The Maple Effect

by Madeleine Cull

  “Did you break anything?” June scooted along, stepping over large stems where he could and ducking below some others. The roots of the plants threatened to trip him if he wasn’t careful. “Did you get impaled?”

  “I don’t think…so?” Aaron’s voice was weak with strain. He’d definitely knocked the wind out of himself. “I fell on my camera…”

  “Yeah, well, good thing it’s disposable, huh?” June teased, reaching an arm through and giving Aaron a tap on the shoulder. From this spot, he could see the hundreds of shallow scratches on Aaron’s peachy skin. Each one was turning puffy and pink with irritation, some deep enough to cause blood to trickle.

  Aaron slowly turned to look at him. “I guess...”

  “Oh, shit,” June breathed.

  “What?”

  “N-Nothing,” he insisted, giving Aaron’s shoulder a squeeze. “Let’s uh…let’s just get you out of the bushes, yah?”

  “But, June, I—” Aaron reached up with a shaky hand, touched his fingertips to his forehead and came away with a dribble of bright, fresh blood.

  June had had his fair share of head wounds before, but the way Aaron’s face paled made him look like he’d never experienced the sensation. The dull throb and gentle roll of hot liquid down skin. The sudden smell of iron. June watched Aaron stare at his wet fingers and hoped it wasn’t such a shock that Aaron would pass out on him or something. Then he’d have to drag him out of bushes alone.

  His mouth fell open slightly, repulsed and awestruck. The blood flow quickened, sending a few heavy drops into the dry soil. There was something unrecognizable in Aaron’s eyes. Confusion?

  “Aaron, come on, I-It’s no big deal. Don’t freak.” June cleared his throat. “Head wounds always bleed a lot.”

  Before the other teen got too squeamish over the gash in his forehead, the two of them were rudely interrupted by the ominous sound of buzzing. A tiny hum fading in and out near them, growing agitated. First, it was one, and then two, and then more than June could count. He jerked around; fear made the hairs on his arms stand when he spotted an evil black and yellow insect. He paled when it landed on a leaf close to his face.

  “Are those…” Aaron’s eyes shot open wide. The color of emeralds compared to the dark bushes.

  In the many years June had spent up on this mountain, he’d never once tempted fate when it came to wasps. There was just something about the nasty golden-black creatures that even a shit-head teenager like himself knew better than to mess with. He’d witnessed older teens throwing rocks at a hive one time and witnessed the damage done because of it.

  “Wasps!” June yelled, slapping an unfortunate bug that chose to land on his elbow. “We gotta go!”

  With a newfound sense of urgency, June snatched Aaron’s hand and yanked him upright. Together they tore a path filled with tripping and shoving back to the lawn. Thorns snagged at June’s clothes and his face, slowing him down along with Aaron’s pained movements.

  It felt like a thousand wasps chased them by the time they broke through the last layer of thorns and back into the heat of the sun. June’s feet slipped on the grass, and he narrowly avoided falling on his ass when a precise sting caught him in the lower back. He yelped, lost Aaron’s hand, and tumbled away. He tore at his shirt and shed it before any more bugs could fly in there. Aaron, still bleeding and still out of breath, managed to grab June’s hand again in all the chaos and drag him along.

  The two of them bolted for the front of the house when they had a clear shot. Hand-in-hand yelling, smashing into the front door, June nearly taking the knob off in his hasty attempt to open it. Aaron bruised and leaving blood in his path until the safety of inside surrounded them. They slammed the door behind them, then collapsed on the linoleum in defeat. The wasps so angry they could be heard buzzing right outside, fuming for a way in.

  Safe. They were safe. They made it. June breathed.

  It was Aaron who spoke first.

  “O-Ouch...”

  June couldn’t help it; he burst out laughing. The adrenalin twisted a tickle of humor and rose from his gut, making its way out loud and clear. He brought his hands up to cover his sweaty face and muffle the sound.

  “H-How d-d you even FALL?”

  Aaron groaned in response. Rolled over to hide his humiliation into the tiles.

  June blew out a noisy breath and forced himself to stop laughing so he could make sure his friend was okay. He sat up slowly, rubbing the sore spot in the center of his back.

  “Okay, seriously. Aaron…do you need to go to the hospital?”

  Two gentle green eyes flickered toward him, and every stiff muscle in his body relaxed.

  “Does it look like I need stitches?” Aaron asked, honestly. He sounded like he didn’t want to know the answer.

  There was a lot of dried blood caked into Aaron’s hair and more streaks of it across his face, but for the most part, it looked like the wound was clotting just fine. June remembered a time when he’d knocked out a kid’s tooth in middle school—that had been bloodier than this.

  “I don’t think so...” he mused. “But I mean, I’d love to take that pretty little convertible down the mountain if yo—”

  “I think I’m good.” Aaron snorted but made no attempts to get up.

  June nodded. “I’ll at least go get the first aid kit.”

  There was something to be said about another male touching you. And, no, not in the sexual or uncomfortable kind of way, but rather the casual contact of skin. The gentle brush of rough thumb-pads prodding down and back up again. It was familiar, almost like touching yourself, but with the same intense unpredictability that came with the hands of someone else. Girl hands weren’t like this. Girl hands were soft and flirtatious, aimless in their timid slide up and down forearms, gravitating toward veins as if to absorb the pulse of masculinity beneath the surface. They would tread with a lack of confidence. Almost whimsical.

  Aaron remembered what it was like to have a girl (his ex) touching his skin, and this was altogether different.

  June’s hands were larger, stronger, and rougher than he was used to. What he thought would be fingertips was instead a whole palm pressing down; unforgiving in its nature. The steady confidence churning through skin and muscle like lightning, straight to his bones. Aaron couldn’t tell if he was proud of the way he sat still, or ashamed at how absorbed he was in the feeling.

  When June’s hands were on him, he couldn’t feel the throbbing of bruised muscles.

  “You’re being extra quiet.”

  Aaron jumped at the sudden voice, a small gasp escaping.

  “Are you in a lot of pain?” June went on. “You could get away with taking another Tylenol if you really wanted…”

  The steady movements of his thumbs and fingers pressing around Aaron’s shoulders continued. They roamed from spot to spot, pushing, or pinching skin. Followed by the tiny prick of tweezers as another thorn was plucked out. A smear of cold Neosporin dabbed by a pinky. A moment of observation. Repeat. Continue.

  “I’m fine. Although...my pride…?”

  June snorted in agreement. “What were you even doing?”

  Aaron glanced up and out the sliding glass doors toward the maple tree he’d been so eager to climb. It stood proudly, leaves winking in the breeze. You couldn’t even tell there was a missing branch that had snapped under his body weight.

  Aaron wasn’t about to try and explain why he was so enamored with the tree, so he just sighed and lied.

  “There was a bird’s nest I was going to take a picture of.”

  Another thorn came un-snagged from the back of his neck, just under his hairline. When June dabbed at it, a shiver rolled from his head to his toes. His ears rang.

  “You don’t get out much, do you?” June teased. “I mean, what kind of teenager doesn’t know how to climb trees?”

  Aaron sighed. It was hardly fair of June to assume he didn't know how to climb trees. Of course, there had been a point in his life when he h
ad been better at these sorts of things, but he wasn’t clueless. As a young child, he had been outgoing and confident and even daring. Throwing fate into the wind and embracing the cold, wet outskirts of Portland. There was a time before his parents had encouraged him to stay home alone where it was safe. A time before music had engulfed the majority of his life.

  He remembered it and felt a weight press on his shoulders. What kind of person might he have grown up to be had he not lost that childish wonder and bravery?

  “I was kind of sheltered.”

  “No! Really?” June’s voice was kind despite his words.

  “I had a bad accident as a kid.” Aaron solemnly remembered when it had all changed for him. “When I was seven.”

  A few more dabs of Neosporin along the tip of his shoulder and June was quiet. Waiting patiently as he worked. Aaron wanted to turn around and see his expression but thought otherwise when he remembered how blue June’s eyes were. He shifted to lean back on his hands and looked up at the old wood-vaulted ceiling.

  “My cousin and I were hiking through the woods behind his house, playing hide and seek. I don’t remember a whole lot leading up to the accident, but I remember being farther away from home than ever before. Like, we totally shouldn’t have wandered off.”

  Hands. Careful and dutiful taking Aaron’s bicep firmly. June shifted around him, close enough now so he could see his face in profile.

  “I found this old mineshaft,” he continued. This part of the story was all told second-hand, despite Aaron having been the one to live through it. He didn't remember the opening of the shaft, or how excited he’d been to find a hiding spot Arco would never suspect of him. He didn’t remember the sign at the entrance that so obviously read DO NOT ENTER.

  “I went inside to hide from my cousin and…I guess there were some old beams that couldn’t support my weight. I went too far. I fell through the floor and down into this dark hole.”

  “In a mineshaft?” June grinned. “I’ve never been in a mineshaft.”

  He might be completely missing the point of the story.

  “Yeah, well, they aren’t that great.” Aaron straightened his arm out and let June feel along for more thorns. There were a lot of scratches.

  When Aaron had fallen into the hole, he had initially knocked himself out cold, erasing the moments leading up to the fall. However, sometime later, he had woken up down there, and he did remember what it felt like when he realized he was alone. He was halfway to hypothermia, numb in all his limbs, and coughing up blood from where he’d split his bottom lip into two sections. There was also blood below him, hot compared to the stone and dirt he lay on. When he tried to yell for help, he discovered pain so powerful it had made his head spin.

  However, nothing, nothing was quite as frightening and as damaging to him as a child, as the fact that down there in the mineshaft not a speck of light reached him. And he’d sobbed in terror thinking the darkness had swallowed him whole.

  After a considerable amount of time, Arco had given up trying to find Aaron and ran home to get help. By the time he had been found and rescued (courtesy of some highly trained canines) Aaron had accepted death not once, but two or three times.

  He shuddered at the memories, pushing down growing anxiety in his chest and focusing on the feeling of June’s hands again. He’d almost forgotten he was in the middle of a story.

  “I broke my jaw.”

  June stopped then, blinking the childish wonder from his eyes and looking up at him, studying his face carefully. His hands did not move, and Aaron licked his chapped lips nervously. He wasn’t ready to explain to June that a broken jaw was the least of his turmoil. After all, if June thought it was funny he couldn’t properly climb trees, he would think it was downright hysterical when he realized Aaron was afraid of the dark.

  “That’s how you got that scar.” June brought his finger up to Aaron’s face and poked him on the cheek. Right above the raised, pale jagged shape that pointed toward his right eye.

  Aaron nodded, clenching his fist closed, and then open again. A heaviness sat between them. Very unlike a usual teenage boy interaction. He held his gaze when he should have blinked away. It was impossible to know what the other boy thought. They didn't exactly have any reason to be empathetic with each other, so why did that emotion flicker across June’s blue eyes? And how were June’s eyes so blue anyway?

  “So what?” June broke the tension when he looked away. He held Aaron’s wrist now. There were no thorns there, though it was sore and bruised. “You fell and broke your jaw and…never learned how to climb trees?”

  Aaron scoffed. “After the accident, I was too afraid to do anything reckless. And even if I had wanted to my parents wouldn’t have let me.” It had taken Aaron years to lower some of the walls he’d built around himself after the accident. Not to mention being disfigured for a few years before they performed realignment jaw surgery had left him with few friends and even fewer reasons to get over his demons.

  Had he not had Arco at the time, his suffering would have felt endless.

  “What a shame.” June turned his hand over, patted the top of it and then returned it to rest on Aaron’s knee. Something unspoken between them sizzled, frying the atmosphere. Maybe because this was the first time Aaron had bothered to share his story with June—solidifying their friendship in a new way. Maybe because he was still rattled from falling out of the tree. Maybe it was something altogether different.

  “So I guess, to answer your question...” Aaron gave himself a mental shake and circled back. “No, I really didn’t get out much.”

  June smiled at him. Not cocky or arrogant or smug. A real, genuine smile that was mostly eyes and a sliver of white teeth behind oddly pretty lips.

  “Guess you’ve got a lot of catching up to do this summer, then.” Not a suggestion, a promise.

  Despite himself, Aaron couldn’t help the flutter rising in his chest.

  6

  Crazy in Love

  June paced the kitchen.

  This was stupid. This was so incredibly stupid. Why was he doing this? Why did June dare cross a boundary he should stay far, far away from? Why toe the line that boys—especially not teenage boys—didn’t cross? Why set the socially ingrained masculinity aside for…for what?

  Quail watched him with utmost judgment, occasionally lifting a paw to lick and clean behind his ears. It was as if he didn't care at all about his person’s life choices. June stopped in front of him and placed his hands against the cat’s puffy cheeks, forcing eye contact.

  “This was stupid,” he whispered. “Why did you let me do this?”

  Quail chirped, then shook himself free and leaped away.

  “Traitor…I listen to you when you have problems.” June pouted, letting his head fall into his arms on the counter.

  It had occurred to him, sometime between putting ointment on Aaron’s scratches three days ago and catching Aaron singing a Vertical Horizon song to himself while folding laundry (what the fuck teenage boy folded their laundry?) that June may or may not have a big fat crush on the kid.

  He just…couldn’t help it. No matter how many reasons screamed at him not to get into these feelings, he found himself drawn to them. Like moths to the old porch light, or fish to brightly colored lures. When he didn't think Aaron was looking, he would sneak glances at him; trace the curve of his neck or shoulders. Or his hips when he wasn’t wearing a plaid button-up over his T-shirts. June found himself thinking about those green eyes, their lack of impetuousness, and yet their gentle perception. He imagined what it might be like to hold his gaze more than a moment. To find the deeper secrets hidden in the spring grass there.

  Aaron seemed to deflect all the bad parts of June’s personality with ease. He gathered up the delinquent, the stubborn, the rash, and the secretive into a big bag, shook it like a goldfish that deserved to die, and then flushed it away for good. June was faced with the inevitable conclusion that Aaron made him want to be…a better pers
on or something. Or at least a more grown-up person.

  That was very much not what this summer was about.

  This summer was supposed to be about June experiencing all the things that came with his youth for the last time. This was supposed to be the season he drank too much with Angie, shot off firecrackers in the empty lot behind the high school, swam naked under the moonlight (okay that one would probably still happen), and tormented the younger teens at the drive-in theater on Thursday nights.

  This was one hundred and ten percent not the season for June to…to…. What? To crush on some prep who doesn’t even know they’re a prep from Poser-Town-Portland?

  He pictured Aaron singing that Vertical Horizon song with an acoustic guitar in some coffee shop and wanted to die.

  How could he? How could June make such a big mistake? He felt the emo seeping out of his pores.

  The door down the hall creaked open, signaling June’s fate, and before the hopeless boy could drown himself in the kitchen sink, Aaron was approaching. June straightened upright, turned to the cabinet and flung it open to make it look like he was doing something. Like snacking. He grabbed a box of Cheez-Its and tore at the opening nervously.

  Act normal. Act like you didn't walk two miles this morning to the convenience store just to make a stupid, stupid mistake.

  Aaron came into the kitchen red-faced and holding a small black, and yellow box in both his hands like it would break if he weren’t careful. He paused at the table, looking down to greet Quail, who rubbed traitorously against his ankles and then finally looked up at June.

  With a mouthful of crackers and crumbs falling down his shirt, June waited. The crickets in his stomach running a marathon.

  “D-Did you buy this for me?” Aaron blinked sweetly, eyes cast downward like he was shy or something ridiculous. June wanted to die for the second time.