When I get back home that evening, Dad’s sprawled on the sofa, drink in hand. The stubble’s rough and sprouting on his face, he hasn’t bothered shaving in a while, and as I stick my head around the living room door to see who’s in there he locks eyes with me, hard with cold challenge. I stand still, waiting. Expectant.
What I don’t anticipate, though, is for him to clear his throat quietly and ask gruffly, “How was school?”
“Why do you care?” I can’t stop myself from muttering back. He must be more sober than I thought, but it doesn’t-it can’t help.
“I’m really trying, George.”
“Ryan.”
He sighs, suddenly dejected. “Ryan. Sorry.”
“Don’t apologise,” I spit at him, heating up, revving, “don’t ever fucking apologise. For anything. It’s not going to be enough.”
A silence starts and he leaves it a while, lets it settle and hang over us, more comfortable than any conversation, and I could walk away now; could walk out of the house or find Mom or escape to upstairs, but I don’t. Finally, he says, forced interest, “How are things with Jac?” and I bury my face in my hands, suppressing a groan. I don’t want that reminder.
“Why does everyone always ask me that now?”
“I’m just,” he starts, standing up from his seat and crossing the room. His hand comes up to run through his hair, swinging harmlessly close to my face, and I can’t stop myself flinching. “I’m just taking an interest. I’m... I’m your dad, you know? You should talk to me about these things.”
Trying not to show how bemused I am at the weird character changes I’m still not used to, I raise a calculated eyebrow at him. “Yeah, if you think you can call yourself that,” I murmur sardonically, and his jaw clenches. I step backwards, automatic.
He reigns himself in. “You never answered the question.”
“Maybe ‘cause I don’t want to!” I yell, frustrated, tired. “Maybe I don’t want anything to do with you, can’t you get that?” I can see the telltale signs, the anger rising up in him, but I keep the eye contact until he caves in on himself, shoulders slumping as he returns into the room. I’m clutching the doorframe, but I pry my fingers off, turn to head further into the house, stopping short as I’m faced with my mom watching a few feet away.
“Sorry,” I tell her, my voice breaking, and I don’t know what I’m apologising for, only that it has something to do with the stricken look on her face. “Sorry,” I repeat, dropping my head onto her slight shoulder, and she holds me.
“He won’t forget,” she whispers, arms circling me, and I swallow, feeling startlingly cold.
Mom sends me upstairs and I go willingly, not looking into the living room as I pass it, knowing he’s still there with a bottle and the TV blaring. I stay up there for the rest of the night, ignoring calls for dinner because I think, somehow, it might be best for me to stay out of the way. At one point, Spencer calls, and I answer, “Hey.”
“Hey, man, what’s up with you?”
I furrow my brow. “How d’you mean?”
“Dunno. Haven’t talked properly in a while, thought I might catch up.”
“Oh, right, cool.” And I start to talk. It’s funny: he’s my best friend, and I always defined him as the person I could tell everything to, without question or doubt, and he wouldn’t judge me, he’d try to help, he’d listen. But right now, rambling about home and lessons and Jac, I’m trying to imagine a scenario in which I could tell him the truth about what’s going on with me, and I can’t do it. It won’t come, because it doesn’t exist. It’s as simple as that.
I don’t tell him.
* * *
Mom was right, you know. He doesn’t forget. Never does, and it’s surprising, really, considering how many brain cells he must have drowned by now. I would have thought in two days he might have misplaced the memory, but.
Well, it’s a Sunday, so I’ve slept in. After dragging myself off to the shower, getting changed and taking steps to actually make myself look human, I trudge down the stairs, slow and steady because I don’t have to be anywhere. I stop dead, though, when I hear raised voices coming from the kitchen, hand holding the banister extra tight.
“It’s your fault,” he shouts, and I can’t see him, can’t see them, but it’s pretty clear who he’s talking to. “It’s your fault he can’t look at me! It’s your fault it has to come to that every time!”
“Oh please, George,” my mother says bitterly, “you’ve brought it all on yourself, you know that.”
“Don’t fucking talk to me like that!” he roars, and I jump. The stair creaks, and I hold my breath.
There’s more words, hushed now but still angry, really angry, and then I hear Mom say, “He’s my son, for God’s sakes, I can’t let us carry on like this. It’s not right, you need to get help.”
“Help?” he echoes, voice rising. “Help? Like, what, I’m ill, I’m crazy?”
“No, that’s not what I--“
“Don’t try and take it back!” he shouts, and he’s not making sense, not to me. I descend the rest of the stairs, walking to the kitchen with my heart in my mouth.
“She’s only trying to point out that you have a fucking problem,” I say coldly, and he turns around, slow and deliberate.
“Get out.”
“George,” my mom says warningly, eyeing him as he advances on me.
“Get out,” he repeats, ignoring her, and I say, “Fine.” My voice doesn’t wobble because I don’t let it.
“No,” Mom says, stepping forward, “no, Ryan, just go upstairs, we’ll talk about this,” but she’s interrupted by him rounding on her, silenced by the look in his eyes. My chest is tight with worry.
“Don’t try and undermine me,” he snarls, “if I tell him to get out, then he’s going.” Clear as day, then, I see it; can see what’s going to happen if this carries on into the next few minutes. It might as well be spelled out for me, can already visualise him pulling his fist back, can see her face, the fear. He’ll hit her if I don’t leave right now because somehow, in his head, my decisions are her faults, and I can’t right that; all I can do is play along.
I mean, I know what he’s getting at, it’s not like he wants me to leave for good, just to get the fuck out now while he’s pissed off, and that’s fucking fine by me because I’ve got no real urges to stay. “No, hey, I’m going, alright?” I say fiercely, and he eyes me, his gaze chasing me all the way to the door and out, though he doesn’t move an inch.
All I have is my phone in my pocket, and I don’t know where I’m going today. I didn’t plan anything, and I don’t... usually, I’d go to Spencer’s, but I don’t want to burden him anymore. There’s a fucking limit to how much you can take from someone who means a lot, and I can’t do it, at least not this time. Picturing myself showing up on his doorstep like some old abandoned dog, it makes my head reel, makes me feel a little sick; I don’t want that.
But hey, you know, whatever. What the fuck ever, because I have a place to go. I set off in the opposite direction to the town centre, the cabin already clear in my mind, always there. My hands are buried in my pockets, one of them curled around my phone in habit, and I keep my head down.
With every step I take from the house, the confidence and the fierce barriers I had to put up against him gradually fade and crumble, and my strides become dogged, heavy heart pulling me down. I don’t want to be affected, but sometimes I can’t help it. I take the back streets and the side roads, the deserted route where no one really walks, and it takes a little longer but I’m thankful for it, grateful that no one can see me like this, having to blink to hold back tears.
It gets worse and worse, alone with my thoughts and no music or headphones to block them out, and nothing I’m going through in my head is original; all the same, the same process, constantly cycling. That gut-wrenching feeling. I wish he cared.
God, I wish someone did.
My hands knead at my eyes and I’m cursing under my breath. I wish, I wish. I want, but I want doesn’t get, that’s what everyone says.
I feel like shit.
As I’m fighting my bad-tempered way through the shrubs and the trees, I catch sight of the cabin sitting there, as if waiting, and I want to smile, but I can’t. I do pause, though, because there’s something different. At first I can’t quite put my finger on it, and then it clicks. There’s smoke coming out of the chimney. And, well, okay, I didn’t even realise that was possible. Like, there’s a fire, and clearly you’re supposed to put logs on it, but it’s only me and Brendon who use the place, and I highly doubt either of us could be bothered.
I suppose this is me being proved wrong. He seems to have a habit of that.
It’s slightly improved my mood, but my vision is still slightly blurred as I reach the door and let myself in. A not-so-small part of me hopes that despite the smoke, I’ve been mistaken and he’s not there; then he wouldn’t have to see this, see all the weakness.
But I hear a distant, “Hey, I found some logs, so I, uh,” that’s distinctly Brendon, and I sigh, slumping against the now-closed door behind me. I’m staring at the floor, can’t meet his eyes like this.
I hear his footsteps get closer, resounding off the wood-panel floors, and they grow hesitant before they stop a little in front of me.
“Oh. Ryan, what’s wrong?” he asks, earnest.
“Nothing, fuck off,” I reply thickly. He’s silent at that, and I still don’t look up, don’t look to see what his expression is. “Fuck off,” I repeat, stronger, and he’s still there.
“You want me to leave?” he asks, his voice quiet and low, like he’s holding back some kind of anger or frustration, and I shrug because I don’t know. I don’t fucking know.
He steps towards the door, his hand reaching out as if to open it, and I blurt out, “No.”
“No?”
I flick my eyes up, find his face closer than I thought it would be, his eyes big and caring. “No, don’t leave.” The hand he still has outstretched changes course slightly, ends up on my wrist, his fingers circling around gently. The touch reminds me of the party and Eric, but it’s not as concentrated and it feels so different, means something different. Brendon’s thumb rubs soothing circles into my skin, and I still lean against the door, still as a statue. My eyes are still shining and probably tinged red, I can tell, and the look he gives me is close to pity but with an edge of warmth that’s hard to come by.
“Okay,” he murmurs. The hand around my wrist tightens, tugs a little. “Come sit down,” he says, but I shake my head. He pulls again, harder, like he’s not fucking around, and I roll my eyes and follow him, wiping at my eyes as soon as he looks away.
He leads me to the couch and sits down close to me as his hand moves from my wrist and down, threading our fingers together, but I disentangle them, shake his hand off. Doesn’t shake him, though, he’s still there, doesn’t give up.
“Talk to me,” he says.
“No.”
Biting his lip, he reaches up and turns my head so I’m looking at him. “I’m not gonna, like, judge you. Seriously, tell me.” He sounds so considerate, kindness laced into the words, and this is so out of character, all of it. I don’t feel like me and he doesn’t feel like him. I can’t deal with, with all the emotion he’s packing into every word out of his mouth, I can’t, that’s not what either of us is here for.
“Brendon, stop.”
“But,” he starts.
“I-I can’t,” I breathe, hating the stutter that shows the cracks, and his hand is still holding me there, making it impossible to look away. A couple of strands of dark hair fall into his eyes, and I wonder if I could bring myself to look anywhere else anyway.
Giving me a serious look, he nods, if a little sorrowful, and drags me into a kiss. It’s soft, but I turn it into something demanding, both hands in his hair. The angle’s awkward but neither of us change it, neither of us want to break away. “I just,” he mumbles, “just wanted to make you better.” My stomach lurches and I kiss him to shut him up, fast and open, but he pulls away, regards me with dark eyes. “Ryan, I want to make you better.”
The words you are already skip sweetly on the tip of my tongue, but they shock me and I swallow them down, choking on them. “I don’t know how you can,” I tell him quietly, and he smiles coyly. There’s a gleam in his eye that wasn’t there before, and he catches my lips one more time before he stands up from the couch. I scoot forward, going to follow him wherever the hell he’s going, but his hand falls on my shoulder, pushing me down onto the seat. “Uh,” I say, about to question, and then.
And then he goes down to his knees. In front of me.
His hands have flitted to my thighs, and he hooks them round my back, pulling me further forward on the seat, closer to him, and fuck, I just let him. I’m staring down at him, struggling to keep my composure, and he licks his lips in this fucking deliberate way. “Brendon.”
He nods, his finger playing with the button on my jeans, and he’s so close I can feel his breath through the denim. “You gonna let me?” It sounds like a challenge, and I’m not going to deny him.
“God. Yes, fucking hell,” and I love how we don’t have to take things slow, don’t have to feel like I have to ask and ask again for permission with him or catch him when he’s drunk off his face, because this is what we are, all we are. He’s flicked the button open before the words are even halfway out of my mouth and when he unzips the jeans his knuckles brush against the slight bulge of my cock. I sink my teeth into my lip.
After I lift my hips up, he yanks my jeans down to mid-thigh roughly, denim scraping, and he pauses at my boxers, just like he did in the bathroom at school. I bite back a comment about how he won’t go to Mormon Hell just for touching a guy’s dick, but clearly he doesn’t need reminding because he’s pulling those down too.
I gasp out his name as he wraps his hand around my cock, and it’s barely anything but right now I feel fragile enough that just that one touch has my skin prickling and my mouth dropping open. His eyes are on me, locked on mine and searching my face all the time that his hand’s moving, giving little twists that make my hips arch off the seat already.
“I like seeing you like this,” he murmurs huskily, and I groan, my eyes slipping shut as his gaze bores into me.
“Fuck,” I choke out, and when I look back down at him he’s got a look of concrete determination about him, his shoulders set and his eyes focused, and yet he’s holding back. That’s when it hits me, the notion that should have been the most obvious, and I clear my throat. He cocks his head at me, not slowing his hand, and I say, “You’ve never done this before, have you?”
I watch the line of his throat as he swallows, eyes flickering towards the floor and back up. “No,” he answers, and it sounds begrudging, like he’s expecting that now I’ve pulled that out of him I’ll take the piss, I’ll belittle him. I’m not an asshole.
“You don’t have to,” I tell him lamely, and he rolls his eyes.
“Think it’s pretty clear I want to,” Brendon says, all dark eyes and white teeth playing at his full bottom lip. He has the most perfect lips for this. For anything, really, and I want to tell him so but the words don’t come. It’s probably for the best.
“’K-Kay,” I stutter, breath catching in my chest because his hand has slowed now, curled around the base as he tentatively lowers his head. The small rushes of his breaths against the head of my cock send goosebumps scurrying all over my skin, and his pink tongue darts out from between his lips, licks right over the head like he’s testing the taste and the feel, and I dig my fingers into the couch and let him take his time.
He drags his tongue across the head once, twice more, slower as he keeps his eyes locked on mine, dipping the point of his tongue right into the slit and making my hips jerk automatically, my head dropping back on my shoulders.
“Christ,” I breathe out harshly as he traces a long line up the side of my dick with his tongue, rolling over the head and continuing the same path down the other side. He gives me a smug, almost-relaxed smile and I’m close to shaking from all the stimulation, the light touches. My hips move towards him in tiny, tiny increments, and he swallows, licks his lips. Wets his hand and closes it more firmly around the base, and then before I know it he’s fitting the head of my cock timidly into his mouth, pink lips stretching around.
Still looking at me, still got his eyes trained on me and I can’t look away for the life of me. It’s possibly the hottest sight ever to be burned into my memory, and it’s like I can’t take in enough; the way his hair’s fallen forward in a curtain, his lips in a shining ‘o,’ and fuck, the way his jaw works and his cheeks hollow out when he slips down just a little further and gives an experimental suck. He flutters his tongue around the head of my dick as he attempts a little more, and yeah, it’s sloppy, uncoordinated, but his lips are full and puffy and his mouth is hot-wet, and it’s amazing.
I moan breathlessly, trying to keep the sounds in but failing miserably, and he just sucks harder, finally working out to move his hand in time with his mouth sliding up and down. “Shit, fuck, Brendon,” I gasp, and one hand flies to cup his jaw while the other settles in his hair, threading through. He flicks his eyes up to me, then, something written in them that I’d be able to read if my head wasn’t so light and if my blood would stop rushing. My hips jerk and buck into his mouth and he gags a little, his watery eyes narrowing, zeroing in on me. I have to tamp down the urge to sneer at him, only just keeping it at a smirk. Feeling like I have to apologise, I pat at his hair clumsily, silently urging, and he carries on.
Then, then he does something pretty fucking spectacular with his tongue, and both of my hands bury themselves in his hair, tightening in the strands. He draws another guttural moan out of me, but then he’s pushing up against my hands, up, up until he pulls off too fast, wiping his mouth roughly and glaring at me. “Don’t push me down,” he says, and his voice is so wrecked, God. “You can, you know, hold, but don’t.”
I didn’t even realise I was doing anything, and my cheeks warm with a little tinge of shame. “Sorry,” I offer, and he narrows his eyes before going back down on me, sliding pressure and hot and wet and Jesus, fuck. He twists his wrist just right, and the ecstasy jolts my whole body, pushing me closer and closer to the edge. I clench my fingers in his hair again but this time I’m pulling him up, groaning a warning, “Brendon, I’m,” as he lets my cock free of his mouth and jerks me hard and fast, smirking up at me with swollen lips.
I take one look at him and I’m gone, my mind collapsing in on itself as I let go, dropping my head and my body down onto the back cushion of the sofa, bones melting to liquid as he pulls me through the aftershocks.
“Feel better?” he asks hoarsely, and when I pry my eyes open he’s studying me, still on his knees but shifting a little uncomfortably. I lean forward, reach out and wipe away a drop of come that his hand didn’t catch, thumb grazing his chin.
“Christ, yes,” I say with conviction. It’s hard for me to even recall what I was upset about in the first place. He grins at me, and I mumble, “Thank you.” This time it’s not so much a slip of the tongue because I genuinely think he deserves to be thanked, no matter how stupid I sound. Only he and I know that it wasn’t just a blowjob for the hell of it, it was to take my mind off something he doesn’t even know anything about, and I think that’s pretty awesome.
“No problem. What I’m here for, right,” he shrugs, getting to his feet with a groan at his protesting knees. As he stands, I notice a kind of obvious outline of his cock straining against his tight jeans, and I am nothing if not a gentleman; so without really thinking about it I grab his arm and pull him down so he falls with a leg either side of me, straddling my lap. Eyebrows raised, he says, “Hi,” and the smirk dissolves into a moan when I press down hard and rub across his crotch.
His arms come up to link behind my neck as I undo enough buttons and zips to get his cock out and jerk him off, fingernails digging in harshly and making me gasp in time with him. His head drops forward to rest on my shoulder and my hand keeps working furiously, and judging by the needy thrusts of his hips and the noises he’s muffling, he has to be close. “I bet you didn’t think you’d get this excited over sucking dick,” I tease him roughly, my tone conversational, and he groans.
“Shut up,” he gasps, lifting his head momentarily to try and bitch me out with his eyes. “Maybe it’s you I got, fuck, excited over.”
I scoff, disbelieving, and flick my wrist, see if I can make him moan. I can. “Yeah, maybe.” He gives up on the conversation and it doesn’t take long at all before his orgasm hits him and I stroke him through it as he trembles and falls apart.
He stays afterwards. Stays sitting in my lap, comfortable and content with both of us boneless and slow-minded, exchanging idle, biting kisses. It gives the impression of just this and nothing else; a kind of lazy, unconcerned feel about it all that makes it seem like outside this cabin there exists nothing because everything you could need is here, and somehow I wish it were true.
I wonder, sudden and out of the blue, if a simple, hasty blowjob would have helped so much if it were given by anyone else but him, but I can’t find the answer and I don’t think I’d be happy with it if I did, so I push it out of my mind and concentrate on the feel of his hair under my hands.
* * *
After that, I become more wary.
The thing is, I freaked myself out a little. After we’d both come down I spent a little more time there, talking about nothing of interest before I made up a bullshit excuse about having to be somewhere and left. I freaked myself out.
The same as there’s a very fine line between love and hate, there’s a really fucking skinny line between a casual fuck and a relationship. A boyfriend.
I don’t do boyfriends.
I freaked myself out because sitting there with him, sated and warm with a fucking log fire burning away, it felt so goddamn natural, so temporarily right, like if I could have this for good it could fix the bad things for me, it could offer protection from the anger and the disappointment that cloud certain aspects of my life. Post-orgasm haze made me assume things, made me mistake what we have for something that means more. Made me think that maybe that’s okay.
And obviously, that’s wrong. I don’t have relationships with guys, I fuck guys. This, this thing with Brendon, it’s only a more convenient hook-up than going out, getting trashed and sucking the face off some boy who won’t remember my name in the morning. I still could, if I wanted to, seeing as we’re not exclusive or anything, but fuck if he doesn’t relieve the pain of the effort it takes to do that.
So since then, I’ve become more aware of how close we are and I’ve distanced myself accordingly. Lowered my eyes, kept my head down and generally ignored his existence when I don’t have to acknowledge it; it’s harsh, I see that, but it’s necessary. People would find it weird if I suddenly started walking next to him, meeting him at his locker. I’d hope they wouldn’t dare assume anything close to the reality, but even the idea of us as friends, people would find weird. I’m not going to attract unwanted attention.
Occasionally, he creeps out of nowhere, swept along in the waves of people crashing down the halls, and I don’t have time to look away, to distract myself. I don’t get a chance to occupy myself with something else and our eyes catch. And always, always when that happens, he’ll smile at me. He smiles, small and often closed-mouthed, but specifically in my direction and blindingly obvious to me. It makes my throat constrict and my heart pound every time; that’s nerves. It puts me on edge, when he does that, just smiles - and sometimes gives a little wave, too - like he doesn’t understand that we’re not friends and we’re sure as hell not boyfriends.
I never smile back, although his suppressed grins are contagious and I’ll admit to being tempted to mirror it once or twice. All I do is send him a meaningful look, a clear message. Then it’s me who has to watch the smile quickly fade, as if it were a slate wiped clean, and I feel a sort of pang all through me that I strain to repress.
It’s getting harder, I’ve noticed, to repress those sorts of things. Those feelings or twinges that, mainly, he’s the cause of. It’s fucking irritating.
The Tuesday after Brendon got on his knees for me, for instance. We’re walking out of school, me and Pete side-by-side as Gabe and William lose themselves in deep conversation about weed quite a few paces behind us, when a few people move out of the way up ahead and Brendon’s revealed, standing alone and still despite the rush to get out of the school gates, casually texting on his phone. I hold my breath at first, throw my gaze elsewhere in the vain hope that the others might not notice him, or that by the time they do he’ll get some sense and move off.
Pete, though, with his beady eyes and his weird sixth sense for these things, turns his head directly towards Brendon and then jabs me in the side with his elbow, muttering, “Aw, look who it is.” I stiffen up at the comment, wondering wildly what he might mean by it, but he doesn’t seem interested in me, so I let it go.
“Mhm,” I hum, deliberately detached so that maybe he’ll lose interest too, but no such luck.
We’re gaining on him now, he’s in the path we’re walking, and he still hasn’t looked up. My feet feel like lead and I’m wading through water just to keep up and fall into step with Pete, wanting to hang back, wanting to leave. I keep walking, and Brendon pockets his phone and raises his eyes just as Pete comes level with him, budging his shoulder so hard with his own that he’s knocked off balance, stumbling a few steps.
Pete shoves him while he’s still finding his balance, like he’s the one who’s done something wrong. It’s a wonder he doesn’t fall. “Mind where you’re going, Urie,” Pete sneers, menace and idiotic teenage violence scrawled all over his face.
In the same moment, Brendon turns his eyes on me in what he probably thinks is a subtle way, just for a second, sparking a momentary lapse within me as I feel the urge take over me to be on his side, by his side. I soon shake it off, but there’s a clear plea in his eyes, a plea for help. Not that he really needs it, no; I think he just wants someone to step in and to stand up for him, plain and simple, and I’d like him to have that, but it’s not me.
I avoid his eyes, of course, but where it would have been mechanic and natural to do so before, even probably couple it with a sneer and a snide comment, now it’s different. There’s been a slight shift, see, that means I have to put effort in to keep my reactions the same, I have to work to make sure I keep him at arm’s-length where he should be, and it looks like I’m going to have to get used to that.
* * *
“Um, wait, what? What are you talking about?” I press the phone closer to my ear, barely suppressing a sigh as I walk.
Jac, however, doesn’t suppress her sigh at all, harsh burst of cross static in my ear, and she replies with measured patience, “Ryan. A week ago, I told you we were having dinner at mine on Wednesday night. And yesterday, I reminded you we were having dinner at mine on Wednesday night. But hey, guess what?”
I bite my lip, monotone resounding through the, “What?” I’m obliged to reply with.
“It’s Wednesday night, jackass, and you’re not here!” she screeches, and I grimace, pull the phone away from my ear just enough to avoid my ear drums bursting, or brain damage, or both.
“Sorry, baby, I totally don’t remember that,” I answer, sounding like an ass, but the thing that makes me hang my head a little as I’m walking down the side-street is that it’s true. She’s not manipulative and she’s not devious, she doesn’t make things up so she’s obviously being honest, and as much as I search my brain I can’t find hide nor hair of any such memory.
I’ve been neglecting her recently, and it’s not my fault. It’s not; if anything it’s Brendon’s, and it’s hers for being so uptight and wound-up about the little things.
She doesn’t know she’s not the only person I could go to, not the only one I’ve got ‘on the go,’ and I bet if she realised there was someone else she’d be different, so much more laid-back. People always perform better when there’s rivalry. But she doesn’t know, see, so she continues being, well. This.
“You could have fucking said you weren’t coming,” she fumes.
“How could I have said if I don’t remember?” I ask, bewildered. I throw my eyes up to the heavens in distress, the grey, filmy clouds over the evening sky. “I’m sorry,” I say quietly, and I do mean it. I never set out to hurt anyone. Never do, but it always seems to happen, and all I can do is be sorry, so sorry that the word is embedded straight through me like a stick of rock.
The anger’s fading now, and she sniffs. “You’re always sorry,” she mumbles bitterly. I bite back another sorry and she says, hopeful, “You could still come late. Ry, my mom and dad won’t mind, you can come now.”
I exhale harshly, blowing out into the cool evening air and making my cheeks puff out without permission, and I lie, “I can’t, I have to stay in. Sorry, babe. I’ll make it up to you, I swear.”
“Yeah, okay, like you fucking did the last time,” she hisses, sounding hurt and majorly pissed off, and then the dial tone rings clear in my ear. After a moment to gather myself again, I roll my eyes, shove the phone deep into my back pocket where it burns a hole in my jeans, angry memory still clinging to it.
I catch sight of the guy with the cute dog across the street from where I am, the ones I see sometimes in the mornings, and he gives me a disinterested wave, clearly bored. He’s dragging his feet but the dog’s straining at the leash, wanting to run, have a little fun. The guy doesn’t look so interested. As I’m looking, the dog sees me and yaps, barks a hello, and it lightens my mood a little.
I’m just about out of the proper streets of town now, the last grey buildings petering out either side of me as I exit the side-road I was walking through and come to the one meandering path leading off to the woods and to the cabin.
I smile.
It doesn’t take me long to get there; I think I’m getting quicker every time I go, something about the familiarity making it easier on my legs and my dodgy sense of direction. It occurs to me that maybe, this time, it’s because I’ve planned to meet Brendon there instead of just bumping into him, and he is part of the destination tonight. And that could factor in the way that I’m walking extra fast, or it could be something else altogether.
Vague wisps of guilt drape themselves over and across me at the thought and reality of blowing Jac off to see Brendon, but I wasn’t to know. It’s not my intention to upset her, but right now I can’t find an out.
Smoke curls and rises subtly above the trees, making me shake my head against another smile, the ridiculous image of him stoking up a fucking fire as soon as he gets there. I’d never think of that; probably just sit there freezing, teeth chattering.
I don’t want to take my hands out of my pockets and into the cold so I push the door with my shoulder - it still doesn’t shut properly, so - and let myself in. There’s no sign of him, but it’s pleasantly warm inside, the kind of warm that’s heavy on your eyelids and makes you crave hot cocoa and marshmallows. There’s no sign of Brendon anywhere, and I shrug, walk into the main living area.
As I’m about to sit down, Brendon says, “Ryan?” from somewhere further into the cabin, and he comes bounding in, right up to me with a blinding smile taking over his entire face. It’s a good look for him. I’m a little taken aback, he’s got so much energy, and he says excitedly, “Look, look, look what I just found.”
He grabs my arm and drags me after him, into the back and in one of the bedrooms, one I’ve only really glanced into before. It’s different, though, because now there’s a ladder protruding from an open hatch in the ceiling that I’d never noticed before, sturdy wood resting on the floor as cool drafts of evening air drift through the opening. “What’s this?” I find myself asking, and he rolls his eyes.
“Go look, jackass,” he replies. When I don’t reply, just wander over to the foot of the ladder and peer out, seeing nothing but night sky, he makes an impatient noise and pushes me from behind so I have to throw an arm out and grab hold of the ladder. “Go on,” he says from behind me, nudging me, and I humour him, climb up the rungs one by one until I’m high enough to poke my head out.
I’d thought the roof was sloped all the way around, but here in the part where the opening leads out to, the slope stops short and turns into a flat space. I can imagine, if anyone actually owned this place, that you might put out a proper seat or something, stand it on the flat so you could sit out and admire. We don’t have that, though, so I don’t really get the point.
“Ross, you’re in the way,” he complains from below, and I pull myself all the way up until I’m standing on the roof, watching him scramble up after me.
“There’s no seats,” I point out blankly, gesturing, but he laughs.
“So,” he says, and he breezes past me, abnormally comfortable for someone walking around on a fucking roof, goes over to where the sloping shingles meet the flat and sits himself down, leaning his back against the slant, legs bent at the knee. Cocking his head at me, he looks expectant, waiting, and if I know him - which I don’t, really - he won’t move until I sit down, too.
Once I’ve flopped down next to him, back hunched forward, I let myself look out over the still trees and where the sky meets them, and he reaches over and pushes on my shoulder, getting me to lean back. I do, and he clasps his hands behind his head, content. “So, like, you lit a fire inside just to come out here and freeze?”
He gives a small smile. “Looks like it.”
I want to laugh. “This is pretty cool,” I murmur instead, and he nods smugly.
“Of course it is, I found it.”
“It was already cool before you found it, dickwad.”
He just hums in response, clearly not agreeing. I tilt my head back and join him, let my eyes roam over the stars sprinkled across the darkening sheet of the sky, the little clusters and barely-there formations that I couldn’t name if I tried. I’m sure Brendon couldn’t too, but they twinkle and it’s nice to pretend.
It gets to a point where I can’t stand the silence, and I sit up to fish a near-empty packet of cigarettes from the pocket of my hoodie, and a lighter from my jeans. “You smoke?”
He shakes his head nonchalantly, then blinks and says, “Well, you know, a couple times. Not really, though.”
“Want one?” I offer out the pack to him, one already sticking out of the top, and he considers and accepts it, takes it delicately from the pack. After mine’s lit I pass him the lighter, listening to the click-click-click of his multiple tries in getting it to work. I smirk at him but don’t say a word. It’s then that a thought hits me. “Didn’t you rat Pete out for smoking?” I recall slowly, confused.
He takes a short drag, letting the smoke out with a puff. “Uh-huh.”
“Dude.” I stare at him, clearly not imagining the cigarette between his lips, the smoke curling from the tip. “When I asked you why, you were all about, like, the rules and shit. I thought you were against that.”
Brendon makes a ‘psh,’ sound, confiding, “I don’t care about it. I just don’t like that guy.”
I keep up the stare up a few moments longer until I let myself laugh, shaking my head. “You’re a little ridiculous, you know that?”
The corner of his mouth turns up, and he takes another drag. “Yeah. You’ve told me before.”
I hazily remember, calling him fucking ridiculous with a harsh tone when he went to the Principal about the smoking. I look back up to the sky. “Pete’s not all bad. He taught me how to make smoke rings.”
“Wow,” Brendon comments, heavily sarcastic, and I duck my head until he pipes up again, saying, “Show me?”
“Well,” I amend. “He tried. I’ve never actually done it properly.”
“Show me anyway,” he says, so I shuffle a little closer to him, lean towards him, and I do.
My instructions are disjointed and ill-remembered, vague to say the least, and he keeps losing the smoke, letting it escape with the giggles that cascade every time I backtrack or trip over my words. I can see his eyes flicking to my mouth as I’m talking, gaze hungry, and I’ve trailed off several times. Can’t quite remember properly, blame him for putting me off. I continuously tell him to shut up and listen but he just laughs, and his laugh is contagious, and. Needless to say, we don’t get very far.
“I’ll never master the art,” he declares, still chuckling a bit, “and neither will you,” and I let out a snort to concur. I’ve shut parts of my brain down, put them out of business just temporarily, because I’m not letting myself think about how what we’re doing right now isn’t sex, isn’t going along with those invisible rules that hang over my head every day.
“Hey, can I ask you something?” I say after a lapse in conversation, because if we’re talking, then why the hell not. Maybe I want to know a little. He nods slowly, regarding me curiously as he taps the last of the ash off his cigarette and stubs it out. “Why are you in this school if you’re Mormon?”
He coughs, scratchy and harsh in his throat, looking startled like I’ve caught him unawares. After that little outburst, he takes a while to answer, squinting up at the now fully dark sky, the stars dancing in his eyes. “My parents don’t mind that it’s a Catholic school,” he says eventually. “We kind of.” Hesitation. I don’t say anything, because it’s not my place to probe. “I think they just took wherever was convenient. I don’t know, I had to move schools pretty quick. Had some trouble.”
“Trouble?” I prompt lazily, almost letting my eyes drift shut but keeping them open enough to look at him. His jaw is set, and his face has become shuttered, not entirely closed-off but more so.
“Yeah, I. I got, uh, beaten up quite a lot. Every day, actually, uh. For being gay. Mormon kids generally don’t like that. It... Got too bad to deal with, I couldn’t. Anymore.” I don’t say anything, let him continue. His hands are clasped tightly together and it’s like he can’t look at me, won’t. Laughing hollowly, he adds, “They thought it’d be better here.”
There’s a sinking feeling, starting deep in my chest and spreading to the very pit of my stomach, leaving me empty, nauseous. I chance a look at him and his lips are pressed tightly together; and maybe he’s reliving the same scenes I am, like my fist connecting with his jaw with that sickening crunch, Pete calling him a homo as soon as he laid eyes on him, spitting, “faggot,” as he walked away, the taunts, the thinly-veiled looks in the hallways, me in the background going along with all of it. I feel sick, and something about this has shaken me to the core.
God, I already felt like a dickhead when it happened, and then it was just one punch. Now it’s-it’s one more punch, another in a long, long chain of beatings and kicks and swings that all blur together for him, and he just. Just took it from me, he never said. I never knew.
“Do you know I never wanted to punch you?” I ask him suddenly, twisting so the whole top half of my body is turned to him.
Sweeping his eyes over me, he says, “I had a slight idea.”
“Brendon, I’m s-“
“I don’t want to talk about that,” he says in a final tone, smiling ruefully at me. I nod, reel myself back in because that’s fine by me, that’s just fine. “I know why you had to,” he murmurs, so quiet it could have been the whisper of the wind through the leaves that surround us. He sounds bitter, sour but honest, and I take it.
The moon rolls out from behind a cloud and casts a sheen of light down on everything, adorning the tops of the trees, glinting off the guttering that runs along the edge of the roof. Brendon’s face is pale and aglow, his lips redder and his eyes darker in contrast to the moonlight washing over his skin, and he looks like lust personified. I want to kiss him, fuck, always want to, but I make myself stay put because tonight is different, tonight there’s words and revelations and I don’t think I should break it.
“I don’t believe in that stuff, you know,” he drops in, out of the blue. I frown questioningly, and he elaborates, “The Mormonism stuff. It’s just my family. They make me go to Church and everything, it’s not me.”
“Oh.” I don’t know what to say to that, still kind of stunned that he’s being this open with me. “Can’t you just tell them you don’t?”
Brendon scoffs. “Yeah, no.” He smiles at me, like he’s humouring my naivety or some shit, and it looks surprisingly good on him. Everything does. “They were pissed when I told them I liked guys, but if I told them that... God. They’d kick me out for sure, Ryan, I couldn’t ever.”
Something clicks, audible inside my own head, and fuck everything, fuck the rules, I want to pull him closer, wrap my arms around, I want. Because he knows, he knows how it feels to keep something, to have secrets so big you feel they’ll turn you inside out, he knows the feeling of only being loved or kept for a false representation of who you are.
The night’s still young. I’m not planning on going home any time soon, although my dad’s better today. Not as loud or obnoxious, less brash. I’m not even sure if he’s had anything to drink today, but that’s not the point; the point is that, even if I lived in a fucking mansion with, like, servants and a pool and shit, I’d still rather be here. Or wherever he is tonight, that’s where I’d rather be, because tonight is full of conversational confessions and I don’t want to leave.
I never meant to like him. I mean, God, some moments I still hate him, he still irritates me to the point of no return, but then.
Shit, I really fucking don’t want to leave.
“Yeah, I get that,” I mumble, belatedly realising I haven’t replied in over a minute.
Furrowing his brow, he says straight off, “No, you don’t.”
Red annoyance flaring, I shoot back, “You think we’re that different? You think it’s any better for me liking guys at home than it is at school?”
He evaluates me silently, then drops his eyes, shakes his head a little. “Sorry.”
“Don’t,” I grouse, having heard enough of that word to last a lifetime, and I’m leaning towards him, curling a hand around the back of his neck, stroking at the short hairs that tickle his nape before tugging him into a kiss, hard and unrelenting. His breath rushes out, smug laughs resounding in his throat, and I push closer, harder, teeth clicking with his in the rush of it with the faint smell of cigarette smoke hanging around us. There’s a pressure on my chest, his hand splayed out and bearing down on me, pushing me away. My neck stretches until I absolutely have to detach myself, and then I’m faced with his eyes, too-close and curious. “What’s up?” I sound breathless. It would make sense.
“Why’re you so interested all of a sudden?” he demands, searching me.
I feel like I’m being stripped and interrogated, starlight spotlight straight on me. “In what?”
“In me. In everything.”
I swallow, look out at the trees and the woods because I can’t quite bear how deep his eyes look, pools in the dark. I’m too wound up inside, everything’s twisted and turning upside-down and I can’t think, I don’t know. I don’t know the answer, I’d like to know as much as he would. At length, I say, “Am I allowed to be?” because I’m familiar with my own limits and definitions of what this is, but who knows what his are?
“Yeah. I guess,” he shrugs, casual to the point of falsehood; deliberately offhand.
I kiss him again and he doesn’t protest, settling his hands on my hips boldly. Lost in his mouth and his hands, I push him down and roll on top of him, hips colliding as he shivers and mumbles misplaced words into my mouth. I kiss him, and the stars aren’t so captivating now.
* * *
When I eventually get home late enough that everyone’s gone to bed, I pick up my guitar from my room and sneak quietly down the stairs, dodging around the creak partway down. I start to play when I get to the kitchen and shut the door after myself; it’s the furthest place from my parents’ bedroom and the best soundproofing I could hope for here.
I’m sitting on a chair pulled out away from the table, the old guitar across my lap and my back bent over it, strumming quietly as I carefully construct a small tune in my head, lyrics already lurking.
It’s a song about the stars tonight.
Hushed words fall from my lips and I let my eyes slip shut, losing myself and stumbling a little over the strings but it comes together because it’s so fresh in my mind, the inspiration behind it. The implicit shining in the sky and the explicit lips on lips. I find myself smiling as I form the lyrics, phrases skipping along with the chords and commas catching in my throat.
Before long, I’m startled into cut-off silence by the door swinging open slowly and my mom poking her head around, then coming further in as if I gave her permission. She’s smiling softly, wrapped in a furry dressing gown, feet stuffed into bunny slippers. Her hair is loose about her shoulders, and she looks sleepy and young. “Did I wake you?” I ask quietly, and she keeps her arms folded loosely across her, keeps the smile as she comes over to me.
“No, you’re fine,” she says. “I listened outside the door for a second or two. It sounds good, Ryan.”
I smile down at the guitar, a little embarrassed. “Thanks.”
“What’s it about?” she asks softly, soothingly, as if she already knows there are things that aren’t right. I shrug and don’t say anything, keeping the instrument cradled and safe. “Your Dad never used to tell me either,” she chuckles nostalgically, stroking a hand absently over the frets.
The guitar is mine, but before it was mine, it was Dad’s. The earliest memory I can dig up of him is him laughing and getting up in front of everyone gathered round, on someone’s birthday, a big family thing. He had the guitar slung across him by a strap, a relaxed hand resting over the hole. And he played, he played for everyone - The Beatles’ Birthday Song, of course it was - and they were all clapping by the end, laughing and beaming and cheering for more. He sang, too, knowing as well as we did that he wasn’t the greatest singer, but most relatives were joining in so it was okay.
Me, I was sitting cross-legged at the front of the group, gazing up at him and totally enraptured, awed by this amazing, amazing man, this hero who made magical sounds from a piece of wood and some strings.
When he started drinking, he stopped playing. The guitar was left in a dusty corner of the house and forgotten about by all but me; I just kept wondering when he’d pick it up and make a song again. Years passed and still he didn’t, and I think something broke a little inside me with every day, I don’t know. It got to a point where he found me in the living room, came in carting the guitar behind him, holding it by the neck. He told me he wouldn’t be using it anymore, and that I might as well have it.
I taught myself, but sometimes, sometimes he’d listen at my bedroom door, let himself in and give me some rare pointers, things off the top of a sober head, and they were my biggest lessons. They’re what I hold onto now, with the guitar in my hands.
“Is it about a girl?” she asks softly. I consider, wonder what the protocol is and what I should be holding back, and slowly shake my head no. She says, “Ah,” and nothing else, patting me lightly on the shoulder. A lull comes over us, both of us lost in respective thoughts, and it’s only when Mom murmurs, “Go to bed, Ryan,” that I realise my fingers were plucking out the quiet melodies, the simple tune that started from the stars in Brendon’s eyes.
* * *
Part Seven