Gord was under the pier again, not smoking this time but sitting and filing his nails. I would have laughed at him if I hadn’t felt so desolate. He was hardly ever in Harrington House these days, I had thought he spent most of his time wandering around town, or school, somewhere, finding easy girls and boys to make out with. I was actually surprised that he was there again, on his own, I hadn’t figured Gord as a person who was comfortable in his own company. I sat next to him and he looked at me nervously, disturbed by my demeanour.
“So?” he asked, and his tone suggested a much deeper question, a longer and more complicated one that he couldn’t find the words to make.
“I don’t know,” my answer was equally inferior. There was so much I could have said, but Gord wasn’t the person to say it to. Maybe no one could have been. He sighed. Rain started to fall in little dribs and drabs from the sky, wetting the sand on either side of the protection of the pier. The temperature fell a little; I shivered and pulled my knees into myself to keep warm. Gord didn’t seem to notice the cold, he just continued to file his nails and occasionally to look at me with a calculating gaze.
“You know,” he said after what felt like a very long while, “I’ve been having it off with the new kid.”
“What? Hopkins?” I stared at him, twisting my mouth in distaste. “Why are you telling me that?”
“I just wanted something to say,” he admitted.
“Since when?”
“Since the start of the term.”
“But why?”
“Don’t you think he’s much more interesting than anyone else here?” He was actually avoiding my gaze, as though he was ashamed, but I knew that wasn’t possible. Gord wasn’t ashamed of anything he did, really, he was actually too open about most of his exploits. But Hopkins? That was particularly low, even for Gord. Worse than Lola. “Don’t you see the attraction?” He had turned to me again, his eyes sparkling with mischief.
“Not really,” I told him, “I’m not interested in guys, Gord.” I don’t know why I said it. I guess I was used to saying it, and it was true really. I wasn’t interested in guys, I was interested in Derby, and he wasn’t a man, he was a god. Gord snorted, apparently not seeing my logic.
“Could have fooled me,” he scoffed. “Last night seemed to say otherwise.” I winced, not wanting to meet his bright eyes but unable to look away.
“Yeah, about that...”
“It meant nothing; you were distraught, not in control of your actions. Of course, I understand.” He was mocking me, and that pissed me off. I pushed his shoulder, a clumsy blow from a sitting position, but it unbalanced him and he had to steady himself with one hand. “Fine,” he huffed, crossing his arms over his chest in mock offence. “Bullworth isn’t going to burn down to the ground if you and Derby break up, you know.”
“It’s impossible to have a proper conversation with you. You’re always trying to push my buttons.” He knew how to get to me, that was his problem, and I don’t even know how he managed it because we didn’t really talk all that often.
“Well it’s not that hard,” he laughed, “I’ve watched how you behave with him, I know your type.” He began rubbing wet sand from the hand he had used to steady himself on the ground. “And I speak nothing but the truth.” We sat in silence for a while longer, him picking grains of sand from under his manicured nails and me staring into the dull sky trying to numb my mind.
“Do you ever just want to get out of here?” I asked him.
“Not really. I like it here.”
“How can you like it? What is there to like?”
“Well, we get to be better than all the poor kids; we have a better dorm, better clothes, better grades. There are plenty of willing conquests around for me to have fun with. I don’t have to be at home with my family. The drama here is quite interesting. All I really have to do is keep out from under Derby’s feet when he’s in a bad mood.”
“Why? He likes you enough doesn’t he?”
“Hm...Maybe too much.” He twisted his mouth, non-committal. I leaned into his frame of vision.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.” But I could read his face.
“Oh, no. Not with Derby too?” I wasn’t even angry with him, I was just despairing. At least he had the dignity to look ashamed of himself.
“It was before I knew you and him were sort of official, and he didn’t exactly fill me in.”
“Fucking shit.”
“I know.” I thought that was partly an apology, and it was hard to be properly angry with Gord because he was so entirely self-centred and thoughtless he could never have done anything really vindictive. It was Derby who had done it, Derby who had thought it through and come out with the conclusion that I wasn’t all that important to him compared to a little cheap night with the school slut. It made me cold inside.

Weeks past and I hardly saw Derby at all. He passed me in the Harrington House dorm once, and he didn’t look at me. He looked just the same, and that didn’t surprise me. He was unchangeable, nothing affected him at all. In comparison, I felt like my whole identity was falling apart. I threw myself into boxing, staying at the boxing club from the end of lessons until the morning after, sleeping upstairs in the comfortable chairs like a homeless person. I hardly ever returned to Harrington House, and Derby hardly ever visited the boxing club, so we avoided each other. Life went on. I saw Gord though, all the time. He seemed to be everywhere, lounging outside the boxing club, wandering around on the beach, sitting on the steps outside Harrington House making lewd comments at passersby. It was as though he was following me, and I didn’t really mind. His presence was quite comforting, it was just difficult to think serious thoughts when Gord was chattering on about his shopping or gossiping about the events at Bullworth. It was a Saturday, and I had been at the boxing club all day when I first saw him with Hopkins. He was almost a head taller than him, which was why it looked so funny when Hopkins handed him a bunch of flowers and Gord smiled and laughed with excitement like a little girl. And then Hopkins moved in to kiss him, wrapping his thick arms around Gord’s slim waist and pushing those thick lips against his mouth clumsily, indelicately. I felt as though I was frozen to the spot, searching desperately to identify the twisting, sickening feeling that was rising in my chest and stomach. Gord pulled back, gasping with exhilaration, and I heard Hopkins speak.
“Yeah, thanks,” he said, and then turn away as though he was just going to leave. I still hadn’t moved from the door of the club, so when Gord looked around him, his lips still wet from the messy kiss, he caught my eye. He gave me a playful wink and began to walk over to me. Jealousy. Oh God. Jealousy, that’s what it was I was feeling.
“Hey, Bif,” he said, and then paused before saying: “What’s the matter with you?” He must have picked up on my expression of abject horror, but all I could do now was stare at his shining brown eyes and his swollen red lips. “Bif?” He waved a hand in front of my face. “Did I traumatise you just then? Poor little Bif, such a prude.”
“I’m not a prude,” I snapped, suddenly angry at his patronising tone. The jealousy in my stomach turned to bile and I pushed past him. Sometimes, being a champion boxer is a problem. It’s what I do best, so sometimes I do that when I should have done something else – like talking, or thinking, or just walking away. So when Gord reached out and grabbed my arm, opening his mouth as though to speak, I punched him in the nose. He swayed back, a hand coming up to his face that was actually bleeding, his expression full of astonishment.
“Fucking hell, Bif, that was uncalled for,” he whined, dabbing at the blood on his chin with his fingers ineffectually. “Oh, damn it I’m going to get blood on my aquaberry.” I suddenly had the overwhelming urge to fling myself on him again, to wrap my arms around him and apologise for taking it out on him when it wasn’t his fault at all, for potentially ruining his precious aquaberry sweater, for hurting him, for being jealous of Hopkins as though I expected anything from him when he was so easy and so free.

Instead, I took him back inside the club, leading him by the arm while he snuffled blood and complained about his sweater, which seemed to be his primary concern. I made him sit and tip his head back, and then wearily I went to find some cotton wool for him to mop himself up with. There were plenty of first aid supplies around for the boxers’ bloody noses and bruised up faces. When I came back he was leaning forward with his elbows in his knees and his head in his hands.
“Are you alright?”
“Yeah,” his voice was quite muffled. I thought for one horrible moment that he was crying, but when he looked up I realised he had actually been trying to keep the blood off his sweater by leaning away from it. “No thanks to you.” He pouted and I didn’t react, I just pressed a bunch of cotton wool into his hand and guided that hand up to his nose. He sat with his hand to his face, looking as sulky as one can look when most of their face is obscured by bloody cotton wool. “I had something to ask you, as well,” he said after a while, wincing as speaking made his nose hurt.
“Really?” I didn’t want to hear it, I had a feeling somehow that I wasn’t going to like it, but I let him go on anyway.
“Why is Derby really away from school?” he said, his voice a combination of seriousness and delight in the action of spreading gossip. I blinked at him.
“He’s away?”
“What? You didn’t know? I assumed you’d be the one to ask.”
“No. He didn’t tell me. We haven’t spoken for a while.” My throat felt like it was closing up. Derby had gone and he hadn’t even told me he was going, hadn’t made any effort to fill me in. That hurt somehow. Although I could hardly have expected him to have filled me in on his travel plans when we were hardly speaking it still hurt.
“That’s still going on is it?” Gord interrupted my thoughts. Could he have been any more tactless? I wanted to punch him again but I held back.
“Didn’t he say why he was going?”
“The official story is that he’s visiting his father who is unwell, but I don’t buy it. His father has never been unwell in his life, I don’t see why he should start now.”
“I suppose he’s getting older...” My mouth was working on autopilot, I couldn’t get the image of Derby getting into a car and driving away from Bullworth out of my head. What if he didn’t come back? What if he had gone to another school, or another city, and I would never see him again? Despite all the hate I had been harbouring for him, I couldn’t help but feel betrayed and actually terrified at the thought of his face, his body, his voice being out of my life forever. I realised Gord was still talking and I was ignoring him, so when he looked at me expectantly, as if waiting for an answer I didn’t have one.
“Well?”
“I don’t know anything, alright.”
“I asked you if you had any plans for tonight, Bif, where have you been?” He looked annoyed and tired out for some reason; I wondered what he’d been getting up to these last few weeks. Probably lots of sordid things with Hopkins. I tried not to think about it.
“Not really,” I said, and his face brightened a little.
“Excellent, you can come back to Harrington with me then. You haven’t been there for so long, people are starting to wonder whether you’d dropped out or something.”
“I’ve been going to classes,” I said, defensively, and Gord laughed.
“Huh, well you’re the only one. It’s not like Derby’s there for you to avoid any more. That’s what you’ve been doing isn’t it? Avoiding him?”
“No.”
“You’ve forgotten how to make conversation, when did you last actually talk to anyone? You’re becoming a hermit, and I won’t have it.” It was funny seeing him try and be stubborn and commanding with his nose all swollen up and red. Quite endearing really. I thought it might be alright to see the Harrington boys again, without the threat of Derby turning up and having to argue with him again. In a way, it was almost a positive thing that he had gone. As soon as that thought entered my head I dismissed it, I couldn’t do without him. I missed him horribly.

I had planned to meet Gord outside Harrington House, so we could go in together and he could talk for me if I couldn’t bring myself to say anything, but that didn’t work out so well. I stayed in the beach house again that night just hoping that Hopkins wouldn’t turn up and kick me out in the middle of the night. I guess I was pretty stupid, because he did turn up and he did kick me out after a brief scuffle that I was too tired to get into properly. So I was stuck then in Bullworth Vale with nowhere in particular to go. It was nearing two in the morning, and I had hardly been out that late before in my life. The town was so empty at that time; there was almost nobody around, a ghost town. I figured New Coventry would be busier, full of crazies and criminals with no homes to go to, and I really didn’t want to go there, but I went anyway. I wanted, for some stupid reason, to find some shithole bar and get myself drunk, just because there was nothing else to do. I didn’t want to go to classes, I didn’t want to talk to the other guys, especially to Gord. And most of all I didn’t want to think about Derby, and because I couldn’t stop it I wanted to drown all the thoughts out with cheap, strong alcohol. I didn’t get to a bar though. I walked through the mist of the very early morning into New Coventry, and found that someone was walking beside me. I freaked out, twisting away from the person – just a figure, vague and unidentifiable in the fog, until a familiar voice said:
“Relax, will you?” and Gord was there looking tired and pissed off. “What the hell are you doing out here at this time? Do you want to get killed?”
“What?” I was thrown for a second and then I started again. “What about you, you’re here too.”
“I’m looking for you, idiot. Hopkins searched me out – woke me up in the middle of the bloody night – to tell me you were sleeping in his damn beach house again and he threw you out.”
“Yeah? Well I hope you told him off for being such a jerk. He’s your boyfriend; you should be able to control him.” Gord laughed.
“He’s not my boyfriend! And no one could control him however much they tried. Are you going to come back with me or not?”
“What you mean to Harrington? No, I don’t want to.”
“Fine. To the beach house then. He’s not going to turn you out if I’m with you. Where on earth were you going anyway?”
“I wanted to find some drink,” I told him, and felt stupid immediately, imagining his expression of scarcely hidden distaste. What would he think of me? Some scumbag alcoholic, scavenging in the night like a tramp. I caught his eye, he was smiling, but it wasn’t a mocking smile, but rather a conspiratorial one.
“Sounds like a plan then,” he actually winked at me, and then grabbed a hold of my arm to pull me away from the dangerous part of town. “Drown our sorrows and all that.” We walked together all the way back to the beach house, and Gord just wandered in quite unconcerned by Hopkins’s complaints.
“You can’t come in here like that, I won this place,” he growled, “You want me to kick you both out?”
“Come on, Jimmy,” Gord said, leaning over the little bar area and examining whatever was behind there. “You wouldn’t throw me out into the cold would you? And Bif is my friend, so we can all be friends.” His tone was slow and calm, like he was talking to a child. An angry and dangerous child, but a child nonetheless. Gord balanced on his tip toes, his head disappeared upside down as he raised himself up over the edge of the counter. “Hmm...” His voice came muffled from below. Hopkins glanced at me suspiciously; I was hovering by the door, uncertain of where this was going. “Aha!” Gord tipped back again, brandishing a bottle of red wine in one hand and three miniature bottles of vodka between the fingers of the other that looked like they’d been stolen from a train or something. “And there’s more back there!” He sat down without ceremony on the abandoned mattress in the ground and patted it invitingly, as though he had no idea at all of the awkwardness of the situation. Hopkins snorted despairingly, but went over anyway. I was surprised, and a little disappointed. I had expected Hopkins to just leave, he never seemed too much like the type for socialising, and part of me wanted Gord to myself. Gord passed one of the little vodka bottles to Hopkins, who just held it as though he didn’t know what to do. Gord opened one for himself and downed it dramatically, tipping his head right back and then down again, spluttering and laughing. He looked up at me then, a wicked shine in his eyes.
“Come on then, I found you some drink didn’t I? Come and drink it.” He threw me the last vodka bottle and I caught it easily. I looked at the two of them there, Hopkins hulking and disapproving as anything, and Gord with his legs stretched out in front of him and grinning a stupid, common sort of grin. I knocked back the vodka, feeling the burn as it hit the back of my throat, and the nausea as it hit my stomach. It was nice, to know that this stuff could take away some of my thoughts for a while. I sat by Gord, and took the wine bottle from his hands. He giggled and Hopkins rolled his eyes. We drank.

The wine went down quickly and it went straight to my head. At one point, Gord instructed Jimmy to go and fetch another bottle of red wine from behind the counter, and we drank that as well. I can drink whiskey, just because I’m used to it because of Derby, but wine was another thing all together. I felt funny and sleepy and drifty, the taste of the wine and the vodka mixed in my mouth and made me feel a little bit unwell. Hopkins seemed largely unaffected, but he hadn’t drunk half as much as either me or Gord, who threw the stuff back like it was water. I could see in the dim, flickering old lights, that his nose was still sore and bloodied from where I’d hit him, but he didn’t seem to mind. He was rambling, his voice softer than normal, and Hopkins was staring at him as though he wasn’t making any sense at all. I could hardly hear what he was saying, my head felt like it was full of cotton wool.
“I’m just not interested,” Gord was saying, waving a hand vaguely around in front of him, trying to visualise the point he was trying to make in the air. “Politics,” he decided on, “is just too political. I want to just have a good time.”
“Yeah, I can tell,” Hopkins muttered, and grabbed the bottle off him to take another swig.
“No, I mean it. Why spend all the time worrying about who thinks what when you could just be enjoying life. It’s much better that way. Much better.”
“It never leaves me alone though,” Hopkins complained, and Gord shrugged.
“You are a massive target, Jimmy.” He giggled, stole the bottle back and offered it to me, his hand unsteady and wavering around. “Bif, darling, you’re so brooding. Relax, forget about it.”
“I think I’ve had a bit too much,” I muttered, and Gord laughed at me.
“Can’t hold your liquor? I thought you were a big strong man.”
“I’m just not an alcoholic like you are,” I retorted, and then sighed and let the lights swim in front of me for a moment. I felt Gord put a hand softly on my chest and push me. I let myself lie back, felt the springs of the awful old mattress dig into my back and didn’t mind. I heard Gord’s voice, distantly, saying:
“Poor old boy, it’s all too much for him.” I heard Jimmy Hopkins laughing a little scornful, uncaring laugh, and then a shift as the two of them stood and moved away from me. I didn’t watch them go, I watched the ceiling, with its dirty, cracked wood. I tried to remember why I’d wanted to stop thinking, and then I tried to stop myself remembering. I thought of Derby, wondered where he was, and then I let the thought, the image of his face, drift away into the air.