Head Above Water

by Caitlin Ricci

  Mom and Dad followed him in as Trent kissed Caleb on the side of his head. I liked that they were together. It gave me something to strive for with my relationship with Robbie. I wanted him to be happy, though, and right now none of them looked that way. Also, they seemed like they wanted to talk without us around as Trent looked between Caleb and my parents, and I didn’t like that at all. We may have been only seventeen, and Ben was only fifteen, but we weren’t kids. And if whatever they wanted to talk about had to do with Daniel, then I thought Robbie and Ben deserved to know.

  “What’s going on?” I asked Trent.

  Mom came over and wrapped her arm around my shoulder. “Why don’t you boys go outside and play for a little while.”

  Robbie looked like he didn’t want to go either, and Ben, well, he looked just as miserable as ever. I shook my head. “If it has to do with Daniel, they should hear.” I didn’t say I wouldn’t be going anywhere Robbie wasn’t. That should have been assumed since I didn’t like being apart from him anyway. And… I wanted to know why Robbie had scraped-up knuckles.

  Trent gave me a slow nod. “Guess you’re all old enough to understand.” Mom continued to hug me and rub my back. “Daniel is spending the next two months at my townhouse while he figures himself out. He’s been a mess since he got here, but I guess Cleric’s death was the breaking point for him. I can’t believe it’s only been a few hours. If he doesn’t have a solution for himself in two months then that’s it. No more second chances, or whatever the hell number we’re on with him now. It’s done. He’s getting money for groceries, and he has his phone. Whatever choices he makes now are on him.”

  I did understand that. If I were Trent or Caleb, I would have thrown him out the first time he said something mean to Robbie. But he was just seventeen then, and maybe they wanted to see if he’d get any better. He hadn’t.

  “I bet it’s hard being him,” Ben spoke up from Robbie’s other side. I frowned at him, not having any idea what he was talking about. Sure, Dan screwed with his head, but it was hard being Robbie. Daniel simply had to stop being a jerk to everyone.

  Robbie nodded like he understood whatever madness Ben was talking about. I didn’t get it, but I wasn’t going to start arguing with Ben. Instead I turned to Robbie. “Is your hand okay?” I asked him.

  He flexed the fingers of his injured hand, not even bothering to pretend he had no idea what I was talking about. It was a lot better than it had been when he’d first come to Caleb’s house and I’d asked him about the bruises. He didn’t pretend with me at all anymore, and I liked that so much.

  “Yeah. Seems to be. Not even swelling really. I should be good to ride.” He smiled at me and I grinned right back, because of course that’s all we thought about when either of us got hurt. It had been torture for him when he hadn’t been able to ride and he had to watch me on Magic. But he’d given me some good lessons from the ground in that time too.

  I ignored everyone around us, even my mom as she continued touching my back like I needed comforting, as I leaned over and kissed him. I felt him smile against my lips as he kissed me back. Someone cleared their throat, and I pulled away, biting my lip as I smiled at him. He was bright red, just as red as his hair, and I laughed a little.

  “Want to go into town?” he asked me.

  I always wanted to go anywhere with him. “Sure.” I realized we should probably ask if that was okay before we took off. “Can we?”

  Dad looked right at me. “Don’t go looking for Daniel while you’re down there.” I hadn’t even considered doing that, but the way he’d said it made me think something really bad had happened.

  “What’d he do?”

  It was Robbie who answered me. “He said a word I don’t ever want to hear anyone say again. And it was about you.”

  That shut me up in a hurry, because I could guess what that word was, and why Dad looked annoyed and Mom looked worried. “He sucks.” Robbie smirked and rested his forehead on my shoulder like he needed the support. “So can we go?”

  “Can I come with you? I could get a new book or something,” Ben quietly spoke up.

  I nodded. Of course he could. He didn’t usually come with us, but I wouldn’t tell my boyfriend’s completely harmless little brother that he couldn’t tag along with us if he wanted to for once.

  That just left the matter of us actually being able to go. “Be back by sundown and take your phones,” Caleb said.

  My parents could have stopped me, since Caleb didn’t speak for them. But Mom simply hugged me and handed me some cash, and we were off to get our sneakers on.

  Thornwood was tiny, and I absolutely loved it. I’d grown up in LA, and it hadn’t ever felt right to me. Like it was too big, there were too many people, and sometimes it hurt to breathe there with all the junk in the air. In Thornwood I knew everyone’s first names. I’d tried everything on the diner’s menu, and nothing new was ever added unless the rotating cookie selection counted. And it only took us ten minutes to get into the heart of town, where we went to the grocery store and Ben went to the book section.

  “It’s good to get out of there for a little bit,” Robbie said, giving my hand a squeeze. We’d been holding hands since the second we’d left the house, like we usually did.

  “Yeah, it was. Little suffocating for a bit there,” I agreed.

  He gave me a strange look for a second as we leaned against the ice cream display, neither of us really sure which flavor we wanted to bring home to share with everyone. “Do you think Ben’s gay too? The odds of that would be really hugely against, I think.”

  “He’s not.”

  We both turned to see Daniel walking toward us with a couple of frozen pizzas in his hand. “Hi,” I said to him.

  He stopped a good five feet from us. “I want some ice cream. You two need to move.”

  “And you need to get off your damn high horse,” I snapped right back as Robbie and I went across the aisle to the other side.

  Daniel frowned and even flinched, before pulling out some mint chocolate chip for himself. “I did. He died.”

  I instantly felt bad for saying that. I hadn’t meant it like that at all. “That was mean of me.” It wasn’t an apology, not really. And I wouldn’t apologize to someone like him anyway. But I’d felt like admitting I’d said the wrong thing was pretty important right then.

  He shrugged and started heading away from us. Robbie watched him go, and I wish I could figure out a way to make him happy because right then he looked miserable. Our hunt for ice cream momentarily forgotten, Robbie turned into my arms and rested his head on my chest. I looped my arms loosely around his shoulders, and he grabbed on to the back to my shirt.

  Sure, not many people in Thornwood were affectionate in the grocery store, certainly not gay guys like us, though sometimes other people our age made out in the corners where there wasn’t a lot of light. We didn’t hide like that, though. Robbie had been through a lot in the last week, and I’d hug him whenever he let me, and for however long he let me hold on to him.

  Ben found us like that a little bit later, and barely blinked as he came up to us, a new fantasy book in his hands. “It’s got a magic island that turns kids into monsters,” he explained, even though neither of us had said anything.

  “Sounds like fun,” I said as Robbie moved out of my arms. I didn’t want to let him go so soon, but I couldn’t kidnap him, so I settled for simply being near him.

  “Can I see it?” he asked Ben, who handed the book over slowly, like he was afraid Robbie would do something to the book he wanted.

  But Robbie just read the back, nodded, smiled a little, and then gave it to Ben. “Can I borrow it when you’re done? Sounds like something I might like.”

  I was pretty shocked when Ben smiled, like that was the thing he needed Robbie to say in that second. “Yeah. Then we can talk about it. Like we used to when we shared books.”

  “I’d like to. I’ve missed that,” Robbie said, coming back to lean against me
.

  Ben clutched the book like it was suddenly precious. “Me too.” I thought for a second there I was seeing the real Ben, the one Robbie had grown up with, not the mostly silent one that moped around like nothing in his world was working out.

  “You’re not gay, are you?” Robbie asked him, and I wondered why he was still thinking about it, because really, what did it matter if both his brothers were? Thinking about that stopped me for a second, and I knew I had to ask Robbie what he was talking about. But after he got the answer he wanted from Ben.

  Ben made a face and scrunched up his nose. “No way.” Then, as if he remembered he was talking to us, he blushed. “I mean, I don’t care that you are. But girls….” His scrunched-up face totally softened, and he got a goofy grin that made him look a lot younger, and stupider, than he was. “They’re just so pretty. And soft. And they smell good.”

  I had no idea what he was talking about, and by his dumbfounded expression, I was pretty sure Robbie was lost too. Which was pretty awesome for me since it meant maybe he didn’t like girls anymore, and wasn’t as bi as he’d thought he’d been when we first got together. Not that it really mattered, since he was mine, but it was still good to see him look really confused by what Ben was saying.

  “Um…. Well, then, okay,” Robbie said. “You run with that. But be safe. And stuff.”

  I snickered, and when Robbie shot me a helpless look, I burst out laughing.

  “You’re interrupting my big-brother moment,” he scolded, though I knew he was teasing me since he was grinning.

  Ben started laughing too, and for a few minutes everything felt perfectly okay in the world, like his family hadn’t just imploded for a second time.

  When we were done laughing, I gave Robbie a big hug. I liked touching him and being connected to him. “So why do you think Daniel’s gay?”

  “I caught him looking at a porn that had two guys in it,” Robbie explained in a whisper. Talking about being gay was fine, but apparently porn wasn’t good grocery store conversation for us.

  I didn’t change my tone at all. “I’ve seen porn with girls and guys in it, and two girls. I don’t know that it means much that he was looking at it.”

  Robbie looked pretty shocked by what I’d said. “But you’re gay….”

  Things weren’t always as absolutely black-and-white as he assumed they were. “Yeah. I am. I wanted to see what all the hype was about. I got bored and watched a music video instead.”

  He smiled at me and looked instantly relieved for some reason. I wasn’t at all questioning my sexuality, and I’d known I was gay well before coming to Colorado. Thornwood had just been the place where I’d really been able to simply be and not feel like I had to hide who I was and wonder what people thought about me. It was a small town, so maybe I was lucky no one cared about a gay black boy living with them, but no one had ever been mean to me at all. Sometimes people said something, but like Mom told me, the hurtful things people said about me reflected more on who they were than on who I was. It was a good reminder when sometimes I heard people whispering behind our backs.

  We started heading toward the front of the store with Ben already reading his book behind us. Before we left the ice cream aisle, we grabbed a tub of cookie dough, and then went to pay for it all. Robbie got the ice cream and the book. I offered him the cash Mom had given me. “I don’t need it. Uncle Caleb gives us money to do nothing,” Robbie explained, refusing the cash.

  I put it in his pocket, despite his protests, and for once he didn’t jump back or flip out when I touched his hip or thigh. He simply gave me a little grin, and I knew from that look he’d noticed where my hand had been, but it wasn’t as big of a deal. Maybe someday soon he’d let me touch him too, like he’d done with me. I’d like that. I wanted to make him as happy as he’d made me.

  He reached back to grab Ben by his shoulder so he didn’t run into the side of the diner while he was reading and not paying attention to anything. Ben gave him a little smile, fixed where he was walking, and then went right back to reading.

  Robbie rolled his eyes, and I laughed.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Robbie

  IT WAS another week before I saw Daniel again, when I was told to go into town to get some more sugar cubes for some horses. I could have handled a real list, like when Uncle Caleb went to the grocery store with Trent and then texted us when he was pulling in to tell us to come out and help get the groceries inside and put away.

  But it was a nice day out, and I didn’t mind going for a walk. Sam couldn’t come since he’d been caught hiding clothes under his bed. I was kind of surprised it took his mom that long to figure out what he was doing and why he never had all that much laundry.

  When I came into town, Daniel was standing there in front of the diner with some girl I didn’t recognize. And he was kissing her like I sometimes kissed Sam but never in public. It was weird to see him like that. But maybe I had been really wrong about him. I decided to go up and say hi.

  “Daniel?” I said when clearing my throat didn’t work. Funny, because it worked every single time with Sam and me.

  He turned away from her, lipstick smeared all over his mouth. “Yeah?”

  “I’m sorry for what I said, when I caught you….” I looked to her, not knowing if I should say more or not.

  “Okay. Anything else?” He still sounded so angry.

  “You okay being alone? Get lonely or anything like that?” We’d never not been together. I couldn’t imagine being kicked out and made to live without my brothers.

  But he just smirked. “Do I look like I’m lonely?” he asked as he reached down to grab the girl’s butt. She giggled, and I frowned.

  “Uh. Guess not. See you around, then.” I really wanted to get away from them. I’d never seen Daniel do anything more than hold hands with a girl, or the one time he’d kissed a girl on her cheek when she’d been crying because he and Cleric had beat her at a show. She’d been awesome and would have won first if he hadn’t been there. I’d been proud of him in that moment. In this one, as I watched him put his tongue in the mouth of some girl I didn’t know and he hadn’t introduced me to, well, now I just wanted to go to the grocery store and hurry home. Way away from whatever was going on with my big brother.

  Wow, he was messed up, and I couldn’t explain what was going on with him if I’d tried. He was just…. It sucked that I couldn’t pin down what was wrong with Daniel, but I was beginning to think he’d been taken over by an alien. Because it was so many little things. Like the way he talked to me, or how he’d been kissing that girl. The only thing completely normal about him had been that he rode, and now he didn’t even have that anymore. I didn’t know if he never would, but I was pretty sure that if I’d lost Witchcraft as suddenly as he’d lost Cleric, I wouldn’t want to be around horses for a while, months probably at the very least. I just loved her too much.

  I hurried up and got the sugar cubes and then went back home, cutting through the woods so I didn’t have to see Daniel again. Uncle Caleb and Trent were in the living room watching TV when I came in. “I’m back with the sugar cubes,” I said, balancing on one foot to get my sneakers off.

  “Great,” Uncle Caleb called to me.

  I left them on the island and came over to sit with them. The couch was huge and more than big enough for the three of us. “I saw Daniel in town.”

  Uncle Caleb gave me a sideways look. “I asked you to avoid going to see him.”

  “And I did. He was in front of the diner with his tongue down some girl’s throat. It was weird to see.” I resisted the urge to make gagging noises. I was more mature than that.

  Uncle Caleb didn’t say anything, but Trent looked over his head at me. “Don’t make it sound so strange. You and Sam have probably done that lots.”

  I was really blushing now. “Well… yeah. But not in front of everyone, where they could see us like that. Mostly just at night.” I shut my mouth tightly and stared at the TV because I h
ad absolutely not meant to say that.

  “You mean when Sam climbs up to your room like you’re Rapunzel in a tower or something?” Uncle Caleb asked, giving me a wink.

  I felt like my face was burning up, like I was about to internally combust or something. “You knew about that?”

  Trent laughed. “He’s not very quiet.”

  Caleb laughed. “No, he’s really not. And I was waiting to see if you were ever going to just tell me. Apparently not. Since the cat’s out of the bag now, though, tell him to use the front door. I’ve already had the lecture from his mom once this week about your room being too high, and he’s going to fall and break his arm someday.”

  “I’ll tell him,” I squeaked out, feeling completely embarrassed. We all knew the code to get in the house now, so he could let himself in. Then no one would have to worry about him getting hurt. I’d thought about that sometimes too. “And I’m sorry we didn’t tell you. We didn’t want you, or his parents, saying that he couldn’t spend the night anymore. We don’t have sex or anything like that. It’s just hard for me to sleep without him there, and I have nightmares, and it’s just nice too.”

  Uncle Caleb gave me a soft smile and ran his hand over my head. My hair was too short to get messed up, but I did reach up to try to fix it until I remembered I was back to my old length. “You’re fine. And I don’t care if you two are having sex. Just don’t make a big deal about it.”

  “What are your nightmares about?” Trent asked me. He’d turned off the TV, and now they were both looking at me.

  I chewed on my bottom lip for a second while I tried to decide if I wanted to tell him or not. But he was a cop, and he knew everything, so I figured he might be okay to tell. “Dan coming back, and him hurting Ben too. Or him coming after Sam and his family. Sometimes I worry about him coming back and hurting me again.”