by E. M. Kokie
I wait for her to yell, or cry, or whatever. I deserve it. But she’s not saying anything. I can’t actually hear her at all. I look at my phone to make sure the call wasn’t dropped. Then I hear something. She’s still there, even if she’s not talking.
“Shaun . . . I’m sorry.” Whiny and stupid, even in my own ears.
“Whatever. Listen, when are you coming back?”
“Tonight.”
“Really?” That got her attention.
“Yeah, well, I won’t get home until tomorrow sometime, but I’ll leave tonight.”
“Good.” She breathes out hard, like she had been holding her breath. “Good.”
“What?”
“Nothing,” she says, but it’s clearly something.
“What?”
“I just . . . When you didn’t call, and wouldn’t answer, I just worried . . . that you weren’t coming back. And that you’d just leave, and I’d . . .”
“What?”
“Never see you again.” Her voice breaks on the last word.
I am such a fucking asshole. “I’ll be home tomorrow, promise.” Even as I say it I cringe.
“I wouldn’t. Come back. If I were you. But if you were gonna leave . . .” She gulps. “And . . . I acted so stupid and . . . said all that crap . . .” Full out tears.
“It’s OK,” I whisper, pressing my fingers into my eyes.
Her face. Her smile. Everything she did for me, even after she was pissed at me. And she would totally be right here with me, right now, if I had let her.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I say. I can’t wait to see her, to tell her. And I can picture how she’ll look, like when she was reading the letters, but better.
She’s still crying, just a little, and trying hard for me not to know. I have to help her out.
“Couldn’t let my best friend brave senior year all alone, now, could I?”
She cries harder, and there’s nothing I can say but her name and shushing sounds until she calms down.
“I thought,” she says, still swallowing tears, “maybe I had screwed that up, too. At Stacy’s.”
“What?”
“Best friend,” she says, like that explains it.
I’m so confused. “I shouldn’t have taken off.”
“It’s OK. I was stupid,” she says. “And I know we’re not . . . You’re not . . . It’s OK, as long as we’re OK, still . . . friends.”
Friends. Like it tastes bad.
“’Cause I couldn’t stand it,” she says, “if . . . I mean, if you didn’t want to even be friends anymore.” More tears.
“Why wouldn’t . . . Shaun?”
“I’m really sorry,” she says.
“For what?”
She laughs. “Matt, don’t make me say it.”
“For. What?”
She huffs into the phone. “Look, I said I’m sorry. Can we move on?”
She didn’t do anything. Except wear that freaking insane shirt. And suck the life out of that candy. And smell so freaking good. And try to kiss me.
“But . . . I don’t . . . Shaun, I’m the one who bolted. I’m the one who should be apologizing, who —”
“But —”
“For . . . for . . . everything. I should be apologizing for . . . everything . . .”
“But . . .”
I can hear her breathing. I can practically hear her confusion, loud as mine. This is all my fault. I take a deep breath. Time to say what I should have said a long time ago, instead of sulking and giving her a hard time.
“Of course we’re friends,” I say. “Best friends.” I gulp down how much it burns to even think the next part, so that I can say it. “No matter who you date. I know I screwed up, by bolting instead of . . . and I know we can’t go back. But . . .”
The lack of sound is loud. I replay what I said. Something’s wrong. Did I screw this up again?
“Even if you decide to date Michael again, or whoever, I’ll —”
“Stop.”
“I can totally —”
“Seriously, just shut up.”
Huh?
Silence. Nothing. I look at the phone, but the call hasn’t been disconnected.
“Shaun?”
“Yeah,” her voice comes through from far away. I put the phone back to my ear. “Yeah . . . When you took off, I thought —”
“I’m a jerk. I should have waited, but I was worried —”
“. . . and you said you couldn’t bring a friend. A friend —”
“What?”
“You said —”
“Yeah, I know. And I know it pissed you off, that I said —”
“Matt! Shut. Up. And let me . . . let me . . . Shit!”
“OK.”
“Shit!” she yells into the air, away from the phone.
“Shaun?”
“When —” she starts, and then stops. I wait. “When you weren’t interested, and —”
“Whoa! No ‘not interested.’ Interested, but —”
“Matt! I was doing everything to . . .” She takes a deep breath. “Shit. I can’t believe I’m going to say this.”
“Shaun?”
“The shirt. And the makeup. And my stupid hair.” She laughs but it’s not funny. “Kara did my hair and makeup. Jenna made me wear that stupid shirt. They said I hadn’t been sending the right signals, and that if I just . . . That if you were interested, you’d want me to come with you. And if you weren’t . . .”
“Signals . . . and . . . Shaun! I had to go on my own. Had to. But that didn’t mean I don’t, that I didn’t . . .”
“But you said ‘friend’ — it didn’t feel right to take a ‘friend’ along, like I’m —”
“It’s not that I didn’t want you . . .” Shit. “Or want you to come . . .” Fuck. “I just, I needed to go alone. To prove to myself that I could do this, do anything, by myself.”
“Yeah, but I did everything but crawl into your lap! And you didn’t, didn’t even — friend, Matt. You called me —”
“Yeah, but not ’cause I didn’t want. I wanted. Hell, I had to get away so I wouldn’t . . .”
“Wouldn’t?”
“Wouldn’t . . . Shaun! You were making me crazy.”
“Crazy?”
“Totally.” The whole night replays in my head in flashes, but like with a spotlight highlighting things. Her hair hanging in her face. Her eyes all kind of sparkly. That insane shirt. The fucking candy. The way she kept looking at me. “Totally, insanely crazy.”
I can hear her breathing. She’s breathing hard. Makes me twitch. I go for broke.
“And I liked the shirt.” My face is hot, and I can picture it in my head. “Too much.” I swallow. “Feel free to wear it anytime.” Fuck. “Or pretty much anything else you feel like wearing.”
She laughs hard, for real this time, and everything gets hot.
“I’m sorry, Shaun. I’m . . . an idiot.”
“Yes, you are,” she says, her voice deeper. Damn, I want to kiss her. I’d kiss her right now if she were here. And if she had that shirt on . . . Shit. There are so many things to say, and none of them sounds right, not now, over the phone. And my brain’s a little blood deprived. I pinch the skin between my thumb and finger. Take a breath. “So, uh . . . my dad came to your house? What, uh . . . ?”
“It was actually OK,” she says, returning to normal. “I mean, a little weird, and at first I was kind of freaked, but he was . . . it was . . . OK.”
“Was he pissed?”
“He’s upset,” she says carefully, “worried.”
“Yeah, I’m sure.”
“You know I’m not a fan, but he seemed really worried more than anything else.”
“What’d you tell him?”
“I didn’t say much. My dad told him you were definitely coming back, because you had my car, and that I had talked to you every day and you were fine.”
“He did?” I’m surprised her dad would lie for me.
“Yeah. I didn’t tell
Mom and Dad that you were blowing off my calls.”
“Oh.” The guilt trickles through me. Even pissed, and worried, she protected me. “Thanks.”
I can practically hear the questions swirling around her brain. I don’t even know where to start.
“Matt? What happened? You were so excited and then . . .”
“I . . . Shaun . . . I can’t. I just . . .” I clamp down. Wait. Breathe. “There so much to tell you. And I will.” I’ll tell her everything. Well, almost everything. “Just . . . When I get home. OK?”
“OK.” Her voice, somehow warmer than before, makes me shiver. “Take your time. I can wait. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m very good at waiting.”
There’s nothing to say to that, but this kind of hysterical laughter comes out of me from who knows where. It doesn’t even sound like me. She’s been waiting, for me, and I’ve been torturing myself thinking she’d be disgusted if she knew. So fucking stupid.
“Shaun?” I didn’t mean to actually say that.
“Yeah?”
Damn. “I, uh . . .” What? I’m sorry I’m so fucked up? I think if I don’t kiss you, I’m gonna explode? Please tell me everything’s gonna to be OK? “Never mind. I, uh, forget.”
“OK,” she says, then clears her throat. “OK,” she says again, more forcefully. “Just . . . drive carefully. Stop and rest if you get tired. And . . . come straight here?”
I can hear her smile. “OK. Should be midday. I’ll call from the road.”
I hang up without waiting for her to say anything else, scared of what she might say. Or maybe scared of what I might say.
Picturing Shauna, right now, smiling on her end, or dancing around her room, knowing I’ll see her tomorrow, knowing she wants me, too, makes me wish I were already home. Makes me wish all of this was behind me and I could just be with her, her clean, not-too-flowery hair smell, and her grape-candy mouth. The way her nose wrinkles when she laughs. How she feels when she hugs me. Sometimes she looks at me, and I can almost feel it somewhere inside. She’s totally gonna let me kiss her. I can almost believe that this time tomorrow, I’ll know how her mouth tastes and feels. Maybe she’ll let me touch her, if not tomorrow, soon. God, I want to touch her. Maybe she’ll put on the shirt, and then take it off. Fuck.
It doesn’t take more than a few minutes to toss all my stuff into my duffel bag and backpack. All packed except for two plastic bags on the bed: one holding Curtis’s letters and the other the single letter from T.J.
I pick up the bag holding T.J.’s letter. I want to feel the envelope, the writing, the indentations his pen made. Instead I touch the label holding the bag shut, smooth down the torn edge.
I always thought I’d get to read this one. I couldn’t bring myself to open it, but I figured that after Celia read it, maybe she’d be so grateful she’d let me read it, too. But I don’t think Curtis will, and I’m not sure I could read it now, knowing T.J. was writing to Curtis. Whatever the letter says, it will only confirm what I already know. I don’t need to see T.J.’s words to know it. And even if I believe it, I’m not ready to read any mushy stuff or, worse, sexy parts, in T.J.’s cramped writing, knowing he was thinking about Curtis when he wrote them.
He’s already changed enough.
THE STREET IS STILL ALL TORN UP, SO I PARK MY USUAL blocks away and walk down. I’m almost to the porch before I see Curtis sitting on the front steps. Between his knees, one step down, is Zoe, her hands wrapped around Curtis’s outstretched fingers. She’s babbling away, and Curtis is so absorbed in her he doesn’t see me.
“Uh, hi,” I finally say when I’m a few steps away.
Curtis’s head pops up and his face breaks into a smile. He looks more like the guy in the picture now. And more like Celia. I had to have been blind not to see it.
Zoe says, “Hi!” and starts to jump from her step, and Curtis wraps an arm around her before she can finish her leap.
“Oh, no, you don’t, Baby Girl.” Once she is secure under his arm, he looks up again. “Let me just run her inside. Be right back.”
He’s up and through the door and back before I have time to figure out whether to sit or not.
“Hey.” He laughs, rubbing his hand over the back of his head. He walks down a few steps and takes a seat, and then motions for me to sit. “She likes the equipment,” he says, waving toward the stuff the road crew left behind. “Can’t get enough of it. But she’s a daredevil, too, so you’ve got to watch her every second.” He rubs the back of his head again. “I just figured we could talk easier if we didn’t have to watch her every move.”
I sit down and carefully settle my backpack on the step beside me.
“I’m glad you came by. I was starting to give up hope.”
“Yeah, I, uh, had to do some stuff, then check out of the hostel.”
“So, you’re really leaving today?”
“Yeah. I have to get back.”
“Too bad,” Curtis says, staring out at the equipment, or maybe at the river across the street. “Would have been nice to show you around. Maybe meet some of our friends. See some of Theo’s favorite hangs.”
“Like?” I ask. Curtis looks at me. I shrug. “Just curious. I really do have to go, but . . .”
Curtis leans back, resting his elbows on the step behind him, stretching his long legs down over several steps. “Well, starting right here. He loved sitting here, watching that river flow by. He loved to go over and wander up and down the bank, chatting with the people fishing or boating by.”
I stare at the water, trying to picture it.
“Friends of ours have a boat. Theo loved to be out on the lake at dawn.” Curtis laughs and stretches even farther out with his toes. “He would make us all get up sick-early and get out there, freezing our asses off, so that he could watch the sky get light. Then he’d come back, have a huge breakfast, and sack out for the afternoon.”
I can picture it. He loved dawn, and water.
“We hiked a lot. He would chart these hikes . . .” Curtis shakes his head and then swings his face my way. “We’d all be cursing him by the end, you know? Punishing climbs, but spectacular views and just amazing descents. He’d find spots so worth the punishment we couldn’t stay mad at him.”
“We were talking about doing the Appalachian Trail when he got back,” I say, hating how defensive my words sound.
“Yeah,” Curtis says, nodding. “I know. He told me.” Something in the way he looks at me makes me want to crawl into a corner. “He thought it’d be good for you to get away alone, so you could get to know each other again.”
Is what I’m hearing Curtis’s own jealousy, like maybe he was mad we were gonna go off for such a long time alone? Or is it that he thought we shouldn’t have to get to know each other again? I feel my anger building. I don’t need Curtis telling me again that I didn’t know my brother.
“Whatever you’re thinking,” Curtis says, breaking off my inner tirade, “you can forget it. You can’t know what I’m thinking, so stop trying.”
“But you can know what I’m thinking?”
“Yeah, ’cause I can see it all over your face. Your poker face is for shit.”
“So, what am I thinking?”
Curtis’s mouth slides up into a knowing grin. “I’m not jealous that he was thinking of hiking the Trail with you. Pu-leaze, like I wanted to go that long without a shower, or electricity, or Ruby Red Cosmos.” He rolls his eyes as he laughs in his chest, then points one finger at me. “And don’t even start on this ‘I knew him better’ shit. We both know that’s not true. You may have known him longer, true. But I,” Curtis says, tenting his fingers over his chest, “I was his future. And Theo over the last seven years? Hmph.”
I’m sulking. I know. But . . . seven years? And I still want to know — need to know. “So, tell me, then, what else?”
Curtis leans his head back and thinks. “Well, he loved the everyday things when he was home. Going out for dinner. Sprawling out on the couch and list
ening to music or reading. Watching movies. Taking Zoe to the park or playing with her in the backyard. As soon as she could walk, we’d take her on these long, slow walks around the block. I’d beg him to just pick her up already, but Theo insisted she be allowed to walk if she wanted, no matter how slow and backbreaking the walk. Last spring, right before he deployed, he taught her to swim, sort of.” Curtis smiles a far-off smile. Rubs his neck. “He insisted she was ready to swim, and I guess he was right.” He looks at me. “He loved being outside as much as possible, except for in winter. He whined like a baby in winter.”
There’s a flutter of recognition at that. T.J. always hated the cold.
“Big, strong guy, could dig a trench in no time flat, march across a desert, cart heavy equipment for miles, pretty much do anything he put his mind to, but he hated, hated shoveling snow.”
Yeah, he really did. Even when we were kids.
“Mainly, when he had time off, we tried to make it last as long as possible. Slowed it down with hikes and movies and dinners and just sitting and talking.” Curtis wipes at an eye and turns his face away from me. “He liked to sit on these steps and watch the world go by. Chat with the people who went past. Wherever we went, he was always talking to people. Sometimes I’d get so mad at him, talking up strangers, wasting time, especially when he had no idea how they’d be about us.”
We sit in silence. Too many questions float in my head.
“Go ahead,” Curtis says, “ask whatever.”
“How long — I mean, when?”
“How long did he live here? Or . . .”
“Yeah, or, well, or when . . . when did he . . . ?”
“When did he know he was gay?”
I nod, not trusting my voice.
“Always,” Curtis says. “He always knew.” He smiles at something only he can see. “He was in such denial when we met. Determined to put ‘it’ behind him. Be normal. Yeah, like that was going to work.”
T.J. was trying not to be like that? And Curtis made him be, or stay, like that?
“The last thing I wanted was to be outed in Basic. Figured the boys would send my black ass home in pieces if they found out. But it was so hard to ignore him. He kept staring. Like he could see right through me.”
