by Anders Grey
“Why can’t you just let him live his life?” Nash growled. “Why do you always have to get involved?”
I scoffed. “First of all, I don’t know why you think Johnny’s life is any of your business–”
“Because he was my friend, not yours. And now that he’s back after you ruined his life, you had to go and immediately put your hands all over him.” He laughed coldly. “Why can’t you just leave him alone?”
For a moment I just stared, too appalled at Nash’s accusations to speak. “How dare you?” I lowered my voice. “It’s not my fault Johnny ran away, and you and I both know it. It was his homophobic dad that pushed him over the edge.”
“There was a certain rumor that didn’t help,” Nash muttered, crossing his arms. “Wasn’t there?”
Those words shook me to my core. My jaw dropped as a cold realization hit me.
I recalled all the cold glances, the hatred in his eyes, the way he seemed utterly furious with me for reasons I wasn’t aware of. This entire time, I didn’t know the truth behind Johnny’s negative perception of me.
But now that tangled thread was starting to unravel.
“Nash. I didn’t start that rumor about Johnny being gay,” I said urgently.
As I said it, I wondered if Johnny actually knew that or not. I had a sinking feeling that he didn’t.
Nash met my gaze coldly. There was no sympathy behind his eyes.
He already knew the rumor didn’t originate from me.
Suddenly feeling vulnerable and uneasy, I stepped back from him.
“What do you want from me?” I demanded.
“I told you. I want you to stop talking to Johnny,” Nash said simply. “I want my friend back without you ruining it this time.”
“Ruining it this time? What–”
“You know exactly what I’m talking about,” Nash ground out.
He didn’t wait for a response. He stormed away with his dog at his side, leaving me angrier and sadder and feeling more helpless than I did before.
Feeling numb and increasingly sick with anxiety, I let my legs drag me back towards the closest house. I collapsed on Johnny’s doorstep, my knees trembling and my palms clammy with sweat. I felt so ill with worry about Roxy and upset over my conversation with Nash that I struggled not to throw up.
With my head in my hands, I sat there alone with my thoughts.
My mind wandered to the past. I thought about every moment exchanged between Johnny and I in high school. How fleeting and temporary they felt, like I was trying to hold water in my hands.
I didn’t want things to be like that between us anymore. I craved something solid, something tangible and real. I wanted him without him being torn from my life again.
Nash’s words bothered me deeply. He hadn’t seemed to believe me when I said I wasn’t the one to start the rumor that pushed Johnny towards his fate.
I laughed suddenly as I remembered something, but it was mirthless and cold. It was a stupid thing I did as a teenager.
Before everything had blown up with Johnny, and before I’d grown any tact, I did something childish. It was obvious to me now in hindsight that it was ridiculous to even ask, but at the time, I’d been too young and desperate for any sort of validation to realize that.
In high school, I knew–for slightly stalkerish reasons–that Nash and Johnny grabbed burgers together on Fridays. I worked up the nerve to seek Nash out before football practice. I knew we weren’t friends. I wasn’t that naive. But Nash was Johnny’s friend, and Johnny was sort of my friend. Besides, Nash had saved me from his stepbrother Lucas and his gang of thugs, so I’d placed my trust in him as well.
I didn’t know at the time my trust was gravely misplaced.
I’d written my feelings down in small text on a scrap piece of paper that I intended to dispose of once the message got across. I found Nash heading to the football field and picked at his shirt to get his attention, since I was too small and obviously out of place to have the confidence to call his name.
“Oh, it’s you,” he said. “Hey.”
“Um… Can I ask you something?”
“You’re asking me something right now, aren’t you?” Nash’s reply was sarcastic, but he grinned. He turned his body towards me. I noticed how much bigger he looked with his gear on. “What’s up, kid?”
“Um… I have an embarrassing question,” I admitted with a laugh. “It’s too embarrassing to say out loud.”
Nash shrugged, shooting a distracted look over his shoulder at the rest of his team who had huddled loosely in the middle of the field. “Just say it. Sorry, but I don’t have a lot of time.”
I bit my lip and fished the paper from my pocket, then with one final hesitation, I handed it to Nash. He took the paper, furrowed his brow, and read it.
Then his expression changed.
His eyes snapped to me, wide and aghast. He dropped the paper. I snatched it up before it could blow away in the wind. I watched Nash with a cautiously expectant smile, waiting for him to agree to my request.
What I got instead was a hard shove to the arm that knocked me flat on my ass. I gasped as I fell.
“Ow! What was that for?”
“Don’t talk to me or Johnny again,” Nash muttered, shooting a dark glare at me. “Got that?”
“What? But–”
“Nash! Come on!” someone from the field called.
Nash didn’t reply to me, but the look on his face was cutting and cold and made it clear that the topic wasn’t up for debate. He ran towards his teammate.
I picked myself up and brushed the grass off my jeans. With a frown, I skulked to the nearest empty stairwell and holed up there, wondering where I’d gone wrong.
I opened up the crumpled paper and read the words back in my head.
Could you please ask Johnny if he’s into boys at all? It’s ok if not :) Just wondering. Thx
Now I laughed pathetically thinking about how stupid it had been of me. Brave, but stupid.
But my laughter faded as a dark thought wormed its way into my head. That incident in the stairwell was the last time I’d seen Johnny before he ran away.
My mind struggled to put the pieces together. If I hadn’t been the one to make up that rumor, and it happened immediately after me showing the note to Nash…
My blood ran cold.
19
Johnny
After kissing Cain on the doorstep and having a meltdown, it became very clear that I needed to escape Rosecreek.
And this time, I had no intention of returning.
But there was one big problem–the house. I was stuck with it like a wart that refused to be zapped off.
Ms. Walker’s words were burned into my skull like a mantra: Your parents wanted to make sure you were comfortably moved in and settled before I gave you access to that room.
Oh, I was going to get comfortably moved in all right. Whatever my dead parents were hiding from me in the office, I was going to get to the bottom of it, and that obviously meant getting on the lawyer's good side. I had to follow my parents’ inane checklist, and if that meant decorating the house Johnny-style, that was exactly what I was going to do.
And if it meant sucking up to my neighbors, then so be it.
Armed with a large tip left by my previous client for a job well done and a credit card for backup, I grabbed my wallet and headed out the door. I tried not to think about the walk of shame ahead of me as I headed for Kaitlyn’s house across the street. She was the closest person I knew and felt comfortable with, and after all, there was no fucking way I was going to Cain’s to beg him for help again.
But as I left the gate and reached the sidewalk, something small and fast caught my eye.
“Roxy?” I said in surprise.
The little pink dog panted and wagged her tail excitedly. When I kneeled down, she put her paws on me and tried licking my face again. There was no leash trailing behind her, and Cain was nowhere in sight.
“What are you
doing here alone?” I asked.
When I picked her up, she settled calmly into my arms, like nothing was wrong.
“Okay… Are you even supposed to be outside by yourself?”
Roxy snuggled against me and made no attempt to reply.
I sighed. I really didn’t want to confront Cain right now–hell, I didn’t even want to think about him–and since he wasn’t running around calling for his dog, I figured it was all right for her to be out alone. I bundled up Roxy in my arms like a football and continued over to Kaitlyn’s place.
Before I could buzz at the gate, I was interrupted by Kaitlyn herself. She appeared before me in a sporty outfit, a headband across her forehead and a pair of light wrist weights strapped to her forearms. Behind her feet stood a little yellow chihuahua, wagging his tail curiously.
“Oh, Johnny!” she said. “Fancy seeing you here! It’s good to see you coming out of your shell a little.”
Do they have the impression that I’m some kind of hermit? I thought. Maybe I don’t go out enough.
“Thanks,” I said. “Er, feel free to say no, but I have kind of an embarrassing request to ask. Only if you’re not busy.”
“Oh, no, I was just gonna sit down and do some DIY projects I found online,” she said with a laugh. “What can I do for you?”
At any other time I might have felt bitter that Kaitlyn could afford not to work and just do crafts all day, but now I just felt grateful that she leapt at the opportunity to help. Maybe I’d been too quick to judge her.
“I kind of need a ride,” I said hesitantly. “I need furniture that’s not… You know, furniture that didn’t belong to my parents.”
Kaitlyn’s face glazed with sympathy and she touched my arm. “Oh, honey, say no more. Totally get it. You just let me change, then we’ll hop in the car and be there in no time.”
I suddenly felt awkward holding Roxy. I still didn’t want to see Cain so I said, “Uh, maybe I should go drop Roxy off at my place first.”
Kaitlyn winked. “Don’t you worry about that. The store we’re going to knows me. Hell, I’m probably their best customer! They’ll let it slide if you want to bring her, since she’s purse-sized and all. Hell, I bring Noodles with me all the time.” She laughed, indicating the chihuahua.
I smiled, relieved. “Thanks.”
Roxy wagged her tail, too.
After getting out of Kaitlyn’s luxury SUV—which probably cost more money than I’d made in my entire life—she gave me a tour of her favorite furniture store. All the employees recognized her on sight and made excited small talk while I perused the selection. A few even asked where Noodles the chihuahua was. None of the employees commented on Roxy except to say how cute she was. One of them even pulled a treat out of her pocket to feed her, and Roxy made sure not to leave any evidence of crumbs behind.
Despite the majority of the store being vastly out of my price range–hell, even out of range for the limit on my credit card–I did manage to score quite a few smaller items I actually liked. I came away from the trip with a cool industrial lamp, a double-decker glass table with wood trim, a couple pillows with animal skull designs (Kaitlyn didn’t like those so much), and a few other small knick-knacks. Everything fit nicely in the back of Kaitlyn’s vehicle.
“Thanks again for taking me,” I said. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“Nonsense,” she replied. “Anything for Denisa and Edward’s kid.”
I grew quiet at the mention of my parents, petting Roxy as she curled up warmly in my lap.
“Sorry,” Kaitlyn said after a moment. “It must still be hard, huh?”
I shrugged. “It’s okay. Were you close?”
She smiled sympathetically. “Not very. But I still liked having them as neighbors. They were always clean and polite.” Her smile grew thin and she bit her lip. “I always did find it odd that they didn’t try to bring you home, though. I remembered seeing you all the time as a kid, and then one day, you were just gone. A few of us were pretty worried, you know? We’d ask and they’d just say that you ran away and refused to talk to them.”
I couldn’t hold back a bitter laugh. “Yeah, that’s a lie. They never tried to contact me.”
“What?” Kaitlyn sounded horrified. “You’re joking.”
“Nope.” I shrugged. “I bet that did make them sound better, though.”
Kaitlyn let out an offended huff. “Well, that’s just wrong.”
I asked the following question hesitantly, knowing it could easily sour the rest of the drive home. “Did they… ever mention why I left?”
She clicked her tongue. “Something about being ungrateful, being lured in with the wrong crowd, that sort of thing.”
Ouch. “So basically, they lied.”
“What?”
I don’t know what came over me, but the truth poured out of me. “All that stuff is a lie. They kicked me out because I was gay.”
Kaitlyn hit the brakes at the red light a little too hard. “They did what?”
My skin itched and I regretted bringing it up. I only nodded in response. I felt careless for bringing that fact up now while I was stuck in a car with her and had no way of escaping.
“They kicked you out?” she demanded.
I winced. “Yeah.”
The car behind her honked as the light turned green. Kaitlyn hit the gas.
“Can’t believe it,” she muttered. “Fucking ridiculous…”
I was shocked to hear her swear. She was more riled up than I expected. “Are you okay?”
Kaitlyn let out an exasperated sigh. “Remember at the party when I mentioned my son, Rowan?”
I remembered something about a Rowan and his partner. “Yeah.”
“He’s gay.”
I sat up in my seat. “Really? When you said partner, I thought…”
“Nope. He’s dating a very nice man right now.” She smiled for a second then lapsed back into a scowl. “Rowan was always a bit different. I was surprised when he told me, sure. That’s just not something you expect from your kid, especially when you have a life planned out for them in your head. But to kick you out?” The car revved faster as Kaitlyn growled. “That’s just wrong.”
I blinked, feeling both surprised and comforted by her reaction. “You think it was wrong of them to kick me out for that?”
“Yes!” she cried. “It’s ridiculous, is what it is. How could you kick your child out for something they can’t control?”
My chest grew warm at Kaitlyn’s unexpected words. Of all the people in my life I expected this amount of support from, it definitely wasn’t from my parents’ rich neighbor.
“Thank you,” I murmured.
She huffed. Suddenly she steered the car over to the shoulder of the highway, parked, then leaned over to hug me. I let out a muffled sound of surprise, but awkwardly hugged her back.
“I’m sorry they did that, but thanks for telling me, Johnny,” she said. “It was very brave of you.”
A blush spread across my cheeks. Unable to find the right words, I just nodded.
How was it that this woman I barely knew had acted more motherly to me in a span of five minutes than my own mother had in my entire life?
When Kaitlyn pulled up the road to my house, I noticed a figure sitting on my front steps.
“Cain?” I murmured.
“He looks a little sad, doesn’t he?” Kaitlyn commented.
I frowned. From here I saw his face was buried in his knees and his hands were clenched in his hair. He might have even been crying.
But why was he on my front doorstep?
“Is it okay if we unload this later?” I asked Kaitlyn, feeling guilty. “Sorry for being a burden, but I think I need to talk to Cain alone.”
She nodded. “Go ahead, honey.”
The term of endearment sounded unusual but warm in my ears.
It was late afternoon now, and the sun cast long shadows across the driveway. I got out of the car, still holding Roxy in my arms, and
approached Cain. He didn’t notice my presence until I was right in front of him.
“Cain?” I said.
His head snapped up. From the way he blinked rapidly, looking disoriented, I figured he’d either been deep in thought, or asleep.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
But as soon as Cain saw Roxy, his eyes lit up. He shot to his feet and cried her name. He grabbed her from me, holding her close to his chest and petting her as she whimpered and licked his face.
“Oh my god,” he said, his voice cracked. “I was so, so worried…”
When his eyes met mine, I noticed how bloodshot they were. His cheeks, too, were streaked with dried tears.
“Thank you,” Cain whimpered.
With one arm holding Roxy, he threw the other one around me, burying his face in my chest as a fresh wave of tears took hold of him. He sobbed once, then stifled the sound.
Heat flooded my cheeks. “But I didn’t do anything.”
“You found her,” he said, voice thick with emotion before breaking again. “Johnny, I was so stupid, I shut the door and forgot about her, and she ran off, and by the time I noticed, she was fucking gone and–”
His words melted into unintelligible sobs as exhaustion and relief hit him like a wave. I was helpless to stop myself. Against my better judgment, I held him closer and stroked his back in soothing motions.
“Shh. It’s okay. She’s safe now. Everything’s okay.”
When he nodded, I realized just how fatigued and spent he looked. How long had he been sitting here and crying?
“Come on,” I said gently. “Let’s go inside for a bit.”
Cain hiccupped and nodded as he followed me in, never letting go of Roxy.
20
Cain
I was an absolute wreck.
After the kiss with Johnny and losing Roxy and everything that happened with Nash, having my dog back in my arms was what pushed me over the edge. My emotions swamped me, making me feel weak and broken. When I finally pulled myself together, I realized Johnny and I were sitting on his couch, and the protective plastic sheet that had been tightly secured over the couch the last time I was here was tossed aside.
