Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/4808141.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Tom_Hiddleston_-_Fandom, Chris_Hemsworth_-_Fandom, hiddlesworth_-_Fandom
  Relationship:
      Chris_Hemsworth/Tom_Hiddleston
  Character:
      Tom_Hiddleston, Chris_Hemsworth
  Additional Tags:
      Stuttering, Insomnia, Sleep_Deprivation, Sleep_Disorder, Speech
      impediment, Singing, Hurt/Comfort, Emotional_Hurt/Comfort, Teenagers,
      Bullying, physical_bullying, very_brief_contemplation_of_suicide, Blow
      Jobs, Frottage, Dry_Fucking, Anal_Sex, Divorced_parents, Fluff
  Stats:
      Published: 2015-09-16 Words: 45089
****** Little Lullabies ******
by furiedheart
Summary
     17 year-old Tom and 19 year-old Chris both suffer from disorders they
     feel alienate them from others. And then they meet.
Notes
     There's a lot of me in this one. It's very personal. I think that's
     why it took me so long to write. I hope you all like it <3
     There was a piece of artwork that I carried with me everywhere while
     writing this. I even had it as my phone wallpaper. It's of Thor, but
     I used it as inspiration for Chris. It's really super beautiful and I
     tried finding the original artist but couldn't. It's listed below.
     Thank you to my beta, duskyhuedladysatan, for reading at a moment's
     notice, for encouraging me, for supporting me, and being ever so
     patient. You are, my dear, the very best.
     This and this and this is Chris. This is sweet Tom.
     "Come with all your shame, come with your swollen heart. I've never
     seen anything more beautiful than you." ~Warsan Shire
     “What is the finding of love, but a voice answering a voice?” ~D.
     Antoinette Foy
     “Most of us don’t need a psychiatric therapist as much as a friend to
     be silly with.” ~Robert Brault
See the end of the work for more notes
 
Tom:
I haven’t spoken in exactly nine days. No one’s noticed – not that I’m
surrounded by people or anything – not even my mom. But she’s used to my
silence. I remember when I was younger, probably five or six, I would go weeks
without saying a word. It was just too easy after seeing the look of
exasperation on my mother’s face whenever I tried to ask for a juice box or
what was for dinner. She’d stand there in the kitchen with her spatula and
faded apron and stare at me as the words tripped up on my tongue. It was the
glance-away and little groan that always made me feel the worst. Like she’d
given up on me. Like I wasn’t worth the extra time spent to hear me out.
Out. Out. They never came out.
I don’t believe this. Just spit it out.
But I never could. I would usually retreat to my room and play my Nintendo, the
blocky cube characters distracting me enough from how hurt I was. I couldn’t –
still can’t – help that I stammered. It’s something I can’t control. Some words
tumble out just fine, smoothly even, and others – usually certain sounds and
letter combinations – will snarl together and barb themselves on the tip of my
tongue, refusing to budge.
Being an only child aids in my silence. I dive headfirst into books and movies,
loving in particular soundtracks that I download and listen to while I wash my
clothes or do my homework. The privacy also allows me to sing at will, and
often.
Singing is an exception to my stuttering. The moments I can sing are the best.
There’s something about melody and the lilting way to voice the words that
makes my stuttering simply vanish. It’s magic, I swear. I can sing out more
words in a three minute song than I would ever speak in an entire day, and it’s
a secret, thrilling pleasure to do so. I can carry a note pretty well, too. Not
that anyone knows.
School is another matter. I can’t very well pass my time singing in the
hallways. I’d get beat up more often, for starters. And laughed at. And mocked.
I’m silent there too, speaking only when absolutely necessary, and usually
drenched in a cold sweat. Oral presentations are my worst nightmare. I’m a whiz
at tests and papers, and usually I can get by doing all the work in a group as
long as the other members do all the talking. But solo?
It’s not like I don’t practice. I do, trying to convince the rolling muscle of
my tongue to simply let loose the sounds, unwind and give me that freedom
please.But the more I concentrate on the act, the more the signals in my brain
fritz and sizzle, and my lips and tongue and breaths crash together, tripping
me up, making me a fool.It’s not as bad as it used to be. I could go weeks
without making a peep when I was a child. And now, I can sometimes get away
with complete sentences if I’m calm and comfortable enough. But add in
excitement or nervousness or a pair of eyes trained right at me – not to
mention dozens of eyes – and I’m toast. My only consolation is that I have one
year left of high school. After that, I can choose not to present anything to
anyone, ever.
I’ve considered speech therapy, but my mom can’t afford it and I don’t want to
put that extra burden on her. Single and working two jobs, she’s usually a
wreck once back home, eating the dinner I make with her eyes half-closed with
fatigue.
It’s easier during the summer, like now, because I become a permanent fixture
in my room with my video games and my books and no one around. Although, I do
make exceptions for sunsets. Sometimes, I escape out my window and jump on my
skateboard and whip down to the tracks. There’s a copse of trees that border
the northern edge that I like to hide in, climbing the one I’ve marked with a
blue button wedged into one of its ancient crags. Snatching up my board, I walk
in with my face to the canopies, smiling when a leaf brushes my cheek. I like
to think it’s how they say hello.
The crash of the surf, and the call of seagulls and rich salt-laced air are
great, but just a sliver of the sea can be seen if I crane my neck enough from
the ground. It’s not until I haul myself through the topmost branches, easily
thousands of feet in the air, that I get the widest view, all treetops, and
farther out the long stretch of indigo water.
It’s the way the sun descends, you see. Because too far up in the sky it’s this
big marred slate of TOO BRIGHT and you have to squint or turn away in order to
continue living. But once it’s sunk low enough to press gently against the far
lip of the horizon, then all the world starts a glitter dance, like bits of
broken sea glass lit with flame. Only, it’s a gentle fire. Easier on the eyes,
and you can stare at it for longer. The warmth radiates right up into your
bones, casting the treetops with the scent of sap and loam and wet salt, and
you could breathe in big and deep and feel alive and rooted.
I like sitting up on the highest branch, my legs dangling, ear buds plugged
into my phone. And I’ll sing. To the sky, to the other trees, to the sea. To
the sun. Not crazy loud, never. Because I’ll never forget that one time a group
of boys – recently graduated and sporting wispy beards - came stumbling in
through the tree trunks below me, long-armed and strong-jawed enough to make my
mouth water, their drunken banter forcing me to curl up against the sturdy
branch and pray they didn’t find my board tucked among the roots. And I watched
them as they sat in a circle below me, talking about life as if they’ve lived
it for very long, passing cans of beers around that they’d had hidden in their
pockets. Cigarette smoke wafted up and stung my eyes, but I held still,
listening to the curled cadence of their deep voices, wondering what it might
feel like if I pressed my lips to their throats and felt them vibrate my name.
I never returned to the trees during a weekend again, warily mindful of my
instinct to trust and how hard I work to disobey it, curious about whether I
might approach them should I ever see them again.
I need to be careful out here on the edge of town, by myself, with my non-
voice.
But when alone, I will sing only loud enough to hear my own voice thrumming in
my chest, behind my throat, on my cooperating tongue. I can probably
communicate entirely through song lyrics if I felt comfortable enough singing
them to someone. But even I’m not that fanciful.
I talk to myself a lot, actually. Usually I can abide my own stuttering if I do
it alone, but I can’t help the numbing rage that burns through me when I
stutter to someone else. The self-loathing is toxic. Still, I’ll talk aloud if
only for the sake of hearing my own voice. Singing will carry me to sleep or to
fantasies where I’m not like this, visions in my head of friends and maybe even
a boy. But speaking to myself has an entirely different purpose, ever since my
voice changed.
It used to crack a lot, especially when I sang. God, I hated it. Made myself
blush with embarrassment. But somewhere around the autumn of age fifteen I grew
four inches and opened my mouth to a deep river of charcoal, smooth and
bottomless. Gone were the cracks and squeaks; in their place a lower register,
a baritone I felt shy testing out standing in the corner of my room, hand
inching lower to my groin, turned on by my own voice.
I’m so happy it’s stuck around.
Despite the lack of daily drama from the typical school day, somehow things
have a way of making the rounds during the lazy weeks of summer. The newest
gossip on the block is the return of one of the neighborhood’s long-lost sons.
He wasn’t literally lost, from what I understand, but he had been living
elsewhere with his mother for years and now was back home with his father
permanently. I haven’t seen him yet. I don’t really remember him from when he
used to live here before, but that was probably more than six, seven years ago.
I would have been only about ten or eleven myself, still learning about the
impatience of others and the relief found in solitude. I wonder about the move.
Away and back. Seems an odd thing to do to a teenager, even if he was now only
just barely. Must be something with the parents, maybe there was trouble there.
Rumor has it the boy is a canvas of tattoos and has his hair long, a perpetual
squint in his eyes. I can’t help but think of James Dean, but maybe less
broody. But I don’t know how trustworthy the pack of girls at the park can be,
the ones I eavesdropped on. They could have exaggerated, for all I know.
In any case, I plan on visiting the trees today, saying hi to the sun. I have
to pass by the house this boy lives in now, and maybe I’ll scope the place out,
see if I catch a glimpse of him.
Chris:
I haven’t slept in almost twenty-six hours. The longest I’ve gone is forty-one,
and that was only because I’m pretty sure I rammed my head into the wall and
knocked myself out. All I remember is waking the next morning sprawled out on
the floor of my room with a bruise and giant knot on my forehead, feeling hung
over even though I’ve technically never been. If anything, I have a ways to go
this time and I’m not looking forward to it.
The disorder developed on its own, quietly, sneakily, when I was sixteen. Hours
between sleep began to lengthen, my appetite would flare and wane according to
random hours of the day, energy levels fluctuating faster than I could keep
track of. It was around the same time my mom met Frank and he started living
with us. For the longest time it had only been me and her after we left my dad
when I was twelve. They were having problems, whatever. Not my issue. Moving
away was not what I wanted, new schools and friends and environments, leaving
my dad. None of which helped my anxiety and sleep deprivation. The insomnia set
in and I often found myself lying in bed with my eyes on the ceiling. I would
think of everything.If I would graduate high school. If I would go to college.
If I would wake up next time I fell asleep. What my mom was doing in her room
with that man.
I started taking online surveys for money, awake all hours of the night surfing
the net. I saved as much as I could and then last January I went with my cash
to a tattoo parlor downtown and got what I’ve been wanting for ages: a sleeve
from shoulder to wrist. It took multiple visits and a good show of gritted
teeth, but it was done and it is beautiful to me. I’ve only been able to afford
the one arm, including shoulder and part of my chest, but I’ve been trying to
find a job since I moved back with my dad a week ago. I want my other arm just
as inked, just as permanent. Proof that I’m not made of air. That I have weight
and I won’t slip up into the clouds in all my fatigue.
I worry about that sometimes, in the moments my mind is a fuzzy lightbulb
blinking on and off, flashes just off to the side, seconds from shorting out
and leaving me in this black void where things might happen that I don’t
remember. Like why I’m back with my dad to begin with. What I supposedly did.
Sleep deprived people are violent, Craig. They can be…triggered into easy
violence.
From where I’d eavesdropped at the top of the stairs, my mom had sounded tired.
Then again, she always did when she talked to my dad. Still, being the topic of
conversation between them made me uncomfortable and I’d quickly retreated to my
room.
Maybe my mom had been scared. Maybe she thought my dad could control me easier
if I ever fell into another episode like before. Only, I couldn’t remember
doing anything to anyone. Did I have anger? Sure. Easy temper? Probably. But
that was why, in addition to tattooing myself to the earth, I began working out
like crazy. I wanted to be heavy and strong and unable to shoot myself into the
sky should I come to believe eternal sleep was better than the short blips I
get now. Are there groups out there for people like me?
Hi. My name is Chris. I’m eighteen and I can’t sleep.
My dad’s house is quiet, and I like that. If I was the sleeping sort, that is.
I grew up here, but something about it is different, lonelier. Books strewn
about, a few miniature wooden ships sit on a high shelf, another mid-assembly
on the coffee table. Seems my dad’s gotten into some new hobbies.
Quiet. Everywhere.
Even now, sitting at the front window, the wicker chair creaking beneath me as
I roll it front and back, there’s nothing but bird chatter and the rush of the
ocean a little farther off than I cared to explore since being back. Were my
eyes drooping? Should I try lying down?
A rattling, grating noise brings me round, my eyes zooming into focus and
flitting up to the window, outside of which a boy on a skateboard flies past.
He careens down the road and maneuvers the corner just in front of my house in
one smooth arc, the wind making his blond curls flutter and bounce. He’s
slurping on a straw stuck inside a plastic soda bottle, white earphones stuck
into his head. And maybe it’s my imagination but I can swear he’s eyeing my
house under his lashes, lips pursed as he guzzles his drink.
My eyes begin to sting and I rub them half-heartedly. Lack of sleep always
dries them out. When I open them again the kid is gone, not even a stray leaf
twisting in his wake. No jean shorts and dark purple tank, no skinny arms and
long neck. I sigh and let my head hang back on the chair, my sight once more
filled with ceiling.
Something buzzes up my spine and settles under my scalp, fingers drumming on
itchy wicker, heel jangling against the worn carpet.
The quiet is huge. There’s a pulse in it somewhere.
I finally push to my feet and head out the door.
Tom:
There was nothing much to see, only a vague shape distorted by the streaks of
sunlight on the glass. Could have been anyone.
I throw my empty bottle of soda into a bin propped open on someone’s curb and
drop my foot to kick at the ground. The day is very warm, moist and sticky;
even the breeze feels like a fire draft from somewhere in one of Tolkien’s
burning wastelands.
I cross through another neighborhood, ducking a baseball as middle-schoolers
cheered on the hitter running base to base in the haphazard diamond drawn with
chalk into the street. There’s a woman pumping gas at the 7/11, a child wailing
from the backseat. I intersect to the university and veer toward the practice
fields where, to my great luck, the soccer team is practicing shirtless. Torsos
tight and dripping, the men dart over the field, a black and white checkered
ball tossed between feet so fast they blur. Deep-voiced shouts, whistles and a
flag, I stare with my mouth dropped open, jealous suddenly of the sunlight that
got to dance bright licks across those flat chests and bellies.
One of the front wheels of my board snags on a crack in the pavement and I’m
suddenly pitched forward, crashing to the ground and skidding several feet.
Hands thrown out to stop myself, I groan and sit up as blood beads in my palms.
Pain lances up my elbow and I lift it up, craning my neck to see it properly.
Some skin is missing. My knees are okay, as is my face, but I glance around
quickly, terribly embarrassed. The woman pumping gas across the street has her
hand shaded over her eyes and looking my way. I duck my head down, slide my
eyes to the field where the boys are practicing, but thankfully none seemed to
have noticed.
Standing fast, I grab my board and jump on it again, kicking to gain speed and
distance from the 7/11 and those sweating boys.
The train tracks look vacant so I flip up my board and snatch it in one hand,
trying to ignore the stings. I dig around in my pocket for my phone to select a
new playlist, jumping over the scarred iron beams and over to the other side,
closest to the edge of the forest. I glance around behind me but see no one. I
head in deeper, the darkness cool here under the canopies, crickets and bird
chatter rising up everywhere. Near the cliffs, I find my tree, digging around
the giant roots to bury my board and layering it over with leaves to hide it.
Bunching the toes of my shoe against the broken bark of the tree, I seize one
of the lower branches and start my climb up. Blood twists in both directions on
my arm, my elbow smarting from my fall, but I ignore it and keep going. 
I pant words into tree bark, free flowing and unbroken, a perfectly sung
utterance. “And oh babe. Can you tell what’s on my…tongue? Can you guess that
I’ll be gone? With the twilight—.”
Something scurries to my right and I break off, arms straining, but seeing
nothing I keep moving. I haul myself over the top branch and balance carefully
on the balls of my feet before lowering myself to sit on the thickest part.
Already the blood on my arm is drying, long rivers of black ink on my skin. It
looks like lightning in the sky, so pretty. I take a picture with my phone and
then open my palm and take a picture of the angry gouges and the beads of
blood.
Kill and Run pops into my ears. I’ve always loved Sia’s voice, dark and husky.
It’s scratchy on some notes, and I find that so endearing. No studio editing.
I lean against the trunk and watch the sun’s descent, the ocean winking at me.
“But the snow is too loud…follow the hands as they move, trying to make out
your mood, but my brain doesn’t want to. Hide. Close the door. Silent call for
you. What have I done to you? Kill and run. Kill and run. I’m one of the dirty
guns—.”
Be Still. The Boxer. Painters. American.I sing them all, legs swinging under
me, fishing the ball of twine that I keep stored in the hollowed knot a little
above my head. I’m sure a squirrel or a bird shares this cubby hole with me,
sometimes finding the string chewed and bunched together, but I don’t mind.
I wish my earphones weren’t busted. They’re the only pair I have. One of the
wires must have broken back in May from my most recent run-in with some of the
boys at school. I need to buy a new pair, and soon.
I make two bracelets and a long necklace, rooting around my pocket for the
silver charms I bought at the crafts store at the mall. I slink a sun, a moon,
and a star onto the necklace, watching as they slide down the rough twine to
meet with a clink at the middle. They dangle there, catching the last of the
sunset. On the bracelets, I hook two simple circles of silver and then tie them
on my wrist, holding my arm up to the sky. The bracelets slip down my arm, but
the blood is dry and beginning to flake, so it doesn’t smear like I thought.
Once the sky is a mottled bruise and my playlist has gone quiet, throat
pleasantly raw, I start the climb down, wishing I had some more of that soda
from earlier. The streets at night are best to skateboard on. It’s like no one
can see me, zooming through green lights and hopping over curbs. The new kid’s
house is dark except for one light toward the rear, a bedroom, maybe his. I
watch the street for any potholes and continue on home.
My mom is asleep and I tiptoe down the hall to the bathroom to shower and wash
the blood from my skin. The twine around my neck and wrist soaks to a dark
brown, molten chocolate, the silver twinkling. The scrape on my elbow isn’t
that bad, even if the water aggravates the stinging again. Already it’s begun
to clot and I’ll have a considerable scab to pick at in the coming weeks. My
palms are red and angry, skin torn and hanging by shreds in some places. I peel
it off and try not to gag, hoping the ointment I smear on it will be enough.
My bedroom is cast in shadows, and I walk naked to my bed. I like letting the
overhead fan dry my body. I stretch my arms up to the ceiling and feel the air
glide over my fingertips, shoulders, back and waist, down to my buttocks and
all along my legs. I yawn and bring my arms back down, ready to collapse into
bed. But outside my window along the street, a shadow hurls by and I pause,
peeking through the blinds.
But there’s nothing there, there’s no one.
Chris:
I run to exhaust myself. It works only sometimes. Just like I lift weights.
Just like I read. Either I’ll get home and shower and fall asleep dead until
the next afternoon, or I’ll get a bad case of the shakes and moan into my
pillow because not sleeping physically hurts. For the most part, I’m healthy. I
eat well – not to mention the time between ages thirteen through sixteen when I
shot up thirteen inches and ate everything in sight. Working out keeps my body
strong, but my mind is the only sore point in this otherwise perfectly
functioning machine. It’s beginning to seep into the colors of my dreams, drab
grays and flimsy yellows and spots of white that make me squint and rob me of
rest.
The grating sound appeared again a while ago. I was at my computer, blinking
blearily at the screen as I selected whether I prefer shopping for home
electronics at Target or Walmart. I’d jumped up and hurried to the window to
peek out but there was nothing there. The street was too dark and I realized
too late that I should have shut my light off, would have seen more. Seen him.
Where had he gone?
Roused now, I stick my feet into my tennis shoes and throw on another shirt. My
dad and I had had a simple, slightly awkward dinner. We were both getting used
to each other again, me to his graying hair and new nervous thumb tick and him
to my inked arm and bigger size in general. He’d been visibly alarmed when he
saw me the first time at the bus depot. I’d crossed those last four inches over
six feet this last winter, my bulk no doubt the cause of his small step back.
“Chris…wow. You’re so different.”
Yeah, I’d thought. I’m not twelve anymore.
Dwarfing him helped appease my general anger at him by only a little, feeling
justified in wondering all these years why he hadn’t made more of an effort to
get me back. Leaving with my mom just at the cusp of very sudden and confusing
experiences only aggravated me that much more. I love my mom, completely, but
she wasn’t who I needed.
Still, I tried not to let my general resentment spoil what might be something
good for the both of us. I sensed in him a willingness to accept me, despite
what my mom might have told him about what happened, and I had to appreciate
that. Dinner was nice. We had the game on in the background so it wasn’t only
clanking cutlery and mutely distressed throat clearings. We spoke a bit,
catching up. He asked me about sports (I said I like watching baseball but was
more into running), and I asked him about work (heading toward retirement at
the quarry, nearly at his pension). I washed the dishes and he fixed his lunch
for the next day. Neat and quiet.
It was still early and I imagined I would be up all night and part of the
morning if I didn’t try to nip this in the bud. I was going on thirty-hours now
and beginning to get desperate.
Jogging down the dark streets of our neighborhood, I thought of my dad. I know
my mom told him about my insomnia with the fancy name of Circadian rhythm sleep
disorder, aka delayed sleep phase disorder. At least, that's what I diagnosed
myself with during one of my many hours traipsing websites trying not to become
a hypochondriac on top of everything else. I seem unable to fall asleep like
other average people, going under at night, waking in the morning. I need to
climb a mountain through a hailstorm slash tornado slash tsunami slash blizzard
to put up my stupid flag of accomplishment, or some shit like that. It's stupid
and terrible and I'm pretty sick of it. With every passing hour I can feel the
tremble in my heart as my anxiety spikes and I break out in a cold sweat.
He hasn’t mentioned my sleeping habits since I came back to live with him. He
makes us some dinner after getting home from the quarry and then watches a game
on the TV until ten or so, and then he showers and says a quiet goodnight and
goes to sleep.
Easy. Like nothing.
Whereas I battle the buzzing in my head and my jittery leg and wish my brain
would just shut off like a light switch. Before I know it it’s the next day and
I’m meeting my next sleepless mile mark.
No one's going to want to hire me with my resting hours so unpredictable. I'll
have to stick to jobs I can get online. They pay decent, surprisingly, and I've
developed a bit of a rep among creators for those websites. I feel fairly
confident they'll continue to pay me for my input on their products. It’s not
the most stimulating work, but I’m a beggar.
The doctor my mom took me to prescribed medication to help me sleep, pills that
come with euphemistical names that hide the truly horrendous science behind it.
Ambien (zolpidem); Lunesta (eszopiclone); Rozerem (ramelteon); Sonata
(zaleplon); Silenor (doxepine); and then you have your benzodiazepines, which
include Halcion (triazolam), Restoril (temazepam), and the ever famous Xanax
(alprazolam) and Valium (diazepam). Just fancy names for drugs that knock you
out. Most of these medications help people get to sleep and stay asleep,
although some studies have shown that people will wake in the middle of the
night and can’t go back under. And let’s not forget the possibility of tingling
in the hands and feet, constipation, diarrhea, dizziness, stomach pain, loss of
balance, etc.
It’s hard to say no to.
Because of my combo pack of insomnia and anxiety, my doctor tried to put me on
an antidepressant, which supposedly works well to combat and improve both
conditions. I took it only three times. It coated the edges of my vision and
tongue with fuzzy little vibrating glass fibers, and made my stomach hurt. Not
to mention how low it brought me. I was interested in nothing, catching myself
staring at the wall for close to an hour before I realized. Things began to
melt together, colors, the sky and horizon, the sofa to the floor.
Sure, I slept. But it was too deep, too dark like an underground cavern, and my
dreams were of slimy things that wanted to gut me open and eat me.
I haven't taken it again, but no one knows. I’d rather battle the fatigue and
hear myself laugh at a TV show than feel that ugly void again. It was like
being dead, and rising from it was terrifying and just as painful as not
sleeping at all.
For now, I'll take the rest of the summer before classes in the fall and maybe
find work, but also absolutely attempt to get my insomnia under control on my
own.
Tom:
The house on the corner is always so still. At night there’s a dark blue pickup
in the driveway, but it’s always gone by the time I wake up in the morning.
School’s been out for a week and I’ve already passed two of my new video games
and read the new James Rollins. The twine around my wrist and neck feels
natural on my skin, like grass, and I roll them between my fingers and almost
taste the inner wheat of them.
Is the boy a hermit?
Changing into some jeans and a soft green T-shirt, I skip down the hall to the
kitchen. My mom is at the stove.
“Want some breakfast?” She turns to me and I nod, squeezing her elbow in
thanks. I serve us orange juice and set utensils and napkins on the table. I
turn on the TV, hoping the background noise will help me focus.
“Mom?” I say quietly as she brings our plates to the table. My heart is
flipping happily that I didn’t weld the ‘m’ into one long hum, but I take a
deep breath and go on. “D-do you…th-think I can buy the new Kh-hhhaaal—.” I
break off and stare at my feet, gritting my jaw. ‘H’ sounds are particularly
nasty to me, especially if followed by a vowel, no matter any silent letters,
like ‘K’ in this instance. She puts her fork down and narrows her gaze, two
splotches of red on her cheeks. I hurry to finished, forcing out the words.
They sound stilted. “Khhaaled. Khaled. Hosseini. His b-book came out t-today.”
I gasp down at my food, chest tight with fury. Sometimes I wonder if living at
the top of a mountain would be easier. Or buried under the sea.
She sighs and starts picking at her eggs. “Sure. How much do you need? A
twenty?”
“Yes,” I whisper, before adding easily, “Please.” I wish my tongue wouldn’t
fight me more often.
“It’s in my purse. Go on and get it.” I jump up and head to the table by the
front door where she keeps her bag. Inside the front pocket next to a travel-
sized bottle of aspirin and a tube of lipstick is a crisp bill. I stuff it into
my jeans and snap her bag closed.
“Aren’t they usually cheaper the day they come out?”
I look up at her, surprise lifting my brows. She shrugs. “A man at work
mentioned it. Sometimes up to forty percent.”
Smiling, I nod. “Th-that’s why I like to snatch them up beee-fore th-they go
full price.” She hums around a mouthful and we’re quiet the rest of the meal.
After breakfast, I wash the dishes and walk out the door with her.
“Be careful on the streets, Tom. I worry about you on that piece of wood.”
I smile and glance down at my board. It has a simple deck with four yellow
wheels and DEATHWISHstamped on its underbelly. I try not to take it as some
kind of omen. But I got it at a garage sale for two bucks almost a year ago,
and I’m really attached to it.
“I’ll be okay,” I say smoothly. Easy, like nothing. After she leaves, I hop on
my board and head to the Target on Campbell. My music is low in my ears, just
in case a driver gets careless and almost kills me, and I sing as I roll along,
the words vibrating in my throat like the buzz of bees. It means I’m making
noise, I’m real and I can be heard.
It’s like swallowing gold and watching your veins light up with the sun, I
think, smiling up at the sky.
Chris:
I wake up on the floor of my room, neck stiff, arm twisted under me. Needle
bites race up to my elbow and I sit up with a groan, rubbing them away. The
clock on my desk reads 8:07am. I only slept for two hours. I slump back against
the bedframe.
“Fuck.”
A shower helps to further wake me, but I’m groggy and a little unsteady on my
feet. Dad’s gone by now and the house echoes with empty spaces. There’s a
letter in the mail from my mom on the kitchen counter, and I open it to find
four checks from the online survey companies I work for. Good thing too,
because I wanted to buy some things for school in the fall. My course load is
light, mostly intro level stuff, but I have two afternoon classes on Mondays
and Wednesdays and two night classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Fridays I have
off, and I’m hoping to find a job on campus to help me out with what I earn
taking surveys.
Conditional upon my transfer to this university is I have to meet with a
counselor twice a week. The name read Abrams in my welcome packet, but it could
be a man or a woman. Abrams would have been informed of my recent history with
insomnia, no doubt having read about the incident just before my mom sent me
away.
Frank isn’t pressing charges, but he did make it clear he was uncomfortable
with me around. I honestly don’t remember what happened. But words like
altercation and broken ulna and rage-induced and mental exhaustion and unstable
have been flung around me the last few weeks, so I get the picture. Even though
Frank and I never really got on, we were always civil to each other, respectful
of our spaces, both highly aware of my increasing size and strength in
comparison to his middle-age encroaching roundness. 
I’m not looking forward to meeting with Abrams, but I’ll give a try. Anything
to help erase the look of hurt betrayal on my mother’s face that night I woke
up on the floor to her screams –who are you?! Get out!—and Frank’s mottled neck
veins pulsing in pain.
I find an old bike in my dad’s garage and pump some air into the front tire. It
squeaks as I pedal down the street, but I’d googled for the closest store and
discovered it was a Target. The air is humid and salty, but strangely cool
under the canopied trees along the street, and I angle my face up at the bits
of sunlight I can see through the leaves.
The bike rack is located just to the side of the entrance, so I chain up the
front tire and head inside. The air conditioning blasts me in the face and I
almost moan out loud, it feels so good. Going on very little sleep my senses
sometimes scream with acuteness or drag along for the ride, useless. But today
I’m feeling particularly sensitive.
A group of girls eyes me from the Starbucks tucked into the corner, giant cups
of swirly coffee in their long-fingered grips, nails the color of flowers. I’ve
been getting that a lot this last year. They like my tats or my hair or my
height or my muscles or everything at once, and think that winks or strawberry-
glossed smiles are going to reel me in. And I don’t mind that stuff, but not
from them.
I’m turning away when I spot a head of curly blond hair hurrying behind a
display of potato chips and salsa dip. My pulse trips up and I follow after
him, bypassing the girls and ignoring their shy hellos. He moves through the
home and garden and toy departments, and finally slows when he reaches the
entertainment section. The school supplies are around here somewhere, so I
would have headed here too. Regardless.
He eyes the new movie releases, checking the prices before putting one of them
back and moving on to the aisles of books. Searching the selections, he comes
back to the front display, hesitating and retracing his steps one more time,
clearly not finding something. I pick up a notebook at random, some pencils, a
calculator, not really paying attention to what I’m grabbing because it’s hard
to keep my eyes off him.
Maybe a year or two younger than me, the boy I’d seen the other day on his
skateboard is probably one of the prettiest boys ever, anywhere. Tall and
gangly, he’s mostly all legs. He has a long scrape on his right elbow, scabbed
dark and bruised purple. Growing wildly, adorably, his hair is a mop of
perfectly coiled curls of gold, bouncing as he walks and looks for his book.
Not to mention that neck, so long and pale.
I swallow and look down at my arms, laden with things I don’t even need. I dump
everything back on the shelf and turn to see the boy slowly approaching an
employee in brown khakis and a red shirt, busy with unloading a box of
children’s books. She’s smiling and laughing with another girl in the next
aisle over. The boy with the golden hair stops just behind her, his skateboard
crammed under a long arm, the other lifted as if to tap the girl on the
shoulder, his finger long and delicate. Even though he’s thin as a reed, his
hands are big, as if his body still needs some growing to do. My mouth dries
out.
But the girl’s radio squawks and she unclips it from her belt, speaking into it
before hurrying away. Mouth parted, finger held up helplessly, the boy just
watches her leave and then visibly sags before turning back to the bookshelves,
disappointment etched into his lovely face.
Why didn’t he just ask her? What stopped him? But as I pick up a couple of the
right notebooks I need and a bag of pens and pencils, shooting glancing at him
every few seconds, I feel my heart dip when I turn back and find him already
looking at me. His brows are low, expression guarded, but I can tell he’s been
watching for a while. Eyes flitting down to my tattooed arm, snagging on my
hair and the necklaces around my neck, I try my damnedest to memorize how his
cheeks turn a pretty pink as I relax my face and smile at him. I hope the
bruises under my eyes aren’t too ugly.
A foot drags back, and then the other before he’s fleeing up the aisle. He
disappears around the corner and I’m left alone. I sigh and grab the rest of my
supplies and then head to the front of the story to pay, glad that the girls at
the coffee shop are gone too.
Tom:
The wall of mirrors reflects my startled face back at me as I race to the next
aisle. Only lamps and canvas frames of the Eiffel Tower and Marilyn Monroe
here, so I lean against the support beam and exhale up at the lights.
It had to be him.
That giant arm with its twists of colors, skulls and roses and other things I
couldn’t make out. That long hair, done up in a messy bun. The thin chains of
silver and corded cloth around his neck. His tired eyes, downturned at the
corners and a little sad even as he smiled. At me.
I didn’t expect him to be so gorgeous. Like drop dead. Bombshell. Super model.
Is he like seven feet tall? His smile, though. It was slow and sexy with just a
peek of teeth, deep in his cheeks. My blood almost boiled but also froze?
He has a dark widow’s peak.
Jesus. Okay.
I peek around the corner but the aisle with the school supplies is empty.
Regretting my hasty retreat, I take my board and before I lose my nerve, I
approach another employee, this time an older man with a beer gut.
“E-excuse me. But c-can you h-h-help me with something?”
“Of course. What can I help you find?”
I’m prepared. I show him my phone screen, where Khaled Hosseini’s new book is
displayed. “D-Do you have a-a-any…anymore?”
He peers at the screen and then over to the book section, and I immediately
like him. No sneers at my stumbling, no judgmental narrowed eyes, no double
takes.
“I thought I saw some this morning. They’re out already?”
I nod.
“Okay. Let me go check the back.” He tells me to stay put and then pushes
through a set of double doors marked ‘Employees Only’.
I shift my weight from foot to foot, hoping they have more copies, wishing I’d
returned the boy’s smile. When the man appears again, he has six copies of the
book in his arms, and my face splits in half. I reach for one.
“Thank you!”
“These are it! The only ones left. Must be popular. I’ll put ‘em on the
display. Happy reading!”
I wave. “H-h-happy reading!” And then fire floods my face because I’m stupid.
He’s not going to read. Before he realizes I’m a loser and stops being nice to
me, I turn on my heel and head to the front cash registers, the book feeling
like promising gold in my hands.
I spend the next two days holed up in my room reading Hosseini’s new novel.
I’ve probably cried several gallons of tears, my heart torn asunder from the
devastation he wreaks on his characters. By the end of it I’m feeling unusually
low and bereft of the sun. It’s nearly sunset so I grab my board and cram my
earphones into my ears.
“I look in the mirror,” I sing, wiping the last tears from my eyes. “And I try
to see myself, my head full of terror, from the games I played so well. I try
to see clearer, I try to forget the fires I started. I try to be nearer…to
where you are—.”
Eyes on the ground, I push and I push, my board rattling on the pavement,
taking me to my secret place known by heart. Traffic is light and I glance
minimally around me, my heart so sore over the end of the book. I can feel my
sadness like roots growing in my chest, spreading through my ribcage, curling
around my clavicles and tugging.
Hitting a bump on the gutted road out here by the tracks, I stumble and gain my
feet before I end up face planting again. Snatching my board up, I run through
the trees and hear the birds cutting like missiles through the leaves above,
chirping, hopefully, along with my song.
Board buried, I start my climb and sing my way closer to the sky. The sun is
sinking faster than I’d hoped and by the time I reach my favorite branch, it’s
only a simmering ribbon along the horizon, most of the sea like dark ink.
Curling my legs to the side, I fiddle with some new twine, wanting another
necklace, when I hear the unmistakable sound of boys.
Crashing through the brush, there are four of them, all boys from my school,
from my grade, boys who know.
“Hey, T-T-T-T-Tom!” Ryan Andrews yells up at me, mimicking my stutter. The
other three snicker and I blush hot. Swallowing around the saliva flooding my
mouth, I sit up, both arms hugging the trunk of the tree.
“What? Got nothing to say? Come down here!”
I shake my head. No.
“I won’t bite. They won’t either, right, guys?” More head shakes, big wolf
grins. “Saw you on your board. Thought we’d say hi to you. It’s been a long
time since we seen each other at school.”
Images of the last time I saw Ryan Andrews flash in my mind, and my eyes snap
closed. A punch, a cruel hair yank, stuffed into a locker. Laughter echoing
down the hall. My hoarse cries, stuttering terribly, fear racketing up my spine
until the girls’ volleyball team finally found and freed me hours later.
“Remember?” he says softly, his lips moving slowly. I can see his face so
clearly from my perch on the tree, and it leaves chills on my skin. Of course I
remember. The heat of his breath on my neck as he slammed his fist into my
stomach, the hard muscle of his arm crushing me to him in all his anger, all
his taunts. The way my scalp pulled painfully. And then moments later, my
earphones dangling out of the locker, crushed between the door, wires slowly
breaking as I struggled.
I remember.
“Want me to remind you? How much we missed you, T-T-T-Tom?” He puts his hand on
the tree, fingers curling into it with promise.
“No,” I gasp, but they don’t hear. Hardly anyone hears when I speak. Soft,
invisible voice. They don’t know its depth.
“Gonna make me chase you?” He’s found the pigeon hole I wedge my toes into to
gain leverage, and now he’s climbing and my heart’s jack hammering. I squirm on
the branch, nowhere to go but down, but that’s where he is, inching closer.
Beneath us, one of the boys bends low and unearths one of the yellow wheels of
my board and my stomach turns.
“Hey, Ryan! Found his ride!”
“Break it,” Ryan grunts as he lifts himself higher, a big hand clasping a new
branch, and then another. He’s not as light as I am, and so the climb is harder
for him. Wobbling, I bring my legs under me and stand on my branch. Inside the
bird’s cubbyhole, I can see my ball of twine and the little plastic bag of
silver charms, the dark evening making them barely discernible. The surf
crashes loudly just off the cliffs to the west, the trees looming dangerously
tall in all that murk. Will I make it if I jump? Should I aim to squash the
other boys, just in case I don’t?
Clinging to the tree, I shake my head again and stare at Ryan below. And then
suddenly, there are grunts of pain from ground level. Around Ryan’s body, I can
barely make out his friends sprawled on the bed of loamy leaves. Two have hands
on their noses and the third is holding his leg like he’d been kicked by a
horse.
“What the fuck!” Ryan calls down, twisting his neck to see. But before he can
gain further purchase, the tree vibrates and then he gives a short, strangled
scream – of surprise or pain, I can’t tell. We lock eyes for a second, and I’m
just as shocked as he is. I squeak as he slips another inch before being
dragged down the rest of the trunk, fingers scraping along the bark, shirt
bunching up on his chest. I see his flat tummy and a dark trail of hair, but my
eyes zoom into focus on the boy gripping Ryan’s ankle, lips snarled.
It’s him. My him.The boy with the tattoos. He’s half-hanging from the bottom
branch, arm reached high to yank hard on Ryan’s foot. Ryan loses his grip and
falls several feet to the ground, landing with a hard thud, and then my himis
jumping off after. I’m immediately on the move, scrambling down the branches,
eyes on the scene below. Ryan’s friends are gone, and Ryan trying desperately
to follow. He’s crawling to his hands and knees, glancing at the tattooed boy,
but he’s too late. Snatching him up by the scruff of his neck, the boy hauls
Ryan to his feet and then heaves him into the closest tree, a gargantuan show
of strength, a warning. I watch as if from underwater, the slow arc through the
air, the muscles rippling along that daring ink, the rabid growl that permeates
the air, my heart.
Ryan collides with a loud crack, and I gasp, jumping down another branch. But
he picks himself up quickly and takes off at a sprint, tossing panicked glares
over his shoulder. I think I smile.
Finally at the last branch, I hesitate for just a second, eyes on the boy’s
broad-shouldered back, when my foot slips on the smooth-barked limb and I
tumble to the ground.
Chris:
I don’t plan on following, but I can’t help myself when I see the four boys
trailing him just out of sight. They have a mean look about them, eyes narrowed
with cruel teasing, teeth shiny behind soft-looking lips. I remember boys like
that when I was in high school, and I don’t trust them, not when they’re
looking at him like he’s meant to be devoured and kicked and bleeding.
Devoured, yes, in all the ways that I may have imagined last night, but not
what they have in mind. At least not intentionally.
They slip into the trees a minute or two after him, and I keep a safe distance,
not really remembering this part of town from when I was younger. Once a few
trees in, I think I’ve lost them but their laughter reaches me from deeper
still, eerie and echoing. We’re near the cliffs, the ocean battering against
the rocky faces, and I shake my uneasy feeling away. There’s something about
the woods that makes me nervous, something ancient and pulsing that tickles the
back of my neck, but I don’t like that they’re in here with him. Hurrying now,
I catch the tail end of the conversation, see that he’s climbed to the very
top. That he’s clinging to the trunk as the boys taunt him, that one is
starting to crawl up.
In my head, it’s like a wick catching flame, a fuse shortening, the ground
dropping out from under me. I don’t feel my legs or the possible crunch of
leaves and twigs under my toes, but I’m suddenly in front of the three kids at
the base of the tree. I jab my fist into the first one’s nose, bringing up my
elbow to repeat the blow on the second boy. Both drop like a sack of rocks and
I'm whirling to face the third kid, whose looking at me like I'm a Yeti or
something. Bringing my knee up, I stab my boot heel into the meat of his thigh
and he gives a short scream before he too is on the ground.
"What the fuck!" the fourth boy calls down from his perch on the tree. Beyond
him, round blue eyes stare down in shock.
Running the last few feet, I throw myself at the lowest branch and reach up to
snag at the ankle trembling in a groove of bark. I tug hard and the boy starts
a raspy slide down the tree. When he finally falls a rush of adrenaline burns
through me, a giant ball of crackling light, and I jump after him with a grunt.
Lifting him, flinging him against the tree, it feels like nothing but feathers.
Not that the kid is that heavy or anything, but how effortless it turns out to
be, fueled by this sudden rage, surprises even me as I catch my breath and
stare across at him. Something shutters in my mind and my sight winks out for a
second, a fuse fizzing out, and I think that I might actually, ridiculously,
fall asleep here on my feet.
He's gone before I can blink, leaving me alone in the glade, my hands shaking
at my sides.
My heart's beating so fast and I think I sway a little but I'm brought round
when I hear a thud and a soft whimper. The boy from the top of the tree is
sprawled on his stomach, a grimace tightening his lovely mouth.
"Whoa," I say, swallowing, curling my fingers into my palms. "That was...really
aggressive." It comes easy to me, aggression. Some men are built like mountains
but make as small a ripple as a butterfly. Not me. I storm and I rage, colors
and winds knocking together in my head, sometimes so hard white light pierces
my skull and I'm left whimpering on the floor, brain pounding, someone's bone
broken. "Are you okay?" Please don't be scared of me.
He says nothing. There's blood on his forearm where a rock bit into him, and
the slow thick stream of it has me nervous suddenly. My foot itches to slide
back. Instead, I step forward, my hand out. I keep my voice low, don't want to
spook him.
“It's okay. Here."
His eyes snap to mine and then he turns as bright as a tomato. I hesitate,
catching the short shuffle he takes away from me.
“Sorry. Don’t want to, you know, scare you.” I point back the way the other
boys left. “Saw them follow you in. Looked like a bunch of dicks, so…” I break
off and give a small laugh, hands in my back pockets as the corners of his
mouth give the smallest twitch. I’m trying not to babble – I’ve been up for
twenty-two – but I take it as a good sign. “I’m Chris.”
He sits up and dusts his hands off, looking content to stay on the ground. “T-
Tom,” he whispers, barely.
“So you do talk.” I hope my smile isn’t manic. He shrugs. “Softly,” I add. “Can
I help you up?” I reach again and this time he clasps my hand and I haul him to
his feet. He’s nearly as tall as me, but I remember how thin he is from when I
saw him at the store, and I know we would fit just right, him and me. “You
okay?”
He nods. “Yes. Th-thank you.” Swallowing, he looks to be gunning up the courage
to say something. So I wait. “They’re j-just…assholes.” He exhales the last
word, as if relieved to be rid of it. Cheeks brightening, his blue eyes zap
over my face like he’s hoping not to see something there.
I grin. “I could tell. Didn’t like the way they were looking at—.” I shift my
gaze down and he shifts an inch closer.
“Me?” he whispers, and I meet his eyes.
“Yeah.” I’m reassured down to my core by the pretty smile he gives me.
He’s so soft-spoken, his voice like the kind of thing that might form after a
hard rainfall, the mist that rises from the hot earth. Perfumes are made from
such things, aren’t they?
“I just moved back,” I say, to fill the silence he seems used to. “I’m back
with my dad after living with my mom for a while.” His brows bunch together,
maybe a question? “Yeah, things didn’t work out too well. I got into
some…trouble, and I don’t think her boyfriend liked me very much.” Not after
what I supposedly did, that’s for sure.
Bending to pick up his board, still intact despite that last kid’s bitten
warning, he makes a small humming noise that I take to mean he understands. He
clears his throat and takes a deep breath. “You...are g-going t-to…the high
school?” He exhales quickly and turns away.
We fall into a slow stride. “No. I’m starting at Smith in the fall. I’ll be
nineteen in August.” I don’t know why I add that, but I like the soft “oh” he
makes, like I might be the coolest person he knows. “How old are you?”
“I’ll be eight-t-teen in February.”
So he stutters, and suddenly I get it. That's why they were after him, why he’s
such an easy target. Slight and prone to downcast eyes, and so, so quiet. I
keep my eyes on the trees, the sudden urge to wrap an arm around him nearly
stifling me to death. “Those assholes go to school with you?”
He nods, and winces just a tiny bit.
“They mess with you a lot?”
Another half-shrug.
My mind races. He’s said only a dozen words, but I’m already greedy for more.
“You live around here?”
“Same street as you.” This comes out so fast, it’s obviously a knee-jerk
response. His eyes widen and then he’s hurrying ahead, nearly at the edge of
the woods. I can see the train tracks from here.
“Wait! Wait, hey. It’s okay. I noticed you too.”
Pausing, he throws me another questioning frown and I nod quickly. “Yeah. Out
my living room window. I saw you ride past. On that thing.” I point to the
board he has clutched in both hands. He looks down at it and then a small
laughs escapes him. I give a quiet laugh too, my chest tightening like a bow.
“Sorry. Was that creepy?”
“Mm. No.” He wipes his mouth and peeks at me under the furl of his lashes, a
side-glance. “I nooot-t-iced you t-too.”
“Really?” I don’t mean for my voice to sound so eager, but I’m half-turned to
him anyway. “When?”
Jumping up on the tracks, he balances precariously on the rusted strip of iron,
arms out to the side. “At the—.” He hesitates, still turned away from me. The
back of his neck blooms red. “Sssstore,” he whispers finally.
“I was wondering what you were looking for.”
He teeters and I grab his elbow – scraped to hell and scabbed over with a
bruise that has no business on his skin. He spins so fast at my touch that we
both trip a little and end up on opposite sides of the tracks.
“Sorry,” I say, throwing up my hands. His gaze flits to my tattoos and I
suddenly don’t mind his attention on them. But then his eyes slide low to the
ground and he kicks at a bottle cap. When he speaks, it’s slowly, with great
care and measure.
“I was…looking…for a b-book. That had c-come out. That day.”
“Did you get it?”
“Yes. A man helped me. Had them in the back.”
He’s back on the iron track and I jump on opposite him, our arms like airplane
wings. “You like to read?”
He hums and stays quiet.
“I don’t,” I hurry to say. “Not usually. Well, not recreationally. I have to be
with school. The plan is engineering, but first couple of years is gen-ed crap.
Loads of boring stuff.” I pinch my mouth shut and peek at him. He’s staring at
me. I jerk to a halt on the iron strip, and take a step toward him. “What?”
Stumbling back, he keeps the same distance, breath hitching.
“I won’t hurt you. It’s okay.”
His board clutched to his belly, I can see his arms are so thin in his green
and white striped tank, his skin burned golden brown. But under his biceps, a
small peek of ribs, ivory white. My throat catches imagining the rest of him,
how pale he must be, how soft. He’s as skittish as a kitten, or he’s heard
something about me. Or both.
“Have you heard something about me?” I blurt out, that seed of upset starting
to flower. “Is that why you’re scared of me?”
When his eyes snap up, surprise – and anger – narrow them. “I’m n-n-n-
not…scared of you!”
“But you’ve heard something?” I didn’t mean to do it. I wouldn’t hurt anyone,
least of all him.
He shakes his head fast. “No,” he gasps. “I—.” But his mouth stays parted, like
his tongue’s turned to lead between his teeth, his eyes pinching with panic and
disappointment. Making a short huff in frustration, he darts past me to the
start of the paved road. Dropping his board he jumps on, his long leg lifting
and falling to kick at the ground, gaining speed.
I watch him leave, watch as he veers around the corner. But he looks back at me
at the last second, and I feel a jab to my gut as he lifts his hand almost
demurely and tosses a quick wave. I’m too frozen to wave back. He disappears
around the stop sign and I’m left alone on the tracks.
Tom:
My stomach hurts. God, I’m such a loser. Can’t even say a fucking sentence.
Chris—Chris, oh that’s his name!—heard me stutter and now probably never wants
to see me again. He thinks people have been gabbing about him behind his back.
And maybe they are, but I don’t know about any of that! I only know he was gone
before I can really remember him, and now he’s back, and he’s really, really
gorgeous.
And he saved me. He said he didn’t like how those jerks from school were
looking at me. And at the store, he smiled. But how can he ever like me having
witnessed my spectacular speech impediment? Flopping down on the edge of my
bed, I hesitate, a well-bitten thumbnail between my teeth. That’s a shitty
thing to think. Maybe that’s not giving him enough credit. We hardly know each
other.
How I wish we did. The story behind his giant tattoo, how he decided on
engineering, why he looks so tired.
Eyes rimmed with violet, tender bruises just beneath, he seemed on the verge of
collapse, but he’d still found the strength to lift a boy and throw him?
I fall back on the bed, the glow in the dark stickers of all nine planets and
their surrounding stars swirling behind my overhead fan. I remember being eight
years old and standing on one of the dining room chairs, tongue out as I stuck
each one on, awestruck at their flaming arcs in the dark, wondering what it
would feel like to burn so bright.
Something starts to itch just behind my chest, something dry and pockmarked
with angry sores. I scratch gently, my thumb grazing my nipple and making my
hips twitch.
I am impatient.
It is a rare emotion. Unfelt since my toddler years when a toy rolled away or a
favorite cartoon ended. A memory slides into view, of a TV commercial and an
outdoor water sprayer flinging arcs of the diamond-like liquid over happily
squealing children running through bright green grass, and just outside our
window our small backyard with its dirt and rocks and my sudden wailing.
In all my silence I move slowly, react slowly, thinking miles ahead of the next
person. I wait my turn and don’t speak up, sometimes don’t speak at all. I am
content to play my role as a background ornament in family gatherings or at
school, a specter in the hallways, blending in, a mirage.
But this boy, he is a live wire. A spark. A flaming wisp. A recognition. Being
seen by him was like swallowing the moon, silver light beating through my blood
vessels, blinking out through my freckles, catching like glitter on my lashes.
He was not like others I’d seen. Boys who pretended a whole lot and only seemed
to disappoint. I could see it in the way their lips turned up at the corners,
smirks that hid half-truths and future betrayal. Lots of these boys would
follow in their old man’s footsteps, jobs at the quarry, or up north at the
potato farm, filling girls with babies and lies that stick, lies that will work
for them for years and years, trapping people who love them under their scrawny
wings. Disappointing, just like their fathers. I had one myself.
Boys pretending, that’s all.
It’s why I avoid them, no matter my immense attraction to some of them. Their
shoulders and their necks, their big hands and their calf muscles. Their soft
hair and veined hipbones. These are things I only allow myself to glimpse in
short fragments, because seeing them all together is to see the boy completely
and that would mean possibly falling for him, and that would mean—
It would just mean.
But Chris—Chris—seems to have already crossed that threshold so many of the
boys around here wish they could. Except for a bit of baby fat lingering at his
cheeks, he was solid and true and absorbed into a physical maturity that might
continue to elude me for years. Just as I could tell the inherent nature in
others to deceive, the soft give around Chris’s mouth, his shy smile and tired
eyes hinted at the older soul in him, between the cusp of gentle and wild,
bodily tossing a boy away like the garbage he is, reaching out to steady me.
I sit straight up in bed, my heart pounding, my need to see him again rising
like a wave to smother me if I don’t move. I grab my board and fling my window
open. I kick up and down the street, my eyes on the rear bedroom window of the
house on the corner, looking for a flicker in the curtains, a shadow,
something.
Chris:
I try to comfort myself with the old adage that only the truly brilliant never
sleep, but as I clock in thirty hours without rest, I’m beginning to invest in
the possibility that I might be truly insane. I can’t claim any kind of
greatness as the specks of uneven paint on the wall catch my fraying attention.
My addled brain finds them fascinating, uncomplicated, just blips in this huge
universe that bother no one and nothing. I stare at them for god knows how long
before I finally collapse sideways on my bed, so deep into the dank well of
sleep that I don’t move until almost thirteen hours have trickled by and I wake
with an aching waist. That grating noise, rattling and pocked with small
bubbles of silence when the yellow wheels dip into grooves in the pavement,
rouses me just momentarily somewhere in the middle of my little siesta. Lashes
flickering up, fingers twitching, I moan and move my head an inch, cement
packed inside my skull, heavy grains that sift and pile unevenly, pressure on
my brain, just sleep, go back to sleep.
But he’s out there, I think before sleep yanks me under again and I’m lost to
my dreams of thunder horses and rolling clouds. When I wake, it’s late evening,
dark enough to be either midnight or just south of dinner time. My dad’s left
me a plate of spaghetti on my desk. A roll of bread with butter already smeared
inside and a glass of water sit beside it. I devour it all, fork clinking on
the plate, guzzling down the water and swallowing the bread in three quick
bites. There’s a buzz under my skin, my hair feels on fire, and my eyes are
wider than I’ve felt them in days. Jumping up, I lace up my trainers and throw
on a sweatshirt and some basketball shorts.
The glow under my dad’s bedroom door means he’s probably asleep with the TV on.
I slip away down the hall. The garage is unlocked, and I let myself in. The
light flickers on with a droning hum and I squint into the cluttered mess. A
canoe stands in the corner like a leaning drunkard, and shelves of fishing and
camping gear line the far wall. A queasy feeling worms into my stomach, upset
suddenly by all the time I missed spending with my dad, all the things he
couldn’t show me and wished he had. How might my insomnia been different if I’d
stayed living with him? Would it be as bad? Would I even have it?
Around the oiled parts of a spare engine on top of a creaking, cracked ping
pong table I see a weight set and I make a beeline for it. Under the layer of
greasy dust specks that I wipe off with a crumpled rag the bench is in good,
sturdy condition. 
Measuring the weights and adjusting the set to my height, I work out steadily
for an hour, mostly bench pressing until I can feel the pulse in my fingers.
And after, muscles throbbing, feeling stretched and stronger, I push out the
side door and take to the street, my legs weightless, lifting high as I run
past houses quiet and glittering with soft porch lights. I’m not thinking. I’m
only breathing, counting my steps, keeping my torso straight, palms open. The
moon is bright behind me, casting my shadow ahead like a jilted doppelgänger.
Blood pumping, heat building, sweat dripping off me, I’m not nearly as aware as
I should be, and it isn’t until a hand is gripped around my elbow that I
startle and spin around. Standing before me, the moon throwing his shadow over
mine on the pavement, so that for one cruel moment I can imagine our shadows
are kissing, is Tom.
I yank my headphones off.
“Hey,” I rasp, lifting the hem of my shirt and wiping my face. His eyes dart
down to my navel, and I slow my hand, letting the shirt slip higher as I rub at
the back of my neck. He gulps and turns away, and I smile.
“I-I…c-called for you,” he says softly. “B-back there. Saw you from my window.”
“I didn’t hear you, sorry.” His eyes are crinkled at the corners, tense. I want
to step closer. “Are you okay?”
“I stutter.” He snaps his gaze back to me, an intensity making his eyes eerily
bright. “Since I was small.”
“I know,” I say, matching the low timber of his voice. I want to take care not
to spook him, and standing in the middle of the street with growing shadows and
a bulbous moon seem to be working against me. He’s picking at a nail, his gaze
down, starting a slow slide away. My hands clench and unclench. 
“You h-h-heard me?”
I shrug and step toward the curb, crouching to sit at its edge. As I’d hoped,
he follows me. Sitting side by side, I catch a whiff of his soap or shampoo,
buttery and sweet, like coconut milk. I whip my head forward and clench both
hands between my knees, hoping I don’t stink.
“Wanna tell me about it?”
His elbow brushes mine and I almost burst from my skin.
“You wo-wo-wo—.” He cuts off and rams the heels of his palms into his eyes,
teeth flashing as he grimaces. I shift closer and try to peer into his face.
When he looks up, the skin around his eyes is red and he looks determined,
biting the words out. “You. Won’t. Hit. Me?” Each is a bullet, forced out and
nipped cleanly, but he is so desperate to speak and I’m so desperate to hear
him. Still, his question freezes me and I can only stare for a long moment.
Because it’s in my blood, isn’t it? Can he sense it? Or is this only a hurt
past history of his, with other boys?
“No,” I finally whisper. “Tom, I would never do that to you.”
Relief flutters his eyes closed, like maybe he’d hoped for this, and sags a
little, our knees bumping. I remind myself to kick that last kid from the woods
right in the balls for whatever he’s done to this beautiful boy.
Licking his lips, he inhales slowly and began. He was about five or six when he
started noticing people cringe from his words, talk over him, correct him mid-
sentence, blurt out suggestions to what they thought he was trying to say. It
was rude and insensitive and he felt he had no way to defend himself without a
voice or resorting to violence. It only got worse as he grew older, his self-
esteem taking a hit as his schoolmates pinpointed him to taunt cruelly, his
naturally submissive and docile nature making him an easy target. Cast out, a
loner, he took up skateboarding and hanging out in the trees, making jewelry he
would wear and then burying it in the rocky soil by the cliff’s edge.
“I’m alive somewhere,” he breathed, both of us sitting so close now our hips
and thighs were pressed snuggly. “Somewhere a part of me is buried in the earth
and maybe I’m growing there, vines of me pushing through the rock to spill
freely into the sea.”
Very gently, I knock my forehead against his shoulder, and he giggles shyly.
“You didn’t stutter there,” I say, and he shrugs.
“I don’t sometimes. I c-can’t control it.”
“But it gets better if you’re relaxed, or comfortable?”
“I think so, yeah.”
I have the sudden image of him on his back, mouth parted, eyes rolling back,
lashes trembling, and it’s so alarmingly real that I give a little jolt, my
chest squeezing painfully.
“Show me,” I manage, trying to level my breathing. “The place you bury your
jewelry. The place you make it. Where you feel safe.”
His brows bunch together, there’s an excited gleam in his eyes, his back
straightening eagerly. “R-rrright now?”
“Yeah.”
It’s late. At least an hour had passed since his hand snatched at me in the
dark, and it feels like a daring secret between us, meeting like this, him and
I, clandestine and surging.
“Let me shower. I probably stink.” He shakes his head, mouth forming a quiet no
as he blushes. “Meet me outside my house, twenty minutes?”
He bites his lip, a hand straying to his chest, long fingers spread wide to
feel his heart maybe. “Okay,” he finally gushes, smile so wide his eyes almost
close.
“God, you’re pretty,” I whisper, leaning in and kissing his cheek just before I
jump up and walk away backwards. He gasps and palms his face, curls fluffing in
the passing breeze. “Meet me?” I repeat, and this time his nod is immediate,
sitting small on the curb, legs folded up against his chest. I turn away before
I can’t, and run back to my house.
Tom:
Trying not to knock anything over, I climb back in through my window and clap a
hand over my mouth to catch the giddy laugh waiting on my tongue. There is a
small circle of fire on my cheek, the spot Chris kissed tingling with blue
flame and stardust. My heart hasn’t stopped racing in my chest, a steady
gallop, a herd of horses that threatens to knock me off my feet. Hands shaking,
I check my phone and see it’s close to midnight, the moon a lantern hanging
high in the sky. I slip into a light cotton sweater and change my shoes before
rubbing deodorant on. I snatch my flashlight from my closet and check my face
in the mirror. I look scared, but happy, amazed that the two emotions might
coincide so closely. Stuffing my earphones into my pocket, I slide my phone
into the other and then jump back out the window, flashlight in hand. I keep it
off as I walk down the street to Chris’s house, the moon offering enough
illumination.
There’s a light in his bedroom, but it’s softer, like from a reading lamp. I
can see his shadow moving around in there, and I can’t help my grin. He looks a
little frantic, jumping left and right. Maybe he’s nervous, and the thought
sends my heart reeling again. I lean against the stop sign post and wait
another minute before his light goes out and the window is pushed open. He
looks too big and too long to be scrunched together for the second it takes him
to crawl out, but once his boots hit the spongy ground he stretches to his full
height and my mouth waters.
Spotting me, he jogs over and I smell the soap on him, crisp and clean, his
hair wet and slicked back into a tight bun. Wearing dark jeans and a light blue
shirt under a black cotton jacket, he looks as ready to jump on a Harley as he
does to fold me against a tree and swamp me with kisses.
“Ready?”
I nod and start walking. “Th-this way.”
He falls into stride beside me, and the night doesn’t seem as threatening as it
would have had I been alone. Our footsteps are loud on the sidewalk, glass
cracking and rocks crunching, and a dog starts barking from the house to our
immediate right. I jump and stagger sideways into Chris, who chuckles and
steadies me with two big hands on my shoulders. Squatting, he whistles low and
the dog pushes its snout through a gap in the fence, whining softly as Chris
pets its nose.
“Are you the dog whisperer?” I ask, immensely pleased I didn’t stumble that
line, because his grin is easily the loveliest I’ve ever seen.
“He’s just doing his job. Aren’t ya boy?” The dog whines again and I roll my
eyes.
“Some g-guard dog,” I mutter and continue on. Chris catches up and throws an
arm over my shoulder, my traitorous face flooding with heat.
“So where are we going?” But his steps falter as we crest the hill and see the
tracks below, dark ore veins.
“Into the truh-truh-trees.”
“There isn’t a way around to the cliffs?”
My smile is slow as I turn to him, his hand sliding over my shoulder and
settling at the back of my neck. I like its weight there, big palm cupping, hot
against the chill I feel rising from the ground.
“Are you nnn-nervous?”
He’s turned toward the dark outline of trees, but his fingers tighten on my
neck. “No,” he says, shrugging. “Just—no. No. I’m good.” Another shrug, totally
not nervous, no. I can’t help my smile.
I slink my arm around his waist under his jacket, and like the little jump he
gives as he pulls me closer on reflex. “Come on then.” We start the slow
descent to the tracks, hopping over first one, then the other. I like being
this close to him; he’s so warm and the night has turned steadily cooler. The
smell of salt grows sharper as we step past the first dozen trees. Chris
glances left and right, up and down, snapping his head back as something
rustles in the leaves above us.
“It’s okay,” I whisper, maneuvering us around giant trunks that stand like dark
sentinels.
“I didn’t realize you came here just for shits,” Chris says softly. “I thought
it was random, what happened the other day. When they followed you in.”
“No,” I murmur. “This is where I c-come.” I pause, embarrassed at the double
entendre, but Chris gives my shoulders a sweet squeeze and I gather my breath.
“To be alone. I mmm-make my jewelry up there.”
We stop before the tree I’ve marked with the blue button and I point to the
very top. Chris’s mouth falls open.
“You climb this? Frequently?”
I laugh and his head whips down to catch my smile, and they’re suddenly in my
ear, from earlier, his words.
God, you’re so pretty.
“A-a-almost every d-day,” I breathe. “Do you want to see where I sit?”
“I’d rather you were safe on the ground.”
I laugh again and he steps closer, his chest bumping mine. The tingling begins
in my fingers and I’m suddenly restless, my excitement mounting until the trees
begin to twirl.
“Catch me,” I whisper, and then spin on my heel. I’m through a half dozen trees
before I hear him curse and start to give chase, his heavy footfalls propelling
me through the woods, faster, faster. I’m ducking around tree trunks and
hurdling roots, my laughter bubbling from me, echoing through the dark. I catch
glimpses over my shoulder, his face like a pale star, eyes intent and homed in
on me. My groin tightens and I give a little squeal. Somewhere behind me, he’s
grunting and nicking bark splinters, closing distance even as he pants and
laughs with me, dark and deep. Any other person would think these woods were
haunted after hearing our cackling screams, and maybe that’s for the better. To
have this place be only our own, I’d like that.
The roaring surf rises out of the gloom as I zigzag and feel his breaths trace
my neck. A hard grip on my elbow and I’m suddenly flung around, tripping on a
root as his mouth crashes into mine. Our bodies collide and we’re falling
backwards. He has just enough time to throw a hand beneath my head to cushion
it before we’re heaped into a tangled bundle, moaning into our first kiss.
Pressed hard, molten spark, we pull back and gasp ragged at each other, eyes
flitting everywhere, scalp tingling. And then he’s grabbing at me and I’m
lifting my chin and the kiss is like a gunshot in the dark, deafening and
bright, a recoil that snaps bones and banks planets, I’m clinging.
It’s all lips and teeth and the sudden slip of tongue. My eyes fly open and I’m
squeezing his jacket in both fists, wisps of his blond hair tickling my face as
the moon lances through the branches.
We break apart, and his mouth makes its home at my neck, hot breath and
nibbles, his voice rumbling sweetly, to bruise.
“Chris,” I gasp, because his name is like honey and there is no stumbling on
something so smooth. My leg lifts and he’s pressed to my core and we’re
suffocating in jeans and cotton, his body the heaviest thing I’ve ever
experienced, my arms wrapping around him to pull him closer. Moaning my name,
he makes worship at my throat, up to my earlobe, suckling the shell as an arrow
of light flings to my groin. I surprise myself by crying out. Hand in his hair,
I rub my cheek on the stubble of his own, hoping for burn, hoping for truth at
the end of it all, red on my skin to prove it.
He’s hard, and so am I, our hips giving little jumps, small collisions that
leave sparks in my eyes, a string of diamond lights along my spine.
“Fuck,” he groans, eyes shut tight, and I peck at the corner of his lips. With
a desolate shudder, he lifts himself off me and rolls to the side, dirt and
twigs crackling under his weight. My wrist is wrapped tightly in his giant fist
and I turn to stare at him, his face outlined by the swath of dark night sky
hanging over the sea.
Beneath us the earth exhales, and our jeans are tented to the stars. I want to
roll over to him, rub myself raw, but my limbs have rebelled and stay glued to
the ground, only my hair shifting with the wind. I am a frozen heart needing
its pulse, and he is here.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “That was fast. That was fast, I’m so sorry.”
“Chris,” I say again, smiling because maybe this is a word my tongue will learn
to curl around without trouble. “It’s okay. We c-can…just lie here.” He meets
my gaze, rolling his head so that our faces are only a foot apart, and his
smile is quick and warm. His fingers slip up my hand and lace with mine,
squeezing once. “I’m sorry I ran from you. The uh-uh-other day.” I exhale and
tell myself to get a grip. Tell my tongue to calm the fuck down. I measure my
words. “You asked me if I had h-heard anything. I haven’t. All I know is that
you moved away. And now you’re back. I didn’t know how to t-tell you that
before. With my—.” I sigh and point uselessly at my mouth.
It’s hardly the stuff of elevated conversation, but I’m happy not to have
stumbled as much, even if I had to slow to the speed of molasses.
“It’s hard for me to gauge when I’m being talked about,” Chris says quietly. “I
haven’t left the house much, but when I do it all goes hushed. I know there are
rumors. But I honestly don’t know the truth myself.”
I wonder what truth he means, but I’m trying not to squirm. I can feel his
pulse in my hand and if I so much as move an inch I’m going to shoot off in my
pants. His eyes pierce mine.
“You’re shaking,” he says softly, and I look away at the moon.
“It’s here somewhere. Where I b-bury them. Also, I can’t feel my legs.”
His laugh is a softer echo of the cackles we gave in the woods. Deep and
swollen in his chest. A rumble. "Ah, fuck," he sighs. "You're going to be my
best trouble, aren't you." I smile and drop my eyes. His inhale is sharp and
warms me to my core. I can feel his attraction to me like sunlight. It’s warm
and just as illuminating. He jumps to his feet and takes my hands. “Come on,
then. We just won’t touch each other. Think we can handle that?”
“No promises,” I say, grinning. But before we fully separate, he pulls me
closer with two hands on each side of my head and kisses me again. Our crotches
touch and I rise on my tiptoes, ready to pitch myself into the sky and perch on
the moon. Gentler, slower, our lips mold and press into a single pretty bow,
and I wrap myself onto him, squealing happily. And then we take each other’s
hands and continue up the slope, a seismic shift in the air between us, the
mood lighter and easier between us. Hesitant smiles grow to full on grins,
softly brushed elbows turn into tight side hugs and laced fingers and kisses.
I’m beaming, confident this isn’t happening. That my summer is as bland as
ever. That I haven’t already spoken more words than I’m used to and remain
unbeaten, that he hasn’t mocked me by now, ridiculed me. Mimickedme. All the
things people do when they think they’re being cute or funny or tough. But
they’re not. They are grown adults who willingly make fun of another person
because of an impediment they have no control over. I’ve had more respect from
children.
And then there are those who claim they never notice when I stutter, which I
personally don't believe. Because even I can hear the echo of my stammered
embarrassment for a long time after, and I sincerely have trouble believing
when others claim they don’t. Ignoring my problem isn’t the way to go either.
Chris, though, he knows. I’ve seen in his eyes the acknowledgment of my
stutter, and it was neither cruel nor embarrassed. It was simple understanding,
a patience that I’ve failed to receive from people I’ve known for years, much
less a boy I've only barely met.
So I cling to the possibility that this might be a mirage of sorts, a snag in
my mind, a wrinkle in my reality. That he will be gone when next I turn my
head, that the warm hand on my waist is actually my own, his breaths an echo of
mine, his footprints swirled to indistinguishable dust. Cruel remnants of a
person I thought had existed, and that life had thought amusing to snatch away.
But he’s still with me, real and solid, when I squat by the cliff’s edge and
find the loose patch of soil that holds my creations. My erection has lessened
to a manageable ache, and I peek at his own to see he’s in somewhat the same
state. I like that even our arousal seems to be in tune.
I dig not too far down with my hands scooped.
“You’re going to bury more?”
I nod, feeling the bite of silver against my sternum.
“What are you going to bury?”
Wiping my hands, I reach into my shirt and pull out the necklace of twine, the
sun and moon and star pendants clinking together, and then start to roll the
two bracelets off my wrist.
“Wait,” he says, catching my arm. “What if…Here.” He pulls out several
necklaces from his own shirt, mostly thin silver chains, but he unravels one
that is made from black string. Hanging from it is a lightning bolt. “Want to
switch? You know...wear each other's?”
My jewelry hanging from the tips of my fingers, I consider them and then the
proffered necklace Chris is holding. I meet his gaze, a giddy smile growing on
my face. Okay, I nod. He puts on my necklace, and I put on his, tucking it into
his shirt and patting his chest. And then he takes one of the bracelets and
adds it to the ones already on his wrist. I keep the second one, liking that we
match.
“Thank you, Chris,” I say softly, and he clasps my hand in his.
“Thank you, Tom. For this.” And by the gentle rounding of the word, I take it
to mean more than just my little pieces of art.
Chris:
Tom doesn’t know about my erratic sleep schedule, and to my great shame, I try
to keep it from him. I don’t know what it is about it that makes me feel weak
and unreliable, but the last week has been so astoundingly sweet I begin to
wonder if I’m not in an extended dream, lying crooked somewhere dark, asleep
for days, drifting. But I’ve caught him staring at me sometimes, studying my
face and the hunched angle of my shoulders. It’s so lovely, the concern written
on his brow, that I almost cave. Because I’ve never felt as gentle an affection
as the one Tom gives me. It endears me how open he is with his touches, liking
to hold my hand or slide his arm through mine. He’s talking a little more now,
even if in quiet mumbles at times, pushing his face into my shoulder, grinning
because he simply can’t contain what he feels inside him.
I certainly can’t either.
I’ll have to tell him soon. We’ve exchanged numbers and text whenever we aren’t
together – which isn’t often. But I know his messages drop off at a certain
time of night, when he goes to sleep and I stay up because I can’t follow him
into the sandy mists that so many people succumb to come dark. He thinks I’m
sleeping too, but I’m online taking surveys, or running, or lifting weights,
none of which makes me feel healthier. Only more tired, further dragging low my
sanity and making me more disoriented the longer I go without rest. It struck
me that I should start logging how often I sleep – or more accurately, the
amount of time that passes between shuteye. So far this last week and a half,
it’s ranged between twenty-two hours and twenty-nine.
I should stay home. I should. My head’s beginning to feel inflated with air, my
skin set abuzz with scratching anxiety, my hands to shaking. But his good
morning text had me stuffing my feet into shoes and hurrying to his house. I
must look in bad shape when I meet Tom outside his driveway. He steps onto his
board and we reach for each other’s hand at the same time, kicking slowly to
glide along beside me.
“Did you sleep ok-k-kay?” he asks, throwing an arm over my shoulder, and
cupping my cheek.
“Not really.” I swing my own arm around his waist, liking how he’s taller than
me when on his board.
“But why…babe?”
He started calling me this a few days ago, and it makes the prettiest blush
rise to his cheeks, and my own heart bump against my ribs.
“Bad dreams.” This is partly true. Last time I slept I dreamt of dark waves
crashing overhead, drowning me as the neighing teeth of horses sang me to a
watery death. I’d woken in a cold sweat, half dragged into my closet. Even
unconscious I’d tried escaping, saving myself.
“My sweetheart,” he whispers, squeezing me in a side-hug as I help him turn the
corner to the road that leads to his woods. The scrapes on his arm and both
palms are slowly healing, dry scabs falling off in pieces, new skin left
behind. He’d turned an adorable shade of pink when I asked how he’d gotten the
cuts, eventually mumbling something about a men’s soccer team and falling off
his board. He hid his face in my neck when I laughed and asked him to show me
where.
We’ve taken a liking to meeting up in the mornings and going to the trees,
spending most of the day in their webby shade, the ocean splashing somewhere
below the cliffs, twittering birds hopping in the branches above us. We whisper
and laugh, fingers laced, legs spread out before us. It's how I learned that
his dad walked out on them when he was only two, or that his first crush had
been on a boy in third grade that had thrown a ball at his face and given him
the first in a line of bloody noses he would suffer in his life for listening
to an instinct that is beautiful and natural. In halting sentences, he told me
about making his first necklace and matching bracelet, twisting silver into
tiny spiraled leaves for a ring he wore for months before thinking to bury them
in the quest for immortality. I like hearing him talk, detecting the smallest
lisp when he says my name. He still gets flustered when he stutters, going red
and silencing himself with gritted jaw and nail bites. But I’ve noticed an ease
come over him since that first day at the tracks. He's quick to smile, quick to
hold me, quick to kiss.
And I love kissing him, the both of us by the cliffs, or under canopies of deep
green. He makes these tiny noises, moans and whimpers, at my side one moment
and the next crawled on my lap, grinding, squeezing me with his slim thighs.
God, I want him.
For only being a year and a half younger than me, he is unbearably gentle, a
sweet and tender boy who makes me want to trail after him for the rest of his
days, guarding him from danger, a loyal mutt to his master. He doesn't toy with
me, and it boosts my devotion, how I know to worship. I've tasted his lips and
parts of his skin; I've smelled the pulse at his neck and inhaled the scent of
his hair. I want to feast on him and weep, and sleep beside him, above all.
Reaching the edge of the trees, he takes his board and we jump the tracks. But
my balance is off and I stumble, heart racing as my anxiety spikes. The world
is rushing up at me, or maybe the ocean. Where are the horses? The neighing,
terrifying horses. Their teeth—.
"Hey," he murmurs, hand on my cheek. "You're sh-shaking. W-what's wrong?"
I shake my head to clear it, my sight blurring. I might pass out, but I'm
usually somewhere at home when I do, careful about soft surfaces when the hours
notch up like this. But I had to see him. I needed to.
"I'm just...I'm sorry, babe. But I think I need to lie down."
"Of c-c-course. Want...t-t-o go back?"
"No. No way. Let's go to our spot. I'll rest there."
His brows are scrunched, like he isn't convinced, and maybe he's right because
when we take another step, my vision tilts and I nearly drag him down with me.
His board clatters to the ground and he wraps both arms around my back, my name
a panicked gasp on his lips. He never stutters my name. Never.
"Okay," I manage, falling to a knee. "Okay, I think I need to go home."
Together we make our way back. One arm around my waist, his board clutched in
the other, Tom is wheezing as he half-carries me, stumbling over his words as
his breathing hitches, asking me what’s wrong, what’s the matter. But I'm
trying so hard not to drop unconscious at his feet to answer him properly. He
finds my keys in my back pocket and pushes into the house, astounding me with
his strength, his thin arms trembling to hold me upright. My dad’s at work, so
the house is eerily still, all the blinds drawn.
“Hello?” he calls out, but I mumble, “No one’s here.”
My room is open and we crash through the door, the bed a bright beacon in my
darkening tunnel of sight. Tom is saying something about an ambulance.
“No. No, babe. Babe, no. It’s okay. I’m okay. I just have to sleep.
See. This is what I mean about it making me weak.
“You’re not,” Tom says, face pinched as he lowers me to the edge of the
mattress, and I realize I must have blurted something out. “You’re j-j-just
nnnnot well.”
I’m fading too fast, my waist crumpling as I fall backward, his face scared and
worried in the center of what remains of my sight. I try reaching for him, my
hands scrabbling on his arms but I can’t find a grip and I flop back uselessly,
gone.
Tom:
I stare down at him, throat bobbing as I think frantically what to do. What’s
just happened? Is he okay?
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.
Okay. It’s okay. I prop a knee on the bed and reach over him to feel for a
pulse. It’s there, beating strong, elevated even. My finger stays pressed to
his neck, my hand smoothing over a cheek, watching as his lashes tremble just
the slightest bit, the bruises under his eyes darker than before. I suddenly
see what’s wrong.
He’s exhausted.
But why? It’s barely nine in the morning. Didn’t he sleep last night? Confused,
I look down at his long legs spread out on the floor, bent slightly at the
knee, looking so vulnerable despite their strength. I kneel and unlace his
shoes, slipping them off and tucking them under the bed. Bringing his foot up,
I hold it in both hands and press my cheek to the warm top, his sock soft on my
skin.
Maneuvering him on the bed is harder than I thought. His torso starts to twist
as I elevate his legs so that he may lie more comfortably. I have to adjust
first his feet and then scoot his shoulders, sweat sprouting on my face. He
doesn’t even stir, so deeply asleep he is. But at least now he’s lying
horizontal on the bed, sprawled out. His wrists look strangely delicate against
his rumpled bedspread, cocked at a high angle, wrongly exposed. I fix them so
that they face down, his big hands spread open.
Glancing around his room, I see that there’s not much here, just his bed and a
small desk, on which rests a laptop and some chewed on pencil nubs. He has a
small TV on a short stand, a pair of tennis shoes in the corner, his closet
half open to reveal shaded clothing. I’m about to leave when something white
catches my eyes. Sticking out from under his pillow is the edge of a notepad.
Hesitating, I glance at his face. So still and calm, blown open and revealing a
much younger heart than he lets on. Does he keep a journal? The thought thrills
me and I can’t help reaching for the pad and taking a seat at the edge of the
bed, reading the first page. I notice immediately that he’s scrawled my name
over and over in the shape of a heart, doodles and doodles of it.
“Sweetie,” I breathe and lay a hand on his quietly rumbling chest. But it’s
what I read below that confuses and concerns me. In a stilted hand, he has
written:
Hours without sleep: 19, 20, 19, 17, 30, 21, 21, 32, 27, 22, 22, 26, 28.
And today is blank because he had no idea how long it would be before his body
literally gave out, sleep controlling him on autopilot.
On the days he does sleep, he wrote:
1am to 5:57am. 9pm to 12:45am. 2pm to 6:13pm. On and on, a map of numbers that
proved he got on average three to five hours of sleep. Or none at all.
He moans suddenly and it vibrates up my arm. I drop the pad and snatch my hand
away, eyes wide as he shifts and curls away from me, his big shoulders tapering
low to his narrow waist, a slumbering giant I am afraid to wake, but
desperately tempted to. Creeping closer again, I curl my legs under me and lean
against his back, hugging him from behind. He’s so warm, heat pouring off him
and into me. I soak it in and inhale at the messy, bunched bun. Under the edge
of the collar of his shirt, I spy the dark outline of another tattoo. Or maybe
it's an extension of his sleeve, but it's dark and curved and I want to see it.
Using the tip of my finger, I lift his shirt an inch and dip my head to peer
inside. It's too dark to make out much besides his tangled necklaces -
including the one I made, a flash of silver by a light brown nipple, peaked -
and more inked design and the broader curve of a well-defined pectoral. My
mouth dries suddenly and I'm tempted to slip my hand along his clavicle when he
gives another soft moan. I hunch over him instinctually, squeezing myself to
his back as if that will hide me should he wake and wonder why I'm pasted to
him like a sticky slug.
I lie there frozen, holding him and liking how it feels, this big body brimming
with heat and muscle, like a bomb that might go off and drown me in light.
“It’s o-k-kay,” I whisper, internally chastising myself for the stumble. I slow
my breathing, slow my words. “I will protect you. While you sleep. Rest, my
sweetheart. Rest.”
I think I sleep for a little while too, because when I next open my eyes he's
turned towards me and my head is tucked under his, our cheeks pressed together.
But he's breathing so deep and even, and I know he's farther away from me than
he's ever been. He's needed this, and I would never deny him a thing.
Untwisting myself from his embrace is tricky, first shifting my feet off the
bed and then rolling my knees to the side. His arms come up higher on my waist
but before he can squeeze me to him, I slide right between them and rise
clumsily, my heart pounding. Embracing nothing but air, he falls forward on the
pillow and huffs shortly before going still and quiet.
I want him so much, the ache is fervent and demanding, a needy, pulsing thing
that's curled its way to the base of my pelvis and lies in quiet wait. My hand
spreads open below my belly button, pressing flat, and I catch a moan before it
spills. He's unconscious and I shouldn't keep touching him while touching
myself. I'm moving before I lose my nerve, pulse thumping at my throat. I keep
his house key and hurry through the hall to lock the front door, finally
leaving through his bedroom window. Slanting the blinds up an inch, I make sure
I can peer into his room from the outside before closing the pane. The next
several hours I spend in a tense mood, my shoulders tight, sweat popping on my
brow. I avoid skating by his house, afraid my rasping board might wake him. But
I travel back and forth until nightfall, spying through his blinds, always
relieved when I find him in a different position than before, his chest still
rising, still falling. Alive. Eventually, his father arrives home and I keep my
distance for a few minutes, but curiosity gets the better of me and I step into
the bed of soil and hedges outside his window and watch as he comes into
Chris’s room, flicking the light on, casting the dark room in a washed out
dullness of overhead brightness.
Turn it off, I plead in my mind. But Chris remains asleep, even as his father
leans over him, whispers something. Receiving no response, he pats Chris’s
shoulder gently and leaves a water bottle on the desk, exiting as quietly as he
entered, turning the light off as he passes the doorway.
My heart eases at witnessing his father do this, surprised to admit that I’d
been wary of the man, not knowing the type he might be. If he was impatient or
cruel. Thoughtless and vile. But I feel much better about him after seeing him
walk so quietly around the room, his humbly noble bearing. He didn’t want to
wake his son either.
In the end, I’m just happy that this instance seems to be different from
Chris’s usual three hour naps. It’s approaching midnight by the time I drag
myself back to my own room, dropping heavily to the bed and falling asleep, but
not before thinking I should have put Chris’s phone to charge. That maybe I
should text him where I might be tomorrow in case he wakes and misses me.
Something in me says he will.
Chris:
There’s a crick in my neck the second I wake, and I moan as it becomes sharper
the more I come out of the shrouded fog of sleep. I’m swimming in semi-
consciousness when I suddenly bolt upright in bed, pain spiking up my back from
a twitching muscle.
“Tom,” I rasp. The room is blurry and settles into focus slowly. I blink and
wince, my back a giant ache that needs to go the fuck away, like now. The clock
on my desk reads 9:01am.
Holy shit. Did I just sleep for almost twenty-four hours?
I scramble to unearth my phone from the pocket of my jeans, but the screen
remains black as I tap the home button. Dead. Useless.
“Goddammit.”
My bladder is bursting, so I visit the bathroom first and groan up at the
ceiling as I unload what feels like several gallons of piss. I wash my face -
stubble patches on my cheek and slightly swollen eyes - and brush my teeth
before pulling my hair into a quick ponytail. I’m out the front door and
running down the street in under five minutes. Tom’s house has a totally
different vibe from mine. His mom seems to work just as much as my dad, but
she’s attempted to keep a small garden with cute multicolored stones framing
the path to the front door. There are tiny figurines of fairies and gnomes that
give me the creeps, butterfly pinwheels and a sunflower cutout. I wonder if Tom
helps her garden sometimes, and I’m assaulted with the image of him on his
knees in the dirt, up to his elbows in soil, patting the ground lovingly as a
fresh green stalk of something pretty sprouts from the ground.
My groin tightens and I hurry around the side of the house to his bedroom. The
shades are open and I cup my hands around my eyes and peer in, hoping his
mother isn’t in there vacuuming or something. But the room is empty and I see
his board is missing from where he keeps it in the corner.
There’s only one other place I think he’ll go and feel totally safe and that’s
to his woods. The assholes I’d found trying to beat on him had kept their
distance, thankfully. Even so, I head west at a full sprint, my hands shaking
not from fatigue this time, but from tingling exhilaration, my mind at the
sharpest its been in weeks. I hop the tracks and race straight through the
first trees, following our well-beaten path to the one I know he’s up in,
winding his twine and choosing his silver.
Only, instead of the quiet that I’ve come to know and expect around him, I’m
met with the most curious and lovely sound. From high in the treetops, floating
on the breeze, I hear singing.
Surprised, I circle the tree and see his board under its hiding place of
leaves. It’s him up there, I realize, and he’s singing.
Staring straight up, I can barely see through the green and white canopy of
leaves his outline perched on the highest branch, legs swinging adorably, head
bent over his jewelry. His voice is faint from my position on the ground, but I
can tell it’s strong and confident, smooth as porcelain but swollen just
slightly deep, throaty enough to make my groin tighten – again.
And completely stutter-free.
Mouth dry, I crane my neck up and listen to his voice, his song.
"I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel, you were famous, your heart was a
legend. You told me again you preferred handsome men, but for me you would make
an exception. And clenching your fist for the ones like us who are oppressed by
the figures of beauty, you fixed yourself. You said, well never mind, we are
ugly but we have the music."
I can't help it. So enamored of the rise and fall of his words, the melody he
gives them, the tender lisp I know is there but can't quite hear, I take a step
forward, wanting more of the song, more of him. But a twig snaps underfoot and
his words cut off with a sharp gasp.
Shit. I've scared him.
"It's me!" I call, lifting a hand to the tree. "It's Chris."
"Chris!" he exclaims, voice lifting happily, and through the gaps in the leaves
I make out his blue eyes like the ocean, a blue green purple kind of sparkling
starlight, squinted as he grins down at me. He puts aside what he was working
on and starts to climb down, leaves sprinkling around me from his weight. When
he finally launches himself from the lowest limb, I catch him and we tumble to
the floor in muted giggles. Arms wrapped around my head, he plants dozens of
kisses on my face, whispering how much he missed me. The necklace I gave him
swings out of his green shirt and laps at my throat.
“Aaaaare you alright?” he asks, the first syllable coming out in one extended
sound, round and long like the ‘o’ in otter. I frame his face before he can
turn away and lean up to kiss him hard. He moans and softens around me, his
body melting on mine. But he weighs nothing to me, bones like a bird.
We break apart with a loud smack and I zip my sight over all of him, flushed
cheeks, hazy eyes, mouth parted. I run the tip of my tongue over my bottom lip
and taste him there, a bit of sea and turn of sky, salt and leaf. His eyes
follow my tongue and he inadvertently licks his own. We smile and bump noses.
“I’m fine, babe. I’m sorry if I scared you.”
“You look better,” he says, his voice back to that soft wisp he uses when
concentrating really hard on his stuttering. He traces a thumb over my
cheekbone. “No more b-bruises here. You…aaaren’t…fainting.”
I bristle, the skin of my neck tightening, but I try to tamp it down, knowing
it’s just my own bullshit misconceptions about myself and any shortcomings I
may have. He’d been frightened for me.
“You were singing,” I say instead and his eyes immediately shutter closed. He
untangles himself from me and starts to rise but I grip his elbows. “Hey. I’m
sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“I d-d-didn’t lie.”
“Lie? About what, babe?” I sit up and fold him to my chest, dry leaves clinging
to our clothes. Running a hand over his head, I feel how hot his scalp is,
moist from the heat, and I want to bury my nose into this crown of curls. But
then I realize what he means, how he didn’t once stutter while he sang. With a
pinched brow, he looks to be working up to something so I wait, tracing the
outline of his ear with my nose.
Very serious, eyes down, he says, “You…think I am a liar?”
“No.”
He nods and takes a deep breath.
“I’m not. But…I’ve realized that it d-doesn’t happen when I sing.”
"Your stuttering?"
He nods, lashes low.
"Do you know why?"
A short shrug, timid and a bit stung. He doesn’t often have to explain himself
to anyone, people’s initial brushing off of everything he says or does allowing
him a sense of stubborn independence that he uses as a way of not talking. It’s
easier that way, maybe. His words are pent up barbs that he struggles to
swallow or risk spitting out in stilted, jerking phrases that he thinks
belittles him to others, makes him less. And maybe he does know why his
stuttering disappears when he sings, or maybe he doesn’t; but just so long as
he sings.
Because his voice is lovely. And so is he.
"You know what I think?" His eyes slide slowly to mine, cautious, curious,
lingering at my lips. I widen them in a smile for him, and he offers an echo of
it to me. "I think that you're really pretty and I want to kiss you."
He sits up, brightening. "Yeah?"
And because the ground is spongy and laced with sunlight patches I rise to my
knees and pull him to me, my hands bracketing his face. Our lips meet slowly,
his breath warm on my tongue, but he's leaning into me fast with these wicked
sounds and his mouth. And then I'm tipping him backward and he yields easily as
I lay him on the ground to cover him with my body, wanting to blanket him
forever, keep him warm and dry and safe.
"So p-p-perfect. You're so perfect, Chris."
I can't speak. My mouth is a magnet to the steel plane of his neck, the tendons
long and lean, his blond curls tickling my nose as I move higher to nibble at
his ear. And there, with the salt of sweat and loam, is coconut milk. I moan
and he arches, gasping, digging his fingers into my back, because his ears are
my favorite place to worship, so sensitive, guaranteed to make him mush in my
arms.
“You know that song. The one you were singing?”
“Uh huh,” he mumbles, staring dazedly through his lashes.
“Know what it’s about?”
A tiny exhalation, a breeze at my temple. “What?”
“Sex.”
He tilts his hips and sparks grind at the back of my jaw. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. Leonard Cohen wrote the song about Janis Joplin. How she gave him
a—fuck, babe.” I grip the knobby point of his hipbone and give a small thrust.
I could dry hump him for years just for the singular pleasure of watching his
face break open, a tender little line between his brows, berry mouth parted.
“How she gave him a blow job,” I manage, wheezing.
“But—.” He swallows and opens his eyes, glitter bright. “A girl sings in the
version I know.”
“I like the way you sing it.”
He goes red, a spill of crimson that makes the soft baby hairs at his temple,
his every eyelash, turn white. His hands squeeze into my backside and a small
whimper rolls from his mouth to mine. “D-d-don’t stop. Chris, please.”
I don’t answer and instead crash our mouths together, my hips snapping as he
squeals and tries to meet my thrusts. We're stumbling and apologetic, moaning
and grasping. A heat builds up in our pants, the fabric bunching and almost
painful against our seizing crotches. We half-roll and he throws a leg over my
waist, my access to his core that much better. Lying on our sides, I try
chasing that coconut milk scent around the length of his neck, and we’re
panting as the sun shines down from directly above, its bald head arcing
through the treetops. Tom’s lips draw spirals on me, tracing paths on every
inch of my face, closing in a bow over the tip of my nose and then moving to my
chin where he licks at my stubble and moans my name. His hand slinks around my
waist, and stays planted at the center of my spine. It’s so intimate, so
comforting to me, that I let out a small sob, imagining us back on my bed where
we might fuck and make each other come and then I can press my face to his
throat and sleep.
But we’re in his woods, and it isn’t safe. I don’t care about myself, but I
want him unharmed and protected always, and lying naked on the forest floor
where anybody could stumble upon us isn’t good for him. Not with another year
of high school left. And he’s looking up at me with eyes nearly wild with
abandon, zipping frantically between my own.
Using my arm as a cushion against the hard ground, I hug him close and press
our foreheads together. “Gonna come for me? Yeah?”
He nods, heated and swelling, blunt nails stabbing crescent marks in my skin.
He’s pulling at me, heel digging into the back of my thigh, quick wet noises
bubbling up his throat as I thrust and rub down on him. And then his eyes roll
up and just like that, he gasps.
I clamp down hard on his arms and roll him onto his back, thrusting half a
dozen times more until I come with a growl, hunched over him like a gorilla
over his pretty mate. The whites of his eyes show when he shudders once more
and I stare at him, stunned.
That I did this to him. That he’s feeling this because of me. But I’m no one.
“Chris,” he murmurs, and I finally exhale, relieved at the identity, that I’m
someone to him.
With our gunk pooling in our briefs, I sag onto him, our mushy bodies somehow
softer post-orgasm, molding and giving, perfect cradles for the other.
“You’re the prettiest,” I breathe, smacking kisses on his face and neck. “So
beautiful. You sing and you smile. And I’m going to ask you the corniest
fucking question, but do you want to be my boyfriend?”
Tom’s throat bobs as he barks out a laugh, big and deep, the kind that finds
its way down my tonsils and curls up around my heart. I’ll remember that laugh
forever.
“Yes!” he shouts and our teeth scrape when we reach for each other at the same
time, producing more giggles and bumped canines, my heart a swollen bundle of
ribbons in my chest.
Tom:
I have a boyfriend and his name is Chris. I was a little afraid of him at
first, certainly intimidated too. He’s so much bigger than me, and as someone
who gets physically accosted several times a semester because of the stammer-
induced quiet I nurture with nearly everyone, bigger tends to make me nervous.
But he’s nothing to be afraid of. If anything, his size makes me feel like the
safest china doll in the cupboard, strong and oiled sturdy wood boxing me in
for safe-keeping. I'm fascinated by the command he has over his voice. I could
stare at his mouth for ages.
Some days we go to artsy shops located by the bay. He’s bought me a new set of
silver charms to work into my jewelry and I’ve made him another necklace that
he’s looped in with his other chains. We eat burgers under the red and white
striped umbrellas of the outdoor restaurant, sanded concrete under our shoes.
He comes with me to the woods, but refuses to climb to my perch in the highest
tree. I think it has to do with his fear of falling unconscious should his
internal sleep timer go off and he’s not flat-footed on the ground. He’s only
just recently started talking about it. At my shy – and hopefully not annoying
– insistence, he confessed to me about his insomnia.
“I go so long without sleep, babe. My mind starts to crackle, like something's
about to catch fire inside my skull." We're lying on the beach below the
cliffs, and the surf is tickling our toes. The sun is down and the sky is the
bruised color of grape juice. I'm lying on my back staring up at the stars
beginning to make their pinpricking appearance, and Chris is sprawled over me
with his face in my neck, a part of my body I've come to learn he loves very
much. His hair is loose and sliding smoothly through my fingers as I scratch
lightly at his scalp. I keep quiet, thinking he might actually slip into sleep
without a fuss - and I'm more than prepared to spend the night with him under
the canopy of ocean sky if it means he rests - but then he murmurs, "Makes
everything fuzzy. I hate it."
"How long has it been this time?"
He gives a vague shrug, reminding me of myself. "Eighteen. Nineteen hours,
maybe."
I take a deep breath, to settle my words. "And...do you ever...feel when it
might be ending?" So many of the instances where I can control my stuttering
revolve around how I breathe. I'm learning how to understand it better, even if
it makes me sound like a total airhead.
"It's very sudden. I'll just get dizzier than usual. My balance will be off.
Like a blanket gets wrapped around my head and I'm stumbling in the dark.
That's how it feels. The sooner I lie down, the sooner I give in and rest."
I remember my cousins watching a movie when I was younger about a man who had
severe insomnia. During one of the moments I skipped through the room for water
I was surprised to see the man duct-taping his window to prevent any sunlight
from seeping through, eyes wild with panic and paranoia. The thought made me
squeeze my arms around Chris and nuzzle his forehead. How terrible this
affliction, how unsettling, to retreat even from the light of the sun.
“It’s why I run and work out. To tire myself out.” He sniffs and slides his
nose under my jawline, lifting his head and staring down at me. “Let’s run now.
Me and you.”
“R-r-run?”
“Yeah. It’s like an itch I get. A swarm under my skin. I have to move.” He’s
already on his knees, stooping and chucking off his shoes, slipping his warm
socks under each heel. Excitement thrills through me and I’m ridding myself of
my own shoes. We leave my board and our phones on the beach and take off at a
sprint. I’m flying next to him and he’s laughing, which makes me laugh, and we
cartwheel and bounce through the sand. It’s dark and the breeze coming off the
water is cool and brimmed with salt, sticking to my tongue like beads.
Skidding to a stop, knuckles grazing, we huff out heavy breaths and stare out
at the crashing waves, thunderous, their advancing and retreating heard more
than seen, great pounding blasts and the evaporating mist of the foam in the
moonlight.
"I want to go in!" I yell, the volume of my voice giving my words enough weight
to force them out of my mouth. He snaps his head to me, and I catch a small
moment of hesitation.
"Really?"
I nod, gazing at his hair turned white under the moon.
"It's dark in there, babe."
Not if I dive in with the sun.
Without another word I take off toward the water, my legs closing the distance
in the space of a few breaths. I have no thoughts of nightly predators, the
sharks and electric jellyfish that might be roaming. But then he's suddenly
beside me, grabbing my hand and holding on tight as we lope through the first
few feet of it and then launch into the ocean, diving in just under a rising
wave. Warmth swallows us whole, the quiet like a roar in my ears, bubbles and
the heartbeat of these ancient waters pulsing through me like a shock. My hand
is still clenched tightly in Chris's, only now he's wrapped both arms around my
back and huddles me close as we twirl and thrash under the force of it,
invaders to the established superiority of this prehistoric entity.
We emerge, tossed about and sputtering for air. It's surprising how far out we
are, but the ocean is a wieldy, possessive muscle that desires to claim. It had
sampled us and craved more.
"Babe!" he sputters, water spraying. "Hang on." Chris has an arm around my
waist and hitches me up his torso as best he can, but we’re being carried with
the current. I can feel the heat of the deeper tug beneath our bodies, and the
cool, lapping water at our chins. "We're going to have to hustle back in. Ready
to swim?"
I nod and he gives me a solid shove toward shore, my body propelled one moment
and then sinking again. I start kicking and cutting my arms through the water,
hearing him at my side doing the same. But we're smiling and near giggles by
the time sand sponges under our feet and we drag ourselves out. Our clothes are
heavy and sagging off our bodies and my teeth are chattering despite the heat.
The adrenaline scissors through my veins, sharpening my sight and alighting
star sparks from my skin. I could float away if I wanted, tap a trail up the
tail of Leo and curve around the edge of the moon to spy on my beloved with my
chin in hand, smiling amusedly at his handsome quirks, sprinkling glitter dust
on him if he needs a bit of luck. Or sleep.
The sand sinks around our forms when we collapse with snorted laughter, salt
drying in the corners of our mouths and frosting on our eyebrows. He's staring
at me like maybe I'm a king, and it feels so wonderful I blush and duck my
chin.
But then his eyes go suddenly wide with horror and he's snatching me by my
arms, hauling me over him.
"Christ!" he screams, and I roll with a confused cry, turning around to stare
right into the beady eyes of a giant crab. Sharp pincers up, it held one
slightly prone forward and I realize with a frantic grab at my ear that it had
been about to pinch me. "Fuck this shit! Come on, babe." We stagger to our
feet, Chris throwing half-hearted kicks at the little creature that involved
more tossed sand than actual harm, but we retreat and collect our things,
mouths meeting in quick, furtive kisses as we climb the slopes in the near
dark, slipping and catching each other with hushed concern.
"Will you s-s-sleep?" I ask as he climbs in through his window, despite having
a key.
"I don't know," he says quietly. "I'm guessing maybe. But if not, I won't
leave. Just in case."
"My sweetheart," I gasp and we rush at each other over the windowsill, heavy-
handed gropes and smacking kisses.
"God, you're amazing," he moans and half-drags me inside, my knees scraping on
the metal track of the window. "Shit. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, babe. I'm sorry."
I kiss him in forgiveness and crawl back out. He waves at me from the darkness
of his room when I stop at the street lamp at the corner. His hand is an
unfurled flag of peace in a country I don't want to leave, but I force my own
up in farewell and jump on my board for home.
Chris:
Tom's messages dropped off after midnight but I'm still awake. I tend to avoid
caffeine like the plague, found that it makes me too wired, jittery. But the
smell of it wafting under my doorway from the kitchen as my dad gets ready to
leave for the day is nearly excruciating, my mouth watering and stomach
cramping. I know I shouldn't - I don't even like the taste of the stuff - so I
sit in my closet with my hands over my ears and rock in place until I know he's
gone for sure. I unfold myself quickly and rush to the kitchen, dumping the
dregs still left in the pot down the drain. I cram a blueberry muffin into my
mouth and down it with cold milk, feeling only moderately better. Going on my
thirty-second hour, I'm still fidgeting. The buzzing has started in my head and
the edge of my vision has gone grey.
He may still be asleep. It's only a little before seven. But I'm imagining him
tucked under a fort of blankets and pillows, whiff of coconut milk embedded so
deeply into the fibers I couldn't escape him even if I wanted. And who would
want to? Who?
I'm pacing the living room, sniffing out the room as if he were there, anxious
and impatient and desperate to get out. But it's the snippets of another image
that keep sizzling into view. Of a cut off scream and veins engorged in pain.
My mother's terror-struck face aimed right at me. Frank with his arm bent
askew, skin crumpled nastily, a bone snapped somewhere under it. By me.
I didn't. I didn't do that. I couldn't have. I've never hurt anyone that I
wasn't protecting, hurting to protect them. But what other answer is there?
I'm not a monster. I'm not an unhinged brute.
I pause in the living room and rasp a hand down my face. Am I?
Before I convince myself of terrible things I'm grabbing my keys and slamming
out the front door. I run down the street, the early morning still dewy and
slightly green. There's a smell of shorn grass and sea salt. It's not like I
think he will heal me. I would never put that burden on him. But my crushing
need to smell him is so strong that it isn't until I trip over a watering hose
do I realize I'm crying, hot tears spilling from my lashes.
"Sorry—," someone starts to say, rising from her garden, but I wave her off and
start running again. I slide so hard on the pavement when his house looms into
view that I land flat on my ass, scraping my left arm up to my elbow. Tom's mom
is getting into her car, almost forgetting her own coffee on the roof before
reaching up for it and securing it in the cup holder.
I gulp in deep breaths of air, forcing myself to calm down. I'll give myself a
heart attack at this rate. She takes her time buckling in and checking both
ends of the street before backing out carefully. I'm crouched on the balls of
my feet ready to burst from my cage like an enraged bull. As soon as she's out
of sight I hurry forward and around the side of the house. His bedroom is
kitty-corner to the street, slightly obscured by a large hedge budding purple
flowers. I'm careful not to step on any figurines his mom has so lovingly
placed in even the most out of the way spots, and then cup my hands over my
eyes to peer in. His blinds are closed nearly all the way, but I can make out
his desk and bureau drawer stacked with books and video games. There's a stick
of deodorant and a brush with a nest of blond curls caught in its teeth. A
bookcase with more books, a TV, his board.
The bed is against the corner farthest from the window and I can barely make
out a slumped form under the blankets. I rap my knuckles on the pane of glass
and wait. He doesn't move. I do it again, a little louder and the sheets shift,
just barely.
"Please, babe," I whisper, eyes out on the street, but the worst is in my head,
something I can't escape from.
I need him to hear me.
I need him.
Tom:
I was dreaming, and then I wasn't. I bolt upright in bed, the sheets dropping
to my waist, my hair springing everywhere.
My voice, syrupy with sleep, doesn’t remember to stumble. "What?"
I’m facing the wall and maybe I woke myself. But as I’m about to lie back down,
the knocks come again, more urgently this time and I spin to squint at the
window. A shape looms there like a giant demon spirit, but when I crack my
other eye open I see that it's Chris.
"Oh," I gasp, spilling from the bed and unbolting the window. Now that I'm
awake he looks suddenly uncertain, gaze cast down, almost ashamed, ready to
bolt.
"A-a-are you alright?" I say, wincing.
He only says my name, a small exhalation, a plea. The more I wake the more I
see of him, his terrified eyes, the disheveled mane of hair, the scrape down
his arm. I mentally kick myself, wondering if our jump into the ocean gave him
bad dreams, but that would have to mean that he slept, and I know instinctually
that he hasn't. His is a look of someone cornered and approaching feral.
"Sweetheart," I whisper and his eyes snap up to meet mine. He's panicked, the
bruises under his eyes darker, deeper. I take a step forward. "You're shaking."
"I'm," he starts, and then licks his lips. A shudder courses through him, near
defeat. "I'm so tired." And then his shoulders give a terrible tremor and he's
sobbing into his hands.
"No, darling!" I reach for him and tug him into my room, helping him crawl over
the biting metal. He's trembling and hot with fever, but it's his eyes, the
blue made somehow sharper by exhaustion and strain, pupils pinpricked in all
his fear. And his lips, so full and lovely, glistening as he cries, downturned
at the edges, a sweet and woeful pout that has something flaring inside me so
suddenly, burning and whipping to a gargantuan size, that I wrap him in my arms
and pull him to the bed. He's barely coherent, tears in his eyes, holding my
arms as he grits his jaw.
"I just want to sleep," he moans, heavy with woe too old for him, too dark for
his brightness. "Will you put me to sleep? Please? Can I smell you?"
"Shh, th-there now," I whisper, soothing his hair and standing before him. He
turns his face into my palm and gives another tiny broken moan, and my heart
cracks in two. Swallowing thickly, I unlace his shoes and pull them off. He's
wearing basketball shorts and a T-shirt, so I leave those alone. But his
mumbles are spotty, something about veins and bones snapping, and I can't
follow. "Lie back now. Like that. Yeah." He falls back to my pillows but won't
release his hold on me, his big hands wrapped around my elbows. I crawl in
beside him and face us side by side. "Sleep now. S-s-sleep here with me. You'll
be j-just fine."
"No one should want me," he hisses, half-conscious. His eyes roll up but he
snaps back into alertness, lashes spiked and wet, struggling to win over the
pull inside his mind. Another damp sob, a hoarse and broken thing from deep in
his chest. "I'm no good."
I can only stare at him, distressed at these imaginings. It isn't true, I want
to scream. I want you. I want you always. But a quote I'd read not too long ago
slips into my mind and I whisper it from memory. “Christopher. Sweetheart. 'Who
wouldn't want you? Whose most demonic appetite could you possibly fail to
answer'?"
His eyes slide to mine, swimming half in this world, half out. The shift in
them is clouded, delayed; he’s struggling to stay present. My heart seizes
because I can't stomach such pain. Not his. Never his.
"You love me?" he says, head cocked like a little boy, the softest I'd heard
him speak, words he perhaps meant to lay like a kiss on the stars he partially
found himself on. But I nod and answer yes, I do love you, I do. Because this
swell of emotion in my chest can’t be simple like, can it? It can’t be simple
lust, either. It’s a physical throb, and I love when it catches me by surprise.
Thoughts of him like twinges in my ribcage.
“I love you,” I whisper again, our noses nudging.
His lashes, long and blond and beaded, collapse low and he exhales another
small, anxious moan before his words twist through my mind again - will you put
me to sleep? - and I'm wrapping my arms around him and cradling him to my
chest. I start to rock slowly, his body taut with surprised tension, held
stiffly in my embrace as I hum and hush him gently. And then like a fretful
child, he slowly relaxes and tucks his face against mine, sweetly. After a
short while, his body goes slack, becoming heavier. A warm sleeper. Fevered.
I settle down against him and hold him to me, lifting his arm carefully and
fitting myself to his body I now know is as much mine as my own. His tufted
breaths sweep my throat and eventually I fall back asleep too, our bodies
shared in a heavy embrace. Back is the china-doll feel, engulfed by steel,
content that nothing would hurt me, that I would remain without cracks.
He's asleep so deeply when I wake later in the morning. That half-lidded,
comatose reign of slumber, his body warm and nestled on the bed like a great
long bear. Face opposite his, I curl his heavy arm higher on the bend of my
waist, a giant hand dangling listlessly across my spine. And still he sleeps
on, chest rising and falling with the shallow near-death breaths of the truly
restful. Only, when I shift too suddenly his hand clenches shut in the center
of my backbone, a quiet thrum of power vibrating up over my spine, under his
palm. My breath catches, frozen still as I study his face with its haunting
remnants of heartbreak. He makes a soft noise in his throat and leans forward,
his nose pressed to my pulse, taking a few small sniffs and then shifting to
lie more evenly on me, moaning as he settles. My little squeak is a mix of
surprise, muted alarm, and blatant arousal, his weight like nothing I've ever
experienced before.
I tilt my hips a small degree upward and feel the full thickness of him, his
groin rounded by two heavy balls and the long, limp curve of his cock. The
ceiling is pockmarked with a granulated design, and I keep my eyes on it as I
feel myself stir just slightly, trying to swallow around my sudden bubbly
anticipation. It's dampened by the fact that he's asleep and I would rather
throw myself out a window than wake him now that he's finally been granted what
he's so obviously craved and needed. But it's nice to feel him on me, over me,
crowding me, and I while away the morning with soft and sexual imaginings of
the two of us together, slicked and joined and frantic. I can’t help but think
of some of the videos I’ve seen online, and where I want him buried the most,
how he might ever fit. But I want all of him, in my mouth, in my core,
breathing him in, swallowing him whole. I satisfy myself with skimming my lips
over each eyebrow, smelling the scent of his hairline, his skin as sweet to me
as if he were made of crushed sugar.
My arousal is never fully realized as I hold myself back, content to simply
hold him and stroke his hair. I sleep and wake again, sluggish and with crusted
eyes. Our limbs are twisted together, so that I don't know where my arms begin
and his legs end. We're damp and seeping heat and I am squirming to pee. But
both his arms are wrapped around behind me, as if his fear - of waking alone,
of his nightmares, of waking at all? - was ingrained in muscle memory.
My bladder gives an impatient pinch, and I wince against his forehead. Thinking
of how to turn my ankle and unwrap my arm from under his neck, I know I have to
move very carefully. I shift my legs about first, sliding my ankles from
between his calves and over to the edge of the mattress, twisting my torso away
from him as I go. His arms tighten fractionally just as I'm about to rise.
Smoothing back his hair, I hush him soothingly and he relaxes into the mattress
again.
Tiptoe down the hall, turn the knob closed, lift the toilet seat, push my
boxers down and thenrelease. It's one of the best things to feel after hours of
holding it in, reminiscent of the pleasure of orgasm, the swell of it up my
chest, a rush of pure relief. My cock gives a twinge midstream and I grit my
teeth to hold my groan in. This proximity to Chris has my sensory levels
skyrocketing, my skin alive, invisible feelers stretching out from me for any
kind of taste of him. I'm smiling when I catch my reflection in the mirror,
hands bubbled with soap, my hair springing up in every direction. He likes his
hands in my hair, petting it and curling his fingers in for a little tug. Makes
chills race down my spine every time, slinking fingers across his own scalp,
liking the slow grin and tingled kisses that follow. Naughty, wicked, sleepy
kitten.
My stomach is growling when I slip into the kitchen a minute later. I eat a
whole grain banana muffin and I'm on the last swallow of a glass of milk when a
shadow nudges into the corner of my view.
Milk sputters down my chin when I spin, droplets falling to the tile floor.
Chris is at the entranceway to the kitchen, swaying where he stands, feet bare,
calves veined and furred in light brown hair. His eyes are half-lidded, shorts
hanging low on his hips, shirt askew exposing a long collarbone, more inked
skin, big hands clawed limply. I set the cup down on the counter and wipe my
chin. His gaze is focused somewhere on the floor, and I realize suddenly he
might still be asleep.
"Hey," I say slowly, but he makes no response, no movement. I don't want him
hitting the floor face first, so I approach him and stand toe to toe. "Chris?"
He blinks sluggishly, like the reaction of a drugged man. Taking his shoulders
I guide him down the hall, his nose in my neck taking a small sniff. It's
straight to the pillows once back in my room, crawling in under the sheets to
embrace as we were before. In several seconds he’s asleep—if he was ever
awake—and snoring quietly at my throat. I reach for a book I'd thrown on the
floor yesterday and begin reading, happily content to lie here with him while
he gets much needed rest. We would have spent the day together anyway. At least
here he is safe.
I sneak away again in the early afternoon for a quick lunch. I eat it by the
kitchen window, watching as a pair of birds builds a nest under the eave of our
back porch. I drink water and visit the bathroom and am back in his arms for
more reading. He whispers sometimes, words I can catch like bone and sorryand
please and mom. I don’t understand why, but I hope his dreams aren’t too
terrible. Like me, he seems like someone who might carry burdens into their
subconscious if too heavy and too sad. But his voice is a thrum that seeps into
me and I like to imagine it as a bolt of wire that wraps around my bones and
makes me stronger, makes my words like metal, without flaws or snags. Smooth.
Serene.
With my palm on the curve of his skull, I like to imagine that sleep works on
him like a literal balm, healing anything inside his head that might be
strained or aching, a blanket of twinkling little lights that absorb his hurt
and leaves something cool and soothing in its wake.
Mostly we're quiet, something I'm comfortable with and what he desperately
needs. Mostly I play with his hair and whisper inaudibly that he's the most
beautiful boy I know. That I love very much to look at him and hear him speak.
That I love him very much. Because I'm seventeen years old and it's okay for me
to feel something this big and not be worried or afraid what it might mean for
me or us tomorrow or the next week or the next few years. I love him now and
will continue to do so every day until we one day don't. If that ever happens.
But as I hold him to my chest, a thin pillow for his leanly muscled bulk, his
grip on me strong even unconscious, I sincerely hope it never does.
**
I can imagine him as a child, a husky little thing, short legs downed with soft
golden hairs, big round giggles as he plays flag football or baseball, grunting
through tackles or infield throws, sweat in his eyes, flakes of grass stuck on
his skin. His hair would have been long, like now, past his ears maybe. Or
maybe it was shorn short, grudgingly accepted, not wanting to let his father
down.
And maybe he had dimples.
He’s lost all that baby fat since, only his cheeks slightly plump. No dimples
on him anymore, except maybe on his tailbone, but I haven’t seen him there yet.
I’m humming a soft lullaby when I hear the front door open. The clock on my
desk shoots the hour out at me in angry red numbers, and I can’t believe I’ve
lost track of the time. Panic blazes through me at the thought of my mom
walking in my room and seeing us lying here together. I’m not entirely sure she
would; sometimes she goes straight to the kitchen or her room, tired from her
shifts, but I can’t take that risk. I don’t know how she’ll react, if she might
wake Chris, if she might hate me. Before she can get far, I slip out of Chris’s
embrace and hold a pillow for him to wrap himself around instead. His eyes stay
closed as he hugs it to him, nose pressed to the fabric, and I hurry to throw
some shorts on. Her keys are clattering on the table when I walk into the
kitchen a minute later.
"Oh!" She almost trips when she glances over at me, and I wonder if maybe Chris
left me a hickey I don't remember, or worse, do I have a hard-on? "Didn't
expect to see you here." I bunch my brows and she waves a hand distractedly.
"You've been out quite a bit lately."
Oh. I didn't know she'd noticed. I shrug and head for the fridge. Chris is
going to wake up ravenous.
"Made some new friends, maybe?" Or any, it's left unsaid.
Just one, I think. And he's my boyfriend. But I shrug again and fill a cup with
water and hand it to her. I start making her an egg sandwich.
"Thanks, Hun." She plops down at the table and toes off her shoes. “These
puppies are so done. I think I’ll just soak in the tub and then sleep. You okay
for dinner without me?”
Smearing mayo on two slices of bread, I nod. “Oh sure. I c-can grab some food
and t-t-t-take to my room." I don't look to see if she winced, instead pour her
some chips and take a steadying breath. Slow the words, slow them. "I will just
stay in my room and finally pass my game. Might take hours." I smile, my face
warming. I put the plate of food before her and she squeezes my hand.
"That's fine, Hun. I know you'll keep it down."
I leave her at the table and putter around in the bathroom until I hear her go
to her room. The gush of a tub faucet seeps through the walls and I hurry back
to the kitchen and make another sandwich. I grab a water bottle and the entire
bag of chips and return to my room, opening the door with a crooked wrist,
Chris's food bunched in my arms. The late afternoon light pours in through the
slanted blinds, spearing my eyes with solid bars of pure, blinding gold, and I
squint painfully. Closing the door with a careful click, I see through a watery
film that Chris is still asleep, his long body spread like a giant starfish in
my sheets, face down, rounded bulge of biceps, elbows pointed, bunched shirt
and patch of smooth skin, the tender and clean balls of his feet angled up at
me. The scrape on the underside of his forearm is darker today. There should be
some ointment in the bathroom.
Setting the food down on my desk, I settle on the floor with my legs crossed.
Spine straight, palms on my knees, I rotate my neck and feel my muscles
stretch, the tug feeling so good after lying down for so long. Next are my
legs, nose to the ceiling, lifting my feet in the air and stretching my
hamstrings. Arms up, I let gravity fuse my bones to the floor as I breathe in
and out, his scent somewhere in my nostrils. I bolt upright when I hear
rustling from the bed, and I peer over the edge of it to where Chris is
beginning to stir, long hair wild and frayed.
Chris:
Milk. And fruit. Coconut. Air. A breeze. Soft, soft breeze. It's a gentler lull
into consciousness than I'm used to, no startled tempest and toss-about, no
horses, no teeth. The pillow is soft and distinctly not mine, light blue in
color, with a border of white flowers. But they smell good, and I almost lapse
back under before I realize I'm alone. Rising up to my elbows, I feel the
stinging pull of the scrape on my arm, sharp enough to tighten my vision as I
blink around at this bed that isn't mine either. I rub my face and then roll to
the side.
"Babe?" My voice is a gravel rasp, sleepy and thick. He was with me, I know he
was. I couldn't have dreamt him. My dreams aren't nearly so nice.
A small whisper comes from the end of the bed. "Here."
I sit up, my shirt bunched halfway up my stomach, the sheets mussed around my
waist, and his eyes dart down to my navel, linger there. He's crouched on the
floor, his face like a pale, sliver of moon, hair like gilded coils. I tug my
shirt down, my skin jumping under my own touch.
"What are you doing down there? Are you—?" And then it hits me, that I did
something to him. Bones and veins and cut-off screams pop into my head and I
feel all the blood drain from my face. I barely manage the words. "I didn't...I
didn't hurt you, did I?"
He rises to his knees fast, brows scrunched in worry and disbelief. "No!
Chris...no. You d-didn't." My relief is so staggering that tears actually
gather in my eyes and my face begins to crumble. He scrambles onto the bed and
throws himself into my arms. His weight tosses us against the pillows and then
our lips are fused together, his kisses urgent like he's determined for me to
know something.
"I'm shy," he hurries to say. "I w-w-was just…sssshy." A quick sniff, angry eye
roll. "It's not eh-eh-everyday I have a boy in my bed." He tightens his jaw in
that way that I know means he's self-hating and I grasp his head in both hands
to make him focus.
"I don't want it to happen with you," I whisper, breath hitching. "Not with
you. Not with anyone. But least of all you. I don't want to hurt you. Okay? I
couldn't...bear it, if I hurt you."
Lying half-on me, he inches his head back, eyes narrowing. "Why wu-wu-wu—." He
breaks off and sighs, cheeks burning red. "Why would…you hurt me?" Fingers in
my hair, pink lips parted, lashes curled to the sky, he's the prettiest and I
sigh because having him this close to me hurts in the best, most alluring way
possible. It makes my stomach clench in that way seconds before I pass out from
one of my more terrible benders, when I feel least in control, when the floor
rushes up at me and I wake up with wondering if I’m even part of the same
century anymore.
I sit up and he moves with me, sticking close, his long legs curling up to his
chest, learning into me. His brows twitch with worry.
In my gut the words bubble hotly in an ugly stew, but I lick my lips and take a
deep breath. “I have something to tell you.”
He nods and takes my hand, his fingers twisting with mine. “Y-yes?”
I don’t want to say it. I don’t want to feel the words slipping out, words I’ve
tried my very best not to think about ever since waking on that floor to my
mother’s shouts and Frank’s pulp-red face, her pained whispers later on,
talking on the phone with my dad, me sitting just out of sight at the top of
the stairs. 
“I…did something. Not too long ago.” My voice is hollow, inflection-less.
Staring down at the coverlet helps, but his scent is everywhere. Coconut milk.
“At least, I’ve been told that I’ve done something. I have no memory of it.” I
shake my head, teeth grinding as I grit my jaw. But then his hand is on my
chin, drawing me to face him, and his eyes are soft with kindness.
“It’s okay,” he exhales and bites his lip, still a little swollen from me.
“Won’t you tell me?” Much slower, less natural, but clear. He’s trying not to
stutter and my heart squeezes.
I meet his gaze and butt my forehead on his shoulder. “Okay, babe.” Briefly, I
explain about Frank, how he moved in with us and became a permanent fixture in
our home. How I was jealous of all the time my mom began spending with him. How
I couldn’t help but feel that he fell short of feeling like a real father
figure. “I didn’t really understand why she left my dad to begin with, so when
it was only me and her for all those years—it just felt unsettling when there
was all of a sudden a man in my life that wasn’t my father.”
“You didn’t kee-kee-keep up a rrrr-relationship with him?”
I shrug, my old anger stoking to a raw burn. “We lived so far, and I was in
school. We spoke on the phone, exchanged some emails. But that was about it.
Once my insomnia set in, I was so quietly desperate I didn’t give him much
thought. It just got so out of control so fast. It disturbed me how quickly I
found it routine to see the hours tick by without sleep. Noticing the signs.
Fuzzy brain. Shifting sight. Sluggish cement in my head. Legs so heavy. The
shakes.” I sniff out a quick laugh. “Fuck. Those are the worst.”
“You do tremble…sometimes.”
I shake my head and hurry to my feet, the ghost-feel of his hands fading from
the skin. Sleep is still heavy on my brain, but I grit my jaw and step up to
his window, surprised by how dark it is outside.
Turning, I squat at his feet.
“I hurt someone, babe.”
He goes still, eyes dropping down to my lips where the words have slipped free
so easily. Perhaps he’s wondering how my mouth works when his doesn’t
sometimes, or perhaps he’s wondering if he should run. Before he can say
anything, I plow ahead. “It was my mom’s boyfriend. Frank. We’d gotten along
just fine, a bit distant, careful with each other’s spaces, you know. They’ve
been together for a long while. I let them be, for the most part. We had dinner
together and he tried to do some father things with me, which I was not having.
I shot up six inches, gained most of my muscle, and a new kind of silence grew
between us.” I swallow, afraid to look up at him. “I hadn’t slept in almost
forty hours. I was agitated, the shakes set in deep, my vision blurry. I don’t
remember going downstairs. I like to stay close to my room because when I’m
ready to sleep I usually drop where I stand. But next thing I know I’m waking
up on the floor of the living room, Frank and my mom in the kitchen. She’s
screaming, cradling him like some kind of infant. I must have been unconscious
a minute or two. Because it wasn’t enough. My head was pounding, I caught sharp
glimpses of things, like a vortex almost. Her screams, her shouts, I can still
hear them sometimes. Make me wince.”
“What happened to him?” he says softly, smoothly, so lost in my story that his
tongue forgets to slip. I appreciate that he didn’t ask what did you do to him.
“I…well, I broke his arm. It had snapped right in two. I don’t remember it,” I
gasp as both of his hands cup my face, a gentle stroke of thumb, such pretty
eyes.
“My sweetheart,” he breathes and my face crumbles as he pulls me to his chest
and hugs me tight. I cling to him, arms around his tiny waist, engulfing,
holding myself to him to hear his heart, feel it beat, count the pulses that
keep him living, unharmed. When he speaks his voice is measured in that sweet
way of his. “You didn’t mean to do it.”
“No!” His shirt absorbs my sob. “I didn’t. Frank’s been good to me. I don’t
want him as my dad. But he’s been good. He didn’t deserve it.” I sniff and
clench my eyes shut. “Now my mom doesn’t trust me. You should have seen her
face, babe. She was terrified of me. She didn’t want me there anymore.”
His hug tightens. “Shh, sweetheart. There now. Please d-don’t cry.”
All these months of trying to tamp down my sense of growing rage and
exhaustion, feeling like a damn tether ball, tossed from one place to the
other, unsettled and uneasy. I was so tired of it, of everything. Tom combs his
fingers through my hair, my scalp tingling under his touch and I gush out a
shaky breath, my mind feeling the calmest in days.
“But…maybe the feelings you have about your real dad burrowed deep into you, so
that they went everywhere you went. M-maybe you didn’t reee-alize…that you were
so hurt by them. They came out in this way.”
I shake my head because I don’t know. I’m sure I’ll get more psychoanalytical
bullshit from the counselor I’m slotted to see once school starts, but what Tom
says rings with a truth I feel I’ve been denying myself. My feelings about my
dad have never felt resolved, and the distance put between us by moving away
when I was twelve only served to carve a deeper hole in my chest that I didn’t
know how to fill. Sleep betrays me, dreams disturbs me, and the sky sometimes
laughs down at me. With any other person, I might have sniffed and gritted my
tears away but they fall easily in front of Tom. He leans forward and kisses my
cheeks, my tears blooming under his lips like flowers, spotting his lips with
wet.
“This is why you ask me if you’ve hu-hu-hurt me.”
I glance away, my lashes curved heavily. “Yeah,” I rasp.
“But there’s something more, I think. About why you hurt him.”
“My dad,” I whisper, and he nods. I nod too. “It’s too much to think about
sometimes. Especially when I’m tired. Which is all the time.” I flick my eyes
at the bed. “Thank you for letting me sleep here. I came here without thinking.
I’m sorry.”
He smiles, wide and lovely, and I notice one of his bottom teeth is the tiniest
bit crooked. “Don’t be. I’m so ha-happy you c-c-came to me.”
“Is your mom here?”
He hums, yes.
“Should I go?”
No, he murmurs, drawing me to him. She’s exhausted, will be in the bath, he
assures, go right to sleep, he says. Stay.
And I duck my chin to kiss him flat to the bed, knowing just how she feels.
**
With that little lisp, the stumbled words, he thanks me for telling him about
what happened with Frank and my mom. I keep searching for signs that he’s
withdrawing from me, too polite to outright run away, but it’s with relief that
I find none. We lie back on his pillows, late evening darkening the room to
only silhouetted grays and the dotted shine of our eyes, blinking at one
another. He hums quietly and plays with my hair and just like that, a wave of
drowsiness sweeps through me. It’s amazing to me that I’ve felt the urge to
sleep so often when I’m with him, becoming stronger the more I’ve gotten to
know him. If I was a different boy with a different life and less complicated
sanity problems, I might question the importance of hanging out with someone
who puts me to sleep. But because I’m me and sleep is a strange concept and
he’s him and made of fruit and earth, it tells me more about his character and
how comfortable and safe he makes me feel than anything else.
Even though it’s a load off my chest finally coming clean about the truth of
why I’m back with my dad, I’m hesitant with him, wondering if anything’s
shifted between us, if I can still be with him like before. But all doubt is
wiped from my mind when he crawls over me and straddles my waist, dropping low
to kiss my mouth. My groin immediately stirs, heat rolling into my core,
pooling there and making him smile when he feels me thickening.
“Yeah,” he murmurs, propping both hands on my chest and rocking his hips, my
erection trapped between his legs, snug against his balls. We’ve dry fucked
like this before, gaining an idea of the other’s weight and size, liking to
pretend at sex until we finally can, but I’m overcome with the need to see him.
He gasps when I gain leverage under him, flipping us so that he’s on his back
and I crowd in over him. But he’s grinning and whispering, both of us aware of
his mother in the other room. Our lips bump in silent laughter, my splayed
hands inching spreading down his torso, fingers at the waistband of his shorts.
Lifting his head, he watches me tug his briefs down, more milk-white skin
exposed with the darker core of his groin and pubic hair. The light is murky
and I can’t see him as clearly as I’d hoped, but it’s enough for now.
“Will you be very quiet, babe?” I whisper in his ear and feel him shudder.
Nodding eagerly, he pulls his bottom lip between his teeth and holds it there,
my crotch squeezing painfully at the sight. When I duck my head to his core,
his cock bobs up at me and taps my nose. Another inch to the right and I would
be eyeless. We burst into muted giggles, Tom clapping his hands over his mouth
to keep quiet. But I take hold of him at the base, liking how long he is, the
soft and distinct round balls of his sac. I want them in my mouth. I want to
suck on every inch of him.
The swollen tip burns warmly on my lips, the scent bitter like my own, musky.
He’s gone deathly still, waiting as I breathe on him, long fingers wrapped
under his nose. Meeting his eyes in the half-light, I smile and open my mouth.
It’s a sudden taste, full and like wheat, his cock something alive on my
tongue. I moan and his lashes flutter closed, hips vibrating, trying not to
thrust. On either side of my shoulders, his legs have opened and hug me
sweetly, thin thighs trembling. His white-socked feet toe nervously at my waist
but he’s rocking against me and my saliva is gathering and I’m slipping a
little further down, my tongue a writhing muscle at his shaft.
“Chris,” he breathes, hands slipping low before clapping higher once more, eyes
squeezed shut. I moan again and hitch my hands under both thighs and around to
his hips, holding and undulating him to me, helping him move, dragging him
closer. Beneath my chin his balls squirm around, shifting and throbbing.
Popping off his cock, I let it flop against my face and mouth at his sac, soft
curls tickling me, his scent stronger at the root, making my cock ache. It
strains inside my shorts, tucked against me angrily, but I ignore it and lick
at the bulbous curves of him, the straight and solid shaft, back at the tip to
suck eagerly. Head bobbing, I try for deeper but can’t make it past the warning
flutter of my throat. I want more practice, want to live here and keep him
floating but his hands are suddenly in my hair and he’s inhaling sharply, neck
arched as he jabs his hips up and makes me choke. The pulses shoot fast and
thick and I’m swallowing on instinct. Bitter almond. Fingers clenched, he holds
me to him and I struggle to breathe out my nose, stomach threatening to seize,
gasping short bursts of air, but I’m awestruck by him. Long neck exposed, head
thrown back, that deep voice of his stifled by caution, I’m so in love.
I close my eyes and hold my breath, counting the beats of my heart in my ear
and desiring that this form of unconsciousness would take me rather than that
other, terrifying, ugly kind. But he flutters back to life and lifts his head
with a surprised sound. His hands fly loose of my hair and I’m lifting off him,
dragging in air.
“Shit!” he whispers and scrambles up, but I’m lightheaded and desperate and I
clasp his wrist, bringing his hand to my crotch. It closes around the bulge in
my shorts, balls and dick swollen and ready to burst, which I do. With one
small touch he brings me to the brink of a blinding precipice. Practically
tackling him to the bed, I thrust against his hand, his other one flat against
my mouth to keep my moan quiet. I buck and engulf him, shooting my load for
what seems like eternity until finally I blink and rouse from that chasm. I’ve
sandwiched him flat, both of us shaking, both of us leaking and sticky, a big
pool of cum dripping out of the leg of my shorts and onto his sheets.
“Are you okay?” My voice is shot, thick with phlegm, sore from him. But he nods
and is smiling, big and crinkly-eyed. I want him etched into my brain forever.
Loose and less-anxious, we squeeze in together under the blanket, pillows
walling us in, a little fort that smells of sex and coconut milk. He kisses me
with open curiosity, drawing back to taste himself on my tongue. Blinking, one
hand wrapped around the back of my head, he meets my eyes and smiles, pulling
me forward for more, deeper kisses. I guess he likes what’s lingering on my
lips.
I suddenly can’t wait for so many things. To shower with him for the first
time, for him to graduate and go to college with me, to feel his flesh give
around me as I push in and die. But his long, slender hands anchor me to the
now, cupping my face, threading through my hair, sweat-scorched. Bumping noses
in a quiet goodnight, he wraps himself around me, making himself at home
against my chest, and sighs. He’s naked from the waist down and we’re at ease,
because tomorrow and the next day, and the next, I’ll memorize him one freckle
and curve at a time.
I smile at the thought, not realizing, even as I follow him into that void and
slip so easily into sleep, the wave of drowsiness that comes from contentment
and happiness, as if shared from his body to mine.
Tom:
I can feel his mouth on me for days. Like a phantom limb, the tingling will
appear at the oddest moments, in the shower, riding on my board, setting the
table for dinner. Warm, hot suction and I’m suddenly hard, tripping to my room
for a quick stroke and stifled groan. An insistent, demanding tug has taken
residence in my belly, a magnetic pull toward him, eased only once I’m able to
brush a finger or a knuckle or an elbow on him. I’m fascinated and in love,
discovering in him so much of what makes me tick, how easily he listens, how
patient despite his own pain.
I knew that he had to have been keeping something hidden about why he moved
back, remembering him whispering in his sleep about his mom and bones breaking.
How sorry he was. And I know he is. Remorse lies heavy on that sweet boy, with
his downturned puppy eyes and sinner’s mouth, and I think after a few times
testing it out we’ve discovered there might be a turn to the tide. So much of
his discomfort and sense of broken self has to do with how much sleep he gets,
which isn’t much. His stamina for staying awake is astounding, able to remain
coherent far longer than I would have been able to, even if his concentration
begins to lag and his eyes to throb and his hands to shake when he reaches
those thirty plus hours. But now that he’s opened up to me there’s an ease with
which he breathes, face collapsing into quicker, bigger smiles, his eyes
crinkling as he reaches to boost me up into the tree branch. He still won’t
climb up to the top with me, eyeing the canopies with suspicion or distrust,
but I don’t pressure him. I climb up on my own and make my jewelry as I sing
quietly, knowing he’s circling the bottom like a faithful wolf, listening to
me. When I’m done he selects his favorite piece and secures it around his wrist
or neck and then comes with me to bury the rest. My graveyard is growing, but I
feel good knowing there are bits of me in the earth, burrowed in time like
pearls in the sea.
It’s unspoken between us, our sleeping arrangements. Never having slept next to
someone before it takes me a few tries to fully relax around him. At first, I
could only lie there with him, our hands clasped under the sheets, shifting our
heads from side to side, looking at each other one moment, the ceiling the
next, again and again. But he doesn’t fall under, not like I do. Eventually, my
brain will shut off and I’ll slip into that peaceful dark just as easily as
closing my eyes, but he’ll stay awake, blinking, mind whirring. Sometimes I
veer into bleary consciousness, see he’s found my laptop and is fiddling on
some website about surveys. Nestling my head into his waist, I sigh and watch
for a short while before falling asleep again, his long arm stretched along my
back, hand soothing my tailbone. In the mornings we’ll get up and head out, to
the beach or the mall, to the forest or the cliffs, me feeling rejuvenated, him
feeling depleted. 
But it was worse some nights, when he strayed so close to some invisible edge
in his mind that he bordered on volatile, mirroring his reaction from that
morning he knocked on my window. It’s always focused on some inner part of his
person, this loathing, this frustration of self, and it makes me hurt how much
we are alike in that regard. With my mom working two jobs she’s home some
evenings, gone the rest. But we stick to my room, playing video games or on the
computer. We’ll watch movies and listen to music, and as it gets later we curl
up on my bed and kiss. Eventually I’ll sleep and he won’t, not always. I’ve
been wanting to ask him about sleep medication, if he’s tried it, if he thinks
it’ll work for him. He’s mentioned the counselor he’ll start seeing once
classes begin, and I hope it goes well for him, that this person can help him
feel better and not discount his emotions and physical lack of sleep as
something inconsequential or easily fixed. I want him happy.
Three times more in the nights following the first he texted me, asking if I
was awake. Words jumbled and misspelled, as if autocorrect couldn’t catch up
with him in his hurry to hit send, he’d been agitated and distraught. I had no
hesitation to invite him over to try and rest. It’s always in the early hours
of dawn when I let him into my room, his trembling and stumbled words
offsetting his usual quiet, confident strength. What he kept in check during
the day, for the most part, unraveled by the thread come dark, when the urge to
sleep hit him full force even if his mind fought such a basic instinct.
Bewildered and staggering he would crawl in through my window with glazed eyes
and bitten lips, wildly afraid and seeking my scent. It was those days that he
slept that hardest, the longest, wrapped like a cocoon in my bed. Hours would
pass, the light changing and lengthening and finally dimming to dark on the
walls. I would check on him, feel his pulse, smooth back his hair, but he
wouldn’t stir, so far down into that river of sleep that I had a slight fear he
wouldn’t ever resurface.
I never could have imagined my bed would become the refuge to the very boy seen
by others as someone hardened and unapproachable, his tattoos and long hair and
tangled spun jewelry giving him an air of quiet malice not helped by his
reclusion and silent, sometimes frosty demeanor. I’m surprised that the part
inside me that feels wholly his doesn’t light me up in a dark room, it feels
that glowingly bright. And that he’s mine…well, I’ve never felt so privileged.
Peacefully, I sing to him. Quietly and low. Because the moments he’s lying in
bed scrunching his face to my pillow, tears leaking from his lashes, despairing
for sleep and I feel at my most helpless, are the moments that propel me to use
my voice. Eyes swollen, he’ll look at me and I wonder if he can’t see, blue
irises zipping and hazed in all his panic. I wrap him close, having found that
bunching him to me with blankets and sheets is how he’ll stay the stillest.
I’ll rock him like a little boy, his exhausted moans washing over my throat.
I’ll sing and sway him, hugging him and smoothing his hair. Until he slowly
drops off, body going slack and heavy, giving in finally. I’ll sleep too, if at
night, learning to shape myself around him. Sleep, wake, sleep, wake, roll to
my side, flop to my back, he’s always there, legs twisted with mine, lips not
far from my own. If during the day, I’ll carefully disentangle myself and eat
or shower or read my books. My anxiety spikes a little if he stays in one
position for too long, my chest tight until he shifts about, still with me.
But eventually he wakes, with adorable owl blinks and mussed hair, murmuring my
name and reaching blindly. And how we will kiss, there on my bed, my door
locked and my window shuttered, small haven for our discoveries of tickle-spots
and giggle-curves, his lips on my skin something I can’t believe I ever lived
without. He’ll slip into my bathroom to shower, using my toothbrush and rubbing
my lotion on his neck and chest. Mirror fogged, moisture beaded and sweating
down the slick glass, I’ll walk in on him and hug him from behind because my
heart has never felt so full. Pressed there with my cheek to his shoulder, I
get the solid sense of home.
We speak quietly to each other, my stuttering not feeling so much like a
stabbing knife in my heart, my comfort around him rising until I’m uttering
more words than I have all year.
“I really, really think it’s you,” he says one night. He’s not as distressed as
before, but he’s getting there. I can tell by how much he’s rubbing his eyes.
“Because I’ll be in my room and I can’t do it. I can’t fall asleep. But here?
It’s much easier.”
We keep track of his sleeping hours in the new planner I got him one time I
went on a solo trip to the store. And as a week passes, and then two, and then
three, we are slightly discouraged to see nothing has fluctuated much.
“But I’m feeling so much better,” he says with a jaw-cracking yawn. “Like I’m
getting more rest. How’s that possible?”
It’s true that he’s looking better, healthier. His color is returning, and the
bruises under his eyes, while still present, aren’t nearly as dark. I’m
suddenly struck with a memory of the first time he slept with me, all of his
murmuring and faint whispers. He doesn’t talk so much in his sleep anymore.
“You…aren’t d-d-dreaming,” I whisper, closing my eyes at my failure.
 He blinks and looks down, considering. “You know. You’re right. I’m not.”
“What were your dreams
about?”                                                                                                                
“Dark things. Dark waters. Horses. Horses and their teeth.” He shrugs, eyes
slipping to rest on my hip. I see the way they shift lower. He’s thinking along
the same lines I am, and I’m suddenly desperate for more time with him. Summer
is dwindling to a close; school will start soon for the both of us. He has
planned to shop for supplies and text books one of these days, and when he
asked if I would come with him, I said yes. “If you promise to come with me to
the store for my things,” and he said, with a tender thick blink, “Of course I
will.”
I love the idea of doing small chores like this with him, in public, normal. He
holds my hand and thinks nothing of it, and I can begin to see how it will be
with us when we’re a little older.
But right now he’s fixated on my thigh, running a hand around the back of it
and pulling me closer. Even though it’s been a few weeks since he gave me a
blow job, and we sleep beside each other almost every night, we haven’t gone
further than that since. We touch and grab, hump and kiss, bringing us to
spiraling orgasms all times of day. When I used to masturbate before I met him,
my climaxes felt good but didn’t feel as strong as when he gives me one. Those
ice-blue eyes staring into mine, his hand working hard between my legs, his
other arm wrapped around behind to anchor me down. I’m breathless and at his
mercy, finding that to release under his care and attention is to ascend to the
very sky, cast adrift with the stars until his sleepy kisses bring me back
down.
“Babe,” he murmurs, voice so deep it goes nowhere but on me, in me. Climbing on
top, he sucks at my neck and my legs fall open, chills running down my spine.
He’s started to leave tiny bruises on me, suckled kisses that turn purple,
strings of them that I like to pinch. But he keeps them fresh, too, paying
careful worship with his lips and teeth and tongue. He drags his mouth to each
nipple and I buck into him with a small cry. He smiles and hums and gives
another hard suck, a shot of light straight to my groin. My shorts and
underwear are around my knees in one quick swipe and then he’s burying his face
into my crotch and moaning. Cheeks red, hands in his hair, I whimper as he
sniffs around the root of me, staring up at me, crystal gaze and palm fronds,
and I think of the lyric I couldn’t hide from those eyes.
Coming in his mouth made me nervous at first. I wasn’t sure if the taste or
texture would be gross to him. But he’s on me like a man quenching a terrible
thirst and even as my hips start jumping up and his name tumbles from my mouth
like a litany, he doesn’t pull off. He hooks his big hands over my waist and
pushes as much of me into his mouth and sits there, swallowing.
Those tiny muscles fluttering drag me over the edge and I’m twisting my fingers
on his scalp and coming, hard. He’s lying between my legs, head pressed
comfortably to the crook of my leg, only an inch from where my cock is still
twitching. He’s watching it, blinking slowly, at such sweet ease.
“I want to taste you now,” I say and he lifts his gaze.
“Babe, you don’t—.”
But I sit up and he scoots back, eyes flicking over my naked legs, like this
might happen. Something shifts behind his eyes and then he’s nodding. “Okay,
babe. Want me to lie down?”
I take his wrist and pull him to his feet, crawling off the bed after him, a
satisfying curl of pleasure ribboning in my chest that I’m half naked with this
boy and no one else could claim that. I drop to my knees and he inhales
sharply, eyes wide. Like I suspected, he’s rigidly hard in his basketball
shorts, the tent impressive, and I’m quick to pull them down. I’ve felt him
dozens of times, know him by shape and weight, but seeing him for the first
time steals all my words – no matter how broken they are. He’s heavy, his sac
hanging low between his legs. Not as long as me, he is definitely thicker, more
veined, and a little hairier. I’m already licking my lips imagining how I’ll
fit him inside. 
A hand cups my cheek, a soft caress. “Have you ever…before?”
I shake my head no, feeling my cock start to stir.
Sometimes I’m embarrassed by my own scent, rising from my lap when I sit or
sticking to the edges of my fingers after I’ve touched myself in the dark.
There’s something earthy about it, this musk, so like wet sand and crushed
flowers, wheat and stalk and blade of grass. He smells just like me, I find,
nosing my way to the furred root of his erection. His fingers tighten in my
hair, igniting a buzz along my skin.
“I might not last,” he says quickly. “Seeing you down there, on your knees,
I’m—.” He cuts off and gulps.  But I grin and take hold, nudging the tip of my
nose under the tip of his cock. It’s radiating heat, moist and straining, and
closing my lips around it reminds me of the lollipops I used to love sucking on
as a little boy. My mouth waters and I slide down a quick inch, reminding
myself to find a Blow Pop soon and tease him with it. Lips stretched wide, I
blink up at him and he visibly shudders, hair hanging in pointed sheets around
his face. Both hands creep around my head and grip gently, toes curling in the
carpet, angling his hips toward me. It’s not nearly as daunting as I thought it
would be. He’s big – very – but I like the taste of his trembling, the
rapturous stare, the sense of worship even though I’m the one kneeling.
I’m longer than him, and I wonder if I can take him a little deeper than he
could take me. Inching closer, I widen my jaw and feel the bumped ridge of
veins and gathered skin under my lips, along my flattened tongue. Scent rising,
fingers tightening, he takes another small step toward me and he’s suddenly at
the back of my throat. I squeak and grip his thighs, hair feeling soft under my
palms.
“Yeah,” he breathes and nudges my throat again so that I moan and blink slow.
The dark smears of his tattoos blip in the corner of my eye, edge-frayed roses
and the tangle of spit-fire night webs. Sitting back on my heels, I move as he
advances, the frame of the bed like a bite of cold on my tailbone. My blood
starts pumping faster for all his aggression, my heart throbbing at how much
he’s trying to hold back. Widening his legs, he stands over me so that I’m
pressed to the bed, rolling his hips and sliding his cock in and out of my
mouth. It’s slick with my saliva, the surface shining in the corner of my eye
as I look up at him. “Touch my balls,” he whispers and my own limp cock bobs
with interest at the rasp. Slipping my hand under his sac, I cradle and squeeze
it, my fingers reaching further in and rubbing the spongy swell between his
legs. His head falls back, long throat exposed as he breathes out a groaned
fuckand then grips my hair and thrusts forward to spill into my mouth.
I'm surprised at the taste, smoky and bitter, a salty burst. But I swallow
reflexively, feeling him settle in my belly. His legs are trembling, perched up
on his tiptoes, holding me to him still. I take short, shallow breaths through
my nose, but he’s curled up against my throat and I almost can’t breathe at
all. When he blinks it’s like watching a fogged glass clear. Dark pupils zoom
in on me and then he’s scrambling back and dropping to his knees, lips hard on
mine. Our tongues bump and twine, and I moan, remembering when I used to
practice kissing my pillow late at night, always too soft for what I imagined
another man’s mouth to be.
Hands bracketing my face, he asks, “Shit, did you hate it?”
“What? No!” My voice is garbled, watery, and I clear my throat quickly, shyly,
as his jaw tightens and he shifts a knee behind me to cradle me to his chest.
“Then I was too rough.” Eyes zipping down my body, it’s like he’s searching for
a reason something went wrong. I nudge his jaw with my forehead, arms around
his waist, and give him a good squeeze. I take a deep breath to concentrate.
“I liked it. And I w-w-would like…to do it again. It was new. And different.
But it’s what I’ve always wanted to do with a man.”
His eyes are tender, cupping my cheek. “Babe…should I—?”
“Yes,” I blurt out and he grins.
“You don’t even know what I was going to say!”
I shrug, because I can kind of guess. But when he remains silent, a small smile
tugging at his lips, I try to ease my words into an easy ribbon. “You should
buy what we need…I think.”
His eyes shine with mirth. “And what do we need?”
My cheeks burn and I drop my eyes, his name coming out like a whine. “Chris…”
But he saves me and kisses first one cheek and then the other. “Lube and
condoms?”
I meet his gaze, and nod.
“You’re so sweet,” he whispers, rasping a thumb on my brow. “So sweet.” There
are darkening bruises under his bottom lashes and I know he’s approaching that
place when no sleep will mean static in his head and fuzzy vision.
“Let’s sleep. Me and you.”
“Just sleep?”
I pinch his earlobe. “Yes. For now.”
He shifts his gaze to the door. “Has your mom asked you anything?” My brows
bunch and I tap a finger on his chest. He nods. “About us. Yeah.”
I shake my head. I can smell us in the air, our cocks limp and drying on our
laps, my legs curled up against him, his spread out on the floor. I love how
small he makes me feel, how wonderful it is to be held. She hasn’t asked me a
thing about what I’ve been doing all summer, how I pass my time. It was only
once that she mentioned I was spending lots of time out of the house, the
implication that I might have made a few new friends, the unspoken request to
tell her a little about them. But how to explain this that I can’t find the
words for, much less do them justice with my stubborn mouth?
“Just you,” I say, grazing his stubble with the tips of my fingers. He looks
confused but doesn’t press me to explain, instead kisses my cheek again with a
big inhale, as if wanting to bottle up my scent in his lungs, for safekeeping.
We tumble back on the bed, completely naked, my eyes raking down his chest
where the dark markings of his tattoo curve past his clavicle, around his
pectoral and up to his shoulder again, leaves and rose buds and flames of wind.
“They are flowers,” I say, the full tattoo taking shape.
Watching my finger trace a giant red bloom, he shrugs modestly. “I wanted it to
be like a jungle, keeping me here, rooted.”
“But…w-wh-where would you go? Otherwise?”
“I don’t know. The sky, maybe. Up near the moon. To burn on the sun.”
“No,” I whisper, rubbing my lips on a long clavicle. “You wouldn’t.”
“Wouldn’t what?”
“Leave? Me?”
He sucks in a startled breath, hands back on each of my temples, that gesture
that I find myself missing at odd times of the day, when I feel an urge for
safety and comfort. I can almost imagine the dopamine flooding my bloodstream
at his touch, elusive drug to remind me of what he means and all that I feel
for him.
“I wouldn’t,” he insists quietly, urgently, and even as tears make my vision
swim I’m nodding because I believe him, because ever since hearing his voice
for the first time I began to understand what it means to have a friend, a real
one.
He curls me into his chest, trapped in his arms, and we breathe and we smile
and even for a short, quick moment we laugh together, content with our plans to
love and accept each other with all our shortcomings and oddities.
Chris:
I shop for what we need the very next day. Tom wanted to come too, and it’s
with a defiant long-stride that we enter the 24-hour convenience store at
nearly midnight. Even through his many yawns, there’s a contagious excitement
about him, a giddiness that comforts me. He wants this as much as I do.
We walk together down the street, the orbs of light from the traffic posts
blinking on and off, casting us in alternating spots of color. We head through
the parking lot, his hand clenched nervously in mine. He keeps darting his gaze
around, as if expecting someone to jump out of nowhere and attack us for being
so homo but there aren’t many others out, just a couple of homeless men pushing
shopping carts filled with aluminum cans and plastic bags. There’s no way I’d
let someone hurt him.
The store’s fluorescent lights are searing after the near black of the night
sky, and we blink around before finding our bearings. Hand in mine, his other
around my elbow, Tom follows my steps tightly. Keeping his gaze low, he peeks
under his lashes into every aisle, but I lead the way confidently because I
know where they keep this sort of stuff. Once we’re standing before the
shelves, his eyes go wide and his lips fall open. I can’t help but throw an arm
around him because he’s so cute.
“Which ones?”
There are so many kinds and flavors, I’m at a loss myself. I grab at a bottle
of clear lube, scentless and flavorless, and he nods quickly. But when I turn
to the boxes of condoms, Tom clutches my wrist. I turn to him, surprised.
He swallows and looks to gather his words. “I just…I d-d-don’t—.” He breaks off
and clenches his jaw. “Are you a virgin?”
The words are fast, but he looks quietly triumphant, as if his plan to spit the
words out tricks his mouth into forgetting to stumble.
“Yeah, babe. I am.”
“M-mmme too,” he says, flushed.
I can tell where he’s going. “You don’t want to use condoms.”
He shakes his head, and gives my fingers a squeeze. I glance back at all the
boxes on the shelves and feel a small measure of relief—not that I get to be
inside him without a barrier, although just the thought gets my blood pumping,
but that I really have no clue how to begin picking the right ones. 
“Okay, babe. We won’t. I haven’t done anything with anyone. And you haven’t
either.” He gives another adorable head shake, eyes soft on my lips. I grab
another bottle of lube and then lead us out of the aisle, his giddy laugh
making me grin. I pay and then stuff the crumpled plastic bag into my back
pocket. Outside the parking lot is sparse and shrouded in darkness, the stars
dotting the sky like sprinkled sugar powder. Tom skips along beside me, his
face split in two with one of the widest smiles I’ve seen on him all summer,
and when he starts running I run with him, our hands clasped and rocking
forward and back between us. We pant out excited whoops of laughter, finding
our way home faster than it took us to leave it. Only, we pause now on the
street to catch our breaths, his cheeks red even in the moonlight. He reaches
for me quickly, one long arm around the back of my neck to drag me closer, our
mouths meeting in a hard thump, but I groan and grab him up, lifting him
against me to deepen our kiss. In my back pocket, the bottles of lube almost
vibrate as I spin him in a half-circle. He squeals and I growl out a sharp
laugh, not caring who might look out their bedroom windows and see our
entangled shadows.
They can think we’re ghosts for all I care. They can think we are nothing, if
it means we are left alone, if it means I get to keep him.
**
He keeps one bottle of lube at his house and I keep one at mine. Even though we
don’t spend nearly so much time in my bedroom we want to be prepared for the
time we can finally take that step. In the meantime, I’m keeping track of my
sleeping hours in the new agenda Tom got for me. It’s been six weeks since we
met, four since I started sleeping in his room. It’s pretty much a constant
thing now. I hang out in my room until it’s past the hour that mostly everyone
has gone to sleep, including him. With the hopes that I might be able to conk
out on my own, I do my surveys and read from the books I’ve borrowed from him,
but eventually I’ll start to feel the buzz behind my eyeballs and I know it’s
begun. Sometimes it’s nighttime and sometimes it’s daytime, but I always go to
him. I’m not sure if it’s what I hope my brain is beginning to recognize as an
absolute routine for sleep but I certainly don’t want to disturb the wiring in
my brain if it means I might be developing a healthy resting habit.
I worried before that I was a bother to him, but he seems to like me being
there in bed with him as much as I do. He clings to me in his sleep, sometimes
murmuring my name, his face tucked into my neck. It’s like he’s used to holding
something at night, and I’m beyond pleased that I seem to have been promoted to
favorite holding object. I wonder what he gets up to while I sleep during the
day and his mother is gone. Does he stay in the room with me, reading his books
or playing his video games? Does he go to the woods, to his jewelry? Does he
sing softly to himself, do his lisped song-words make their way into my dreams?
Removing the horrid horses and their chomping teeth? I haven’t had a bad dream
in a long while, and even though I hesitate to believe in fate and all that, I
can’t help but believe that he’s good for me, that he’s helped me, that I’ve
begun to heal.
I hope it’s not a fluke, not life playing another trick on me.
I worry about when school starts for the both of us, what I’ll do without him,
what he’ll do if he needs me. Our cell phones are a great source of comfort,
knowing I can contact him whenever. But after spending every minute with each
other for most of the summer, I’m not sure I won’t have separation anxiety. As
it is, little reminders of the upcoming shift that will happen in the fall keep
encroaching into the comfort zone in my head.
With my checks from the survey companies, a letter arrives in the mail from the
university. I’d applied to a hundred job postings, including an art gallery
located in the student union. The curator, someone named Abigail Stoneheart,
had written to me asking to set up a time for a formal interview. It sounds
promising, and I can only hope that she doesn’t live up to her name.
“Are you nervous?” Tom asks me one evening we’re lounging out on the beach.
He’s brought down his ball of twine from the cubbyhole in the tree and is
twisting two strips together, threading in beads of silver. It’s really pretty
and I plan on snagging it once he’s done.
“Nah. Nothing to it. She’ll ask me questions, I’ll answer them. I’ll either get
it, or I won’t.”
His legs are crossed in the sand, and he’s hunched over his craft, so when he
speaks I almost don’t hear him. “I wish it were that easy for me.”
The tips of my ears burn with shame.
“Babe.” I scoot closer, blocking the ocean spray from catching in his curls. He
squints up at me and then drops his eyes quickly. But I stick a finger under
his chin and gently guide his face back up. His cheeks are pink, from
embarrassment or the heat maybe, but he’s so beautiful it’s almost painful to
me. "I'm sorry. That was a stupid thing to say."
"No—," he starts, but I shake my head.
"It was. It was insensitive."
He drops the bracelet he's working on and takes my hands, blinking down at our
knuckles for a moment while he convinces his tongue to work. "I c-c-can't speak
as freely as you do. However much I wish I could. But I express myself in other
ways. With my jewelry or with flying.” He laughs quietly. “I feel so free when
I'm on my board."
"And when you sing." I cup his cheek and his smile grows big. “I love when you
sing. Your voice is so nice.” He shakes his head, but I nod mine faster and he
giggles. “It is! I like, especially, when I’m able to hear, even if just
barely, when you sing me to sleep. Rocking me like a little boy. Because even
if my head feels like a block of cement and I can’t tell if I’m squeezing you
too hard, your little lullabies keep me sane.”
His lips purse into a pretty bow, like he’s thinking of words but doesn’t want
to try saying them, or maybe, because I feel really good about us and where we
are, maybe he feels he doesn’t have to. I kiss his cheek and he turns his face
to whisper at neck, my name. We lie back on the sand, the setting sun boiling
over the waves, ripping and cresting and blanketing us with warmth. Sand sticks
to our legs and elbows, and he stares at me with lashes long and eyes almost
lavender in this light. I’m mesmerized, words locked in my throat as he takes
my wrist and wraps the bracelet he’s working on around it, measuring it to me.
And I smile, because he always meant it for me. Just the thought is enough to
swell the heart in my chest to bursting.
Tom:
I keep telling myself that I should take it down a notch with all the thoughts
I’m having about sex with my boyfriend. But it’s all I can think about.
Whenever I see him, I’m reminded of how heavy he felt on my tongue, how good he
smelled, all that weight pushing into me. It’s going to be soon, we can both
feel it. He’s been sleeping in my bed most nights, and almost every day. His
hours awake are beginning to fluctuate, but I’m taking that as a good sign. His
body might be recalibrating, his mind adjusting itself to an internal timer
most of us are privileged to have so effortlessly.
I really hope he and I can make him better. I hope for it more than anything.
I’ve seen him at his worst, bruised eyes, mumbled and pained moans, shaking
because he says it hurts, and I’ve seen him at his best, refreshed and rested,
face bright, laughing hungrily, his eyes clear. And when he’s in the in-
between, in that foggy land where sticky-palmed hands claw him deeper into the
murk that rids him of rest, that’s when I feel the most helpless. Because I
know he’s approaching a place I have never been, and all I have to help him is
my voice.
I have never been more afraid to let someone down.
But cradling him like now, moist-limbed and a bit sticky with summer sweat, so
soundly asleep, I can’t help but know my purpose. Or at least part of it. And
it feels wonderful.
My mom left early a short while ago, something about needing to get gas before
work, and I take the extra time to lie in bed with Chris, the sun brightening
my room with every passing minute. He’s been asleep almost ten hours now. I
slept beside him for about eight and now I’m staring at the ceiling as he
breathes puffs of air into my neck. If I lie still enough, I can feel the tug
of drowsiness that might pull me under with him, and it almost does when I
suddenly hear it. My mom’s voice.
“Tom?”
That sickening shroud of horror usually reserved for witnessing car accidents
or spilling scalding coffee pulses through me and I’m frozen in panic. She’s
back. Why is she back?
One of my arms is curled under Chris’s neck, the other tangled in the blankets
over us. Our legs are twisted together and he’s half on me. Unless I evaporate
into thin air, I can’t move without jostling him.
And I refuse to wake him.
She’s saying something out in the hall, probably thinking that I’ll hear her,
but I’m coiled into a tight wire of tension on the bed, roaring static in my
ears, hoping, hoping, hoping she doesn’t—.
There’s a brief knock on my door and then it opens. She walks in.
“—anyway, I thought of it just last minute, but—.”
Our eyes meet, hers widening in absolute shock, mine in fear. I can see my room
zoom in her eyes, a fish bowl stretch before snapping into focus with me and
Chris in dead center, wound together like lovers.
But we aren’t yet. Not yet. Are we?
He’s snoring so quietly, only a purr really, but it means he’s far under
getting the rest he needs.
My mom’s mouth falls open and all of my words jam up in my throat. She’s going
to speak or shout or do something and it’s going to wake him.
She can’t. She can’t, she can’t.
I throw my hand up and she freezes, mouth snapping shut.
“D-d-d-don’t!” I gasp, holding him to me, all that heavy hot weight, my own
skin burning, alarm alighting it with what seems like fire. Sweat dots my brow,
slides in one slow, tickling curve down my spine, and I wonder if my mom will
love me less. Could she?
She blinks quickly, one small hand rising to her chin, and before I can stammer
out another word to explain - however quietly - what she’s seeing, she turns
and closes the door behind her.
The silence is like terror, an appalling chill on my skin, and I suddenly start
to shake.
This isn’t how I wanted her to find out. I sort of imagined a scenario where I
could bring it up to her the next time she asked me about all the time I was
spending out of the house, where I might casually say something along the lines
of how I’d made a very special friend and he was my boyfriend. I ignore how I
don’t stutter in this make believe scene.
I slide my nose into Chris’s hair and inhale his sweet earth-smell, something
wispy underneath, like sea foam shampoo. Tears gather under my lashes and my
chest constricts with a swelling emotion. I can’t decide if she looked at me
like she was merely surprised or if she hated me. To have felt the kind of big
love Chris shows me every day and to wonder if my mother no longer has any left
for me, is so sobering a thought and comparison that my stomach churns
threateningly.
Underneath my pillow my phone buzzes and I give a little jump. Chris moans and
shifts his leg higher on me, mumbling something unintelligible.
“Shh,” I whisper, palming his cheek, willing him to stay asleep. He does, going
limp on me again, and I search around under the pillow with my free hand. I
check my phone screen and see a text message from my mom. That tight squeeze of
panic hits me again. Her text is short.
Mom: I didn’t know.
I sag against Chris, more tears blinding as a sob wracks through me. Why does
her message hurt me so much? Is it because I expect her to just know? To look
at me and think, this is my son and he isn’t like others. No, he has the tender
capability and careful grace to love other men. And that’s perfectly fine.
Sniffing, I hold my phone behind Chris’s head and type out a response.
Me: I’m sorry mom. I wanted to tell you another way. His name is Chris.
Mom: So you’re…gay?
Me: Yes. Does that change anything for you?
She doesn’t respond for the few minutes I bury my face in Chris’s hair, trying
not to shake as I cry. Sleep, please sleep, my sweet love. When my phone
finally buzzes, I blink heavily, lashes sticking like wet fronds to my cheeks.
Mom: No honey. It changes nothing. I’m sorry too. I was just surprised. I’ll
talk to you in a bit. At work. Love you.
More sobs and bubbled vision. Chris squirms against me, rolling onto his back
with a sigh. My emotions are so high I can’t help my tiny gasps, relieved when
he goes still after a moment.
Me: I love you too! Thank you mom.
I drop my phone and snuggle up to Chris’s side. He’ll sleep for a few hours
more, waking near noon with puffy eyes and wild hair, asking for water and a
dozen kisses. And I’ll give him anything he asks, afraid this is the last time
I’ll see him in my bed.
**
She comes back on her lunch break and I’m waiting for her at the door. Chris
woke for a brief minute about an hour ago, mumbled my name, and then turned
over and fell back asleep. I took the chance to slip away, brush my teeth, and
pace nervously in the living room until my mom texted me that she was on her
way. I keep trying to think of what to say, but really, would I even be able to
articulate what we both needed to know?
When she pushes through the door, I stand there with both hands wrung, face
open, expectant.
“Hey,” she says calmly, bolting the lock and dropping her purse on the side
table.
“Mom—,” I start but she throws up a hand, much in the same way I silenced her
this morning, and quietly says, “Give me a minute.”
Walking into the kitchen she fills a glass of water and drinks it in three
quick gulps. I wait by the table.
With one long finger, she points in the direction of my bedroom. “Is he still
here?”
I nod.
“Why is he still here?”
“Bec-c-c-cause he’s sleeping.”
“Is he homeless?”
I shake my head hard. No.
Sighing, she leans a hip against the counter and rubs her eyes. “I didn’t know.
I didn’t know if you were talking to girls, much less boys. But, I mean, to be
honest, I could have sworn you were ten only a few months ago. It’s
just…strange. Getting used to it all.”
“Because he’s a b-boy? Or because I’m not a kid anymore?”
She shrugs, huffing out a sharp laugh. “A bit, yeah. Both. But mostly because
I’m not used to the thought that you might be physically involved with anyone.”
“I’m almost eighteen, Mom,” I whisper and she waves her hand like yeah, yeah, I
know.
“What’s wrong with him?” she says suddenly, and I feel myself bristle. “Why
were you so adamant I not wake him?”
I sink down into a chair, clawing a hand through my hair while she waits there
against the counter, a pillar of silence. I gather my breath and will my tongue
to listen.
“He c-can’t ssssllll—.” I break off, angry tears rising. I try again, harder.
“He can’t sleep! He has ihhhhnnn—.” My throat seizes and I fall silent, fuming.
“Insomnia?” she guesses and I breathe out a relieved, “Yes.”
“So, then, what? He can take medication. Visit therapists. Sleep in his own
bed.”
I hurry to my feet and turn away with a frustrated huff. She’s at my side in a
second. “Okay, okay. Easy, Tom. I’m just throwing out ideas.”
“Don’t,” I bite out. Her eyes widen fractionally and something good and vibrant
sprouts to life in my chest. “We like each other. He’s my boyfriend. And the
only person he can physically sleep with is me. He can’t do it alone. His mind
won’t let him. Mom, I have never felt as seen before in my life until the day
he laid eyes on me in the woods. He’s gentle and full of sweet kindness, and
rage, and lightning, like every other boy.”
“But not you,” she says softly and I blink down at her, a question. “Not you.
You are full of something else entirely, aren’t you? Something molten and
pure.” I don’t know what she means exactly, but she nods to herself, curling a
hand around my bicep. “Give me some time, Tom. I’m not used to this. Just tell
me: are you safe?” I nod after a stretch of silence. “Is he safe?” I nod again,
immediately.
“Okay,” she eventually sighs. “Okay, good. That’s all I need to know.” She’s
about to turn away when I grab her elbows. She freezes, and waits.
“He listens to me, Mom.” I stare her in the eyes, trying to make her
understand. “He listens.” And in the way I hear my own tiny lisp, the curl of
my tongue that almost stumbled, but didn’t, I can see that she gets it.
“Chris, was it?” I smile, nodding again. “Alright then. Chris and Tom.”
And the song finishes itself in my head. Sitting in a tree. K-I-S-S-I-N-G.
**
I can’t wait for him. Not this time. I’m bursting with too much happiness. Once
my mom left for work again I grab my board and take off at a careening glide
down the street, past the house with the yapping dog that loves only Chris, and
straight into the woods. August brought with it dry, heated winds and burning
clouds of pollen. I’m thankful not to have any allergies, knowing my mom
suffers from them pretty badly, but usually only in the spring. I wonder if
Chris is allergic to anything. If I could I would gather up all the things that
would harm him and roll them into a giant ball and push them into the ocean. He
doesn’t like the ocean. He wouldn’t accidentally run into any in the deep blue,
so I figure it’s the safest place to put them. Things like shellfish and
oysters already belong there, but I’ll keep from him other things like
honeybees and their flowers, and grass and pet dander and food additives. I’d
rid the world of them, to keep him for longer.
I’m already imagining a design to weave into my jewelry when I hear someone
clear their throat behind me. I spin with a gasp. Standing there is none other
than Ryan Andrews.
He’s alone, surprisingly, in khaki shorts and a navy blue button-down, collar
flung open, a peek of brown chest hair. I swallow, hating myself for thinking
that without all that mocking hate etched onto his face he might actually be
attractive. His hands are big, like Chris’s, his legs strong and finely haired,
also like Chris’s. The late afternoon sun casts him in a soft glow, dark hair
caught up in dark flames. But his eyes are narrowed in possible threat, and my
blood zings to attention.
“Hey,” he says, nodding at me. I retreat a step, the giant wall of tree at my
back. “How are you?”
It’s an odd thing to ask, and since my mind is running a mile ahead of my mouth
and my heart is pounding a wild beat, I stutter out a simple, “Do—good.”
His face splits into a delighted grin. “Man, that shit never gets old.”
Face burning, I drop my eyes.
Behind me is only cliffs and ocean. Ryan stands between me and the way out of
the forest. High above is my favorite perching branch, but he would only follow
me there and any confrontation would end in my broken death on the spongy
ground, not yet eighteen, gone too soon. Chris would be left alone, with no one
to rock him to sleep, thinking of only himself to blame.
My grip tightens on my board, and its sturdy weight feels like a club in my
hands. Ryan’s gaze flicks down to it, like he knows what I’m thinking, and he
smirks again. In one quick move, he launches himself at me and I squeak, too
slow to stop his hands from coiling in the collar of my shirt. He smashes me
against the tree and my board clatters on the gnarled roots at our feet.
Eyes like slits, teeth bared, his beer breath gusts over my face and I feel
myself sicken, cringing away. “I don’t know what it is about you that’s always
just infuriated me, Tom-Tom, but it’s starting to annoy the shit out of me.” I
thrash against him but he gets a solid grip on me and slams me into the bark
again.
“Stop,” I whisper, inaudible. He doesn’t hear me.
“You were always the easiest. The most fun to go after. But I never understood
why I couldn’t leave you alone. And I think I just figured it out.” He looks me
over, from my face down to my toes, and it isn’t sexual, not how Chris looks at
me. But more like a revelatory inspection, full of whatever it is he’s
discovered about me. “You aren’t really here, are you?”
I’m gasping, hands wrapped around his wrists, trying to dislodge him. But like
Chris, he’s much stronger than me and doesn’t budge.
“I think I maybe envied that of you. That you could go about your life not
needing anyone or anything. In some fantasy world where we, where I didn’t
exist. That we could beat on you and you would be there the next day and the
next, not needing us.”
His breath is making my mind spin, and I struggle against him. “Get off me.”
“Hey, where’s your boyfriend?”
Drunk like this, his line of thought is all over the place.
“None of your buh-buh-business.”
I expect more sneering, but Ryan blinks and his eyes go a bit dim. “So you’re a
real fag, then. I should’ve fucken’ known it.”
Arm cocked back, his fist swings around and connects with my face, a loud crack
sounding through the trees. I collapse to the side and he’s on me in a second,
another punch, and another. Pain lances from my lips and teeth and shoots down
through my gums into my cheekbone, trickling white fire into my eye socket.
He’s laughing brokenly, hair flopping in his face.
I’m starting to see stars.
But I force them away and stiffen my arms to scratch at him wildly, something
sticky and warm trickling to my neck.
“A fag. A fucking fag. On top of it all. With your stuttering! What a goddamn
joke!”
“Leave me alone!” I manage to jab a knee upward and knock him sideways, but his
hands are clawed in my shirt and I hear it rip. Scrambling up, I heave myself
backwards and feel the splintered and cracked wood of my board under my shaking
fingers. Grabbing the edge I swing it forward and clap him right on his brow,
the skin splitting like a stroke of lightning, blood pouring in a scary crimson
wave. His cry is savage as he grabs his face and crawls to his knees.
“Fuck! What the fuck!”
Hurrying to my feet, I land a solid kick on his chest and he sprawls backward,
arms up. Defensive but wary. Wide eyes blink up at me, surprised, angry,
pebbles of blue in a sea of red. My finger shakes when I point it down at him.
“You leave me the fuck alone. Got it? We have a year left, you p-pig. I’m not
guh-guh-going to lehhh-let you pick on me anymore! I’ll hit you with this
again. Or my boyfriend will throw you against another tree. Remember that?”
He scowls and pushes to his elbows. I skitter back a step and then hock a
wallop of spit at him. It arcs through the air, catching the light before
landing with a gross splat on the hollow of his throat. He doesn’t move, only
watches as I turn around and flee.
Chris:
My tongue feels twice its size when I wake, crust in my eyes, and a kink up my
back. I groan and roll over, expecting a warm body there but finding only a
cold empty space. 
I lift my head quickly. “Babe?” But the room is empty and the light outside
feels wrong. Too late kind of light, like the dimmed wavelengths of an empty
auditorium after the last person’s left. 
Practically falling out of the bed, I jam my feet into my trainers and climb
out the window, the house echoing with that eerie silence that means it’s
empty. Outside, I run down the street and cut through several backyards rather
than go through the main street by my house. Something tells me he isn’t there,
that he’s at his tree. He has to be. If he’s not with me, it’s always the woods
that draw him. It’s later than I originally thought, the air heavy with dusk.
When I hop the train tracks, I skid to a halt, sniffing. There’s a creepy,
surreal quality to the woods, waiting there for me. A haze hangs over the
canopies, like pollen, like fire in the blank spaces between the trees.
A chill runs through me and I hurry forward.
I call his name and hear my voice echo right back to me. Fear clutches my heart
and I spin in place, willing him to step out from behind one of the mammoth
trunks that rooted so deep in the earth. But I hear nothing, see less. Just
snaps of twigs from little critters and, higher above, the chipper twitter of
the birds. All bright and careless of me, of my suffering.
“Tom!” I shout again, taking off at a jog toward his tree, the one he marked
with a blue button. I spy legs and a set of sneakers peeking out on the
opposite side, but the skin color’s all wrong, tanned and hairier. Still, I
whisper his name and close the distance. Instead of him there, I find that
little shit from before, the one I followed into the woods all those weeks ago.
He’s alone, legs bent up against his chest, sniffing into the palm of his hand.
Blood is smeared on his face and neck, but it’s dried and flaking in places.
It’s from a cut on his forehead, just above his left brow. He doesn’t notice me
at first, staring at the cliffs like he’s considering taking a leap from them.
Fists clenched, I will him to do it. Be my guest.
“He’s not here,” he says, voice thick with phlegm.
“What did you do?”
His laugh is short, cruel. “I’m sitting here bleeding and you want to know what
I did?”
I jump forward and grab his shirt, hauling him up. “What the fuck did you do?”
His eyes widen. “Jesus, man. Calm the fuck down.” I give him another shake,
letting the back of his head smack against the jagged bark. He winces. “I
waited for him, alright? And he came, singing like the faggot he is.”
My god, he was singing. My heart sinks. Singing means he was happy, only to
find this slime waiting for him. I give the surrounding land a cursory glance.
Where are you, Tom? I turn back to the boy.
“Say it again. I fucking dare you. Call him that again.”
His lashes fall closed and he shrugs, going limp. I let him go and he collapses
to the ground. I point at his face. “He did that to you?”
“Technically, his board did.”
“Which way did he go?”
He gestures vaguely behind him and I’m off like a shot.
“What? You’re not going to even try to hit me again?”
“You’re not worth it!” I shout back. I need to find Tom. He’s my main priority.
It’s with relief that I leave the woods, its heavy presence dropping off me
like a shroud. I know he loves it here, but it’s something in his bones, I
think. Something that is as familiar as blood, almost. I don’t know if I have
it in me to love it like he does. But I’ll walk between these trees as long as
he’s walking with me.
I’m back on the main road, patting my pockets for my phone but it’s missing. It
must be under Tom’s pillow where we stash them before sleeping. I almost go
back to his house but swing by mine first, my shoes slapping the pavement hard.
When I turn the corner my heart almost jumps out of my chest. He’s sitting
outside my window, curled against the wall.
“Babe!”
He looks up as I hurry to him, his face a patchwork of various darkly mottled
bruises. His shirt’s pulled up his belly, pale, thin muscles jumping as he
breathes, dabbing at his split lip with the hem stained in black patches.
Dropping to the ground before him, the soil feels cool against my bare knees. I
take his shoulders and peer into his eyes. He has a dark shiner beginning to
swell, bottom lip and left cheekbone bruising purple. But he’s smiling,
reaching forward to hug me.
Giving little gasps, I can tell he’s still slightly panicked, still wrought
with adrenaline. “Your hou-hou-house was c-c-c-closer. I wanted to get out of-
of-of sight.”
I hold him to me, tucking him into my neck, absorbing his small tremors. “Shh,
baby. It’s okay. I’m so proud of you. You kicked his ass.”
He pulls back, brows puckered. “What do you mean?”
“I went to the woods. I thought you might be there. And I found him under your
tree. His face is wrecked. You got him off you?” I ask, cupping his cheek,
checking his injuries.
He nods and sniffs, his lashes still wet from tears I wasn’t there to watch him
cry.
“That shit.” I flop down beside him and grab him up again. He curls into my
side, his board in the dirt beneath his knees. A ragged flare of anger boils to
life at the sight of his torn collar. Someone handled him roughly, and I wasn’t
there to stop them. There are still red slashes on his skin, just beneath his
collarbone.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there. That he got to you because you were alone.”
His skin is clammy with sweat, and I rub my cheek into his forehead, the desire
for all of him heavy in me. “You were sleeping. And I didn’t know he would be
there. Besides, I was so antsy I had to get out.” Something cold drapes around
my heart and I now it’s my turn to pull back. “Had to?” His fingers are
immediately on my face, in my hair.
“It’s nu-nu-not like that! But something happened while you were asleep.” He
tells me about how his mother walked in on us this morning, how he didn’t want
her to wake me, their text messages and subsequent conversation.
“So now she knows,” he says softly. “About me, about us.”
A pause.
“You’d never talked to her about how you feel before?”
Tom gives me an are-you-kidding kind of look and I regret the question. Talking
is not his forte. “Sorry, you’re right.” Whispering my name he takes my head in
both hands and draws me forward, our lips locking, teeth bumping. I taste
copper and push my tongue over his for more.
 I’m so overwhelmed by my love for him that I don’t realize when I’ve pushed
him to his back in the soil. Legs opening, he gives a small moan, fingers
tightening in my hair. A chill so destroying wracks through me I give a hard
thrust between his legs and see sparks. “Yeah,” he whimpers, breaking away, his
eyes taking on that glazed hue I know so well, cheeks spotting with color. The
cool moist of the garden patch under my window rises up and envelopes us,
smelling of sod and something green. The hedges growing along the wall are all
that cover us from the street, but I can still see the edge of the curb from
where we lie and it’s igniting my protective instincts. His sweet noises are
mounting, clawing at me for more kisses, lifting his lips to meet mine. I give
him everything, crowding him to the earth, drawing the indigo blue of the sky
to wrap us in obscurity, the stars as his crown. I keep a hand behind his head
to guard him from sharp pebbles, his curls soft and bouncy in my palm, and
continue thrusting. Between our kisses he moans my name, our cores hard and
hot, every nerve ending lit.
“Shh babe, quiet now.” Because with his chin lifted, throat exposed, that
lovely mouth parted in pleasure, I have a fierce and demanding desire to be the
only one who ever sees him like this, so exposed, so wrecked. His hands climb a
shaky path up my spine under the flimsy cotton of m shirt, broken moans
spilling into my ear. And even though it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever
heard, I place my other hand over his mouth to keep our hiding place secret.
His lashes immediately flutter low and his spine arches up, fingers cresting
over the curve of my ass to tug me down, harder, faster.
I dry fuck him right there in the dirt, his voice stuttered vibrations in my
palm. A car passes out on the street and I freeze, but he continues moving
beneath me, a distressed noise lodged in his throat. Eye and cheekbone bruising
darker by the minute, I’m careful with the pressure on his face. Still, he
shakes me off after a moment and lifts up to kiss me, giving me tongue and
scratch marks up my back. I’m so close to coming, but so is he. It’s when his
abdominal muscles start to tremble that I know he’s moments from release and I
snap my hips faster. His cock is a rod in his jeans, and when he finally crests
over his climax, I feel it give a jump and start to pulse. I’m disappointed
that all that good cream is wasted in the weave of his boxers.
My hand is back on his mouth, cutting off his cry as I follow him only seconds
after. So good, so good, so good, I shudder and rock above him, my erection
straining against him, curved forward, seeking. When my vision finally clears
and the thunder of an ocean is gone from my ears, I open my eyes. I’m gasping,
shaking, the object of beautiful adoration. Tom is still beneath me, thin legs
wrapped tightly around my hips. My hand clamped over his mouth, he blinks up at
me and caresses my hair, happy tears spilling down his temples and to the soil.
“Babe,” I whisper, yanking my hand back, but he’s grinning and taking my neck,
smashing our mouths together. I know his split lip hurts like hell but he’s not
shying from the pain or from me. We start giggling at the same time, arms
wrapped around each other’s backs, rolling in the dirt.
“When?” he asks, his voice hoarse. “Chris. Chris.”
“My dad will be home any time now. Otherwise I’d have you naked in my bed right
now.”
“T-t-tomorrow?”
“Yes. Tomorrow. Anything. Anything for you.” I pepper the uninjured side of his
face with kisses, adoring his wide smile and squeezed-shut laughing eyes. He’s
life and light and happiness and I want to devour him whole, steal him away,
protect him and keep him.
I’m suddenly full of words I need to tell him because I know he’s the only
person I would ever say anything of the like to.
“Summer,” I say, breathing hard. “It was something I wasn’t looking forward to,
Tom. Even when I lived with my mom. Those random few months before college were
like a void I didn’t know how to fill, my insomnia a terrible calamity I didn’t
know how to protect myself from. My father’s house was this strange idea in my
head, a place I knew but didn’t feel I belonged to anymore. We talk so briefly,
but I wonder if it’s me now. If it’s all my doing. If I need to forgive him
already. Because I can sense how he wants to reach out but I maybe don’t give
him the opportunity. I feel like I scare him sometimes. Walking around the
house, he smiles but he keeps his eyes down, like I’m this giant he needs to
keep happy. And I wonder if it’s because of what happened. If everyone is
afraid of me because they think I’m this time bomb that will flip any moment
and hurt them.” Tom is shaking his head, mouthing no, no, but I smooth his
curls down and kiss his nose. “I’m not that person. I won’t hurt you, or
anyone. I can control this. What happened with Frank. It has to be isolated.
Right? Babe, right?”
He gathers me to him and I let him rock me against his chest, just like how he
puts me to sleep. “Yes, my sweetheart. Yes. I really think so. I’ve never been
afraid of you. Surprised maybe, shocked. Like when you threw Ryan against that
tree. I couldn’t breathe.” I huff out a laugh, blinking away my tears. When we
look at each other, our faces are an inch apart and I can see the spots of
cinnamon in his eyes, islands in those blue oceans. “Your father loves you,
Chris. I know he does. I re-re-remember seeing him in your room at the
beginning of summer, bef-f-f-ore knowing about your insomnia. You were asleep
and he checked on you, made sure you were okay. He bent over you and touched
your hair. It was very sweet.” I let my eyes drift down, unaware my dad had
done this while I slept.
“He’s left me food before,” I admit, “so I know he would come in.” I sigh and
collapse to the side, both of us squished against the side of the house and the
hedges. “Maybe I’ll talk to him.”
“it’s not good to keep all that bottled up. It could lead to all sorts of
things, bad dreams, anxiety. Insomnia.” He says the last word quietly, even
though we both know I suffer from all three.
He’s so pretty, his nose straight and regal, his face soft and smooth, not even
baby fuzz.
“I love you,” I whisper.
He tilts his head forward and rests his cheek on mine. “I love you, too.”
**
After we escape from behind the hedges, sitting up and adjusting our jeans and
shorts, poking our heads up to see if the coast is clear, it’s nearly dark. I
walk him back to his house, creeping around the side when we spy his mother’s
car in the drive. More hard kisses, long-fingered hands slinking up my back to
scratch me, we pant and heave against the wall, too wired yet. But he
eventually crawls through his window and I wave at him, anxiety spiking for
just a moment as he recedes like a ghost into his dark room and I’m left by
myself. Careful with ceramic gnomes and butterfly pinwheels, I make my way to
the front of the house and glance in through the living room window.
I see them there at the dining table, him and his mother. She has that look
about her that all mothers get when one of their children is hurt, touching his
face gently, inspecting and asking, concern and care and love all weaved
together like a blanket that makes you feel safe and okay. He’s talking very
slowly, measuring his words, while she cleans his cut and wipes ointment on his
bruises.
I hope, very suddenly, that she doesn’t think I did that to him.
Back at my house, I sneak in through my window and change out of my boxers. I
couldn’t have possibly creamed more if I tried, the stripes sticky and smeared.
Vertigo takes me for a brief moment imagining coming in him so hard I actually
spill out of him, my seed sliding down the backs of his thighs. I take a quick
shower, tugging out another small load from my excitable cock. In the fogged
mirror I see the red lines from Tom’s nails.
The house feels yawning once back in my room and changed again. I know my dad’s
home since his truck is outside, so I walk through the kitchen looking for him.
The garage light is on and I hear him moving around inside. Angling the door
open, I see he’s working at the tool bench in the corner, a wrench in one hand,
a motor part in the other.
“Hey, Dad.” He turns around and meets my eyes, his glasses halfway down his
nose. He’s a little surprised, but I don’t’ see any fear. “Need any help with
anything in here?”
He’s so still for a moment, blinking over at me, and then he smiles, and it
reaches up into his eyes.
“Sure, Chris. Go ahead and pull up that stool there.”
Something loosens up inside my chest, relief taking root, and I smile back,
already moving forward.
Tom:
I’m so excited I can’t even eat anything. My mom put some more ointment on my
face before she left for work this morning, and I can tell it’s working
because, even though the bruises are still dark, my eye hasn’t swollen up and
my split lip appears to be closing.
“Chalk it up to being seventeen,” she’d said, and I laughed. But when she grew
serious, I knew what was coming.
“It wasn’t him,” I said before she could accuse. “It was that stupid Ryan
Andrews. From school. He’s had it out for me since eighth grade.” She stares at
me curiously, and I fidget. “What?”
“You didn’t stutter just now.”
I realized she was right and I grinned at her just as the toaster spit out two
golden pieces of bread. I made empty promises to eat something after she left
but I jump in the shower as soon as her car is down the street. I wash myself
really well, lathering up soapsuds and scrubbing every crook and crevice. Skin
pink and gleaming, I put some lotion on my legs and arms, down my belly, around
my neck and the small of my back. Patting down my hair I finally give up and
dress. The walk to his house takes me only a few minutes, but the day is
already warm and sweat begins to bead on my forehead. The pickup truck is gone
from the driveway at Chris’s house so I head to his bedroom window and peer
inside. He’s pacing by the bed, three quick strides and then a turn, three
quick strides again. It’s only been about thirteen hours since he’s slept last,
so I don’t think he’s in the in-between just yet.
I rap my knuckles on the glass and he spins around. Smiling, I press my palm
flat. He flings the window open and helps me inside, his lips on me
immediately. His own hair is wet from a shower, his skin smelling of soap, and
I take a deep breath to memorize.
“I was nervous,” he says, cradling my face, eyes flitting over my bruises. He
touches them gently. “I cleaned like crazy, and showered like twice.” His room
is definitely neater, shoes tucked under the bed, clothes in the hamper, closet
closed, nothing thrown about. I giggle and start to tug his shirt up. He yanks
it off and there he is, sculpted and lean. His arms and legs have a thin film
of golden hairs, but he’s so smooth over his torso and chest and the long plane
of his back, my fingers trailing over each bump and groove. Even I have a tiny
patch of thin hairs between my pectorals, but not him. Curiously adorable.
“You smell so good,” he moans, sniffing behind my ear, dragging me closer with
an arm. The other pushes my jeans low, and after toeing my shoes off I lift my
legs to help him. His mouth is on me everywhere, my feet moving backward to the
bed, his thighs bumping mine, spreading my legs. Collapsing back, we bounce
against each other, exhaling our names. There by the pillow is the bottle of
lube and my heart skips eagerly, but it’s easy to ignore it as he mouths at my
neck, sucking gently at the rise of my Adam’s apple, a big hand sliding up my
leg to curve along my buttock. I’m tugging on his shorts, he’s yanking on my
boxers, and then we’re both naked, my cock flopping out.
He goes starry-eyed a bit, staring at it. “You’re amazing.”
All heated length, from our joined lips to the nubs of our toes we are pressed
as one, our groins furred and rolling together, balls full and heavy and
hanging freely, our cocks stirring to life. He pushes to his elbows and keeps
our hips flush, both of us gasping as we fill and harden, squirming and
inching, longer and longer.
“You’re really gorgeous,” he praises, full cheeks pink, moist hair hanging in
his face. I push the long strands back, stroking my thumbs over each brow,
loving how low his thick lashes shudder, as if my touch is the best thing he’d
ever felt.
“You’re not sleepy?”
“Fuck no.”
I laugh, delighted, and he tosses me a wolfish grin before catching my mouth in
another hard kiss. I’m ready to be consumed by him, widening my jaw to swallow
his moans, our tongues winding and beloved. He gives little thrusts, and I’m
enamored anew, his every instinct to fuck something, anything, me. I want his
seed inside, his cum. He gushes thickly, copiously, so much of it, and I
imagine what it will feel like when he finally climaxes. I hope I feel every
pulse. A wicked thrill buzzes through me at the thought because I’ve tasted him
with my tongue and now I want him deep inside where no one else has been, where
only he will stake claim.
He traces a hand down to my abdomen, flattening it to my belly button. My chest
is a wave, rising and falling, rising and falling, I can’t catch my breath, my
heart beating a thousand times a minute. I’m a hummingbird, delicate and light,
but he handles me so carefully, eyes impossibly bluer than the ocean he fears.
“You’re a beauty,” I whisper, and he blushes like a rose. My darling, my love,
mine.
When he reaches for the bottle of lube I feel my chest constrict for a short
second. It’s happening. I’ll be touched in a place no one has ever seen, much
less explored. Not even by my own hand, too desperate for an easy orgasm
whenever I’ve watched porn to focus on anything but my dick. And now he will
see me there, will stroke and push into me, might even place a kiss there. I’m
shaking like a leaf at the thought and he pauses, concern deep in his eyes.
“Are you okay?”
I nod, clasping his biceps. Don’t leave me, don’t go, stay.
“We can stop whenever—.”
I shake my head, pleading.
He hurries after that, uncapping the bottle and squeezing a puddle into his
palm. I already feel so exposed with him kneeling between my legs, but I widen
my thighs even further when he bends low and traces two fingers between the
cleft under my sac. A little further and he’s at my entrance, my skin tingling,
the pad of his finger nudging, testing. My spine stiffens and he hushes me
gently, a wide hand on my chest. I hold onto his wrist and watch him study me,
spreading my cheeks, more fingers.
“So pretty,” he murmurs. “So pink and tiny.” His eyes are wide when he glances
up at me, as if worried he won’t fit. But I know he will, I’ve seen other men
take cocks as big as his, even bigger.
I nod again, nudging the back of his thighs with my heels. He snaps to and
angles his hand high to let the lube pour over my hole. It’s warm and dripping,
thick and runny. He smears it on me and tests my give again, but when I wince
he drops over me to kiss and comfort with sweet whispers in my ear. I rasp our
cheeks together and hold him in my arms, and when his finger finally breaches
he groans at the cry I give.
“Yeah, babe.” His breath is a soft gust on my face, his finger beginning a slow
slide in and out of me. It’s strange and sudden, intrusive even, but I relax
under his care, nodding for him to keep going. I can feel him on the inside,
long finger probing, massaging my tight inner walls. Breathing is a little
difficult, my stomach tense, throat closing. But having him on me helps,
because I’m reminded of lullabies and ocean-jumps, tree-climbing and the glint
of silver-spun twine jewelry. I can’t stop kissing him, his lips are so full,
so impatient for me. But neck kisses are the best, when he drags his mouth down
the line of my jaw and sucks just to the side of my throat. Chills erupt all
over me and I shiver, moaning for him to never stop, to live here with me,
forever.
Just as I’m getting used to it, he adds more lube and another finger and this
time I clench up, my legs snapping shut. They catch on either side of his hips,
but he holds me open.
“It’s okay, babe. You’re fine. I need to stretch you. Let me do it. Okay?”
Tears spring to my eyes at the echoing pain, but I nod. “Okay. Gimm-mme a
minute.” Holding his two fingers inside me, he watches as I take a deep breath
and roll my hips, my hole swallowing them in.
He gulps and nods his approval, eyes sharp between my legs. At my murmur he
starts pumping his wrist again and I feel something begin to loosen.
“You’re opening up,” he says, awed. Giddy smile. “You’re opening up for me.”
“Another?” I say and he readily tries a third finger, squirming it in and
pumping some more. The fit is tight, the stretch uncomfortable, but his fingers
are long and feel good sliding in. “Yes,” I moan, arching my back and liking
the squelch of our movements. He starts a rhythm, his strong hand driving his
three steepled fingers into me. I think we both feel at the same time once I’m
ready, because he pulls his fingers out as I reach for the lube, dripping some
over his erection and rubbing it over the shaft and head. “Hurry. Hurry, hurry.
B-but slow. Slow, please.”
Holding me under my knee, he lifts my leg and takes himself in hand. My skin is
buzzing, my head filled with flickering lights, he’s so beautiful, so strong, a
myth. “My god I love you,” I moan and he grins before lining himself up and
pushing.
My cry is tiny and ragged.
It hurts. We both tense and I scramble to hold his elbows, gain some leverage,
one hand over skin the color of sand, the other in brambles of inked roses and
vines. He’s straining to hold still and I’m straining to stay conscious, his
tattoos a mirage to hold on to. Only the tip of him is in, nudging short
centimeter by centimeter. I’m being split by a pipe, but he’s perfect and
trembling and groaning my name.
“Do I stop?” His lips barely move. Propped up on both arms, vibrating, he’s
suddenly too far and I reach for him.
“Don’t stop. Let me hold you.” Dropping down, he flattens himself on me and
nuzzles my neck. “Go. Now, go.”
Another inch and my teeth grit, nails clawing into his back. His hips pull back
and then stutter forward, stretch, stretch, more, more.Back and in, back and
in, until he’s finally inside completely, entirely, whole. My heart swells with
relief, the crest building in my ribcage, bubbling up my throat, pushing
through my teeth. “Fuck,” I sob, dropping my head, eyes squeezed shut. He’s
kissing my chin, my jaw, the tender underside, and I blink through my tears,
feeling him shift inside me, heavy, big. Stuck in me, he stays put for a
minute, our bodies gently adjusting, soaking in heat neither of us is used to.
Our eyes meet, his voice a throaty rasp. “Can I move?”
Dark widow’s peak, pupils blown, lashes thick, he studies me, soaks me in, and
waits.
I nod, whispering yes, fingers clawing into his spine to get him going.
Snapping forward, he shoves and I go sliding on the bed, surprise making me
laugh and cling to him harder. Pulling back slowly, he starts a slow pace, in
and out, in and out, and I’m beginning to understand just how this boy will
drive me mad with pleasure. It feels good having him in me, after all the burn
and discomfort, but to be pinned down and handled by him, it’s so much of all
that I’ve ever wanted I feel lightheaded.
“Hey,” he whispers, clasping my head in both hands. “Don’t go fainting on me.”
I grin at him, my body rocking as he thrusts and thrusts.
“But actually, it would be kind of hot if you did.”
Something surges in my ribcage and I groan, grabbing his head and sucking on
his bottom lip.
My cock is rock hard between us, jostled from Chris’s movements, leaking giant
drops of sticky clear fluid. It’s pooling on my belly, linked by the thinnest
strand to the bulbous tip, red and swollen.
“Does it hurt still? Is it hurting?”
I shake my head, kissing his nose, his cheek, his eyelashes. The glide is much
easier, my body loose enough to take him.
“You can go…a little harder,” I whisper, and he draws back, eyes wide.
“Can I?”
“Yeah.”
Propping himself up on both hands, he snaps his pelvis forward and I heave
under him, sparks shredding brightly in my brain. He’s the biggest turn-on of
my life, my body attuned to his so that when he breathes I exhale, when he dips
low I rise up, hips colliding almost violently, our desperation to be closer,
closer, making us frantic.
Hitching my leg over his elbow, he bends me in half, whispering filthy praise
at my flexibility, his breath in my ear making goosebumps race over me. His
belly strokes my erection with every thrust, and I resist taking hold of it,
adoring how my body is beginning to sing for him, because of him, his force
drawing out of me an energy that leaves me breathless, gasping, thrumming with
life. Something is beginning to build in me, something warm and heavy and
insistent. He’s focused and a little rough, pounding in hard, breathing
harshly. I push at his waist, wanting to see, and he lifts himself to his
elbows.
“Am I—?”
“Keep g-g-going. Faster.”
He does, hair swaying. It’s when he sits back on his heels and pulls me over
his lap, rolling my hips to spear into me, that something twinges way deep
inside and I twist my hands into the sheets.
“Chris,” I whimper, a tiny peep, eyes on where my cock lies reddened and near
bursting. He thrusts in and I jolt, the rush of pleasure up my belly into my
throat so intense that my vision goes white. Between us, my cock gives wild
little jumps, spewing white cream in smooth arcs over me. Arching, I scream and
thrash, waves of it eating me alive, drowning me. Something winks in my sight
and I shudder once more, collapsed and on the verge of twilight.
“Fuck,” he breathes, watching me orgasm, lips snarled, big hands curled into
the meat of my buttocks. He hauls me to him, stuffing himself deep, once,
twice, and on the third time he groans out a cry and squeezes me in his arms so
tightly, I lose my breath.
“Yeah…yeah…Chris. There, sweetheart. There.”
We stay like this for a long while, both breathing, just holding each other.
Something begins creeping out of me. I can feel it tickling my skin. He goes
soft and rouses from my embrace, eyes electric, dulled lightning. He meets my
gaze, shy, hesitant, and then smiles so wide he starts me giggling. Holding my
hips still, he pulls out slowly, watching my face for winces. I feel gaping
after he’s out.
“Am I still…open?”
“No, babe. You closed right up. That’s amazing.”
I blush scarlet and hold my arms out to him. He drapes himself over me and dips
his head. Our kiss is slow and deep, familiar, my favorite thing in the world.
“Are you okay? Are you hurt?”
“Yes. And no!” Relief softens his face. “I’m more than great, Chris. I’m a c-c-
completely different person. You’ve filled me and now I’m whole.”
“And you’ve healed me,” he says, eyes tracing my face. I must look confused
because he chuckles. “I may still have some trouble sleeping, but it’s not like
before. You have to know that. I don’t hurt like I used to. Not since meeting
you. Since sleeping with you.”
“I can’t te-tell you how happy I am that you found in me what I’ve found in
you.”
We doze for a long while, our bodies sore and spent. I dream of elephant trunks
and wind-rasp of seagull wings. I don’t think he dreams at all, which is good,
and safe. The light rotates around the room before hunger wakes us. When I feel
him at my back, mouthing at the nape of my neck, I’m already hard. A sharp
click of plastic as he uncaps the lube and then he lifts my leg, slipping in
much easier than before. Lying on my side, tucked into his chest, he pushes and
pushes until I’m sprawled on my belly, covering me like a blanket. The fit is
just as tight, but with nearly no pain, only a vague discomfort that fades as
soon as he gains a quicker rhythm. Straddling the small of my back, he fucks
into me, gasping my name, my erection caught beneath us.
“Come here,” he pleads in a half-growl and yanks me up to my hands and knees.
“Oh god,” I manage, fantasy, fantasy, something I’ve always wanted. “Yes, hard.
Please.”
His hand snakes up my shoulder and around my throat, where he holds me gently,
squeezing very lightly. Between my legs his balls bounce against mine, and I
feel so animalistic, so wild, savage and free, that I sob out quietly. Yes.
Pulling me closer to him, he licks right up the middle of my spine and curls
his other hand into my hair, tugging. Beautiful colors burst in my eyes and I
start to tilt, but he keeps me upright, hand on my throat and in my curls. My
own reach behind me to hold his waist, the only thing I see is the ceiling with
its pockmarked design.
“Come for me. Babe, come. Tom. Tom, please.” My cock bobs up and down, slap-
slapping against my stomach.
“Yes,” I manage, my throat bobbing under his palm. “’m close.” The angle hits
true when he thrusts up and I sink down. That rush of pleasure rushes through
every vein, every vessel, and my muscles clench hard. Vaguely, in the
background, he curses and stutters to a halt. I spurt ribbons over the sheets,
held up by his arms only. Head resting back on his shoulder, I’m incoherent and
a bit deaf, crashing surf in my head. Very gently, he tilts us forward and lays
me on my stomach. I moan weakly, my cock still giving small pulses. But he’s
hammering into me again, grunting above me, a wide hand between my shoulders to
hold me still. I love being restrained by him, I love that I can trust him to
do that.
When he comes, it’s thick and overflowing, drizzling out of me. So strong, this
myth of mine, so noble. To be chosen by him, to choose him from the many, I
couldn’t find enough song lyrics in the world to explain. My heart is content
to simply feel him, and know.
“Will you be mine?” he asks, flopping down beside me.
“Always,” I sigh, smiling, blissed with relief and peace.
**
The rest of the summer is spent preparing for school, him for college and me
for my last year of high school. We collect our textbooks and planners,
stuffing new binders with blank paper and replacing old stubby pencils and
dried pens with fresh ones. We lie out on the beach the night of his birthday
and make out until our lips are swollen and I’m sporting new bruises, his, on
my collarbones. After, I walk him back to his house and climb in through his
window with him. He comes in me three times that night, and I lay beside him
just as sated, sticky with fluids splattered on my belly and seeping out of me.
I rock him to sleep, humming a soft song, carding my fingers through his hair.
His soft lips at my neck sometimes whisper my name.
My face has cleared of all signs of my confrontation with Ryan, who has made
himself scarce these last couple of weeks before school. I’m not sure how
things will be once classes start, but I’m not afraid of him anymore. I know I
can hurt him as much as he’s ever hurt me, it’s just my choice not to that
defines my better character. Chris agrees.
“You’re so much better than them, babe. You are a better person and above them
all. They’re jealous little shits that they’ve never been able to get under
your skin. But me,” he says, waggling his eyebrows. “I love being under your
skin.”
“In it, more like,” I say, tugging his ear. He growls sweetly into my hair, and
I blush.
I’m personally proud that he didn’t sink so low as to retaliate against Ryan
that day he found him bleeding in the woods. It’s a mystery to me that he would
hurt his mother’s boyfriend willingly. I know from some emails he’s exchanged
with his counselor that she seems optimistic about his continued improvement. I
just think he needed to catch up on his rest. Anyone could snap when deprived
of sleep. He only desired the right person to do it with.
“Stupid brain,” he likes to say, but I always disagree, and he always reads my
face just right. “Enough of those brows. Kiss me.”
I invited him for dinner one evening and he came over dressed in pressed flats
and a lovely blue button-down. It really brought out his eyes, which my mom
seemed captivated with for a moment when he walked in the door, holding out a
single tulip for her. “You’re very pretty,” he told her. “Tom looks a lot like
you.” And then his face turned beet red and he shuffled back a step. My mom
gave a surprised laugh, one of her real, throaty ones, and took his arm to lead
him inside. She and I baked our own pizza and served it with a salad, talking
over soda and water at the dining table. His tattoos were concealed by his long
sleeves but I knew, in great detail, what lay hidden underneath. I’d licked a
rose petal just that morning.
My mom asked about his parents (divorced), about his college goals (engineering
at the university), about how we met.
Here he smiles, and stabs carefully at his salad. “He rode by my window on his
board and I thought I was hallucinating.”
I kick him playfully under the table. “Truth is you saved me.”
He grins. “I was only trying to help.”
“You scattered them like roaches!”
“Only because they are!”
I laugh, and he laughs, and we glance down at our plates, and my mom stares at
the two of us, something glowing on her face. It looks like understanding.
Chris’s dad is a quiet man, very polite, solidly built like his son, only
smaller. He called in take-out when it was my turn for the dinner invite, and
we ate lounging on the living room sofa, a college football game on the
television. It was relaxed and easy, the three of us in the cozy company of
their house, Chris twining his ankles between mine, familiar. His dad barely
batted an eye at Chris’s introduction of me as his boyfriend, only shook my
hand and welcomed me in. All my nerves dissipated when we sat down and he said
calmly, “So now I can connect that nest of blond curls to an actual face.”
Chris rolled his eyes – Dad – but I knew that it meant he had walked in on us
one of the times Chris and I had fallen asleep in his room, that he’d seen me,
seen us wrapped together in our moist summer clothes and coiled limbs, and
thought nothing wrong of it. Although, from how I knew he treated Chris those
times I’d spied him in Chris’s room while Chris slept – careful with his steps,
leaving him food, checking that he was breathing okay – it was always apparent
to me that he was a gentle man, somewhat gruff at first, scarred and rough
around the edges from his hard work at the quarry. And maybe it was something
to understand that the reason he didn’t fight as hard to get Chris back after
the divorce was because he wasn’t the kind of person to force himself on
others, that he believed Chris would come back to him when he was ready, when
he needed his father the most. And by the friendly smile shared between him and
his son, I could see they were on their way to understanding this too.
Chris:
School started a few weeks ago and I was right about the separation anxiety. I
got a job at the union art gallery, helping organize shows, arranging opening
ceremonies and artist visits and artist talks, patching and repainting walls,
installing entire shows by myself. Doing homework at the front desk when the
gallery is empty as a tomb, echoing with the soft music I put on from my phone.
It’s an easy job, and I’m grateful to have it. That and my surveys, I’m hoping
to save money for some things I have planned. So far, my insomnia has calmed.
I’m still awake for longer than what’s considered normal, but it helps with
all-nighters and writing term papers. It’s when I’m back in Tom’s arms, in his
bed or mine, that my body knows to begin to shut down. My eyelids get heavy, my
thoughts slow down, my voice grows quiet, and I seek his embrace like a child,
going limp as he rocks me.
I like talking about my sleep and my feelings with Angelina Abrams, my
counselor. She helps me think about things that I might not have figured out on
my own. She reminds me of Tom in this way, both quietly wiser than most people
I’ve met. To my immense relief, she considers what happened with Frank to be an
isolated incident.
“I think you’re learning things about your anger, and how it manifests around
the men in your life, to know when you might be a danger to others. I
personally think you’re not. You have a bit of rage, but so does everyone. You
hit a precipice that was not aided by your lack of sleep. Now that you’re
keeping a sleep journal, counting your waking hours, and actually getting more
rest, I think you’re going to be just fine, with time.”
I think so too.
Me and Tom text all day, calling each other during our lunch breaks. But it’s
enough to get me through the times we can’t communicate, when I’m in lecture
and he’s stuck in some group project. It’s enough to get me through my long
hours until I can finally get home and find him waiting for me at the curb
outside my window. He’s so beautiful, still ruddy cheeked even though fall is
settled in nicely. He’s started wearing sweaters and scarves, jumping up to
meet me with a hard embrace, his wicked lips on mine, his skin cold from the
chill in the air. And then we fall into my room and take our time with the
stretch, with the scratches and the hickeys. He rides me eagerly, or presents
himself on all fours, and I don’t have enough energy or seed to take him as
often as I would like, as he demands. But it’s so fun to try, getting him off
with my fingers and tongue, my cock resting in between. We’ve shared so many
orgasms, witnessing every flush of his skin, every fluttering lash, his
trembles sustaining me with life. And his noises, his small, beautifully deep
voice. It makes my head spin. And still I want a million more with him.
He’s a joyous partner, my Tom, happy and willing.
He’s my heart.
He turns eighteen in February, and even though we still live with our parents
for now, I want to ask him to move in with me when I feel we’re both ready. I
can see us with a place of our own. He’ll garden like his mother, placing tiny
treasures in the soil, fairies and butterfly pinwheels, and maybe his jewelry.
I’ll have little projects in our garage, like my own dad. I think it’s okay if,
in the end, we are just like our parents.
We’ll cook together and make love, and walk through the trees, and maybe sing
to some children, someday.
Because still he sings. I love it so much, his voice. I liken it to the tender
and unique ability of falling asleep, something only recently re-learned with
his help. Slipping behind that curtain of sand and stars, letting the waves
take me. I liken it to his excitement after a day separated, stuttering through
all his happy gossip about school and what he did for this or that class, or
what he’s read that he thinks I’ll like, asking me about my coursework and if
I’m liking college.
And I do like college, I like the ambience and the loose structure of it. I
like learning. Feeling rested is a plus, otherwise I might get overwhelmed, but
I’ve been handling it just fine. I like my art gallery job. I like him the
most. I like how unselfconscious he’s become since we’ve met, stuttering and
not hating himself, at least not around me. I know he still struggles with it,
like I still struggle with sleep sometimes. But when personal growth involves a
full heart and trusting companionship, maybe the road won’t seem so bleak.
This is something I talk to Angelina about a lot. She gets it.
A little after midnight, he snuck into my room, curling himself around me like
a kitten, his body freezing from the air outside. We slept a few hours more and
then got up to dress and go our separate ways for the time being. But it’s
Friday evening and he’s waiting for me on the curb. I stash my bike in the
garage and he takes my hand. Together, we walk through the side street and over
to the train tracks, the trees waiting for us just beyond them. Barren of
leaves, their spindly branches sway in the wind, cold and bitter, and I’m
suddenly struck with a new tattoo idea.
He and I are wrapped in clothing, a scarf around his neck, my jacket zipped to
my throat. He tucks his arm through my elbow and walks pressed tightly to me.
Dry and forgotten leaves crackled under our feet, but I pick out his melody
easily. Head down, his voice is a little stifled by the scarf. I know the band.
They’re pretty good, and so is his voice. Laying his head on my shoulder, he
sings:
But I will love you constantly
There's precious little else to me
And though we may cry, we must stay alive.
He tilts his head back, exposing his long and pale throat, but his eyes are
closed and he’s smiling up at the trees, squeezing my arm sweetly.
Let my blood only run out when my world decides
There is no way out of your only life
So run on
--run on.
 
 
 
End.
End Notes
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