Until september, p.25
Until September, page 25
Fanning herself, Violet remarked, “Sheridan doesn’t mean to be so hard on Jack.”
He didn’t know why she imparted that just then.
He waited, but she said nothing more.
Later, after Violet and Sheridan had gone to bed, the boys carried enormous pieces of watermelon down to the shore where they sat at the end of the dock, dangling their feet in the water, the boat rocking gently beside them. The waves lapped quietly against the sand, the August moon hanging, only half formed, above them, surrounded by a multitude of stars. Serenaded by a chorus of crickets, Kyle watched a leaf drift lazily, indecisively, on the wind before dropping consequentially into the water just beyond their reach.
He bit into the moist flesh of the melon, spat a succession of seeds into the dark, one, two, three, then turned to Jack and spat the final one at him. It hit his forehead, then bounced to the dock with a clitter.
Jack gave a bemused smile. “Where were you brought up again? The Midwest?”
“No, but that’s where you’re dragging me come September.” He leered at Jack who was poking seeds from the melon. Then, without looking up, Jack drew his finger down Kyle’s cheek, leaving a trail of dripping juice. “Hey!”
“Gotta problem?” Jack bit into the fruit, then looked at Kyle, nectar dripping down his chin, glimmering in the moonlight.
Kyle felt such a flush of ardor that his hair tingled. He kissed him, deep, long, probing, slippery, sticky, unable to control himself.
When he pulled back Jack was breathless. “You made my legs weak.” He kissed Kyle again, quickly, hotly. “Do you love me, King Kyle?” he sighed into his mouth.
“My kingdom’s worth,” Kyle breathed back into him.
They broke apart, resting their foreheads together. Jack said, “I feel like we’re tempting fate. Like the angels are envious.”
Kyle looked at the moon, its coy half face mocking him sitting on the shore of a tiny island in the middle of an ocean beneath a trillion stars. He felt terribly insignificant.
They sat, looking at the water, listening to it, breathing it in. A subtle breeze roused the waning leaves of the trees. The boat swayed with the rhythm of the waves, its ropes groaning protest.
“I used to feel the call to the ocean everyone feels,” Jack began, suddenly melancholy. “But something happened the summer I turned six. I was in the tub. I was underwater, looking up at the ceiling. I could hear drops splashing from the faucet. And, like it always is underwater, sound was muffled and slow. I remember waiting for each drop to fall, slower and slower, like a clock winding down. I don’t know how long I was under before I heard it. Or how much longer before I became aware of it. I could hear its cadence, feel its vibration. It was shaking my sight. It was rippling the water. It was insistent and alarming, like a phone call in the night.
“And then I realized what it was.” He looked across the water. “It was my heartbeat. I could feel it in my chest. I could feel it in my wrists and in my temples. And I suddenly became aware that it was the only thing keeping me alive. And what was to stop that tiny mass on which everything depended from giving out? It was like being held over a cliff by a shoelace.
“I panicked, and inhaled.
“I almost died. In some ways I feel like I did. Because it changed me. I feel like I’m a second draft. And I keep wondering who I was supposed to be.”
He took Kyle’s hand and looked him fully in the face. “That’s why I’m afraid of the water.”
A couple of days later Kyle was at home on the phone to Princeton. He’d been on hold for a number of minutes when he heard a noise at the door and glanced up to see Trent. Being unprepared for his appearance, Kyle just looked at him. There was no speech rehearsed, no decision made, so seeing him brought to the fore all the turmoil he’d pushed aside in the wake of Veronica’s death. He hung up the phone and stood facing him through the screen, actually afraid.
“Can I come in?” Trent asked.
“What do you want?” he spoke quickly and warily.
“I’m not here to invade. I just want to see you.”
Kyle considered his alternatives. He didn’t want to see Trent right then. He was getting along without him very well. But he had a feeling that if he turned him away, he might damage the only chance they might still have, and until he’d decided whether he wanted to squander that chance, he wanted to protect it.
He pushed the screen door open and Trent entered with an intimation of autumn. Purple hyacinths stood in a vase on the mantel. The clock ticked ceaselessly forward in the kitchen. They stood, both uncertain. Kyle had the urge to offer a drink but resisted. He wasn’t going to cave. This was Trent’s tragedy. He needed to make it right.
So he was cold. “So?”
“How’ve you been?”
“Great.”
“Great.”
They looked at each other.
“May I sit?”
They sat, Trent on the sofa, Kyle in the armchair.
“You’re still angry.”
“No.” It was the truth.
Trent gave a quizzical look. “Then why haven’t we seen each other?”
Kyle felt the frustrated rage he’d buried surge again and when he spoke he spoke through lips tight as a spinster’s. “What you did was so selfish, so thoughtless and so heedless of all the warnings I gave you that it says more about who you’ve become than you could ever hope to explain. So I’ve needed time to evaluate whether you’re someone I want in my life.” He was surprised and relieved he’d spoken as succinctly and eloquently as he had.
Trent stood, his anger as sudden as Kyle’s. “God! I made a mistake!”
“Veronica is dead.”
“Do you not think guilt is destroying me?”
“It was your choice. This is your burden.”
Trent breathed quick, short breaths. “I am so sick of your sanctimony I could scream.”
Kyle stood too. “If that’s how you feel,” he said, low and threatening, “get out.”
“You always take this tack whenever I screw up. It always comes down to you being right, doesn’t it?”
Kyle gave a smug smile. “No,” he said caustically. “It always comes down to you being wrong.”
They stood in heavy silence.
“Kyle—”
“Don’t.”
They faced off.
Then Trent exhaled deeply. “I don’t want to argue with you. I came to find you again.”
“I was fine until you showed up. Why couldn’t you just leave me alone?” Kyle felt hatred for the disruption of the balance he’d established.
“Is that what you really want, Kyle?”
He was afraid he’d say what he was really feeling and then be unable to take it back, and, alternatively, he wanted to throw it in Trent’s face because it was so ugly and black and stinging that it would scar him like acid.
“Do you want to end this, Kyle?”
“I don’t know. I need time.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know! Don’t pressure me.”
“Summer’s almost over, Kyle.”
“Stop saying my name. I’m not four.”
“We need to resolve this before we leave for school.”
“Why?”
“Because I need you.”
“Why?”
“Because! Because I haven’t figured out how to feel good about myself without your approval!”
Kyle was so surprised by that, he looked at Trent with absolutely no understanding. “What?”
“I haven’t been able to get your approval since Kevin died! I can’t compare to him. I’ve tried, but I can’t!”
Kyle was so shocked he had to sit down on the sofa. When he spoke, his voice was soft and level. “You have never had to live up to anything, Trent. You know that.”
“No. I don’t.” Trent spoke quickly, liking the feel of the truth like the frenzied rush of a new addiction. “You have always held the brass ring just out of my reach. So I jump higher and I run faster and I swing harder, because I want it. I want to be good enough.” And then he was hurt and on the verge of tears. “You’ve never known this?”
For many moments, the only sounds were the relentless ticking of the kitchen clock and the ageless roar of the surf. When Kyle spoke his voice was uneven with phlegm. “No.”
“Then you’ve never known anything about me.” Trent turned and walked out, letting the screen door slam behind him.
Kyle wanted to go after him, wanted to make things right, wanted to forgive, but the wound was still too fresh.
He let him go.
As Trey drove by Kyle’s that night, he felt the twinge of the unrequited. The porch light was on, awaiting Kyle’s return. His car wasn’t in the driveway. Because Kyle was with Jack. That fact tormented Trey, every moment of every day, his jealousy having mutated into desperation.
There was so little time left.
His drive along the coast eventually took him to Trent’s house, and, beyond that, Jack’s. He’d known he’d come to it, and the idea had formed miles back. But it didn’t gel until he saw that Kyle’s car wasn’t there either.
That was his luck.
Light burned in one of the windows.
That was his opportunity.
The opportunity to buy all the time until September.
But at what price?
Mrs. Averill didn’t recognize him at first. She hadn’t seen him since the dance. So he reintroduced himself and, though she still only vaguely remembered him, she let him enter when he said he wanted to talk about her son and Kyle Quinn.
Thursday.
They spent a lazy day at the McAllister house. The wind off the ocean was hot and did little to alleviate the sultriness that shrouded the island. They lay in the baking sun, drowsy and languorous and content.
This was Kyle’s favorite time.
They said little, did less. Kyle watched as Jack drifted off, his glasses on the sand between them. His face was tranquil, free of the trepidation he’d felt earlier in the summer. His skin was smooth, brown, unmarred.
He’s mine, Kyle thought, and it gave him a warm, solid feeling. He took Jack’s glasses and held them safely.
Then he, too, drifted cozily into the slumber of the satisfied.
They had dinner in town. They didn’t go to Olympus. They left about ten to head “home.” They rode without speaking, Kyle’s right hand covering Jack’s left on the seat between them. The night was almost eerily still. Fireflies winked silently as they entered a Cimmerian forest, the same stretch on which they had run out of gas so long ago. Oleander struggled to flower by the side of the road. Thunder rumbled heavily, though there were no storm clouds. The moon was enormous.
“I guess the weather’s changing,” Jack said.
“We must be driving into it.” Kyle squeezed his hand.
They shared a loving, knowing look.
And then it happened.
Jack sensed it first, quickly turning toward the windshield, shouting Kyle’s name. Kyle reacted before he even saw it, hitting the brakes so that the car came to a screeching halt with smoking tires and a dull, solid thump.
Then the night was still again.
Kyle looked over at Jack and saw blood, in a thin, shiny streak, trickle from his right nostril onto his upper lip. “My God. Are you all right?”
Though he appeared a little dazed, Jack nodded. “Yeah. You?”
Kyle’s chest felt tight and bruised from the seat belt, but otherwise he was fine. He nodded, then leaned over and wiped Jack’s blood away. He was awash in guilt. “I’m sorry,” he said at the same time Jack said, “What did we hit?”
They got out. One of the headlights was covered in spider-web cracks, but both of them still worked. A few yards before the car, in the lit stage of the road, lay a fawn. The fur around its neck was matted with blood. One of its back legs twitched. Its eyes were hazed over, the lids half closed. It breathed with a labored, slurpy sound.
Kyle turned away, overcome with regret. He’d never imagined it might happen.
Jack looked at the back of his head for a long moment before speaking. “Kyle.”
Kyle inhaled deeply, but the air felt thin. Pressure was intense in his chest.
“Are you sure you’re all right? Do you need a hospital?”
“I’m just catching my breath.”
Jack waited. Then he said, “Kyle. It’s still alive.”
The animal whimpered then, a high-pitched, painful sound, as if on cue.
“We have to do something.”
“We don’t have a gun.”
Jack held the back of his hand to his nose to stay the flow of blood. “We don’t need a gun.”
He sounded so definitive, Kyle turned to him.
“We have to run it over.”
Kyle looked to the animal, then back to Jack.
“I’ll do it,” Jack offered.
“No.” Kyle’s voice shook. “I can’t ask you to do that.” But cold, white cowardice took precedence, and he couldn’t meet Jack’s eyes.
“You don’t have to. I’m volunteering.”
Kyle started to back away, his face disintegrating with fear and shame.
“Hey.” Jack reached out a quick hand and grasped his wrist. “Are you okay? I think you’re in shock.”
“I—” Kyle’s eyes were attaining an edge. He couldn’t conceive of the courage to kill the animal. His eyes darted from Jack to the deer, and back. “I can’t do it,” he said, a touch of delirium in his voice. “I can’t do it. I can’t take more death.”
Jack pulled him by his wrist so that they were close and he could snake his arms around his waist. “You just stand here and wait. Okay?” He stroked Kyle’s hair. “I’ll take care of it. You might have hurt yourself more than you thought.” Then he quickly jerked away. “God, I’m getting blood on you.” It had dripped onto Kyle’s shirt.
Kyle was hardly aware. “Hell of a king I am. I can’t even take care of my own mess.”
“That’s why I’m here.” He gave Kyle a light kiss on the lips, passing along the taint of fresh blood.
Then Kyle began walking up the road in the phosphorescent moonlight.
He didn’t look back, stepping from the glare of the headlights into darkness.
He heard thunder rumble again, this time closer.
Then he heard Jack climb into the convertible, close the door and start the engine.
After a moment, there was a sickening thud, and then the car came alongside him.
He climbed into the passenger seat.
And Jack drove into the protective cover of oncoming storm clouds.
The porch was sweltering. A vase with two daisies stood at the head of the boys’ bed. Both shirtless, they sat on the mattress, Kyle dabbing at the blood on Jack’s nose with a sheet. He could see Jack’s heartbeat through his chest. He stared at it, thinking about the water, Kevin, the deer. They all seemed connected somehow.
But Kevin and the fawn were dead.
And Jack was the most alive thing Kyle had ever known.
He didn’t know where he fit in.
Jack watched him for a minute. “Love?”
He brought Kyle around every time. “Yeah?”
“You were aces tonight.”
“I didn’t feel aces.”
“There’ll be times you’ll take care of me, too.” He cupped Kyle’s cheek. “There will be time.”
His thumb parted Kyle’s lips, and Kyle closed his mouth around it, their eyes meeting, Kyle’s the dusky promise of Indian summer, Jack’s glassy like a still pool of water, deterring intruders from its depths by distracting them with their reflections.
Kyle saw only Jack.
He had never wanted or needed him more. He lay him on his back, tasting his skin, hot and salty and wet. Chest to chest, Jack put his hands in Kyle’s hair. Kyle’s hands ran down the sides of Jack’s legs, pulling them up around him. Without changing position they wriggled out of their shorts. Their kisses were sticky. Their teeth scraped. Kyle bit Jack’s chin. Jack kissed Kyle’s throat, the flesh that he owned. The smells of sweat, sea and sex mingled in the close, tropical sultriness. They fell into the cadence they had created, panting, laughing, moaning. They groped, shuddered, called out.
Then Kyle was falling, tearing painfully out of Jack, jarring his shoulder against the floor, aghast that the McAllisters had returned. He hurried to the bed to cover Jack’s tiny form, and when he looked up, he was shocked—no, horrified—to see Sheridan standing above them, rage radiating from his twisted face so strongly that Kyle could look at nothing but him, like a tornado racing across an open plain. For a second, he actually feared for their lives.
“Dad,” Jack said, peering from behind him.
“Mr. Averill.” Kyle reached out a hand to tranquilize him, show that he meant no harm, but he couldn’t move forward because Jack gripped his shoulder. He didn’t want his father to see him naked.
Sheridan gaped at Kyle, then changed his focus to Jack’s taut, slender fingers grasping his flesh. Seeing them touching so intimately caused something to break in him. He crumpled inward.
The boys waited, anticipating.
Then Sheridan stepped forward and raised an arm.
Kyle’s mouth exploded as he fell onto the floor, his shoulder flaring. Darkness began to seep into his eyes. Blood coursed into his mouth.
He’d never been hit before.
“How dare you!” Sheridan raged.
Kyle crawled to his knees, spitting out a dense dollop of blood, his erection gone limp. The blackness receded, and he saw Jack clamber to the side of the bed to be next to him, despite his visibility.
“Dad,” Jack said.
“Don’t.” Sheridan approached slowly, his voice tight. He stepped to the end of their bed and stopped, his eyes targeted on Kyle. When he spoke, the words were measured and concise so that each carried the weight of a threat. “Get. Away. From my. Son.”
It was sinking in to Kyle that he had been attacked. His mouth throbbed. He had to spit again. He wasn’t going to be able to speak around the blood. Jack’s strained breathing was loud and hot in his ear. He wanted to throw a sheet over his quivering body but was afraid motion might instigate Sheridan into a frenzy.
