No one has any real idea what they’re doing—some people are just better at pretending that they do

 

 

I NEED to get better at pretending I know what I’m doing. Not just pretending in general—pretending everything is okay, pretending there’s not a problem—because I’m pretty fucking good at that. It turns out everything I’ve been running away from, everything I’ve been telling myself doesn’t matter, is actually pretty important. I need to stop pretending it’s how I look that’s stopping me from doing things, from knowing things. I need to accept it’s because I’m scared that what I am is not enough, what I have to offer is not as much as everyone else does.

However much I want to, I know I can’t do it on my own.

This is what I’m thinking as I sit on the bench outside Diana’s restaurant. But I can’t pretend I can sit out here thinking about it forever either.

It’s midmorning and the restaurant is beginning to get busy when I walk in. Leila, one of the girls who works as a waitress sometimes, tells me Diana is in the kitchen and gestures to me to go through.

Diana glances up from the pan she’s stirring, but she doesn’t say a word as I lean against the counter and stare at my shoes.

“That thing you should have done a long time ago, what was it?” I ask after a while.

“Help you,” she says simply. She doesn’t have to make this easy for me. I wasn’t nice last night. I smile gratefully.

“Still?” I ask softly.

“Still,” she agrees.

I watch as she takes a few spices down from the shelf above her head and tips them into the pan, where they sizzle and fill the room with the scent of bonfires and autumn leaves.

I read the labels: Cinnamon, nutmeg, chili.

“When do you need to get back to the hospital for Micky?”

“Later,” I say, not meaning to be evasive.

Micky and Benjamin have got to talk and they don’t have much time—Benjamin was supposed to be playing with the orchestra tonight, and although he told a few people it was an urgent family matter, they’re going to start asking questions about where he’s gone. I know Micky wanted me to stay, but my being there wasn’t going to help fix the things between them that need fixing. I need to fix stuff of my own. I have Micky’s phone in my pocket—Benjamin promised to call me straightaway if they needed me.

“Here, keep stirring this.” Diana hands me a spoon and gestures I take her place at the stove. “I’ve got a few phone calls I need to make.”

 

 

ALL MORNING Diana gives me little jobs to do: stirring stuff, chopping vegetables, washing up. Leila even comes in at one point with her boyfriend’s phone and asks me if I can fix the screen. I nod but tell her I don’t have any tools or spare screens with me. If she can get a replacement screen, I can probably fit it.

It reminds me I need to go back to the swimming pool today. All of Micky’s stuff was there too. I know some of it is important to him.

The restaurant is quieting down after the lunchtime rush when Diana tells me there is someone to see me. She tells me they’re sitting at table 12 near the window and gives me a couple of plates of fried chicken to take out. My heart races. I know social services was one of the places Diana called this morning. When she was on the phone to them she kept asking questions like “did I know my last proper address… where I went to school… my date of birth.” So I assume these visitors are going to be a couple of social workers—two of them, judging from the two plates—and I force myself to picture Micky and how I found him yesterday morning, to remember why I’m doing this, steeling myself to deal with them. But when I cross the room, I’m surprised to see a kid possibly much younger than me sitting at the table and staring out the window.

I put one of the plates of chicken down on the table in front of him and stare at the other plate until I realise it’s probably for me. When I glance back up, the kid has turned around. His smile is beautiful.

“Hello,” Dytryk says.

I put my plate down and wave hello, too shocked at seeing him to speak. He looks different. Happy.

I sit down, taking in his warm comfortable clothes and the way he smells all clean and citrusy.

“Diana makes the best food,” he says, picking up a piece of chicken and taking a small bite.

“You speak English,” I say.

“Learning. Hard work. Have help.” He smiles again all brilliant and bright, and I remember him shivering in the rain and gripping my hand. It seems like such a long time ago now, but really, it’s probably only a few weeks. It makes my heart feel all light to see him, and it surprises me that I feel like this.

“I say thank you for you in English now.”

“You don’t have to.” I look down at my plate.

“I do. You save my life. Thank you, Danny.”

I shake my head, embarrassed.

“Something I have for you.” Reaching across the table, he holds an envelope out to me. “I come here every few days, I hope to see you. I want to tell you about place I live. Room in a house. Nice people. Diana call today, ask to speak to John and Dillon. They give me this letter for you.”

With a puzzled frown, I take the envelope.

“Your hair is different. Short. You look nice.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I notice Dytryk looking at me the way Micky looks at me sometimes. I fix my gaze on the loopy writing on the front of the envelope.

“I say something wrong?” he asks after a minute.

I realise I must have managed to make myself look as uncomfortable on the outside as I feel on the inside. “No.” I shake my head. “I’m glad you’re okay now.” I glance at him, smiling.

For the next half hour, I hold the envelope in my lap and listen as he tells me, between mouthfuls of food, all the ways he’s more than okay. He asks me a few questions, but I don’t know what to say. To be honest, his eager gratefulness is like too much light shining on me, and it makes me feel incredibly shy.

I don’t read the letter until he’s gone. Afterwards, I sit at the table for a while thinking about what it says. Diana comes over and asks if I’m okay.

And I am. I’ve got a few more things to do, though.

 

 

NO ONE answers when I press Donna’s buzzer. I text her as I walk back down the path, asking if she’ll be free in an hour or two. Then I head down another road I didn’t think I’d ever walk again.

In daylight Dieter’s block looks exactly how I’d imagined it would look—a little worse than it does at night. Dieter’s not there. A drunk girl with pretty eyes tells me he works at the shelter in the afternoons now. The same shelter Dashiel and I used to go to, the one I took Micky to, to pick up a coat.

A few weeks ago, I thought I never wanted to see Dieter again, but somehow after seeing Dytryk, I want to know he’s doing okay, so I head to the shelter.

Dieter is behind the counter in the common room, serving tea and coffee. He looks different. Maybe it’s because he’s wearing loose jeans and a white T shirt. I’ve never seen him in anything but tight-fitting clothes and high heels. His hair is tied in a low ponytail with a glittery ribbon—his real hair, not his wig—and every so often he brushes wisps of it off his face.

I don’t know what to do, so I sort of hang around by the door for a few minutes, sneaking glances at him, watching as he helps a frail-looking guy count his money out, and how he takes care to listen exactly to what people are saying.

It’s not quite busy enough for me to be unnoticed, though.

“Do you want a tea or a coffee?”

I glance up. Dieter is standing in front of me. I sense he feels as awkward as I do.

“I don’t have any money.” Tea or coffee here is really cheap, but I have nothing with me.

“It doesn’t matter. It’s on the house.” He glances around. “They’re not strict about it. Go grab a seat and I’ll bring it over. Tea?”

I nod and make my way to a small round table in the corner.

A couple of minutes later, Dieter places a mug in front of me and pulls out a chair. He must have asked someone to take over the counter for him for a minute.

“Do you mind?” he asks, waiting for me to answer before sitting down.

I shake my head.

Dieter grips his hands together in his lap. I’ve never seen him this subdued. I don’t think he knows what to say to me.

I wonder if he’s thought about that night in his room as much as I have. It’s funny, but when I think about it now, I don’t even hear the words or feel the pain. What I see is me putting my head on his chest and listening to his broken heart beating.

“I’ve started going to this clinic thing,” he says after a while. “You know, for addictions… and other stuff. Fucking hard….” He tails off.

“Did you go to the police?” I’m just curious.

“Did you want me to?”

I look up. His expression is serious, his gaze intense.

I shake my head, shrug. It’s up to him. Dashiel’s death was an accident. He had no family that I know of, no one else who should know the truth, except… I probably should have told Donna. “Donna should know.”

Dieter nods. “Donna?”

“She’s Vinny’s girlfriend.” I know he knows Vinny.

“I’ll tell her. If she calls the police, I guess I deserve it.”

Absently he taps his fingers along the table as though he’s playing an imaginary piano. Maybe he is. Maybe he can play piano like Micky plays clarinet. It makes me think of all the secrets we don’t know about the people we think we do. All the secrets we keep and hide, all the sharks swimming inside us…. Maybe this is what Dollman meant.

“For the first few days, I was sure you were going to tell the police, and every day I’d wake up scared they were coming for me… but then, one day, I stopped running. I thought, If they come for me, they come for me, you know? The rest of the time I’m going to do something… good, or at least try to. I know I’m not a good person. I never wanted to be before now… but now it seems like the only thing that truly matters.” He stares at his hands. “I’m not going to say I’m sorry and expect anything from you, because I don’t think it’s enough. But I am sorry. I’ll be sorry for the rest of my life. I’ll wish I could take so many things back. But I know I’ve got to accept that I can’t and learn how to live with them.”

“Micky’s in hospital,” I tell him, because this is something I’ve got to accept.

“What happened?” He looks genuinely concerned.

“He had a heart attack.” My left leg jigs under the table. I press my hand on it, hard, to stop it. All day I’ve tried not to think about it, but now I feel a flash of panic and pull the phone out of my pocket. I check Benjamin hasn’t tried to call.

“Is he going to be okay?”

I take a deep breath. “He needs to go back to America.”

“And you like him, so you don’t want him to go?”

“No. I love him,” I whisper. “I want him to go back.” Because he has to, because of his visa, because he needs help to fight the sharks trying to destroy him, and Benjamin wants to find the best treatment for that. And after seeing him with Micky, I trust Benjamin. He loves Micky.

“You could go with him.”

Just thinking about it is an ocean wave crashing around me. My fingers brush the letter in my pocket. “One day.”

“You came here to see if I was okay, didn’t you?”

I nod.

“I know why Dash loved you. I get it.”

I stand up. I’ve got to go. I still can’t hear anyone say Dashiel loved me without it hurting. I think it always will.

“I don’t know if I ever said thank you for saving my life. I suspect I didn’t. It probably doesn’t seem worth it so far, but I’m working on it, Danny.”

I know we can never be friends. But whatever happens, I’m glad I saw him like this. I’m glad the last image I have of Dieter is not him lying on the mattress in his room, giving up.

“You can call me Loki. It’s okay,” I say and bite my lip.

 

 

DONNA STILL hasn’t replied to my text, so I head back across the river. The light is fading, all silvers, greys, and golds, and for a while I stand leaning over the embankment to watch. I think again about the letter in my pocket. What it means. Visiting hours at the hospital stop at ten. I promised Micky I would be back before then. I need to start walking if I’m going to make it to the swimming pool and back again.

But for some reason I don’t head in the direction of the swimming pool quite yet. I head down another road. One that leads to the hospital Dieter and I were taken to that day we fell in the river. The hospital Dollman works at.

I know it’s not a good idea to do this. I know I don’t always think things through. It’s an old obsession, and I don’t want to let it take over. And yet here I am.

My reasoning isn’t always clear to me, but maybe I just want to tell him he’s wrong—that we’re not all sharks and I’m not scared (even though I am, but not like he wants). If he lives for other people’s fear, I don’t want him to have mine anymore.

I don’t head for the main hospital building. I have a good memory for places I’ve been before, and even though I was so shaken and scared last time I saw this building, I find the lab easily.

It’s a bad time to be here. The lab is not like the hospital, and the people who work here don’t work all night. It’s five thirty and a lot of people are leaving. I stand among the trees at the side of the building and wait until not so many people are coming out.

I don’t see Dollman, but I know that doesn’t mean he hasn’t already gone.

The main door is open, the corridor quiet. I take a single step inside, but then I stop, transfixed by the door to Dollman’s tiny office. The door I stumbled out of in so much pain.

My hands are shaking, so I shove them in my pockets.

“Hello? Can I help you?” a voice asks.

I must have zoned out. I blink at the woman in front of me before staring intently at the carpet. Her hair is red and curly and makes me think of fireworks.

“I’m looking for someone.”

“Name?”

“Danny,” I say.

She hmmms like some people do when they’re thinking, then she shakes her head. “I don’t know any Dannys here.”

“Oh, no, he’s not—” I try to explain, realising my mistake. “He had that room.” I point to the door to his office. “I spoke to him in there.”

“That used to be Viktor’s room—Dr. Belinski—but it’s empty now. He left a few weeks ago.”

“Oh. Why?”

“No idea. One day he’s here, the next his office is cleared out and he’s gone.” She shakes her head. “A complete mystery. Come on, I need to lock up now.”

She flaps her arms at me, shooing me out so she can close and lock the door.

“Where did he go?”

“Like I said, it’s a mystery. No one knows. Even Admin were in the dark about it.”

A few weeks ago? I want to know if he left the day I saw him. It seems important somehow. I pull my pad out of my pocket and flick through it, searching. The woman is walking off across the car park by the time I find what I’m looking for. I run after her.

“Was it the nineteenth? His last day.”

She stops. “Maybe. Yes, actually, I think it was.” She frowns, and at the same time gives me a small smile. “I do need to go now.”

I nod.

I only remember to say “Thank you” when it’s too late.

So Dollman’s gone. Was it because of me? Because I was following him? Or because I found him here? Did I defeat him? Perhaps I’ll never know. Perhaps I don’t need to. Perhaps this is another thing I’ve got to learn to do—let things go. It’s hard, though. A big part of me wants to head over to the warehouse flats I saw him go into that night weeks ago and wait there to see if he comes out. But for what, really?

I shake my head and slip my notepad back in my pocket. Focus. I look up to get my bearings. I have a swimming pool to get to and then another hospital where the boy I love is stuck in a bed waiting for me to return.

I know what matters most.