Today, I learnt how to calculate the circumference of a circle. My aunt taught it to me by ordering different sized pizzas. She offered me either two small pizzas or one medium pizza. I had to work out which was the better offer in terms of how much pizza I could consume.

My aunt did not like to do things by the book. She believed each child was different, and therefore their education should be too.

"Your mother rang today," she states cautiously over dinner. "She's wondering when you'll be going home."

It is a question I have not yet fully considered. Through all honesty, I was hoping to remain with my aunt for as long as possible. I was wondering if I would be able to stay forever, remain home-schooled and out of the limelight that will inevitably come on my return to school. But I know this life is not as easy as that, and that the longer I avoid my problems, the further I will bury myself into them.

"When do you think I should return?" I ask. I cannot tell if my aunt enjoys having me here. Although she tells me that she loves having me around again, she seems tired recently. She has been on her own for many years, and then there I was.

"Your mother worries, Harry." She half smiles. It must be hard for her talking to my mother after all these years. I wonder if they have spoken about anything other than me. "I cannot look after you forever. That is your mother's job, and she misses you."

"I'll go home next week," I say, beginning to clean up the table. My aunt's kindness is not something I wish to abuse. It is time for me to go.

"You're always welcome to come and stay, Harry." Her lack of objection tells me that my being here has taken its toll on her. She has never had a child, let alone a depressive teenager following his best friend's suicide, and I know she needs her own time back.

One more week of being with my lovely aunt, in her lovely home, does not quite feel like enough. But it will have to be. I must go home and face the fallout of what we did last year.

And without him, I must face it alone.

+++

I awake with a start, my moist forehead pressed against the cool glass of the window as the train glides into the station. The world outside is dark though I am not sure of the time. I do not have a watch and my phone is dead. I don't like to charge it, mostly so nobody can reach me.

The train speaker suddenly crackles, and a lady's voice fills the empty train carriage, informing me that this was the last stop. This was home.

I do not bother getting a bus from the station. I decide it will take longer to walk and I will take any extra time away from home that I can. I do not want to go back, to see my parents and my friends, and to see this world without Johnny.

I wonder if life has stopped without him. I wonder if they all miss him too much to continue as they were, just like me. But I know, deep down in my heart, that I will return home, and nothing will have changed at all. It will be the same people, living the same life, just without Johnny in the background.

I drag my feet through the town centre and catch a few people's eyes. It is a small town where I live so most people know most people, and as I walk through a crowd of familiar faces, I see the sadness in their eyes as they recognise me. They think they empathise with me, but they have no idea how I feel.

After an hour of walking, I finally reach my house. I can still smell the fresh paint that has been slapped on the gate this morning and the stench of my mother compost that was placed with care beneath the rose bushes.

The path leading up to the house still has the same crack running from one end to the other, the pebbles all still so shiny, even in the dark, and the house is still a slightly dirtier shade of white than the house next door. It looks the same as it did the day I left, like I had not been gone at all.

The front door is unlocked, which is unusual, and immediately the sound of my mother's old radio fills my ears. I must admit that it is one sound I have missed as my mother sings happily along to some old record that I had never heard of. It is not often she is happy. Perhaps my father is not home.

The door creaks as I peer into the hallway – narrow because the stairs take up the entire right half – and step inside cautiously as if the floor might crumble beneath me. The wind slams the door shut and the radio turns off.

The kitchen door swings open and there stands my mother, pale and fragile as always; bobbed brunette hair; makeup caked across her face in layers. She is prettier without it, but she will never believe me – it is too late for that. She stands dead in the doorway. Her eyes are fixed in mine with refusal to blink, in fear perhaps that if she looks away, I will vanish.

"Harold?" She whispers. "Harold, is it really you?" I have not been called my real name in so long. I have not seen her in so long, nor even given much thought of her. Perhaps I was selfish, but it was like I had tried so hard to forget this life and all those in it, including my own mother. But then again, who could blame me after what she has done to me.

"It's me, mum. I'm home." I nod because I do not know what else to do. I never usually hugged my mother so I do not see why I should start trying now. However, before I register it, she barrels down the hallway and pulls me tightly into her bony arms.

"Oh! I knew you'd come home," she exclaims. "I left the door open for you every day, just in case. I had started to give up hope though. I thought you might never-" She pauses, and I hear her sniffle beside my ear.

"I know." I wrap my arms around her back. I have never had such an intimate moment with my mother. Honestly, I did not think she would care if I were dead or alive. But she is my mother nevertheless and I choose to soothe her in the moment.

We are interrupted by a loud bang from the top of the stairs.

"I bloody found it in my sock draw!" My father's voice echoes around the house as he casually strolls down the stairs, fastening a tie. He is in a suit that is clearly one size too small for him. My mother often found it difficult to buy a suit for such a bulky yet short man.

His hair has been cut shorter than when I last saw him, the black barely visible, almost the same length as the stubble that coats his rounded chin.

"Honey!" My mother exclaims in excitement as she realises me from the hug, though I could see she was trying to stifle a sob. "Look, I told you he'd come home!"

My father's eyes shoot up to meet mine, dark green to dark green, and I want to look away, but I cannot. I never wanted to lay eyes on him again and somehow, I have done a full turn and ended up right back where I started.

"Son," he acknowledges, completely emotionless. "Good to see that you are home. I would love to chat, but I have a meeting in ten minutes so, erm, go shower and sort yourself out and we will talk over dinner. Yes?" It is more of a command than a question, but I nod, nevertheless.

He walks straight past Mum and I, without even looking me in the eye again, and is out the door almost as quickly as I was a month earlier. Except for that when I left, I did it to escape a nightmare. When he left, the nightmare left with him.

"Will you sit with me?" My mother asks, tugging at my arm as if I had already answered the question. I want to say no. Truth be told, I just want to go upstairs and take a nap and pretend as if nothing had changed.

"Of course I will," I say. I don't understand why I feel compelled agree. I think that perhaps it's because I can see in her eyes how much she wants me to talk to her and I had never experienced that. She has never shown the slightest interest in me or my life.

I follow her in through the first door on the left, expecting to walk into the familiar dining room I knew so well, only to find that it was now the living room.

"I couldn't stand sitting around all day doing nothing," my mother explains, clearly gauging my reaction. "I thought that maybe the living room would be best at the front of the house. I'm not so sure though." She pauses, twiddling the buttons on her shirt sleeves between her forefinger and thumb. "What do you think?"

I absolutely hate the way it is set out: the way the two cream couches are crammed together against one wall, and the matching rug moved beneath my feet as I stood on it, the laminated floor making it difficult to stand on.

The plasma television was now mounted to the wall with two tall glass cabinets stood on either side of it. My mother had clearly done her best to arrange her ornaments to make it look pretty, but they were not modernised enough for the room.

"I like it." Of course, I lie. I have to. I can see a gleam in her eyes of hope and longing to hear my approval, and I am sure that my father would not have given her any.

I stalk across the room to the large bay window where the blinds are open slightly so that I can just about see into the front garden. I hear rather than see my mother move across the floor and sit down on one of the couches.

"Can we talk?" She asks and I know that this would be where she interrogates me on why I left and why I was away for so long, and why I went to see her sister. I quickly think up a few ideas of what I could say. I did not want her to know the full truth, or perhaps even. . . worry about me?

"I'm sorry," she continues, and I shoot my glance over to her. They were the last words I ever thought I would hear her say.

"What for?" I ask.

"I'm sorry about Johnny."

"Oh. Me too." I cast my eyes back to the window, spotting our elderly neighbour, Mrs Garcia, carrying a bin bag from her house to her car.

"I know you two were very close," she says with a mere hint of sympathy in her tone. "And I understand exactly why you ran away. You needed time and space and I get that. I lost one of my friends a few years back. Do you remember Rachel? Lovely girl. Well, anyway, I do know what you're going through, and I am here if you want to talk."

Mrs Garcia walks back to her house and receives another bin bag. This one has a hole in it, and I can just about see a teddy bear peering back at me from inside it. She must be donating to charity again.

"Harold? Are you listening?"

"Can I get a shower, please?" I say, because it was all I want to do.

My mother may think she understands what I am going through, but she does not. She saw Rachel once every month when they got together for a meal with a few other friends, and then when Rachel died my mother did not find out until the next meal when she did not show up. That was nearly a month after Rachel had passed.

I, however, spent nearly every day with Johnny. He was the first person I truly called a friend. Then he jumped off a 20-story building.

I can feel the tears pricking my eyes at the thought of him and what he did. I shake my head.

I have developed this technique where I can shake my head and erase the thought and think of happier times, like when me, Johnny and Lizzie went to the cinema and bought one ticket to see some rubbish film and spent the rest of the day sneaking into movies until we were eventually thrown out.

I missed those days.

I missed Johnny.

"Have you seen his family? His father, or Lizzie?" Lizzie. I had thought of her often while at my aunts. I often picked up the phone to call her and thought better of it. I had no idea what to say other than: I'm sorry your brother killed himself and that I may or may not have been a contributing factor.

"They still come to church every Sunday. And I saw them at. . ." She pauses.

"His funeral?" I ask knowingly, and she nods gently. I knew that by running away, I would miss the funeral, but it was for the best. I could not stand to sit and listen to people talk about how great Johnny was when they barely knew him at all. I doubt Johnny would have even wanted a funeral.

"It was a lovely service."

"I'm sure it was."

"Now," she suddenly says, standing. "I mean this in the nicest possible way, but you're scruffy, Darling. So, you go get a shower and then we'll find you some nice clean clothes to wear. Then I'll make you some hot soup." She starts to look around, as if contemplating what she can do for me. She has never worked a day in her life other than being a dutiful housewife and a mother. When I walked out a month ago, I took half of her life with me.

"Thanks," I say, in the sincerest way possible.

"I'm just glad to have you home."

For once in my life, I feel some form of connection to my mother, and it is such an extraordinary feeling. Before I left there was nothing between us but an occasional look of remorse. She looked at my father in the same way.

But now, as I take in the sight of her there is a certainty of contentment in her eyes, and I am happy too. At least, for a moment or so.

It is a wave of welcome sanity that coats my sadness but does not quite get rid of it. It merely masks my sorrow and allows me to pretend that I am fine.