“Alright, I
feel like we should be very clear about the fact that you are my least favorite
friend.” Everything I’m saying comes out all at once, in one big, breathless
rush, because this goddamn couch must
weigh at least a ton, and I’m the one who’s really supporting most of the
weight.
Alex rolls his eyes at me and kicks the apartment door back open. “You don’t have many friends anyway, so it’s not like I’m that far down the list. And hey, we made it up the stairs, so we’re already past the hardest part. Can you just shift like, six inches back? I’m having trouble bringing the front end around.”
“How wide do you think this hallway is?” I demand as I somehow wind up wedged between the end of the couch and the wall. For that, Alex jams the couch a little harder into my ribs, and we eventually manage to force our way through the front door. Getting through the foyer is just as difficult, but once we’ve cleared that, getting into the living room is easy. Once everything is properly positioned against the wall, I collapse on the couch, spreading out and burying my face in the cushions. “Couldn’t you have asked someone else to help you move in?”
“Like who?” Alex snorts. “Ben?”
“Uh, yeah, considering he’s the one who’s actually going to be living here with you,” I say. As soon as the words have left my mouth, I wish I hadn’t said anything. Now all I can picture is Ben and Alex hanging out in their new apartment, Ben and Alex curling up in front of their incredibly cool fireplace to do their homework together, Ben and Alex eating dinner every night like an old married couple, Ben and Alex realizing they’re meant to be together, getting married with me as Ben’s best man, and eventually adopting some too-cute baby from a third-world country.
Alex sprawls out on the armchair across from me. “No offense to him, but he wouldn’t exactly have been much help. I doubt he could even lift half the boxes that needed to be brought up. It was a lot easier to just put him on grocery and school supply detail.”
“Ugh, please don’t remind me that the new school-year starts soon. I’ve got what, three weeks left of break?” I grumble.
“Something like that, yeah. But at least you’re a senior now. Finally,” he replies. After a moment in which I can feel him watching at me, trying to preemptively gauge my reaction, he adds, “You know what Garen’s plans are for the year? He was technically expelled from Lakewood High, so—”
“No idea,” I interrupt. “I haven’t talked to him since you guys pretty much blackmailed me into visiting him last week, and obviously Bill’s not living with us anymore, so… I’m not sure. I think he might just repeat his senior year at LHS, because going back to Patton would probably be a disaster. It’s not like it would be difficult for him to get drugs there.”
“I guess,” Alex sighs, standing up. “Ready to help me actually unpack everything we’ve been carting up here all day?”
I groan in protest but roll off the couch anyway and follow him out to the kitchen. There are at least half a dozen boxes, each one full of dishes, cutlery, pots, or pans. Alex shrugs and nudges one of the boxes with the toe of his sneaker. “I guess you can just start putting these in the cabinets under the counters. I still need to set up the television and everything, so if you need me for anything, just yell.”
Putting the dishes away winds up being more of a process than I’d anticipated. The apartment has been vacant for so long that a thin layer of grime has coated the inside of the cabinets. I may not be thrilled with the idea of Ben and Alex shacking up together just because they happen to have chosen colleges in the same city, but that doesn’t mean I want to make them eat off of dirty dishes; I sit down on the floor with a sponge and a bottle of spray cleaner, then set to work on scrubbing down all of the shelves.
By the time I’m even halfway done, my arm is cramping up, and I’m feeling a little light-headed from the fumes. Maybe that’s why, brushing the sweaty hair off my forehead, I call, “Hey, Alex?”
There’s a sudden blaring of static from the half-assembled television system, followed by a muttered stream of curses, then, “What’s up, man?”
“You think it’s going to be weird for you, living with Ben like this?” I ask. There’s a brief pause, then Alex appears in the doorway.
“Why?” he asks. “Because I’m in love with him?”
I nod. “Yeah. And because he’s… not yours.”
Alex shrugs. “I’m pretty used to it by now. The kid’s been the man of my dreams since before I was even okay with the idea of having a ‘man of my dreams.’ But it’s never been like that for him, and I know it. Between catching glimpses of hickies and claw marks down his back, courtesy of that asshole, Ethan, and washing the sex-sheets in my own guest room after he and Garen first slept together last year, and, you know, pretty much four months of watching you two just fall harder and harder for each other…”
I feel a twist of guilt in my gut. I knew. Since April, since the day he started sulking in the tuxedo shop, I knew something was going on. And I shouldn’t have thrown it in his face. “I’m sorry.”
Alex, however, simply shrugs. “I’m used to it. And honestly, I stopped lying to myself ages ago. Ben and I will never happen. It sucks, and I wish things were different, but whatever. I’m in the friend zone.”
He’s saying it’s okay, but it’s so clearly not. In what might be the worst attempt at cheering someone up ever, I say quickly, “On the bright side, not having a shot with Ben means you have the chance to date James Goldwyn, who is… probably the closest a man can get to being a god without being crucified.”
Alex laughs a little at that, rubbing the back of his neck and staring at the floor, like that’ll make him stop blushing. “Yeah, Jamie’s cool.”
“Jamie?”
Another shrug. “It’s what he asked me to call him. He said that’s the name all his friends use for him.”
I don’t point out that I went to Patton to get James, that I met his friends, and not a single one called him anything but James. I don’t point out that only Garen calls him Jamie. “How serious are you guys? Like, has he met your family?”
“No, we’re not… I mean, he’s not my boyfriend, or whatever. We’ve hung out, we’ve hooked up, but we’re not together. I told you that. And he’s sure as hell not meeting my family. My dad would kill me if he knew I’d even kissed another boy, let alone fucked one, and my mom…” He falters and takes a short step backward, as if to flee to the comfort and solitude of the living room.
“I know,” I say softly. “I heard she uh, passed away a few years ago.”
Alex freezes. “Who told you that? Ben? No, I—he wouldn’t, he knows enough t-to keep his fucking mouth shut about her, so come on, tell me—”
“Jeremy told me at prom. I’m sorry, I didn’t—”
“My mom’s not dead. Not that I know of, anyway,” Alex says shortly. “Look, we’re going to have this conversation once, and then we’re never going to talk about it again. Do you understand me?”
“Yes,” I say immediately.
He crosses his arms and leans against the doorframe. “My parents are disasters. My father is a drunk, my mother was a heroin junkie. They had a violent and volatile marriage—always screaming that the other had to get clean or sober up, while simultaneously denying their own problems. Then, when I was about ten, maybe nine, my mom bailed. I haven’t seen her since. I don’t even… I mean, my mom could be dead, and I don’t even know. I don’t think I’ll ever know.”
I’m not sure what to say, so I stand up, cross the kitchen, and loop an arm around his neck, dragging him forward into an incredibly awkward hug. He must need it, though, because he reaches around to clutch the back of my t-shirt with both hands. “I-I’m sorry, god, I’m such a little bitch. I just, I don’t talk about her, ever. Ben and Jer and Mason all knew me back when it happened, so I never had to really tell them everything, because they saw it in action, but my dad won’t talk about her, I don’t talk about her.”
The ache of his semi-permanent silence hits me harder than I expect, because I know what it feels like. I know how it must have been killing him not to talk about it, even if actually saying the words might have killed him faster, because that’s the story of my life, the story of my self-injury, the story of my overdose, the story of my time in the institution. I can’t talk about it, but I can’t not talk about it. “I get it, Alex. Really.”
“It’s too big, it’s too much to go into for someone who I barely know. So I’m sure as hell not going to tell James. By the time I’m even willing to mention her, he’ll probably have found someone else to screw around with. That’s how he is, you know?”
I can’t help but laugh. “Yeah. Yeah, I know.”
Out in the foyer, the front door clicks open and Ben’s voice drifts in. “Hey, Al. I think we’re going to have to become vegans. The closest grocery store is a healthy, organic, hippie-infested—” He stops talking as he rounds the corner and catches sight of me.
Alex extracts himself from my arms and edges around Ben, muttering, “I can go get the rest of the stuff out of your car.”
“You didn’t tell me you were inviting him over,” Ben says, setting the two bags he’s carrying down on the counter.
From the foyer, Alex clears his throat. “I could say the same to you, dude.” He drops his voice to a low murmur, and for a moment, I wonder who he’s talking to. Then, Ben steps forward and wraps his hand around my wrist.
“I didn’t realize you were going to be coming over to help us set stuff up, or else I wouldn’t have—”
“Shit’s about to get awkward,” Alex breathes, returning to the kitchen with another two bags of groceries. I stare at the doorway, waiting, waiting, waiting…
When Garen rounds the corner with the last few bags of groceries, I’m not even that surprised. I knew his sixty-day rehab adventure would be ending any day now, but it’s still a little strange to find myself staring at him in the middle of the new apartment, especially since he looks… different. Healthier, bigger, like he looked when I first met him. His hair is flat-ironed and spiked – as I’ve always thought it should be – and he is dressed in typical Garen apparel; plain green t-shirt, dark denim jeans, and his combat boots, still missing their laces. I’m a little surprised to see that his lip is still pierced on the right side, as if he left rehab and went right out to get it re-pierced. Just like the day I visited him in rehab, he doesn’t meet my eyes for a while, choosing instead to head directly to the counter to set down the bags. After one, two, three minutes of awkward silence, he finally spins to face me and smiles, almost too brightly. “Hey, man. What’s up?”
“Uh, not too much. How ‘bout you? When’d you leave the LRC?” I ask.
“I was released a couple of hours ago. My dad picked me up and brought me home to the new house, up on Longman Road. Then Ben called and asked if I wanted to come, you know, hang out, help them move, all that stuff. I didn’t realize you’d be here, or I would’ve said no.” I make a face, and he laughs a little. “Not because I don’t want to see you. I just don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”
“If I’d known Alex had brought you over, I…” Ben trails off, looking vaguely upset. “I guess he and I should’ve talked about—”
“Stop being idiots, all three of you!” Alex bursts out. “Look, Ben, you and I live together. You don’t have to ask my permission to invite somebody over, and I don’t have to ask yours before I do the same. Garen, everybody knows you fucked up, okay? It’s not like we’re all surprised that you just got out of rehab. But that doesn’t mean you need to act all apologetic every time you come around, because seriously, we’re over it. And if any of us aren’t over it, we don’t have to interact with you. Travis, if you’re going to keep hanging out with Ben and I, you should be prepared to hang with Garen. He’s been our friend for almost a year now, and I’m…” He hesitates, glancing at Garen, and I can already hear the words he won’t say. I’m with his best friend.
I nod sharply, just once to show him that he doesn’t need to say it. “Got it. Fine with me.”
“Great. Now, sit your punk-ass back on that floor and finish putting my dishes away. Garen, can you help me hook up the TV? There are about sixty wires, and I’m close to hanging myself with one of them,” Alex says, leading Garen back out into the hallway and down to the living room.
Ben immediately turns towards me again and steps forward, maybe closer than he should. I can’t help but remember that the last time saw him, he was kissing me goodbye. “I really am sorry. I wasn’t trying to cause problems for anyone.”
“Shut up,” I say. “Like Alex said, it’s fine. We’ll all deal, everything will work itself out. Do you want help putting away the groceries?”
He shakes his head, and we both get to work on our respective tasks. Within twenty minutes, we are both finished, and Ben sinks down onto the floor next to me. “Want something to drink?”
“Sure,” I say, dragging my sleeve across my forehead. They must not have bothered to put in the air conditioner yet, because the apartment is boiling.
Ben reaches over and pops open the fridge. “We’ve got water, orange juice, beer, Snapple, milk.”
“I don’t care, I’ll take whatever’s closest to the front,” I say. He grabs something at random – a bottle of Corona – and stretches a little further to grab himself a bottle of Snapple. It feels incredibly strange to be sprawled on the floor of my ex-boyfriend’s apartment, drinking a beer in the middle of the afternoon. “You excited to start college soon?”
Ben snorts. “More like apprehensive. I mean, have you walked around this city? We’re about ten minutes away from the Yale campus, and the people walking around there are… I don’t know. I can already tell that they’re going to all think they’re better than me, and they’re probably going to be right.”
I elbow him. “No, they won’t be. Shut up. You’re amazing.”
“You glad to finally be a senior over at Lakewood?” he asks, ignoring my comment.
I shake my head. “Honesty, it feels like starting over. Corey’s the only guy in my grade who I still talk to. Well, I guess Garen counts too, if he goes back. But I’m a completely different person than who I was a year ago, and I’m not sure how to process that.”
Ben shifts around so that he is sitting in front of me, facing me, our knees touching. “Would you take it all back if you could?”
“No,” I say, and he kisses me. Of course he does. My life is a trainwreck, and none of the guys I know can keep it in their pants, and everyone in this apartment has made out with everyone else in this apartment – except Alex and Garen, but fuck if I know what they’re doing in the next room. The kiss is brief, and there isn’t any heat behind it; I wonder if this is what it’s like when he kisses Alex, a simple, supposedly meaningless kiss between good friends. He stands and offers me a hand up, which I accept. We enter the living room just as the television set-up is being finalized. Alex is sitting on the couch with his feet propped up on the coffee table, and Garen is half-wedged behind the television. When it flickers to life and a soap opera starts playing out on the screen, he twists his way to freedom and throws his hands up in the air, proclaiming, “Suck it, dudes.”
“They have,” Alex points out. I flop down on the couch next to him, and he steals my beer and takes a swig. That continues for a few minutes, the bottle passing back and forth between us, until I finally glance up at Garen. He is standing stock still, his eyes locked on the bottle in my hand, his head cocked to the side. Just as I’m about to get up and throw it out, if only to stop him from staring at it with that expression on his face, he turns and heads swiftly towards the kitchen.
“Ben, you mind if I have one of your Snapples?” he asks.
“Not at all,” Ben replies, dropping down onto the couch on Alex’s other side. When Garen returns, he snags the remote off the coffee table and sprawls out lengthwise across all of our laps.
“Jesus, Gare, you trying to crush my nuts with your skull?” I demand, shifting a little under him. He ignores me and starts flipping through the channels, finally settling on VH1’s Behind the Music.
I expect us to all fall into silence, but then Garen mutes the television and says, “So, my dad wants to have some cook-out thing. I guess it’s to welcome me back from LRC, but um… yeah. It’s tomorrow afternoon, around four. None of you have to come, if you don’t want, but I can give you the address, just in case.” His eyes are focused on the Snapple bottle cap, which he has removed and is pressing the safety seal of over and over to create a tiny clicking noise.
“I’ll go, assuming Mom doesn’t try to make me babysit,” Ben says. “Who else is going?”
“Dunno,” Garen says with a shrug. “Dad said I should invite Jeremy and Mason, but I don’t really know if I want to, honestly. Neither of them bothered to visit me while I was in rehab, so I doubt they care that much now that I’m out. But Jamie flew back up from Georgia this week to move into his new place in Manhattan anyway, so he’s going to take the train down for the day. And I also invited Andrew, Rob, and Drew. You guys can bring whoever you want, too.”
“Would you mind if I brought my sister?” I ask slowly. “I think she’d like to see you again.”
“Of course she can come. Last time she saw me, I was trying to shoot myself in the face, so I’d like to replace that last impression, if possible,” Garen replies.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Alex slip his phone out of his pocket, check his text message inbox, and tap out a reply to one. When he catches me staring at him, he rolls his eyes and tips it so I can see. he’s @ my new apartment right now, just invited me. can’t wait 2 see u 2, jamie. I snort, and whisper, as softly as I can, “‘Not together,’ yeah fucking right.”
“I hate you, Travis, get off my couch,” Alex orders.
“We’re not on your couch. We’re on Ben’s couch,” Garen says. “What’s going on? What are you guys talking about?”
“Nothing,” I say, trying to smother a grin as Alex digs his elbow back into my side. “Listen, do you want us to bring anything tomorrow?”
“A few handles of liquor and a brick of cocaine,” Garen says. Ben punches him hard in the thigh, and Garen just grins at him. “What, too soon?”
“I think it will always be too soon,” Ben grumbles. But for the first time in ages, Garen looks to be actually okay.
I brush his hair off his forehead, steal a sip of his Snapple, and unmute the television. “Sorry, Garen. I’m not sure you can have a post-rehab party and actually attempt to justify the presence of the substances you’ve supposedly stopped abusing.”
Garen reaches back to tangle his fingers with mine on the arm of the couch and hums. “Eh, well, can’t have everything.”
Yeah, I think to myself, sometimes you can.
Previous Chapter
Alex rolls his eyes at me and kicks the apartment door back open. “You don’t have many friends anyway, so it’s not like I’m that far down the list. And hey, we made it up the stairs, so we’re already past the hardest part. Can you just shift like, six inches back? I’m having trouble bringing the front end around.”
“How wide do you think this hallway is?” I demand as I somehow wind up wedged between the end of the couch and the wall. For that, Alex jams the couch a little harder into my ribs, and we eventually manage to force our way through the front door. Getting through the foyer is just as difficult, but once we’ve cleared that, getting into the living room is easy. Once everything is properly positioned against the wall, I collapse on the couch, spreading out and burying my face in the cushions. “Couldn’t you have asked someone else to help you move in?”
“Like who?” Alex snorts. “Ben?”
“Uh, yeah, considering he’s the one who’s actually going to be living here with you,” I say. As soon as the words have left my mouth, I wish I hadn’t said anything. Now all I can picture is Ben and Alex hanging out in their new apartment, Ben and Alex curling up in front of their incredibly cool fireplace to do their homework together, Ben and Alex eating dinner every night like an old married couple, Ben and Alex realizing they’re meant to be together, getting married with me as Ben’s best man, and eventually adopting some too-cute baby from a third-world country.
Alex sprawls out on the armchair across from me. “No offense to him, but he wouldn’t exactly have been much help. I doubt he could even lift half the boxes that needed to be brought up. It was a lot easier to just put him on grocery and school supply detail.”
“Ugh, please don’t remind me that the new school-year starts soon. I’ve got what, three weeks left of break?” I grumble.
“Something like that, yeah. But at least you’re a senior now. Finally,” he replies. After a moment in which I can feel him watching at me, trying to preemptively gauge my reaction, he adds, “You know what Garen’s plans are for the year? He was technically expelled from Lakewood High, so—”
“No idea,” I interrupt. “I haven’t talked to him since you guys pretty much blackmailed me into visiting him last week, and obviously Bill’s not living with us anymore, so… I’m not sure. I think he might just repeat his senior year at LHS, because going back to Patton would probably be a disaster. It’s not like it would be difficult for him to get drugs there.”
“I guess,” Alex sighs, standing up. “Ready to help me actually unpack everything we’ve been carting up here all day?”
I groan in protest but roll off the couch anyway and follow him out to the kitchen. There are at least half a dozen boxes, each one full of dishes, cutlery, pots, or pans. Alex shrugs and nudges one of the boxes with the toe of his sneaker. “I guess you can just start putting these in the cabinets under the counters. I still need to set up the television and everything, so if you need me for anything, just yell.”
Putting the dishes away winds up being more of a process than I’d anticipated. The apartment has been vacant for so long that a thin layer of grime has coated the inside of the cabinets. I may not be thrilled with the idea of Ben and Alex shacking up together just because they happen to have chosen colleges in the same city, but that doesn’t mean I want to make them eat off of dirty dishes; I sit down on the floor with a sponge and a bottle of spray cleaner, then set to work on scrubbing down all of the shelves.
By the time I’m even halfway done, my arm is cramping up, and I’m feeling a little light-headed from the fumes. Maybe that’s why, brushing the sweaty hair off my forehead, I call, “Hey, Alex?”
There’s a sudden blaring of static from the half-assembled television system, followed by a muttered stream of curses, then, “What’s up, man?”
“You think it’s going to be weird for you, living with Ben like this?” I ask. There’s a brief pause, then Alex appears in the doorway.
“Why?” he asks. “Because I’m in love with him?”
I nod. “Yeah. And because he’s… not yours.”
Alex shrugs. “I’m pretty used to it by now. The kid’s been the man of my dreams since before I was even okay with the idea of having a ‘man of my dreams.’ But it’s never been like that for him, and I know it. Between catching glimpses of hickies and claw marks down his back, courtesy of that asshole, Ethan, and washing the sex-sheets in my own guest room after he and Garen first slept together last year, and, you know, pretty much four months of watching you two just fall harder and harder for each other…”
I feel a twist of guilt in my gut. I knew. Since April, since the day he started sulking in the tuxedo shop, I knew something was going on. And I shouldn’t have thrown it in his face. “I’m sorry.”
Alex, however, simply shrugs. “I’m used to it. And honestly, I stopped lying to myself ages ago. Ben and I will never happen. It sucks, and I wish things were different, but whatever. I’m in the friend zone.”
He’s saying it’s okay, but it’s so clearly not. In what might be the worst attempt at cheering someone up ever, I say quickly, “On the bright side, not having a shot with Ben means you have the chance to date James Goldwyn, who is… probably the closest a man can get to being a god without being crucified.”
Alex laughs a little at that, rubbing the back of his neck and staring at the floor, like that’ll make him stop blushing. “Yeah, Jamie’s cool.”
“Jamie?”
Another shrug. “It’s what he asked me to call him. He said that’s the name all his friends use for him.”
I don’t point out that I went to Patton to get James, that I met his friends, and not a single one called him anything but James. I don’t point out that only Garen calls him Jamie. “How serious are you guys? Like, has he met your family?”
“No, we’re not… I mean, he’s not my boyfriend, or whatever. We’ve hung out, we’ve hooked up, but we’re not together. I told you that. And he’s sure as hell not meeting my family. My dad would kill me if he knew I’d even kissed another boy, let alone fucked one, and my mom…” He falters and takes a short step backward, as if to flee to the comfort and solitude of the living room.
“I know,” I say softly. “I heard she uh, passed away a few years ago.”
Alex freezes. “Who told you that? Ben? No, I—he wouldn’t, he knows enough t-to keep his fucking mouth shut about her, so come on, tell me—”
“Jeremy told me at prom. I’m sorry, I didn’t—”
“My mom’s not dead. Not that I know of, anyway,” Alex says shortly. “Look, we’re going to have this conversation once, and then we’re never going to talk about it again. Do you understand me?”
“Yes,” I say immediately.
He crosses his arms and leans against the doorframe. “My parents are disasters. My father is a drunk, my mother was a heroin junkie. They had a violent and volatile marriage—always screaming that the other had to get clean or sober up, while simultaneously denying their own problems. Then, when I was about ten, maybe nine, my mom bailed. I haven’t seen her since. I don’t even… I mean, my mom could be dead, and I don’t even know. I don’t think I’ll ever know.”
I’m not sure what to say, so I stand up, cross the kitchen, and loop an arm around his neck, dragging him forward into an incredibly awkward hug. He must need it, though, because he reaches around to clutch the back of my t-shirt with both hands. “I-I’m sorry, god, I’m such a little bitch. I just, I don’t talk about her, ever. Ben and Jer and Mason all knew me back when it happened, so I never had to really tell them everything, because they saw it in action, but my dad won’t talk about her, I don’t talk about her.”
The ache of his semi-permanent silence hits me harder than I expect, because I know what it feels like. I know how it must have been killing him not to talk about it, even if actually saying the words might have killed him faster, because that’s the story of my life, the story of my self-injury, the story of my overdose, the story of my time in the institution. I can’t talk about it, but I can’t not talk about it. “I get it, Alex. Really.”
“It’s too big, it’s too much to go into for someone who I barely know. So I’m sure as hell not going to tell James. By the time I’m even willing to mention her, he’ll probably have found someone else to screw around with. That’s how he is, you know?”
I can’t help but laugh. “Yeah. Yeah, I know.”
Out in the foyer, the front door clicks open and Ben’s voice drifts in. “Hey, Al. I think we’re going to have to become vegans. The closest grocery store is a healthy, organic, hippie-infested—” He stops talking as he rounds the corner and catches sight of me.
Alex extracts himself from my arms and edges around Ben, muttering, “I can go get the rest of the stuff out of your car.”
“You didn’t tell me you were inviting him over,” Ben says, setting the two bags he’s carrying down on the counter.
From the foyer, Alex clears his throat. “I could say the same to you, dude.” He drops his voice to a low murmur, and for a moment, I wonder who he’s talking to. Then, Ben steps forward and wraps his hand around my wrist.
“I didn’t realize you were going to be coming over to help us set stuff up, or else I wouldn’t have—”
“Shit’s about to get awkward,” Alex breathes, returning to the kitchen with another two bags of groceries. I stare at the doorway, waiting, waiting, waiting…
When Garen rounds the corner with the last few bags of groceries, I’m not even that surprised. I knew his sixty-day rehab adventure would be ending any day now, but it’s still a little strange to find myself staring at him in the middle of the new apartment, especially since he looks… different. Healthier, bigger, like he looked when I first met him. His hair is flat-ironed and spiked – as I’ve always thought it should be – and he is dressed in typical Garen apparel; plain green t-shirt, dark denim jeans, and his combat boots, still missing their laces. I’m a little surprised to see that his lip is still pierced on the right side, as if he left rehab and went right out to get it re-pierced. Just like the day I visited him in rehab, he doesn’t meet my eyes for a while, choosing instead to head directly to the counter to set down the bags. After one, two, three minutes of awkward silence, he finally spins to face me and smiles, almost too brightly. “Hey, man. What’s up?”
“Uh, not too much. How ‘bout you? When’d you leave the LRC?” I ask.
“I was released a couple of hours ago. My dad picked me up and brought me home to the new house, up on Longman Road. Then Ben called and asked if I wanted to come, you know, hang out, help them move, all that stuff. I didn’t realize you’d be here, or I would’ve said no.” I make a face, and he laughs a little. “Not because I don’t want to see you. I just don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”
“If I’d known Alex had brought you over, I…” Ben trails off, looking vaguely upset. “I guess he and I should’ve talked about—”
“Stop being idiots, all three of you!” Alex bursts out. “Look, Ben, you and I live together. You don’t have to ask my permission to invite somebody over, and I don’t have to ask yours before I do the same. Garen, everybody knows you fucked up, okay? It’s not like we’re all surprised that you just got out of rehab. But that doesn’t mean you need to act all apologetic every time you come around, because seriously, we’re over it. And if any of us aren’t over it, we don’t have to interact with you. Travis, if you’re going to keep hanging out with Ben and I, you should be prepared to hang with Garen. He’s been our friend for almost a year now, and I’m…” He hesitates, glancing at Garen, and I can already hear the words he won’t say. I’m with his best friend.
I nod sharply, just once to show him that he doesn’t need to say it. “Got it. Fine with me.”
“Great. Now, sit your punk-ass back on that floor and finish putting my dishes away. Garen, can you help me hook up the TV? There are about sixty wires, and I’m close to hanging myself with one of them,” Alex says, leading Garen back out into the hallway and down to the living room.
Ben immediately turns towards me again and steps forward, maybe closer than he should. I can’t help but remember that the last time saw him, he was kissing me goodbye. “I really am sorry. I wasn’t trying to cause problems for anyone.”
“Shut up,” I say. “Like Alex said, it’s fine. We’ll all deal, everything will work itself out. Do you want help putting away the groceries?”
He shakes his head, and we both get to work on our respective tasks. Within twenty minutes, we are both finished, and Ben sinks down onto the floor next to me. “Want something to drink?”
“Sure,” I say, dragging my sleeve across my forehead. They must not have bothered to put in the air conditioner yet, because the apartment is boiling.
Ben reaches over and pops open the fridge. “We’ve got water, orange juice, beer, Snapple, milk.”
“I don’t care, I’ll take whatever’s closest to the front,” I say. He grabs something at random – a bottle of Corona – and stretches a little further to grab himself a bottle of Snapple. It feels incredibly strange to be sprawled on the floor of my ex-boyfriend’s apartment, drinking a beer in the middle of the afternoon. “You excited to start college soon?”
Ben snorts. “More like apprehensive. I mean, have you walked around this city? We’re about ten minutes away from the Yale campus, and the people walking around there are… I don’t know. I can already tell that they’re going to all think they’re better than me, and they’re probably going to be right.”
I elbow him. “No, they won’t be. Shut up. You’re amazing.”
“You glad to finally be a senior over at Lakewood?” he asks, ignoring my comment.
I shake my head. “Honesty, it feels like starting over. Corey’s the only guy in my grade who I still talk to. Well, I guess Garen counts too, if he goes back. But I’m a completely different person than who I was a year ago, and I’m not sure how to process that.”
Ben shifts around so that he is sitting in front of me, facing me, our knees touching. “Would you take it all back if you could?”
“No,” I say, and he kisses me. Of course he does. My life is a trainwreck, and none of the guys I know can keep it in their pants, and everyone in this apartment has made out with everyone else in this apartment – except Alex and Garen, but fuck if I know what they’re doing in the next room. The kiss is brief, and there isn’t any heat behind it; I wonder if this is what it’s like when he kisses Alex, a simple, supposedly meaningless kiss between good friends. He stands and offers me a hand up, which I accept. We enter the living room just as the television set-up is being finalized. Alex is sitting on the couch with his feet propped up on the coffee table, and Garen is half-wedged behind the television. When it flickers to life and a soap opera starts playing out on the screen, he twists his way to freedom and throws his hands up in the air, proclaiming, “Suck it, dudes.”
“They have,” Alex points out. I flop down on the couch next to him, and he steals my beer and takes a swig. That continues for a few minutes, the bottle passing back and forth between us, until I finally glance up at Garen. He is standing stock still, his eyes locked on the bottle in my hand, his head cocked to the side. Just as I’m about to get up and throw it out, if only to stop him from staring at it with that expression on his face, he turns and heads swiftly towards the kitchen.
“Ben, you mind if I have one of your Snapples?” he asks.
“Not at all,” Ben replies, dropping down onto the couch on Alex’s other side. When Garen returns, he snags the remote off the coffee table and sprawls out lengthwise across all of our laps.
“Jesus, Gare, you trying to crush my nuts with your skull?” I demand, shifting a little under him. He ignores me and starts flipping through the channels, finally settling on VH1’s Behind the Music.
I expect us to all fall into silence, but then Garen mutes the television and says, “So, my dad wants to have some cook-out thing. I guess it’s to welcome me back from LRC, but um… yeah. It’s tomorrow afternoon, around four. None of you have to come, if you don’t want, but I can give you the address, just in case.” His eyes are focused on the Snapple bottle cap, which he has removed and is pressing the safety seal of over and over to create a tiny clicking noise.
“I’ll go, assuming Mom doesn’t try to make me babysit,” Ben says. “Who else is going?”
“Dunno,” Garen says with a shrug. “Dad said I should invite Jeremy and Mason, but I don’t really know if I want to, honestly. Neither of them bothered to visit me while I was in rehab, so I doubt they care that much now that I’m out. But Jamie flew back up from Georgia this week to move into his new place in Manhattan anyway, so he’s going to take the train down for the day. And I also invited Andrew, Rob, and Drew. You guys can bring whoever you want, too.”
“Would you mind if I brought my sister?” I ask slowly. “I think she’d like to see you again.”
“Of course she can come. Last time she saw me, I was trying to shoot myself in the face, so I’d like to replace that last impression, if possible,” Garen replies.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Alex slip his phone out of his pocket, check his text message inbox, and tap out a reply to one. When he catches me staring at him, he rolls his eyes and tips it so I can see. he’s @ my new apartment right now, just invited me. can’t wait 2 see u 2, jamie. I snort, and whisper, as softly as I can, “‘Not together,’ yeah fucking right.”
“I hate you, Travis, get off my couch,” Alex orders.
“We’re not on your couch. We’re on Ben’s couch,” Garen says. “What’s going on? What are you guys talking about?”
“Nothing,” I say, trying to smother a grin as Alex digs his elbow back into my side. “Listen, do you want us to bring anything tomorrow?”
“A few handles of liquor and a brick of cocaine,” Garen says. Ben punches him hard in the thigh, and Garen just grins at him. “What, too soon?”
“I think it will always be too soon,” Ben grumbles. But for the first time in ages, Garen looks to be actually okay.
I brush his hair off his forehead, steal a sip of his Snapple, and unmute the television. “Sorry, Garen. I’m not sure you can have a post-rehab party and actually attempt to justify the presence of the substances you’ve supposedly stopped abusing.”
Garen reaches back to tangle his fingers with mine on the arm of the couch and hums. “Eh, well, can’t have everything.”
Yeah, I think to myself, sometimes you can.
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