Rory and Sebastian

'You mustn't be sad.'

Rory said these words to me in that strangely soft drawl of his; the one that came only when he was comforting me. It sounded kind of like something that floated out of an old Merchant and Ivory movie. He ran his hand soothingly along the back of my bowed head and settled himself on the wing of an overstuffed armchair in my family sitting room. There was a crack and a spit from the fire burning in the fireplace and wind-blown rain lashed against the windows.

'You mustn't be angry,' he whispered in a voice that sounded like a strange kind of love-child between a command and an entreaty. 'Sebastian?'

'How can you tell me not to be angry?' I asked quietly, into my clenched hands.

'Sebastian, he doesn't matter. You mustn't let it bother you.'

I glanced up at him; my face was, I'm pretty sure, a mixture of incredulity and rage. 'He was fucking terrible to you! He was bullying you. I mean, that's what it fucking is! And it's my...'

'It's not your fault,' he continued, in the same kind of calmness that was so rare in him. It was strangely hypnotic. His voice had acquired a lilting cadence. Maybe you only hear it if you're in love with someone, like I was with him. But I do think impartially that when he was completely centered and completely focused, anyone could have noticed that he did manage to have this soothing sound to his voice. He kept stroking my head and gazing down at me with warm, swimming eyes. Kind of like the ones you see in an old statue of a Catholic saint.

'Sebastian, listen to me: it's not your fault. It happened. I was upset. Of course I was. But it happened and it's no-one's fault. No-one's fault but his. He's always hated me; long before you. I'm sorry if that dents your ego.' He was smiling, gently, as he said it, as if we were suddenly and magically prepared to start joking about the whole thing. But I wasn't prepared to concede the point.

'Without me, he never would have said anything. He never would have done any of this, Rory.'

'You mustn't do anything stupid. You mustn't demean yourself, or you and I, us, by responding to it. He wants your acknowledgement; you shouldn't give it to him. Don't even be angry at him.'

'And what about you?' I said, into my hands again. 'Should I be angry at you?'

His hand stopped stroking my head and instead the third finger of his right hand traced little lines in the back of my skull. He didn't speak for about twenty seconds and I let him wait it out. 'Yes,' he conceded, after a moment. 'Perhaps.'

'Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you tell me when it started?'

He hesitated. And began stroking my hair again, absent-mindedly. 'I don't know,' he admitted. He sounded far-off. 'I was worried you might get angry.'

'Promise me that's why.'

I looked up at him and I saw shock flicker across his face at the fact that there were now tears in my eyes. He'd never seen that in me before. But even in a state of shock, Rory was a master of emotional improvisation; within a second, his face had returned to the kind of beatific neutrality he'd shown earlier. His face implied that this whole argument was an abstract problem; that it was nothing to do with him. That it neither affected him, nor applied to him. That it was all to do with me and he simply cared about it because he cared about me. I wondered if that was his way of coping with it.

'Rory,' I repeated, 'please, tell me. Is that honestly why?'

'Yes,' he lied. 'Of course.'

'Not of course,' I snapped, getting up from the seat and walking over to the window ledge, which I leant against. 'Not fucking of course. Did you lie to me because you thought I might agree with him?'

'I didn't lie,' Rory reasoned. I looked at him scornfully – when they're in the wrong, people usually leap on the semantics and argue about them instead of arguing about the real stuff. 'Sebastian, I did not lie,' he repeated.

'Every time I've asked you if you were okay and you've answered yes, you've been lying,' I shot back. I wasn't letting this one drop. The more I thought about it, the more furious I was at him. 'Do you not trust me?'

'Of course I trust you!' he replied. It was quick; instantaneous. Sincere. 'Of course, I do. Sebastian, how could you even ask me that? You're blowing this completely out of proportion.'

'How many times has it made you cry? How many times did you get a message from him when we were together?'

He walked towards me. He was holding his calm. 'I don't want people to know what he's said,' he reasoned. Still talking to me in the tone you might use to a nervous colt. 'I don't want this to become a thing in school. Please, Sebastian.'

'Because you think people will agree with him? Like you thought I might agree with him?'

His arms snaked softly round my waist, but I didn't respond. 'Sebastian. Can't we just forget this? Please?'

I pushed him off me, gently but firmly. 'No,' I answered. 'We can't, because you can't. And until you admit that you didn't trust me to have your back in all this, I don't want to hang out with you.'

He stepped back, stunned. Like I'd hit him. 'Seriously?'

'Seriously,' I replied, coldly. 'I have worked so hard to get your trust. I have not once lied to you, betrayed you, left you hanging; I have done everything to make you feel good about yourself and to make this something where we trust each other. Any problem I had, I'd come to you: especially if it was a serious one ...'

'This wasn't ser-'

'Don't fucking lie to me, Rory! Of course it's serious. It's... I feel like all the love and all the nice things haven't worked with you. Or they've only worked so far. I want this to work, but if I think you're hiding things from me - things that affect us both and that you should fucking let me help you with - then it's not going to work. Is it?'

'Are you breaking up with me?' His voice cracked.

'Don't be retarded,' I sighed. I saw relief shoot through every fiber of his body. 'I'm just mad at you and you should have told me.'

'So you don't feel like hanging out now?'

'No,' I admitted. 'Not right now, Rory.'

'I'll go then,' he said, neutrally.

'I'll give you a lift home.'

'I have an umbrella; thank you for the offer, though,' he said, with exquisitely detached manners. 'I'll see you in school on Monday, Sebastian.'

I nodded and didn't look at him as he left. A few moments later, once he'd found his coat and gloves, he stepped out into the rain. And I glanced out the window as he walked away, a tall, willowy figure beneath a black umbrella. Left alone, I let a couple of tears of frustration out and then puffed out my cheeks. I sat on the sofa and gazed into the fire; he'd left me alone, like I'd wanted, with my annoyance, my confusion and my rage.

*

Rory and I had been dating for just shy of eight weeks when that fight – the first real fight – happened between us. I'd been right when I said there'd be more things to learn about each other. More layers were added, imperceptibly, piece by piece, as we grew closer. Part of this was finding out the standard little quirks of our interests; facts, factoids, whatever. The vital statistics, if you like. We knew each other's favorite books ('Brideshead Revisited' and 'The Pursuit of Love' for him; 'This Thing of Darkness' for me), favorite movies, colors, TV shows, first memories, etc. But there were also other things we got to know about each other or came to be able to guess: ticks and quirks. His aversion to needlessly-open doors; my hatred of toast sweat, etc. What he was thinking when the right hand corner of his bottom lip turned slightly downwards, as he bit on it in apparent thoughtfulness. How I tapped my leg when I was feeling increasingly horny. All of it, bit by bit, we came to recognize and we grew closer. We had still not slept together, fully, although the oral sex we'd progressed to – unexpectedly – that night at his house, had become a pretty regular occurrence.

There had been a period, though, of about two weeks, immediately preceding our first fight, when I could feel Rory beginning to recoil from me again. Of flinching, again, when I touched him. Like all of his conscious physical movements, the flinches were subtle – almost unnoticeable to anyone who wasn't intimately aware of why he was doing them and when. Three days before the fight itself broke, I'd been aware of a momentary spasm – a light fluttering of discomfort – when I'd put my hand on his shoulder as I walked up behind him in the school corridors. At first, I thought it was because he didn't know who it was, but even when he saw it was me, the tenseness remained. I actually saw him exhale, slightly, with relief when I let go of him. Which wasn't a great feeling for me.

I'd made-up my mind to talk to him that night, or at the weekend, when events sort of overtook me. Us. I knew that something had happened when I caught Rory's best friend, Robbie, staring off into the distance. Robbie is as bad at hiding his facial expressions as Rory is good at it. He looked lost in thought and those thoughts were clearly angry ones.

'Dude, what's up?' I asked him at Friday lunch-time. It had been one of this piss-annoying Fridays, when everything had seemed to drag. But I guess if you pick Physics for A-Level, like I did, then you deserved all the misery that came your way.

'Nothing,' he answered, unconvincingly. 'Nothing, bro. Just thinking about homework.' But I saw his eyes glance over quickly at the table where Rory was sitting with the four girls. To me, Rory looked fine. He was listening to a story that his friend Claudia was telling and laughing along at it. He added some aside to the story and the rest of the girls burst out laughing. Claudia swatted him playfully. No doubt the story was amoral to a level that the cast of 'Heathers' would probably find shocking, but they seemed happy. Rory seemed to be quite clearly enjoying himself. But Robbie had looked over at him and I'd noticed the change in his behavior when he did. I wasn't going to put Robbie in a difficult position, especially in front of the rest of the guys, but I had a hunch that something had happened with Rory and that Robbie both knew about it and was worried about it. Maybe it was just something that had gone wrong in their friendship, but a tiny part of me – okay, quite a large part of me – felt that twang of jealousy when you realize that the best friend probably knows something before the boyfriend does.

I looked over at Rory. He was focused entirely on his clique and the rest of Claudia's story. For the entirety of that lunch time, he did not once look up from their table. From their hermetically-sealed little world. Usually, he'd briefly scan the cafeteria for the sign of anything interesting going on; i.e. gossip. Today, there was nothing. He had locked himself into that group. As if he couldn't, or wouldn't, see anything outside it.

*

That evening, I sat on the chair in Rory's room, while he fluttered around in the closet next door. He kept popping in and out to make sure that I was entertained. He'd taken about forty-five minutes to get ready and he'd finally picked the very nice but pretty unimaginative option of a speckled-grey cashmere sweater, dark jeans and a thick, dark tan belt. His hair bounced slightly in the preppy perfection that he seemed to achieve so effortlessly. Seemed, being the operative word, obviously.

'Rory, could this possibly have taken any longer?' I groaned.

He spun round the door-frame, holding onto it and smiling a taunting, flirty smile. He seemed upbeat and jovial; excited, relieved, happy. 'Don't you want me to look pretty?'

'If I wanted that, you'd be taking clothes off, not putting them on.'

He rolled his eyes and I laughed. He spun back inside the closet and kept talking to me about the restaurant we were going to for dinner that night. It was quite pricey, but we were splitting the bill. At his insistence. And it was nice to go somewhere proper for once. It was a like a very different type of first date. With my boyfriend. I smiled; the word still made me smile.

From the table next to me, a text beep came through. I reached instinctively for it, thinking that it was mine. It wasn't. It was Rory's and I only realized that when it was in my hand and I saw the words "JOSHUA PETERLY" on the sender ID. I wish for my honor's sake I could tell you that I hesitated before invading Rory's privacy and opening the message. But I didn't. There was not one tiny qualm or heartbeat of indecision. Every instinct in my body distrusted the fact that Josh was texting Rory. I clicked and the message opened.

SAW YOU EATING IN THE CAFETERIA TODAY. TROUGH UNAVAILABLE?

A leaden feeling settled in my stomach, as I scrolled up. There were fifteen messages from Joshua, with only one or two replies from Rory. Rory had stopped responding about ten messages ago; I glanced at the dates and times – they'd been arriving intermittently, on average about one or two per day, with one or two exceptions, for the last ten or so days.

JOSHUA PETERLY – JUST SO YOU KNOW, IT WAS PATHETIC THE WAY YOU AND SEB WERE ALL OVER EACH OTHER IN SCHOOL TODAY. PEOPLE WERE LAUGHING AT YOU.

RORY – THANKS FOR THE HEADS-UP, JOSHUA. HOWEVER, IF I WANT DATING ADVICE FROM SOMEONE WITH YOUR MENTAL STABILITY, I'LL GO READ A BIOGRAPHY OF HENRY VIII.

JOSHUA PETERLY – TAKE IT HE STILL HASN'T FUCKED YOU YET, THEN?

JOSHUA PETERLY – HAHA. THOUGHT NOT.

RORY – I'VE NO IDEA WHY THAT'S ANY BUSINESS OF YOURS, JOSHUA. PLEASE STOP CONTACTING ME. MY GAG REFLEX ISN'T WHAT IT SHOULD BE.

JOSHUA PETERLY – THAT'S A SHAME, BECAUSE YOU COULD DO WITH VOMITTING SOME OF THOSE CALORIES UP.

JOSHUA PETERLY – IS SEBASTIAN A CHUBBY CHASER?

JOSHUA PETERLY – CHECK YOUR FACEBOOK MAIL.

JOSHUA PETERLY – HE MAY HAVE PICKED ME OVER YOU, BUT BELIEVE ME, IF UR WHAT HIS TASTE IS, I'M GLAD HE DIDN'T PICK ME.

RORY – I HIGHLY DOUBT THAT, JOSHUA. PLEASE GO AWAY.

JOSHUA PETERLY – YOU TRY AND PRETEND LIKE UR SO CLEVER AND ABOVE PEOPLE, RORY. BUT REALLY YOU'RE JUST A FAT SLUT WHO WANTS SOME JOCK COCK. UR PATHETIC.

JOSHUA PETERLY – CHECK YOUR FACEBOOK MAIL.

JOSHUA PETERLY – IS IT TRUE UR BOYFRIEND DOESN'T SIT WITH YOU AT LUNCH BECAUSE HE'S EMBARRASSED OF THE WAY YOU EAT?

JOSHUA PETERLY – YOUR HAIR LOOKED SHIT 2DAY, BTW.

JOSHUA PETERLY – YOU'VE GOT MAIL, FAT BOY.

JOSHUA PETERLY – HALF OUR YEAR SECRETLY HATES YOU. JUST SO YOU KNOW. THEY THINK UR STUCK UP, ARROGANT AND A TOTAL FAKE. THEY ALSO THINK SEBASTIAN CARSON'S ONLY DATING YOU BECAUSE HE FEELS SORRY FOR YOU.

JOSHUA PETERLY – YOU WON'T BE SO SMUG WHEN YOU SEE WHAT YOU'VE GOT IN YOUR MAIL BOX ON FB. DON'T BE EXCITED. IT'S NOT A SANDWICH.

JOSHUA PETERLY – Today, 19:35: SAW YOU EATING IN THE CAFETERIA TODAY. TROUGH UNAVAILABLE?

I wish I could describe to you what that rage felt like. But I'm not good enough with words or written communication. I've got some game, but nothing to adequately capture what that anger was like. Had Josh said all of those things to me, I could not possibly have been more upset than I was right then. There was a dull, thudding, ringing in my ears. How could he do this and how could Rory have kept it from me? All traces of the good humor that usually counter-balanced Rory's vanished. I wasn't in the mood to joke around. Every muscle from my neck to my legs was twitching. I felt like I wanted to kill someone. I was livid. I'd never, ever felt like this before. Rory's continued stream of inane conversation from the closet next door sounded muffled – for a million dollars, I couldn't have told you what he'd been saying for the last five minutes.

Finally noticing that something was wrong, Rory stepped gracefully into the room with a questioning look on his face: 'Sebastian?' he asked. 'Are you sure you want to drive or would you rather get a taxi and have something to drink?'

'Open your Facebook,' I said.

He knew, instantly, what was wrong. He was quick. A rapid-fire mind of unerring social precision. 'Pardon?' he asked, playing for time. He used the two seconds the question bought him to silently scan the room with his eyes. He saw his phone, sitting in front of me on the coffee table. The screen was illuminated; showing it had recently been used. He swallowed. I could see his building panic, but I didn't care. I looked at him; my eyes blazing. I was angry at him, too.

'Rory. Open your Facebook.'

'Why?'

'Don't play dumb.'

'No,' he answered, defiantly. But his voice had gone up at the end; it had wavered. He was visibly panicking. Visibly stalling. Well, he could try anything he liked, pull any trick he wanted; I was getting on that Facebook.

'Open it!' I growled. I couldn't yell at him; his mom was downstairs. 'Open it, now.'

'It's none of your business, Sebastian.'

I lost it. I picked up his phone and threw it at him. I shouldn't have done that. It was a Naomi Campbell moment that I apologized for later. But I was pissed. 'Open the fucking Facebook, Rory, or I am walking out of here and I am not coming back!'

That did it. He started walking towards the laptop. As he walked across the thick grey carpet of his bedroom, his mind had already leapt ahead of the next move. Like a master chess player, Rory had already conceded that he was going to have to show me whatever Joshua had sent him on Facebook and he was planning a speech to minimize the damage. His body was already trying to send me the message, subtly through its changed posture and unhurried speed, that I was overacting; that this was nothing. That it, like Joshua Peterly himself, was trivial. It was a performance that, like most of Rory's, was masterful to everyone but me. Hell, even I could concede it was masterful. It just wasn't convincing.

He opened his laptop and logged into his Facebook account, with brisk efficiency. Like there was no earthly reason why he'd hesitate. Why would he? After all, this was fucking trivial: right? I came up and stood behind his seat, leaning down over his shoulder and placing my right hand on the side of his laptop. I used it to click into his private messages and check to see what Josh had sent him. A couple were pictures of generic fat kid memes, others were of animals like blue whales or manatees; but by far the worst were the two taken on a camera phone of Rory opening his mouth to eat his lunch in school. The word 'Oink' was written across one in the bloc white capitals of a meme and 'Hahahahahahaha' was typed underneath it, in the body of the message, by Joshua.

'Don't,' he whispered.

I didn't. I didn't know what to say. Poor, poor Rory. The anger suddenly left me and I was just desperately, desperately sad. My poor boyfriend. My boyfriend, who was, after all, only getting this shit because of some dumb twink I'd been casually hooking up with before Rory and I got together. I'd brought Josh's crazy into Rory's life – and now, he was being bullied by it. It was strange, if not downright fucking bizarre, to think of anyone like Rory being bullied by anyone like Joshua. Someone so beneath him in intellect, but, there it was. In black, white and meme. On his cell, on his Facebook, in his head. Unquestionably: in his head.

I didn't rest my head against his. I couldn't. I couldn't cuddle him or comfort him. He'd sat on this, for nearly two weeks. He'd let Josh win. He'd kept me out. And as selfish as it sounds, and as egotistically awful as you probably think it was, I was hurt. I loved him. I'd never loved anyone before. Not in the romantic way. Not in the way I loved him. And I'd always thought love was the bit that made you let people in during the shit bits of your life; not just the good bits. But when the shit bits had come, Rory had kept me out. He'd openly lied to me; every time I'd asked him if he was okay. He'd lied. He'd allowed what Josh was saying to infiltrate our relationship and by not telling me, he'd implicitly told me that telling me would add to his burdens, not ease them. And that hurt. More than I'd expected, to be honest.