by Ariel Tachna
“So you’d rather we both be miserable for sure rather than taking the chance things will work out,” Linc said bitterly.
“What do you want me to say?” Kit snapped. “My life is here, not in LA or Portland or New York or wherever. I get that you have your dreams, but why shouldn’t I have mine too?”
“I’m not asking you to give them up,” Linc replied, straining to keep his tone even. “I’m asking you to help me find a solution that lets us stay together while both following our dreams.”
“I just… I don’t see how it can work.”
Linc’s chest constricted and his ears buzzed as he struggled to accept Kit’s last statement. He stood up slowly. “Then I guess we don’t have anything else to say to each other. I love you, and I’d do anything you asked to make this work.”
“Anything except stay in Lexington.”
Linc closed his eyes against the sight of the tears sparkling on Kit’s lashes. “Anything but that.”
KIT put on his cap and gown and lined up with the rest of the students for graduation. Even with the ceremonies separated out by college, he’d have to sit there and watch as Linc’s name was called, what with history and biology both being part of the College of Arts and Sciences. He hadn’t seen Linc since they broke up two weeks ago. Linc had disappeared back into his dorm and out of Kit’s life. Kit wondered vaguely how he’d done on his physics final. They’d kept working on it until their separation, but even then, Linc had been apprehensive about the exam. They might have broken up, but Kit didn’t want anything bad to happen to him.
He pushed the thought aside as they marched in and took their seats. That part of his life was over. He needed to get his act together and focus on his new job and his new life. His lease wasn’t up for a couple of months, but he needed to think about finding a place to live after that, somewhere that wasn’t a college dorm substitute. Somewhere that wasn’t full of memories he needed to put behind him.
He had a couple of weeks before his job started full-time. He could call Uncle Blake’s realtor friend. Brent would have suggestions for him. He could rent for a couple of years while he saved up enough for a down payment and then get a house he could really make his own. If he was lucky, he might even meet someone new.
That thought hurt too much to contemplate, so he pushed it aside in favor of going through his requirements for an apartment. He’d want it on the south side of town for sure, maybe out near Man O’ War Boulevard to make getting to work easier. A two-bedroom would be nice so he had a room to use as an office or for storage. He didn’t know how much work he’d bring home, but since all he’d have at Alltech to start was a section of lab bench, he needed a place for his reference books.
Maybe somewhere that allowed pets. It wouldn’t be fair to a dog to be home alone all day, but he could get a cat. They didn’t need as much attention while still giving him something to come home to besides an empty apartment.
He closed his eyes against the thought as the college president read out the names of the graduates. He zoned out as much as he could, although he cheered for his fraternity brothers and for people he knew through the tutoring center and his major. The other names passed in a blur until the president got to the Js. The crowd went wild when he called Linc’s name. Kit applauded politely because it would be rude not to, but he couldn’t even look up to watch him cross the stage. He didn’t want to cry at graduation. It was supposed to be a happy time.
Yeah.
Sure.
LINC sat on the bed in his childhood bedroom and stared at his suitcase. He needed to unpack so he could get to work. He might only be home for a month, but that was a month his parents would have to feed him, so he’d have to do his part. Owen had offered him more hours at the bookstore, even offered to clear out a storage room that had once been a bedroom if Linc wanted to stay there, but Linc couldn’t do it. Everything about working for Owen was tied up with dating Kit, and that was over.
Fuck, he missed Kit. He’d made it through exams and graduation, even managed to get a B in physics, but he’d been going through the motions, nothing more. He almost hoped he’d get overlooked for the draft somehow, but that would be giving up his dreams, which would hurt as much as losing Kit had.
Besides, he thought as he looked around the tiny room with all the beds crammed in, he’d made a promise to himself and his family, and he wasn’t going to let them down now.
“Linc,” Momma called from the kitchen, “I need some help.”
Pushing his maudlin thoughts aside, he walked into the kitchen to see a big tub of strawberries on the floor. “Yes, Momma?”
“Cut the green off those berries for me, will you? I gotta get the mason jars boiled so I can get all the jam made before the strawberries go bad.”
Linc took a seat and picked up the paring knife. “You want me to cut them up some too?”
“They can go in the blender whole. Just the tops is fine.”
They worked in silence for a while, Linc cutting off the tops and tossing them aside while Momma rotated the glass jars into and out of the boiling water.
“You okay, son?” she asked after a while.
“’Course, Momma. Why wouldn’t I be?” Linc replied automatically, then flinched. Momma’d know that for a lie in a heartbeat.
“’Cause you’re here and Kit ain’t,” Momma said bluntly. “What happened between the two of you? You seemed so happy when you talked about him.”
“We needed different things out of our futures,” Linc said.
“Like what?”
“He needed to stay in Lexington with his family,” Linc explained. “It’s just his brother and his two uncles that’s left, and he’s had too many people go away and not come back. I couldn’t ask him to leave them, and he couldn’t imagine staying together if we weren’t living together.”
“You coulda stayed in Lexington,” Momma said without pausing in her work. “It wouldn’t’ve been as flashy as playing basketball, but you got the skills to find another job.”
“And then what would you and Pop do?” Linc asked. “How would the boys pay for college? Or Ruth and Hattie? I worked too hard to get a chance at the NBA to pass that up.”
Momma turned at that and fixed him with a piercing stare. All of a sudden he was five again, caught sneaking cookies out of the stash for dessert on Sunday. “Lincoln Elijah Joyner.”
Oh hell, he was five and caught with his hand in the cookie jar again. “Momma” wasn’t enough for whatever he’d done to earn that look and tone of voice. “Ma’am?”
Momma glared at him like she was onto him. Then again, she probably was. She’d raised six kids. “When exactly did your father or me make you the parent?”
“You didn’t,” Linc replied, not sure where she was going with the question but knowing better than to not answer her.
“Then why on God’s green earth do you think it’s your responsibility to take care of us? Pop and I are doing just fine. We won’t never be rich, but I knew that when I married him. We’re happy. We got food on the table and family that loves us. The rest ain’t nothing but junk,” Momma said, hands on her hips. She might be half his size, but she towered over him right then.
“You work all the time. The house is fixing to fall down around your ears. Pop ain’t twenty no more. He don’t need to be spending all his time out in the fields. Why shouldn’t I help? And I know you ain’t got enough money to send James to school next fall,” Linc replied.
“I work because I’d rather eat jam I made than sell the berries and eat jam from the store,” Momma replied, “and the house ain’t going nowhere. It just needs a bit of paint, which your brothers will be doing this summer. As for James, he’s got an apprenticeship with a plumber in Hodgenville that’ll double as trade school once he graduates from high school next May. He’ll get paid enough to get his own place and get hours toward his license at the same time. And once he gets his license, he’ll have more than enough to live on. He’s a hard worker, b
ut he don’t have the same dreams you do, and there ain’t nothing wrong with either of them. You love basketball, always have, and we done everything we could to make sure you had the chance to play. And it paid off for you. You got to UK, you got a degree, and now you got a chance at the NBA and more basketball. We couldn’t be more proud of you, but we want it ’cause you want it, not ’cause we need it. So you decide what’s important to you, and let Pop and me worry about what we need.”
Linc nodded, picked up another strawberry, and cut the top off without really seeing what he was doing as he tried to wrap his head around everything Momma had said. He hadn’t known about James’s apprenticeship. No one had mentioned it the last time he was home, so it must be a new thing, but he hadn’t asked either.
He looked around the kitchen, spotless as always but so dated, the Formica countertops sagging and stained in places, cracked in others. The big cast iron stove Momma used worked just fine, but it had to be a hundred years old, and he wasn’t sure the chest freezer was any newer. Maybe they weren’t waiting on him to pay for updates and improvements they couldn’t, but they still needed the money, and he could provide it by doing something he loved.
TWO weeks later, Kit stood at Phillip’s side at the courthouse as they waited for the justice of the peace to call them in. Phillip positively glowed with excitement. Kit wanted to be happy for Phillip. He was happy for Phillip, but Phillip’s joy threw his own dark mood into sharp contrast. Phillip hadn’t realized, fortunately, because Kit would hate himself if he brought the mood down on Phillip’s wedding day, but Blake kept looking at Kit like he was checking on him, so he wasn’t doing as good a job overall as he wished.
When the justice of the peace called them in, Kit double-checked he had the ring and pasted a smile on his face. The ceremony wasn’t long, but as Phillip pledged his love and commitment to Marisol, all Kit could see was himself standing in Phillip’s place with Linc at his side.
If only things had been different.
Three days after that, he drove Phillip and Marisol to Cincinnati to leave on their honeymoon.
As he drove the hour and a half home, he lectured himself over and over that Phillip was only going on his honeymoon, not moving away permanently, that he had a home and a job to come back for, that he wasn’t sick or going into a war zone, that nothing bad would happen, and when the honeymoon was over, he’d come back. Back to Lexington, back to Kit, back to some semblance of the life Kit had always known.
His heart raced in his chest, and he gripped the steering wheel so tightly he would have worried about damaging it if he’d had room in his spiraling thoughts. As he navigated the twists and turns of I-75 on autopilot, he tried not to imagine all the ways even something as simple as Phillip’s honeymoon could go wrong. They were flying to Dublin in a few hours. Planes took off and landed all the time with no trouble at all, but not every flight made it. Crashes happened, engines failed or exploded, or something else happened and planes went down, killing everyone on board. Ireland was safer than it used to be, but terrorist attacks still happened. And then they were taking a ferry to England, and from there, a train to Paris. A train… under the ocean. What if the tunnel failed and water got in? What if the train crashed? What if the ferry struck something on the way to England and sank? What if—
“Stop,” he said out loud. “You’ll drive yourself crazy before the day is over, much less the whole six weeks. They’ll be fine. They’re smart. They won’t take risks.”
If only he could believe it.
And a week later, he watched in tight-lipped silence as Linc signed with the Houston Rockets as the first pick in the NBA draft.
“You ready to talk about that?” Blake asked after Kit snapped the TV off and threw the remote on the table.
“No,” Kit replied.
“Tough,” Thane said. “I’ve never seen you happier than when you were with Linc, even before, when your mom was still alive. Why are you moping in my living room instead of sitting next to Linc as he prepares to start the rest of his life?”
“We broke up,” Kit said flatly.
“Uh-huh. Tell me another one.”
“We did break up.”
“Okay, you broke up. Why?”
“Because no possible outcome of today would leave him here with me,” Kit said bitterly. “He said he loved me, but not enough to stay.”
“And you didn’t love him enough to go?” Blake asked.
“I couldn’t go,” Kit shouted. “My life is here. My family is here. I couldn’t leave that.”
“You know we’d never be more than a phone call away,” Blake said. “Sure, we’d miss you, but we’ve always known any of you could move away.”
“Phillip’s not going anywhere,” Kit replied.
“No, he’s just in Ireland this week with his wife,” Thane said. “Just around the corner.”
“That’s temporary. He’s coming home in a few weeks. If I moved with Linc, it wouldn’t be temporary.”
“So we’d come see you a couple times a year,” Blake replied. “And hell, we could open Skype on a tablet for Sunday dinner if you wanted. What’s really the problem here?”
Kit shook his head.
“Kit,” Blake said softly, “you don’t have to tell us what happened. If it’s easier to talk to Derek or Owen or Ephah or someone else, that’s fine. And if that’s too much, Phillip’s only a phone call away, even now. You don’t have to face this alone, but you do have to face it. You’re miserable, and even on TV, I could see the shadows under Linc’s eyes. You and Phillip helped Thane and me when things went sideways. Let someone help you now.”
Kit choked back a sob. “Everyone leaves,” he said so softly he could barely hear his own voice. “And when they do, they don’t come back. I can’t lose the family I have left.”
“Oh, Kit,” Blake said, gathering Kit in his arms.
Thane sat on the other side of him and wrapped his big arms around both of them. “You can’t lose us. Nothing in the world could do that.”
“Certainly nothing like distance,” Blake added.
Kit wanted to believe them with a desperation like nothing he’d ever felt, but his mother had left him. He couldn’t take that chance. He buried his face in Blake’s shoulder and let the familiar scent of his and Thane’s colognes surround him.
“I’ll be okay. I just need some time to get over it.”
Chapter Twenty-One
HE didn’t get over it.
Food held no appeal. He turned down more than one invitation to go out after work. He even begged off Sunday dinner, claiming a cold he didn’t want to pass on.
The only bright spots were the continued texts and emails from Phillip and Marisol with photos of all the places they visited.
A month after the draft, late afternoon on a Saturday as Kit was trying to decide what to cook for dinner, his phone rang, Phillip’s picture popping up on the home screen. “Phillip?” he asked as he answered. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know, little brother. You tell me.”
“What are you talking about?” Kit asked. “Everyone here is fine.”
“That’s not what Uncle Thane says. He says you’re moping about like someone killed your best friend. Since I’m pretty sure that’s me and I’m fine, I’m gonna need an explanation.”
“I’m fine,” Kit insisted. “Why is everyone up in my business?”
“Because you aren’t fine, and you haven’t been since you and Linc broke up.”
“He left,” Kit said.
“And you didn’t go after him. And don’t give me that bullshit about your job. He’s in Houston, for Christ’s sake. Even I know they have the largest research and medical facilities in the world. With your degree and your experience, you could find a job there in a matter of a few hours. So why are you sitting on your ass in Lexington moping?”
“And what happens if I go?” Kit spat out. “The next thing I know, it’s been months, years, and I’ve lost all touch
with the only family I have left.”
Phillip snorted. “Like you could get rid of us that easily. I’m your brother, Kit. Not some passing acquaintance who’s going to move on to other, newer friends just because we don’t live in the same house or city anymore. You can’t get rid of me, even if you wanted to. And don’t tell me you think for a second that Uncle Thane or Uncle Blake feel any differently.”
“Dad left,” Kit said, fighting back tears. “Mom left too. How do I know it won’t happen again? I can’t—”
“You can,” Phillip interrupted. “Staying in Lexington isn’t doing anything but making you miserable. I’ve been gone almost six weeks, and we’ve texted and emailed every day. Houston’s a lot closer than Prague.”
“Six weeks is a lot shorter than the rest of our lives.”
“You really are a stubborn fuck, aren’t you? What’s it going to take to make you get over yourself, Kit?” Phillip said, his exasperation clear as day. “Stop. Just stop, okay? Nothing you’re saying or thinking is rational. Do you love Linc?”
Kit barked out a bitter laugh. “You even have to ask?”
“I don’t, but I think you need the reminder,” Phillip replied. “Do you love him?”
“Yes.”
“Then get off your sorry ass and call the man. Tell him you were a selfish idiot and ask him if he can forgive you. And when he says yes, get on the next damn plane to Houston and don’t come home until you’ve found a job. Hell, don’t even come home then. We’ll pack up your stuff and ship it to you. You deserve to be happy, and you’re not.”
“And you think I’ll be happier in Houston without you and the rest of the family?”
“I expect you to be deliriously happy in Houston,” Phillip replied. “And I expect tickets to Rockets games when we come to visit. Which we will do, as often as we can afford it and Marisol can get away. Christmas would be the perfect time to visit, when it’s freezing in Lexington and all warm and sunny in Houston.”
