Friends vs. Family

by C. L. Stone

  My hand shot out, my fingers falling on his lips. His eyes widened at me but he didn’t have to keep saying he was sorry. He never had to apologize. They had reasons, and I understood.

  As if I needed pink carpet.

  “It’s amazing,” I said.

  His mouth shifted into a smile against my fingers. “Still not done,” he mumbled. He nudged me toward the platform.

  I started crawling. Now that there was light, I could tell the beam had been taken out. There were carpeted steps built up against the opening.

  When I got close, I half stood. Another two-person beanbag chair, like the ones at Kota’s, filled the space. This one, though, was mostly black, but the top part to sit in was pink.

  I turned slightly, looking back at Victor, who had followed me.

  “Go ahead,” he said, prodding me on the leg.

  I climbed the steps that allowed easier access to getting up and into the beanbag chair. I crawled in on my knees, intending to move out of the way so Victor could join me.

  I stopped short. A gasp caught in my throat.

  The lighting continued around my head, the rose sconces making a circle above me. The walls had the same dark padding.

  Attached to the walls was a collection of photographs.

  There they were. All of the boys’ beautiful faces. Some were individual portrait shots. Some were taken in places I didn’t know, bedrooms and dining rooms of I assumed the boys’ homes I’d yet to visit.

  Some photos had me in the shots. There was the one North had taken with his phone while I was on his back. There was one of me being flung into the pool by Nathan. There was one with Kota brushing my teeth. There were dozens more of us at school. There were even some of Dr. Green and Mr. Blackbourne.

  My smile caught again and again as I discovered a new photo. There were so many, I didn’t know where to start and I kept going back to look at different ones to make sure I didn’t miss any.

  Victor was partially standing on the stairs. His head tucked in, and he studied at the display. “Pretty nice, huh?”

  I slid over on the chair to give him room.

  He smirked, flopping down into place next to me. I drew my legs up, but he hooked a hand over my knees, drawing them into his lap. Our bodies leaned in together. Victor wrapped an arm around my shoulders. I tucked my head next to his, gazing around us at the lights, the photos, at the beautiful work the boys had done.

  “I can’t believe you guys did this,” I whispered.

  His free hand dropped onto my knee, his fingers tracing along the kneecap. “We need to keep you safe, Sang. You needed a place to call us.” He nuzzled me with his face, cheek and chin pressing to the top of my head. “And we wanted to.”

  “You didn’t have to,” I said, taking in a deep breath to swallow back the trembling in my voice. “You’ve already done so much for me, even before the clothes and everything from this weekend...”

  His cheek bunched up as he smiled against my head. “Not quite done yet.”

  I stiffened against him. What else could there be? I was overwhelmed as it was. I was like a little kid who just got way too many gifts at Christmas and didn’t know where to start.

  He leaned against me, reaching around to his back pocket, and pulled out a set of keys. The collection varied, from house keys with different colored covers on the top, to a couple that looked like car keys. There was a single keychain, a black and pink plastic heart with a white skull and crossbones in the center.

  “They didn’t have a prettier pink one,” he said, holding up the set in front of me, the keys rearranging as he flipped it over to reveal more of the keychain. “But Gabriel thought you’d like it. Skull and crossbones for Trouble.”

  I partly knew the answer before I asked, but I asked anyway. “Where do the keys go?”

  Victor shifted to pull his arm out from around me and to arrange the keys. “Pink is your house key, green is Kota’s house, red for Nathan, dark blue for Silas, white for mine, the baby blue is for Luke and North’s house, orange for Gabriel’s. And not that you need them yet, but the black key is to North’s Jeep, the green car key for Kota’s, blue for Silas’, gray for mine.” He lifted my palm until it was facing up and dropped the keys into my hand. He closed my fingers around the set.

  I had keys to their houses and their cars. “I can’t drive,” I said in a quiet voice.

  “Not yet. Soon.”

  I couldn’t wrap my brain around that right now. My fingers massaged one of the keys in my hands. “You’d let me have keys? Kota said I’d probably just get his and Nathan’s.”

  “When Kota gave the order to North to make keys for you, North did the right thing and made one of everyone’s. Kota had to be kidding to think we wouldn’t give you one.”

  A smile teased my lips. “I’ve never been to your house, but I’ve got a key to it.”

  He stretched back again to wrap his arm around my shoulders. “Any time you want, Sang. I mean it.”

  I tucked my head into his shoulder and dropped the keys into my lap so I could put a palm against his chest. “I don’t know what to say,” I said. “Victor...”

  “One more thing,” he whispered. “Last one, I promise.”

  My body rattled against him. I wasn’t sure I could handle any more. “What’s that?”

  He leaned away slightly, and with his free hand he stretched toward a spot on the wall. There was a click and the lights around us snapped off.

  The darkness swallowed us up, but not completely.

  Hundreds of stars started to glow. Stars lit up between the photographs, above our heads on the ceiling, in every crevice. There were enough to cast a gentle, eerie green glow on our faces.

  “North thought you might like it,” Victor whispered.

  I sat up and away from him, dazzled by all the stars. Some weren’t stars at all, there were heart shapes mixed in. I counted the hearts. Ten. One for all of us, including Mr. Blackbourne and Dr. Green. Our new family.

  I extended my fingers to touch one heart painted next to a photograph, giving Gabriel’s smile a ghostly illumination. “Victor...”

  Victor shifted on the chair, he leaned over to where I was looking, pressing his cheek to the top of my head. “Yes?”

  My breath was gone and so was my ability to formulate what I wanted to say. I let go of the star to bring the finger to my lips, pressing to my teeth. “I don’t... I can’t,” I floundered. I mumbled more, but only syllables.

  Victor caught my hand at my mouth. He held it, his fingers warming around mine.

  I turned, catching the spark of his eyes in the dark.

  “You’re not alone, Sang. With us, you’ll never have to be. Not anymore.”

  My fingers trembled inside his hand. Finding the words was only slightly easier in the dark. “I don’t know how to thank you. I don’t know how to... how could I ever...”

  He settled back into the chair, drawing me along with him. This time, he pulled me against him in an embrace. My palms pressed against his chest as my head dropped over his heart, the beating nearly matching my own. His hand brushed through my hair, fingers entwining through the strands. His cheek pressed against the top of my head again. “Promise to stay with us, Sang. It’s all we can ask.”

  Stay? Were they kidding? “What do you mean stay?” I whispered, closing my eyes and breathing in the opulent berries of his cologne. The crease of his polo shirt folded against my cheek. My fingertips traced the angles of his chest, as if to smooth out his shirt. “Did you think I would leave?”

  “You always have the choice,” he said. “I’ve seen it in your eyes. That desire to not burden anyone else with problems, and thinking the best way would be to go home and never talk to anyone again. I did that, too, for a long time.”

  “You did?”

  He sucked in a breath, and let it out slow before he began. “My father has always been very demanding of me,” he said. His fingers traced along the edge of my jaw. “He didn’t hit me, but
he’d curse and scream. A wrong note during a recital, a misused fork at a dinner party, any small thing would set him off. He’d wait until we got home and spend an hour calling me an ‘ungrateful prick who never did anything right’. And that was probably one of the nicest things he ever said.”

  My fingers clutched at the material of his shirt. “Victor... that’s awful.”

  “I didn’t tell the guys, even after we’d joined the Academy. They had pretty horrible things to deal with, so I felt like my own problems weren’t that bad.”

  I had no idea. If that was how Victor was treated, I couldn’t imagine what the others must have gone through. “You said was,” I said. “Do you mean he doesn’t do it anymore?”

  Victor’s head shifted from side to side against me. “No,” he whispered. “No, he doesn’t. When Kota and the others found out, they helped me.”

  “How?”

  His mouth twisted to a smile against my head. “That’s a story for another day. But it was the hardest thing for me to do to admit something at home was wrong. There were times I considered quitting the Academy entirely and leaving everyone behind so they wouldn’t find out and so they’d never know. It might have been the most difficult thing to admit my problems to them, but it was one of the best things, for me and for them.”

  My hand loosened my grip of his shirt. “I guess that’s a hint.”

  “Running away doesn’t help anyone. We’ll fix whatever we have to. You just have to tell us.” His fingertip traced over my cheek. “Stay with us, Sang. Don’t run from us anymore. The only way our group works is if you can be honest with us.”

  “What if it isn’t fixable?”

  “There’s very little out there that isn’t fixable. Death, going to prison... But anything else we can usually figure it out.”

  “How?”

  He laughed, his baritone echoing through me. “You ask me that a lot.”

  “Sorry.”

  He smoothed his cheek across the top of my head. “You’re not sorry.”

  I honestly didn’t know what I was any more. I was still overwhelmed by the gifts. I was still wondering about Victor’s story and how he managed to get his father to stop belittling him. I was still curious about what trouble the others were in and how they fixed it together. Wasn’t I protecting them by not bothering them over things I could handle?

  I had to trust his experience. All I had to do was tell them. Why did it feel like the hardest part? “I want to stay with you,” I whispered. That was the easiest to say. I wanted him, all of them, to know.

  “Are you sure?” he asked in a quieter tone.

  My fingers gripped at his shirt again. I wanted to be sure he knew I meant it. “Yes.”

  The hand at my face shifted to my back, hugging me in close. He breathed in deeply against my hair, his breath shifting the locks against my head. “As you wish.”

  With my cheek pressed to his chest, my eyes wandered to the pictures around us, the stars above our heads, the trace outline of the chair we sat in. All the things they did for me seemed like so much, and all they wanted was to make sure I stayed with them. I didn’t want to leave them before, but I also didn’t feel my place among them. Kota promised, as well as the others promised, that it would happen. I would eventually know where I belonged with them. What I had to trust, what I needed to keep reminding myself, was that I did belong. I belonged somewhere, right? Why not with them?

  There in the dark with Victor next to me, and his promise that they wanted me, and the promise from the others displayed before me in the pictures, the stars, the clothes, all the new things, they were doing what they could, before I even knew what I wanted, to ensure I believed it like they did.

  We grew quiet together. There were many things I wanted to say. I wanted to thank him again. I wanted to ask him more about his father, his life. I wanted to ask about the others. I wanted to tell him something, a problem, a small one, just to offer something of myself to let him know I understood. My mind was a mess, though. All I managed to do was slip my cheek against his chest and massage my fingertips in a tiny circle along his collarbone.

  I didn’t want to let go. This was as close as I’d ever been to any of them. A feeling of warmth and belonging was seeping into me through his touch, and I wanted it to last.

  His fingers traced along my ribs. “Sang?” Victor whispered.

  “Yes, Victor?”

  He shifted a hand from my back, slipping down my arm until his fingers found the bracelet at my wrist. His breath against the top of my head and heated a small circle of my skin. “We should go out.” He paused, swallowed, “I mean if you want to, I could take you out sometime.”

  My eyes widened, focusing on a single heart glowing against the wall. What did it mean? What did he want? I thought it would be wrong to ask those questions. Did he expect me to know? Out as in a date? As a friend? What about the others? Kota? What would it mean if we started dating? What if something happened and we found out we didn’t like each other?

  My own heart thundered and my mind whirled trying to grasp the right thing to say. All I had were questions. “Where would we go?” It slipped out first and I pursed my lips, unsure.

  He released a breath. I felt his mouth smiling against my head. “I'll take you anywhere you want.”

  It wasn’t what I meant. I’d asked the wrong question and it gave him an answer that he wanted and I couldn’t take it back. Something inside me didn’t want to. I liked Victor. Everything I’d said about him the other night, about being handsome and looking out for me, I admired in him. The only problem was I liked all of them. A yes to him felt like a betrayal to the others. Wasn’t dating about choosing one guy to date? “Victor, I... I’ve never... I mean I don’t know...”

  He nuzzled my forehead with his nose. “I understand. It’s sudden and there’s so much going on. Maybe I should have waited. I didn’t want to. I’m not very good at waiting.”

  How long had he been waiting to ask? I didn’t want to make him feel bad about asking. Isn’t that what he was telling me? To be honest about what I was feeling? I dipped my head down, pressing my fingers to my lips, summoning the courage to say something to clarify things for myself and not disappoint him. “I’ve never been out with anyone. I mean I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do.”

  “Well,” he said, shifting to sit up a little. I pulled back so I was sitting beside him. His hand found mine, our fingers intertwined. His eyes remained on our hands so I watched our hands, too, assuming that was what I was supposed to do. “First you pick a place. I’ll complain that it’s girly but I’ll take you there anyway because I want to impress you.” His tone was matter of fact, as if explaining how to operate a can opener.

  I started giggling, shaking my head. “Victor...”

  “And then you complain about what to wear. You’ll try on a hundred different dresses and go back to the first one you put on. I’ll pick you up in my car and we’ll go to some place that we’ll both hate. It’ll probably be some restaurant where the waiter flirts with you and I have to beat him up.”

  I rolled my head back, laughing. Victor was always so quiet and reserved that listening to this side of him was melting my heart.

  His fire eyes sparked against the green glow around us. “And then we’ll go see a show, a foreign film in a language neither of us understands. We’ll annoy the other people watching by making up the lines as the movie goes on.”

  “Aw,” I said against my laughter. “They’ll be mad at us. They might kick us out”

  “You’re right,” he said, tilting his head as if pondering the problem. His thumb started drifting over the back of my hand. “Maybe I should just buy out the movie theater for the night.”

  I tucked my head back against his shoulder, snickering against him. “No, you’ve spent enough on me.”

  “Are you kidding? I haven’t even started yet.”

  I picked my head up, grinning. “No,” I complained. “No more spending money.”<
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  He gripped my hand tighter, smirking. “You don’t like it?”

  Did he want me to be honest now? “I don’t want you to spend money on me.”

  His smile brightened. “Good.”

  My mouth popped open. “What do you mean good?”

  “That’s the first thing you’ve honestly told me you wanted without me prying it from you.”

  I bit my lower lip, contemplating his meaning. I tried to recall everything I’d ever talked to him about, but with him next to me, it was difficult to think at all.

  He picked my hand up, pressing our palms together between us. “Too bad I won’t listen,” he said.

  I scoffed, pulling my hand away. “Victor...”

  He laughed but stopped short, stiffening next to me. “No, no, no...” he pleaded as he leaned forward again, hauling out his phone from his back pocket and swiping at the face. “Always perfect timing.”

  “Academy?” I asked.

  He nodded, sighing, tucking his phone away again. “I’m sorry. I can’t stay.”

  “What’s going on? It’s not fighting, is it?”

  He sat up, reaching for the wall. There was a click and the rose sconces lit up over our heads again. “No, not really. Something’s broken and I have to fix it.”

  “Right now?”

  He turned back to me, his fire eyes met mine and started to blaze. “Yeah,” he said softly, “right now. I wouldn’t leave unless I had to.”

  I rubbed absentmindedly at a spot on my cheek. “Oh I know, I didn’t mean... sorry.”

  His hand found mine at my cheek, taking it in his and squeezing gently. “If I don’t get a chance to come back, I’ll see you on Monday.”

  I smiled, trying to bottle my desire to ask him to stay. I knew better. “Hurry and go before you get in trouble.”

  He smirked, rolled his eyes, lugging away and stumbling out of the bean bag chair onto the carpet. I dragged myself up, on my hands and knees, intending to follow him out but he stopped short on the stairs. He turned, his head almost smacking into mine.