I have a message for you, goes the fat boy, and in that instant Lori feels her heart stop dead and freeze up like a ghost has wrapped its hands around it, even before the fat boy goes on, From Skippy. She looks down at Mom hoping she’ll say, I’m sorry, dear, we’re having dinner. But Mom has already gone back into the dining room.
Come upstairs, she says to him in a low voice.
Some fat people though not actually attractive can look cuddly or jolly. That’s not the kind of fat he is. As he climbs towards her he gasps for air. The stairs groan under his feet and when he reaches the top he has sweat on his forehead.
She leads him into her bedroom, where he peers around at everything like he’s never been in a girl’s room before, which is quite likely. Were you one of Daniel’s friends? she asks, slipping off her scrunchie and swinging out her lustrous black hair. I was his room-mate in school, he says, studying the pictures on her wall, the horses, BETHani and her boyfriend. It was so terrible, what happened to him, she says devoutly. He does not say anything to this, just releases a kind of a hiss, like steam from a pressure cooker. Suddenly she feels sick again. She wishes he would go. What was the message he wanted you to give to me?
He wanted me to tell you he loved you, the fat boy says. He says it levelly, icily, like a teacher telling you that you’ll never amount to anything. It was his last wish, the fat boy says.
I know that, she says.
Now he’s dead, the boy says.
Lori flushes. She doesn’t like that word being said in her room. She considers asking him to leave but another part of her is advising her to tread carefully, be diplomatic.
The boy has sunk into a chair and flops there motionlessly, staring at the floor. There is a black anger radiating from him.
Was there anything else? she says coldly, the way her mother speaks to shop assistants.
The boy doesn’t respond. He keeps clenching and unclenching his fat fists. Then in a low mean voice he says, It was you in that video.
Lori flinches. What? she says.
It was you on the doughnut shop roof. You and Carl.
I don’t know what you’re talking about, Lori says in a steely voice.
You pretended to love him, the boy goes on, so you and Carl could play this trick. And now he’s dead.
SHE DOES NOT LIKE THAT WORD BEING SAID, she does not like it, and in a flash she knows that Carl is outside and all she has to do is cry out and then the fat boy would know all about dead. But instead she says, Nothing you are saying makes any sense to me.
With that the fat boy erupts, his moon-like face screws into a horrible mask of hate, and he shouts, You lied to him! You kissed him, you made him think you cared about him, you used him!
That isn’t true! Lori finds her whole body is shaking, maybe vibrating in time with the fat boy, who is wobbling like a jelly made out of explosives, his face a big swollen blackcurrant. But then he becomes quite still. He stares into her eyes and he whispers, You are an evil person. You are a person who pretends to love people so you can control them. But you don’t care about anyone except yourself.
Lori wants to shout That isn’t true! again but she can’t because she is wondering if it is true and for a second the guilt-wave knocks her backwards. But then another wave rises up in her to meet it – a wave of anger, anger at Daniel for doing this to her, for making her feel this way, for weighing her down with death and making her carry it around with her for ever when she barely knew him! She barely knew him! And now jumping up she shouts back at the fat boy who has come into her house to do this to her, Daniel didn’t even know me! I saw him three times in my entire life! I didn’t ask him to write my name on the floor! I didn’t ask him to do any of that! Sparks are shooting from her, she is so sick of boys and all the things they want from her, endlessly endlessly wanting and pulling and draining her away – he didn’t know me, I didn’t know him. I didn’t know about his life, I didn’t know his mom was sick –
The toad’s little squinty eyes open in surprise. His mom? he says.
You didn’t know that? Lori’s dad had told her, he’d heard it from his friend the Seabrook Principal. But it looks like it’s news to toad boy. She’s dying, she says, how can you not know that? Weren’t you supposed to be his friend?
The toad boy looks at a loss.
How about the swimming team, did he tell you about that?
The swimming team?
How he wanted to quit but he couldn’t?
The toad boy frowns. Lori laughs, this is just too funny. Wow, some friend, she says. Do you actually know anything about him at all?
The toad doesn’t reply, he is totally confused because he’s come to punish her and take revenge on her and put the blame on her for what’s happened but now he’s finding out it might not be so simple as the video, it might be that some other things were bothering Daniel too that someone else might have been able to help him with, e.g. him fatso his so-called friend. You can see it sinking in, he falls back into the armchair with a look of shock crossing his face, but instead of wanting to make him feel better and say, Hey it’s OK, we’re in this together, and share the pain they’re both feeling between them instead she finds now the tables have turned she wants to finish him, she wants to pay him back for what he’s done, for making her feel evil and loveless, for making her feel rotten and black inside, when if he knew the first thing about her he’d know that she’s a lovely sweet person that everyone likes, and that Love is all she cares about and all she thinks about all day long, FYI Mr fat slob, Mr disgusting monster, Mr giant repulsive toad who nobody will ever want to kiss even if they’re blind, she wishes he was dead cold in a grave somewhere too, she would love to put him there, she would love to really hurt him, she would love to go over to him and scratch his face, scratch and scratch and dig and dig until there’s nothing left no face just red like a plate of spaghetti Bolognese after you’ve eaten all the spaghetti off it and she even gets up and takes a step towards him and emerging out of his reverie she sees his eyes widen in terror –
Everything OK in here? Mom’s face in the door.
Yes, thank you, Mom. The face that Lori presents back to her is sweet and composed.
Would your friend like some OJ? Or some Pepsi? Mom wonders.
No thank you, Mrs Wakeham, toad-thing says.
Actually he was just about to leave, Lori adds.
On cue, the fat boy rises from his chair. Mom nods and closes the door again. Lori and the fat boy stare at each other. He is trembling, in his eyes there is despair and not-understanding as far back as she can see. Goodbye, she says. He goes to the door and down the stairs. She hears him open the front door and shut it. Crossing over the landing she pushes back the curtain so she can see him in the driveway. He is standing there in the light of the security lamp, clutching his head as if he’s experiencing a tremendous pain. Maybe it’s the same pain that’s in her stomach. He stays there so long without moving that the security lamp switches off. She pulls the curtain closed in one quick motion and sinks onto the bed and cries until the duvet is soaked.
I did love him, she croaks through snot and tears to Lala the teddy bear, and as she says it she knows it’s true, and she knows that Carl knew it too even before she did and that’s why he did what he did. And she realizes that love doesn’t go in straight lines, it doesn’t care about right or wrong or about being a good person or even about making you happy; and she sees, like in a vision, that life and the future are going to be way more complicated than she ever expected, impossibly, unbearably complicated and difficult. In that same moment she feels herself grow older, like she’s finished a level in a video game and moved on invisibly to the next stage; it’s a tiredness that takes over her body, a tiredness like nothing before, like she’s swallowed a ton weight…