It wasn't that I hated myself, it was more that I didn't know who I was, I was not acquainted, had never been introduced to myself, and I hated that. I hated not knowing. The self-hatred came later of course. Too often I heard about this person, Daniel Ashcroft; a boy who was too needy, who tried hard but was never good enough to be considered truly intelligent; a young man who was too distant, too acerbic for his own good, too pompous for anyone's good; an old man too broken and weak to be considered lovable, who couldn't solve his problems and so punished himself by making them worse instead. I learned about this man from the words of others, and from the way they reacted to him, and I hated him, and that was how I learned to hate myself.
There was another man though. We were introduced through a friend, and I'm not sure if he has a name. He doesn't really need one. He belongs to Jones, you see, and that is how we were introduced. That man knew how to care for another human being, how to be vulnerable without it seeming like a weakness worthy of only snide distaste. That man knew how to be strong and brave and to protect and build up another person. That man tried to be good.
It has been a painful journey but I think I am beginning to learn how to be that man all of the time, not only in the presence of Jones and no one else. It has been a strange journey as well as a painful one and it is hard to describe it without resorting to tired cliches that lost their meanings books ago. I expected to find demons, and there were more than a few of those, all gnashing teeth and ripping claws like Jabberwocky spawn but terrifyingly real, but I found more allies than I was expecting too.
The pain did not make us stronger. That is one cliche I feel no pull to use, that the trial made us better, or was necessary. I have no desire to thank the people who tried, and nearly succeeded, in destroying us. They were barely punished and we will live with the scars and the pain and the shadows on our lives while they can move on and forget. The fact that I have found something like peace is not because of the tribulations I went through before. I have not gained through pain. To believe those lies would be to give the demons too much power over us. The thing that is like peace, or contentment, or which could just be growing up, has come about through Jones.
The press of his hand against my chest, the rub of his forehead against my chin, the breath I have been privileged enough to share with him as we have lived and laughed and cried and gasped and talked together - all of these things are what have saved me and given me the something that I have now. And I never believed in soul mates and I scowled at the words and thought they were fickle and romantic, and they are, but I do not possess any other words for what Jones is to me. I was a mostly complete person before I met him, he did not complete me, but I was a person who I largely did not know, and who, when I did know, I did not like. I was a jumble of pieces and he put me together in a more stable configuration. Jones made me something more and different from what I thought I was doomed to be.
And I like to think, when I attempt to be objective, and before I slide toward pretentiousness, that I have given something more to Jones too. He isn't a saint or an angel who swooped into my life, he is as flawed as any other human being, almost. I think, sometimes, that if I had not been walking by on the night we met and seen him crying he would have eventually picked himself up and gone back into that house and done what he needed to do. He might even have been stronger if I hadn't sat down beside him. But I worry that he might not ever have known that someone wanted to help him, for no other reason than that he was a child who needed to be helped. I worry that he might never have seen that he was worthy of being loved. Because that is the lesson he has taught me...
Jones let out a shuddering breath, closing the notebook and pressing it tight to his chest as the sharp wind from the ocean made his cheeks sting where the tears had left them wet and cold. Dan had asked him, two days ago, if Jones would read his notebook, just for feedback and to make sure Dan wasn't going insane, and Jones had agreed, possibly too quickly. Dan's eyes had narrowed but Jones had leaned forward to kiss Dan's cheek, which had surprised the other man enough that he forgot to ask any questions.
He had taken the notebook down to the beach to read, so that he didn't have to worry about Dan seeing just how long it took him, and Dan hadn't asked about it, or mentioned the book at all, since. He was done now. He'd spent the last two days almost entirely at the beach, returning for meals and to sleep, while he read the notebook from cover to cover, and he was worried that Dan thought Jones was avoiding him.
He kind of had been, actually. Avoiding Dan. But he didn't really know why. Dan was being so patient, it was almost like he was being too good, and Jones wasn't sure that he deserved someone who was willing to be so loving and forgiving and accommodating. To know that Dan still felt so badly about himself, to know that through all the years they had known one another Dan had always hated himself, judged himself so harshly, but that he considered Jones to be one thing in his world that made sense, that redeemed him...
Tomorrow was Christmas day and Jones had been lying awake at night, crocheting to pass the time and trying to figure out what he could give to Dan to show him that he loved him. He'd made hats and mittens for everyone, three large blankets - one for Claire and Harry, one for Cathy and Roger, and one for Dan and him to keep - as well as woolen ornaments and doilies and coasters. He'd gone a bit overboard actually but it was either that or gluing sea shells to stuff and Jones didn't want to go down that path. That path led to serious crazy and he did not want to wake up one morning and discover that he'd hot glue gunned cockle shells to Dan's face or something. So he'd stuck to wool, but no matter what he created, or how many patterns he came up with, none of it had seemed right for Dan. And then Dan had handed over his notebook, and Jones understood that it was the Dan equivalent of handing over his still-beating heart, and now Jones really didn't know what to do, except cry. He was doing pretty well at that.
There was the new track he'd been working on, but he wasn't sure if it was ready, or how you went about giving someone your music for Christmas. And he didn't know if Dan would like it. Then again, Dan liked 'The Prodigy' but had a soft spot for 'B*witched' so it was hard to tell what he genuinely wouldn't like, other than Nathan Barley rapping.
Jones pulled out his iPod and settled his headphones over his ears, listening back to the music he'd spent the last few weeks building. It was darker than his older stuff, more mature, 160 BPM rather than his usual 200, but he liked it a lot. Jones wasn't often great with words but he used his noise to tell stories, getting people to lose themselves in rhythm and bass that at some, deep level they understood even if they didn't get that they were dancing to the sound of a London sunrise playing across Dan Ashcroft's sleeping face through dirty windows the morning after an all night session of sex, coffee and mixing at his decks. If he heard a song that sparked a memory or worked with the narrative he sampled it but mostly Jones preferred sounds that people took for granted but that made up the music of their every day lives.
This new track was made up their lives at the shack at Hornsea, and it was deep and melancholic and sometimes it even frightened Jones. He wanted to give it to Dan, his version of a notebook, but there was still something missing from it. There was healing and anger and tears and frustration and pain and the sound of the waves and gulls shrieking and Dan's laugh, slowed down and played through the whole thing at low pitch so you couldn't pick it out but you could feel it, if you knew where to search. He was quite proud of it really, like he hoped Dan was of his writings, which were amazing, even if they broke his heart, but there was still one element lacking.
Jones flicked back through the book, searching for the sentence that had made his chest achy and his tears fall so fast he could barely read the words.
...The day he kissed me, that was the day I realised that there was something I would always keep living for. I'd never kissed lips like his. They were warm and soft but not wet or overbearing. Jones' lips, like everything else about him, were giving. And in that moment I realised that I wanted to give everything to him, and that I wanted to kiss him and hold him and feel his body and know every inch of him and spend the rest of my life being for him what he was for me in that moment: open and warm and soft. He is a gift, was and will always be the only gift I shall ever want or need or crave and it shall be enough if I am allowed to simply touch him each day, whether it is the brush of my finger against his, or a kiss on his cheek as we go to sleep, or the feel of our bodies united and connected until I lose myself in him and finally feel something like freedom... and if I cannot have that, then I shall relive that kiss (and all the other since) but especially that first when I finally saw the point in slow dancing in a kitchen, in having a song, in caring about someone enough that I didn't care how I looked, in David Bowie, and coincidence, and fate, and love and that maybe I existed for a reason.
And that was the day he kissed me, the day I realised I was a romantic, old fool. Still a romantic, old fool, but that if Jones was there to kiss me I would be a fool and not mind at all...
Jones looked up at the sea. It was getting dark and the wind was picking up so he struggled to his feet and limped up the path toward the house, the tears dried and gone, though his eyes and nose were still red and swollen from the cold and the salt spray. He knew what was missing now and the thought of how simple and obvious it was made him smile, a smile that grew wider when Dan appeared at the door wearing an apron and oven mitts, announcing that dinner was ready and did they want to open a bottle of wine to celebrate the fact that none of it was burnt. Jones nodded and stretched up to kiss Dan on his surprised mouth. Dinner first, he decided, then he had some time to make up for.