by Alexa Land
So many emotions welled up in me when he said that. I reached out and ran my fingertips over a perfect, spiral curl that had slipped out from under his bandana, and he caught my hand and kissed it. “Thank you for coming to Idaho with me,” he whispered. “I’d be so lost without you.”
“You don’t have to thank me.”
“Sure I do. You dropped everything for me, and…oh God, I just remembered the restaurant! You’re just a few weeks from the grand reopening!”
“It’s fine. I talked to Dante this morning. I texted Dmitri too, by the way, and several of our friends who’d left messages.”
“I’m glad you did that,” he said. “I texted Ash this morning at like, five a.m. when I got up to use the restroom, because I knew he was worried. And I noticed I had a lot of messages, but I just couldn’t deal with them. I don’t even know where my phone is right now.”
“I think I know. Want me to get it for you?”
He shook his head. “Our friends know to call you if they can’t get ahold of me, and you already messaged them back.” Cole took a deep breath and folded up the little tool before slipping it in his pocket. “I’m stalling because I don’t want to face the rest of the house. Did my mom tell you what she wants to keep?”
I nodded. “There are a couple pieces of jewelry that have sentimental value, including an enamel ladybug pin, and she’d like the quilt that’s on Gram’s bed, but she said you can have it if you really want it. She also mentioned Gram bought a document scanner on the home shopping channel a couple years ago and scanned in all her photos for safekeeping. So, if you want to take the albums, your mom says she has backups. She also said she could email you the digital versions, if you’d prefer that.”
“Oh, right. I remember Gram talking about it. She bought it to scan all the papers in her home office and get rid of the clutter, but then she decided it would be a lot more fun to scan the pictures instead.” There was a faraway look in his eyes as he grinned at the memory. “She kept meaning to mail me CDs with the family photos on them, but she never got around to it….” The little grin faded, and after a moment, he said, “Okay, I need to get back to work. I’m going to go inside and make sure my room is totally squared away, and then I’m going to go through the living room and kitchen. I’ll save Gram’s room for last. If we get this done today, then we can head home in the morning.”
“Sure, if you don’t think it’s too much for one day.”
“I need to get out of here, River. I’m barely holding it together, and I feel like every moment I stay is just chipping away at me.”
“We’ll plan on leaving first thing tomorrow, then.”
He looked up at me and said, “You need to get back to the restaurant, so we probably shouldn’t stop off anywhere on the way back….”
“Dante’s fine with me taking a few days off. Was there someplace you wanted to go?”
Cole’s eyes searched mine. “I’d love a couple days somewhere quiet. I’m just not ready to return to San Francisco, and go back to work, and act like I’m fine. I don’t care where we go, as long as it’s not here and not home.”
“Done.”
“Really?”
“Absolutely. Just leave everything to me. I’ll take care of you, sweetheart.”
A lopsided smile appeared as he said, “You were never one for cute terms of endearment, but in the last day, you’ve called me that a few times.”
“I used to worry that it was too corny, but now I don’t care. I love you so much, Cole, and if I sound sappy or sentimental, well, that’s just the way it is.”
He leaned in and kissed me, and then he said, “I love you too, River.”
After another minute among the leaves, we climbed out of the tree and went back inside to finish his room. We slid the bed into place, being careful not to press it against the newly painted wall, then carried the box of things he wanted to keep and several garbage bags of donations and trash out into the living room before returning for one last look. We’d stripped away everything but the furniture and draperies, so that it really did resemble a hotel room.
Cole whispered, “Why does this hurt? I hadn’t even seen this room in the better part of a decade, and when I said goodbye to it all those years ago, it was meant to be for good. It’s not like I’m losing anything that hadn’t been lost already.”
“You always knew it was here though, and that was probably reassuring in a way. Besides, given all that’s happened over the last couple days, it’s no wonder you’re emotional. Anybody would be.”
He said, “Yeah, I guess you’re right. Let’s take one last look around and make sure we didn’t leave anything in the drawers or behind the dresser or whatever. Then let’s close the door and be done with this room once and for all. We can sleep on the couches tonight, they’re perfectly comfortable. It reeks of paint, so sleeping in here wouldn’t have been an option anyway.”
“Good plan.” I looked through the desk while he opened and closed every drawer of his dresser. Next, I moved to the closet. There were two wooden shelves above the bar of empty hangers, and the top shelf was well above my line of sight. Even though it appeared to be empty, I reached up and ran my hand over it just to be sure. My fingertip grazed a piece of paper all the way back in the corner, and I stretched as far as I could and managed to pinch it between my middle and index fingers. Then I pulled it down and turned the large sheet of pale blue construction paper over in my hands.
A burst of laughter slipped from me before I could stop it, and when Cole turned to look at me, I pressed my lips together and stuck the paper behind my back. He raised an eyebrow and asked, “What did you find?”
“Nothing.”
“Yes you did. What’s behind your back?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“Oh man. It’s really embarrassing, isn’t it?” I fought back a chuckle and nodded, and he grinned a little and said, “Let me see it.”
“Before I give this to you, I want to point out that we all did things like this when we were younger. It’s just part of the dopey preteen or possibly mega-awkward teenage years.”
“Good lord. What is it?”
I held my breath to keep from laughing and handed over the collage, which had been meticulously assembled from pictures cut from magazines, then embellished with glitter and colored felt tip pens. Cole’s eyes went wide behind his glasses, and a blush ignited his cheeks. I was afraid to breathe, because I knew I’d crack up.
But in the next instant, Cole burst out laughing and exclaimed, “Holy shit! I thought I burned that!”
I started laughing too, so hard that I fell onto the mattress and hugged my sides. Cole was laughing just as hard as I was as he dropped down beside me. When I could speak again, I gasped, “Is that ‘I heart Taylor’ as in Taylor Hanson, part of MMMBop Hanson, circa 1995?”
Cole smiled at me. “1997. And yes.”
“You were seven when that song came out. Kind of an early bloomer, I guess.”
He chuckled and wiped his eyes under his glasses. “I made this collage when I was thirteen. That’s when I bought a big box of tapes at a garage sale, including Hanson’s first album. At the bottom of the box, there was a thick stack of fan magazines from the late nineties. An instant obsession was born.”
“So I see.”
“You have to admit he’s cute.”
He held up the collage, and I grinned and pointed to a picture to the right of the big, red glitter heart surrounding a portrait of the singer. Cole had grafted Hanson’s head onto the body of a male model dressed in nothing but tightie whities, and I said, “This shot of him is particularly fetching.”
Cole laughed at that and said, “Hey, desperate times. I was going through puberty with no internet, no cable TV, nothing. I had to make my own fapping material.”
I pretended to be grossed out and quickly pulled my hand back as I exclaimed, “Ewwww! Poor Taylor, forced to witness all sorts of perversions from the middle of his glitter h
eart! I’m surprised the collage survived as well as it did, all things considered.”
“I used to keep it in a plastic sleeve.”
I fell over laughing again and choked out, “Oh my God, you kept him in a full-body condom so he wouldn’t get all cummy!”
Cole howled with laughter and poked me in the ribs. As he tried to catch his breath, he managed, “No! Ew! I kept it in a sleeve because those photos were totally irreplaceable, not because I wanted to give Taylor Hanson a facial. I couldn’t exactly travel back in time and pick up a copy of Teen Beat from 1997.”
“Hey, now I know what to get you for Christmas. I’ll bet eBay has all kinds of Hanson merchandise.” He shook his head and tossed the sheet on his desk, and I scooped it up and said, “I’m learning so much about you.”
“Too much. I’m not ashamed of my teen crush on Taylor Hanson, but I wish you hadn’t found that collage. It’s truly embarrassing.”
“No it isn’t. It’s a thing of beauty! Who knew you were so artsy? Just look at the faux calligraphy here along the bottom, where you wrote ‘Cole N Taylor 4ever’ in pink and purple, and made the letters look all puffy and 3D. Mad skillz with a ‘z’, that’s what that is.”
Cole tried to lunge for the collage, but I held it out of reach. He landed on top of me as I fell back onto the mattress, and then he grinned and put his head on my chest. After a moment, he said, “I really didn’t think I was going to laugh today, or any time soon for that matter. It felt good.”
I leaned the collage against the lamp on the nightstand and glanced at it one more time before murmuring, “Wow, that’s bizarre.”
He looked up at me and asked, “What is?”
“I just realized your ex-boyfriend is basically a clone of your teen idol.”
“No he isn’t. The only similarity is that they both had long, blond hair and fair skin.”
“It’s way more than that. Hunter could totally be the long lost fourth Hanson brother!”
Cole grinned and told me, “I don’t see it.”
“Oh come on! It’s uncanny!”
“Yeah, not really.”
“I am so not your type,” I teased. “I could never pass as a Hanson. At best, I could be a member of a Latino tribute band that does Hanson covers. We could call ourselves Huevos.”
Cole laughed and asked, “Why would you be called ‘eggs’?”
“Why not? Really though, what happened? It’s so totally like, one of these things is not like the other.”
He flashed me a big smile. “Did you forget you had long, blond hair when we met?”
“Okay, that’s a stretch.”
“Is it?”
“My hair might have been a bit sun-bleached, but that in no way puts me on the Hanson-Hunter continuum.”
Cole was still grinning as he curled up on my chest and let his eyes slide shut. After a moment he said, “Thank you, River.”
“For what?”
“For making my last memory in this room a happy one.”
I kissed his forehead and said, “I’m glad I could help.”
He sat up and exhaled slowly before saying, “Let’s take a quick look in my grandmother’s room. I was going to save it for last, but I think I need to get it over with. I’m not going to rifle through her things, because that seems so wrong. I just want to retrieve a couple boxes of family photos she kept in there. I doubt she scanned them, since they’re pictures she didn’t think were good enough to put in albums. I remember some nice candid shots, though.”
We both got up, and he handed me the collage. Then he straightened the bed linens, closed and locked the window, and took a last look around. I followed him out of the room, and when he shut the door behind him, I knew it was for the very last time.
Gram’s room was at the other end of the house. I left the collage in the living room as we passed through it. When we reached her bedroom, Cole hesitated before stepping inside and turning on the light. He didn’t look at the place where his grandmother had died, but I couldn’t help it. The brass bed was neatly made and topped with a cheerful quilt, at least a dozen frilly throw pillows, and a small teddy bear. Tears prickled in my eyes, but I held them back.
Cole went straight to the closet on the left side of the room and slid open the door. He handed me two fabric-covered boxes, then stuck his head into the closet and glanced in both directions as he said, “I think that’s all the photos, but let me check to make sure.”
He went still all of a sudden, and after a moment I asked, “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah. I just…hang on.” The closet was wider than the opening in the wall, so to reach the very back corner, he had to slip inside it. After a moment, he emerged with a couple spiral-bound notebooks, and when he looked inside one of them, he muttered, “Oh my God.”
“What is it?”
“I threw these away soon after I moved here. Apparently Gram fished them out of the trash.” Cole slipped back into the closet. When he emerged a minute later, he was holding a foot-tall stack of mismatched notebooks, and he said, “I’m going to take these into the living room.” He glanced at the bed on the way out, and I shut off the light and closed the door behind us.
When we reached the living room, he piled the notebooks on the coffee table, and then he perched on the edge of the couch and stared at them for a long moment. I sat beside him and put the photo boxes on a chair to my right before asking, “Is that old schoolwork?” Cole shook his head and picked up what looked like a journal from the top of the stack. Instead of opening it, he ran his hand over the embossed cardboard cover. He looked dazed, and I asked, “Is something wrong?”
“It’s just so strange to see these after all this time. I guess Gram hid them because she figured I’d throw them away again if I found them.”
“What are they?”
He said softly, “When I was a kid, I dreamed of becoming a writer. These are full of my short stories, poems, even a couple novels.”
“I never knew you wrote.”
“I don’t anymore.”
“Why’d you stop?”
“For the same reason I threw these out, because I was terrible. Gram should have left them in the garbage.” Cole returned the journal to the stack and wrapped his arms around himself.
“Says who?”
“Everyone.”
He looked so vulnerable, and I asked, “What happened to you, Cole?”
I thought he wasn’t going to answer me at first. But after a long pause, he told me, “A couple weeks after I moved to Gomsburg, we were given a creative writing assignment in my English class. When the teacher asked for volunteers to read our stories to the class, I raised my hand. I was so stupid. I’d believed my teacher in Chicago when she said I had talent, but she was full of it.”
He swallowed hard and continued, “Anyway, there was this kid, Wiz Schumer. He came up to me after class and told me he’d liked my story. I thought he wanted to be my friend, so when he asked if I had any others, I gave him one of my notebooks.” Cole took a deep breath. “The next day, when I got to school, everyone was laughing at me. It turned out Wiz had photocopied parts of my stories and poems and passed them out to everyone. I went home and threw everything away, so I could never be humiliated like that again, and I stopped writing, apart from what I was forced to do in school.”
“But how could you give up on your dream of writing, just because some little asshole made fun of you?”
He turned to me and said, “Don’t you see, River? If my stories had been any good, he wouldn’t have been able to make fun of them! But it was all too easy for him to pull out all these cheesy, stupid, ridiculous lines and distribute them to the whole school, because my writing was horrible.”
“They didn’t laugh at you because you were a bad writer, Cole. They laughed because they were cruel, hateful little shits. When something like that happens, it’s not because the kid being victimized is at fault. It’s because there are way too many pathetic, spiteful bullies in
the world who need to tear others down in order to build themselves up.”
“But if my stuff was good—”
“They would have laughed at you anyway. And that’s a reflection on them, not on your writing. That fucker Wiz was probably some ignorant hayseed who wouldn’t know good writing if it bit him on the ass. And what did the rest of those kids know, besides how to hurt others? Wiz is probably in jail now, or at best, working as assistant shit shoveler at the local sewage treatment plant.” The corner of Cole’s mouth tilted up, just a little, and I asked him, “What do you think the chances are that Wiz Schumer ever read a single book after he finished high school, assuming he even graduated?”
“Not good. But—”
“But nothing! Thank God for Gram, who had the good sense to keep these for you. And fuck that snot-nosed bully Wiz Schumer and those other little brats! They didn’t even deserve to read any of your wonderful writing!”
Cole frowned at me and said, “You’ve never read a single word I’ve written, so you can’t possibly claim it’s wonderful.”
“Here’s how I know it is: you’re intelligent, articulate, and you have the most beautiful heart imaginable. If you let even the tiniest bit of you seep onto the page, then it can’t help but be glorious.”
He ducked his head embarrassedly. “That’s one of the nicest things anyone’s ever said to me.”
“It’s a statement of fact.” He grinned a little and I said, “I hope someday you’ll let me read your stories. Not today, though. You don’t need to make yourself more vulnerable right now.”
I was pleasantly surprised when he climbed onto my lap and hugged me. “I’ve never talked about the day I stopped writing,” he said. “It was so devastating that I guess I compartmentalized it and pushed it deep down inside. I was still reeling from my dad’s death, and from having to leave the only home I’d ever known and all my friends. I hadn’t even been here a month when that happened. As if the gay, black, Jewish kid needed one more reason to stick out in a place like this.”
“Fuck those little jerks,” I muttered. “Wiz Schumer was a twelve-year-old mini douche. Serves him right that he was named after a slang term for peeing.”
