Our Last Summer

Alexander Bexley-2

Ryan takes the first few weeks of every summer holiday to re-learn the area surrounding Appington. It’s a picturesque village, the type that has a pub and a post office and a stone church and crumbling old houses that line the village green, and absolutely nothing else. Its air is still, heavy, bringing nothing new, and even the whack of summer cricket bats are muffled by the sheer weight of it. It is alone in the countryside—surrounded by small brooks and hay fields, interspersed with the odd copse and one thick, dark wood running around the south of the village.

It is the other side of that wood where he finds himself today, crashing clumsily out of the trees to the stream that marks off the other side of it, creating a small, isolated meadow without signs of human life.

Usually.

He’s been here before, many times, liking to read in the sun and stick his bare feet into the cold water, but he’s never seen another living soul here. So when he stumbles out of the trees to see another boy—with a book, bare feet in the stream—he stops dead.

It’s a shock, that’s all.

It’s not even that there’s a person here. Ryan knows, logically, that he can’t be the only one to have found this clearing. He’s just never crossed paths with other people here before. Considering he’s here only once or twice a year, those odds aren’t too ridiculous.

No, the shock is more that it’s not a man, but a boy. He can’t be any older than Ryan—in fact, he might be younger—with long limbs in the middle of puberty, attached almost haphazardly to his torso, and very dark (possibly black, though the sun makes it difficult to tell) hair that’s in desperate need of a haircut, falling as long as to cover his face, ears and the upper part of his neck from view, with no discernible style or cut or even hints of combing.

He tilts his head back to look at Ryan, though, and the wayward hair falls out of the way to show a finely-boned face, with high cheekbones and a sharp jawline, hollow cheeks giving an impression of a wiry, but not unhealthy, build.

Oh yes, and the most impressive black eye Ryan’s ever seen. (And he lives in Manchester, for Christ’s sake.)

“Er,” Ryan says eloquently. “Hi.”

This might be the school uniform, he reflects. All he has to go on are the lanky frame and the non-gender-specific haircut, but it could be. From the back—and from a distance, actually, because although his shoulders aren’t broad, his hips are narrow—he could pass for a girl.

“Do you live up in Appington?” Ryan asks, uselessly jerking a thumb over his shoulder.

After a moment, he receives a slow nod.

“Erm. You new, then? I’ve not seen anyone my age there before. Um, yeah, not that I’m around much either. Er…” Ryan is quite aware that he’s babbling. He’s a bit unnerved by the endless staring—the boy has grey eyes that are nearly as pale as the whites of the eyes. It’s just eerie.

The boy returns to his book, ignoring Ryan completely.

He doesn’t stick around after that.

* * * *

He finds Nan at the tearoom, with her friend Milly. Ryan likes Milly—she gives out free cake, and mothers him ridiculously because her own grandchildren are about his age, but they’re in New Zealand, so he gets to be her surrogate grandkid while he’s here.

“Hello, dear,” Nan says when he throws himself into the chair opposite her. Almost instantly, that free cake appears, and he throws Milly a smile because he knows she likes it. “You’re back early. I wasn’t expecting you home until teatime.”

Ryan shrugs. “I met that boy.”

“What boy?”

“From the bus stop.”

“Oh!” Nan smiles. “Oh, that’s nice, dear. Did you make friends?”

When she comes out with phrases like that, Ryan is reminded that, to his Nan, he’s still about six and enthusing about colouring at school. He’s also vaguely reminded that she’s old, and he represses the urge to tell her this isn’t the nineteen seventies, and he’s not his mother.

Instead, he shrugs.

“What’s his name?” Nan asks, and he shrugs again.

“I don’t know. He didn’t say anything—completely ignored me, actually. I think he’s a bit weird.”

“Who’s that, dear?” Milly asks, bustling over with fresh cups of tea and another slice of cake, despite the fact he hasn’t touched the first one yet.

“Ryan’s met some boy,” Nan says.

“Oh! Skinny lad, needs a haircut?” Milly asks, and when Ryan nods, she tuts. “He’s a strange one. He lives next door—can’t remember his name for the life of me. Alistair? Tsh, no, not quite—ah, never mind. I had a lovely long chat with his father when they moved in. Such a nice man! Never see much of the boy, though. John—that’s his father—John says he’s a bit quiet.”

Nan pulls a face, and Ryan snickers. She probably can’t imagine a boy Ryan’s age being quiet. Okay, so Ryan isn’t exactly raising hell, but he’s not quiet either. He’s just easily entertained. And Ryan’s cousin Mark is a complete headbanger.

“They’ve come out from Cardiff,” Milly clicks her tongue and shakes her head. “That’ll be why he’s a bit odd. Cities are no place to raise healthy young boys. Give him a year or two in the country, and he’ll be just fine. Here—” She pokes Ryan with a spare teaspoon. “You get him in here and I’ll get some proper homemade cake into him. I can’t imagine that woman ever bakes!”

Ryan laughs, and doesn’t ask questions.

He finds out for himself soon enough.