Chapter Text
Wilbur doesn’t think he’s ever been alone. Not really. He’s always surrounded by his mum and dad and his aloof older half-brother who dipped a few years back and is only ever seen at birthdays and Christmas’. He’s also surrounded by people because of school and a handful of good friends he speaks to in class and at lunch and occasionally on the walk home.
Wilbur is rarely alone and yet he is always lonely.
It’s a constant feeling of weightlessness. A planet yearning for the sun to keep it in orbit.
Mostly, it’s like staring through a window at everyone around him. He is shouting and screaming and begging for any shred of attention and yet they can never hear him. A few blink at him, seeing him in bursts but it never lasts.
People don’t last in his life.
Wilbur has learnt that he is like a rest stop for the people around him. They come to him, discussing their pain and their traumas and he can relate, to a degree, and he’s always happy to get all of his emotions out.
Yet they get better. They grow. They flourish. They move on. They heal.
And so they leave.
He watches them, unable to hold them down because he may be lonely but he is not cruel.
He will not be the one to clip a butterfly’s wings. Not when they can be free. Not when they can taste the sky he wishes he could fly in.
He simply waits for the next person to need him.
Wilbur has learnt that people always need him but when he needs something, it goes ignored.
So he stopped needing things. Like help. Or people.
Wilbur is content being that drifting planet, that animal behind the glass so long as he can exist in someone’s gravity, be under someone’s scrutiny. He has learnt to survive on the scraps of affection thrown his way.
The thing is: Wilbur doesn’t think his living situation is bad. To him, it’s normal.
So he’s surprised when everything goes from normal to this: to standing on a driveway, looking at a beautiful house, with a blond man smiling at him from the front door.
It’s a modern farmhouse, with an elegant exterior, a few trees at the edge of the property and roses under the windows.
His social worker nudges him away from the car’s door and he reluctantly steps up the driveway to the stone path, helping to grab one of his boxes.
“Hey, mate,” the blond man says. He’s shorter than Wilbur, with blue eyes and a warm smile. Wilbur smiles his practiced, perfect smile back. “I’m Phil.”
“Wilbur,” he replies, offering out a hand after shifting the box in his grip. If Phil is surprised by the action, he doesn’t mention it. He simply shakes. “Or Wil. Or William. Whatever suits you.”
Phil huffs a laugh, stepping inside and allowing him to follow. “It’s your name, mate. What do you prefer?”
Wilbur’s mind slows to a stop before hastily rebooting. “Uh, Wilbur, then.”
He doesn’t think he’s ever been asked what he preferred. He knows his legal name is William but he’s always liked Wilbur.
The social worker steps in behind him, after carrying the last two of his boxes in, shutting the door and Wilbur finds himself ducking his head slightly. Not many people like those who tower above them.
“So I’m looking out for you until the trial, right?” Phil asks, softly, gaze flickering between Wilbur and his social worker.
Wilbur resists the urge to shrug. He doesn’t know. Frankly, the past month has been a shitstorm and he has no idea what’s happening.
He’s just going with the flow.
“The trial is set for three months time,” his social worker, a short, brunette woman replies. “His grandmothers didn’t want to take him and it’s best to keep him as far away from his parents as possible.”
Honestly, the fact that one of his grandmothers practically raised Wilbur hurts. Yet again, he’s not wanted.
Well, he can’t fault her. She had to raise him for nearly a decade. Maybe she can’t handle the idea of looking after him again, not when all of this happening.
He swallows it down, let’s the pain add to the gaping hole in his chest. He’ll be fine. He’s used to not being wanted.
“You’ve looked over his file, yes?” His social worker asks and Phil nods.
“I do have a question about that,” he says, turning to Wilbur. “It says you have to be chaperoned everywhere?”
Wilbur holds the sigh in. “It’s because of the whole bridge thing.”
“Bridge thing?” Phil asks with raised eyebrows.
Wilbur nods. “Bridge thing.”
Life was going good until he stood at a bridge for too long. He wasn’t going to jump! God, no, he just…
Look. Wilbur is fine. He’s absolutely fine. Nothing is wrong with him whatsoever. His parents are still together, they have a steady income, he has a good friend group and he gets good grades.
He just got distracted by the strange emotions in his chest as he stood there, staring over the edge. He should’ve realised his mum would get mad that he hadn’t called her to inform her he was at school. He should’ve known she would panic.
Ten minutes later, the police showed up with an ambulance and everyone started talking to him like he was a fucking child.
Wilbur had stepped away easily enough, answered their questions of, “No, I haven’t taken anything. No, I don’t drink or do drugs. No, I don’t take antidepressants. Yes, I’m fine. No, I wasn’t going to jump, I was looking at the sunrise. Can I go home now?”
But from there, along with a few teacher statements, a couple of friends’ parents own additions, his family was being investigated.
Also the fact that when he was taken to the hospital to make sure he didn’t need his stomach pumped, his dad hadn’t said anything and his mum simply sighed and murmured, “No suicide note? That’s selfish of you.”
So Wilbur was taken out of their care and out of his school because wherever he went, his parents followed. They’d even started harassing his friends, who all said the same thing of, “Wilbur’s fine, if a little weird. He probably was looking at the sunrise. No, we haven’t seen him.”
Which brings him to here: a shiny, new home with a shiny, new family.
“Wilbur was found at a bridge, at half-seven in the morning.” His social worker tells Phil, voice devoid of emotion.
Wilbur keeps his practised smile when he says, “I was fine. Couldn’t be late for school, could I? Mum would kill me.”
Phil’s eyebrows are still raised but they start to fall as he rapidly blinks at Wilbur, as if the image of him is distorting, glitching.
Wilbur wouldn’t be surprised. After that day, not many people could look him in the eye.
“Let’s get you settled then, mate.” Phil says, finally finding his voice. “You have everything?”
Wilbur nods. He has a backpack over one shoulder, a duffel bag over his other shoulder, one box in his arms and two more boxes behind him. One of clothes, one for school things and the other of random items he couldn’t part with.
He still remembers how the neighbours all watched as his parents were ushered onto their front lawn so he could pick what he needed.
Neither of them had shouted for him. Neither told him they were sorry.
They kept their heads ducked, aware of the eyes scrutinising their perfect family getting ripped apart.
His mum almost looked as embarrassed as when the police showed up on their door asking for his brother.
He wonders if he tries calling, will he answer? Or will his brother laugh at the news. One son a criminal, the other suicidal.
God, Wilbur can just imagine what Christmas is going to look like.
More screaming matches, more tears, more threats and snide insults and fights. More alcohol and sitting at a too quiet dinner table, eating turkey as everyone ignores the cutting words just uttered.
He shakes his head of the thoughts as Phil shows him around, his social worker pulling out a stack of papers.
The house is set out almost like his own. High ceilings and a big living room. It’s more lived in than his house: the walls are not beige, they’re brightly coloured and there are books and toys and random items scattered everywhere.
It could be described as erring on the side of messy but not unkempt.
The dinning room sits adjacent to the living room and school books and papers are scattered over every inch of the wooden table. Wilbur can just see his mum’s horror at the idea of using such furniture to work on. He was only allowed to use the kitchen counter, occasionally the coffee table if he wanted to sit with them while they watched TV.
The kitchen is as open as his own but instead of beige, the walls are sage green, along with the actual cabinet doors. The tiles are white with a wooden floor.
His dad always hated the colour green. Wilbur wonders what his expression would be like if he saw this.
There’s a downstairs bathroom, and a study next to it. Two walls are a light grey and an industrial looking desk sits there with a computer and a few papers. A far wall has floor to ceiling bookshelves, filled with books that looked used and worn.
Climbing the staircase of plush carpet (Phil doesn’t ask him to take off his shoes but he does it anyway), they end up standing on a landing.
Phil points out the first bedroom, a smaller one filled with a bookshelf, a desk, and random toys. The next bedroom is Tommy’s, if the big, bold, Sharpied letters are anything to go by.
If he did that to his parent’s door, he doesn’t know what they would do to him.
“We have a knocking policy,” Phil explains. “No one will barge into your room if the door is closed unless you’re not answering and we think you’re in trouble.”
Wilbur never needed to shut his door before. Even if he did, his parents would just walk in. It was easier to keep it open and not risk the questions and arguments.
They move past an airing cupboard to a white bathroom. There’s a toothpaste tube lying on the side, and a line of rubber ducks sitting on the windowsill.
“Tommy’s bathroom,” Phil says. “You can either use Tommy’s bathroom or Techno’s.”
Phil gestures to the open door of a bedroom, and Wilbur briefly glances inside to see fencing gear and books thrown on red bedsheets.
They pass by Techno’s room to another bathroom. It has more of an industrial theme and Wilbur notices the pink hair dye sitting on the windowsill, along with multiple hair products.
Phil walks around the corridor and pushes a door open. “This is your room,” he says. “Mine is down the hall.”
Wilbur swallows, steps in. A double bed sits in the centre, facing a wardrobe. There’s a desk in the corner, and two side tables next to his bed, both with lamps on them. There’s a large window, and Wilbur steps closer to look out over the garden.
It’s big, probably bigger than his other house. There are trees littered at the edge, a pond and a log cabin in the corner, surrounded by decking.
“Is this okay?” Phil asks. “If you need anything changed, we can obviously talk about it. I don’t know if you’ll be staying longer than three months but if you are, we can definitely talk about decorating to fit your style.”
Wilbur nearly laughs at that. He thinks he’s only ever decorated his bedroom once since he was a toddler. It used to be all blue walls and now, it’s grey.
Decorating was too much of a hassle, his parents used to say. And Wilbur didn’t want to be fussy or annoying. Or spoilt: something he was told multiple times throughout his life.
It was always easier if he just lurked at the corners, quietly. His opinions were ignored anyway.
“This is great,” he says, pulling on that practiced smile, meeting Phil’s eyes because people like when he meets their gaze. It’s normal. He’s good at playing normal. “Thank you.”
“Of course, mate. I’ll go move your boxes up here and finish any paperwork. I’ll be downstairs if you need me and the boys should be home in a couple of hours. I wanted to give you some space to settle in.”
Wilbur nods, keeps smiling until Phil leaves. Only then does he drop his backpack and duffel bag on the floor, take a shuddering breath and will himself to keep it together.
This is temporary.
His parents aren’t abusers, they’re lovely people with good jobs and good connections. They’ll go to trial and everyone will find out that Wilbur is just being dramatic and then he’ll go home to a house that is made to look warm when it is really just cold.
Wilbur has survived the winters there. He has lasted without heat for years.
He just has to keep the smile on his face and his easy attitude and ignore everything else.
Wilbur can be normal.
He’s been pretending since he was a kid.