Art House

by Charley Descoteaux

  Jess had been his best friend all through school and then his girlfriend and then his best friend again. They’d both been outcasts—he for coming out as bisexual in the fifth grade and she for her height and the “strange” food she brought for lunch. They also both had been bullied because of their parents, but for wildly different reasons. She had been born in Portland but had been asked all through school where she was from. Her answers had started getting her in trouble in middle school and had only gotten worse as she got older. Jess hadn’t come out until high school, which wasn’t the only thing she’d ever done better and smarter than he.

  Luckily he didn’t have to wait long before someone used their key card to open the door and let him in. He rode the elevator with three older men he’d never seen before, who tried not to stare at his bruises but did a poor job. Garrett knocked on her door, quietly in case she was asleep. If she didn’t answer he’d just sit in the hall until she woke up or returned home. But she did answer. Jess shouted incoherently as she yanked the door open and then stood there with her mouth open for a moment.

  “Is someone after you? Get in here.”

  “Are you alone?”

  She gripped his arm, pulled him into her dark studio apartment, and quickly closed and locked the door. She flipped on the overhead light, and Garrett shrank away from the glare, his back against the door. “Look at me. What happened to you?”

  “Too bright. Can we switch that off, please?”

  She leaned over the sofa and clicked on her lamp, and Garrett gratefully turned off the overhead fixture. The lamp was bright enough to show Jess that his injuries weren’t fresh while also not hurting his eyes too much. He hadn’t been light-sensitive for a few days at least, but the scratchy feel of unshed tears came close enough to that feeling to make Garrett shiver.

  “When did this happen? Come and sit with me.” She took his hand and led him around to the front of the sofa. She sat at the end closest to the little dorm-size refrigerator she used as an end table and pulled Garrett down beside her.

  “About two weeks ago.”

  “What happened?”

  “Chase didn’t—”

  “I know that. You may be working hard to be sure we don’t know each other, but I have met him before.” She smiled an apology and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, pulling him close.

  “I was doing some work for this lawyer in the West Hills, and her boyfriend thought I was sleeping with her.”

  Jess murmured something soothing and petted his hair. Garrett rested his head on her shoulder.

  “I wasn’t.”

  “I know, sweetness. You wouldn’t do that.”

  “I thought about it. I mean, I would’ve considered it if I wasn’t with Chase. She came right out and said she wanted to.”

  “I’m not surprised. But you were, weren’t you?”

  Garrett shrugged. He was. It had been a couple of years at least since a woman had propositioned him. He didn’t want to think too hard about why that was, either. The guys still joked about him being pretty, but not as much as they used to, and he was pushing thirty….

  “Say. Does Chase know where you are?”

  Garrett shook his head and snuggled closer against Jess’s side.

  “Did you just up and leave him sleeping again? Because I love you, you know that, but that’s just wrong.”

  “Jess….”

  “Text him. Tell him you’re here and you’re okay.”

  Garrett couldn’t explain why he didn’t want to do that, so he remained quiet.

  “You’re a sweet guy, Garry, and you love him—”

  Garrett couldn’t help but snort a little at her assessment of him as sweet. At least he knew better than to call himself an asshole while sitting on Jess’s sofa. He already hurt in enough places, and he didn’t need her punching his arm like she usually did when he said that. She probably wouldn’t, not while he still wore the evidence he’d gotten his ass kicked, but he wasn’t in the mood to push his luck.

  “And he loves you. I know what you’re thinking, that he shouldn’t, that he’ll wise up and stop. But if he hasn’t yet, I don’t think he will.”

  When he didn’t say anything for a long time, Jess reached into the fridge and pulled out a beer. After drinking half in one long pull, she handed it to Garrett. He sipped carefully. His stomach threatened to reject even that much, so he passed it back.

  “If you don’t at least tell him where you are, I can’t let you stay. It’s not right, baby. Either text him or go home. I’ve missed you—” She squeezed her arm around his shoulders and kissed the top of his head. “—but you should be talking to Chase about what’s making you want to run away. Not to me.”

  Garrett groaned softly and slid down into the old, comfortably overstuffed sofa. Jess had lived in the same studio apartment since six months after they graduated from high school—it had taken that long to rise to the top of the waiting list at the subsidized building—and Garrett had helped her move in. He’d spent many nights on the sleeper sofa, cuddling with his BFF and pretending the rest of the world had disappeared.

  “Come on, give me your phone.” He hadn’t removed his jacket before dropping onto the couch, and Jess patted his pockets as she held him fast with her strong arm around his shoulders. “You say the words and I’ll text them to Chase. And then we can talk or watch a movie or just get shit-faced drunk.”

  He didn’t try to stop her when she took his phone, and was rewarded with a smile.

  “Here, eat half of one of these. It’ll take the edge off.” She handed him a small plastic container with three chocolate chip cookies inside. After a quick squeeze, she took her arm from his shoulders.

  “Edibles?”

  “Yep. It’s good shit too, so only half.” She looked up from his contact list and pointed a finger at him. “I’m zapping your anxiety but not your ability to talk, got it?”

  “Got it.” Garrett broke a cookie in half and replaced the lid. He nibbled as he put the container on the coffee table. He had designs on at least the other half of that cookie and didn’t want it going far.

  “What do you want to say?” She held his phone, thumbs poised over the keyboard, a message window open on the screen.

  Garrett’s heart flipped and raced in his chest when he saw Chase’s name, the picture he used on his profile. He shook his head and ate more cookie.

  Jess talked while she typed. “I’m at Jess’s. You met her once: tall, long black hair, memorable nose. I’m okay. See you soon. Love, G.”

  “Don’t say that, the ‘see you soon’ part.”

  She frowned at him for a long time and then deleted the offending sentence. “I’m keeping the love, so don’t even try to go there.”

  He knew he was being childish, but that didn’t stop him from stuffing the rest of the cookie into his mouth and flopping against the back of the couch. Garrett closed his eyes and tried not to think of Chase at the condo, getting the text. “He’ll know I didn’t write that.”

  The answering ping came faster than Garrett expected. Jess reading it aloud, he knew to expect.

  “You’re unforgettable, J. Thanks. Sorry, G. Love back.”

  When Garrett turned away from her and curled into a ball, Jess hugged him. He heard what sounded like his phone coming to rest on the fridge, and then she wrapped him up tight, pulled him close, and spooned her body around his. And then she waited. She waited for a long time, as he knew she would.

  “I got this job, painting advertising murals on the sides of buildings downtown—”

  “No.” She groaned. Another kiss on his hair didn’t soften the sting that she was disappointed in him. He deserved it for taking a job like that, for selling out, but still hated it. “You were up on one of those scaffolds, weren’t you?”

  “And he saw me doing that—selling out in broad daylight where anyone could see. He flipped out.”

  “Wait. What? He—what happened?”

  He wished he had eaten all
three cookies, because every muscle in his body felt tight and shaky and all he wanted to do was lie in Jess’s arms and have a good cry. Or get the fuck over it. “Can’t we get to the shit-faced part now?”

  “Soon. Tell me what happened, and then we’ll work on shit-faced.”

  Garrett took a long, shaky breath and started to speak. “I got that job a few weeks ago. Before I got my ass kicked. Just on a trial basis, but if it worked out then maybe….” He couldn’t keep from shuddering. The thought of painting the equivalent of billboards on the sides of beautiful old buildings made him a little sick. “It wasn’t too bad, like a giant paint-by-number that someone else drew—”

  “Gads, that sounds horrible.”

  “I know. But the money isn’t bad. And it’s much closer to h—the condo than the lawyer’s house was. Anyway. I was up there, and then someone started shouting, and we all looked down—there were four of us altogether—we all looked down, and it was Chase. He made a scene, and I had to leave.”

  “You’re leaving something out.”

  He snorted. “I’m leaving a lot out.”

  “So stop that. There’s more cookie in it for you.”

  “I’m not a dog. Or a child.”

  “Maybe not, but you want that cookie as much as I want one. Damn, I wish we could smoke in here.”

  “You’ll get yourself evicted if you keep tripping the smoke alarm and making everyone evacuate.”

  Jess laughed bitterly. “Nobody leaves when that thing goes off. If this place ever burns, we’re all going with it.”

  “You’re just trying to make me talk more.”

  “That’s one way to shut me up, baby.”

  Garrett sighed. It was longer and more drawn out than he’d thought when he started, but he wasn’t looking forward to this. “One thing he said might not have been wrong.”

  “It’s always dangerous when you start sounding generous.”

  “Shut up.” He uncurled from his fetal position, and Jess kept her arms around him while he got comfortable. They both put their feet up on the coffee table, and he crossed his outside leg over his own and one of hers before going on. “Ever since I got my ass kicked—”

  “I wish you’d stop saying that.”

  “I thought you wanted me to talk.” He waited for a few seconds and then went on. “Ever since two weeks ago I’ve been getting dizzy. I had a concussion, and that’s one of the perks. It’s like when we hiked to the top of Multnomah Falls and looked down, except sometimes I get it when I’m not even standing. Or moving.”

  She thought for a moment and then jerked, almost as though she’d just experienced vertigo. “So, let me get this straight. You had a concussion two weeks ago and are still feeling it, and somehow it seemed like a good idea to go up—what, two stories, three?—on narrow scaffolding. If I saw that I would have yelled at you too.”

  “No.” Garrett’s voice sounded tiny even to himself. “You wouldn’t.”

  “Okay, maybe not.” Jess sighed. “But I’m afraid right now, and you’re sitting next to me, all safe. Do you remember sophomore year?”

  “No.”

  “Right. It’s easy to forget when you had a six-foot shadow.”

  “More like an appendage.”

  “You scared me. I thought you were going to hurt yourself. Don’t say anything. I know you thought about it, but I don’t want to hear you say it. Or deny it.”

  “Okay.” Garrett snuggled against Jess’s side and hugged both arms around her. For a few moments he let himself remember how depressed he had been, how often he’d thought about “hurting himself” but couldn’t since Jess was there. And she had always been there. It hadn’t been unusual for Garrett to spend the night at the Iravani house, but he’d practically moved in for the last three months of sophomore year. Until Jess was convinced he was okay. “Thank you for that.”

  “You’re welcome. Have you ever heard from him again?”

  Garrett shook his head. “I don’t want to either. What kind of a father gives a fifteen-year-old kid an ultimatum like that? Come to Germany with me right now; it’s me, or your mother and everything else you’ve ever known. Choose, choose! I didn’t even know him.”

  “You could have tried it out. Gotten to know him and waited to see what would happen.”

  “Because the men in my life had given me so many reasons to think men were decent human beings. It’s a miracle I ever looked at a man, let alone ended up living with one.” Garrett held his breath for a moment, and when he let it out he felt a little mellower. He closed his eyes and leaned against Jess. “I didn’t want to leave you. It wasn’t fair for him to show up after ten years and say that without preamble. He didn’t even take me to lunch.”

  “Asshole.”

  He almost answered with “like father, like son” or something about apples not falling far. Garrett hated himself when he ran away from Chase, when he ran away from life. How long could he blame his failures on his parents? Until I’m thirty? Fifty? “How close are we to the part where we get shit-faced?”

  “Well, I only have three more beers. How about we pull out the couch, get under the covers, and watch a movie?”

  “Call for a pizza, and I’m sold. I’m buying. Call Zappo’s?”

  “They might not deliver here.”

  “I’ll meet the driver out front. He won’t even have to get out of the car if he brings more beer.”

  Jess was already on the phone as she stood. Garrett opened the sofa into a bed as she ordered, and forty-five minutes later they were lounging against pillows, gorging on pizza, drinking beer, and watching episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000 they’d recorded from television onto VHS tapes when they were kids.

  Garrett fell asleep feeling stronger, like he might be able to go back to the condo—back home, back to Chase—the next morning.

  He didn’t get out of bed except to go to the bathroom for the next three days, and didn’t even come close to leaving the apartment for another two weeks.

  Chapter Five

  CHASE DIDN’T want to leave the condo, but he didn’t want to pay delivery fees for groceries again either, so he showered and sat on the bed thinking about getting dressed. It had been almost two weeks since he’d driven Garrett away this time, and the pain was getting close to unbearable.

  He went to the closet, but everything he touched belonged to Garrett and was too small for him to wear. The worst part: none of it smelled like Garrett. Chase was two seconds from pulling the hamper out of the closet and digging through it until he found something, anything, that Garrett had worn.

  Fuck, you’re a sad case.

  The growling sounds from his stomach inspired him to ignore the waiting canvas and pull on some clothes. After listening for a moment and hearing no sounds on the other side of the door, Chase left the relative safety—crushing solitude—of his—their—room and left. Taking the stairs felt like it would require too much energy, so he rode the elevator. Outside the building he stood on the sidewalk and thought about where to go.

  Fucks I give: zero.

  “Chase? Wow, you really let your hair grow.” A statuesque young woman with long, straight black hair and a memorable nose approached from the bus stop. “Nice beard. Do you have a minute?”

  “Jess?”

  “The one and only.” She smiled, and Chase almost laughed out loud, he was so happy to see her.

  “I have as many minutes as you need. Is Garrett okay?”

  “Yeah. I mean, physically he’s fine. Emotionally he’s a little wrecked but getting better.”

  That assessment made Chase feel even shakier than he had been upstairs. “Can we eat while we talk?”

  “Yeah, that seems like a necessity. You look like hell. Where were you going?”

  “Not a fucking clue.”

  “Then it’s your lucky day.” Jess took Chase’s hand, put it in the crook of her elbow, and started walking. “Just stick with me, baby, and I’ll get you fed.”

  “Okay
.” To say he was stunned would have been an understatement.

  “Have you had any coffee yet?”

  “Had nothing.”

  She patted his hand and led him two blocks to a hole-in-the-wall coffeehouse he’d been to maybe a handful of times, and sat him on a small sofa covered in blue-and-white-striped fabric. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

  Chase looked around, but everything looked just a bit off. It’s me. I need food and coffee. Or maybe the place was actually surreal. On a high shelf behind the counter sat a row of what looked like sculptures made from broken coffee cups.

  Before he could figure out if that was really what the sculptures were made of, Jess dropped onto the couch beside him. While he’d been zoned, she had put a steaming mug of coffee—large enough to classify as a soup mug—in front of him, along with a bagel sandwich of some kind and two sweet muffins. He lifted the mug with both hands and sipped.

  “Oh, wow, this is great. Thank you.” Chase meant to take a bite of the sandwich and then chat, but didn’t come up for air until the ham-and-cheese-filled bagel had been reduced to crumbs on the plate. The plate that had been painted with tiger stripes to match the giant mug.

  “Don’t you ever eat?” Jess grinned, but she’d demolished one and a half muffins and drank half of her own tanker-size mug while he ate.

  “Been busy. This is my first time outside in… what day is it?”

  “Wednesday.”

  “Whoa. In six days.” He wondered a moment where Bran was if it was Wednesday, if he was somewhere local or had gone back to Lincoln City. His brain had started to function normally—as normally as it ever does—so he also started to wonder what Jess wanted to talk about. “Does Garrett know you’re here?”