Boys Don't Cry Read Online Free PDF Page A

And I certainly didn’t want to go into the sitting room. To tell the truth, I was petrified to go back in there. And if I stayed still, closed my eyes and waited, then maybe, just maybe, none of this would be real.
    I placed Dad’s padded envelope and what looked like two utility bills on the telephone table in the hall. Onautopilot, I tore open the envelope addressed to me. It was my exam results. Feeling icy-cold and very alone, I looked down at the sheet of paper in my hand.
    Four A-stars.
    In the sitting room, the baby started to cry.

6
Dante
    I sat in the armchair opposite the buggy and watched the baby’s scrunched-up face, tears flowing like rivulets from its eyes and down its cheeks. It watched me just as I watched it. It struck me that at that moment, the baby and I were feeling exactly the same. And I mean
exactly
the same. The baby cried and cried and then cried some more. It was lucky. God knows I wanted to join in. But I couldn’t. Boys don’t cry – that’s what Dad had always told me and my brother. And besides, what good would it have done?
    Two minutes turned into five turned into ten, and if anything it was getting louder. My head was about to explode. I couldn’t stay in the same room any longer, I just couldn’t. Jumping to my feet, I left the room, closing the door firmly behind me. Heading for the kitchen, I poured myself a glass of apple juice and downed it in one, counting the moments till the doorbell rang. Where the hell was Melanie? Fifteen minutes had come and gone and practically doubled in size. The noise in the sitting room was still going on, but the strident wail had been replaced by something more tired and resentful. I paced the hallway,still trying to wrap my head around how my life was threatening to dissolve about me.
    Keep it together, Dante. Panicking won’t help anything
.
    Melanie would be back soon. She’d take the baby and head north and no one would ever know either of them had been here. No one would be any the wiser. I could get on with my life and she could get on with hers.
    Somewhere around my fiftieth circuit of the hall my mobile buzzed in my pocket. The caller was unknown.
    ‘Hello?’
    ‘Dante, it’s me. Melanie.’
    ‘Where the hell are you? You said you’d be fifteen minutes. That was over an hour ago.’
    Silence.
    Calm down, Dante
. I forced myself to take a deep breath. ‘Mel, where are you?’
    ‘I’m really sorry.’ And Melanie really did sound genuinely upset.
    ‘Well, as long as you’re on your way back now.’
    ‘I’m not.’
    What the . . . ? ‘Pardon?’
    ‘I’m not on my way back.’
    ‘Well, how much longer are you going to be then?’
    ‘Dante, I’m not coming back.’
    ‘Huh?’
    ‘I can’t cope, Dante. I’ve tried and I’ve tried but I can’t. I need some time to get my head together. So I reckon Emma will be better off with you, as you’re her dad.’
    Falling from a plane without a parachute. Tumbling over and over, the ground rushing upwards to meet me. I can’tthink of any other way to describe that moment. Falling hard and fast and knowing there was no escape . . .
    ‘Melanie, you can’t do this. You can’t just dump it on me because you’re having a bad day.’
    ‘A bad day? You think that’s all this is?’
    ‘Look, just come back and we can talk about it,’ I said, still trying desperately to keep calm.
    ‘Do you think I want to do this?’ The constant sound of sniffing over Mel’s words told me that if she wasn’t already crying, she was very close to it. ‘I hate leaving Emma, but I don’t have a choice.’
    ‘What’re you talking about? You do have a choice. It’s your daughter.’
    ‘She’s your daughter too.’
    ‘But you’re its mum.’
    ‘And you’re her dad,’ Melanie shot back. ‘What do I know about bringing up a kid? It’s not like my dad cared enough about me or my sister to stick around and my mum had to work at two jobs just to put food on the table. I brought myself up,