The Misfit
by It's Only Me from Across the Sea
This story may contain explicit descriptions of sexual acts between the characters in it. Although the characters are teenagers who may be below the age of consent in the country or state where this is read, nothing written here should be taken as approval of, or encouragement for, sexual liaisons between people where such liaisons are either illegal, or objectionable for moral reasons. Although this story does not include safe sex practices, it is everyone's own responsibility to themselves and to each other to engage only in PROTECTED SEX. It is a story. Any resemblance to real persons is purely coincidental. Nothing represented here is based on any fact known to the author.
The story is copyright 2001 by "It's Only Me from Across the Sea". If you copy the story, please leave the credits, and the web address of http://iomfats.org present, and also the email address of its_onlyme@iomfats.org. I'd love to receive feedback.
This is not a happy story. There is no happy ending. You should not read it if depressed.
Hectic. Rushing. Cars parking and disgorging trunks, boys, parents. Some older, some not. Mostly Mercedes estate cars; a few four wheel drives; at least two clapped out old Volvos. And they came, parked in the courtyard, and drove off again having dumped their cargo.
Some tears, bravely hidden, from boys whose first term it was. A few older brothers either carefully avoiding their younger siblings or shepherding them round to show them where to go. A worried parent not able to drive suddenly with the odd embarrassment of dropping his only son at a new school. The occasional member of staff looking faintly ludicrous in an academic gown, walking across the courtyard, acknowledging boys and parents alike.
The old walls of Cloister Court that once echoed to horses' hooves and iron shod cart wheels as the carrier delivered boys' trunks from the city station now resounded to the ubiquitous diesel engines that Mercedes seem to equip their 'I'm a really important company executive, but not as important as I wish I was' company cars as the parents left, and then inhabitants of Climpings went about the business of unpacking and settling back in for the Autumn term.
Climpings wasn't the oldest house at Blackstone Hall. That honour was reserved for Blackstones itself, named after the school and its founder. But Climpings was the oldest except for Blackstones. Not that it mattered.
Alan Harrald was in his fourth year in Climpings. GCSEs were behind him and the new AS and A2 exams faced him, or rather he faced them. And like everything else in Alan's seventeen years he faced them impassively. His folks had dropped him ages before the 9pm deadline and had vanished back to the oddly unreal world down the motorway, back to their ordinary four bedroomed house on one of those estates where people live next door to you, but you don't have neighbours. Climpings and Blackstone Hall was his real world. And, to be fair, only Climpings mattered, for the boys lived ate, and worked in their houses except for the lessons that interrupted their school day.
"Go anywhere special in the Summer, Alan?"
"Dad took us to an archaeological ruin somewhere near Athens. He loved it. Mum and I hated it. Joanne liked it well enough, though."
"Ah, the lovely Joanne. How is that gorgeous sister of yours?" Paul Ross had often mentioned his adoration for Joanne. He and Alan were longstanding mates, and Paul drooled over Joanne, a year younger than Alan, and with the same dark hair and eyes.
"Sun-tanned, you randy sod! I reckon she's more than a match for you. Probably twice as experienced, too. She had a major thing about one of the waiters in Greece."
"She didn't?" His tone of voice implied all.
"Why on earth would she tell me if she had?"
"You're so thick at times. It's the expression on her face that would've let you know."
"Yeah, and you're the expert, are you, Paul?"
"So was it the ruin she liked 'well enough', or was it the waiter?"
"You're just going to have to ask her yourself, aren't you?"
"Fat chance! I'll just have to drool from afar and wait until you get out of the way if she comes up with your folks to pick you up for half term. Or kick you out of the way I suppose. You do get over protective you know. I mean she's legal now isn't she?"
"Oh yuck. I suppose if she's legal then that's fair game, is it. Anything with two legs and a cunt and you think you can shag it?"
"There's always you, my sweet Alan, as a substitute, you know. You're legal too, now."
"For girls I am. I'll thank you to keep your thoughts away from my nubile flesh if that's all the same to you. Anyway I'm not legal."
"Now that, my friend, is where you're wrong."
"You're joking?"
"Nope. Blair and his lot dropped the age for blokes shagging blokes to sixteen. So, if I get worked up over the gorgeous Joanne and get all overheated but find she's not available, looks like it's your turn!"
"Yeah, right! And a load of you to hold me down."
"Can be arranged. Remember how we bet Jim a fiver he wouldn't snog Graham last term?"
"God yes. I mean he won it fair and square, I heard his teeth on Graham's! And it went all round the school. Graham was denying it happened for the rest of term, plus he got a reputation for being gay. I mean he isn't."
"Don't think any of us are, are we. Mind you, if one in ten people is gay, Alan... "
"What?"
"Well, think of nine of your friends. If it's none of them, then it's you! Stands to reason!"
"Stupid sod."
The door to the upper dorm opened with a crash "Hi fellas!"
"Hi Graham. We were just talking about your affair with Jim." Alan was cheery, teasing.
"Oh fuck off! I thought we'd done that to death last term. I'm not fucking gay and it didn't happen."
"Yeah, right." Paul dismissed him with sarcasm. Then he wheeled out again, this time to Graham, "One boy in ten is gay. Think of nine of your friends. If it isn't one of them, Graham, my sweet, then it's you!"
"Bastard." Graham's face was more fixed in a smile than smiling. "Bastards," he repeated, to no-one in particular. To be fair the term had started much as he'd expected. He was used to being the butt of jokes and being teased, pretty much being bullied, since the moment he'd arrived. He'd always tried to fit in. He never understood why he was always the odd one out. Dammit he even stood up for the other boys, for the people he wished were his friends, when they were in trouble, or when the housemaster tried to impose some stupid rule on them.
And he always got laughed at.
Always.
He unpacked. At least he had one major piece of fierce independence. Whatever they did to it, wherever they hid it, he always put a battered, small, ragged and much loved teddy bear on his pillow. Nowadays they hid it less and less. Somehow the sport of pissing him off and making him frantic to find it had waned as time passed.
"Jeez, Gray, you still got that fucking bear?" Paul loved teasing Graham. Even so he liked him, or at least had a sneaking regard for him. While he was certain that Graham Faulkener was a total pillock, he admired his spirit. Graham never once let the others actually bring him down. Or if he did he must have suffered in silence.
"If, Paul, if it was a 'fucking bear', as you say so eruditely, then surely it'd have an orifice?"
"Oh fuck off, Graham. You can be such a twat at times. Well, all the time."
"Oh, leave it out, Paul. He's only just got back. Anyway, at least he's got the guts to have a bear in the first place." Alan had always been a little in awe of Paul Ross. Somehow Paul was a leader and Alan a follower. Challenging him, even in a small way, made Alan feel strange inside, but he never liked it when people teased Graham.
That wasn't strictly true. When they'd all been new, all those three years ago, Alan teased Graham too. As time had passed he saw inside the tense shell that the other boy surrounded himself with, and found that inside there was a centre as soft as his own. Climpings made a hard shell very necessary. He could see why Graham wore it. He could even understand his desperate attempts to fit in, to be liked, to be one of the lads.
He remembered last term one of those formal dinners in the Climpings dining hall. One of the guests was from a German school that Blackstone Hall did an annual exchange with. Poor Graham. He was trying to impress one of the beaks who was sitting at the top of the table. "Nice to have our Tectonic friends to lunch, isn't it?"
The beak had looked puzzled. To be fair he was a geographer. It went through his head that Graham might have been taking the piss. "Pardon?"
"The German teacher on the top table."
"I'm lost." The beak was lost.
"I think Graham means 'Teutonic', Sir." It was a chorus.
"I said 'Teutonic'."
"No you didn't, Graham." Paul, always Paul, came in to deliver the final put down.
It was so often like that. All the time Graham tried either to impress or fit in. All the time he screwed it up. And each time Alan cringed for him.
Two of a kind in many ways, Alan and Graham. Neither realised it. Both failed to fit in totally with their fellows, but Alan didn't make a prat of himself by trying to force himself into favour. Graham had money, Alan's family could only just afford the fees. When Graham wanted, Graham got. When Alan wanted, Alan wanted. But under the skin, deep inside, both boys were gentle, sweet and needing love.
Even being a prick, Graham had friends. Alan had them too. Different friends. Graham attracted dorks and nerds, Alan gravitated to party animals. Inside, Graham wanted to be a party animal as well. A year ago he'd been to a party at a weekend exeat. Nothing unusual in that.
Sunday night he was full of it. Alan came into the dorm to hear Graham finishing a sentence "... and they were smoking acid, too!"
"Oh bullshit, Graham." That one was so extreme that Alan dived in, even though he'd just come in to the room. And sometimes, just sometimes, he joined in. Graham could be so exasperating.
"They were. They rolled it into tobacco and smoked it."
"Oh what crap. Graham, acid is a tablet or something. That must have been grass!"
"Isn't grass acid, then?"
He didn't explain. "No." All he could say was 'no'. Somehow it was beyond his powers to try to explain it any better. And he really didn't want poor struggling Graham to feel any worse than he did already. If he felt bad at all, that is.
At the same time he wanted to take Graham into his arms and hold him and make him stop the foolish fighting to fit in. The urge at times was almost overwhelming. Idiot or not, misfit or not, Alan Harrald adored Graham Faulkener. Not that Graham seemed much to adore. Unkempt hair, idiotic, Quixotic in his struggles with authority, a total snob, or so it seemed to the outside world, but inside Alan was sure that Graham needed love as much as he did.
But however much they joked and bantered in Climpings, at Blackstone Hall, that they fancied other boys, or that such and such a boy was gay, no-one dared. No-one truly dared. No-one dared because the truth, once out, was awful to contemplate. Housemaster, Headmaster, Chaplain, parents, and facing the others again. In his head Alan could hear the chants of "poof, poof, poof". He could never equate his fear with the ragging about gays and gayness. Only he was one. Was a gay, a queer, a poof, a faggot. And he knew Graham wasn't. And he knew that he had no hope at all. None.
So he bided his time, and was torn between doing things to make the other boy notice him, and half protecting him. 'One day,' he thought, 'one day, when we're about to leave, then I can tell him.' He knew he'd be rejected, but somehow it didn't matter. He'd have until then to look at Graham's beautiful face, framed in his unkempt brown hair, and to love him from afar.
The term went well enough. The mindless routine of lessons interspersed with sport and food of sorts, and sleeping went on. This year was better than the last because they were more senior, less supervised. They could sneak past Housemaster's Rounds and lights out to do their work late into the night, or just sit around talking after he'd finally gone to bed. Sometimes they sat in the dorm, sometimes in the computer room.
Graham still kept up his struggle to fit in. It had to be stupidity. No-one could be so ignorant. One night they were talking about Irish singers. "But isn't Ronan Keating in Blackadder and Mr Bean as well?"
"Rowan Atkinson, Graham." Alan forgot who put Graham right this time. "Rowan fucking Atkinson. He of the rubber face. Keating's the poof who used to be with Boyzone and now manages those very pretty boys from Westlife that you gay boys drool over so much."
"I'm not fucking gay!"
"Well you snogged Jim last term, and the whole school says you're gay, Graham."
"Don't! Fuck off! I mean do fuck off. Don't keep doing that!" He paused. "Well, at least Keating's not as ugly as Cyanide O'Connor"
"Who or what the fuck is Cyanide O'Connor?"
"The Irish singer who became a nun, or a priest or something"
"Sinead, you fuckwit. It's pronounced Sinead!" Paul this time.
"Oh leave him be, it's late. He can't help it if he doesn't know." Alan sprang softly to intercede.
"Fuck you too, Alan," Graham shot across the room at him.
Even a slap feels good when it's from someone you love. Alan glowed with the sting of the words, happy in a perverse way that Graham had noticed him, sad that he'd felt the need to lash out. In his mind Alan was holding Graham and kissing the pain away, holding him and telling him that it was all right, and that they could go away to university together in two years, and be together for ever, if only Graham would have him, make a home and a life together, maybe even adopt children and be a real family. Alan was willing Graham to ignore the bullying, and at the same time to stop trying so hard to impress.
And Graham? His inner feelings? Sick. Almost breaking. And the last thing he wanted or needed was anyone, especially Alan Harrald to spring to his defence. He couldn't stand it when he was wrong, but somehow it made it worse when Alan defended him, made it last longer, made it awful.
Awful because he could never say what was in his mind. He hadn't meant to. But he'd become very attached to Alan. No, that wasn't the right word. Infatuated with Alan. Being the butt of other guys supposed humour was one thing, but he was also finding he was in love with Alan. Which was impossible. Impossible for so many reasons, not least of which that his parents hated gay people, even turning off TV programmes with Graham Norton in. Michael Barrymore coming out had been too much for his mother, who'd used words like 'disgusting' and 'not natural, not normal' at the time.
All Graham wanted was to be safe in Alan's arms. And that was impossible. He dreamed just before he went to sleep each night that Alan was holding him, was there in bed with him, arms wrapped tight round him, holding him safe against everyone and everything, making it safe for him to be gay, safe for them to be gay, to be a couple. The flashes of kindness Alan showed him hurt all the more because Graham knew they could never be turned to love in real life. He knew Alan was sorry for him, he knew the others hated him, but he knew Alan's feelings were pity. Just knew it. And suddenly hated him for it.
"Oh fuck the lot of you. I'm off to bed."
If anyone had taken the time, the trouble to see, to watch him, to care about him, they would have seen his steps were dragging, as if he wanted someone to pull him back into the room.
He did want someone to pull him back. He wanted Alan Harrald to pull him back. Not to tell him he loved him, for that would be asking too much, but to somehow make him part of it again. Graham knew he was sometimes stupid. He knew he tried too hard to be part of things, and he knew he could never be part of things. Well, if one boy in ten was gay, and he was that boy, there was no hope of Alan ever returning his love. He'd show them. Show them all. And show Alan.
When the others got up at the rising bell Graham wasn't there.
He didn't appear at morning break either. No-one really noticed, except that there was an absence of idiot.
Graham left his bed in the early hours of the morning, crept to the computer room and wrote several emails. Then he closed down the PC and slipped out of Climpings and out of Blackstone Hall. Silent tears ran down his face. His mind was made up. He knew he was always going to be an outcast, knew that he could never be loved by the one boy whom he adored. Knew that there was no turning back now he'd sent the emails.
It was cold. Graham was only wearing his indoor clothes, and a thin shirt at that. It wasn't raining, but it was one of those thin days, where the air is damp, and you half think that it's raining, but never actually get wet. Any other day Graham would have noticed. Not that Wednesday morning. Something inside him drove him on. He'd finished with Climpings. He was heading for the station. No tears any more, nothing left to cry for.
At the station, early though it was, the first trains of the day had started to pass through. Graham walked past the station to the level crossing. Barely any road traffic about, and no-one was on foot. He set off across the crossing. Half way across he turned and looked over his shoulder, back at the city, at the school, at the house that he hated, housing the boy that he loved.
Then he made a half turn to his right, and started to walk along the railway tracks. Three rails in each direction. Two running rails, one power rail. Graham was walking in the middle of the tracks, stepping from sleeper to sleeper. Tears were streaming down his face. The rails went on for ever, never quite meeting, heading off to an imaginary vanishing point always just out of reach. No danger from trains. At that time of day the interval was half an hour anyway. Still dark, getting light, and suddenly cold. He was heading east, towards where the sun would rise. No need for sunlight, there was still plenty of light from nearby streetlights. And the lights made the rails shine, silver on the two running rails, gleaming black on the power rail.
Graham looked again at the town. "Goodbye Alan. I love you!" He shouted it loud. "I love you Alan Harrald! I love you!" And bent down and grabbed the running rail with one hand and death with the other.
At lunchtime Alan checked his email.
Dear Alan,
I know you won't want to know this, and that you pity me or are sorry for me. Everyone hates me. I've gone away. Alan, I love you with all my heart. I know you can't love me. I'm a boy. A gay boy. I've gone away. I can't stand being hated any more. Before I went I needed to tell you. I love you, love you, love you love you.
I will love you for the rest of my life.
It came from Graham's email address.
He sat, not daring to believe what he'd seen. Graham loved him! He adored Graham and Graham had been the one to dare to speak. He'd been too weak and Graham, Graham the idiot, the misfit, had been the one to tell him. And Graham had gone away.
Alan realised at last that the empty bed must mean that Graham had run away. He saved the email, not at the school address, but by sending it to his hotmail account, and closed it and deleted it from the school system. "Anyone seen Graham?"
No answer from anyone. Reasonable if no-one had seen him. They headed for lunch. And Graham wasn't there. 'Bull by the horns,' Alan thought. "Excuse me sir," he stopped the Housemaster who was on his way in. "Have you seen Graham Faulkener?"
"Isn't he here?"
"I think he's run away, sir. I got an email."
"I'll call his parents after lunch." And that was that.
Local radio reported delayed trains because of 'an incident'. Everyone knew what 'an incident' was. No-one paid it any heed. "Some damned fool's jumped in front of a train again," Paul joked. "Hey, Graham's not here. You don't suppose it's him, do you?"
And the afternoon went on as normal. Except that Alan went to see the Housemaster. "He isn't at home, Alan. May I see the email, please?"
"Oh."
"'Oh'?" A scowl. "I suppose you've deleted it."
"Yes, sir. Sorry sir." He didn't mention hotmail. Anyway the school network stopped them from logging on to hotmail, so he couldn't get it back at school"
"What did it say?"
"That he hated it here, hated being hated and had gone away, sir."
"Damn. Thank you Harrald. I suppose we'll have to let the police know. Just what Climpings needs. Blast the boy. I expect this'll get into the papers, too. Damn, damn, damn."
"Shouldn't we worry about Graham, sir, not the papers?"
"Thank you Harrald. I think I can decide on the importance of things, don't you?"
"Yes, sir." No point in staying to argue the toss. Alan left. In his heart he was clutching the glow and sudden sorrow that Graham loved him. He was desperate to have news of him, ached for him, wished he could have been brave enough to put his arms round him, to hold him the night before, wished he'd never teased him at all, let alone the little bit that he'd joined in with.
Resolution hit him. The Roll: a list of names and addresses of parents and boys. He found his in his study and looked Graham up. Not too far away. He must surely be home by now. No phone number. Computer room. BT.com and directory enquiries found the number soon enough. He wasn't meant to have a mobile, school didn't allow them, but he had one. Punching the Faulkeners' number in he waited for it to ring for ages before a man's voice answered. Had to be Graham's father. "Has Graham come home?"
"Who is this, please?" from the other end.
"Alan Harrald, from school. Graham sent me a note to say he'd run away. Is he there, please? I need to speak to him."
"Alan, Graham's parents are on their way to the school. There's been an accident."
"Accident? What kind of accident?"
"There isn't any way of telling you this easily, lad. We think Graham's dead."
The news didn't sink in. the words did, but the news didn't. At least Alan's brain was functioning rationally for the next few minutes. "How?"
"He was on the railway line, about half a mile from the level crossing."
"But how, how, how... " It hit him then.
Paul found him an hour later, lying oh his bed, phone in front of him, sobbed out, knees pulled up to his chest, eyes puffy. "What's the matter?"
Alan looked up at him. "Graham's dead."
"Yeah, right. He'd have even got that wrong."
"No, you cunt. He's dead. D. E. A. D."
"No?"
"Fuck off and leave me alone."
"You didn't even like him."
"Fat lot you know, then. Fuck off!"
Not long later the Housemaster came in. "Alan, can we have a word?"
"Graham's dead."
"Ah... Yes... Hmm... Ah-"
"And you're a fucking adult and all you can say is crap mumblings. You can fuck off as well!"
"Don't talk to me like- Oh. Look, I'll let that go. I just didn't want to tell you and it surprised me that you knew, and I'm sorry-"
"Sod off! Leave me alone!" Alan's tears started again. "We made him do it. Drove him to it. Teased him, bullied him, picked on him, never let him fit in, never let him be part of it. You hated him too. Made him feel like a shit. We thought it was funny. Only it isn't. Not now. We did it. We did."
"The police think it was an accident. Pull yourself together lad."
"They can think what they like. He did it. Not an accident. I know. Just know. He... He emailed me. Emailed meeeeeeeeee!"
Graham's parents slipped into Climpings quietly to pick up his things. Matron had put then all together, packed them, and Alan insisted on helping to carry the trunk to the car. No tears until the tailgate slammed shut. That was the last of Graham. Nothing left. Nothing left except the echoes of a scream that Alan could half hear as he imagined Graham on the railway line, lonely, alone, afraid, and choosing to die. A lifetime of love and it was gone, never to be tasted. "I love you, Graham. I love you."
If you are contemplating death, that is your right. I ask you simply to think about it once more. And to visit my site's links page looking for links to suicide and at least to read before you act.
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