Chapter 20
He chose Monday evening. That way, he reasoned, he could spend the whole week at school, and stay out late with Darren or Charley at least three of the four days, and avoid Mum and Dad. You know. In case it went wrong.
He told Charley he was going to do it on the way home from school, and she’d hugged him on the corner of Churchill Street until he could barely breathe and said, “It’ll be fine, Jay, I promise. Promise.”
He texted Darren—I’m going to come out to my parents, what do I say?—on the hundred-metre stretch between Charley’s house and his own, but there was no answer. There rarely was on Mondays. Vaguely in the back of his head, Jayden suspected Darren just abandoned his phone on Monday afternoons.
The house was quiet when he let himself in. Dad was still at work; Mu
