Until september, p.26
Until September, page 26
He had never been so afraid.
“This isn’t Kyle’s fault.” Jack began to cry, a soft, beautiful cry. “I was going to tell you.”
“You are malignant.” Sheridan’s face contorted. “You have soiled my boy.”
“That’s not—” Kyle’s voice was garbled with blood. “I love Jack.”
There would be no righting this.
“I didn’t want to believe it. I didn’t want to believe.”
“Dad.” Tears slipped down Jack’s cheeks.
Sheridan exhaled heavily, sadly. “Oh, Jack.”
Jack looked to Kyle, his eyes the opaque blue of an iceberg. He swallowed, his fear so thorough there was no trace of humiliation.
He was hit, then, by his shirt. It smelled of sandalwood, of him. Sheridan squatted at the end of the mattress. After disentangling Jack’s shorts from the sheets, he threw those to him, too. “Get dressed.”
Jack dressed slowly. Kyle became aware that, at some point, the daisies had spilled and he was damp. When Jack was done, Kyle handed him his glasses, and he slipped them on, using both hands, like a child, to hook them over his ears. Then he stepped to the edge of their bed and went to the porch door, looking back around the threat of his father. His eyes met Kyle’s, wet, dark, apologizing. They spoke, soundlessly, things they’d said thousands of times.
Then he was gone.
Sheridan still faced Kyle, his fingers pulsing like vicious hearts. He grappled to find words to articulate his contempt.
Kyle looked at him, sadly, sad that it had come to this.
They’d been so happy.
Then Sheridan spat, savagely, with malicious prejudice in Kyle’s direction. But his aim was not true, and his saliva landed on the bed, amongst the soiled sheets.
Dana came by the next morning on her way to the farmers market. “What happened?” she asked as they stood in the foyer. She tentatively touched his mouth, which was swollen and red.
“I fell.” He said it without conviction. It was the lie he’d told his parents, who were in the kitchen. “Let’s go.” He pushed past her into the sharply clear morning.
“What did you fall on?” Dana asked as she slid behind the wheel of her car. She started the ignition and put it in reverse.
“Mr. Averill’s fist.”
She had turned to look out the rear window before it clicked. She stepped on the brake and turned back to him. “What!”
Kyle couldn’t help but smile, but it hurt his mouth so he stopped. “Mr. Averill walked in on me and Jack.”
Dana was horrified, her mouth the shape of an egg. “Do you mean—what do you mean?”
“Could you die?”
Dana didn’t think it was funny. She put the car in park. “He hit you?”
“Just once.”
“And that makes it all right?”
Kyle didn’t respond.
“What did he say?” Dana demanded.
He had to look away from her, out the window, to the willow and the sea. “He called me malignant.”
“What!”
His words were small and hurt. “He said I tainted Jack.” He swallowed heavily, then looked back at her. “I didn’t taint him.”
“Of course you didn’t! You did nothing wrong! He doesn’t understand that the basic principle of Christianity is to love.” She hesitated then gasped. “Did he hit Jack, too?”
“No. I think he’s safe.” He looked toward his house, feeling a sudden, surprising swell of shame. He felt like he’d failed at something he couldn’t name, something he hadn’t even known he’d been trying to achieve.
Dana watched him, wondering, waiting.
When it was clear he was going to offer nothing else, she put the car in reverse and backed onto the road.
“They’re gone,” Jack said that night, studiously chewing his cheek. They stood in Jack’s kitchen, Kyle’s arms around his waist. A purple dahlia had been plucked from Ann’s garden and rested on the counter beside a bag of groceries.
“Gone?”
“We came home last night and Dad was so upset he couldn’t talk to me. Then he got up early and spent the day on the boat. My mom seemed normal. I don’t know if he told her or what. When he came back, he wasn’t feeling well, so my mom took him to the mainland.” Jack unknotted himself from Kyle’s arms, then turned back, hugging his own torso like he hadn’t realized he’d miss Kyle’s warmth. He let loose a heavy breath. “I’m afraid.”
His words hung in the air before Kyle reached out a confident hand. “I’m sure it’ll be fine.”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean?”
“He was really upset.”
“Jack. He’ll be fine. And we will be, too.”
Jack took Kyle’s hand and pulled him to his side, nesting his face in Kyle’s hair. He breathed deeply of his scent, salty and clean. “So what did you bring me to eat?”
They made cheeseburgers in the kitchen, because, surprisingly, the evening was too brisk to grill on the deck. Kyle stood watch over the sizzling meat as Jack sliced cheese and tomatoes. A firefly crawled up the screen, flashing, on, off, on, off. Outside, the wind violated the slumber of the leaves, bringing with it the sober reminder of autumn. And Kyle couldn’t help but let a trickle of Jack’s apprehension scuttle through him. He discreetly rapped his knuckles on the wooden counter as Jack leaned in front of him, placing cheese slices on the hamburger patties. The grease popped and spattered in the skillet, hitting the gas flame with a hot, violent ssssssss.
* * * *
Violet phoned. Sheridan would be in the hospital overnight but would be fine.
They would stay on the mainland until Sunday.
They ate in the living room, talking little. Afterward, they lay on the sofa, one at either end. Neither got up to turn on a lamp, so the only light they had came from the flickering images of the television, dancing over their faces like taunts.
During a commercial break, Kyle carried their plates into the kitchen. Jack rose and went to the window, pulling the cord of the blind. It dropped with a warning hiss and nerve-tightening clatter, and, not realizing he was on edge, Kyle jumped, the plates crashing to the floor.
They were living in suspense.
From the balcony they could hear the eerie tinkling of wind chimes.
“It’s almost September.” Jack went to the deck and slid the door shut, locking it with a wooden tok!
The hiss of static from the television was like the high whisper of ghosts, the light of whose images pulled and clawed vainly at Jack’s and Kyle’s slumbering forms. They lay together, facing the TV, Kyle’s arms around Jack, protecting him from falling into the void.
* * * *
The next day they slept in, ate a late breakfast, and sat on the deck in the stark white sun, the purple dahlia fading on the table between them. A sudden dry warmth, after the cool of the night, made them slothful and dull.
They dozed.
Later, Jack still dreaming, Kyle stood and pulled his shirt over his head and descended to the beach, the blazing sun so intense he felt like a mirage. He did a hopping walk on the blistering sand then broke the surface of the water so smoothly he left no trace.
As the sun began to set into a bleached horizon, Kyle leaned on the rail of the balcony, looking toward the place where the sea met the sky, the water stony in the light. A fog was moving in, slowly encroaching on their kingdom. Mimosa he had never noticed had bloomed, seemingly overnight, its rich pink pom-poms loud in the bleakness of the day.
He stood, not thinking of anything in particular. It was an in-between time. He felt like a ghost, or a fetus.
Then he heard his name. He turned to find Jack standing at the door behind him. Jack looked at him for a very long time, like he was affirming, remembering, memorizing.
“Puss?”
Jack joined him at the railing and took one of his hands in his own. “I just wanted to be sure of you.”
“Will this be what it’s like when we’re thirty?” Jack asked as he and Kyle stood before the bathroom mirror that night. He had on a white cotton nightshirt and held a toothbrush. Kyle was shirtless and brushing. In response to the question, Kyle just showed his teeth, foam dribbling down his chin, leaving a trail of white ooze.
They slept in Jack’s bed, the windows open, the moon full.
Kyle awoke from a light sleep in the night, wondering if it weren’t too still without the ticking of the clock at the McAllister house.
He waited for unconsciousness to overtake him again, but when it didn’t, he slipped out of bed and went, naked, past the wild grass, to the cool, damp sand. He slipped into the water’s chill and swam out deep, to where a light mist hovered above the surface, immersing himself in the sparkling brine.
It took a moment to get used to the underwater sounds before he heard it. It was the first time he’d been aware of the beating of his heart. It was like a drum, insistent as time. So conscious of it, he could feel it at the pulse points in his wrists, his neck, his feet. It made him feel both powerful and tenuous.
And then he missed Jack.
He broke the surface and swam with steady strokes back to the shore, where he turned his face, smoothly unyielding, toward the sky. “You can’t have him yet, you know,” he said evenly, the water forceless at his side. He did not smile. “You can’t have him yet.”
Then he returned to his lover, his hair ratty from the salt of the sea. He snuggled into him, their legs tangling like roots. Jack’s back formed into Kyle’s chest, their hearts aligned, and they were still.
Kyle awoke at ten.
The overcast morning was shockingly bright and cool, the smothering heat of the previous day gone. Jack stood at the screen door, chewing his cheek. There were small, dark pouches beneath his eyes, an intimation of misgiving in the set of his mouth. He looked small framed in the door, the sterling sky and the aqua sea battling for precedence behind him. The purple dahlia had languished and lay withering on the bureau.
Today they come back, Kyle thought.
He propped himself up, the brown of his flesh in sharp contrast with the white ocean of sheets. He grinned, his bruise small enough now to be puckish. “Hey, stallion,” he said in his best come-hither voice. “Want a ride?”
Jack turned and gave a bittersweet smile, the sweet winning out because he was happy Kyle was awake and they were together again.
They hung there for a second, enjoying their connection.
Then Jack climbed back into bed, settling into Kyle, and Kyle rested his chin on his shoulder, his breath hot in his ear. Jack was as delicately thin as he’d been at the beginning of the season, but now he had the color of health, the maturity of self-confidence, his gangliness, his awkwardness gone.
And Kyle had been justified.
At that moment, they were more themselves, no pretenses, no bartering, than they had ever been.
It was a moment of clarity, but it was a quiet moment, and they slept.
Jack awoke suddenly but not abruptly. The sky had turned a whiter shade of gray. Wind whistled through the screens. The air was cooler. The clock on the nightstand read 1:18.
He nestled back into Kyle’s arms and slept.
Kyle roused himself around 3:30. Jack was already sitting up in bed and looking out at the leaden afternoon. The room was chilled and Jack’s skin was rippled with gooseflesh. Kyle leaned up, kissing the underside of his arm.
Jack looked down at him. “Smell that mimosa.”
“How long have you been awake?”
“Twenty minutes or so.”
They watched the sea in silence.
Then Kyle squirmed out of bed and closed the sliding glass door. “I’ll get ready.”
When he was done, Kyle sat in the living room, hands folded in his lap, massaging the white stone he carried like a talisman. They hadn’t discussed what to do when Jack’s parents returned, both having thought of it tirelessly, yet each had reached the conclusion that Jack should face them alone.
Ten minutes passed before Jack descended the stairs. He went to the rear of the sofa and rested his hands on Kyle’s shoulders. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”
Kyle turned around, kneeling on the couch, eyes level with Jack’s sternum.
“I’m not compromising.” Jack pulled him close. “That’s how I know we’ll win.”
Head against Jack’s chest, Kyle could hear the heartbeat that caged him in.
It made him sad.
He gave him a tight squeeze, then got up and went to the door.
“I love you, Kyle Ryan Quinn.” Jack’s voice made him hesitate. “You’re a watermark on my life.”
Kyle turned back, then stepped closer to touch the ring that hung around Jack’s neck. “The Pretty Time is just beginning. We have tomorrow. And the day after that. And the day after that…” He trailed off, but Jack didn’t pick up the line. Instead, he gave Kyle a pained smile, his eyes glassy and sparkling and wet.
“There won’t be anymore saltwater kisses.” Jack was crying, hard.
“I love you,” Kyle said.
Jack’s tears were hacking and fierce.
“I love you,” Kyle said again.
And he left.
Kyle spent part of the evening with Dana, playing chess.
She won all four games.
Afterward, they went for a drive, Dana smoking behind the wheel.
The moon was nonexistent.
Dana dropped him off at home with a kiss.
He went to bed early and was still reading when he fell asleep atop the covers, the light burning, radio playing low. He dreamed he was fighting his way through inky blackness, to a surface, to light, to air. It wasn’t a frantic, drowning feeling, but slow and warm, like he was being asphyxiated with kindness, or like he was being born.
He struggled and strove to attain freedom, to find peace, but when he finally burst out of the dark, the new world was so traumatizing that his eyes snapped open, his lungs gasped for air, and he was filled with a frantic wanting to return to the womb.
It had been the true peace.
Then he heard a rap on the door, giving him a start. Jack stood on the deck in a navy windbreaker. The night had turned stormy.
Kyle got up and pushed open the sliding glass door, reality taking hold again. He was grateful that his father naturally slept so soundly, and that his mother did so pharmaceutically.
He stepped outside and Jack wrapped his arms so tightly around his neck, Kyle felt suffocated, giving him a whiff of his dream in a flash of feeling. He held him close, his little body shaking like a frightened bird’s. “Puss,” he soothed. “You’re here. You’re safe. What happened?”
“You’re going to think I’m stupid.”
“Don’t be cracked. I would never—”
Jack turned away. “Nothing happened. They came home, my dad seemed okay, we had dinner. I tried to bring it up while we were eating, but my father said they’d decided to deal with it.”
A grin split Kyle’s face. “That means we’re golden.”
Jack took up the ring that rested on his chest. “Maybe.” Something’s going to happen… was a vocal ellipsis. “It plucks at me.”
“Oh, you.”
“Don’t patronize me.”
“I’m not.” He squeezed Jack’s hands as if verification of his sincerity.
Jack gave him a limpid look in which the blue of his eyes caught the light at just the right angle so that they became translucent, depthless, and Kyle felt like he was being pulled into them, sucked deeper and deeper by an undertow, like a slow-moving vacuum, until there was nothing but blue. And he felt safe. And he was unafraid. And he knew then that Jack was his womb.
And then Jack began to cry. He put his face in his hands and wept, his body shaking with visceral despair. He let forth a lonesome, wounded sob that seared Kyle’s memory and would come to torment him like memories of war.
He was at a complete loss. He realized he could dispel darkness from every aspect of Jack’s life except where it reached into superstition.
It left him helpless.
So he took him in his arms again and murmured nothingness, hoping just his presence would salve. “Puss. Don’t. Please don’t cry. I love you. I love you. I love you.” He knew nothing else to say, so he said it over and over, a mantra, until the words ceased to have meaning and they were only sounds, like a language he could speak but not understand. He was frustrated that I love you was everything. It needed more letters, more syllables, more resonance to reflect its power. Love was soft and kind and warm, but it didn’t convey the truth, the conviction, the majesty, the glory, the freedom, the profoundness it also contained. Such a small word seemed inadequate to bear such weight.
When Jack’s emotions subsided, he said, urgently, his voice raw, “You know I love you, right?”
“Of course, but don’t say it like that. Like you’re making sure I know for future reference.”
Jack gave a pained, poignant smile. “I don’t remember a time before us. Only us.” Cool autumn wind shifted around them. “Tell me, King Kyle. How many years would you have to go back to change your destiny?”
His lips were puffy, his eyes red, his face anguished. But he was the most resplendent thing Kyle had ever known or imagined.
“I can’t wait to grow old with you.” He kissed him, tenderly, then fiercely and a little desperately. Then they broke apart, and he leaned his forehead to Jack’s, and they shut their eyes, staying that way for many heartbeats.
“I have to go,” Jack whispered too soon, the fear of the imminent in his eyes. “They might discover I’ve gone.”
“They don’t know?”
“I had to see you.”
The wood of the deck was cold beneath Kyle’s feet. The surf roiled. The wind hissed, seething through the willow’s boughs. A mist had descended on the island. Both of them looked in the direction of Jack’s house. Kyle put his arms around Jack from behind, nuzzling his face in his neck. Jack rested his hands on Kyle’s forearms, leaning back into his strength. He breathed deeply. “I’m very afraid.”
