All That Is Solid Melts Into Air

by Christopher Koehler

  So when Lodestone walked up with a certain devastatingly handsome and incredibly aggravating Cap City rower in tow, I was already wary, with a glare capable of pulverizing granite at the ready.

  “A word with you, Mr. Babcock, if you please?”

  Steve waved me away. “You might as well, Remy. You’ve had the most fascinating weekend of any of us. I think I speak for everyone in our boat, however, when I say that we all want the details.”

  “I’m almost positive I can make you regret those words,” I muttered.

  While Michael looked positively mutinous, Lodestone only said, “Thanks, Remy. Hopefully this won’t take long.” He led us over to a set of picnic tables far enough away from any rowers to avoid fueling the inevitable networks of gossip. Seriously, rowers gossiped worse than any demographic I knew of. Social media meant it would spread to the entire regatta within twenty minutes tops.

  “Look, the two of you need to work this out or set it aside. I refuse to let this travel back to Sacramento.” Lodestone more or less forced us to sit by pushing down on our shoulders. “Remy, I know you’d sworn you’d deal with this, but your efforts didn’t look all that successful from what I saw and heard. Michael, you’re a senior in high school and about to leave the gentlemen’s crew, and frankly, I expect better of you—”

  “You can’t talk to us—”

  I smiled slowly, maybe a little ruefully. I put my hand on his arm. “Michael, he can, and he’s right.”

  I wondered if Michael was aware he’d said “us”? It gave me hope he still thought there was an “us.” I wanted there to be an “us.” Based on the glint in Lodestone’s eye, visible to me despite his sunglasses, so did he. My respect for that man knew no bounds, and things like this were one of the reasons why.

  Michael might not have realized how expertly Lodestone manipulated us, but I did. Had I been manipulated if I saw it happening? Whatevs. Lodestone had played Michael like a virtuoso, and I couldn’t even applaud. I’d text Lodestone later.

  I felt Michael settle under my hand. Interesting.

  Michael looked at his phone. “We don’t really have the time to talk now, you know.”

  “I know. Can we get together back home? That’s where the hard work will have to happen anyway.” Lodestone appeared disinterested, but I knew him very well. He all but vibrated in place.

  Michael nodded. “Yes, but maybe wait until after AP tests?”

  “Fair enough. I won’t ask for things to go back to the way they were, but, Michael? I insist on civility.”

  Michael’s shoulders slumped. “I’m sorry. This has been a rough time for me, Rem… can I still call you that? That was always our special nickname, and I haven’t exactly been a good boyfriend, or even much of a friend.”

  Michael sounded so lost, even a little confused. But he was right. He hadn’t even been much of a friend. I found that the sound of “Rem” on his lips didn’t sit well. For what it was worth, I still refused to call Geoff “Goff,” either, and he’d been my twin my entire life.

  “If you want to, you can.” I didn’t really want him to.

  “I understand,” Michael said sadly. “Some things have to be earned.”

  Then Michael looked like he remembered something. “Remy? I know how rude I was to you, but please don’t send any more musical messages. That hurt, especially in public.”

  Lodestone started coughing and had to excuse himself.

  “I see your point, but then again, that was part of my point, Michael. I’d asked to speak to you alone, and you tried to humiliate me in front of your entire team. I know a bunch of those guys, and that wasn’t suave. I’m willing to bet you won’t do that again.”

  “I won’t do it again because I’m graduating, but damn, Rem. Remy. Is this how far we’ve sunk? I never thought you’d do that shit to me.” Michael sounded more sad than anything.

  “This is the most you’ve said to me since we talked about our futures. Hell, this is all you’ve said to me, and let us not forget that conversation I overheard between you and my brother, so yes, this is how far we’ve sunk,” I said. “Maybe I ought to load up Scruff and have some fun myself, you know, so long as you’re cruising Davis High.”

  Michael gasped. “Damn your brother—”

  “Overheard, I said. You really need to check the area around you before you spill your guts. I was under a boat, stretching.” I stood up. “I think we’ve about exhausted the possibilities of this conversation. Michael, we’ll talk in Sacramento. Lodestone, I’ll look for the latest training plan in my inbox.”

  I texted Lodestone a thank-you as I walked back to CalPac’s boats.

  I HIT the water as soon as I returned home. In the meantime, boats had been rerigged and stored, and both CalPac and Cap City essentially wound down for the summer. Lodestone’s efforts to whip me into shape for the U23 trials, however, kicked into an even higher gear, but that’s as it should’ve been. Unbeknownst to me and Michael, however, Lodestone was far more of a meddler than any curtain-twitching neighborhood busybody. He had contacted our parents.

  “We’re adults. How long do you think we’re going to have to put up with Lodestone busting our chops?” Michael said as we left Sacramento behind.

  I shrugged. “He was your varsity coach and is still my coach. Probably forever.”

  I never found out what made the difference with the Castelreighs. Maybe Lodestone impressed on them how upstanding a person I was, or perhaps Michael himself had it out with them. In the end, I think what tipped the balance was that Michael himself lost patience, because long before AP tests, Michael and I headed up to a timeshare that the Castelreighs owned at Lake Tahoe for a long weekend. I hid my shock well. The Castelreighs? Letting “us” use it? To work on our relationship? That they hated? And skipping two days of school? Michael must’ve kept a set of dolls with pins in it. What could I say, voodoo got shit done.

  In its way, the weekend was like old times. Eventually. The drive was actually fun. Mountain roads in an Audi? Oh yeah. Teenage males in an Audi? Stupid. Fun, but stupid. German engineering totally mastered Echo Summit and semis ate our dirt. But other than that, the tension between us could’ve killed a small dog. Maybe playing Parallel Lines was a bad idea.

  The timeshare—the whole lodge, actually—occupied prime real estate a block from the Nevada border along South Lake Tahoe Boulevard and a block from the lake itself. Given the weather at that time of year, Michael and I planned to take advantage of the lodge’s offerings during the day—I couldn’t wait to try windsurfing. Kayaking? Meh. Why bother? It was half of what the two of us were used to doing. Maybe trail riding? We’d still have plenty of time to drag ourselves down with dreary conversations.

  When we checked in, we found that someone reserved us a one-bedroom unit. Alrighty then. Subtle hint, anyone?

  The first night, Michael and I got right down to it.

  “What happened to us?” I said.

  Michael sat next to me, radiating more anger than I’d ever felt from him. “Don’t tell me you don’t know.”

  “I really don’t know, Michael.” I sighed. “It’s been commented on many times by many people that I don’t ‘get’ anything that isn’t made of carbon fiber. Can we proceed from that? Please? I’m not a mind reader.”

  “Obviously not.”

  The next several days would fly right by, oh yes they would.

  “Uh… for starters, we’re not going to school in the same place. I mean, Boston? What the hell? Were you ever going to tell me?” Michael’s tone answered many questions I had no intention of asking. “Yes, obviously I wasn’t going to go to school in Boston, but Providence is roughly fifty miles from Boston. Fifty. That’s sixty to ninety minutes, depending on traffic. It’s even shorter via train, and we could study.”

  “How many times do you want me to apologize? Because if you’re never going to forgive me for that, there’s no point in me even trying,” I said.

  Michael stared at me, I guess dumbf
ounded that I dared to speak. He’d met me before, so I could only assume in his anger he’d forgotten certain essential parts of my personality. This would only get more “interesting” from there.

  “I deserved to know, dammit.”

  Oh lordy, he crossed his arms over his chest. “You’re right, you did. I should’ve told you as soon as I returned from Boston.”

  “Can you be quiet and let me speak?” Michael snapped.

  “Would you have applied to any West Coast schools if you’d known? Stanford? The Claremont McKenna colleges? Given the costs of the University of California, those’re supposed to be viable options these days. Maybe Willamette University? I’ve heard amazing things about it. University of Washington? Go Huskies!” My question cut right through the baloney, because if he had no intention of going to any West Coast school, then he was full of shit and merely wanted to fight.

  “That’s not the point, Remy!”

  And we had a winner.

  I looked to the heavens and prayed for patience. “Then what is the point, Michael?”

  “I gave up the best part of high school to be with you, Remy. Don’t you get that?”

  At least he’d stopped yelling at me. I’m sure the neighbors appreciated that. “Can you explain how exactly that worked? Sure, there were all those cute party boys you wanted to screw, which apparently you held off doing since we were together, and thank you for that. But maybe high school just was, did you ever think of that? Would your high school experience have been any better without me, or simply different? I thought we’d had some good times, but maybe not.”

  Michael stared at me, I guessed in disbelief since I hadn’t shut up.

  “Stop being logical!” he bellowed.

  Oh, that was just too too. “I’m sorry, what?”

  “You heard me, and stop that. It’s a delaying tactic, and I’m not stupid.”

  I—somehow—kept my temper leashed. Had Michael forgotten what I could be like? Or maybe he wanted me to fight back? Sure, hatefucking was hot, or so I was told, but I hoped that’s not what he was shooting for. “Of course I heard you. You’re screaming in my face. I’m also trying here. Would you please start acting like the grown-up the law thinks you’re going to be in a few months?”

  He gave me a look of purest hatred. “It’s all so easy for you, isn’t it? Wall off your emotions and keep pulling on the sculls.”

  “No, it’s really not, but my sculls don’t scream at me, and they don’t tell me we’re still together one minute and then refuse to talk to me the next, cutting me off for over a month.” There was a very good reason I kept a lid on my temper, because if I took the lid off, bad things happened. Michael might be bigger than me, but I was innately more vicious. I felt the R-bombs trundling toward the bomb bay doors…. “Do you realize how much shit I’ve put up with to be with you? How much guff my family’s given me because of you? How much garbage I’ve put up with from your family? I’ve got the transcript from that chat we had at Christmas. Want a copy? That’ll be exhibit A at your mother’s competency hearing, by the way, and yes, I know all about her antivax, antiscience bullshit.”

  I got all up in his grille, my face nothing but a mask of contempt, and I bared my fangs. I tried to take the beatings I was owed without complaint, but this? Oh hell, no.

  “Listen to me, little boy. The summer you couldn’t decide whether or not you liked me is the summer I cared so little about my life without you in it that I fucked anything that moved and got HIV. Because without you, it didn’t matter. Without you, nothing mattered. And you think I don’t care about you? That I don’t love you? That somehow our relationship has been one-sided and you’re some kind of martyr to my rowing? I hate to burst your bubble of whining self-pity, but I am not the author of your present misery. You’ve done that all by yourself. I took the best part of high school? Which part would that be? The part where your friends dry humped me on the dance floor at a prom neither of us had any business attending? Or the part where we were almost busted for drugs because they took molly? Or the part where you turned coward because you thought the Gutslinger was going to run right to your nutso parents? Or maybe the part where I showed you what it meant to be a man? That part of high school? At no point do I recall you putting up much of a fight, Michael Castelreigh, and at times you even begged.

  “So if you can’t come up with better reasons than ‘You beast, you horrid beast,’ then shut up or I will shut you down, because I’ve been nothing but loving and loyal to you, and the best boyfriend—the best partner—I’ve known how to be. Like that jerk of a character said in Angels in America, failing in love is not the same as failing to love, so don’t you fucking dare make them out to be the same.”

  I swore I heard clapping through the walls. Michael sat there, his mouth hanging open.

  I glared at him. “Don’t sit there like statuary. Say something before I kick a response out of you. Because right now? I hate the sight of you.”

  “I don’t even know where I’d start.” He laughed, but it wasn’t a humorous laugh. “Wow. Have you been saving that up?”

  “No, Michael.” I calmly gathered the spare set of bedding to make up the sofa bed in the sitting room. I had no plans to share a bed with him. “I’ve reached my limit. I’ve put on a cheerful face, and made allowances because I assumed you’re as afraid of your future as I am of mine. I’ve done everything I could to be understanding, but that’s over. Now? It’s on. Now you’ll see why my family and everyone else is terrified of me. You let me know tomorrow whether or not you want to do what we came up here to do.”

  I left Michael sitting by himself in the bedroom, adrift in a king-size bed as I ostentatiously prepared not to sleep with him. I closed the bedroom door because at long last, I had had enough. I heard nothing from the bedroom. Good. Maybe I’d shocked him into maturation. Lord knows after my diatribe, I’d be lucky if he still breathed. Sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Castelreigh, your son was being a butthead so I cut him down to size. I’m sure he’ll grow back.

  I bedded down for the night, lying there in the dark and wondering where I’d gone so wrong and what I’d done to make Michael hate me so much. Neither of us deserved this.

  “Remy…. Jeremy? I….” Michael whispered from the bedroom doorway. “Can we talk? I don’t know what happened to us. I really don’t, but I’m scared. I thought we’d be together forever and now? We’re not.”

  And whose fault is that? I didn’t stop talking to me, now did I, sugar?

  He stood in the shadows, arms wrapped around himself, like he was holding him because I wouldn’t. I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to cry. “Michael, I am so sorry,” I said, my voice thick. “I never meant to hurt you.”

  “Awww, jeez, Rem, don’t cry. You… you’re my everything.”

  He had once been mine.

  Now he was crying, too.

  I held the covers open, and Michael all but dove into bed with me. We held each other through the storm, shaking like leaves in the wind.

  Chapter 27

  WE WOKE up tangled together, more like a puppy pile than anything erotic. Morning breath never had excited me. I watched Michael sleep for a timeless now. Even in repose he looked bothered. “Tormented” sounded so gothic, but I could tell he hadn’t had a restful night, but then, neither had I.

  Michael opened his eyes, sleeping to awake all at once, and he smiled. “Hi.”

  Then realization dawned. I felt him tense up.

  “Still happy to see me?”

  “Oh, Remy. I’m happy we’re talking, but I’m sad at the circumstances.”

  He pulled me to him, and I went willingly, resting my head on his chest. “I know what you mean.”

  “Promise me something.” Michael kissed the top of my head. “Promise me we can talk this out and that we’ll stay friends.”

  Given that I’d thought we were still together up until the Crew Classic, that was an easy promise for me to make. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted, Michael. Maybe
sometime, when you’re ready, you’ll be able to tell me what happened.”

  “Maybe.” He sighed. “I have to figure it out myself first.”

  Frustrating, but since Michael had been honest enough to say it, the least I could do was accept it. This was progress. “Fair enough.”

  “Thanks, Rem,” he said softly. He knew full well I could go all grand inquisitor without notice. He ran his hands up and down my back in a way that made me yawn and stretch like a cat.

  Then he stopped. “You’re still wearing my collar.”

  “Yes.”

  Michael didn’t say anything for the longest time.

  “Thanks.” He was trying not to cry, which set me off. Then he lost his battle. We were such a mess.

  After we recovered, we started talking about inconsequential things, and then things that made us laugh.

  “Okay, I have to say one thing.”

  I craned my neck to look up at him. “What’s that?”

  “Don’t send me another album to make your point. Jeez Louise, Parallel Lines? And those track names? Thanks for not sending me ‘Call Me.’” Michael shook his head, but I saw the smile playing about his lips.

  I sat up and glared at him. “Why am I the only one who didn’t think of that?”

  “What’re you talking about?”

  “After I heard you rip my heart out with Geoff, a friend from the UCD men’s crew got me out of there and was sitting with me when I sent my little hint from Blondie. He told me I should’ve sent you ‘Call Me,’ too.”

  Michael grinned. “Face it, Rem. While you are an amazing and talented man, you can’t think of everything.”