When I come home from work around eight o’clock on the following Wednesday, I almost trip over Garen. He is lying in the middle of the entrance hall with his guitar, just like he was the first time I ever saw him, and when I glower down at him, he grins at me. “My finger splints came off today.”
“Congratulations,” I say, only a little sarcastically. Part of me wants to stomp on his hand and rebreak those fingers, just so he knows what it’s like to hurt for longer than five weeks. But another part of me looks at the guitar he’s holding so carefully, and thinks, fuck yeah, Garen.
He sits up, swinging his leg cast awkwardly in an attempt to cross his legs. The attempt fails, and he gives up, slumping against the wall instead. “Yeah. The thing that sucks, though, is that my fingers have been held straight for over a month now, so it’s like I’ve completely forgotten how to play guitar. I know all the chords, but my hand just won’t move like I want it to.”
I step over him and head for the kitchen to make myself a sandwich. “Well, you’ve got time to figure it out.”
“Not really,” he says, clambering to his feet and hobbling after me without his crutches. “I have a gig on Friday.”
He says it almost hopefully, and I decide it’s best to kill whatever ideas he has swimming around in his head right now. “I’m not going. Like, if you’re about to ask me if I’ll go, the answer is no.”
He laughs awkwardly, dragging a hand through his black hair. “You… kind of don’t have a choice? It’s at the Grind. I uh, told Jerry that it’d be cool to come back and play there again sometime, and he said I could do it on Friday. He said the customers really liked my music when I was there the first time.”
“Garen,” I say slowly, as calm as it’s possible for me to be under these circumstances, “I think you’re beginning to take this stalking to a whole new level. What part of ‘I have a boyfriend, I don’t like you, stop following me around’ is unclear?”
“It’s not about you!” Garen bursts out. “Look, if you want me to act normally, you have to let me get back into a routine of—”
“I gave up hope of you acting normally weeks ago,” I interrupt. “Seriously, I can’t believe that I’m the one who sees a therapist, when obviously you’re the one who’s batshit crazy. This is fucked up, okay? You need to stop this. You can’t keep talking to me like we’re friends, you can’t come to my place of work and act like it’s totally cool.”
“It’s not about you,” Garen repeats, though this time, his voice is weak.
I snort. “Oh, really? Then show me the songs you’re going to play.”
“Bite me,” Garen says. Like that could mean anything other than that I’m right. I abandon my half-made sandwich on the counter and stalk out to the den. Somehow, he has kept the room neat, which only makes it easier to find his music. The pages of lyrics are piled carefully on the piano bench, the corresponding sheet music stacked on his bed.
“Travis, stop!” Garen orders, lunging for the papers. I dodge him and flip through the pages until I find something that looks promising.
“There’s a ring on your finger that you wear so well, If you promise that you love me, then I promise I won’t tell.”
And that’s as far as I get before he tackles me, and we both crash to the floor.
“Give me the fucking papers!” he yells, scrambling for my hands. Fuck the papers, this is insane. I fling the papers across the room, and once he has gathered them up, we both stand, though he does so a little more slowly.
“You need to get your shit together,” I say slowly, my breath still coming in short bursts. “This is insane. This is inhuman. You need to stop doing this.”
“Every time I try to be normal around you, you just get mad at me!” Garen groans.
“Because you’re not trying to be normal. You’re trying to make things like they were when we first met, like you think you can just start all over, and I’ll forget about Ben like I forgot about Blaire. That’s not how this works. You don’t get to press ‘reset’ and act like the past six months haven’t happened, like you never left,” I say. He opens his mouth to speak, then flinches when I step towards him. That hurts a little, even now. I take the papers from his hands, and this time, he doesn’t fight back. “This needs to stop. I’m serious. It’s getting to the point where I don’t even know how to exist in this house with you. I’m so worried about setting you off, or bringing you down. You scare me, Garen.”
“I don’t mean to,” he says in a small voice.
“It doesn’t matter. You’re up, you’re down, you’re all over the place. You’re high all the time. And seriously. Stop writing me love songs.”
“I can’t help it! This—” he grabs the papers back so forcefully that some of them tear, “—is all I can write anymore. Pathetic, emo little songs about you, or creepy, violent songs about Dave, or terrifying, terrified songs about me. Everything is going to shit. And you keep telling me you want me to stop using, but the only times you like me are when I’m high! When I’m high, you laugh at my jokes, and I’m happy, and we get along so well, and everything’s great. This is me sober, Travis. This is me at the end of my fucking rope.”
“Well, maybe you should talk to Bill about getting some help. You could start seeing a therapist, too. Or maybe you could… I don’t know. Go somewhere,” I say.
He goes rigid, and for a moment, I’m afraid he’s going to fly off the handle again. But at last, he sits down on the piano bench and says, “What, you think I should check into rehab? Or a goddamn psych ward?”
“Why not? I did,” I say, and he looks up at me sharply. Guess his mom never let that one slip after all. “I went after the suicide attempt. Mom checked me into it.”
“Did it suck?” Garen asks, and I laugh.
“More than anything. But it probably helped.”
He turns his eyes back to the floor, looking like he’s in a coma once more. I go out into the kitchen and out on a pot of coffee. By the time I have poured him a cup and brought it back into the den, he seems slightly better adjusted. “I’ll make you a deal.”
“Of course you will,” I say. I’ve seen enough episodes of Intervention to know that people like this always want to make deals.
“I’ll talk to my dad. I’ll tell him everything, if that’s what you want. But let me get through this week first, okay? I’m performing on Friday night, at seven o’clock. Jerry said I could have half an hour. Just… give me that half hour, and I’ll talk to Dad on Saturday morning. I’ll even set my alarm for like, nine in the morning, so that I’ll actually wake up for it, okay? But you have to let me just do what I need to in order to get through the rest of this week. Let me write what I wanna write, let me drink what I wanna drink, let me take what I wanna take. If you let me have these next two days, I’ll tell my dad everything. I swear.”
I sigh. “You haven’t given me any reason to believe you.”
“Fine,” he says, standing once more and hobbling over to his bed. He digs through the pocket of the jacket he had flung down on it, and fishes out his keyring. I watch as he flips through a few keys, finally finding two that are identical. He removes one and tosses it to me.
“What’s this?” I ask, looking down at it.
“Collateral,” he replies. “That’s the spare key to the Testarossa. If I haven’t talked to my dad by noon on Saturday, the car is yours. You can keep it, you can sell it, whatever. And then you can tell my dad everything, too.”
I stare down at the key, turning it over and running my thumb over the stallion logo. “This has got to be a joke. You’re honestly trying to tell me that if you don’t talk to your dad by twelve o’clock on Saturday, I get to have your Ferrari?”
“Yes,” Garen says. “If you want me to sign some sort of agreement, I’ll do it.”
“No,” I say, pocketing the key. “I believe you.”
I believe that he will talk to Bill. I guess I forget to believe that he will spend the next two days “doing what he needs to do.”
On Thursday afternoon, I enter the den to find the most organized version of chaos I’ve ever seen. There are two ropes strung up across the room, each secured to the bookshelves against the walls. Pinned neatly to the ropes are page after page of sheet music. I blink around the room until finally, my eyes fall on Garen. He is sprawled out on the floor on the other side of the piano, scribbling furiously into a notebook. When he catches sight of me, a huge grin spreads across his face. “Hey! I haven’t seen you all day. What’s up?”
“Uh… nothing, really. Just came to see how you are,” I say slowly. His eyes are bright, but there are dark circles under them, like he’s been up all night.
“I’m fantastic. It sucks that Jerry’s only going to let me play for half an hour, because I’ve got like, fifty songs that would be perfect. Seriously, I feel like I’m just cutting open my veins and bleeding out all this music onto the pages. It’s amazing.”
He knows nothing about what it really means to cut open a vein. Right now, I’m surprised he can even remember how to work a pen. I nudge another one of the papers towards him with the toe of my shoe. “Alright. Just… try to get a good night’s sleep tonight, alright?”
He snorts. “Yeah, I will. Of course.”
If Thursday is a high day, then Friday is nothing but low. When I come downstairs at two in the afternoon, entering the kitchen for the first time all day, Garen is sitting at the kitchen table, still writing in that same notebook. This time, however, he looks up at me with dead, glassy eyes. “Morning.”
I stare at the glass next to him, obscenely full of whiskey. “Dude, it’s the middle of the afternoon. Please tell me you’re not drunk already.”
“I won’t tell you if you don’t ask me,” he says, and he takes another long, vaguely sloppy sip of whiskey. This is too much. I turn around and head back into the den. His Blackberry is sitting on top of his bed, the message light blinking. I pick it up and scroll to the inbox, where two unread messages await him. The first is from James, and says simply, Is there a reason you’re completely ignoring me lately? The second is from a number listed as belonging to Seth Hayden; if u expect me 2 be running back and 4th between nyc and ct all the time 2 give u more stuff, ur going 2 have 2 start paying me more $$$. I scroll through the contacts list and type both James’ and Seth’s numbers into my own phone. Tossing the phone back onto the bed, I return to the kitchen.
“Can I borrow your car for a bit?” I ask.
“You don’t even have a license!” Garen groans, suddenly letting his head drop onto the table with a loud crack. “How is it even possible that you don’t have your license, you can’t drive a standard, and I’m still going to say yes? It’s not fair. I should be able to say no to you.” I open my mouth to reply, but he waves me off and sits up to take another swig of booze. “Just go ahead, it’s fine. You have the key anyway, so just go do it.”
I don’t want for him to change his mind. Instead of heading out to the car, I run back upstairs and kneel in front of my computer. I bring up Google and type in Patton Military Academy address. It pops up as the first result, and I plug it into Mapquest to get driving instructions. Once those have printed, I finally head out to the car.
I get stuck in traffic, and the drive ends up taking over two hours, during which I start to get pretty damn good at driving a standard. When I finally pull through the gates of Patton Military Academy, I’m a little stunned. It doesn’t look like a high school. It tooks like a goddamn Ivy League university campus. The buildings are all stately brick cathedral-looking things, and there are trees everywhere. Not to mention, there are dozens and dozens of incredibly attractive boys in rumpled uniforms. I pull into a visitor parking lot, and am in the process of locking the car when a voice from about thirty feet away curiously says, “Garen?”
I turn quickly and find myself facing a group of four guys who look only slightly older than me. One, a blonde with dimples, seems to have been the one to speak. He shakes his head. “Oh, sorry, man. One of our friends has the exact same car, so I—”
“No, this is Garen’s car,” I say quickly, jogging over towards him. “He let me borrow it.”
A redhead behind the blonde snorts. “That’s a first. He doesn’t even let James drive it.”
“I’m actually looking for James,” I say. “Could you please tell me where his dorm is?”
The boys look vaguely uneasy. I wonder how many guys have showed up, begging to be shown to James’ room. The blonde is the one to answer. “I’m not so sure that’s a good idea. James is kind of a private guy, he doesn’t like that many people just showing up? You could come to the dining hall with us and wait there. We’re about to grab some dinner.”
“No, thank you,” I say in a voice of forced calm. “I really just need to talk to James.”
“Look, bro,” another of the boys says, “we don’t even know who you are. So we can’t just—”
“I’m Travis McCall,” I interrupt, and yes, it is a little bit satisfying to see the way my name registers with them. “I’m Garen’s stepbrother, slash ex-boyfriend, slash the reason he was kicked out of our house, slash the person he was running from when he came here. James knows me, okay? And I need to talk to him about Garen.”
“Yeah,” the fourth boy says. “He lives over in Whitman Hall. We’ll bring you there.”
“Each of these boys, I soon discover, has hooked up with either Garen, James, or both. Rob, the redhead, tells me that he once got drunk and let James kiss him, though he is quick to tell me that there was no tongue, so “it practically doesn’t count.” Drew, one of the brunettes, admits to having hooked up with Garen after a school play rehearsal once during their junior year. Jacob, the other brunette, tells me that he gave James a handjob during physics class the previous semester. Andrew, the blonde, sheepishly admits that he has slept with both of them.
“So, obviously you slept with Garen, since you dated him,” Rob says as we all ascend the stairs to the third floor of Whitman Hall. “Did you ever get with James?”
“I didn’t meet James until after I started dating the guy I’m with now,” I say.
Drew smirks at me. “That doesn’t exactly answer the question.”
“No,” I say, knocking on the door they gesture to. “I never got with James.”
The door flings open, and James blinks at me, clearly surprised to see me. “Travis,” he says after a moment, and then he greets me with a brief, unexpected kiss on the lips. “Good to see you. Come on in.”
The boys behind me exchange knowing looks, and I glare at them as we all pile into the tiny dorm room. It appears as though James lives alone, though there is an empty bed, a second dresser, and a second desk on the opposite side of the room. Garen’s old side, I guess. James opens the mini-fridge that is situated halfway under his bed. “Can I get you a water?”
“No,” I say sharply. “I need to talk to you about Garen.”
“It would be nice if someone did,” James mutters. “He stopped returning my calls a few days ago.”
“Well, that’s because about a week ago, he lost his fucking mind.”
James kicks the fridge shut. “What are you talking about?”
“Last Monday, he showed up at my school to pick me up. He was supposed to be in a wheelchair, so he shouldn’t have been driving. We fought about it. Then I realized he was completely fucked up. He eventually confessed that he had snorted his painkillers, done a few lines of coke, and gotten ‘a little drunk’ before he came to get me. We kept fighting the whole time I was driving home. A few hours later, I came downstairs to find out that he had dyed his hair black, and cut most of it off. He also pierced his lip, twice. Not got it pierced. Pierced it himself, right in front of me, just shoved the fucking ring through his lip.”
“Holy fuck,” James says so softly I’m not sure he even realizes he is speaking. “I loved his lips.”
“Well, now he’s got snakebites. That night, he got into a fight with my mom at dinner, during which he felt it was appropriate to tell her all the details of both of our sex lives, as well as bring up our matching tattoos. And then he told me that he cheated on me when we were together. He said he slept with Ben. He was drunk on this past Tuesday, stoned on Wednesday and yesterday. When I left today, he was drunk. In the middle of the fucking afternoon,” I say. “He promised me that he would talk to Bill tomorrow morning, talk about getting some sort of help. He swears that if he doesn’t do it, he’ll let me have the Testarossa. He is losing it, James. I’m scared.”
James grabs an olive-drab-green knapsack from the closet and stuffs a change of clothes, his toothbrush, and a cell-phone charger into it. “Andy, tell Mr. Stratford that I’m sick or something. I’ll be back later.”
He tails me out to the car, and once we are safely back on the road, he turns in his seat to face me. “He didn’t cheat on you, by the way.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I say.
“Yes, it does. Don’t you remember what I told you last month? He lies when he’s losing it, he makes things up so he can pretend he doesn’t care. But he cared about you. He wouldn’t have slept with anyone behind your back, especially not Ben.”
“I don’t care,” I say, even though I so, so do. We make the rest of the drive in silence. By the time we get to my house, it’s already five forty-five. I enter the house to find Garen staggering out of his den-bedroom on crutches, his guitar case slung across his back.
“Oh, you’re here!” he says. “Cool. I was going to ask Bree for her car if you didn’t get back soon.”
“I’m back, but you’re not driving anywhere,” I say. At that moment, James edges past me into the house, his wide brown eyes fixed on Garen. Garen’s face falls.
“Jamie,” he says. “What are you doing here?”
James says nothing. After almost a full minute, he steps forward and drags his fingers through the black spikes of Garen’s hair. “I don’t understand what you’re doing to yourself.”
“Jamie,” Garen repeats in something almost like a whimper.
“You are such an amazing, beautiful man,” James continues softly. “You are brilliant, you are talented, you are gorgeous, you are perfect, so please, tell me why you’re destroying yourself like this.”
The tenderness, the raw, unabashed love in James’ eyes is suffocating me. I turn and head back outside, muttering, “I’m going to be late for work.”
“I’m coming with you!” Garen bursts out, limping quickly after me. “I have to go to my gig. I have to do it.”
I have no strength left in me with which to argue. I stay silent as I strap myself into the car, waiting to see what James says. The two of them converse in low voices on the porch, and finally, just as I’m shifting into reverse, they both clamber into the backseat. James warns him, “You’re not performing for another hour, right? Well, you and I are talking about this. That’s not up for debate.”
The rest of the drive to the Grind is silent. I park around the back, in the employee lot, but send them around the front while I come in through the employee entrance. Miles nods curtly at me as I tie on my apron and set about refilling the coffee machines. I can’t help but watch out of the corner of my eye, trying to see if Garen and James seem to be making any progress. Their entire conversation is conducted through low murmurs that I can’t hear, but that’s good. At least no one’s shouting.
At seven fifty-five, Jerry heads over to their table to talk to Garen. Garen puts on a fake smile and makes his way up to the platform where performers sit. He perches on the edge of the stool and flicks on the microphone before turning his attention to the pretty substantial crowd of people, eagerly awaiting his voice. “Hey. I’m Garen Anderson. I’ve performed here a few times before, so some of you might recognize me. I’m going to play a few songs for you tonight.”
Someone in the back yells, “Hell yeah!” and everyone – even Garen – laughs.
“Thanks. So uh, this first one is called ‘Lines.’ And it’s for the guy who told me to stop writing him love songs,” he says, and he turns his eyes briefly towards me. “I hope you hate it.”
I do. Even before he plays a single chord, I hate this song and everything it stands for. I shove past Miles and shut myself up inside the storage room. I can hear the guitar playing, hear Garen’s voice, as beautiful as ever, but I’d rather be in here than out there, hearing yet another fucking song all about me. A few moments later, the door swings open and Miles steps in, eyeing me warily.
“I think you should listen to this,” he says.
I shake my head. “Nope. No, I can’t do that. Sorry.”
“Travis, I don’t know what’s been going on with you for the past few months. God, we haven’t even talked since February or something.”
“Yeah, because apparently when Faye decided not to be my friend anymore, she won the custody battle of all our mutual friends,” I snap.
“Faye and I broke up a couple of weeks ago,” Miles says calmly. “Things change.”
“And some things,” I gesture towards the door, towards Garen, “never change.”
Miles reaches back and pushes open the door again, just enough that I can hear Garen’s aching voice head into what must be the chorus of his song.
And I do lines because you hate the lines I write about you
And I take pills because the doctor tells me that I have to
I empty bottles because maybe there’s a message inside
I tell lies because everyone likes me better when I’m fine
Miles lets the door fall shut again. “That sounds pretty changed to me. The Garen I used to know was happy. He was fun. And he definitely wasn’t an obvious drug addict, which is what that guy out on stage is.”
“I don’t know what happened to him,” I say hoarsely. “He came back in April, the day my mom married Bill, and ever since then… he’s just ruined. All he does is drink and get high and fight with me. I don’t know what to do. He scares me, Miles, and I’m just so fucking… I can’t deal with this shit. He’s not going to be happy until I break up with Ben, and I know you all think that Ben was just a rebound or whatever, but I really love him, I swear. I don’t want to leave him, but I don’t want Garen to freak out anymore either.”
“Hey, hey, hey,” Miles says sharply. “I never said Ben was a rebound. I’ve been going to school with the guy for years now, and he’s cool. I can see why you like him. And, that aside? It is not your job to save Garen from himself. You can’t handle that. Fuck, man, you barely know how to handle you. All you can do at this point is tell Bill that he needs to figure something out with Garen. Because that?” He gestures towards the door again. “That’s not okay. That’s not healthy.”
“I know,” I say quietly. “I’ll talk to Bill tonight. Thank you.”
Miles lets me take a longer break than I actually am entitled to. I linger in the back room until I hear the final applause, then head back out front. Garen and James are waiting for me by the counter.
“I called a cab,” James says. “I’m going to bring Garen home, and then I’m heading out to the train station. We’ve talked about everything… I think things will be okay now.”
“I already told you both,” Garen mutters. “I’m talking to my dad in the morning. Like I said, setting my alarm for nine and everything.”
“Your car depends on it,” I point out, and he even manages a small smile. James leans across the counter to kiss me on the cheek.
“Thank you for coming to get me. Have a nice summer,” he says, and I nod as he heads for the door. Garen hesitates next to me.
“Did… did you hear any of my songs?” he asks finally.
I nod slowly. “I heard part of one, yeah.”
“Oh,” he says. “Good.”
When he is halfway towards the door, I can’t help but call after him, “Of course I like you better when you’re fine. But I wish you didn’t have to lie to make people think you’re alright.”
He doesn’t say anything, just continues out the door. I glance over at Miles, who shrugs. Pretty much my entire life can be summed up with a shrug. My shift continues until ten o’clock, and when I finally get home, I’m shocked to discover that Garen is actually there. Right where he’s supposed to be. Well, sort of.
“Aren’t you supposed to be staying down in the den for another week?” I say, nudging open the door to his bedroom.
Garen shrugs. “I can move around fine without crutches, so it seems stupid to stay downstairs. Besides, I’m just up here to grab a sweatshirt.”
Sure enough, he’s wearing my old LHS Varsity Track hoodie, which he claimed for himself ages ago. I glance towards the mess I left on the floor the previous week, and so does he. “Guess you went looking for your razors.”
“How do you know that’s what I was looking for?” I demand.
“Because that’s the only thing that’s missing,” he says with a shrug. “I’m sorry I took your stuff. But… I obviously did it with good intentions.”
“Yeah,” I say, and unable to stop myself, I add, “What’s with the cigarettes and the flask?”
“James brought them when he came to stay,” Garen says. “I left them in our dorm room by accident.”
“I didn’t know you smoke,” I say, frowning.
He shrugs again. “I used to. At dinner, the day after I moved here, Bree mentioned something about her boyfriend smoking. You made a face and said you’d never date a smoker. I haven’t had a cigarette since that night.”
I don’t know whether to be amused, embarrassed, or touched. I settle for muttering, “I’m sorry I ate your gummy bears.”
He laughs. “It’s fine. I’ve got more. You should probably go, though. Since I’m getting up at nine and everything.”
We bid each other goodnight, and I retreat to my room, feeling hopeful for the first time in ages. Maybe this could work out. Maybe, just maybe, everything will be fine in the end.
Sure enough, the alarm clock on Garen’s cell phone starts blaring at nine on Saturday morning, loud enough that even I can’t sleep through it. He, however, must be able to, because it goes on forever. After a good four minutes of it, I throw off my covers and storm across the hall, throwing open the door to his bedroom. The cell phone is sitting on the floor in the center of the room, so I grab it and switch it off before slowly sitting down on the ground. There are four piece of paper, folded in half to stand as little tents. Each one has a name on it. Dad. Evelyn. Bree. Travis. I pick up the one with my name on it and flip it open.
Dear Travis,
The note addressed to my father tells him everything that has happened since I came back to Lakewood. My end of our bargain is therefore fulfilled, and I will be keeping my car. You can keep the spare key, if you’d like. I think it would be best for everyone if I left again. None of you deserve to go down with me. Don’t bother asking James where I am, because he doesn’t know. No one does. I hope you have a really great life. Say goodbye to the guys for me. I hope everything works out with you and Ben.
I love you, always. I’m sorry, for that and for everything.
Yours,
Garen
I flip open Bree’s card. The message is similar; I’m sorry, but I have to leave again. You were an amazing friend to me during the brief time we’ve known each other, and I will miss you like hell. By the way, try not to start doing drugs at any point in your life, because they’re really hard to stop. Good luck at college in the fall, and even better luck with your art. And don’t blame Travis for me leaving. This isn’t about him, it’s all about me. Sorry. Love, Garen.
The note to Bill is a full page of tiny writing, and yes, it seems as if he really did tell his dad everything that’s happened since he came back. The drugs, the truth about everything that happened with Dave. Everything. Finally, I open Mom’s card, which is the shortest of all.
Evelyn,
You win.
G.
Previous Chapter Next Chapter
“Congratulations,” I say, only a little sarcastically. Part of me wants to stomp on his hand and rebreak those fingers, just so he knows what it’s like to hurt for longer than five weeks. But another part of me looks at the guitar he’s holding so carefully, and thinks, fuck yeah, Garen.
He sits up, swinging his leg cast awkwardly in an attempt to cross his legs. The attempt fails, and he gives up, slumping against the wall instead. “Yeah. The thing that sucks, though, is that my fingers have been held straight for over a month now, so it’s like I’ve completely forgotten how to play guitar. I know all the chords, but my hand just won’t move like I want it to.”
I step over him and head for the kitchen to make myself a sandwich. “Well, you’ve got time to figure it out.”
“Not really,” he says, clambering to his feet and hobbling after me without his crutches. “I have a gig on Friday.”
He says it almost hopefully, and I decide it’s best to kill whatever ideas he has swimming around in his head right now. “I’m not going. Like, if you’re about to ask me if I’ll go, the answer is no.”
He laughs awkwardly, dragging a hand through his black hair. “You… kind of don’t have a choice? It’s at the Grind. I uh, told Jerry that it’d be cool to come back and play there again sometime, and he said I could do it on Friday. He said the customers really liked my music when I was there the first time.”
“Garen,” I say slowly, as calm as it’s possible for me to be under these circumstances, “I think you’re beginning to take this stalking to a whole new level. What part of ‘I have a boyfriend, I don’t like you, stop following me around’ is unclear?”
“It’s not about you!” Garen bursts out. “Look, if you want me to act normally, you have to let me get back into a routine of—”
“I gave up hope of you acting normally weeks ago,” I interrupt. “Seriously, I can’t believe that I’m the one who sees a therapist, when obviously you’re the one who’s batshit crazy. This is fucked up, okay? You need to stop this. You can’t keep talking to me like we’re friends, you can’t come to my place of work and act like it’s totally cool.”
“It’s not about you,” Garen repeats, though this time, his voice is weak.
I snort. “Oh, really? Then show me the songs you’re going to play.”
“Bite me,” Garen says. Like that could mean anything other than that I’m right. I abandon my half-made sandwich on the counter and stalk out to the den. Somehow, he has kept the room neat, which only makes it easier to find his music. The pages of lyrics are piled carefully on the piano bench, the corresponding sheet music stacked on his bed.
“Travis, stop!” Garen orders, lunging for the papers. I dodge him and flip through the pages until I find something that looks promising.
“There’s a ring on your finger that you wear so well, If you promise that you love me, then I promise I won’t tell.”
And that’s as far as I get before he tackles me, and we both crash to the floor.
“Give me the fucking papers!” he yells, scrambling for my hands. Fuck the papers, this is insane. I fling the papers across the room, and once he has gathered them up, we both stand, though he does so a little more slowly.
“You need to get your shit together,” I say slowly, my breath still coming in short bursts. “This is insane. This is inhuman. You need to stop doing this.”
“Every time I try to be normal around you, you just get mad at me!” Garen groans.
“Because you’re not trying to be normal. You’re trying to make things like they were when we first met, like you think you can just start all over, and I’ll forget about Ben like I forgot about Blaire. That’s not how this works. You don’t get to press ‘reset’ and act like the past six months haven’t happened, like you never left,” I say. He opens his mouth to speak, then flinches when I step towards him. That hurts a little, even now. I take the papers from his hands, and this time, he doesn’t fight back. “This needs to stop. I’m serious. It’s getting to the point where I don’t even know how to exist in this house with you. I’m so worried about setting you off, or bringing you down. You scare me, Garen.”
“I don’t mean to,” he says in a small voice.
“It doesn’t matter. You’re up, you’re down, you’re all over the place. You’re high all the time. And seriously. Stop writing me love songs.”
“I can’t help it! This—” he grabs the papers back so forcefully that some of them tear, “—is all I can write anymore. Pathetic, emo little songs about you, or creepy, violent songs about Dave, or terrifying, terrified songs about me. Everything is going to shit. And you keep telling me you want me to stop using, but the only times you like me are when I’m high! When I’m high, you laugh at my jokes, and I’m happy, and we get along so well, and everything’s great. This is me sober, Travis. This is me at the end of my fucking rope.”
“Well, maybe you should talk to Bill about getting some help. You could start seeing a therapist, too. Or maybe you could… I don’t know. Go somewhere,” I say.
He goes rigid, and for a moment, I’m afraid he’s going to fly off the handle again. But at last, he sits down on the piano bench and says, “What, you think I should check into rehab? Or a goddamn psych ward?”
“Why not? I did,” I say, and he looks up at me sharply. Guess his mom never let that one slip after all. “I went after the suicide attempt. Mom checked me into it.”
“Did it suck?” Garen asks, and I laugh.
“More than anything. But it probably helped.”
He turns his eyes back to the floor, looking like he’s in a coma once more. I go out into the kitchen and out on a pot of coffee. By the time I have poured him a cup and brought it back into the den, he seems slightly better adjusted. “I’ll make you a deal.”
“Of course you will,” I say. I’ve seen enough episodes of Intervention to know that people like this always want to make deals.
“I’ll talk to my dad. I’ll tell him everything, if that’s what you want. But let me get through this week first, okay? I’m performing on Friday night, at seven o’clock. Jerry said I could have half an hour. Just… give me that half hour, and I’ll talk to Dad on Saturday morning. I’ll even set my alarm for like, nine in the morning, so that I’ll actually wake up for it, okay? But you have to let me just do what I need to in order to get through the rest of this week. Let me write what I wanna write, let me drink what I wanna drink, let me take what I wanna take. If you let me have these next two days, I’ll tell my dad everything. I swear.”
I sigh. “You haven’t given me any reason to believe you.”
“Fine,” he says, standing once more and hobbling over to his bed. He digs through the pocket of the jacket he had flung down on it, and fishes out his keyring. I watch as he flips through a few keys, finally finding two that are identical. He removes one and tosses it to me.
“What’s this?” I ask, looking down at it.
“Collateral,” he replies. “That’s the spare key to the Testarossa. If I haven’t talked to my dad by noon on Saturday, the car is yours. You can keep it, you can sell it, whatever. And then you can tell my dad everything, too.”
I stare down at the key, turning it over and running my thumb over the stallion logo. “This has got to be a joke. You’re honestly trying to tell me that if you don’t talk to your dad by twelve o’clock on Saturday, I get to have your Ferrari?”
“Yes,” Garen says. “If you want me to sign some sort of agreement, I’ll do it.”
“No,” I say, pocketing the key. “I believe you.”
I believe that he will talk to Bill. I guess I forget to believe that he will spend the next two days “doing what he needs to do.”
On Thursday afternoon, I enter the den to find the most organized version of chaos I’ve ever seen. There are two ropes strung up across the room, each secured to the bookshelves against the walls. Pinned neatly to the ropes are page after page of sheet music. I blink around the room until finally, my eyes fall on Garen. He is sprawled out on the floor on the other side of the piano, scribbling furiously into a notebook. When he catches sight of me, a huge grin spreads across his face. “Hey! I haven’t seen you all day. What’s up?”
“Uh… nothing, really. Just came to see how you are,” I say slowly. His eyes are bright, but there are dark circles under them, like he’s been up all night.
“I’m fantastic. It sucks that Jerry’s only going to let me play for half an hour, because I’ve got like, fifty songs that would be perfect. Seriously, I feel like I’m just cutting open my veins and bleeding out all this music onto the pages. It’s amazing.”
He knows nothing about what it really means to cut open a vein. Right now, I’m surprised he can even remember how to work a pen. I nudge another one of the papers towards him with the toe of my shoe. “Alright. Just… try to get a good night’s sleep tonight, alright?”
He snorts. “Yeah, I will. Of course.”
If Thursday is a high day, then Friday is nothing but low. When I come downstairs at two in the afternoon, entering the kitchen for the first time all day, Garen is sitting at the kitchen table, still writing in that same notebook. This time, however, he looks up at me with dead, glassy eyes. “Morning.”
I stare at the glass next to him, obscenely full of whiskey. “Dude, it’s the middle of the afternoon. Please tell me you’re not drunk already.”
“I won’t tell you if you don’t ask me,” he says, and he takes another long, vaguely sloppy sip of whiskey. This is too much. I turn around and head back into the den. His Blackberry is sitting on top of his bed, the message light blinking. I pick it up and scroll to the inbox, where two unread messages await him. The first is from James, and says simply, Is there a reason you’re completely ignoring me lately? The second is from a number listed as belonging to Seth Hayden; if u expect me 2 be running back and 4th between nyc and ct all the time 2 give u more stuff, ur going 2 have 2 start paying me more $$$. I scroll through the contacts list and type both James’ and Seth’s numbers into my own phone. Tossing the phone back onto the bed, I return to the kitchen.
“Can I borrow your car for a bit?” I ask.
“You don’t even have a license!” Garen groans, suddenly letting his head drop onto the table with a loud crack. “How is it even possible that you don’t have your license, you can’t drive a standard, and I’m still going to say yes? It’s not fair. I should be able to say no to you.” I open my mouth to reply, but he waves me off and sits up to take another swig of booze. “Just go ahead, it’s fine. You have the key anyway, so just go do it.”
I don’t want for him to change his mind. Instead of heading out to the car, I run back upstairs and kneel in front of my computer. I bring up Google and type in Patton Military Academy address. It pops up as the first result, and I plug it into Mapquest to get driving instructions. Once those have printed, I finally head out to the car.
I get stuck in traffic, and the drive ends up taking over two hours, during which I start to get pretty damn good at driving a standard. When I finally pull through the gates of Patton Military Academy, I’m a little stunned. It doesn’t look like a high school. It tooks like a goddamn Ivy League university campus. The buildings are all stately brick cathedral-looking things, and there are trees everywhere. Not to mention, there are dozens and dozens of incredibly attractive boys in rumpled uniforms. I pull into a visitor parking lot, and am in the process of locking the car when a voice from about thirty feet away curiously says, “Garen?”
I turn quickly and find myself facing a group of four guys who look only slightly older than me. One, a blonde with dimples, seems to have been the one to speak. He shakes his head. “Oh, sorry, man. One of our friends has the exact same car, so I—”
“No, this is Garen’s car,” I say quickly, jogging over towards him. “He let me borrow it.”
A redhead behind the blonde snorts. “That’s a first. He doesn’t even let James drive it.”
“I’m actually looking for James,” I say. “Could you please tell me where his dorm is?”
The boys look vaguely uneasy. I wonder how many guys have showed up, begging to be shown to James’ room. The blonde is the one to answer. “I’m not so sure that’s a good idea. James is kind of a private guy, he doesn’t like that many people just showing up? You could come to the dining hall with us and wait there. We’re about to grab some dinner.”
“No, thank you,” I say in a voice of forced calm. “I really just need to talk to James.”
“Look, bro,” another of the boys says, “we don’t even know who you are. So we can’t just—”
“I’m Travis McCall,” I interrupt, and yes, it is a little bit satisfying to see the way my name registers with them. “I’m Garen’s stepbrother, slash ex-boyfriend, slash the reason he was kicked out of our house, slash the person he was running from when he came here. James knows me, okay? And I need to talk to him about Garen.”
“Yeah,” the fourth boy says. “He lives over in Whitman Hall. We’ll bring you there.”
“Each of these boys, I soon discover, has hooked up with either Garen, James, or both. Rob, the redhead, tells me that he once got drunk and let James kiss him, though he is quick to tell me that there was no tongue, so “it practically doesn’t count.” Drew, one of the brunettes, admits to having hooked up with Garen after a school play rehearsal once during their junior year. Jacob, the other brunette, tells me that he gave James a handjob during physics class the previous semester. Andrew, the blonde, sheepishly admits that he has slept with both of them.
“So, obviously you slept with Garen, since you dated him,” Rob says as we all ascend the stairs to the third floor of Whitman Hall. “Did you ever get with James?”
“I didn’t meet James until after I started dating the guy I’m with now,” I say.
Drew smirks at me. “That doesn’t exactly answer the question.”
“No,” I say, knocking on the door they gesture to. “I never got with James.”
The door flings open, and James blinks at me, clearly surprised to see me. “Travis,” he says after a moment, and then he greets me with a brief, unexpected kiss on the lips. “Good to see you. Come on in.”
The boys behind me exchange knowing looks, and I glare at them as we all pile into the tiny dorm room. It appears as though James lives alone, though there is an empty bed, a second dresser, and a second desk on the opposite side of the room. Garen’s old side, I guess. James opens the mini-fridge that is situated halfway under his bed. “Can I get you a water?”
“No,” I say sharply. “I need to talk to you about Garen.”
“It would be nice if someone did,” James mutters. “He stopped returning my calls a few days ago.”
“Well, that’s because about a week ago, he lost his fucking mind.”
James kicks the fridge shut. “What are you talking about?”
“Last Monday, he showed up at my school to pick me up. He was supposed to be in a wheelchair, so he shouldn’t have been driving. We fought about it. Then I realized he was completely fucked up. He eventually confessed that he had snorted his painkillers, done a few lines of coke, and gotten ‘a little drunk’ before he came to get me. We kept fighting the whole time I was driving home. A few hours later, I came downstairs to find out that he had dyed his hair black, and cut most of it off. He also pierced his lip, twice. Not got it pierced. Pierced it himself, right in front of me, just shoved the fucking ring through his lip.”
“Holy fuck,” James says so softly I’m not sure he even realizes he is speaking. “I loved his lips.”
“Well, now he’s got snakebites. That night, he got into a fight with my mom at dinner, during which he felt it was appropriate to tell her all the details of both of our sex lives, as well as bring up our matching tattoos. And then he told me that he cheated on me when we were together. He said he slept with Ben. He was drunk on this past Tuesday, stoned on Wednesday and yesterday. When I left today, he was drunk. In the middle of the fucking afternoon,” I say. “He promised me that he would talk to Bill tomorrow morning, talk about getting some sort of help. He swears that if he doesn’t do it, he’ll let me have the Testarossa. He is losing it, James. I’m scared.”
James grabs an olive-drab-green knapsack from the closet and stuffs a change of clothes, his toothbrush, and a cell-phone charger into it. “Andy, tell Mr. Stratford that I’m sick or something. I’ll be back later.”
He tails me out to the car, and once we are safely back on the road, he turns in his seat to face me. “He didn’t cheat on you, by the way.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I say.
“Yes, it does. Don’t you remember what I told you last month? He lies when he’s losing it, he makes things up so he can pretend he doesn’t care. But he cared about you. He wouldn’t have slept with anyone behind your back, especially not Ben.”
“I don’t care,” I say, even though I so, so do. We make the rest of the drive in silence. By the time we get to my house, it’s already five forty-five. I enter the house to find Garen staggering out of his den-bedroom on crutches, his guitar case slung across his back.
“Oh, you’re here!” he says. “Cool. I was going to ask Bree for her car if you didn’t get back soon.”
“I’m back, but you’re not driving anywhere,” I say. At that moment, James edges past me into the house, his wide brown eyes fixed on Garen. Garen’s face falls.
“Jamie,” he says. “What are you doing here?”
James says nothing. After almost a full minute, he steps forward and drags his fingers through the black spikes of Garen’s hair. “I don’t understand what you’re doing to yourself.”
“Jamie,” Garen repeats in something almost like a whimper.
“You are such an amazing, beautiful man,” James continues softly. “You are brilliant, you are talented, you are gorgeous, you are perfect, so please, tell me why you’re destroying yourself like this.”
The tenderness, the raw, unabashed love in James’ eyes is suffocating me. I turn and head back outside, muttering, “I’m going to be late for work.”
“I’m coming with you!” Garen bursts out, limping quickly after me. “I have to go to my gig. I have to do it.”
I have no strength left in me with which to argue. I stay silent as I strap myself into the car, waiting to see what James says. The two of them converse in low voices on the porch, and finally, just as I’m shifting into reverse, they both clamber into the backseat. James warns him, “You’re not performing for another hour, right? Well, you and I are talking about this. That’s not up for debate.”
The rest of the drive to the Grind is silent. I park around the back, in the employee lot, but send them around the front while I come in through the employee entrance. Miles nods curtly at me as I tie on my apron and set about refilling the coffee machines. I can’t help but watch out of the corner of my eye, trying to see if Garen and James seem to be making any progress. Their entire conversation is conducted through low murmurs that I can’t hear, but that’s good. At least no one’s shouting.
At seven fifty-five, Jerry heads over to their table to talk to Garen. Garen puts on a fake smile and makes his way up to the platform where performers sit. He perches on the edge of the stool and flicks on the microphone before turning his attention to the pretty substantial crowd of people, eagerly awaiting his voice. “Hey. I’m Garen Anderson. I’ve performed here a few times before, so some of you might recognize me. I’m going to play a few songs for you tonight.”
Someone in the back yells, “Hell yeah!” and everyone – even Garen – laughs.
“Thanks. So uh, this first one is called ‘Lines.’ And it’s for the guy who told me to stop writing him love songs,” he says, and he turns his eyes briefly towards me. “I hope you hate it.”
I do. Even before he plays a single chord, I hate this song and everything it stands for. I shove past Miles and shut myself up inside the storage room. I can hear the guitar playing, hear Garen’s voice, as beautiful as ever, but I’d rather be in here than out there, hearing yet another fucking song all about me. A few moments later, the door swings open and Miles steps in, eyeing me warily.
“I think you should listen to this,” he says.
I shake my head. “Nope. No, I can’t do that. Sorry.”
“Travis, I don’t know what’s been going on with you for the past few months. God, we haven’t even talked since February or something.”
“Yeah, because apparently when Faye decided not to be my friend anymore, she won the custody battle of all our mutual friends,” I snap.
“Faye and I broke up a couple of weeks ago,” Miles says calmly. “Things change.”
“And some things,” I gesture towards the door, towards Garen, “never change.”
Miles reaches back and pushes open the door again, just enough that I can hear Garen’s aching voice head into what must be the chorus of his song.
And I do lines because you hate the lines I write about you
And I take pills because the doctor tells me that I have to
I empty bottles because maybe there’s a message inside
I tell lies because everyone likes me better when I’m fine
Miles lets the door fall shut again. “That sounds pretty changed to me. The Garen I used to know was happy. He was fun. And he definitely wasn’t an obvious drug addict, which is what that guy out on stage is.”
“I don’t know what happened to him,” I say hoarsely. “He came back in April, the day my mom married Bill, and ever since then… he’s just ruined. All he does is drink and get high and fight with me. I don’t know what to do. He scares me, Miles, and I’m just so fucking… I can’t deal with this shit. He’s not going to be happy until I break up with Ben, and I know you all think that Ben was just a rebound or whatever, but I really love him, I swear. I don’t want to leave him, but I don’t want Garen to freak out anymore either.”
“Hey, hey, hey,” Miles says sharply. “I never said Ben was a rebound. I’ve been going to school with the guy for years now, and he’s cool. I can see why you like him. And, that aside? It is not your job to save Garen from himself. You can’t handle that. Fuck, man, you barely know how to handle you. All you can do at this point is tell Bill that he needs to figure something out with Garen. Because that?” He gestures towards the door again. “That’s not okay. That’s not healthy.”
“I know,” I say quietly. “I’ll talk to Bill tonight. Thank you.”
Miles lets me take a longer break than I actually am entitled to. I linger in the back room until I hear the final applause, then head back out front. Garen and James are waiting for me by the counter.
“I called a cab,” James says. “I’m going to bring Garen home, and then I’m heading out to the train station. We’ve talked about everything… I think things will be okay now.”
“I already told you both,” Garen mutters. “I’m talking to my dad in the morning. Like I said, setting my alarm for nine and everything.”
“Your car depends on it,” I point out, and he even manages a small smile. James leans across the counter to kiss me on the cheek.
“Thank you for coming to get me. Have a nice summer,” he says, and I nod as he heads for the door. Garen hesitates next to me.
“Did… did you hear any of my songs?” he asks finally.
I nod slowly. “I heard part of one, yeah.”
“Oh,” he says. “Good.”
When he is halfway towards the door, I can’t help but call after him, “Of course I like you better when you’re fine. But I wish you didn’t have to lie to make people think you’re alright.”
He doesn’t say anything, just continues out the door. I glance over at Miles, who shrugs. Pretty much my entire life can be summed up with a shrug. My shift continues until ten o’clock, and when I finally get home, I’m shocked to discover that Garen is actually there. Right where he’s supposed to be. Well, sort of.
“Aren’t you supposed to be staying down in the den for another week?” I say, nudging open the door to his bedroom.
Garen shrugs. “I can move around fine without crutches, so it seems stupid to stay downstairs. Besides, I’m just up here to grab a sweatshirt.”
Sure enough, he’s wearing my old LHS Varsity Track hoodie, which he claimed for himself ages ago. I glance towards the mess I left on the floor the previous week, and so does he. “Guess you went looking for your razors.”
“How do you know that’s what I was looking for?” I demand.
“Because that’s the only thing that’s missing,” he says with a shrug. “I’m sorry I took your stuff. But… I obviously did it with good intentions.”
“Yeah,” I say, and unable to stop myself, I add, “What’s with the cigarettes and the flask?”
“James brought them when he came to stay,” Garen says. “I left them in our dorm room by accident.”
“I didn’t know you smoke,” I say, frowning.
He shrugs again. “I used to. At dinner, the day after I moved here, Bree mentioned something about her boyfriend smoking. You made a face and said you’d never date a smoker. I haven’t had a cigarette since that night.”
I don’t know whether to be amused, embarrassed, or touched. I settle for muttering, “I’m sorry I ate your gummy bears.”
He laughs. “It’s fine. I’ve got more. You should probably go, though. Since I’m getting up at nine and everything.”
We bid each other goodnight, and I retreat to my room, feeling hopeful for the first time in ages. Maybe this could work out. Maybe, just maybe, everything will be fine in the end.
Sure enough, the alarm clock on Garen’s cell phone starts blaring at nine on Saturday morning, loud enough that even I can’t sleep through it. He, however, must be able to, because it goes on forever. After a good four minutes of it, I throw off my covers and storm across the hall, throwing open the door to his bedroom. The cell phone is sitting on the floor in the center of the room, so I grab it and switch it off before slowly sitting down on the ground. There are four piece of paper, folded in half to stand as little tents. Each one has a name on it. Dad. Evelyn. Bree. Travis. I pick up the one with my name on it and flip it open.
Dear Travis,
The note addressed to my father tells him everything that has happened since I came back to Lakewood. My end of our bargain is therefore fulfilled, and I will be keeping my car. You can keep the spare key, if you’d like. I think it would be best for everyone if I left again. None of you deserve to go down with me. Don’t bother asking James where I am, because he doesn’t know. No one does. I hope you have a really great life. Say goodbye to the guys for me. I hope everything works out with you and Ben.
I love you, always. I’m sorry, for that and for everything.
Yours,
Garen
I flip open Bree’s card. The message is similar; I’m sorry, but I have to leave again. You were an amazing friend to me during the brief time we’ve known each other, and I will miss you like hell. By the way, try not to start doing drugs at any point in your life, because they’re really hard to stop. Good luck at college in the fall, and even better luck with your art. And don’t blame Travis for me leaving. This isn’t about him, it’s all about me. Sorry. Love, Garen.
The note to Bill is a full page of tiny writing, and yes, it seems as if he really did tell his dad everything that’s happened since he came back. The drugs, the truth about everything that happened with Dave. Everything. Finally, I open Mom’s card, which is the shortest of all.
Evelyn,
You win.
G.
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