Fic: Primavera, 10/11
Title: Primavera, chapter 10
Pairing: Pinto
Rating: OMG NO PORN WTF
Word Count: 5800
Summary: AU - Teenage Chris went to live with the Quinto family when his mom got sick
A/N: For halfbreedchild ♥ A big thank you to emmessann for her contribution to this series, patiently discussing the subjects within, and providing insight along with a heaping dose of ZQ canon whenever I needed it.
A/N2: This turned into a two-parter, second part not quite done. The end is nigh.
Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9
“Zach! What a wonderful surprise, come in.”
“Mr. Pine.” As always, I hold out a hand for him to shake. As always, it's taken and used to pull me into a hug that never fails to make me slightly uncomfortable, and Chris's dad insists that I call him Bob, which I don't think I've ever managed to do. Chris's dad intimidates the crap out of me.
“You're here to see Chris?”
“He's here?”
“You didn't come to see him?”
“Oh, I did, but I wasn't sure if he . . . Katie told me that she thought Chris was here, so I thought I'd come see how he's doing. I tried calling first, a few times -”
“Yeah, sorry about that.” He waves his hand back towards, I don't know, a study or something. So much like Chris in his smile, his eyes, his glasses falling down the end of his nose. “I'm helping organize this local charity auction thing.”
“Great. That's, uh, good.” I nod my head a few times, chew on my top lip as every single possible opening for small talk pours out my brain through my ears and into the ether, except that one little stream of thought that marches loudly across my mind every time Chris's dad looks at me - I fucked your son. I fucked him hard and made him come. His pale blue eyes crinkle and half-vanish into another friendly smile, and it strikes me that Chris is going to be hotter than hell when he's older. It's like I'm doomed for life.
“You want a coffee or something? Did you have lunch yet? Chris is out with the dog, he shouldn't take much longer.”
I scratch at the back of my neck where the hair's still too short. “No thank you, I'm good. Do you, uh, know which way he went? Maybe I could catch him up.” Please God, don't make me stand around here for chitchat. He indicates for me to follow him with a jerk of his head, leading me through the kitchen to the back door.
“Into the canyon, the path starts past the gate at the bottom of the yard, can't miss it. Daisey'll find you if Chris doesn't. You're sure you don't want a soda or something to take with you?”
It's already heating up, the sun hot across my shoulders through my shirt, a light wind carrying a slight traffic hum from the one-seventy across the canyon and causing the sycamores to chatter to each other, their bare branches striping the path with shadow. The sky directly above's a deep cobalt fading through the color of shadows on snow to a dirty, powdery beige at the far horizon across the hills, no cloud today, the sun less yellow now, beginning to burn whiter now as nature stretches the kinks out of her back after a lackluster winter. I watch a couple of horny blackbirds weaving their way around each other through the sky as I follow them down the path, knowing I'm stupid, that I'm ten kinds of ridiculous for smiling at birds because I'm walking down to see him.
It's been so dry recently that my shoes are covered in brown dust, the path loose and gritty where it's steeper and I slip once, nearly falling on my ass, managing to right myself by throwing the other leg and both arms out. At least it means I know Chris is nowhere in the immediate area because he'd already be laughing up a lung if he'd seen it, no matter what his mood's like. Another ten minutes and I'm almost ready to call it quits, about to walk back up to the house and submit to tortuously polite conversation with Chris's dad when their fat little dog waddles her way up the path towards me to jump up and scrabble her claws against my jeans.
“Hi pooch.” I scratch her ear as she pants at me, her pink tongue curling. “Where's Chris? Go fetch Chris. No? You're no help.” She grins in confusion, her tail wagging her butt so hard that it bends her in two, bumping off my legs in excitement as I follow the path down the way she came. I'm opening my mouth to shout for him when something hits me on the shoulder. Something from above, a small stick that Daisey's already happily starting to strip the bark off.
“Hey, eyebrows. I'm up here.”
“I'm not sure if you're aware of this, blondie, but you appear to have a big tree up your ass.” He's sitting on a mid-level branch of a black oak, maybe twelve feet up. “Get down from there.”
“No. You come up.”
“Do you have any idea how much these jeans cost?”
“You didn't even pay for those.”
“That is not the point.”
Chris shrugs, looks out across the canyon from his perch, eyes hidden by shades, half an inch of dark brown growing in beneath the honey blond making his hair look even more spiky than usual. “I like it up here. It's peaceful.”
“Uh-huh.” I turn my back on him, lean against the thick trunk, looking up into the tangled, messy branches, already thickly budded in pale green. The scent of burning weed filters down and I take a deep sniff. “Peace is good.”
A sigh from him, it mixes with the wind and the sound of the freeway, carried away across the hills with the smell of his smoke. “How come you're here?”
“Why do you think?”
“I don't know. It's why I asked.”
“You haven't answered your phone in two weeks. Not even a text. I dropped by a couple of times and you weren't home, so I gave up and called Katie.”
“Oh.”
“'Oh' indeed.” I push away from the tree, stare up at him again. “Please come down.”
“You come up.”
“You're really going to make me climb up there?”
“Zach, I'm not making you do anything.”
It's so listless, a flat tone to his voice that persuades me and I walk around the trunk to see where best to start, grabbing one sturdy-looking branch as I swing my foot up onto another, only slightly hindered by pants that were designed with drinks and a VIP room in mind rather than climbing up a fucking tree. Still, I make pretty good progress, getting covered in greeny-brown smudges as I go, feeling him watching me the whole way up. I settle onto a different branch a foot or two down from his, my feet dangling beneath me, the canyon floor dropping away like I'm way up higher than I actually am. I dust off my hands on my thighs, shift about with my hips to dislodge a twig. “So. You come here often?”
Chris grabs the branch above his head to lean down, the muscles in his arm standing out, the tuft of his armpit hair just visible through the armhole of his t-shirt as he hands me a blackened stub, the smoldering remains of his joint. “There's a couple of hits left if you want.”
“Thanks.” The roach is damp with his spit, by itself enough to make my dick twitch. I take a drag, hold it while looking down between my feet at where Daisey's grown tired of the stick and is now chewing at a scrubby clump of dried-up grass. “So.”
“So.”
“You broke up with her.”
“No. She broke up with me.”
“Bummer.”
“Yeah.”
“And you're not doing too well?”
“You know how it is. You and Matt . . . ”
“I wasn't in love with Matt.” One more slow inhale as he keeps looking out across the canyon's treetops. “Are you dealing at all?”
“I guess so.”
“Tell me.”
He shrugs. “Nothing much to tell. Same shit, different day.”
“Chris . . .”
“I'm okay. It's not her. It's - not her. I needed to clear my head.”
“You wanted your mommy. There's no shame in that.”
A sharp laugh, that beautiful smile shining down at me briefly. “You could be right.”
I finish the last of the joint, pinching it out until it's cool and tucking it into my shirt pocket. “You don't want to talk about this?”
“Not really.” He takes off his shades, rubs over tired, stoned-looking eyes before sliding them back into place. “Thanks for coming to check on me.”
“No problem.”
Chris beats me to the ground, hanging from a lower branch with his hands before dropping the final few feet. I climb down steadily, getting more dirty but it's kind of fun, the bark of the tree rough under the palms of my hands. I walk over to him once I'm back on my feet, take his arms with my hands and pull him into a hug that he doesn't resist. “I'm sorry you got dumped.”
His mouth is warm and unmoving against my neck. Then he nods, shrugs, his shoulders moving under my hands. “It's okay. You going to Karl's leaving thing?”
“Sure. Want to be my date?” He nods again, and I hug him a little tighter, stroking up and down his back, Daisey snuffling at my shoes.
Zoe and John both know, I'm pretty sure, everyone else but Joe oblivious as I try not to stare too much at Chris across the rim of my wine glass throughout the entire meal. It feels like I've been so transparent, unable to stop myself falling a little bit further in love with him every day, not having spent anything like this amount of time with him since we both left home, and now reminded how whipsmart he is, how ceaselessly funny as we snipe at each other across the set and J.J makes ecstatic noises about chemistry. I suppose it was inescapable. I figure it out after a couple of weeks and break up with Matt, barely even noticing his absence as days pass of hanging out with Chris, working with him and he's good, knows what he's doing, quietly assured on set and in his choices, which is so farcically hot I fold my arms and press my fingers against my mouth to stop from laughing at myself, time and time again.
Sometimes I can't even stop it and it bursts out when I least expect it. I should know better than this after all these years, but I fall in love with Chris all over again and don't want it to stop because it pours through my veins and makes my heart beat like I'm on drugs and I'm dizzy with it, flying and rushing. I'm happy, I look in the mirror as I sit through hours of make up and see it reflected in my eyes. I feel something off him, too, warmth, affection in waves. Pride, sometimes, I've no idea precisely what it is. Maybe this is what it feels like to be friends with him. But something's changed in the couple of weeks since shooting stopped, since he broke up with Beau. I can't put a name to that, either, but there's this distance now, like there was before. Not just the two weeks of silence, something more and Chris barely looks my way all evening since we got here, quiet in the car on the way over like he'd been that day at his parents' place. Which is why I can't quit staring at him over my glass until Joe nudges my knee with his under the table and shakes his head.
“What?”
“You know what. Stop it.”
“Maybe I don't want to.”
“You are the stupidest -”
“Butt out.”
“Okay. It's your funeral.” He takes another bite of his garlic chicken and looks at me, chewing steadily, until I look away and try to make conversation with Zoe on my other side. She puts her arm around me and gives me a little squeeze, her head briefly on my shoulder. I watch Chris lean into Karl as Karl whispers something in his ear that makes him laugh, and this moronic, risible torch that I carry for him lights me up inside like a Halloween pumpkin. It makes me happy to see him enjoying himself, even if it's not me who is making him smile. I guess I'm a lost cause.
Anton's going outside to smoke so I follow him and make vague promises that I'll go see his band next month, because at least John's going and I won't be the oldest person in the entire audience. He goes back in once he's done but I shake my head when he asks if I'm coming, because the air's cool tonight and it feels good, the same spring wind that's been around all week burning my cigarette brighter as it catches the tip. Because I know if I wait long enough, Chris will come out here. The buzz of the city around me feels good, my heart light as I finish my wine and look down at the glass, twirling the stem between my thumb and finger. And I figure it out all of a sudden, that I'm waiting on Chris, that I'm always waiting on Chris, that it's been my life for the last twelve years and it makes me laugh to myself, a low chuckle that acknowledges how helpless the whole thing is. I've tried to hate him. I did hate him. I barely even remember how that felt.
“Laughing at your own jokes again?” I'm eighteen again as Chris sits next to me on the smoker's bench seat and his closeness sends my pulse through the roof. It's so tough now, keeping my distance, like that day under the tree, holding him and not giving into the temptation to slide my hands down his back to his ass, to start something I've figured out he's never going to say no to. His knee knocks against mine, his thigh brushing my pants.
“Your hair, actually. Did I tell you already that you look like GI Joe?”
“Five times tonight alone.” He sticks a cigarette in his mouth and pats his jacket pockets for a light but I'm already there, his fingers on the back of my hand as I hold my lighter to his face and watch him inhale. “I realize you think you're being insulting, but GI Joe ruled all. Go Joe!” He holds his hands outstretched in claw shapes, his cigarette tucked between two knuckles as he jigs his hands about like they're acting out a scene. “Duke and Snake-Eyes have been tracking Cobra Commander's Rattler in their Skystriker through the mountains of Azerbaijan, ready to take him out in a second with their mobile missile system, but that dirty asshole fakes them out, ducks into a gulley between two hills, and, man alive! Skystriker catches a blade on an sticky-out rock formation thing and the team barely has time to throw themselves out the hatch, chutes engaging but, oh my fucking God, the blast from Skystriker sends them spinning -” He mimes the spin, making a Kerboom! Poooshh wheee! sound and I start laughing. “Will they make it to the secret research facility in time? Few know the truth, that GI Joe fights a secret war, the first and last line of defense against forces that seek to plunge our world into chaos.” He lowers his voice until it's gruff and gutsy, makes a fist of one hand. “Wherever there is trouble, GI Joe is there.”
I clap my hands slowly as he takes a bow on the bench. “You're going to actually play with our action figures when they're done, aren't you?”
“I'm going to do all kinds of stuff with our action figures. I used to make my Joes cuddle.”
It takes me by surprise and I Hah! so abruptly than it blows out my lighter and I click it again, lighting my third smoke in the last twenty minutes. “Cuddle? How macho.”
“Oh, they cuddled in a totally macho way. You know. Manly.”
“Man-to-man cuddling is very manly, I'll give you that. That's why I like it.”
He sits back enough to look at me, a slow smile as he relaxes back against the seat. “Me too.”
“Yeah? Want to come back to my place for a cuddle later?” Fuck. Fuck. That came out of nowhere. His eyes narrow, his tongue darting out across his mouth before he looks away and smokes some more.
“Is that a good idea?”
“No. I shouldn't have said it. Ignore. Rewind.”
“I didn't know you still wanted to . . . we're buddies these days. I thought that's what was working. You seem happy with it.”
“It is. I am. Honestly, we should drop this.”
We smoke on in silence, not looking at each other. It's not a total surprise when he speaks, what he says.
“What happens if I don't want to drop it? I like where we are now but I miss how we used to be. That one week. I think about that one week we had all the time.”
“That week was twelve years ago.”
“I fucked things up back then. I fucked you up.”
“No, you didn't. We fucked things up together, I figured that out a long time ago.” I stub out my cigarette, get to my feet. “We're good. I like having you in my life and I don't want to risk screwing that up again over sex. I'll see you back in there.”
My hand's on the door when he next speaks and I don't turn back to him, not able to trust myself because no matter how convincing that all sounded, even to me, it's all bullshit and I know I'd risk everything for more in a second if I thought it could ever work out. “Zach? It's not just sex. You know I love you, right?”
I freeze in place, my hand gripping the door handle until my knuckles go white and I stare at them frowning, feeling like I'm looking down from a height of a thousand meters, down at the two of us in this little courtyard, the city block around us, the city itself, the rim of the ocean and the distant curve of the earth.
“I don't know how, exactly. I don't know if it's that you're my friend, or family or more, I don't know if I love you more or if I can . . . but I love you. I always have.”
I can't look at him. “I know, Chris. I love you too.” He reaches out and touches my hand but I can't deal with this, feeling like I'm moments away from collapsing, my knees weak with horror, and disappointment, and sadness, this confirmation he's slung at me, the last shred of hope that he was beginning to feel something like the same as me tearing into little pieces, lifted up onto the spring winds and carried away from me. I pull my hand away and make my way through the door, out the restaurant without going to our table to say goodbye to Karl, or anyone, barely aware of faces looking at me as I stumble out the main doors and look around for a cab but everything's blurred. The valet guy helps flag one down and I thrust a fifty at him in confusion, falling into the backseat of the taxi barely able to stutter out my address. My little glasshouse of happiness has shattered, the bubble of warmth that's been with me the last five months suddenly intangible, fading away as I close my eyes and see a laughing eighteen-year-old Chris, his eyes lit up, his mouth wet and smiling at me as I lean in to push my tongue through his lips and against his. But none of it's real.
It takes twenty minutes and half a bottle of whiskey to text Joe back, telling him not to come over, that I'll call him in the morning. Which I won't, I can't. Then I turn it off, not willing to torture myself a second longer by ignoring Chris's messages, desperate to read and listen through them all to see where he says, No, I was wrong, I love you the same way I know you love me. But I know that's not going to be what he's calling to say and it feels like anything else could knock me to my knees, aided by too much Jamesons and the sweater that I fucked him in because it's the only connection I've got with him right now, pulling it on over a shirt that doesn't go.
My feet feel heavy, my head like it's too big for my neck to support, my hands clumsy as I throw stuff into a bag, a handful of underwear, some jeans, toothbrush. What can I pack to escape myself? I thought I'd broken my heart over him before but now, after so long and after the last few months of soaking him up like a goddamn sponge, the physical pain's tough to bear as I hear it over again in my head, ”I don't know if I love you more or if I can . . .”, a knife slicing across my chest, into my heart and down into my stomach time and time again as the minutes that the cab's waiting outside for me tick by. Minutes I spend trying to hurry because I don't want to wait here and have Chris come running over, dragging my feet because that's perversely what I do want, even now, knowing that he'd come and try to make stuff right and we'd end up in bed. But he doesn't come and my bag's packed, dog sitter booked, Noah walked, bottle of whiskey drained and I don't even feel drunk. He's not going to come and I should be relieved, but it hurts so bad that I worry I might vomit for a second. He's not coming for me.
“You okay back there, man?”
“I got some bad news, that's all. Uh, airport, please, and I need to swing by an ATM on the way.”
I want to ask to take a route past his place, see if his light's on. I don't, sitting back, half-closing my eyes so every light in the dark streams into line after line, measuring the distance between us as we drive further away from Chris. The pain subsides into cold, my heart wrapped in a block of ice six inches thick, heavy and immovable in my chest. I manage to get an economy seat on the red-eye, my one bag too small to check and a bunch of girls recognize me before I get to Security, gathering around wanting to take pictures of me with my eyebrows only just starting to grow back in, asking me to take my glasses off so they can see them better, and they're all nice and sweet and I wish I had the energy to do more, to be more for them. I pull my glasses off, try not to blink as their flashes go off in my face, one after another leaning into me with a smile at the camera that I can't begin to echo. I don't know how much longer my legs are going to hold me up. A security guy comes over and pulls me through the fast track even once I explain I'm not flying first class. I'm so pathetically grateful for this one small consideration that I grab his hand and squeeze it, and he turns bright red, shaking me off.
I've forgotten my key, and the one Mom used to leave on top of the back door light's gone, too. Maybe just as well, I don't want to wake her thinking the house has been broken into. I sit in the hire car with the radio on, watching the sky turn from black to purple to grey, my eyes gritty with sleep even though I managed to finally drop off a couple of hours before we landed. Chris's bedroom window overlooks the driveway and the basketball hoop, Joe's old room and, as the sky lightens, I can tell it's the same old drapes, Joe's eighties' grey and red zigzagging stripes. I think about lying in Chris's bed, his naked body over the top of mine, knowing we need to get up and get showered, listening out for Mom's car in case she's home early. His hand snaking down over my stomach, his voice warm in my ear when he swears he can get me to shoot again, his mouth covering mine. My dick aches as I ignore it, trying to force the memory of his hand on me away. I shouldn't have come back, there's too much of him here. I need to find a tree to go sit in.
Mom's light snaps on in the front and I check the time, five past six. I should give her time to shower, to wake but I'm so cold now, the last of the snow long gone but the air's still a slap in the face in the early morning as I get out of the car, pulling my bag out of the passenger seat with me. I forgot a jacket, the sweater and shirt not quite enough. I walk up to what used to be my front door and ring the bell, knock out Shave and a Haircut, digging my hands into my pants pockets for warmth as I hear Mom not-curse all the way downstairs over how early it is before she opens the door, starting a little in surprise as she looks up at me.
“Zach! What in the Good Lord's name are you doing outside at six in the morning? And without a coat.”
“I forgot my key.” I bend down into her embrace, kiss her cheek before she fusses me instead and shuts the door against the cold. “Hi, Ma.”
“Here, let me look at you.”
I twist out of her hands. “No, not now. I'm tired and cold, I need coffee.” Walking through to the kitchen, and she snaps the lights on as she follows me, her robe tight around her, slippers shuffling on the tile.
“Zach, let your mother look at you. Oh, your poor eyebrows. Look what they did to you.” Her fingers cup my face as I sit down at the kitchen table as she tugs me there, her nails long and painted a weird metallic brown as she slips under my glasses and rubs at the stubble. It evokes a vivid flash of memory, me getting into her nail stuff and painting mine all different colors, reds and corals and pinks, not understanding why she got so mad about it when I was careful not to spill any, or why Dad walked out afterwards, slamming the front door hard behind him. Then her eyes meet mine and I can feel the ice in my chest melting, this welling up of some deep sorrow that I didn't even know was there as she looks into my eyes and murmurs “Oh. Oh honey, whatever's the matter?”
I've never actively wanted to cry before. It won't come, a flood held back by some barrier as I shake my head in her hands. “I can't, Mom. I can't tell you, I just needed - I needed to see you.” I think of Chris in his oak tree. “I needed my mom.” There. A crack as my voice breaks a little.
“Tell me what's wrong. Are you sick? Is everything okay with your health?” All I can do is nod, rub over my nose with the back of my hand and stare at the floor as her hands move to my shoulders. “Well, that's a relief. Please, sweetheart, there's nothing you can't tell me. Not a darn thing.”
I start to half-laugh, intermixed with shuddery sobs that I can't seem to stop as I wipe at my eyes and rock my chair onto its back legs. “Come on, that's not true.”
“Yes, it is.” She pulls up a chair around the table to sit across from me, taking my right hand in hers. “You and Joe, you're a part of me, and that I ever gave you cause to think otherwise is something only God himself could ever forgive me for.” Her voice catches, her hand coming up to stroke across my cheek. “I love you and I am so proud of you. All of you, every part. You understand that?”
I nod again, compressing my lips and staring at the ceiling, trying to pull it all back in, her hands so warm on mine again, so small and dry. “Zach, please tell me what's wrong, because I've never seen you look so broken before, even all that time you were sick.” She stands, puts her arms around me a little awkwardly where I'm sitting and instinct drives my hands around her, my face into her pillowy stomach, soft under the fleecy robe as I hold on tight, feeling the words rising in my throat, pushing their way out like they're alive.
“I love him, Mom. I love him so much that it hurts.” Her fingers tighten on my hair and the tears come and my shoulders start to shake so hard that I know I can't stop it. Then she starts to rock me back and forth as I cry into her stomach like I did a hundred times as a little kid, shushing me and petting through my hair like she has all the time in the world.
I've never told her that I don't like marshmallows in my hot chocolate. They go all gummy and weird before they melt, it's gross, but she always did it as a special treat so I never had the heart to say I didn't want them. Not like I would've with anyone else. So I swirl the mug around, watching them disappear into a white foam that eventually begins to disperse as Mom calls into work and says she should be back in tomorrow, hanging up and glaring at the phone in a snot.
“Some people don't have the manners they were born with.”
“Go to work. I'll be okay, I'll soak in the tub and read, or something. I could do with some more sleep.”
“Then you go ahead and do all that, but I'm going to be right here in case you need me.”
“Mom -”
“Oh, indulge me. It's been forever since anyone's needed me.”
I reach across the table and squeeze her hand. “That's not true.”
She rubs over my fingers then pulls back, taking a sip of her own drink. “Can we talk more about this now? Or do you want to rest up.”
“I don't know, Ma. I'm pretty tired.”
“It's just, I thought -” She pauses, frowns like she's wondering if she should said what's coming next. “Joe said you'd broken up with your boyfriend. Some time ago, so this is all a little surprising.”
“You talk to Joe about me? About my private life?” Mom flushes a little, looking down at her fingers where they're wrapped around her coffee cup.
“After that fight we had, I never felt right asking you myself.”
“I didn't realize you'd want to know.”
“Of course I wanted to know. No matter how narrow-minded you may think I am, you should realize that I'm thinking of you and wanting the best for you. Always, no matter what.”
“Okay.” I take a drink, it's not so bad. A little sweet. “Don't go behind my back and I'll tell you what's going on with me. With guys.”
“Alright then.” Mom nods, like the decision's been made and put away.
“And you won't give me a hard time?”
“I'm your mother, Zachary, I'm going to give you my opinion and, if I think you need to hear something, I'll say it. You've changed so much and sometimes it's like I'm not sure I know you any more, not the real you, I only get to see the Zach that you want me to. It worries me.”
“Mom, not the guilt trip, not now. Everything's great, I swear to - I swear on my life. Everything's working out, finally. It's this one guy, that's all. If I could forget about him, my life would be pretty much perfect, but I just, I can't. It's why I split up with Matt, there's no point trying to be with anyone else anymore. I can't get him out of my head.”
“Maybe you're not supposed to.”
Her voice has changed, lost some of its weight, softer as she traces the patterns in the tablecloth with a fingertip. Her eyes are focused somewhere I can't see, somewhere not in the room with us.
“I'm not sure I understand.”
“Perhaps he's meant to be in your head. Perhaps he's supposed to be a part of you. Do you know that I loved your father? I loved him with all my heart, and he loved me too. The Lord knows we didn't have a perfect marriage and there's things I regret, things that I would've had different. But he was part of me and he still is, he always will be. You meet someone, a special person, and it all clicks into place. Like, I don't know. Like that glue that's supposed to be stronger than wood, that one on TV with the nails? You glue two pieces of wood together and the bond between them is stronger than the pieces themselves. That's how it was with your dad. I met him, and we were stuck together for good, no matter how wrong or right that was, or how imperfectly we fit.”
She looks at me, her eyes watery but her smile is steady, her hands folded calmly in front of her on the table top. “And look what my imperfectly stuck-together marriage got me - the memory of a man I'll carry in my heart for the rest of my life, and the two most beautiful children any mother was ever blessed with. Maybe the reason you can't get this man out of your heart is because he's already stuck to you, Zach, and that's something to be thankful for.”
I can't look at her, my eyes filling again and I scrub at them impatiently, lost for words, unable to think of a single thing that in any way acknowledges everything Mom's just said. But I don't need to. She gets up from the table with her coffee, kissing me on the top of my head, her fingers under my chin as she pulls my head up to face her. “I'm not stupid, sweetheart. I know more than you think I do. Go get some rest, we'll talk more later.”
Next
Pairing: Pinto
Rating: OMG NO PORN WTF
Word Count: 5800
Summary: AU - Teenage Chris went to live with the Quinto family when his mom got sick
A/N: For halfbreedchild ♥ A big thank you to emmessann for her contribution to this series, patiently discussing the subjects within, and providing insight along with a heaping dose of ZQ canon whenever I needed it.
A/N2: This turned into a two-parter, second part not quite done. The end is nigh.
Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9
“Zach! What a wonderful surprise, come in.”
“Mr. Pine.” As always, I hold out a hand for him to shake. As always, it's taken and used to pull me into a hug that never fails to make me slightly uncomfortable, and Chris's dad insists that I call him Bob, which I don't think I've ever managed to do. Chris's dad intimidates the crap out of me.
“You're here to see Chris?”
“He's here?”
“You didn't come to see him?”
“Oh, I did, but I wasn't sure if he . . . Katie told me that she thought Chris was here, so I thought I'd come see how he's doing. I tried calling first, a few times -”
“Yeah, sorry about that.” He waves his hand back towards, I don't know, a study or something. So much like Chris in his smile, his eyes, his glasses falling down the end of his nose. “I'm helping organize this local charity auction thing.”
“Great. That's, uh, good.” I nod my head a few times, chew on my top lip as every single possible opening for small talk pours out my brain through my ears and into the ether, except that one little stream of thought that marches loudly across my mind every time Chris's dad looks at me - I fucked your son. I fucked him hard and made him come. His pale blue eyes crinkle and half-vanish into another friendly smile, and it strikes me that Chris is going to be hotter than hell when he's older. It's like I'm doomed for life.
“You want a coffee or something? Did you have lunch yet? Chris is out with the dog, he shouldn't take much longer.”
I scratch at the back of my neck where the hair's still too short. “No thank you, I'm good. Do you, uh, know which way he went? Maybe I could catch him up.” Please God, don't make me stand around here for chitchat. He indicates for me to follow him with a jerk of his head, leading me through the kitchen to the back door.
“Into the canyon, the path starts past the gate at the bottom of the yard, can't miss it. Daisey'll find you if Chris doesn't. You're sure you don't want a soda or something to take with you?”
It's already heating up, the sun hot across my shoulders through my shirt, a light wind carrying a slight traffic hum from the one-seventy across the canyon and causing the sycamores to chatter to each other, their bare branches striping the path with shadow. The sky directly above's a deep cobalt fading through the color of shadows on snow to a dirty, powdery beige at the far horizon across the hills, no cloud today, the sun less yellow now, beginning to burn whiter now as nature stretches the kinks out of her back after a lackluster winter. I watch a couple of horny blackbirds weaving their way around each other through the sky as I follow them down the path, knowing I'm stupid, that I'm ten kinds of ridiculous for smiling at birds because I'm walking down to see him.
It's been so dry recently that my shoes are covered in brown dust, the path loose and gritty where it's steeper and I slip once, nearly falling on my ass, managing to right myself by throwing the other leg and both arms out. At least it means I know Chris is nowhere in the immediate area because he'd already be laughing up a lung if he'd seen it, no matter what his mood's like. Another ten minutes and I'm almost ready to call it quits, about to walk back up to the house and submit to tortuously polite conversation with Chris's dad when their fat little dog waddles her way up the path towards me to jump up and scrabble her claws against my jeans.
“Hi pooch.” I scratch her ear as she pants at me, her pink tongue curling. “Where's Chris? Go fetch Chris. No? You're no help.” She grins in confusion, her tail wagging her butt so hard that it bends her in two, bumping off my legs in excitement as I follow the path down the way she came. I'm opening my mouth to shout for him when something hits me on the shoulder. Something from above, a small stick that Daisey's already happily starting to strip the bark off.
“Hey, eyebrows. I'm up here.”
“I'm not sure if you're aware of this, blondie, but you appear to have a big tree up your ass.” He's sitting on a mid-level branch of a black oak, maybe twelve feet up. “Get down from there.”
“No. You come up.”
“Do you have any idea how much these jeans cost?”
“You didn't even pay for those.”
“That is not the point.”
Chris shrugs, looks out across the canyon from his perch, eyes hidden by shades, half an inch of dark brown growing in beneath the honey blond making his hair look even more spiky than usual. “I like it up here. It's peaceful.”
“Uh-huh.” I turn my back on him, lean against the thick trunk, looking up into the tangled, messy branches, already thickly budded in pale green. The scent of burning weed filters down and I take a deep sniff. “Peace is good.”
A sigh from him, it mixes with the wind and the sound of the freeway, carried away across the hills with the smell of his smoke. “How come you're here?”
“Why do you think?”
“I don't know. It's why I asked.”
“You haven't answered your phone in two weeks. Not even a text. I dropped by a couple of times and you weren't home, so I gave up and called Katie.”
“Oh.”
“'Oh' indeed.” I push away from the tree, stare up at him again. “Please come down.”
“You come up.”
“You're really going to make me climb up there?”
“Zach, I'm not making you do anything.”
It's so listless, a flat tone to his voice that persuades me and I walk around the trunk to see where best to start, grabbing one sturdy-looking branch as I swing my foot up onto another, only slightly hindered by pants that were designed with drinks and a VIP room in mind rather than climbing up a fucking tree. Still, I make pretty good progress, getting covered in greeny-brown smudges as I go, feeling him watching me the whole way up. I settle onto a different branch a foot or two down from his, my feet dangling beneath me, the canyon floor dropping away like I'm way up higher than I actually am. I dust off my hands on my thighs, shift about with my hips to dislodge a twig. “So. You come here often?”
Chris grabs the branch above his head to lean down, the muscles in his arm standing out, the tuft of his armpit hair just visible through the armhole of his t-shirt as he hands me a blackened stub, the smoldering remains of his joint. “There's a couple of hits left if you want.”
“Thanks.” The roach is damp with his spit, by itself enough to make my dick twitch. I take a drag, hold it while looking down between my feet at where Daisey's grown tired of the stick and is now chewing at a scrubby clump of dried-up grass. “So.”
“So.”
“You broke up with her.”
“No. She broke up with me.”
“Bummer.”
“Yeah.”
“And you're not doing too well?”
“You know how it is. You and Matt . . . ”
“I wasn't in love with Matt.” One more slow inhale as he keeps looking out across the canyon's treetops. “Are you dealing at all?”
“I guess so.”
“Tell me.”
He shrugs. “Nothing much to tell. Same shit, different day.”
“Chris . . .”
“I'm okay. It's not her. It's - not her. I needed to clear my head.”
“You wanted your mommy. There's no shame in that.”
A sharp laugh, that beautiful smile shining down at me briefly. “You could be right.”
I finish the last of the joint, pinching it out until it's cool and tucking it into my shirt pocket. “You don't want to talk about this?”
“Not really.” He takes off his shades, rubs over tired, stoned-looking eyes before sliding them back into place. “Thanks for coming to check on me.”
“No problem.”
Chris beats me to the ground, hanging from a lower branch with his hands before dropping the final few feet. I climb down steadily, getting more dirty but it's kind of fun, the bark of the tree rough under the palms of my hands. I walk over to him once I'm back on my feet, take his arms with my hands and pull him into a hug that he doesn't resist. “I'm sorry you got dumped.”
His mouth is warm and unmoving against my neck. Then he nods, shrugs, his shoulders moving under my hands. “It's okay. You going to Karl's leaving thing?”
“Sure. Want to be my date?” He nods again, and I hug him a little tighter, stroking up and down his back, Daisey snuffling at my shoes.
Zoe and John both know, I'm pretty sure, everyone else but Joe oblivious as I try not to stare too much at Chris across the rim of my wine glass throughout the entire meal. It feels like I've been so transparent, unable to stop myself falling a little bit further in love with him every day, not having spent anything like this amount of time with him since we both left home, and now reminded how whipsmart he is, how ceaselessly funny as we snipe at each other across the set and J.J makes ecstatic noises about chemistry. I suppose it was inescapable. I figure it out after a couple of weeks and break up with Matt, barely even noticing his absence as days pass of hanging out with Chris, working with him and he's good, knows what he's doing, quietly assured on set and in his choices, which is so farcically hot I fold my arms and press my fingers against my mouth to stop from laughing at myself, time and time again.
Sometimes I can't even stop it and it bursts out when I least expect it. I should know better than this after all these years, but I fall in love with Chris all over again and don't want it to stop because it pours through my veins and makes my heart beat like I'm on drugs and I'm dizzy with it, flying and rushing. I'm happy, I look in the mirror as I sit through hours of make up and see it reflected in my eyes. I feel something off him, too, warmth, affection in waves. Pride, sometimes, I've no idea precisely what it is. Maybe this is what it feels like to be friends with him. But something's changed in the couple of weeks since shooting stopped, since he broke up with Beau. I can't put a name to that, either, but there's this distance now, like there was before. Not just the two weeks of silence, something more and Chris barely looks my way all evening since we got here, quiet in the car on the way over like he'd been that day at his parents' place. Which is why I can't quit staring at him over my glass until Joe nudges my knee with his under the table and shakes his head.
“What?”
“You know what. Stop it.”
“Maybe I don't want to.”
“You are the stupidest -”
“Butt out.”
“Okay. It's your funeral.” He takes another bite of his garlic chicken and looks at me, chewing steadily, until I look away and try to make conversation with Zoe on my other side. She puts her arm around me and gives me a little squeeze, her head briefly on my shoulder. I watch Chris lean into Karl as Karl whispers something in his ear that makes him laugh, and this moronic, risible torch that I carry for him lights me up inside like a Halloween pumpkin. It makes me happy to see him enjoying himself, even if it's not me who is making him smile. I guess I'm a lost cause.
Anton's going outside to smoke so I follow him and make vague promises that I'll go see his band next month, because at least John's going and I won't be the oldest person in the entire audience. He goes back in once he's done but I shake my head when he asks if I'm coming, because the air's cool tonight and it feels good, the same spring wind that's been around all week burning my cigarette brighter as it catches the tip. Because I know if I wait long enough, Chris will come out here. The buzz of the city around me feels good, my heart light as I finish my wine and look down at the glass, twirling the stem between my thumb and finger. And I figure it out all of a sudden, that I'm waiting on Chris, that I'm always waiting on Chris, that it's been my life for the last twelve years and it makes me laugh to myself, a low chuckle that acknowledges how helpless the whole thing is. I've tried to hate him. I did hate him. I barely even remember how that felt.
“Laughing at your own jokes again?” I'm eighteen again as Chris sits next to me on the smoker's bench seat and his closeness sends my pulse through the roof. It's so tough now, keeping my distance, like that day under the tree, holding him and not giving into the temptation to slide my hands down his back to his ass, to start something I've figured out he's never going to say no to. His knee knocks against mine, his thigh brushing my pants.
“Your hair, actually. Did I tell you already that you look like GI Joe?”
“Five times tonight alone.” He sticks a cigarette in his mouth and pats his jacket pockets for a light but I'm already there, his fingers on the back of my hand as I hold my lighter to his face and watch him inhale. “I realize you think you're being insulting, but GI Joe ruled all. Go Joe!” He holds his hands outstretched in claw shapes, his cigarette tucked between two knuckles as he jigs his hands about like they're acting out a scene. “Duke and Snake-Eyes have been tracking Cobra Commander's Rattler in their Skystriker through the mountains of Azerbaijan, ready to take him out in a second with their mobile missile system, but that dirty asshole fakes them out, ducks into a gulley between two hills, and, man alive! Skystriker catches a blade on an sticky-out rock formation thing and the team barely has time to throw themselves out the hatch, chutes engaging but, oh my fucking God, the blast from Skystriker sends them spinning -” He mimes the spin, making a Kerboom! Poooshh wheee! sound and I start laughing. “Will they make it to the secret research facility in time? Few know the truth, that GI Joe fights a secret war, the first and last line of defense against forces that seek to plunge our world into chaos.” He lowers his voice until it's gruff and gutsy, makes a fist of one hand. “Wherever there is trouble, GI Joe is there.”
I clap my hands slowly as he takes a bow on the bench. “You're going to actually play with our action figures when they're done, aren't you?”
“I'm going to do all kinds of stuff with our action figures. I used to make my Joes cuddle.”
It takes me by surprise and I Hah! so abruptly than it blows out my lighter and I click it again, lighting my third smoke in the last twenty minutes. “Cuddle? How macho.”
“Oh, they cuddled in a totally macho way. You know. Manly.”
“Man-to-man cuddling is very manly, I'll give you that. That's why I like it.”
He sits back enough to look at me, a slow smile as he relaxes back against the seat. “Me too.”
“Yeah? Want to come back to my place for a cuddle later?” Fuck. Fuck. That came out of nowhere. His eyes narrow, his tongue darting out across his mouth before he looks away and smokes some more.
“Is that a good idea?”
“No. I shouldn't have said it. Ignore. Rewind.”
“I didn't know you still wanted to . . . we're buddies these days. I thought that's what was working. You seem happy with it.”
“It is. I am. Honestly, we should drop this.”
We smoke on in silence, not looking at each other. It's not a total surprise when he speaks, what he says.
“What happens if I don't want to drop it? I like where we are now but I miss how we used to be. That one week. I think about that one week we had all the time.”
“That week was twelve years ago.”
“I fucked things up back then. I fucked you up.”
“No, you didn't. We fucked things up together, I figured that out a long time ago.” I stub out my cigarette, get to my feet. “We're good. I like having you in my life and I don't want to risk screwing that up again over sex. I'll see you back in there.”
My hand's on the door when he next speaks and I don't turn back to him, not able to trust myself because no matter how convincing that all sounded, even to me, it's all bullshit and I know I'd risk everything for more in a second if I thought it could ever work out. “Zach? It's not just sex. You know I love you, right?”
I freeze in place, my hand gripping the door handle until my knuckles go white and I stare at them frowning, feeling like I'm looking down from a height of a thousand meters, down at the two of us in this little courtyard, the city block around us, the city itself, the rim of the ocean and the distant curve of the earth.
“I don't know how, exactly. I don't know if it's that you're my friend, or family or more, I don't know if I love you more or if I can . . . but I love you. I always have.”
I can't look at him. “I know, Chris. I love you too.” He reaches out and touches my hand but I can't deal with this, feeling like I'm moments away from collapsing, my knees weak with horror, and disappointment, and sadness, this confirmation he's slung at me, the last shred of hope that he was beginning to feel something like the same as me tearing into little pieces, lifted up onto the spring winds and carried away from me. I pull my hand away and make my way through the door, out the restaurant without going to our table to say goodbye to Karl, or anyone, barely aware of faces looking at me as I stumble out the main doors and look around for a cab but everything's blurred. The valet guy helps flag one down and I thrust a fifty at him in confusion, falling into the backseat of the taxi barely able to stutter out my address. My little glasshouse of happiness has shattered, the bubble of warmth that's been with me the last five months suddenly intangible, fading away as I close my eyes and see a laughing eighteen-year-old Chris, his eyes lit up, his mouth wet and smiling at me as I lean in to push my tongue through his lips and against his. But none of it's real.
It takes twenty minutes and half a bottle of whiskey to text Joe back, telling him not to come over, that I'll call him in the morning. Which I won't, I can't. Then I turn it off, not willing to torture myself a second longer by ignoring Chris's messages, desperate to read and listen through them all to see where he says, No, I was wrong, I love you the same way I know you love me. But I know that's not going to be what he's calling to say and it feels like anything else could knock me to my knees, aided by too much Jamesons and the sweater that I fucked him in because it's the only connection I've got with him right now, pulling it on over a shirt that doesn't go.
My feet feel heavy, my head like it's too big for my neck to support, my hands clumsy as I throw stuff into a bag, a handful of underwear, some jeans, toothbrush. What can I pack to escape myself? I thought I'd broken my heart over him before but now, after so long and after the last few months of soaking him up like a goddamn sponge, the physical pain's tough to bear as I hear it over again in my head, ”I don't know if I love you more or if I can . . .”, a knife slicing across my chest, into my heart and down into my stomach time and time again as the minutes that the cab's waiting outside for me tick by. Minutes I spend trying to hurry because I don't want to wait here and have Chris come running over, dragging my feet because that's perversely what I do want, even now, knowing that he'd come and try to make stuff right and we'd end up in bed. But he doesn't come and my bag's packed, dog sitter booked, Noah walked, bottle of whiskey drained and I don't even feel drunk. He's not going to come and I should be relieved, but it hurts so bad that I worry I might vomit for a second. He's not coming for me.
“You okay back there, man?”
“I got some bad news, that's all. Uh, airport, please, and I need to swing by an ATM on the way.”
I want to ask to take a route past his place, see if his light's on. I don't, sitting back, half-closing my eyes so every light in the dark streams into line after line, measuring the distance between us as we drive further away from Chris. The pain subsides into cold, my heart wrapped in a block of ice six inches thick, heavy and immovable in my chest. I manage to get an economy seat on the red-eye, my one bag too small to check and a bunch of girls recognize me before I get to Security, gathering around wanting to take pictures of me with my eyebrows only just starting to grow back in, asking me to take my glasses off so they can see them better, and they're all nice and sweet and I wish I had the energy to do more, to be more for them. I pull my glasses off, try not to blink as their flashes go off in my face, one after another leaning into me with a smile at the camera that I can't begin to echo. I don't know how much longer my legs are going to hold me up. A security guy comes over and pulls me through the fast track even once I explain I'm not flying first class. I'm so pathetically grateful for this one small consideration that I grab his hand and squeeze it, and he turns bright red, shaking me off.
I've forgotten my key, and the one Mom used to leave on top of the back door light's gone, too. Maybe just as well, I don't want to wake her thinking the house has been broken into. I sit in the hire car with the radio on, watching the sky turn from black to purple to grey, my eyes gritty with sleep even though I managed to finally drop off a couple of hours before we landed. Chris's bedroom window overlooks the driveway and the basketball hoop, Joe's old room and, as the sky lightens, I can tell it's the same old drapes, Joe's eighties' grey and red zigzagging stripes. I think about lying in Chris's bed, his naked body over the top of mine, knowing we need to get up and get showered, listening out for Mom's car in case she's home early. His hand snaking down over my stomach, his voice warm in my ear when he swears he can get me to shoot again, his mouth covering mine. My dick aches as I ignore it, trying to force the memory of his hand on me away. I shouldn't have come back, there's too much of him here. I need to find a tree to go sit in.
Mom's light snaps on in the front and I check the time, five past six. I should give her time to shower, to wake but I'm so cold now, the last of the snow long gone but the air's still a slap in the face in the early morning as I get out of the car, pulling my bag out of the passenger seat with me. I forgot a jacket, the sweater and shirt not quite enough. I walk up to what used to be my front door and ring the bell, knock out Shave and a Haircut, digging my hands into my pants pockets for warmth as I hear Mom not-curse all the way downstairs over how early it is before she opens the door, starting a little in surprise as she looks up at me.
“Zach! What in the Good Lord's name are you doing outside at six in the morning? And without a coat.”
“I forgot my key.” I bend down into her embrace, kiss her cheek before she fusses me instead and shuts the door against the cold. “Hi, Ma.”
“Here, let me look at you.”
I twist out of her hands. “No, not now. I'm tired and cold, I need coffee.” Walking through to the kitchen, and she snaps the lights on as she follows me, her robe tight around her, slippers shuffling on the tile.
“Zach, let your mother look at you. Oh, your poor eyebrows. Look what they did to you.” Her fingers cup my face as I sit down at the kitchen table as she tugs me there, her nails long and painted a weird metallic brown as she slips under my glasses and rubs at the stubble. It evokes a vivid flash of memory, me getting into her nail stuff and painting mine all different colors, reds and corals and pinks, not understanding why she got so mad about it when I was careful not to spill any, or why Dad walked out afterwards, slamming the front door hard behind him. Then her eyes meet mine and I can feel the ice in my chest melting, this welling up of some deep sorrow that I didn't even know was there as she looks into my eyes and murmurs “Oh. Oh honey, whatever's the matter?”
I've never actively wanted to cry before. It won't come, a flood held back by some barrier as I shake my head in her hands. “I can't, Mom. I can't tell you, I just needed - I needed to see you.” I think of Chris in his oak tree. “I needed my mom.” There. A crack as my voice breaks a little.
“Tell me what's wrong. Are you sick? Is everything okay with your health?” All I can do is nod, rub over my nose with the back of my hand and stare at the floor as her hands move to my shoulders. “Well, that's a relief. Please, sweetheart, there's nothing you can't tell me. Not a darn thing.”
I start to half-laugh, intermixed with shuddery sobs that I can't seem to stop as I wipe at my eyes and rock my chair onto its back legs. “Come on, that's not true.”
“Yes, it is.” She pulls up a chair around the table to sit across from me, taking my right hand in hers. “You and Joe, you're a part of me, and that I ever gave you cause to think otherwise is something only God himself could ever forgive me for.” Her voice catches, her hand coming up to stroke across my cheek. “I love you and I am so proud of you. All of you, every part. You understand that?”
I nod again, compressing my lips and staring at the ceiling, trying to pull it all back in, her hands so warm on mine again, so small and dry. “Zach, please tell me what's wrong, because I've never seen you look so broken before, even all that time you were sick.” She stands, puts her arms around me a little awkwardly where I'm sitting and instinct drives my hands around her, my face into her pillowy stomach, soft under the fleecy robe as I hold on tight, feeling the words rising in my throat, pushing their way out like they're alive.
“I love him, Mom. I love him so much that it hurts.” Her fingers tighten on my hair and the tears come and my shoulders start to shake so hard that I know I can't stop it. Then she starts to rock me back and forth as I cry into her stomach like I did a hundred times as a little kid, shushing me and petting through my hair like she has all the time in the world.
I've never told her that I don't like marshmallows in my hot chocolate. They go all gummy and weird before they melt, it's gross, but she always did it as a special treat so I never had the heart to say I didn't want them. Not like I would've with anyone else. So I swirl the mug around, watching them disappear into a white foam that eventually begins to disperse as Mom calls into work and says she should be back in tomorrow, hanging up and glaring at the phone in a snot.
“Some people don't have the manners they were born with.”
“Go to work. I'll be okay, I'll soak in the tub and read, or something. I could do with some more sleep.”
“Then you go ahead and do all that, but I'm going to be right here in case you need me.”
“Mom -”
“Oh, indulge me. It's been forever since anyone's needed me.”
I reach across the table and squeeze her hand. “That's not true.”
She rubs over my fingers then pulls back, taking a sip of her own drink. “Can we talk more about this now? Or do you want to rest up.”
“I don't know, Ma. I'm pretty tired.”
“It's just, I thought -” She pauses, frowns like she's wondering if she should said what's coming next. “Joe said you'd broken up with your boyfriend. Some time ago, so this is all a little surprising.”
“You talk to Joe about me? About my private life?” Mom flushes a little, looking down at her fingers where they're wrapped around her coffee cup.
“After that fight we had, I never felt right asking you myself.”
“I didn't realize you'd want to know.”
“Of course I wanted to know. No matter how narrow-minded you may think I am, you should realize that I'm thinking of you and wanting the best for you. Always, no matter what.”
“Okay.” I take a drink, it's not so bad. A little sweet. “Don't go behind my back and I'll tell you what's going on with me. With guys.”
“Alright then.” Mom nods, like the decision's been made and put away.
“And you won't give me a hard time?”
“I'm your mother, Zachary, I'm going to give you my opinion and, if I think you need to hear something, I'll say it. You've changed so much and sometimes it's like I'm not sure I know you any more, not the real you, I only get to see the Zach that you want me to. It worries me.”
“Mom, not the guilt trip, not now. Everything's great, I swear to - I swear on my life. Everything's working out, finally. It's this one guy, that's all. If I could forget about him, my life would be pretty much perfect, but I just, I can't. It's why I split up with Matt, there's no point trying to be with anyone else anymore. I can't get him out of my head.”
“Maybe you're not supposed to.”
Her voice has changed, lost some of its weight, softer as she traces the patterns in the tablecloth with a fingertip. Her eyes are focused somewhere I can't see, somewhere not in the room with us.
“I'm not sure I understand.”
“Perhaps he's meant to be in your head. Perhaps he's supposed to be a part of you. Do you know that I loved your father? I loved him with all my heart, and he loved me too. The Lord knows we didn't have a perfect marriage and there's things I regret, things that I would've had different. But he was part of me and he still is, he always will be. You meet someone, a special person, and it all clicks into place. Like, I don't know. Like that glue that's supposed to be stronger than wood, that one on TV with the nails? You glue two pieces of wood together and the bond between them is stronger than the pieces themselves. That's how it was with your dad. I met him, and we were stuck together for good, no matter how wrong or right that was, or how imperfectly we fit.”
She looks at me, her eyes watery but her smile is steady, her hands folded calmly in front of her on the table top. “And look what my imperfectly stuck-together marriage got me - the memory of a man I'll carry in my heart for the rest of my life, and the two most beautiful children any mother was ever blessed with. Maybe the reason you can't get this man out of your heart is because he's already stuck to you, Zach, and that's something to be thankful for.”
I can't look at her, my eyes filling again and I scrub at them impatiently, lost for words, unable to think of a single thing that in any way acknowledges everything Mom's just said. But I don't need to. She gets up from the table with her coffee, kissing me on the top of my head, her fingers under my chin as she pulls my head up to face her. “I'm not stupid, sweetheart. I know more than you think I do. Go get some rest, we'll talk more later.”
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