Grow Up by Ben Brooks

of jokes are told in hospitals. Usually, these type of jokes are not very good.
    â€˜It’s wrong,’ Keith says. ‘The instructions are wrong.’
    Mum is appalled. ‘I’ll phone IKEA,’ she says. ‘I’ll complain.’
    Keith grins. ‘I don’t fore see you getting much help.’
    They both laugh. Keith can’t even do puns well. I have no idea what Mum sees in him. Maybe he has a penis the size of a toddler.
    â€˜Excuse me,’ I say. ‘Hello. I’m Jasper. I’m your only son, and I’m trying to revise.’
    â€˜Ooh,’ Mum says.
    â€˜We’ve been sent to the naughty step, love.’
    They kiss. It is disgusting. I go up to my room.
    My phone is on my bed upstairs. It is vibrating. It is spinning itself in circles on my pillow like a Catherine wheel. Tenaya is calling.
    â€˜Jasper?’ she says.
    â€˜My parents are trying to make furniture,’ I say. ‘Keith made a pun and they kissed. It’s disgusting.’
    â€˜I’m thinking about Tom.’
    â€˜Still?’
    â€˜He was a big part of things for a long time, Jasper. No matter what you thought of him.’
    I breathe hard into my phone. ‘He was not a good boyfriend. He is an irritating human being.’
    â€˜Jasper, you aren’t helping.’
    â€˜What is there to help with?’
    â€˜I don’t know what to do.’
    â€˜I’ve got like a half-gram. I’ll bring it over if you want.’
    â€˜Argh.’
    Tenaya hangs up.
    I do not know what I have done wrong. I did my best. I try. You have to try to understand other people, Jasper. Imagine you are them.
    Tom was my boyfriend and now he is not. I loved Tom very much. Tom cheated on me. Tom left me. Tom has such nice cheekbones. Tom will probably become a rich art dealer. I don’t know what to do now. Tom. I don’t know what to do now. I loved him.
    Julia: empathy
    Tenaya: nicks on her arms
    Radio: the mental state of self-harming adolescents may deteriorate if they do not get the help they so clearly ask for by harming themselves
    Oh.
    OH.
    I run downstairs and hurl my body out of the front door. I shout a goodbye to Mum. I pelt down the streets. I am an advert for Nike footwear.
    Up along our road, then a left at the Hungry Horse, past school, past a woman with a Monroe and an empty pram, past two men sipping cheap lager on a low wall, past the Baptist church and Happy Shopper and Ben McKay’s house.
    Tenaya’s.
    I throw my body over the fence at the end of her garden. Her parents are keeping chickens in case of an apocalypse. Tenaya’s stood with her back to me on the other side of her kitchen’s French doors. She’s probably got a palmful of paracetamol. I have to stop her.
    Things I can see near the French doors:
Spade
Pot plant
Bench
Plastic bucket
    Plastic bucket is the only option. Not a dumbbell, not a feather. I pick it up and swing open the French doors. I bring the bucket down as hard as I can on her head. She screams. She whips round to face me. It didn’t work. Should I try again?
    â€˜JASPERWHATTHEFUCK?’
    â€˜Um.’
    â€˜What the fuck are you doing?’
    I grab her wrists and squeeze them. Her hands open like flowers. She is not holding paracetamol.
    â€˜You said you were going to do suiciding,’ I say.
    Tenaya blushes. ‘I didn’t.’
    â€˜You were thinking about it.’
    â€˜I wasn’t.’
    â€˜I know you were. I’ve learned how to empathise.’
    â€˜Shut up, Jasper.’
    She sits down on one of the kitchen stools. I stay standing.
    â€˜I don’t know,’ she says.
    â€˜I was scared,’ I say. ‘Jonah’s disgusting and Ping has Ana.’
    â€˜Sometimes,’ she says. ‘I don’t know.’
    â€˜I don’t either. But I told you to text when it happens. I’ll buy that two-for-five-pounds wine from Imran’s and we can watch Labyrinth in