Crying - Episode 2

“Right.” Ben said, standing up and stretching his legs out. “I’m going to go back across the hall and help Emilie. Feel free to have a look yourself too.” He said waving as he made his way to the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Leona leaned back on the sofa and looked back.
“Yeah, I’m so excited!”


“Me too, right I’ll be off then.” Ben still stood in front of the door not even reaching for the handle; it looked like he was trying to decide something.
“Alright see you later I’m going to help Kevin clean up.” Leona replied, turning back around as Kevin stood up to stoke the fire once more.

“See you Kevin.”
“Yeah, bye Ben.” Kevin said as he pushed the poker into the glowing embers and threw on another log.


“So?” Leona asked as Kevin sat down next to her.
“So what?” Kevin avoided her gaze.



“So it’s not going to be a bad trip after all is it? We all got on great then. Besides, Barry likes you.”
Kevin snorted.

“Don’t be silly Leona, if he liked me he would’ve spoken to me after I… whatever. I don’t care I’m not interested anyway.” He said folding his arms defensively.

“So, you won’t mind if me and him hook up on this vacation?”
Kevin’s neck cracked as his head spun round to look at her his eyes widened in shock.
“Leona, you hate him… How are you supposed to hook up?”

“At least I know it makes you jealous!” She grinned flashing her sparkling white teeth.
“Jealous? I’m not jealous!” Kevin scoffed. “Do what you want, I don’t care.”

Leona grabbed Kevin’s hand and dragged him off of the couch.
“What’re you doing?!” He asked as he was pulled to his feet.
“We are going to look for a decent cottage. Should be easy!”
“But isn’t that Emilie’s job?”
“We all have to stay there.” Leona said simply, tugging on his arm. “Come on, the sooner we find a place the sooner we can get going.”

Kevin wrenched his arm free from her grip.
“I can’t. You can use my PC but I have a report due in… remember?” He watched Leona’s shoulders rise up and then fall back down again as she shrugged. “Leave it. It’s the end of the semester and you don’t need to do the extra work.” She insisted waving an airy hand.
“No, but I want to get it over with instead of worrying about it when we get back.”
Leona let her bottom lip tremble. “Come on Kevin; allow yourself this one little indulgence. You’re always analysing things trying to do the right thing. So let’s have a bit of fun and you can work on your report later.”

“Oh all right, let’s take a look at these cottages then.”
Leona pulled him by the wrist into the bedroom.

“Ooh Ben, I’ve found a cottage! Come here and tell me what you think of this!” Emilie called from her seat in front of the computer screen.
“Just print it off and we’ll all discuss it together as a group. Print off all the ones you see that are nice.” Ben replied from the kitchen.
“Why can’t you just come and see it now; is it really too much to ask for you to come and look at the pc screen?” Emilie asked exasperated.

“Yes, it is. I’m making a sandwich.” Ben replied simply. “Just print it off. Why is that so difficult for you?”

“Er, because we don’t have a printer.” Emilie grumbled before bookmarking the page.

Barry sat at the bar; he was annoyed that he was going to have to spend a whole two weeks in Kevin’s company. After what happened he felt guilty for not calling him and even took to ignoring him. Seems really pathetic now; why hadn’t he just told Kevin that he was curious and wanted to experiment with his sexuality rather than lead the poor boy on?

His drink, a shot of vodka, was set down in front of him and he downed it immediately. He was going to get totally steaming drunk and then, when he woke up tomorrow morning he wouldn’t remember a thing. He ordered another.

Kevin sat in front of his computer screen in the dark; he was flicking between writing an essay he had assigned for himself and a gay forum; most of his time spent on the forum. He was far too distracted, having seen Barry earlier today, and he wanted to find out what other people’s opinions would be on the situation.He didn’t get anything of value, mostly people mocking him for starting up another ridiculous thread about a “straight” guy. The red cross in the top right hand corner flashed as he closed the page, he tried to continue his essay but it was too hard to concentrate – seeing Barry again had really thrown him off.

Instead, he picked up a book and sat on his bed trying to read.

Leona stepped out of the bathroom, a small towel wrapped in her hair and a larger one around her soaking body. Her bare feet danced across the blue carpet to a song that only she could hear, leaving small wet footprints behind her.

She slumped down on the sofa and flicked on the television, namely the news. But, sure enough, nothing interesting going on there – just more about the economic nosedive. Depressing, depressing, depressing.

As she sat there ignoring the news something wild popped into her head which almost made her cry out loud. She remembered glancing at his chest earlier that day but why would she think about it now?

Getting up, she decided that she was far too tired and this is what had caused Barry’s chest to appear in her minds’ eye. She headed to the bedroom to fall asleep.

Emilie was just going to bed after a hard day of sitting on that chair looking for cottages; she had narrowed the choice down to three. Her back was sore and her eyelids were heavy. She pulled back the sheets, Ben was already in bed, and, by the sounds of it he was already asleep.

The bed was nice and warm as she clambered in, she wrapped an arm around sleeping Ben but he shrugged it off. Emilie switched on the bedside light.


“Ben, wake up.” She whispered shaking him lightly. Ben breathed in heavily through his nose before his eyes flickered open.
“What?” he mumbled, still full of sleep.
“Ben, what have I done?” Emilie sat on the edge of the bed and twiddled the bed sheet between her fingers.

“What are you talking about? What time is it?” Ben asked trying to adjust his eyes to the dim light as he looked at the clock.

“You’ve been off with me for at least a week; at least have the courtesy to tell me what I’ve done wrong.” Emilie snapped.

“So you know you’ve done something wrong?” Ben asked shortly, raising his eyebrows, and turning over to go back to sleep.
“I’ll say that, in your eyes, I’ve done something wrong, sure. I don’t know what it is though.” Emilie sat with her back to him as he rolled back over to face her.
“Well, you must be feeling guilty about something.” He grunted.
“Ben, I really have no idea what you’re talking about!” Emilie said standing up and pulling on her bathrobe.

“I know, Emilie.” Ben said coldly, not taking his eyes off of her as she paced the bedroom.
“You know what?” Emilie asked, Ben stayed silent just watching her. “Ben, answer me.” She added exasperatedly.

“I know that you’re fucking pregnant! I found your pregnancy test last week. Why didn’t you tell me?” Ben roared, his cheeks flushed a deep red and his eyes were raw – Emilie could not tell whether that was from tiredness or him being upset.
“So this is why you haven’t been speaking to me.” Emilie said with relish.

“Well you haven’t been speaking to me either!”

Emilie lifted her hands to her face and began to sob. “So, why didn’t you tell me?” Ben asked, his throat was clogging as the tears threatened to pour from his eyes “Emilie! For fucks sake answer me!”

Emilie hiccupped, and dropped her hands from her tear stricken face. “I didn’t tell you because… because I hadn’t decided what to do about it yet! I’m still at university Ben; I can’t give all that up for a baby we didn’t plan.” She crumpled and sat on the end of the bed her back heaving as more sobs escaped her.
“So you’re going to abort it just like that?” Ben asked coldly.
“I don’t know Ben, but I might not even be pregnant – you know those tests aren’t one hundred percent accurate.” Emilie pleaded.

“Don’t bullshit me Emilie, you’re pregnant and you’re going to abort it. You don’t have to lie to me anymore. I know.”

Ben flicked the bedside light off and climbed back into bed, leaving Emilie sitting in the dark.