the boy who loved Wicked, page 21
Then I remembered the letter my father left behind for me, the one I’d been reading more often. Take care of your mother, Phoenix. She won’t make it easy, but do it anyway. And love her. Love her with the full extent of your capabilities. She won’t make that easy either.
“I’ve got some time after graduation before I need to move into the dorms. We could see some of these places together.”
“You’d give up your summer for me? I couldn’t ask you to do that,” she said, but the idea had brought her to life. Her eyes that were the size of infinity smiled, and her hand reached for the discarded bucket list.
It should’ve made me happy to see her excited by the thought, but the opposite emotion washed over my skin. My mom had been alone in every sense of the word. She’d worked hard to maintain what we had, but it had cost her so much. Parents had dreams too, parents were human as well. Parents needed love. “I’d give up anything for you,” I said. “We’re all we’ve got.” It hit me how true that was. I took her hand. “You’re always bragging about how much time off you’ve accrued.”
“I don’t brag.” She swatted my arm. “Are you sure?” She bit her lip, running a finger over the first stop on the list. “This could take us weeks. Months.”
“We’ve got time, Mom. Let’s do it.”
She thought about it, tapping the end of the photo against the table. “Okay. Okay let’s do it.” She set everything aside and stood. “I’ll call a travel agent first thing tomorrow. Now, let’s go get you ready for that prom. You can’t go smelling like you’ve been chopping wood in the sun all day, now can you?”
I brought my nose to my armpits then snapped my head back, offended by my own funk. “No, I can’t.” I’d been dressing myself and tying my own bow ties since I was five, but this was Mom telling me that she loved me, and it was enough for me.
Mom took a hundred pictures of us by the pool, on the couch, by the rose bush, and on the driveway standing in front of our waiting limo. The guys wore matching tuxedos and Theory and Jules wore champagne-colored gowns. “Mom, we’ve gotta go,” I said, laughing as we climbed into the limousine. We pulled off and Mom could be seen waving in the street until we rounded the corner.
Conversations spiked, and Theory took charge of pouring sparkling cider into flutes. Danny fidgeted with the music system with Jules’ help, and Mason and Juan discussed chess and mathematics.
“I love you guys,” I said, and all activity ceased. “Danny and Theory, you guys know me like no one ever will, and I couldn’t ask for more loyal friends. You guys got me through.” I choked up as my dad’s letter filled my mind again. “You kept your promise to him. You took care of me.”
“We took care of each other, Pheeny,” Theory said blinking. “And you’re going to make me ruin my makeup.”
I scrolled past Mason, Jules and Juan, who in such a short amount of time had become our missing pieces. I could’ve gone the rest of my life with only Danny and Theory, but me letting new people in was my way of taking care of them in return, my way of allowing them to fly without the guilt of leaving me behind. For some reason these people loved me. Phoenix, the guy who snuck in a few chapters in the middle of a party. It wasn’t my job to work out why people liked me, and it wasn’t anyone else’s job to convince me I was worthy. My only responsibility was to be true to myself and to love like tomorrow wasn’t promised. I held my fist out. “To forever.”
One by one our fists connected, and everyone repeated “forever.”
We’d never drift apart. Not if I had anything to say about it. Because I was the glue.
It was the day after graduation, and Mom had orchestrated a pool party at the house. I reclined on a lounge chair in my trunks reading Plato’s Republic. Laughter and splashing could be heard under the warm afternoon sun, and Danny’s shouted “cannon ball” brought an endearing smile to my face. I hoped that part of him never changed.
Mason clung to the edge of the pool, kicking his feet behind him, and when I could no longer ignore his stare from over the ridge of my book, I placed it face down with a sigh, removed my t-shirt, and trudged over to him. He kept his eyes on my chest until I sat near him with my legs in the pool.
“Maybe I can spar with you one day,” he said, resting his chin on his folded arms.
“Whatever you’re doing is working,” I pointed out. Mason had always taken good care of his body.
“Maybe I just want to sweat with you,” he said tongue-in-cheek, and I dropped my chin to my chest. We’d all been accepted to different colleges. Some of us a car ride away, some a plane ride. The closer the year came to an end, signaling the end of what we’d had this year, the bolder Mason got with his flirting. “Sorry.”
“We’ll still be friends, Mason. Out of everyone, you and I will be the closest in terms of actual distance.”
“What about in other terms?”
“Mason…”
“I know, I know.” He plunged under the water, frustrated, and resurfaced seconds later treading back to our corner, clearing his eyes. “You don’t talk about him, but I know. I’ve known since the Winter Formal. The way you looked at him in that bathroom when he said he’d take you home.” He shook his head, clearing the memory. “Only love could make you hate someone that much.”
I kicked my legs under the water, saying nothing.
“What if I had found the courage to talk to you before senior year started? Could you have seen yourself with me?”
“Yes,” I said. “Of course, Mason. Of course.”
“But Clark Kent got to you first,” he joked, his gaze regretful. I had no response for him. “You’re different.”
“How so?”
“I don’t know. Wiser, if that’s at all possible.” He shrugged. “You’re still quiet and pensive, but shy no longer fits your profile. The way you move now is different too. You’re in control of your body and not the other way around. You’re more open. More sure of yourself. You were adorable before, but now you’re fucking hot, Phoenix.”
I joined in on his laughter, leaning back on my palms. “You’ve changed too. I don’t know if you would’ve told me I was hot when we first met.”
“Yeah well, I’ve learned to not let my fear cost me an opportunity,” he said with intensity. “I paid a hefty price by doing so.”
I squinted from the burning sun and peered over to my book and sunglasses on the lounger.
“What are you reading?” he asked.
“The Republic.”
“Plato. Your favorite. Which dialogue are you on, again?”
“The Apology.”
“Ah. Socrates’ trial. Condemned for the injustice of inquiring into things below the earth and in the sky. For making the weaker argument stronger, and for teaching others to follow by example.” He sobered up at my surprised expression. “Another thing I’ve learned is to take interest in the interests of the people that interest me.” He winked, pretty proud of his linguistic gymnastics. “Got that from one of your scare-shares.”
“Yeah,” I said, choosing not to call bullshit.
“So. You and your mom are hitting the road tomorrow?”
We’d be spending the next six weeks before I needed to move into the dorms “globe surfing,” as Danny called it. “Yeah. First stop Paris.”
“The others will be floundering here without you. And they’ll be gone by the time you get back.”
I looked to the others now. Danny, Jules, Theory, and Juan played chicken at the other end of the pool. Mom manned the grill chuckling as Danny called for her to turn up the music. We’d all matured a great deal and experienced many things together. Now it was time for us to examine ourselves apart from one another. To embark on a new chapter of our lives.
“How about we go win this chicken fight?” Mason said, and I snorted, slipping onto his shoulders and joining the fray.
Chapter 21
Sebastian
“An unexamined life is not worth living.”
~Socrates
I sank to my haunches in front of Alex’s grave, running my fingers along the inscription on the tombstone. To our beloved Alexander. Until we meet again.
I dug a shallow hole and situated the flowers I’d brought, then pulled a photo of us from my inside jacket pocket. We were disheveled and sweaty after I’d had to grapple with him in order to take the photo. He hated taking pictures. After finally wrapping my legs around him from behind to hold him in place, I’d raised the disposable camera in front of us to take the shot.
He considered me through the photo. Chin inclined, green eyes daring, silently telling me that I would pay for this. But Alex couldn’t hurt a fly, and he didn’t have the ability to stay mad for long. I’d snapped the picture then stripped him of his clothes, through his weak protests, and made love to him.
Then my father had walked in.
Grief for me could be compared to being crushed under a house and pushing against the pressure, fighting to survive. Grief compounded by guilt was lying there and taking it, because I didn’t deserve to make it out alive. I deserved to be suffocated by it.
I’d had no intentions of getting past what happened to Alex. The idea made my guilt even worse. I found more peace in my suffocation than I ever did when faced with the opportunity to breathe. The words “what if” and “if only” were old friends of mine and welcomed me as such.
“I’m sorry.” I placed the photo near the flowers, then retrieved a business card from my other pocket. Dr. Kristin Abbot. “She says you would’ve wanted me to move on. Is that true?” I guess I expected an answer to carry on the wind. I laughed mirthlessly. “There’s a support group for loss survivors. I’ve been attending weekly. It helps to talk to people who’ve been through similar struggles.” I leaned in and whispered, “I’m choosing to believe that you wouldn’t want this for me. This never-ending pain that resides at the forefront of my mind. And so I’m here to say goodbye, and to tell you that I’ll never forget you.” My throat clogged.
My grief, I was learning, had become a way for me to quantify my love for Alex. I desperately missed him, and more than anything I wanted to feel connected to him. So I’d begun to associate my pain with a feeling of closeness. The more I’d hurt, the closer I felt to him, and subconsciously, there was a small part of me that hadn’t wanted my pain to go away, because it might’ve meant my love would go away too. But what we chose to focus on would be what we experienced, and it was time for new experiences now. Time to heal. “Watch over us,” I said, and a light breeze blew through my hair and fanned my skin. Alex.
“Sebastian!”
I shot upright in bed, and through the open door I could see into Emily’s bedroom across the hall. I’d started sleeping in the nursery to be closer to her after three close calls with the baby. One of which saw her waking up in a pool of blood. After that, Emily’s doctor had sutured her cervix and ordered her to twenty-four-hour bed rest for the duration of the pregnancy.
She groaned, listing to one side, a hand protectively holding her belly. I tore the covers away and ran into her room, falling to my knees at the side of her bed. “What’s wrong?” In answer, she pulled the white comforter away. So much red. “Shit, I’ll call the doctor.”
After hanging up with instructions to bring her in immediately, I wrapped her in a clean blanket and ran with her to the car.
I scanned the busy emergency room entrance for help, Emily’s arms clung weakly around my neck as I held her aloft. A nurse and an attendant hurried our way pushing a gurney.
“Place her here,” she said, and I did so reluctantly. The doctor approached at a fast clip, firing off questions as he checked Emily’s vitals.
I held her cold hand and jogged alongside them as they ushered her through the winding corridors. Her grip slackened with every second, and all my prior acquaintances with fear suddenly paled in comparison.
“He’s here, Sebastian. We did it.” Emily was colorless and fatigued but smiling from her hospital bed. “You can go be happy now.”
“I am happy.” I cooed at the bundle in my arms as we made our third circuit around the room.
“You know what I mean,” she said, her arms extended. I situated the baby in the crook of her elbow and brushed her wet cheeks with the back of my hand. “He’s here,” she sniffled. “He made it. I didn’t think…” She couldn’t finish the thought. Neither could I. “We’re a family, we three. We’ll always be a family.”
“Yes, we will.” I perched on the edge of the bed, bending to kiss his dark curls.
“Sebastian.” She used her courtroom voice. “You’re an honorable man. You got us through this, and I couldn’t have done it without you. But I won’t stand by and watch you atone any longer. You get to be complete. To come full circle. You get to have it all.”
I’d get to love who I wanted and have a family who would support and welcome that with open arms. A family that wouldn’t make me choose. I would get to keep my bunny. We were creating a new cycle, Emily and I. “I love you.”
“I know,” she cried.
Thanks to Phoenix’s penchant for sharing, I knew that today he was moving into his dorm room weeks ahead of the fall semester. I couldn’t say what I was thinking by showing up there. That I’d walk in like so much time hadn’t passed and expect us to pick up where we left off? My brain wasn’t firing on all cylinders. I blamed it on lack of sleep. That had to be the reason why I sprinted here with no thought for the reasons why I shouldn’t have. Why I found myself in the hall outside of his room with my back plastered to the tiled wall and my heart sliding down my sleeve.
Phoenix and Mason were positioned in an embrace, and I narrowly resisted the urge to barge in and separate them by their shirt collars. Right when I began to give the idea second thoughts, I heard his mother’s voice coming from the bathroom.
“Don’t you two look adorable.”
Phoenix groaned and Mason laughed, but I sagged against the wall holding my chest as she went on about how cute a pair they made. Of course they did. They were the same age, I was nearing the finish line of my thirties. They had their whole lives ahead of them, I now had a newborn. Their nights would involve partying and impulsive decisions. My days would be planned down to the minute and revolve around my son’s needs.
“Pheeny?” his mother asked with concern. “What’s wrong?”
Footsteps sounded and I made it around the corner of the hall by the skin of my teeth.
“What’s gotten into you?” she asked, and he shushed her. I could hear his heart calling me from where I waited a mere few feet away. I chanced a peek in time to see him take off in the opposite direction, his neck craning into every open doorway, searching for something. I tapped the back of my head against the wall before exiting through the stairwell.
Crossing the campus lawn, I drew up short at the sound of my name being yelled. Phoenix jogged over to me, out of breath. And I would’ve offered him mine but I seemed to be on empty as well. Still so beautiful. He wore skinny cutoff denim shorts and a t-shirt that contoured to his chest muscles, and his cropped hair appeared blond under the sunlight. He slowed in front of me and neither of us spoke.
There was an unavoidable awkwardness that came from there being no middle ground. I wanted to crush him against me, and also play it cool. To wait for a sign. And maybe he was feeling the same way. Did we act like nothing had changed? Did we behave as if everything had? I didn’t have the answers nor voiced the questions for fear of what the answers may have been.
Of course those were all delusional thoughts. Thoughts for if we were in another time, another place. Because in this place, in this time, not finding a middle ground could cost us greatly.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi.”
“Ah, you were in the dorms.” He pitched a thumb over his shoulder.
“No.”
“Oh.” He crossed his arms, with a look that said it hadn’t been a question.
“Yes, I was,” I said like I’d just remembered. “I had some documents to pick up.” I made a show of holding out the folder I held. “Didn’t see any harm in stopping by to say hello, but you were otherwise occupied.” I was proud of myself for not exaggerating the last word.
He was so close. All it would’ve taken was an outstretched hand to have his delicate skin under the warmth of my fingertips. His mouth parted as he stared down at said traitorous appendage. I dropped it to my side, sliding it into my pocket as an extra precaution. I hadn’t realized it’d been on its way to him.
“How’d you know I was here?”
Mason’s arrival saved me from having to answer. “Mr. Wicked?”
“Hello, Mr. Jones,” I said. He stopped next to Phoenix, at least five inches taller than him, and full of life. I immediately felt old, my bones ached an affirmative.
“I...had no idea you taught here.” He eyed the folder with the school’s emblem in my hand. Maybe they weren’t so close after all. A tense silence developed as Phoenix and I stared at one another. “I’ll wait for you in the car,” Mason said before leaving us alone again.
“We’re just friends,” Phoenix whispered, and I wasn’t sure what type of outward reaction was appropriate, so I said nothing. “Mason and my mom helped me move in. She had to get back to work, but we’re heading over to the campus open mic on the south lawn. Mason’s crashing it.”
“Sounds like fun.”
“You should come,” he said, blue eyes sparkling, caught in the shifting of the sun.
