by John Goode
Brad was never more than three feet from me the entire time. The only time he left was to go home and sleep and when I forced him to go finish the baseball season. The team had made it to the playoffs, and there was no way they had a chance without him playing. At first he said he didn’t care, he wanted to stay with me. It was sweet, but I wanted him to play. He had already given up on A&M, and though we hadn’t said anything yet, it was pretty clear he wanted to come to California with me.
And yes, I know it’s silly, but I felt like I was taking parts of his life away from him, and I wanted him to at least have one last winning season. He deserved it. And it only took about six hours of debating for him to see that as well. He hit a seventh-inning double that allowed the guy at third to score that won us the game. He was so freaking happy after that moment he stopped fighting me and started playing again without argument.
Which left me some time to try to mend a lot of burned bridges.
I started with Sammy, who hadn’t been to school since the shooting. There had been a flurry of gossip flying around about what and why Jeremy had done what he had done. Most of them revolved around Sammy, who people had assumed was still friends with him. It was one of those things I really hated about high school: you see two people, don’t know them, so you write this little story in your head about who they are and then that becomes the reality. Sammy was just the blue-haired girl who hung out with that Goth guy and nothing more. I had no illusions I wasn’t referred to as the mouthy kid who’d made Brad gay.
The only good thing about getting held hostage was that when you wanted to cut school, they assumed it was because you were still traumatized from the experience and said nothing about it. I told Brad that I was going to talk to Sammy, and of course he wanted to go with me. Not to talk to her, to make sure I was okay. Overnight I had become Whitney Houston because Brad thought he was Kevin Costner all of a sudden.
If you don’t get that reference, seriously, go watch that movie. I can wait.
I assured him I needed to talk to her alone and that he needed to practice for the playoffs that weekend. It was a bit of misdirection but dangling baseball in front of him was the only way I could get him to stay.
I picked up some doughnuts downtown and made my way to Sammy’s house.
She answered the door in midknock. It was pretty clear she was still pissed off at me. She said nothing, just stood there staring at me.
“Um, hey,” I said, not sure how to handle silence.
Nothing.
“I, I wanted to come talk and….”
“So talk.”
Going to be one of those kind of talks.
“I was an asshole and completely rude to you. You were right, Jeremy was the kind of person that club was made for, and I shouldn’t have chased him off. You were my friend, and I should have listened to you, but I was too busy freaking out over college and Brad and everything. I forgot what all this was about.”
It was a lot to say in one breath.
“And I brought doughnuts,” I added.
She sighed and looked away for a second, trying to compose her thoughts. “Look, Kyle, I don’t think I can do this anymore. You and Jeremy, you’re like the exact same type of person in a lot of ways. One of them is how you treat your friends. I wasn’t your sidekick, wasn’t your little helper. I was supposed to be your friend and an equal, and when push came to shove, you treated me no better than Jeremy did. So fine, I accept your apology. But I don’t think I can be friends with people who treat me like that anymore.”
I wished I could argue with anything she said, but I couldn’t.
“You’re right, and I’m sorry,” I admitted, feeling so guilty for doing that. “You shouldn’t be treated like that, and if you ever give me the chance again, I never will.” It was superawkward as neither one of us commented. Finally I handed the doughnuts over to her and mumbled, “Sorry.”
I practically ran away from her house. I didn’t expect her to call after me and tell me to stop.
Turns out I was right—she didn’t.
The next stop on my redemption tour of Foster was Tyler’s store. I was hoping Matt would be there too, so I could apologize to both of them at the same time. I’m pretty sure I didn’t make the best of first impressions, so I needed to let him know I wasn’t always a judgmental prick.
When I walked in, I saw the two of them behind the counter in a playful embrace, laughing. I paused as I wondered if it was too late to back out.
“Kyle?” Tyler asked as I began to backpedal.
“Oh, hey, Mr. Parker, you look busy…,” I began to explain, but he just shook his head.
“Come in. Matt just dropped by to have lunch.”
Matt had moved away from Tyler, like he was embarrassed to have been caught in a public display like that. It was weird because everyone knew they were gay and dating now, so why hide? I shook it off because it was none of my business, and even if it was, I would have no clue of how to fix it.
“I wanted to come by and say sorry,” I said, coming all the way into the shop. “I said some horrible things, and I wanted you to know I didn’t mean them.”
Tyler smiled. “Sure you did, but it’s okay. We all say things we regret when angry. Apology accepted.”
That was one.
I looked over at Matt and said, “And I wanted to say to you, I get it.” He looked confused. “I understand why you said what you did. If someone came at Brad like that, I would have gone at him with a bat. You were just protecting what you love.”
It was hard to judge his feelings by his face, but he didn’t seem pissed. Tyler nudged him, and Matt rolled his eyes and said, “And I apologize for being a huge asshole. Foster has changed a lot since I left. Still not used to not making waves.”
“Foster’s changed?” I asked, surprised. “Seems like it’s trapped in amber to me.”
“That’s ’cause you’re a kid….” I gave him a look. “No, that’s ’cause you’re young. Nothing moves fast enough for you. When you get older, you realize that you’d pay cash money for the world to stop spinning. Even if it was for a day.”
I understood what he was saying, but it didn’t sound like anything I would ever feel. I felt like I was like a hundred years old and getting older every day I was forced to live in this town. If I had one of those silver cars from Back to the Future or a police box, I would have just jumped past this part of my life and got to the next one. But I was here to make amends, not debate Tyler’s boyfriend on the concept of linear time.
“So again, I am a horrible little brat and very sorry,” I said, giving them a half bow and a flourish with my hand. They both laughed, and I felt the tension leave the room.
“So, Brad nervous about the playoffs?” Matt asked while Tyler got us all Cokes from the back.
I sighed, glad to be able to talk to someone about this. “He’s gone all protective den mother on me since the shooting. Like I’m made of glass or something.”
“That’s not it at all,” Matt said with infuriating certainty. I arched an eyebrow at him, but the fact I was trying to be extra nice Kyle stopped me from commenting he didn’t know a damn thing about Brad. Seeing my disbelief, he elaborated. “He’s not afraid you’re made out of glass. He’s afraid he is, and if he loses you again, he will shatter into a million pieces and just die. I saw him the day of the shooting. You aren’t his crush, and you aren’t his love. You’re the center of his universe, the sun he orbits around, and if you were gone, he’d just go flying out into the dark. Never to be seen again.”
My mouth dropped a little because it was the most romantic thing I had ever heard, and coming out of his mouth, it sounded so… matter-of-fact.
“Don’t kid yourself, Kyle,” he said in a softer tone. “There are guys out there who search their entire life to find the person who makes them whole. Rogue planets that no one can see because the sun doesn’t shine on them anymore. Life, like space, is a big place, and the odds of you hitting something else
is so remote, it isn’t worth mentioning. So don’t take what you guys have for granted. It’s the most important thing in the universe.”
Tyler walked out with the Cokes, and Matt’s whole posture changed. I saw the serious mask slide down over his face. He sat up straighter. I didn’t get it until I saw Tyler hand him the Coke and give him a smile. I could see their fingers touch as they passed the bottle and the way Matt smiled back at him.
Suddenly I got it. Tyler was his sun.
It wasn’t obvious, but his eyes lingered when Tyler walked away, and his entire posture leaned toward Tyler. From the outside you’d think Matt was the one in charge, since he was so aggressive to defend Tyler, but that was the illusion. Where Tyler went, Matt would follow, and neither one would ever question it.
Tyler handed me the Coke, and I understood Brad just a little bit more.
Matt took a drink and asked me, “So, not that I’m complaining, but what brought about this whole mea culpa?” Tyler gave him a questioning look, and Matt added, “It’s a religious thing.” Satisfied, Tyler went back to his Coke.
I explained to them my whole tour of apology and that they were one stop in many.
“So who’s your next victim?” Tyler asked.
“Robbie.”
No one talked for a while.
“Be careful,” Tyler warned. “He’s been in a bad place for a long time. I don’t think this whole shooting thing went down well with him.”
Matt gave him a quizzical look. “Did it go down well with anyone?”
“You know what I mean. Robbie has… he’s lost a lot, and when faced with losing more, he just shuts down. So if he’s snippy, it isn’t you.”
I finished my Coke and handed the empty bottle over. “Well, no time like the present. Wish me luck.”
I had a feeling I was going to need it.
WHEN I got to Twice Upon a Time, I wondered if it was even open. The blinds were still closed, and the sign hadn’t been turned over to Open. But Robbie’s car was in the parking lot, so he had to be there at one point. I rapped on the window a few times before the door cracked open.
“Why aren’t you in school?” he asked like a bouncer at a speakeasy.
“Because a guy pointed a gun to me,” I quipped back. “I have a feeling if I’d been winged, I wouldn’t have to show up for the rest of the year.”
Robbie’s voice sounded darker than normal. “Don’t joke about that.” He opened the door a little more. “Come in before someone sees you and thinks I’m open.”
“Why aren’t you open? I mean, it’s….” And I froze.
Half the clothes were missing from the racks, and there were giant cardboard boxes scattered throughout. I looked around in amazement, and then I got a good look at him. His hair wasn’t styled, and he hadn’t shaved in a few days. He was dressed… well, not like he normally dressed. He was wearing normal jeans and a T-shirt that didn’t have any rainbows or anything glittery.
“What’s this?” I asked, worried.
“What’s it look like?” he almost snarled at me. “If there’s anything you want, better grab it before I pack it up, because once these boxes are sealed, not even Tyler Hoechlin could get me to open them.” I gave him a look, and he half smiled. “Okay, maybe him, but you don’t have a chance. So take now or forever hold your tongue.”
“I don’t understand…,” I began to say, but he just kept talking.
“Think of it like an episode of Supermarket Sweep but without the shopping carts. The good stuff is over on the right, but you know the store well enough. Also I think in the back there might—”
“Robbie!” I shouted, trying to get him to stop. He looked over at me. He looked exhausted, to be honest. “What’s going on?”
He sighed and then sat down on the stool behind the counter. “I’m done, that’s what’s going on. Game over, exit stage right, th-th-that’s all, folks.” I looked at him, confused, and he asked dryly, “Which pop culture reference did you miss? Aliens, Snagglepuss and Porky Pig. I swear, I don’t even know what they’re teaching you kids in school these days. In my day the classics were—”
“Robbie, seriously what is—”
He slammed both fists down on the counter, and the glass cracked under his blow. “I’m not going to watch anyone else fucking die, okay?” I froze, not sure what to do. “I’m done with caring about people so I can just watch them die. I’m not burying anyone else in this town again. I’ve hit my corpse quota for this lifetime. Foster wins. It always does. I just wish I knew that before I let Riley move back here.”
He sounded so defeated, so unlike himself. I was terrified. There was no sarcasm, no biting jokes. He was just done. I had honestly never heard him talk like this.
“When I was growing up, me and my sister played a lot of board games, mainly ’cause we were poor, and it was the cheapest way to spend an afternoon while my mom worked. I always liked Monopoly because I liked the different-colored money, but Nicole loved Clue. She would want to play that damned game over and over, each time someone new dying in a new room a new way. And I remember one day we were shuffling the cards and I said, ‘You’d think after a while these fucking idiots would just not come to the house where all these murders happen. They’re just asking for it.’”
I saw a tear fall down his cheek.
“We were just asking for it,” he muttered, looking at his broken reflection in the glass.
My mind seized up for a moment, the mental equivalent of grinding gears, as I tried to figure out what to do.
“Well then, this is for the best,” I said as nonchalantly as I could. “Some kids have to wait a lifetime to figure out what lies they were told growing up. I’m glad I got this out of the way now.” He barely raised his head and looked at me. “I mean, if this didn’t happen, then I would have graduated, moved to California, and thought this whole time everything I tried to do was worth something. Kelly, the school board, everything was worth something if someone got better from it. I mean, that is what you were trying to tell me at the Bear’s Den, right? That if this town was going to be fixed, it had to be fixed from the inside, so you gave me this song and dance about how I needed to step up and do something.”
He didn’t say anything, but I could tell he was listening.
“Now I can leave and know that none of it matters. If it gets too hard, give up and run away. There is no fighting the good fight. There’s just surrender.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he proclaimed darkly.
“Of course I don’t, because I’m, what? Five and a half years old and know nothing? Also I’ve only known you fifteen seconds, so I couldn’t know a thing about you, right? Did I miss anything? Well, you’re wrong, Robbie, because I know everything I need to know about you. I know everyone thinks you stayed here because you wanted to wallow in your misery of losing Riley, that you were just a bitter old queen who hated the world. That’s what they think, but they’re wrong. You stayed here to make sure it didn’t happen again. You gave up the rest of your life to make sure that what happened to Riley would never happen again.”
I’m not even sure he was blinking.
“You want to play that whole diva card, but that’s the same reason that Bruce Wayne dresses up as a bat every night. Because it conceals who you really are from everyone else. You hide away the real Robbie so they can’t get to him, but the whole time, you’re just looking for the next innocent to save from this town. You want to give up? Fine. You want to just walk away, good, but you don’t get to walk away thinking it was for nothing. You were the one who put these thoughts about fixing Foster in my head, and that counts for something. No matter how hard you try to deny it.”
I was panting like I had just run a marathon. I had no idea if anything I said got through to him. At this point I wasn’t even sure if my words made sense to me.
Finally he croaked out a gruff, “You’re wrong.”
And I knew I hadn’t gotten through.
&n
bsp; “I am nothing like that. I’m not a superhero, Kyle. I’m just a man. A tired man who has gambled away too much and can’t afford to lose more. You can look at it like I’m giving up, but all I’m doing is stepping away from the table before I lose everything.”
“So is that what I should learn? That when it gets bad, to just walk away?”
He sighed and seemed to pull at his hair in frustration. “Kyle, you can take anything you want from this. You’re a big boy and can find your own messages in life. I’m not fucking Yoda.”
I wanted to argue with him, wanted to debate his whole mindset with him, but something told me that it was a losing battle. He wasn’t going to listen to me. My words were going to be wasted on him.
Luckily, I knew who he would listen to.
Once I took care of that, I had two more names on my list. The first was Jennifer, which I was going to have to do tomorrow since she was at school. The second happened to have the same address as me, so I knew where she lived.
I had no idea what I was going to say to her, but I did know that we needed to talk. Only someone who had lost their sense of smell would have missed the fact my mom was trashed during the shooting. Luckily for… well, I have no idea who it was lucky for, to be honest, so scratch that. In a twist of fate that had no real effect, good or bad, on someone’s life, my mom was a pretty functional drunk. She could go from completely trashed to acting completely normal in no time flat. I suppose in some college-party type of movie that ability would be seen as wicked cool, but in real life it was scary as shit.
I guess if I was a guy who had sex with a pie or a Van-something-or-other, going from stupid drunk to sober would be awesome, ’cause then I could outwit the hapless dean who was out to close down our frat or whatever and get the upper hand. But as just a person, having someone around when it was almost impossible to know if she was under the effects of a mind-altering substance was terrifying. You walked around in a constant state of concern that the person who was supposed to provide food and shelter for you might actually be in the middle of a three-day drunk and had no real idea how long the milk had been bad or that we’ve been out of bread.
