Mom threw her arms around me when she saw me. I was surprised that I had to bend down to hug her - I'd forgotten how short she was. It made me feel old, in a way, which was kind of funny. If anything, she should be the one feeling old.

"Hello, stranger!" she said lightly, kissing my cheek. "I know you're busy, but you could call me once in a while, you know!"

I smiled sheepishly. Since the breakup, I had been calling her less and less. I had entered a period of turbulence that I hadn't quite managed to drag myself out of yet, and I didn't want to risk taking all my pent-up emotions out on her. "Sorry, Mom."

I could see Graham lingering at the foot of the stairs as I entered the house. I waved lamely in his direction, but decided not to greet him properly – I wouldn't know what to say. Instead I wandered into the living room, feeling like a guest in my own house even though it looked exactly how I remembered it. Same wallpaper, same furniture, even the same framed photographs lining the walls and mantelpiece.

Graham sat down on the armchair in the corner of the room – Dad's armchair, with the African embroidered blanket and the cushions Mom had made herself. I didn't want him sitting there, messing it all up, but I knew it was stupid that I should care and tried my best to ignore it. I moved towards the stairs, when suddenly Mom wrenched my small travel-suitcase from my hands.

"I'll take that, dear," she said quickly, giving me an encouraging smile and nodding not-so-subtly towards Graham. I cringed inwardly. I had to try, if only for her.

I perched awkwardly on the arm of the sofa, attempting to smile. "So," I began. I fell silent suddenly as I realised I had nothing to say. Graham stood up, and I panicked, thinking he was going to walk out. "Y-You're better then! The sickness, I mean."

Graham nodded and cleared his throat. "Yeah. It's still going round though, so be careful."

"Right... Is my mom okay?"

"She's fine," he said, almost too quickly. "How've you been?" I didn't miss his swift change of subject.

"I've been okay. The cafe's not as busy as it was in summer, so work's easier." I swallowed twice in an attempt to cure the dryness in my throat. I felt like an outsider looking in on my own conversation, and it was just painful to watch.

Mom emerged from upstairs not a moment too soon. Both Graham and I swivelled round to face her, maybe a little too quickly. It was obvious how desperate we were for an intervention.

It took her less than a second to wipe the fleeting look of disappointment off her face and replace it with an optimistic smile. "I'll start the dinner then, shall I?"

"I'll help you," I said hurriedly. Graham sighed and sat back down, and Mom shot me a pleading look.

"Gold, you don't have to."

"No, I will, I want to," I insisted, practically clinging to her. Mom looked to Graham for backup, but he purposely avoided her gaze, and she had no choice but to let me follow her, head bowed and shame-faced, into the kitchen.

Mom took out the vegetables from the cupboard and started chopping with an unusual amount of vigour. When I tried to help, I almost got my finger sliced off, and was met with an exasperated sigh.

"Mom, I'm sorry," I said quietly. In the living room, Graham switched the television on. Obviously he could see we needed to talk.

"I know, I know you are but-" Mom sighed again and shook her head. "Please Gold. I need this."

I lowered my eyes. I truly was sorry. I didn't know why I didn't get on with Graham, or what it was that pushed me away from him. I knew what I was doing to Mom and I hated it. Why couldn't I just be happy for her?

"Mom, it's okay," I said, forcing a smile.

"No, it's not," she said sadly. "I know it's hard for you, but I love Graham, and I really want to make things work with him. I'm not as young as I used to be, sweetheart, I might not get another chance. Maybe I'm expecting too much for you to love him, but I want you at least to be comfortable around him. So... try, please? For me?"

"I will," I promised, a little too cheerfully.

"I don't want to do anything that might hurt you," Mom told me. "But it's hard on me, too, you know. Seeing you two like this."

"Mom, I'm eighteen," I said, laughing nervously. "You don't have to worry about me – just do what you want to do."

Mom turned to look at me then, an unreadable expression creasing her face. She looked quiet possibly the oldest I'd ever seen her. "Oh, Gold," she mumbled, leaving the knife on the worktop and reaching up to cup my face. "Why don't you say what you mean? For once, please. You never say what you mean."

I watched her as she returned to the courgettes, chopping much more slowly now. "Yes I do," I said. I raised my voice indignantly. "I do!"

"No you don't," Mom murmured, barely looking at me. "You say what you think other people want to hear. Why don't you say what you want?"

"I want what you want," I told her, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Well, what I want is for you to be honest with me," Mom said firmly. "Has Graham said something to you, is that it? Has he done something to make you hate him?"

"No, no, it's not that-"

"Then what is it?" she snapped, making me jump. "I don't know what to do, Gold. Why can't you just get used to him? You've had three years, what's stopping you!"

"You know, he hasn't exactly made an effort, either," I retorted without thinking, then instantly regretted it. Mom stared at me, open-mouthed, for a moment before burying her face in her hands.

"I'm sorry," she said. She sounded almost like she was about to cry. "Mood swings. It's an age thing... I didn't mean to..."

"Mom, it's fine," I assured, raising my hands. "We'll work things out with Graham, okay? That's what I'm here for isn't it!"

Mom looked gratefully up at me, tenting her eyebrows. "You're terrible, you know that? You got your father's sense, that's for sure!"

For what seemed like the first time since I stepped through the door, I gave a genuine smile. I loved it when she talked about dad. It didn't matter that I'd heard it a hundred times; I wanted to know everything. Did he like the same food or music I liked? Did I have any habits that reminded her of him? I never knew him, but at the same time, I was desperate to be like him. Sometimes I thought maybe it was for the best that I never knew him. Just in case he wasn't the man I wanted him to be.

I bit back the urge to start asking questions incessantly like a child, and set about helping her cut up the rest of the veggies.

We talked about Graham's work over dinner. Something banking and promotions and a whole lot of drivel I didn't really care about. But I kept smiling and nodding in the right places, and managed to fool him and Mom into thinking I was interested.

"Pass the cauliflower, will you Gold?" Mom asked.

I frowned. "But you hate cauliflower."

"Not lately."

I shrugged and passed her the plate.

–

Mom and Graham shared a bed. It wasn't surprising, really. She had kept the double bed from when Dad was alive, and it didn't make any sense for her to fork out for a new one when Graham came along. They were going to get married, for God's sake. I should've expected it. And it wasn't like it affected me in any way. I was just being stupid.

Still, it took me an awfully long time to get to sleep, and even then I couldn't count the number of times I woke up. I finally settled at about three in the morning, and was woken up just a few hours later by Mom. She went back to bed after using the bathroom, apologising and saying that she had been so tired recently. There was no way I would ever be able to drop off again, so I decided to get up.

Wandering around the house at seven-thirty in the morning, I almost felt like I'd stepped back in time. Back when I lived at home, when it was just Mom and me. Back when I didn't have to worry about family or relationships or what I was going to do with my life. I felt like a kid again. Or a man who felt like a kid. It was the same thing, really.

I made my way into the living room, examining the photographs that lines the walls and mantelpiece. They were all of me. Well, most of them. I picked up a frame at random – it was from our holiday in Sinnoh, when I was seven. Mom had me on her shoulders and was smiling brightly at the camera despite the fact that my ice-cream was dripping down the cone and onto her shoulder. She was wearing shorts. She never wore shorts any more.

I didn't remember much about that holiday, other than that there was a stray Persian on the camp site we were staying at, and I stroked it and fed it scraps and called it Wanda, and cried when we had to go home and leave it.

I wondered how long Persians lived for.

There were a lot of school photographs too, ones that I wasn't exactly proud of.

Me and Silver, on the first day of a new term. Mom had just started dating Graham, and it was starting to show via my belly. I was grinning, Silver wasn't. He looked like he was chewing on a wasp. I held back a snicker as I realised that he was probably trying to smile.

I always felt a little sorry for Silver back then. He hated school, couldn't see the point in it ("When am I ever going to need Pythagoras' theorem? Never, that' fucking when"). He pretended he didn't care. That he didn't know about the all the rumours flying around about him, his background, his family. That he couldn't sense the apprehension that thickened the air as soon as he stepped into the classroom. Nobody ever said anything to his face, of course, but the feeling was there and everyone knew it.

People thought I was crazy for following him like I did. I had friends. Heck, I could've been popular if I'd wanted. But I felt a sort of responsibility towards Silver, with his charity shop clothes and free school dinners. He would snap at me and push me away for all he was worth, vehemently claiming that he didn't need my pity and just because we knew each other that didn't make us friends. It didn't make the slightest bit of difference. I would still end up sat with him on the Loser Table at the back of the dinner hall, with the autistic girl and the boy who liked to start fires, every day.

It was months before he crumbled and told me, rather awkwardly, that I shouldn't hang out with him any more. He was bad news and everyone knew it. I didn't mind. It wasn't like I hadn't noticed my old friends gradually disappearing one by one. It wasn't like I hadn't been cornered once or twice by bullies who had overlooked me before. It wasn't like I hadn't heard all the gossip that was floating around about us.

Silver had to admit defeat after that. I knew he was grateful to have me. He didn't have to say it; he didn't have to. He always looked out for me. We both knew the reason why all my other friends had slowly trickled down the drain and why I had suddenly become a huge blot on the more popular kids' freak-seeking radar, and I suppose Silver felt guilty about it. He was always the first to jump to my defence, though he'd make a big show of his reluctance to help and his irritation at my obvious inability to fend for myself.

He hated that I'd never stick up for myself. He didn't understand that often I didn't really care about what people were saying. Mom had always taught me that as long as I had my health, my education and my family, I would be okay – never mind what other people think. I was content to ignore the occasional jab or jeer, but Silver could only ignore so much before he snapped. On a good day, he'd settle for a sarcastic comment or two. On a bad day, he'd get into a fight.

I couldn't recall the details of every little incident, but there was one that stuck out in my mind, because it happened back in 2005. Just after there had been a terrorist attack on the magnet train that ran between Goldenrod and Saffron. A kid in my science class started making terrorist jokes about me, pushing me around, calling me things I didn't understand, emptying the contents of my bag onto the floor and pretending I had a bomb hidden in it.

He asked me if I liked Johto. Then he asked me if I liked him. I didn't know what to say, so I didn't say anything, and he told me that if I hated him I hated Johto. He started yelling that I'd said I hated Johto, and nobody listened when I protested. By this point I was almost in tears. I heard Silver before I saw him, shouting above the din. One thing led to another, and he and the boy who had been making fun of me got into a fight.

Silver won, of course. I couldn't remember a time when he didn't. I don't think he even broke a sweat. I didn't see the scuffle, but I saw the aftermath; the kid had a bloody nose and it looked very much like Silver had played tug-of-war with his ear and won. I'd felt bad, but evidently not as bad as the kid and his friends. I knew why. School was a battlefield. A hierarchy where the popular students ruled and the weird, ugly kids knew their place – out of sight, out of mind, under the designer boots of those deemed better than us. And if we didn't know, then we damn well had to learn. Even Silver.

It was about a week later. School had just finished for the day, and Silver and I were on our way to my house. We were just leaving Violet City when it happened. A hoot of laughter from above had us looking up to find a gun aimed at us from the roof of the Pokemon centre.

The barrel was bright red, the trigger was yellow and through the plastic I could see some sort of liquid sloshing about inside. The sniper was a friend of the boy Silver had fought with; the boy himself was there watching.

I remembered their excited whoops.

"Oi! Ginger prick!"

Silver raised a hand as if he could somehow stop the spray of water splashing across his shoulder, hair and outstretched arm. Some of it must've got in his mouth, because he started choking, bent double over the pavement, liquid droplets sliding over his skin, down his neck into his shirt, over his lips and eyes and dripping from the tip of his nose. He retched more than once, and the boys on the roof howled with laughter.

When he had composed himself, Silver had started yelling, swearing and throwing the worst threats imaginable. People on the street started to whisper, and through the glass doors of the pokemon centre, I could see the nurse emerging from behind the counter and heading towards us.

I had to drag Silver away. Even when we reached the edge of the city, he was still yelling – though he was bright red in the face and gasping by this point. I didn't understand why he was so angry.

It was only after we'd been walking a while longer that I noticed the smell, and realised that the liquid the boys had fired at Silver wasn't water at all. I thought of how Silver would wear the same clothes every day because it was all he had. I thought of the poor navy jacket that he loved so much, the one with the high collar that hid the neck he was so self-conscious about. I wet the bed when I was little; it was nearly impossible to get the stink out of the sheets, even with a whole week's worth of scrubbing.

I'd wanted to cry.

Silver had noticed, and nudged me gently and said gruffly, "Don't cry. I'll buy a new one."

I thought of how I had once caught him trying to steal one of my old T-shirts after somebody drew a crude picture of a penis on the back of the only decent one he owned in permanent marker.

I'd started bawling.

I couldn't quite recall what happened after that. The next thing I could remember was me and Silver at my house (Silver in just his underwear and my oversized dressing gown – his clothes were in the washing machine) playing Super Smash Bros on the Gamecube. I played a mean Kirby, but I let him win anyway. He got angry at me for it. I was pretty sure he slept at my place that night too, since I could vaguely remember getting clipped upside the head for pulling the old 'I'll show you mine if you show me yours' line.

Smirking a little at the memory, my eyes drifted to the centre of the mantelpiece, just above the fireplace. There used to be a big picture there of Mom and Dad on their wedding day, but Mom had taken it down and hidden it behind the sofa about a year before she started dating Graham. I kept fishing it out and putting it back, and we ended up having a big argument over it. After that, Mom put it somewhere where I couldn't find it.

She'd since replaced the picture with what I considered a poor substitute - me at the end of school prom. I looked terrible. The suit she'd bought on offer was at least four inches too big for me and crumpled at my ankles and wrists, and it was painfully obvious that I had no idea how to fix a tie. The girl that was hanging off my arm was so out of my league it was ridiculous. She was taller than me, with short, choppy brown hair and thick eye-liner. She looked stunning in her strapless, lime green dress, but I couldn't even remember her name. She wasn't my girlfriend; I barely knew her. Some of the guys in my year had called me over and started asking if I had a girl to go to the prom with, and when I replied they had pointed out the choppy-haired girl and told me that she thought I was the sexist thing she'd ever seen. So I asked her to go with me. She had shrugged and said 'yeah, whatever', and it was only when I caught the looks of disbelief on the guys' faces that I realised they were trying to make a fool of me.

Turned out I didn't need them to help with that. I got my lip stuck in the girl's braces when we kissed at the end of the night. Let's just say that she didn't ask for a second date.

In the corner of the photo frame, I noticed there was another picture, a smaller one this time, tucked into the side. Reaching out, I plucked it from the frame... and laughed out loud when I looked. It was Silver, on his prom night the year before mine. Mom had forced him to go. She never could resist a party, and since all Silver ever wore were plain jeans and dark-coloured shirts, she jumped at the chance to dress him up a bit. He didn't feel like he could refuse after she went to all the trouble of buying the suit and shoes and stuff.

His face in the photograph was so comical I couldn't help but smile. His eyes were wide and his mouth was slightly open, and he had begun to raise a hand in an attempt to block out the camera. I couldn't blame him really. He'd always been camera-shy, and he didn't look much better than I did on my prom. If anything he looked worse. Mom, ever the bargain hunter, decided that it would make sense for Silver and I to use the same suit. This brilliant idea led to her buying one that was too short for Silver and too long for me. The trousers rode up his skinny legs, revealing red and white striped socks. The jacket was too small, but the white shirt underneath wasn't and hung down past his hands. The bright red hair only made him look funnier.

Silver didn't get himself a date. I got one for him, with the autistic girl that sat with us at lunch time. Even so, I couldn't help feeling a little jealous, and, shamefully, I was almost relieved when I learned that, apparently, the girl stayed with him for about ten minutes before deciding she wanted to go home, leaving him to spend the rest of the evening huddled in the darkest corner he could find.

I browsed through all the pictures, indulging myself in a little more reminiscence. Amusement morphed into something that felt almost like hurt when I couldn't see a single photo of Dad.

I was swept from my stupor by high-pitched shouting coming from outside. Wondering who on earth would be causing such a fuss so early in the morning, I drew back the living room curtains and peered out. Across the path I saw a petite girl storming out of the house of our only neighbour, weighed down by an array of suitcases. I opened the window a crack so I could hear what she was shrieking about.

It was something along the lines of 'I hate you', 'I'm leaving' and 'you can't stop me'. Then she whirled around to face the house, stood for a while, apparently listening, and threw down the majority of her cases with a frustrated scream. She kicked one of them open as she stomped back into the house.

"What's all that noise?"

I turned to find Graham standing in at the foot of the stairs. I smiled awkwardly and nodded towards the window. Striding over, he leaned over my head and drew back the curtain further. Then he groaned and rolled his eyes.

"Her again," he muttered. "She moved in a few weeks ago. Nothing but trouble..."

"What's her name?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. Mon- I mean, your mother went to greet her, but she was having a bit of a tantrum, I think. Thought I'd best keep out of it."

The girl had come back out of the house (or rather, she was thrown out) and was currently gathering up the cases she had thrown down and looking very sour indeed. I looked away from the window before she had the chance to notice me. I forced a smile.

"Is Mom okay?" I asked.

"She's just tired," Graham assured me.

I edged back a bit, feeling uncomfortable standing so close to him. We stood in silence for a moment, shuffling our feet and coughing nervously. Then I sighed and looked up at him, determined.

"Look, Graham," I said decisively. "I know you don't like me. But I know you love my mom, too. And I want her to be happy, so... I think it's important that we try to get on with each other. Okay?"

Graham coughed again, wheezing a little. "I do like you..." he began, then stopped when he caught my sceptical expression. He pinched the bridge of his nose. "You're right. About your mother. We've got to make things work."

I smiled, glad he understood. "Don't worry about it. I'm eighteen, I can take care of myself. All we have to do is be nice to each other until the wedding. Then I'll go back to Goldenrod and you won't have to worry about me again."

Graham frowned. "You know Mona wouldn't want that."

It was the first time he'd used Mom's name in my presence.

I raised my eyebrows, feigning nonchalance. "It's her life," I said. "I think she should be able to start over if she wants to."

"She doesn't want you out of her life, Gold."

I ignored him and brushed past him, flashing him a smile as I went. "I'm going to make breakfast. You want some? All I can manage is cereal though!"

He could only gape helplessly at me. Really. What was he expecting? One of us had to say it, and in a way I was glad it was me. It all served to prepare me. It made me feel like less of a coward.

I headed into the kitchen, suddenly ravenous. My eyes were watering a little. Why? I was stronger than this. I was older than this.

I put the kettle on and prepared the mugs. Weak tea with three and a half heaped spoonfuls of sugar for me, plain old generic coffee for Graham and something a bit stronger for Mom. She was tired. She probably needed it.

–

I awoke the following morning to the sound of Mom. Vomiting. Again.

Lying awake in bed, I thought of the exhaustion. The sudden sickness, the cravings.

And I knew. Oh God, I knew.

–

I just managed to finish this chapter before bedtime! Let's just say it didn't turn out like I'd planned... but that's not necessarily a bad thing. I'm actually quite pleased with it. I have a truckload more ideas about Gold and Silver's past, but I didn't want to write too much about it this chapter. I wrote an awful lot as it is!

I'd really like to leave a longer author's note, but I have a feeling my mum will be shouting at me to go to bed any second now, so I'll have to leave it at that!