Chapter 1

Ste wiped his mouth for the third time. For some reason, he seemed to be drooling. His eyes were doing the same, streaming a constant river of tears as he squinted in the midday sun.

The smell of antiseptic wasn't helping either. Ste had always hated the smell of hospitals. They were all the same, and while he understood they had to remain sterile for patient safety, the clinical coldness brought back memories he didn't want to relive. 

When he reached ward 9, a motherly looking woman with a blonde perm looked up from the desk. 'Nurse Smith,' her badge read.

"I... erm, I'm h—here to see Adam," he stammered, feeling like a criminal. For a second, he thought she would shout at him to leave. Ask how he dared to show his face here, the murdering little scroat?

Instead, she smiled.

"Go straight in," she said and pointed to the room on the left. "Hand gel is on the wall."

Ste smiled, nodded, and stopped to squirt some of the gel into his hands only because he sensed her eyes on his back. 

When he went into the room and found Adam awake, he felt his stomach dip as if he were on a rollercoaster. The only way he'd managed to talk himself into coming was to repeat the mantra, 'He'll definitely be asleep.'

"Hi," he said, barely managing to choke out the greeting. He felt sure Adam would lunge from the bed, grab him by the throat and strangle the life from him. He would deserve it. 

"Sup, man?" was all Adam said. After a moment of silence, the bedridden boy looked him up and down. "What is this? You stab me and don't even bother to bring flowers?"

'You stab me.' The words sounded so harsh. So accusatory. 

So apt.

"I'm so sorry," Ste blurted. "I'm so fucking sorry. I'm sorry. You can stab me back if you want to. Beat the shit out of me. Anything."

As he babbled, Adam flashed him one of his pitying smiles. Adam didn't smile often, but when he did, his lips would purse, and his eyebrows would knit together. It was an expression he'd always found cute, not that he'd ever dare say as much.

"What can I do?" he asked. "I'll do anything."

Adam didn't answer. Instead, he asked, "Why'd you do it?"

This is what Ste had been most frightened of. Admitting he was more afraid of Jamie than he was of Adam. That wasn't going to down well. To say that it was all Jamie's idea sounded like a cop-out too, even if it was the truth.

He swallowed, grimacing to himself as he remembered that horrible moment Jamie had clocked Adam charging over like a bull. In his memory, Adams's nostrils were flared and exuding stream, his head lowered in a minotaur-like pose as he came at them. Jamie, being Jamie, had shat his pants and thrust the weapon into Ste's hands. He had never planned on using it, but Jamie had pushed Adam backwards into him.

He couldn't say as much. Jamie would go to prison. It wasn't something he'd forgive... if he survived to forgive him at all.

Telling the police he'd smashed the bottle and only planned to use it in defence because he was scared of Adam seemed like the best plan. It was Jamie's plan, but Jamie was the smart one. 

"I just... I wanted him to like me back," Ste explained, sticking to the only other explanation he had to offer. "I... I loved him."

Adam made a scoffing sound and nodded. "Loved. Sure."

Looking at the floor, Ste knew what he was saying, and it was true. He still loved Jamie. He couldn't get his face out of his mind. The snide glare and cold glint in his eyes as he'd told the court everything was Ste's idea. As he'd walked past, his Italian loafers clicking on the hard tiles, and looked at Ste like he was something he'd stepped in.

Even so, after everything... he still adored the evil little prick.

"What did you get?" Adam asked him. "I'm assuming you didn't get time in juvie?"

"Two hundred hours community service, two years suspended sentence and a fine. Mum is busting my ass about that fine," he told Adam. In terms of punishment, it didn't sound like enough.

"I know," he said, taking in Adam's expression. "I'll take any punishment you want to give me. Just please—"

"Please, what?" Adam asked, cocking his head. "Forgive you? Be your mate again?"

"I—" The question stumped him. What did he want? It was a good question. Could he really expect Adam to take him back after everything he'd done?

"I'll forgive you if you forgive me," Adam said. 

"Huh?" Ste asked, shaking his head. "What? Forgive you for what?"

"Come here and sit on the bed," Adam said, sitting up. He watched the way Adam moved, so pained and slow. 

"I'm good," Adam assured him once he'd shifted himself into a seated position, bare feet hanging from the bed. "You barely scratched me. It just got infected and I happened to be allergic to the antibiotics. I'd have been sent straight home otherwise."

The flimsy hospital bed dipped as Ste took a seat beside him, sighing with relief. He felt bad for Adam, sure, but at least the injury he'd inflicted wasn't entirely to blame.

"I let him torture you," Adam said. "I watched him do it and I didn't stop it because, in all honesty, it amused me and… I wanted Jamie’s sister to like me."

Adam shook his head and looked down, as if ashamed of wanting the affections of a girl. “When she asked me asked me to stop bullying her brother, I could have done just that, but I let him take revenge on you.”

He looked down at his hands as Adam spoke, picking at his nails. It was true that Adam was partly to blame, but if you were going to pick apart the situation further, it was Ste who had chosen Jamie as a victim in the first place.

"I had all the power and I used it to hurt you." Adam shrugged. "You even came begging to me and I just didn't listen."

When he felt Adam's hand grasp his clammy palm, Ste jumped and sucked in his breath.

"I'm partly to blame, so you don't have to worry about me getting revenge," Adam said, beginning to squeeze his hand. "And trust me, even in this state I could still destroy you."

As if to demonstrate, Adam squished his hand so tightly his knuckles ground painfully against each other.

A gasp of pain escaped Ste's lips as he nodded. He felt tears well up behind his eyes, not from the pain, but what Adam was telling him with it. They were never going to be mates again. Years of friendship, of hanging out playing games in his room and football in the park. Of drinking and getting into trouble together. Sitting in isolation after getting thrown out of classes, laughing at the teachers. All those times were just a memory now.

"Please, Adam," he tried. "Please, please forgive me. I'll do whatever you want. I'll do anything. Just... please, please forgive me."

"I'm begging you, Adam," he gasped, trying his best to ignore the pain in his hand as Adam continued to crush. "I BEG you, please forgive me."

Adam released his hand suddenly. Ste pulled it into his chest, rubbing his knuckles with the non-crushed hand. 

"Anything, huh?" Adam asked with a sneer. He had that look in his eyes. One that said he was planning something. "We'll see."

Ste nodded and jumped down from the bed. He didn't want to hang about too long, especially considering he was supposed to be picking up trash from the roadside about now. 

He said goodbye and sauntered out, following the arrows on the floor to the exit. As he stepped through the automatic doors back into the humid summer afternoon, he felt his phone chime in his back pocket. 

Smiling, he pulled it out, thinking it would be Joseph. He and Joseph had been sending messages back and forth in a frantic game of 'text tennis' for the past few nights. The tone had become flirty and Joseph had even hinted at a date.

But this time it wasn't Joseph.

His heart skipped a beat as he recognised Jamie's number.

"Well," the text read. "I'm still waiting for an apology."

Ste read and re-read the message a few times before deciding the best thing was to simply delete it.

"You'll be waiting a long time," he muttered to himself.