain frowned. “How d’you mean?”
“You’ve got to show her you don’t need her.”
“What’s that going to accomplish?”
“Clearly, what you’ve been doing hasn’t worked. Merry’s willing to be your friend, even knowing you’d rather be her boyfriend than her mate. And for years you’ve hoped that somehow friendship would evolve into something else, that she’d suddenly realize what a fantastic bloke you were and fall in love. But it hasn’t happened, and now she’s found Tom. So you tried showing her how much you care by moping around, sleeping all day, and giving up solid foods like some lovesick puppy. But to her, it looks sad. You look like rubbish, mate. You’ve lost weight. You’re paler than me. You’re a mess.”
Iain threw his hands in the air. “What d’you bloody expect? How could she choose him? Him!” He sputtered. “Tom…Tom bloody—”
He turned and took a swing at the wall, pulling back at the last moment so his fist landed with a soft thud. His face was red, and a vein on his forehead twitched. “It doesn’t make any sense! He’s such a…such a—”
“Knob? Bellend? Arse?”
“Wanker?” supplied Stuart, who seemed to have sensed the mood in the room shifting.
Iain looked back and forth between us. “Yes!”
“Agreed,” I said, feeling that I was finally getting somewhere. “But you’re not going to beat him by hiding up in your room.”
“Then what am I supposed to do?” Iain asked helplessly.
“Live your life! Be fun! No one wants to spend time with a depressive, let alone date one.”
“Living well is the best revenge,” said Stuart, quoting someone.
“Friday is supposed to be our night for fun. I’m tired of spending it by myself.”
“A reward for a week of hard study,” Stuart seconded.
Iain slumped down on the bed beside me with a squeaking of springs. “Fine, but how are we supposed to continue our game now? We’re down a man.”
“Woman, technically. Anyway, we should save the game for when things are back to normal. For now, I’ve got a better idea.”
