Page 105 of From Now On

‘Bo?’

He picks his way over upended tables and chairs, past the remains of a bonfire, and he pushes open the door to the toilets. It’s darker here, the small opaque windows not letting in the light, but Charlie can see enough to know that, wherever his stepdad is, it isn’t here.

‘Bo?’ Charlie makes his way into the back room. He had sat here once, while Jenny dabbed disinfectant-soaked cotton wool onto his knee before covering his graze with a plaster. She had given him a lollipop – lemon, no lime – as though he was five and not fifteen.

There’s a mattress on the floor. Two bin bags in the corner. He pulls out shirt after shirt. Not the sensible white work shirts Bo would button up each morning but brightly coloured with swirling seventies patterns. A pair of faded jeans. Is this it? Is this really all Bo owns now or had there been more?

Charlie hurries outside, screams into the night, ‘Where are you?’

His eyes scan the area, the car headlights picking out a mound on the edge of the cliff. Charlie runs towards it. Drops to his knees. The wind whipping his hair around his face. Salt pushing into his mouth.

A pair of battered black Vans. And a box of fudge.

‘No!’ Charlie’s cry is deep and primal. How could Bo have jumped, left them? Had he been planning it when he’d been talking to Charlie? Had Charlie caused this? He remembers telling Bo that it will be a mess to sort out, that the life insurance had paid out, the mortgage had been settled.

‘I’m going to fix it. Everything.’

Was this… was this hisfix?

‘If you’ve ever loved me. Please don’t put me in that position,’ he had begged.

‘I won’t put you in that position, Charlie lad.’

There is something wrong. Something missing. Charlie can’t quite place it.

How could Bo have done this? Left him? Left them? Charlie is shivering violently, his teeth harassing against each other; he tastes blood where he has bitten his tongue. He remembers the warmth of Bo’s embrace. The way he had told him he loved him.

But now…this?

When Charlie had opened up about his dad, Bo had said, ‘If “I love you” are the last words you ever hear from a person then you can rest easy that you’ve given meaning to their live.Purpose.’ Was that what he was trying to tell Charlie half an hour ago? That Charlie had given meaning to his life. Purpose.

A memory, Charlie at sixteen playing ‘Misty’ on the piano, Bo leaning against the doorframe, mug of coffee in his hand.

‘You’re so talented, Charlie lad. I’ll make a guitarist out of you yet.’ He had handed Charlie Mum’s guitar and picked up his own. Bo had begun to strum ‘Fly Me to the Moon’ and Charlie had joined in, their fingers working in harmony, their voices.

His guitar.

Bo had left his clothes in bin bags but Charlie doesn’t recall seeing his guitar. He rushes back into the café. Searches every dusty corner for Bo’s instrument. It isn’t here.

Back outside he peers over the cliff once more. There is nothing except furious waves bashing against rock. The water murky. He can’t see any splintered wood. He can’t see a guitar.

His fingers automatically seek out the scar on his wrist, thinking of the way all of his peers thought Charlie had tried to take his own life. He hadn’t though, had he?

Has Bo?

He just doesn’t know.

Exhaustion crashes over Charlie, dragging him to his knees.

He cries then, for Nina and Duke who have known loss all too intimately for their tender years. He cries for his fifteen-year-old self and then for now. He has lost a different father, in an equally unfathomable way. He cries for Bo who loved his mum far more than he loves his children. He cries for his mum who is not here to take the pain from her children and weave it into something else. Something better.

He cries for them all.

He is shivering when he eventually drags himself to his feet, clutching the box of fudge tightly to his chest.

Charlie takes one last lingering look at the café before he whispers, ‘Goodbye.’ There are so many different paths Bo could have taken that would not have led to this. What can he do to ease Nina’s pain when he tells her this impossible, unthinkable end?

Don’t tell her.

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