There was silence when he blinked awake. Roaring, deafening silence. For a few seconds, his heart quickened and dread rose up from the pit of his stomach. And then he remembered. Nothing was wrong, this was just how the flat was now. Silent, empty.
Apart from him.
The dread sank back down, leaving hollowness in its place. He clamoured out of bed and padded to the kitchen in his sock feet, flicking on the radio just to fill the small room with noise.
"…never mind I'll find someone like you…" Adele crooned. He stood for a minute staring through the net curtains at the grey October sky, before slamming his hand down on the radio and shutting it off. Silence roared again.
How had this happened? How had his life changed so much? Three months ago, he would have woken to the sound of Leah and Lucas fighting over the Thomas the Tank Engine mug, or Amy singing in her tone-deaf way in the shower. He would have rolled over and pulled the pillow down over his ears, trying to cling to the last few seconds of his dream before the day boisterously wiped it away. And surrendering to life, he would have stretched and smiled and bounced into the kitchen to two eager cuddles and maybe even a coffee, if Amy was there ahead of him.
Now, he listened to the gradual build of the kettle's song, growing more pressured and urgent as it climbed toward the boil. He stared at the fading, old-fashioned wallpaper with its creeping mildew, feeling the cold leaking through his socks from the dingy lino floor. What a dump, he thought.
They had been so young when they moved in here and it was a palace just because it was away from the reign of Terry. And as years flew past, it continued to be a palace, filled with the light and air and happiness of people he loved. Just three months ago, when the doorbell rang, with Michaela, or Ally, or Doug on the other side, he was proud opening the door of his beautiful home and inviting them in to his beautiful family.
Doug. As the thought of him flitted into his head, he flicked on the radio again, needing to distract himself.
"…guys tryna touch my junk, junk…" Kesha blared, thankfully. He left it on as he made breakfast, focussing on the day ahead. Maybe he'd go to the deli. He'd left it closed for a week now, it was bad for business. And he didn't want to let Doug down. Again. He'd go mad if he stayed in the flat any longer anyway. There wouldn't be anyone ringing the doorbell, he knew that.
Involuntarily, he glanced at the spare set of keys that the landlord had thrown into his hand three days ago. He swallowed hard. No more visitors at all.
The village was quiet as he walked over to the deli, hands shoved into the pockets of his hoody, eyes on the ground. Maybe people were still nervous out on the street after the shooting. He glanced up, momentarily, to the balcony where he had crouched, petrified, waiting to feel a bullet pierce him.
If people knew, he wondered, what would they think? If they knew the bullet that killed Riley was meant for him? If they knew how he had been saved, who had saved him? And if they knew why… if he knew why…
As he turned the key in the deli door and pushed it forward, an inexplicable sense of relief washed over him. The green-blue walls, the faint aroma of coffee beans, the gentle hum of the industrial fridge, they'd grown familiar. He felt more at home here than he did in his strangely empty flat, a box of walls and floors that meant nothing without the people it protected. The deli, it represented something different, something that was all his.
And it reassured him, knowing that he had one valid reason for staying here after Amy took the kids to Manchester. One open, honest reason that he didn't need to be ashamed of.
He and Doug, they'd worked their fingers to the bone to get this place off the ground, sweated through the summer, and willed it into existence. Doug loved it too, he knew that, but nobody could love it more than Ste did. As he built this business, he was building himself as well, throwing out all the broken furniture and fittings that had accumulated over years, polishing up pretty features that had long been lost in the rubble. And as it grew, he grew too, learning to be proud, learning to try and to fail and to succeed, learning to be loved the way he deserved to be.
He hit the light switch, flooding the place with brightness and set to work immediately. Within an hour, a slow trickle of customers was beginning and he was able to lose himself in the idle banter that came naturally to him.
"Alright Will?" he grinned, smiling widely at the always slightly baffled-looking student. "What can I get for ya?"
"Panini please, cheese and ham."
"Bit boring, innit?" Ste teased. "Don't ya want to try summat a bit more adventurous? This is artisan food, this!"
"It's not for me, it's for my Dad," Will answered.
"Oh, never mind then. Here, could ya tell Barney that there might be a bit of work going here for the next couple of weeks? Only if he's interested. I felt dead bad about what happened the last time."
"Is Doug away?" Will enquired.
Ste looked up from Panini preparations to answer and, just beyond Will's shoulder, saw Cheryl pass by the window. He felt a momentary quickening of his pulse.
"Sorry? Eh, yeah, just for a couple of weeks. Gone to California, in't he?" he said with forced brightness. "Probably come back with a killer tan. If only someone didn't have to hang around here and look after this place, eh? Wish I was there with him!"
He was surprised by how easily the lie rolled off his tongue. He had always been a bad pretender. Except when he'd been pretending to himself.
The day passed by swiftly. Barney came by at lunchtime and was reinstated as "assistant", beginning his new employment by smashing an entire tray of teacups on the floor. On the whole it was successful, Ste thought, locking the front door as the sky darkened above his head. A good day of trading. He turned and started back towards his deserted flat. So why did he feel so empty? He kicked a discarded coke can on the road and listened to it rattle noisily. Would he feel less empty if Cheryl had come in that time? If he had been able to squeeze a few morsels of information from her, good or bad or indifferent, just a few crumbs to keep him going?
Ten steps away from the door of his flat he stopped. He couldn't face it, he decided, a night sitting on his own watching mindless television and coming up with excuses not to ring Doug. He'd left him a voicemail every day since leaving, and Ste had returned none of them. He couldn't speak to him, hear his kind and beautiful voice telling him he loved him and he was sorry, when he didn't even realise that Ste was letting him down, completely and utterly. Maybe he'd go for a pint.
He loved Doug, he tried to remind himself as he walked. Life with Doug in it was happy and optimistic, filled with laughter and plans. They were a team, that's what they always said. Ste loved that, he loved their team. They were untouchable, nothing that they couldn't do. Ste was untouchable, he was safe and free.
So why had he let him walk out of the flat that day? Why had he let him climb into Carl's car and drive off, away from him?
His feet had taken him to the bridge outside the Dog now and he stood looking in at the laughter and chatter and brightness spilling from its doors. He could see Dirk Savage gesticulating wildly as he made some emphatic point to Dodger. Texas was sitting nearby, texting someone, maybe Doug. And though he couldn't see her, he could hear Cheryl Brady's booming voice echoing around the room and out the door into the dark night. Would he get a few crumbs from her now?
He sat down, right where he was on the bridge. This was where he'd found Danny Houston's body, he remembered, numbly, as he stared at the gentle ripple of the water beneath him. That's what life was, before Doug, before the deli. Filled with darkness. Even acts of love were filled with hate.
The beatings weren't even so bad, really. Yeah, he still had a scar under his right ear, and when he ran really fast his ribs still niggled at him a bit, but they were just war wounds now. Nothing he didn't deserve after the ones he'd given to Amy. It was the other stuff that still prickled sharply, when he let himself think of it. The repeated rejections, the deliberate humiliations, the cruel promises that were smashed roughly on top of his head again and again.
There was a crash behind him and he looked around to see a group of students picking up a drunken Barney from the ground. He hadn't wasted much time, Ste thought, the deli had only been closed an hour.
"Hello boss!" Barney shouted over, noticing him from his vantage point on the ground. "Excellent day today, just excellent. Just celebrating with a few comrades, you know, frittering away a little hard earned cash!"
"Right, whatever," Ste replied, turning his gaze back to the black depths beneath.
"Hey, you alright Ste?" Barney's friend asked, the blond girl who was going out with that idiot Ally now. Ash, her name was. She was peering over at him, inquisitively, the pink ChezChez logo glowing brightly from her black uniform. Why couldn't people just mind their own business?
"Yeah I'm fine," Ste snapped defensively. A finally standing Barney staggered backwards and collapsed onto the ground again, this time taking a patio table and six or seven pint glasses with him. What was it about that kid and smashing drinking utensils?
Suddenly, Ste ripped his gaze from the water and threw it at Ash. "Here, are you on your way over to the club?"
"Yeah, gotta run actually," she threw a helpless look at Barney rolling around on the ground. "Boss man is back in action, can't be late today."
"Well I'll walk with ya then," Ste said quickly, springing to his feet and darting over to her side. He could feel his pulse quickening again. Why was he doing this?
"You're going to the club? At eight?"
"Em, yeah."
"Ok then."
They started off, leaving the floundering Barney to the others to sort out.
"So," Ash began. "Are you meeting someone there?"
"Where?"
"At the club. Since you're going there so early, I mean."
"Oh, em, no. No I'm not. I'm not meeting anybody."
"Three no's!" she exclaimed. "Methinks the gentleman doth protest too much!"
"What?"
"Never mind."
She let silence settle over them for a few moments. Ste barely noticed it.
"You wouldn't be hoping to run into a certain Irishman, would you?" Ash enquired archly after a few moments.
"What? No! How do you..?" Ste stopped walking as he trailed off. He took a breath before fixing imploring eyes on her. "How is he? Is he alright?"
She shrugged, deliberately casual, coming to a halt as he did. "Bit bruised, but alright. Same old moustache we know… and love."
The way she said it made Ste squirm in his shoes. Coy, suggestive. How did she know so much about him?
"Really? I mean, he seemed a bit… different the last time I saw him."
It was an image he couldn't get out of his head, those sad and tired eyes, telling him he was finished messing with his life. Sad and tired and surrendering.
"Like, not the bruises and that. Kind of… kind of like he was broken."
There was a pause and the word hung in the air between them for a minute.
"You really care about him, don't you?" Ash said gently, dropping the sarcastic tone that seemed to coat most of what she said.
"No!" Ste snapped, instinctively. "I mean, I couldn't. The things he's done, you know."
Ash said nothing. Letting him go on, he supposed. He swallowed hard. When he continued, his voice was low and his eyes were fixed on an ink-black beetle scurrying frantically across the ground, exposed.
"I spent years trying, you know. But he didn't want it. He just wanted… I dunno… control."
The beetle finally found its way into a crack in the curb and disappeared. He continued to stare after it.
"I thought it was finished. No more hold." He shook his head.
Ash reached out and pressed her fingers into his hand. "What's happened Ste, what's he done?"
Ste didn't know how to answer. What had he done? Saved his life. Saved his life and walked away, just as Ste had wished he would a million times. After toying with it for so long, he had finally handed Ste his life back and promised to leave him alone with it.
"You know, when someone treats you like that," Ste whispered, eyes still fixed on the beetle's escape. "You should hate them for it."
He looked up into Ash's face, confused and concerned.
"You should want to be shut of them."
"But you don't..?" Ash guessed.
"All he wants is control," Ste pleaded. "That's how I got rid of the hoping and wishing."
"You taught yourself not to love him," Ash said.
"Yeah, yeah I did!" Ste nodded, his voice growing frantic. "I broke free. Coz that was the real problem, not all the stuff that he did to me, but that I still wanted him in spite of it all! Love, it makes you powerless!"
He broke off, eyes wild and wet. How had he ended up here again? How had all of his carefully crafted indifference been blown away so fast?
"Hey Ashley!"
They both spun around at the sound of that voice, cutting through the crisp October night from the balcony of ChezChez. Ste's heart thumped painfully.
"You're late."
His eyes didn't even glance in Ste's direction.
"Right boss!" she shouted back.
"Ste," Ash said insistently, turning back to him. "Believe me, he's not in control. There's no one in the world less in control than he is."
She gave his hand one final squeeze before turning to hurry towards the ground entrance to the club. "You're still free."
Ste stayed where he was, eyes swimming with unshed tears and he watched Brendan Brady turn on his heel and disappear into the thumping bass of the nightclub. She was right, he wasn't in control. That's probably what he found so difficult, the terrifying uncontrolled abyss of being in love. But she was totally wrong when she said that Ste was free. He was as powerless as Brendan was.