“I don’t need anything fancy,” Aaron insisted.
Giles’s mom smiled while Aaron was in front of her, applauding with Kelly and telling Aaron it was him to a T, but as soon as Aaron ducked inside to change, Vanessa’s eyes misted over, and she put a hand to her mouth, looking ready to cry. “I can’t get over anyone throwing that nice boy out.” She pulled a tissue out of her purse and wiped at her eyes with shaking hands. “I can buy him half of Minnesota and nothing will undo what they’ve done to him. Thank heavens he has you, and his friends. I just—you have to tell him, Giles, that even if the two of you break up, we’ll help him. And if you break up with him, I will tan your idiot hide until you can’t sit for a month.”
Giles rubbed her back. “I don’t have any plans to, Mom.”
They lunched at Whole Foods because it was easier for Kelly with his allergies, then headed to the house, where Tim and Walter had a surprise waiting.
“So.” Walter beamed as he spoke, very much the cat with the canary. “We made some phone calls, and while a few things are still waiting official approval, it’s my pleasure to let you know your music lessons and all school fees associated with the music department at Saint Timothy will be covered because of a scholarship for the remainder of the year. Any payments your father attempts to make, should he do so, will be refunded. You’re also being submitted as a special case for a full ride for the remainder of your tenure there—which, you should know, was already something the Drs. Nussenbaum were advocating before the financial-need angle occurred.”
Aaron, who’d been standing in the middle of the Mulder living room with four shopping bags in each hand, blinked for a few seconds. “What—?” He glanced from Walter to Vanessa to Giles. “How? Why? Why are you all doing this?”
“Because you need taking care of. Because what’s happening to you is wrong.” Vanessa crouched in front of him, displacing shopping bags as she clasped his hands in hers.
Aaron kept shaking his head. “I’m just this kid your son is dating. All of this—I don’t get it.”
“I told you last night why this matters to me,” Walter said quietly.
“I’m helping because nobody helped Walter,” Kelly added.
Giles didn’t know what to say, so he stood there like an idiot. His dad cleared his throat and kind of took care of things. “Son, I have to tell you, only a little of this is about you. The rest of it is people being people. Everybody needs a safety net. Some people don’t have any net at all and have to knit their own. You don’t. That’s not something to doubt. That’s something to celebrate.”
After they recovered from all the mushy feelings, they had chili Giles’s mom had set up earlier in the crock pot. They played board games at the table, which Giles hadn’t done since he was ten unless he was at a holiday gathering, but apparently this was Walter’s thing. Giles’s mom planned out the rest of their break, which would apparently be full of food and movies and a party if Giles and Aaron wanted one.
Their lives were unfolding like a Hallmark movie, which, all things considered, was great. Except Giles couldn’t help feeling he hadn’t quite pulled his weight. He wasn’t sure what it was he was supposed to be doing, but surely there was something. Everyone else was making soppy speeches and showering Aaron with gifts and getting him freaking scholarships. This wasn’t about Giles, and he kept telling himself to shut up and float, but every time he sat too long, he got this nagging feeling he should be doing something.
When he and Aaron went to bed that night, he figured out what it was.
As they lay on Giles’s bed half clothed, Aaron ran his fingers tentatively down Giles’s naked chest. “I’m sorry about all this.”
“Sorry about what? Are you nuts? I half-wondered if I should apologize to you for my overzealous family.”
“God—no. Your family is incredible. Yes, it’s too much, but too much is…nice, right now.” Aaron’s finger traced whorls in Giles’s three chest hairs. “I hope you don’t mind.”
“Why the hell would I mind? Aaron—” He lifted his boyfriend’s chin, his heart clenching at the nervousness he read there. “Baby. I love you. I feel dumb I couldn’t help you more, that I’m just standing here with my ears sticking out while everyone else pulls rabbits out of their asses.”
Aaron’s face got weird, sort of iron and soft all at once. “You waited. I hadn’t even gotten as far as wondering if I could walk to your house without shoes and there you were.” He took Giles’s face in his hands, stroking his cheeks. “You waited in case something went wrong, and you weren’t going to tell me you had, were you, if it had been okay? When I called, you’d have answered from the drive and then gone to your house.”
Giles tried not to be embarrassed at being busted. “I was worried about you. I couldn’t leave you there. It kind of flipped me out that you actually needed me, in the end.”
“I can’t help wondering if they would have let me keep going had you not been there.” He bit his lip. “I worry they wouldn’t have. My mom—I really thought she was on my side.”
“You shouldn’t have walked outside because they shouldn’t have let you. And all your stuff didn’t make it over, I noticed. Did my dad tell you what happened when he went to see your mom? He wouldn’t tell me.”
Aaron’s hands slipped to Giles’s collarbone, and he couldn’t lift his gaze. “He said…he doesn’t think I’ll get my laptop back. Or anything in my backpack. I can get most of my music and some Salvo work from the cloud, but—I’m so sorry, the notebook you gave me for Christmas is gone. I can recreate all the songs, they’re in my head, but…I’d give up all the clothes and shoes to get it back.”
“I’ll get you a new one. I’ll get you ten.” Giles slid his body closer, running a hand through Aaron’s thick hair. “Your mother should have been over here, apologizing and begging you to come home, promising to argue with your dad.”
“She’s never really been aggressive. She still cries when she talks about Dad leaving her.”
“She shouldn’t cry to you at all. Parents are supposed to parent. Not kick you out because you don’t act like they want you to. I mean—shit. I thought my mom was kind of a helicopter, but I’d rather have that. I’m sorry you don’t.”
“I’d rather have you. I’m never going to not love you for being there when I came around the corner.” He smiled as he ran his hand through Giles’s hair before tugging gently on his lobes. “And don’t you dare mock your ears. They’re my favorite part of you.”
Okay, that one hit Giles right in the gut. To cover his sudden attack of mushiness, he ground his hips meaningfully against Aaron’s groin. “Really? Favorite part?”
Aaron’s eyes glazed over. “Second favorite,” he murmured, thrusting back.
They made languid love, face-to-face, and maybe it was Giles’s imagination, but he noticed before his brain switched over to lust or bust that his boyfriend’s hands did always seem to land on his ears.
The week between J-term and the start of the spring semester went by Aaron like a watery dream.
For being alone, he had people around him all the time. Mina came by every day, played Xbox with them, helped Aaron and Giles recreate some of the notes he’d lost for Salvo. They started a choir and orchestra arrangement of “Titanium” Aaron still wasn’t sure would work but wanted to try, for Baz.
Walter and Kelly came up twice. Once they took Aaron and Giles out to dinner, but Saturday night they stayed over again, and they had a movie marathon. Mina came over too, and they picked movies, watching them until they passed out. Star Trek and Thor and Ocean’s Eleven and Anchorman. And Frozen.
The Disney movie rang in Aaron’s head when he went to bed. He hadn’t expected to like it at all, but the story, the music, the beautiful blue of it all haunted him. When he curled up against Giles and tried to sleep, all he saw was swirling white, the snow queen walking through it all. Alon
e, all alone, her song sounding like a bell inside him.
His dreams were strange, the movies fractured and shadowed in his subconscious. He woke damp with sweat, the room dark. Pale light from the window cast the room in deep blue shadow, and his half-sleeping mind saw the snow from the dream and the world outside swirling across the floor, made him feel the cold, wet snow on his stocking feet.
Let it go.
Pulling the cover over his head, drawing his feet up tight, he burrowed into Giles and called up the song from the movie, willing it to lull him out of his panic. The melody line danced across his brain, and he stripped out the voice, adding his own color to it. He closed his eyes, his ears, pressed his fingers over his nose to shut out all but the essential air. He used Giles’s body like a wall, curling into the smallest, quietest space he could occupy in the world, and he chased the music.
He could see it. Soft, pastel colors along a bar staff in the darkness. He felt the music too, drifting out of the shadow. It felt like magic, and he imagined himself in the center of the darkness, spinning with his eyes shut as sparkling sound emerged as visible light from his fingertips.
Let it go, let it go, let it go.
The music carried him back into his dreams, wrapping around him until Giles kissed him awake. They made love, and Aaron’s still-sleepy brain melded the orgasm with the musical line.
When they got out of bed, it was time to leave the Mulder house to go back to school, which was more difficult than Aaron had expected. Somehow the reality of his abandonment hadn’t sunk in until that moment, but now there he was, heading to school with Giles as he’d always planned to…but from Giles’s driveway. With supplies and trinkets from Giles’s mother, not his own.
How could she not call him? Had she tried and no one told him?
It had to be a mistake. As Tim loaded up Giles’s car and everyone milled around the driveway, Aaron ducked into the house, pulling his new phone out of his pocket. Dialing his mom’s landline, Aaron curled against the pantry door and waited as it rang. And rang. And rang.
He called her cell.
When voicemail picked up, all he could do was breathe. Through his nose, slowly, but he was hyperaware of each breath. In. Out. Like soft percussion. One of those shakers with the balls wrapped around it, or a rain stick. He could only listen to the music of the air passing through his nose, because otherwise he would have to listen to his mother, who always answered her phone…not answering her phone.
Now the music was in his ears too, a thick drumbeat as he googled his aunt’s phone number. This was stupid. This was stupid, and he was tired of it, and somebody had to fix it—
“Hello?”
Aaron’s breath came out in a hot rush. Contact. “Aunt Carol. This is Aaron. I need to find my mom.”
The pause was heavy, and it hurt. “I don’t think she can come to the phone right now. I’m sorry. I’ll tell her you called.”
What? Aaron struggled for a reply. “Did you know she kicked me out?”
Another pause, this one even more awkward. “Yes. I’m sorry. Do you need anything?”
What, like a cup of sugar? “I need to talk to my mom.” I need to come home.
“I’m sorry, Aaron.”
Sorry? Sorry? Rage stepped on disbelief and stomped forward, Jim Seavers’s genes lighting up in a rare flash. “You mean she’s seriously not going to talk to me? She’s there, I know she is. And she won’t talk to me?”
“She’s upset.”
Upset?
She was upset?
“I’m sorry, Aaron.” Carol sounded tired. “Someday you’ll understand.”
Aaron wanted to shout, but he couldn’t make the words come. He wanted to tell her he would never understand this. It would never be okay to not talk to your kid because he was upset that you threw him out of the house. He wanted to shout at her, but he couldn’t make the words come. He could only breathe soft, staccato music as his heart beat at the base of his throat, blocking all sound.
Please. Please.
Please.
“Do you need money? I could give you some money.”
His breath hitched, and two tears escaped, one from each eye.
I need my mom.
Swallowing hard, he lowered the phone. With a shaking hand, he didn’t hang up, he just held the button on the top until it switched off.
Walter knew.
Aaron could tell when he went outside Walter knew what he’d done, or suspected. Aaron didn’t want to talk to him, didn’t want to talk to anyone. He felt raw and cut open, and he wanted to curl into a dark corner and wait for everything to go away.
Instead he had to go back to school. They all knew, because they’d been texting him with support. Telling him they’d help him any way they could. So many fucking people.
People and his sullen, snarky roommate, who would probably laugh and tell him he deserved it.
Oh God, he couldn’t do this.
Before he could stagger backward, Walter was in front of him, not embracing him, but standing close. He spoke quietly at Aaron’s ear, and Aaron looked out over the frozen subdivision as he listened.
“I don’t care if your mom will talk to you or not or if she filled you with crazy if you got to talk to her. You get to be who you want to be, and you won’t ever be alone.” He squeezed Aaron’s arm and leaned closer. “I know it feels like you are. I know it hurts right now. But you’re not.”
Aaron shut his eyes. “I don’t want to talk about this.”
“I know. But it’s going to get harder before it gets better. I want you to remember you have us. No matter how angry you get, how hysterical, how confused. We’re here. I’m right here.”
Cold wind bit against Aaron’s face, whistled in his bare ears. He closed his eyes and shut out everything but that faint sound. Whoosh.
There it was. Like ice crystals in his ears. Against the black backdrop of his mental landscape, he watched the color of the wind and its whistle dance across his mind. The flash of Kelly’s Disney movie played, the snow queen climbing alone up the mountain. Alone in the cold, but free.
I don’t want to be this free.
Walter didn’t let go of Aaron’s hand. “Lean on Giles. He wants to be there for you. Let him in.”
Giles. Aaron opened his eyes and saw him standing there, by the car, waiting. He didn’t have on his hat, and his cheeks were pink, his ear tips red as they stuck out of his hair. He smiled at Aaron, sadly.
Hopeful.
Aaron shut his eyes. “I will.”
After a round of hugs and well wishes, after Giles and Aaron promised they would text when they arrived, they drove away.
Silence filled the car. Giles took Aaron’s hand, squeezing it several times but not saying anything. As they sat at a stoplight, he sighed.
“I don’t know what to say.” He glanced sideways at Aaron, looking guilty. Sad. “I’m sorry. I know you’re upset, and I hate it, but I know there’s nothing I can do. I’m sorry.”
“I called my mom. She didn’t answer. And my aunt wouldn’t let me talk to her.”
Giles stared at him so long the driver behind them had to honk to get him to go through the light. He did, but his lips were pressed in a thin line. “That’s fucked up. I don’t—” He cut himself off, shaking his head. “I’m sorry. I’m not helping.”
Aaron settled sideways in his seat, watching Giles drive. “It feels like it’s not real. It makes me angry. Crazy angry. And scared.”
“I want to drive over there and hit her.” Giles’s knuckles were white against the wheel. “Seriously. How the fuck do you kick out your own son? Over a fucking major?”
“It was like this when she divorced my dad and he wouldn’t take her back. Aunt Carol came and stayed with us, and she kept telling me sometimes the world is too hard for my mom.”
�
�Well that’s a fuck of a coping mechanism.” Giles squeezed Aaron’s hand tight. “I’ll never do that to you. Ever. I’ve been to the mountaintop, and I came down with an Uzi. You’re strong too, and you’re going to get through this. The world’s not too hard for you, Aaron. And you don’t have to face it on your own.”
Aaron kissed his hand and kept it pressed to his lips until Giles ran it up his face, sliding fingers into his hair.
Chapter Twenty-Five
At Timothy, all the way to Aaron’s room they ran into music people. They hugged Aaron and wiped at their eyes, took things out of his hands, helping carry until what should have taken four trips became one with twelve people assisting. They came by with groceries—as if Mrs. Mulder hadn’t sent Aaron with more ramen and single-serve mac and cheese than he could ever eat in a lifetime.
Even Giles picked up on how intense people were being. “I’m sorry. Do you want me to send them away?”
Aaron shrugged. “They mean well.”
“Yes, but…God, we were like this back at home, weren’t we?” When Aaron said nothing, he winced. “So sorry. What can I do to help?”
It almost made Aaron laugh, but in a macabre kind of way. “I just need a little time by myself.”
Giles lit up. “Hey—what about a practice room? How many people can be using them right after we get back from a break?”
That was a good idea, actually, and though Giles was ready to bribe anyone he had to, it turned out exactly three people wanted the practice rooms, so not only did Aaron have no issues scoring one, he got the one with the best baby grand. His only issue was convincing Giles to leave him alone.
“It’s not that I don’t want to be with you.” His gaze fixed on their joined hands because he couldn’t bring himself to look his boyfriend in the eye.
Fever Pitch Page 27
