“This car is doomed.”
“How so?” I quickly scanned for smoke or other signs of imminent danger. The front passenger tire was all mangled—no amount of inflation was going to save that—but I couldn’t see another obvious threat.
“No spare.” He pointed at the empty well where one would expect to see a spare tire.
“Wow. How did Professor Tuttle overlook that? A cross-country trip. I thought he checked everything,” I sputtered.
“Me too. But he was kind of distracted.”
“By us fighting.” Fresh guilt swamped me.
“Among other things.” Conrad’s thunderous expression made it clear that somehow my shortcomings were a big part of those other things.
“That’s not fair.”
Conrad huffed out several breaths. “Fair or not, we’ve got no spare and I think the rim is bent.”
“Well, heck.”
“You can say fuck, Alden. I won’t tell.”
“Fine. Fuck it.” The curse felt sharp, unnatural in my mouth. “Nope. Cursing doesn’t help.”
“True. But it feels better momentarily, right?”
“For you maybe.”
“God. Can’t you stop being so damn perfect for like ten minutes? Please?” Conrad paced back and forth in front of me.
“I’m not perfect.” How utterly hysterical a concept. Rather than give in to the urge to laugh like a maniac—another impulse that wasn’t likely to help—I started repacking the trunk in the correct order.
“Oh? You’re Mr. GPA, never a single misstep. Perfectly virginal. Perfectly studious. Have you even been drunk? Or fucked up?”
“All. The. Time.” Pausing from my work, I ground out each word. “Messed up, I mean. Not the drunk part. My anxiety meds tend to contraindicate alcohol.”
“My point. You can’t even violate a prescription warning.”
“I don’t like dying, thank you very much.” I placed the next bag in the trunk with more force than necessary, making the other bags jump.
“Fair enough.” He looked slightly chagrined, chin tucking in, eyes shuttering. “But I don’t mean messed up like a panic attack at the wrong moment. Or a B on a test. I mean big, huge errors in judgment. The kind that change everything.”
The pain in his voice gave me pause. “I’m not sure,” I admitted slowly, putting the last box away more cautiously. “But I’m not perfect. That much I know. And I’ve got the bulging medical file to prove it.”
“Doctor stuff?” His mouth twisted. “Not sure that health problems count or—”
“Just stop.” I rounded on him, bristling with twenty-odd years of righteous indignation over people and their assumptions. “You’re so darn sure I’ve got the perfect life just because I’ve got two moms, the nice house, the tuition, and whatever else you wish you had, but you can’t see past the external and I am sick of it.”
“Sor—”
“I’m not done.” I’d rarely been this angry, and it felt like a freight train trying to leave my chest, like I couldn’t hold it back any longer. “You want to know how imperfect I am? Fine. My moms have spent years trying to get a label for my imperfection.”
“Oh. You mean like a panic disorder?” His voice was cautious, but I plowed on.
“That. Personality disorder. Learning disability of some sort. Speech problem. Autism spectrum disorder—what they used to call Asperger’s. The moms were desperate for an explanation for why I wasn’t like other kids. They latched onto neurodiversity, but all the doctors they dragged me to couldn’t come to a consensus on a single label. But they all agreed that whatever I was, I wasn’t a typical kid.”
“Well, duh. You’re a genius. Don’t plenty of geniuses have neurodiversity or whatever you want to call it?”
“My IQ isn’t quite that high,” I felt honor bound to correct him, even as I warmed to the compliment.
“Okay, maybe not a literal genius, but dude, you’re hella smart.”
“That wasn’t enough,” I whispered as the wind whipped through my hair, heat of the day beating down on me just as much as the memories and shame were. “Not enough for medical school, at least. I’m smart, sure, but there’s tons of applicants with the same GPA. And good at math doesn’t mean good at baring my soul in an admissions essay. That and socially awkward equals fast rejection.”
“I wouldn’t say you’re that socially awkward.” His tone was kind, but I hated that I couldn’t tell whether he actually meant it or was being nice to get me to calm down. Which wasn’t happening. My pulse was still pounding, the need to make him understand as intense as the sun, impossible to hold back.
“And the worst part—the truly worst part—is that the moms wanted me to write about being neurodiverse. Like they knew it wouldn’t be enough to just be myself to get in. It’s never enough being me. We have to label it. Work to overcome it. Treat it. Fix it. Because, yeah, I’m imperfect.”
Conrad was silent a long moment, undoubtedly stunned by my tirade, chewing on his lower lip as he squinted into the sun.
“I don’t think so,” he said at last. “And it’s not me having rose-colored glasses about your family situation. I get it now. They were too hard on you. But you’re not imperfect. Neurodiverse or not, you’re right. You’re just you. Just Alden. It’s who you are. Changing any of it isn’t necessary.”
“It’s not?” I could barely get the words out. I wasn’t sure anyone had ever quite so readily defended me.
“No. Like…you wouldn’t ask a German shepherd to suddenly become a toy poodle.”
“I am not a dog.”
“Okay. Terrible metaphor. But what I mean is why waste time trying to change who you are? Trust me. I’ve spent a ton of time trying to change me. Pray away the gay, so to speak. But it didn’t work. Some things about us are just how we arrived here on earth.”
“Yeah.” Voice coming out weak, I had to lean against the car.
“And I don’t think that makes us imperfect.” He put a hand on my shoulder. Not a hug or even a squeeze, but there, warm and present. His conviction, the way he seemed to deeply believe his words, made my knees wobble, body not sure it could withstand this much compassion all at once. “I’m not trying to say that being gay is the same. And I can’t say that I know what you’ve gone through. But I do know what it’s like to believe you’re broken when really all you are is…you. And I’m sorry that your moms maybe can’t see that.”
“Thanks.” My eyes burned in a way they hadn’t in years, hot and tingly and dangerously close to welling over. I wanted to believe him, wanted to trust that he wasn’t feeding me some positivity mantra out of pity. For the first time, maybe ever, I felt seen. Heard, like maybe I hadn’t ranted in vain. I turned toward him, still searching for the right words to say thank you with, and our eyes met. Held. His were full of compassion. But not pity. I’d seen pity plenty of times, and this wasn’t that. It was understanding, and it was potent. I leaned in to his touch, soaking it in.
Right as I was about to say something—probably the wrong thing, but at least something—the beep of a horn made me jump. Conrad’s hand dropped as if he’d been burned. A tow truck pulled up in front of us.
“Someone need a rescue?” the driver, a gray-haired woman, called out her open window.
Oh, lady, you have no idea. And even as Conrad rushed toward her, I couldn’t help feeling as though she’d interrupted something significant, a moment I might never get back.
Chapter Seventeen
Conrad
Our rescuer was named Mary from Mary & Blue’s Auto Repair, and she was a strapping woman who was easily almost as tall as me, with shoulders that rivaled many linebackers. But her voice was all gingerbread and hot cocoa—a caring grandma who wanted to cluck over us as much as the car.
“Oh, this car is a beaut.” She circled Black Jack. “But you poor boys.
What rotten luck. Did you have to wait long?”
“No,” Alden said softly, still sounding a little dazed. “Not long.”
Weird answer because to me it felt like years had passed since the tire blowout—as if we were most definitely in a different place and time now, the very air around us changed. It wasn’t simply the argument or Alden’s confession. Rather, something had happened inside me, some unearthing of tender places I hadn’t been aware of having. And in telling Alden that he wasn’t broken, I’d reminded myself that this applied to me too. It had been so easy to feel like damaged goods the past year, but when I’d told Alden that we weren’t imperfect, I’d actually believed it myself.
And I’d meant it when I said that I didn’t see Alden as imperfect—I never had. If anything, I’d been guilty of some unrealistic golden-boy assumptions. I’d always seen him as supersmart, super competitive, and yeah, maybe a little quirky. But everyone has idiosyncrasies. And whether his stemmed from neurodiversity or anxiety or some other cause, I didn’t think that made him flawed.
“Well, good. Wouldn’t want to keep you waiting. My first call out in a few days.” Mary slapped Alden on the shoulder before bending to inspect the damaged tire. “And yep, you’ve got a bent rim. Fixable though. Luckily, with a sedan like this, even a luxury model, we probably have a tire that will work back at the shop. We’ll tow you in. Should have you back on your way in a few hours.”
“Hours?” Alden, keeper of the schedule, groaned, and for once, I had to join in. We couldn’t afford to lose that much more time.
“By dinner,” Mary assured us. “You’re lucky it’s a slow day at the shop.”
I had a feeling most days were slow in this tiny blip of a place. Mary’s was the only other vehicle I’d seen since taking the exit ramp. I couldn’t see any town yet, but the sign on the tow truck advertised some place I’d never heard of.
“Thanks.” I couldn’t help my sigh, but we really didn’t have any other options. “And uh…how much?”
“The tow is covered by your friend’s Triple A. And unless we’re looking at an alignment, it’ll be the rim repair and the new tire. Hard to estimate on the fly, but two fifty? Maybe three hundred. We’ll try to keep it down.”
“F—heck.” The dollar signs invading my brain made my whole face clench. Fast math said that even split, that was going to cut into my reserves in a big way. But no way was I letting Alden cover the whole thing. And calling Professor Tuttle like little kids who needed bailing out just wasn’t happening either.
“That’s fine.” Alden shot me a look, but there was concern in his eyes too. I remembered what he’d said about his emergency credit card not having an unlimited balance. When Mary stepped away to start prepping the car for a tow, he lowered his voice. “Hopefully, it’s not too bad. I’ll put it on my card.”
“I don’t want your moms saving the day,” I argued. I was much less inclined to accept their help after what Alden had told me.
“Me either.” He sighed. “I’ll put it on my personal card—”
“You’ll put half on it. I’ll do other half.” I was prepared to be stubborn about this. Alden didn’t reply right away, his mouth moving as if he was trying to decide how to get around my decree.
But then Mary came back over, and he gave me a long stare. “Okay.”
“Y’all have a kid in the back seat?”
“Uh, no.” I scratched behind my ear. “Goat.”
Mary blinked. “Eh. Can’t say as I haven’t heard that one before, but no animals in my truck. It tame?”
“It’s a toy.” Alden was blushing. It was cute, him getting all embarrassed over the stuffed animal.
“It’s kind of our mascot.” I grinned over at him, trying to make the best of a crappy situation. The tentative grin he gave me in return definitely counted as something good, the way it made my skin heat.
“I see. Well, climb on up in the truck, boys, and let’s get you back to the shop.”
The truck was an older one, with just a single large bench seat. It was going to be a tight squeeze in the cab with the three of us. I took the middle because I figured Alden’s anxiety might do better closer to the door and not having to bump against a stranger. At least we’d been pressed together the day before on the Speedway tour.
“Thanks,” he whispered as he climbed in after me. Our feet jostled for space and Alden was practically diagonal, half up the door to avoid contact with me.
“That’s not going to work.” I laughed and yanked him down into my lap. And hey, now I had a lap full of Alden, warm and smelling far better than he had any right to—solid, his back against my chest. My pulse revved in a way it hadn’t in months. I’d squeezed into cars before or at concerts with friends, people ending up in my lap or squashed against me, no biggie. But this felt different than if it had been Jasper or some other friend. Way different.
“Oh good. You figured out how to fit.” Mary swung herself up into the driver’s side of the truck. Alden tensed against me, but if she cared how we’d arranged ourselves, she wasn’t showing it. “Town’s not that far.”
Not that far ended up meaning about fifteen minutes north up the bumpy rural highway, and each pothole and curve in the road made Alden shift in my lap, forcing me to strike up small talk with Mary as a way to distract my brain away from how good—and wrong—it felt.
Luckily, Mary was happy to tell us about Marshall, a small college town surrounded by what felt like endless farms. The way I figured it, they probably had more cows than people in the population.
“Spit and you’ll miss it,” she said, laughing. “But even if we’re not right on the interstate, tourists like us. You boys can wander around while I get you up and running again. Bunch of bed-and-breakfasts. Some restaurants. College kids like to eat and sure like their coffee. People also come for the fishing. Hatchery’s not too far off—”
“I don’t fish,” Alden said stiffly.
“Too messy for you?”
“Yes.” He shuddered and the ripple of his back muscles made electricity zoom up my abs.
“That’s fine. More fishing for me.” Mary laughed again. Despite wishing we were anywhere else, I liked her. “We’ve even got a Walmart now. And there’s a quilt show every September.”
“It’s June.”
“Relax.” Hoping Mary wouldn’t notice, I used my right hand to pat Alden’s leg. “We’ll find something to do.”
“There’s always the Jim the Wonder Dog Museum.”
“That…uh…sure.” I tried to sound more upbeat than Alden, but growing up in the middle of Kansas, I’d had my share of strange small-town museums and attractions.
“Of course, kids also like the arcade just off North. But y’all are probably too old for games—”
“Oh, you’d be surprised.” I grinned as she pulled into an old yellow gas station with a bay of repair garages behind it. It had modern pumps but an aging canopy over them and a decrepit hound dog standing guard by the repair shop.
“That’s ol’ Blue the second. Ex-husband left me the dog and this here business. Reckon I liked the dog and the work better than him anyhow.” Mary bent to pet the dog as we exited the truck. Alden seemed like he couldn’t hop off my lap fast enough, but I needed a couple of deep breaths before I could climb down.
“Let me get a phone number from you, and I’ll call after I find the right tire and look at that rim. I’ve got a mechanic who will help me out with that.”
We exchanged contact information, and I tried to be all casual as I secured walking directions to the arcade. It might be a kid thing, but it still sounded better than exploring local attractions or trying to find food. I was still stuffed from the pizza, and thanks to having had Alden on my lap, the only thing I was hungry for was something I shouldn’t want and couldn’t have.
The town was small enough that we could walk to most of
it from the repair shop. North turned out to inexplicably be an east-west road, but once we got turned around right, we found the small downtown with a row of buildings on either side bookended by a large church on one side and a courthouse on the other. As we neared the buildings, we discovered a large food packing plant and then the promised Wonder Dog Museum with its immaculate garden—neater than many cemeteries and country clubs. We sent a picture of the bronze dog statue to Professor Tuttle before continuing on.
“That courthouse clock looks like something out of Back to the Future,” I joked, pointing at the redbrick building. “Better watch it, or we’ll be running into other versions of ourselves.”
“That old movie?” Alden said. “You just want an excuse to floor it in the car.”
“Guilty.”
Eventually we reached a narrow, flat lot near a stately post office. A metal arch over the turn-in proclaimed “Enchanted Arcade.” The white building was set back from the road with some fanciful metal sculptures out front—two mini elephants just calling for tiny kids to sit on them, some giraffes, a boat that was probably supposed to be the Ark with cutouts for faces for picture taking, and right next to this quasi-biblical scene, a bunch of dwarfs surrounding another cutout that seemed to be Snow White in a long, blue metal dress.
“Stand over there,” I ordered Alden. “We need a picture of this.”
“I’m not putting my face up against one of those.”
“Fine. I will. You do the camera.”
I had no problem being silly with the sculptures, crouching down among the dwarves, dancing with Snow White, and pretending to pet the animals, letting Alden get some photos, but also not stopping until he was smiling too. “You’re such a goofball.”
“Yup. And proud of it.”
“I never expected…” His voice trailed off, and he looked over at the field beyond the building.
“Me to be silly?” I supplied.
“Something like that.” He gave me one of his rare smiles. “Are we going in?”
“You know it. Even if it costs money, it beats wandering around town.”
Conventionally Yours (True Colors) Page 13
