He texts back, Yep.
I text him again. No kissing! Just talking.
When he doesn’t answer right away, I get a little nervous. But then the bubbles that tell me that he’s typing pop up, and all I can do is wait. They appear and disappear, and he doesn’t text back, and I start freaking out.
“I told Jerome I wanted to talk and not kiss, and he’s not texting me back,” I say kind of frantically to Callie and Deedee.
Callie rolls her eyes, but Deedee reaches for my phone and reads our exchange. She looks like she’s thinking for a second, but then she grins.
“He just texted,” she says. She hands the phone back to me.
Cool.
FEB. 1, 1:25 P.M.
I wish you had shown me how to do fishtail braids.
You did teach me how to do a handstand, and every time I flip my body over, blood rushes to my head along with images of how we balanced on opposite walls and laughed until our faces turned purple.
Tavia may not be on Hangouts right now. She’ll see your messages later.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Sent: Feb. 2, 7:23 a.m.
Subject:
Lately, it takes almost an hour for me to get home from school because I can’t drive past the overpass where it happened. Someone posted a picture of the street a few days ago, so I know that the shattered glass is gone, but they haven’t repaired the guardrail yet. I also know that the street is littered with teddy bears and balloons, flowers and letters, photographs and candles. And I’m not ready for that either. Even thinking about it makes it hard for me to see straight.
It also doesn’t help that I kind of lose it every time I have to get on any kind of highway—or any street, really—with more than two lanes. I have to pull over or call Willow or type out a desperate message to you to calm down enough to start driving again because I feel so out of control.
So I take the long way home because it helps me to stay calm. I put on some good music, and I just settle in, taking back roads that zigzag through the town next to ours, making almost a complete circle, stretching the trip from ten minutes to almost fifty. I realize this isn’t normal. But nothing has felt normal for a while.
When I get home at my new normal time today, a cop cruiser is in my driveway, and Dante’s pacing in front of his car, yanking at his hair.
My heart stops when I see him and the cops. I run toward Dante instead of the house, certain something else horrible has befallen someone I love, and afraid to face whatever truth might be inside alone.
“What happened?” I shout before I even reach his car, my hands already shaking. I’m thinking of Willow, who always takes the kinds of chances I won’t; of my mom, who drives more than an hour to work every day; of my dad, who got off early today and should be home by now, but I don’t see his car. I can’t stop thinking that someone else might be dead.
But when Dante sees me sprinting toward him, he doesn’t answer. He kicks his front tire and won’t look at me. He leans his head against the roof of his car and starts cursing under his breath. At first I think that he doesn’t want to have to tell me some new, awful truth.
So I take a deep breath and start to walk past him up the driveway toward the house. He reaches out and takes my hand, though. He pulls me to him, but still, he stays silent.
“God, Dante,” I say. “What is it? Just tell me. I can take it.”
But he doesn’t say anything. He stares at me. And when I say he stares, I mean he looks at my face, then his eyes travel down to my elbows and my forearms and my wrists, my thighs and my knees and my ankles.
His eyes change, onyx melting into molasses, and he touches my shoulders and hair and face with the tips of his fingers, like he’s making sure all of me is there.
“I thought…We thought…”
He takes a breath without looking away from my eyes. He steadies himself and starts again.
“You left school so long ago. I saw you leave. Your dad called me when you didn’t answer your phone. And I told him when you left. We…couldn’t figure out why you weren’t back, and you weren’t picking up our calls or answering any of my texts.”
And then I understood.
I haven’t told anyone except Willow about my new route home, and with her back at school, no one else had any idea. Not even Dante.
My parents couldn’t tell themselves that I was fine—those buttons inside their brains are broken now because of what happened to you. The nightmare has already come true once, so they know the worst-case scenario can turn out to be real. Your death gave us all an unshakable faith in that, if nothing else.
Dante swallows slowly as I pull out my dead cell phone.
“The battery died,” I tell him.
He shakes his head. “Dammit, Autumn.”
He doesn’t hug me. But something about his face makes me feel like he has. Then he blinks once and holds his eyes closed for a little too long, like he’s making a hard decision.
He leans forward and puts his hand on my cheek. We’ve touched so much since you left us, but never like that. I stiffen because I’m surprised, not because I don’t like it.
He asks me if it’s okay, for him to touch me like this; for him to touch me the way he had started to the night you died.
Slowly, I nod.
“I hope this is, too,” he whispers, and squints his eyes, like I’m the sun.
He only kisses me, but it feels like something else is happening. I’m instantly more grounded and less broken. At once, I feel less empty and more real.
It’s only a kiss, but somehow it makes me newly aware of every part of my whole body. Dante’s kiss makes me realize, without a doubt, that I’m alive.
But noticing so suddenly the rhythm of my own heartbeat, my own breath—and his—has its consequences. It makes me remember that everything about you has stopped completely, even though everyone you left behind is still going strong.
When he pulls away, he doesn’t look sheepish the way every other boy would after a first kiss. He isn’t looking down, or grinning, like he’s nervous. He doesn’t kiss me again. He just looks pleased; like he had finally confirmed something he’d always known was right. His eyebrows are even, and he’s standing so still. He almost looks…proud.
I start crying then, blinking too fast and shaking my head.
“I can’t drive by where it happened. I have to go all the way around. I should have told you,” I say. “I should have charged my phone.”
He just nods.
I wipe my face with my jacket sleeve and let out an unnatural laugh. “I’m so sorry,” I say, and I can tell he knows I mean I’m sorry for everything: our fight in the yard, the scene at the beach, today.
He chews his bottom lip and nods again, but he looks at me, like he can’t believe I’m real. I kind of can’t believe he is, either. I go up on my tiptoes, grab the back of his neck, and kiss him again, because whatever is happening between us feels like the only thing I’m sure of.
My dad must have looked through the window because a minute later, he runs from the house. He grabs me roughly and pulls me to him. He starts to yell at me, and you know my dad almost never yells, but then I think he sees my chin trembling.
“I thought you were with him, not answering your phone on purpose.” He shoots a look over my head at Dante. “I almost had a brawl with him, right here in the driveway,” he whispers into my ear.
We all start up toward the house together. My dad’s arm is draped around me, but I reach out for Dante without looking back at him. He grabs my hand, squeezes, and doesn’t let go.
Once my dad calms down and sends the cops away, I call my mom to let her know I made it home too. Then I walk Dante back out to his car. We kiss again, slower this time. Less like our lives depend on it a
nd more like it’s a choice we’re making together.
When I pull away and look up at him, his black eyes are filled with tears and all the words I know he won’t say. He tucks a thin strand of hair behind my ear with his still-bruised fingers before he gets into his car and drives away.
Inside, I finish up the sketch I’d started of him. I can see him so clearly that I don’t need him here to know the shape of his dark eyes, the slope of his long nose.
Then I close my eyes tightly for a long minute, open them, and start a portrait of you.
BRAM IS BORED so he tries to knit a blanket.
3,810 views | 7 months ago
“I’m a genius,” I say as I walk into the basement of Aden’s dorm. Aden texted and said we could practice down here and that no one would mind. When we walk in, he looks up from where he’s sitting tuning his guitar, and grins.
Nico is right behind me, and this is the first time all three of us have been in a room together, though we’ve been texting all week. Nico and I came up with the perfect band name on the ride over, but Aden has to sign off on it.
“More like we’re both geniuses, wouldn’t you say, Logo?” Nico says, and then he extends his hand in Aden’s direction. “Hey, I’m Nico.”
Aden’s grin widens. “Yeah, I kinda figured.” He stands up and crosses the room, grabs Nico’s hand, and claps him on the back. “Damn good to meet you. Been watching your videos. Your drum skills are sick.”
“Thanks, dude!”
“How long have you been—”
“Enough getting to know each other. You guys can make out later if you want to.” I realize as I’m saying it that the statement doesn’t have as much bite as I planned it to, for one very specific reason. It must hit Nico and Aden at the same time because they both start laughing: our band is made up of three gay guys. I get even more excited than I was a second earlier because, holy shit, that’s awesome.
“What do you think of calling the band Undying Light?” I say to Aden. I’m a little bit buzzed, but I don’t think they can tell. I was just so nervous about us all being together for the first time. We’re so good on paper that I’m terrified we’re not going to have that magic—whatever magic it is that makes bands work—and I fucking need us to. I need it like air. So I just had a little to take the edge off.
“Love it,” Aden says, barely even hesitating. “It’s perfect.”
“Told you,” Nico says to me, grinning.
“Fuck yeah,” I say. “Let’s play some music.”
We start by practicing a bunch of covers, classic songs that we, and everyone, knows. I throw out a line or two, and Aden picks it up right away. He starts strumming, and it’s like magic—that magic—the way my voice mixes with the notes he plays. And then Nico comes in out of nowhere and fills in Aden’s melodies with some crazy-complicated rhythms that seem to be made for the songs some of our favorite artists wrote years ago. We sound damn good together.
Next we play some more up-to-date tracks—singles that could be on the radio or MTV right now if we tuned in. These work too, and even when we have to stop for me to figure out what key to sing in or for Aden to grab a clamp or for Nico to decide what rhythm fits best, we still fall back into sync quickly.
I’ve missed this. Feeling the heady vibration of bass in my chest. And even without the heat of the lights on my face and the ecstasy of a fifty or a hundred strangers screaming words I wrote from memory, I suddenly remember that the stage was the one place where I felt powerful. Once I knew without a doubt that I was gay, I also knew there wouldn’t be many places where I could feel like that: like I could do anything.
Bram was right to love that shitty Vonnegut quote. Everything is so fucking beautiful, and absolutely nothing hurts. If you don’t let it. And with music coursing through me like the very blood in my veins, I take Gertrude’s advice, and I let myself feel it all.
When we’re about five songs in, Aden starts strumming out a melody that I recognize right away as an Unraveling Lovely song, and everything in me that was full of light turns stormy. I spin to look at him, and over the music, he shouts, “We’re doing tributes to our favorite bands, right?” He’s flirting, but now is not the time.
Nico’s into it too. He says “Hell yes” and hops onboard, kicking it up a notch with quick snaps from his snare and big booms from his bass drum. And I feel like I’m back in Rohan’s garage or worse—back at fucking Battle of the Bands, and Dante is pissed at me for missing his cue and Ro is desperately mouthing back to me the first line of a song I wrote.
Nico and Aden…They don’t know that this song is about Bram. That almost every song I wrote for the Unraveling Lovely EP is about him. They don’t know that I wanted to call this band Undying Light because Bram is like a flame inside my belly that won’t go out. They don’t know that I pounded three beers before I got into Nico’s car and that I chewed gum to cover the boozy smell. So they don’t know that these few bars of music are crushing my heart, like it’s in a garlic press.
“Cut it out,” I say, but they don’t hear me because they’re playing so loud. I say it again a little louder. “Guys, cut it the fuck out.” They keep playing, and I am not okay. I’m the least okay that I’ve been in a while. I don’t want to still feel like this; I thought I was done feeling like this. I don’t want them playing a song that belongs to me, Rohan, and Dante. That song being played live reminds me too much of all that I’ve lost. I kick the mike stand, and it slides across the floor. They finally stop playing.
“Jesus, L. What was that about?” Aden is walking over to me, and puts his hand on my shoulder. I’m so pissed, but apparently, I’m gassy, too. Before I can tell him to get the hell away from me I burp, and it tastes just like beer. I know it smells like beer, too. Aden gets a faceful.
“Whoa,” he says. He backs away, rights the mike stand, and picks up the mike from where it rolled across the floor. He looks at me, then back at Nico. “We’ll be right back,” he says.
Aden takes my hand and pulls me away from Nico, toward the door that leads outside. The sky is the perfect ombre shade of twilight blue, but my nails are cobalt like Nico’s eyes. The city seems quiet for once, as if it knows I can use a little bit of peace.
“Are you drunk?” Aden asks as soon as the door closes.
“Huh?” I say to him.
“L, it’s our first rehearsal,” he says. His voice is soft, the way it always is, and he sounds like he’s talking to someone he loves. But that someone shouldn’t be me. “Why are you messed up? What’s going on?”
I don’t want to talk about it. I just want to keep jamming out, feeling the music inside me. I want everything to be beautiful. I don’t want to deal with what hurts.
“Can we talk about this later?” I ask, and when it comes out of my mouth, I can tell right away that it was the wrong thing to say.
Aden sighs, so hard that I feel the air travel across the space between us and hit my face. His breath still smells like toothpaste, and it makes me want to kiss him. Because I’m an ass, I actually pucker up and try.
Aden backs away from me so fast, he almost trips and falls. He rubs his elbow, which banged into the door we’d just come through, and shakes his head.
“No, Logan. No. I can’t just kiss you and pretend like everything is okay. This band…it’s important to me. When I came to New York for school, I thought it would be easy to find people who took music seriously. But a lot of people who go here are so damn pretentious. When I met you, I was like, Yes. Here’s a guy who wants what I want. Wants it for real. But you’re not making the music your priority. Something is going on. And I think it has something to do with your old band.”
I blink. Once, twice, three times. With each blink, I realize something new.
I’m ruining the one potentially good thing in my life by being a total asshole.
I don’t deser
ve another chance, but he’s giving me one, right now.
I should probably tell him about Bram.
“I, uh,” I say. “I, um…”
Aden presses his lips together and opens the door to go back inside. He swings it wide and is about to step through, and in that moment, I feel the weight of what his walking away will mean: no band means no music. But then it hits me that what I’m most afraid of losing in that moment is him. Not as a bandmate or even as a guy who I enjoy kissing from time to time. Aden, I realize, is my friend. When he turns away, it feels like he’s cut me open.
“Aden, wait,” I say.
I start crying. And Aden’s eyes go wide because I’ve lied to him so much that he’s never seen the way I really feel about anything. Including him.
“I’m sorry, okay? Can you close the door? I’m sorry. I’ll talk. I’ll tell you everything. Just let me. Please?”
He moves his hand so the door slips shut. He walks back over to me, and we walk toward the street to sit down on the ice-cold curb. He bites his bottom lip. His eyes are so dark, and we’re sitting so closely together, that I can see tiny reflections of myself in them.
I swipe my arm across my face, and try to blink away the tears that are left. “You know that kid from my school who died? The one who was all over the news?” And when Aden nods, I take a deep breath and begin.
By the time I get to the part of the story where Nico told me what really happened the day Bram committed suicide, I’m sobbing so hard, I’m hiccupping.
“It’s so hic messed hic up. I’m so hic messed hic-hic up. And you,” I say. I look at him, and I can barely see him because the tears are coming so fast and furious. “You’re hic always so fucking hic-hic nice hic to me, even when hic I’m being a hic-hic dick, and I don’t hic deserve it.”
Aden crosses his arms again. I can’t read his expression, and I’m terrified about what will happen next. But he just drags his hands down his face and reaches out for my hands, which are trembling where they’re tucked between my thighs.
The Beauty That Remains Page 19
