The End is Where We Begin by Maria Goodin (open ebook .txt) 📕

haven’t moved. They’re like statues, squeezed together on the sofa, listening with a look of silent distress on their faces. They’re clutching each other’s hand – perfectly together in their suffering. This loving, close-knit family which was torn apart.

“But I stopped,” I say. “I couldn’t choose which way to go. I remember now you even asked me if I knew where I was going, but I didn’t listen. You would have known which way to go, Tom, or you would have chosen quicker. You were always saying I was indecisive, and I was. I still am—”

“What difference would that have possibly made?” asks Tom. “We must be talking a matter of seconds.”

“Fifteen seconds. But then I chose the wrong way. And all together it cost me a minute and I know that because when I ran it again and timed myself I worked out—”

“It’s just one minute, Jay,” pleads Tom, looking at me as if I’ve lost my mind.

“Exactly!” I exclaim, holding my hands out as if this is the whole point. “The minute that made all the difference!”

What happened in between my puking up candyfloss on the carpet of the Kingfisher and arriving back at Max’s side has always been a blur. There were lights and sirens, but, of course, the ambulance couldn’t get anywhere near the spot where the boys were waiting. I had to lead everyone – the paramedics, John Porter and Stan Finch who’d recognised me when I’d burst through the doors of the Kingfisher – to the place where Max had collapsed. I remember darkness, rushing, urgent questions I couldn’t answer.

And then we were there, under the bridge, torches flashing, radio controls crackling. Two paramedics – a man with a ginger beard and a pretty woman with blonde hair tied back in a ponytail – were leaning over Max, who was lying on the ground. When the ginger man looked up, I could see something sticky-looking in his beard, glistening in the torchlight. In my fretful state, I had the ridiculous thought that it must be jam, and that he’d been interrupted in the middle of his tea break.

I remember Tom and Michael crouched by Max, being ordered to move out of the way. Tom standing and staggering backwards, unable to tear his eyes away, and Michael frozen, his fingers being prised from Max’s arm by Stan Finch before John Porter took Michael around the waist and hauled him aside.

I don’t remember any of us talking, or even looking at each other. I think we just stood there, staring in shock. I don’t know why, but at that point I still believed everything was going to be okay. I suppose because anything else was inconceivable. A world without Max in it had never, and could never, exist in my lifetime.

And as my mum once told me, asthma is nothing to worry about.

There were mumblings and radioed messages I didn’t understand, attempts at resuscitation, codes, numbers and acronyms that made no sense. No one used the word dead, I’m sure of it. But all of a sudden, I knew. It was clear. The bearded paramedic muttered sadly, something about “one minute earlier”. And I knew that I’d been sixty seconds too late.

“No, no, no!” I heard Tom screaming, his cries echoing against the vast night sky, and I turned to see John and Stan restraining him, trying to hold him back. “Keep trying!” he was ordering the paramedics. “Fucking keep trying!”

Michael was frozen in the pale light, unable to take his wide eyes off Max’s body.

I stepped forwards to look at Max’s face, half expecting to see his eyes were open and this was all a misunderstanding. He looked white in the moonlight, his lips parted slightly. His eyes were closed and his glasses had been removed. I wanted to ask where his glasses were. He couldn’t see without his glasses.

I didn’t cry or shout. I didn’t utter a sound or dare to breathe.

This couldn’t be happening.

“Come away, son,” a voice said behind me, taking me by the shoulders and turning me from the scene. “Don’t look.”

I’m brought back to the room by the ticking of the clock. I watch the second hand edging round, measuring the passage of time. Another second, minute, hour without him here, where he should be, with his friends and family. I don’t remember standing up, but here I am, over by the mantelpiece, my back to everyone. Maybe that’s the only way I could tell my story.

Everyone is still. Everyone is silent. I feel raw and exposed, and more vulnerable than I’ve ever been in my life. It’s like I’ve been turned inside out and every failure, insecurity and ugliness is there for all to see. I press my left thumb hard into the scar on my right palm, watching it blanch.

We made a decision at the time – me, Tom and Michael – not to tell anyone what had happened at the allotments and why we were running so fast. Our story was simply that we were late leaving the fairground, that Michael was worried about missing his curfew, and that’s why we were running. We lied, and, like most lies, once we’d said it, it felt impossible to retract.

I remember the day after Max’s death, watching from my bedroom window as Rocket emerged from the house opposite. He was battered and bruised, hunched over, a purple eye, a split lip, a limp, one arm in a sling… So, I thought, they didn’t kill him after all. His uncle was throwing his bags into the car. I guess he’d finally had enough.

Just as Rocket was about to climb into the passenger seat of his uncle’s old Mondeo, he stopped and looked up and across the street, as if he knew I’d be there. Our eyes met and we held each other’s gaze for a moment. I guessed he wouldn’t know about Max, but the shared knowledge of what happened at the allotments seemed to pass