by RJ Scott
“Scott.” Jacob stood from a table and gestured me over. I took off my coat and left it on the hook and then headed toward him. Normally we’d all sit at the window, but maybe this table was one way of not letting anyone see that Jacob was meeting with me.
Did that make Jacob my only friend?
He fist-bumped me, then looked past me to the front of the shop. Before we could exchange hellos, the door swung open, and the cold blast of air reached us, even in the back, and I saw Ryker and Ben.
I wanted to run. Shove my way past them and just get away.
You’re a coward. Luke wouldn’t be pussyfooting around like this. Tell them you’re sorry. Then fuck off out of their lives. You don’t need anyone.
My dad’s voice in my head wasn’t a new thing. I was quite happy to judge myself by my father’s standards after everything I’d done. I knew I wasn’t Luke, not strong like my brother or brave or confident. Even with people I knew well, I was wondering what I was going to do next. Ryker turned back to the door, locked it, and turned the sign to closed.
“You don’t have to lock the door. I’m not going anywhere.” The inevitability of getting punched was strong, but I’d face it like a man. Or fake being strong. I was good at that.
Ben immediately stalked over to me, anger on his expressive face. “This is an intervention, and you’re not leaving until we’re done,” he snapped.
Ryker huffed. “Jeez, Ben, it’s not an intervention, dude. Scott’s already getting help.”
Ben shoved at Ryker, who stood his ground and rolled his eyes. Then Ben turned back to me, and there was palpable tension in and around him.
“It’s a friendship intervention,” he stated, and I winced. This didn’t sound so good, and I wanted to get in first.
“I’m sorry,” I blurted. “For losing my shit and hurting you.” I checked briefly for the damage I’d done to his face, but other than a faint mark above his brow, there wasn’t much to show, certainly not an ugly scar. He didn’t acknowledge what I’d said, and that hurt badly. All I needed was for him to say he was okay with it and then to tell me to fuck off. At least then I’d know where I stood.
“You know what they told me?” Ben said, and I hadn’t been expecting the switch in the conversation. Did he mean Jacob and Ryker?
“Who?” I stood my ground, despite the fact that Ben took a step closer to me. I’d already decided I’d let him pummel me a bit, just to get his own back, but my instincts were clearly having second thoughts as I stiffened.
“They,” he repeated. “All the people who don’t know you as I do. Dad told me to stay away from you, and Mom agreed. She said I should give you time, let you settle down, that I shouldn’t rush things, and I listened because I’m a good son, and I respect my parents. Then, when I couldn’t stay away any longer, I went to your place, and your dad said you didn’t want to see me. Told me it was all the team’s fault. So I accepted that at first, okay, because fuck you, I feel guilty I didn’t see what was happening. I should have seen. I went back to your place, and your dad gave me this huge speech about fault and reasons and how I supposedly was your best friend and how I should have seen you.”
“No, Ben—”
“Shut up, Scott,” Ben snapped. “Then, you see, I spoke to a counselor informally, and he said I should let you have Christmas because once you were back with family, then the last thing you needed was me up in your face, reminding you of how we all failed you. I shouldn’t text you; they all said that. My parents, your dad, the counselor. All I knew was that maybe you were in withdrawal or rehab or fuck knows what. Not that I knew a damn thing.” He poked me hard in the chest. “Because you never told me. I stayed away, but I’m done with all that psycho mumbo jumbo. You’re my best friend, and I don’t want to hear your apologies. I want to get back to how it was between us, but fuck it, I also want to work out where it went wrong.”
I was as stunned by that speech as I had been when Hayne had likened me to a white knight, and I didn’t know what to say to Ben either.
“We need to get back to normal,” Jacob emphasized and stood next to Ben, his arms crossed over his chest. What exactly was normal? “How do we achieve that? What can we do to help?”
Ryker moved as well, the three of them forming a wall between me and the door.
Jacob elbowed Ryker. “We’ll help you fix things,” Ryker said immediately, and I saw this for what it was, a choreographed speech that they had planned between them, which made me feel a hundred emotions all at once. I was overwhelmed with fear and love and all those little reminders of pain.
The three of them were part of the problem, even if they’d never meant to be. Ben with his perfect fucking family, and Jacob with his solid focus on the future. Not to mention Ryker with his charmed life and people who cared. All I had was Dad. It wasn’t as if Mom was present enough to care, lost in grief herself. I wasn’t the same as my three friends. I was broken, and it hurt so bad.
“I want to be your best friend, Ben,” I murmured. “Jacob, I want things to be normal, and Ryker, you can’t fix everything. I just need time.”
Ben clapped a hand on my shoulder. “It’s been four years since Luke died, Scott. I know you had your black moments, but I really thought that you’d somehow—”
“You thought what?” I interrupted tiredly. “You thought I’d come to terms with him dying? Or found a way to get past what happened? I wish it were that easy.”
Particularly when it was me who argued Luke should go on the spring break trip. Me who persuaded Mom and Dad, back when they actually loved me.
Ben shook his head. “I didn’t think any of that, but maybe I hoped for things. It’s just you never talked about Luke, and I thought for a long time that you’d decided to bury it.” He pulled back his shoulders and mirrored my pose. “It was easier to believe that than to actually be a friend.”
My heart hurt, and I reached up to place a hand over his. “And it was easier for me to let you all believe I was okay.”
“So what can we do now?” Jacob asked. Jacob was all about having solutions for problems.
What did I do now? Did I tell them I wasn’t living at home? That my dad had lied to Ben? Everything was spinning in my head, and I felt nauseous. I desperately wanted to get back to Hayne’s loft, just to sit on the mattress and watch him paint, maybe even get a handle on my emotions. What I’d felt last night on that blow-up bed was peace and quiet from the monsters inside my head and the people outside who I couldn’t talk to. In the grief group, Monica had talked briefly about carving time out to listen to yourself, about being selfish and making space to think. I hadn’t been listening to it all. In fact I’d been staring at the splashes of scarlet on Hayne’s jeans at the time. But some of it must have sunk in. There was peace in Hayne’s place. There was acceptance and no questions, and I knew I needed that for the next few days at least, so I decided to be honest and direct.
“Thank you, all of you.” I held out a hand to Ben, and he gripped it. “Ben, I’ll never stop being your best friend, but all I want to do right now is apologize, and I can’t get my head around everything, so can I just get some more time?”
Ben stared at me, then gave a nod. “I want us to get a coffee, tomorrow, here, same time, even if you bring a book and just sit there. Can you do that?” He appeared uncertain as if he felt I was going to tell him no. Sitting, with a coffee and a book, and just knowing Ben didn’t hate me was something promising.
“Yeah,” I said.
We didn’t stay long, splitting up, Ryker muttering something about how he’d never seen me read a book, and me cuffing him around the back of the head.
It wasn’t back to normal, but it was a quiet step in the right direction.
I just wanted to go back to Hayne.
What was it about Hayne that had me so twisted in knots? Was it grieving me who was clinging to his support and friendship? Was I confusing his caring for something else? I caught him peeking at me this morning, his smile soft,
his eyes warm as if he was seeing me and liking what he saw. For the first time in months I felt a flare of something back, for him. A poke of attraction that had been a small flame at first but was slowly becoming something more. I loved the way he moved, the way he lost himself in art, I loved his smile, and I wanted to kiss him.
I’d never wanted to kiss anyone as much as this.
How could I even think of kissing, and more, when my head was still so fucked up?
Because Hayne makes you think that all things are possible.
It had only been just last night, but there was a definite attraction, and it was becoming my happy place—an all-consuming desire that outweighed all the other crap in my head.
My cell rang as I was crossing the quad, kicking at the snow piling up on the edges, and all thoughts of kissing Hayne vanished when I saw it was my mom calling.
“Mom?” I answered and stopped dead in the middle of the path.
“Scott, darling, how was your Christmas?”
I pulled the phone away from my ear and looked at it in disbelief. This was some kind of twisted joke, right? My mom finally deigned to contact me, and that was her first question? How about asking me where I was staying, or if I was eating okay, or hell, anything but what my freaking Christmas was like.
I heard her calling, the tinny voice small as I stood in the snow. Slowly, I put the cell back to my ear.
“Sorry?” I asked because maybe I’d just heard wrong.
“We missed you at Christmas,” she said. And there it was again, a complete disassociation from real life. Same as every other day in Mom’s life. She’d never been present for me or Luke, but since his death, she’d found solace in drink and solitude, shut away in her room. I’d tried to be Luke for her for the longest time until I realized she didn’t see the world the same as other people.
Grief is a funny thing, an all-consuming hate, a fear that grips a person, a whole mess of lies you’d tell yourself to get through the day. I knew how she felt, and all thoughts of kissing Hayne, of actually feeling something golden in among all the gray, vanished.
“I wasn’t invited,” I managed to say, and I heard her tut, as if I’d gotten it all wrong that Dad had said he didn’t want to see me ever again.
“Your dad…” she began to say something which might have turned out as something profound, but of course it never went anywhere, same as always. I needed a strong mom. I was desperate for some glimmer of the love I’m sure she had for me, somewhere. “Anyway, never mind. I have to go. I have a facial booked.”
What?
“Okay, Mom,” I said, and then the call disconnected, leaving only silence.
That was the weirdest conversation, but I wasn’t surprised by any of it. By the time I made it back to Hayne’s place, I’d rationalized it all. Mom was losing her shit, Dad was a bastard, my brother was dead, and that just left me.
There was a note from Hayne saying that he would be late. I loved that he even thought I needed to know his movements, loved that he cared enough to let me know.
Am I just filling the void with him? Is he what I need? How much can I hurt him?
I curled up on my blow-up bed, determined to wallow in my grief, only something about this room, the scent of paint, the memories of Hayne’s smile, and the quiet way he connected with me refused to allow in the darkness.
So I picked up the nearest book, an introduction to biochemistry, and was soon lost in research.
And all the while, I kept an ear out for Hayne coming home.
Six
Hayne
“Hayne, tell me again what the inspiration for this work was.”
I stood beside Professor Poole, my idol, and the only reason I had come to Owatonna U instead of the Rhode Island School of Design. He was a petite black man with a pronounced limp and an inner eye that had created some of the most alluring expressionist art I had ever seen. His work had hung in The Tate, the Pompidou, and the Guggenheim. The Guggenheim. I dreamed of seeing one of my paintings displayed in the Guggenheim.
“Uhm,” I mumbled, then spit out the curl I had been mouthing. “That snowstorm two weeks ago.”
He assessed me from over the top of his skinny half-moon glasses. I began chewing on my hair again.
“Surely there was more to this work than snow.” He moved around my winter knight painting, his old, weathered cane tapping on the classroom floor with each step. “I’ve not seen this kind of passion in your work for quite some time.”
I spit out the curl, wishing now that I hadn’t hauled my painting to the art department for him to grade. I should have left it in the attic. Kept it as mine, holding it close so that when Scott left, I’d have a remembrance of the man who had moved not only into my space but had also taken up residence in my heart. The crush I had on my attic-mate was monumental. And sure to end in heartbreak.
“It was a powerful storm,” I told my professor. He gave me another look of disbelief, then paused at the right-hand side of the canvas.
“It’s an exceptional allover painting. The attention you gave to ensure that the entire composition reaches all four corners and that the paint and color swirls to the edges of the canvas is delightful. And here”—he lifted his cane to point at the winter knight in the center of the storm—“this bleeding of the colors speaks of a wise hand holding the brush. Too much pewter would have given the form a darkness that would have made the knight of the storm too present. The blending is superb, although there are some places around the shoulders of this ethereal being that I think would have been better suited to a fan brush or your fingertip.”
I nodded.
Professor Poole lowered his cane and leaned on it. “I’d like to present this to the Minnesota Museum of American Art’s executive director to see if she’d be willing to hang it in the upcoming ‘Winter’s Wrath’ exhibition.”
“Huh?” The curl fell out of my mouth. Professor Poole chuckled. “But I…”
“It’s by far the best piece of work to come out of this student body in twenty years and is your most inspirational and passionate painting. It’s a lusty, stirring oil that screams masculinity and vibrates with nature’s rage. With your permission, I’ll call Diana and have her drop by the campus to see it.”
“Oh, yes, please, yes. Thank you, Professor!” I grabbed at his fingers resting atop his cane to shake one, or both. Instead of yanking them free and making him teeter over, I squeezed his rough, dry hands tightly. “I’d be honored. Thrilled. Will she like it? Do you think? Should I take it back home and try to blend—?”
“Hayne, stop and breathe.” He gave me a warm smile. I started breathing again. “I’m sure she’ll be as taken with it as I am. I’ll call you after I speak to Diana. Go on home and locate that muse of yours. Whatever or whoever it is, you need to keep it close at hand.”
I ran to the door, bounced off the frame, turned beet red, and then raced out of the small art and design building. Speeding around the English building, I crashed into a big guy in an Eagles varsity jacket hustling along, head down, fliers tucked under his arm.
“Whoa, you okay?” he inquired as he steadied me. He had curls kind of like mine, thick but not as kinky. He was really pretty and had a nice smile, but that didn’t stop my initial fearful reaction to the big guy.
“I’m good, yeah, sorry. Oh, your fliers!” Several had escaped during the collision, and the winter wind was blowing them across the quad. We ran after them, grabbing them from bushes and snow-covered benches, one swirling upward in a whirlwind of snow, then gently floating to earth to land by our feet. I bent down and picked it up. “Sorry, here’s the last one.”
“It’s cool. Keep it,” he said as I held it out to him. “Maybe you and your girl can attend. It’s a booster event for the hockey team. Trying to raise money for a new Zamboni.”
“I know someone who plays on the team or did,” I said as I read over the leaflet. A Valentine’s dance at The Aviary sounded kind of fun. I never went to campus events. No on
e ever asked me, and if I did venture out alone, it always ended badly. Better to stay inside with my paints and my music. Less deep-sixing went on that way.
“Yeah, who’s that?”
“Scott Caldwell.” I folded the pink paper and shoved it into my backpack.
“Really? You wouldn’t be Hayne, would you?” I blinked up him. “We’ve been meeting for coffee between classes. I’m Ryker Madsen. He talks about you steadily. Says you’re an artist and that you took him in. Thank you for that.” Ryker then hugged me so hard my spine popped a few times.
“Uh, yeah, sure, he’s…” I waved a gloved hand in the general direction of home. “There’re things at home I have to do.”
Ryker gave me a randy wink. “Yeah, I have farming things at home that I really want to do too.” He nudged me with his arm. I stumbled off the path into a snowbank. “Oh, sorry dude.”
I smiled and began walking in reverse to get some distance between me and the big sporty guy. Even if he did seem nice, jocks can turn on a person like a demented Doberman.
“If you see Scott, tell him I said to bring those notes I let him borrow tomorrow!”
“I will,” I said, waved, and then raced home, throwing glances over my shoulder from time to time in case Ryker decided to come after me. One didn’t look like, act like, or weigh as little as me and not be paranoid in this world of toxic masculinity.
When I hit the foyer at home, I stripped off my winter gear, and up the stairs I went, eager to find Scott and tell him about the painting. I rounded the corner on the second floor and nearly went to my ass as my sock-covered feet slid across the worn carpeting. Craig stepped out of his bedroom, grabbed me by the arm, and pushed me into the wall. The back of my head bounced off the thin wallboard. When I tried to tug free, he tightened his grip on my upper arm until I winced.
