Promises of Forever, page 16
It was gloomy, and I thought of Grandfather’s house and how I’d been putting off packing his belongings and selling them. How the mere thought of returning to that prison gave me hives. Escapees usually didn’t look fondly on returning to their cells. Jersey’s experience seemed to differ. He appeared to take comfort in soaking up the past and instead was having trouble letting go of the nostalgia.
Off the kitchen, beyond a sliding door, sat the backyard and patio. The stones were crooked and uneven, weatherworn and cracked. The grass grew long. Jersey put his food down on a rickety plastic side table, tugged a second chair loose from a stack near the wall, and placed it beside the one already out. Then he lit a few strings of imitation crepe lanterns. The colorful globes hung from wires between poles surrounding the perimeter of the patio. They filled the backyard with soft light, throwing puddles of red, gold, blue, and green across the ground.
I sat, and Jersey joined me. “I haven’t touched the backyard yet. Can’t bring myself to do it. Still gotta clean up the gardens, go through the shed, and probably cut the grass. Fix these.” He stamped a foot, indicating the cracked stones beneath us. “It’s the last thing on the list, but I’m dragging my feet. The rest of the house is done, and I’ve even spoken with a Realtor, but I haven’t given her the go-ahead to show the place yet.”
“You grew up here?” I glanced around, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t see the yard through the eyes of a child. I couldn’t envision games, toys, and climbers. Hell, I couldn’t remember what it was like to be a child at all, to have those youthful experiences, to know such freedom. Those innocent years had been torn away before I’d had a chance to grow a single memory. The most prominent thing I remembered was summer camp, but that hadn’t happened until I was ten.
“I did. Spent many years in this yard. Broke my arm right over there when I was six.” He indicated a garden bed circling the perimeter of the yard. “Fell off a friend’s pogo stick into the rocky barrier.” He sighed. “Used to help Mom plant flowers in the spring, cut the grass for Dad all summer, rake the leaves in the fall, and skate all winter.”
“Skate? Back here?”
“Yep. Dad built a rink every year. Dead center, from fence to fence and all the way to the maple in back.” He gestured. “My friends would be here from the time school let out until their moms called to have them sent home for dinner. Then after, they’d be back, and we’d skate some more. My mom would make hot chocolate when we needed a break, and we whined when it was time for bed. I practically lived out here all winter.”
“Sounds memorable.”
“It was, and god help me, Koa. I don’t know how to let it go.”
My reactive comeback was to tell Jersey there was no god to help him, but he wasn’t Niles, and I didn’t want to get into great philosophical debates when I was supposed to be enjoying a date night. I was still baffled I’d agreed to go out after the concert.
The connection we’d made in the auditorium came back to me. Jersey’s hand on my knee, tugging me away from the ledge inside my mind. Niles’s sorrowful music had caught me off guard and drawn me to the precipice as it had done on more than one occasion. Leaning against Jersey’s side, inhaling the fresh scent of his skin, and absorbing the warmth and solidity of his body against mine had grounded me the same way it had done many moons ago.
Jersey unwrapped his fish and chips, finding plastic cutlery in the takeout bag. He dug in, so I did the same. We went through the squeeze packs of tartar sauce in no time, chuckling when we both made a grab for the last one. Jersey let me have it, using ketchup instead.
Nightlife stirred all around us. Lakefield was a quiet, secluded town. It reminded me of the Timber Creek campus after dark. I couldn’t hear traffic or the bustle of city noise. The air was crisp and clean without pollution. Even Peterborough was not immune to the corruption of an urban environment, so the escape that evening was nice.
Straining, my ears picked up a boat horn in the distance, a creaky tree moaning in the wind, branches rubbing together, and crickets somewhere nearby, singing their chirruping songs at each other. The symphony of chirps reminded me of an incident at camp, and I smiled inwardly at the memory.
“Remember Peter’s cricket collection?” I glanced at Jersey, who laughed.
“Oh my god, I forgot all about that.”
It had been one of the few times the boys in the cabin had treated me like an equal. The calamity had been too great for divides. We had become united in chaos. Banded brothers working together on a mission.
“How many do you reckon there were?” I asked.
Jersey popped a fry into his mouth as he tipped his head back with a grin, thinking and chewing. “Shit. I don’t know. The guys and I spent all day collecting them in that field of Indian grass beyond the archery grounds. My legs were cut to shit when we finished. I had a rash for a week after. Couldn’t stop scratching. The shoebox was full to bursting, though. Had to be three or four dozen.”
Three or four dozen crickets. That sounded about right.
Peter and Bruce had built a cricket homestead during arts and crafts using a shoebox. By the time they finished, it contained several rooms and various levels. Then, the boys had filled it with as many crickets as they could find, but they hadn’t secured the lid before hiding it under their bunk that night. Somehow, when the moon was high and the campers had long ago burrowed in their sleeping bags, the orchestra had gotten loose.
“Randy was not impressed,” I said.
“Well, as a teacher, can you blame him? At three o’clock in the morning, he had a cabin full of eleven-year-old boys chasing down dozens of crickets with flashlights.”
I laughed. “The noise. The whole cabin was chirping. It was loud enough that I remember wanting to cover my ears.”
“If Justin hadn’t screamed bloody murder, the racket of them all would have woken us eventually.”
“They attacked him while he slept.”
“They didn’t,” Jersey said, “but they did crawl all over him. Must have smelled good or something.”
“I would have screamed too.”
For once, it hadn’t been me waking up the whole cabin with cries of terror, but I’d happily joined in the hunt to recapture as many crickets as we could find. Randy had made Peter throw them outside, but they were wily insects, and far too many evaded us.
“I think we encountered random fugitives hiding under the bunks for the rest of the summer.”
Jersey chuckled softly at the memory. “Randy was so pissed. Those damn things never shut up either.”
“Probably why he didn’t come back the following year.”
Jersey agreed.
We ate more of our meal, the chirruping of crickets in the distance making us both smile.
“How about the time that kid Andrew got hit in the face with the soccer ball and his nose exploded,” Jersey said. “Remember that? How it gushed blood all down the front of his shirt. When Darwin saw, he freaked out, thinking the kid had knocked all his teeth out or something and he was going to get sued.”
I recalled it all too clearly. I never played sports with the other boys, but I often sat on the sidelines with a book and watched. Andrew’s blood had been everywhere, and it had triggered me into a bad episode.
Jersey waited expectantly for me to respond to the memory, something he recalled with great amusement. I nodded, unable to look him in the eyes. “I remember.”
He registered my unease, paused with a bite of fish halfway to his mouth, and seemed to play back through the reel of time to figure out where he’d gone wrong. It clicked, and he lowered his hand. “Shit. I forgot. You freaked out.”
“It was nothing.”
“It was not nothing. You…”
“It was nothing. I was a mess back then. Easily triggered into… episodes. You didn’t live my life, Jersey. I don’t expect you to recall those details. To you, it was a humorous accident.”
“You had a bad night that night.”
I stared at my food. “If it’s all the same, I’d rather not discuss it.”
“Okay.”
It had been yet another night Jersey had lain by my side, keeping the demons at bay.
For the second time that night, I stepped away from the ledge in my mind, unwilling to be drawn into the darkness of my past. I drew up other memories from camp, better memories, and we reminisced over the next hour.
About the time a boy named Oliver had fallen out of the canoe when he’d leaned too far over the edge to admire a water snake. Oliver had freaked out, certain he was about to meet his demise by snake bite or venom, even though the reptile had been frightened off by his flailing.
About the time I had tied Jersey to a tree with a skipping rope, pretending he was a pirate and I’d captured him, then panicking when I couldn’t undo my skillfully tied knots to let him free.
About the time our cabin had put on a concert around the bonfire, and we’d worn our underwear on our heads as part of our costume as we sang camp songs and played air guitar. We were thirteen, and I’d been less shunned that year. Jersey had made sure of it.
Our bond had grown exponentially by then.
Not once did we touch on the endless quiet afternoons we’d spent curled up in a hollow log, side by side, heads close as we talked about everything and nothing.
Not once did we discuss the dozens of times Jersey had saved me from nightmares, lying beside me in the dark and holding me until I felt calm enough to sleep.
Not once did those lingering looks and unnecessary touches in the last year of camp come into the conversation. Nor the day I’d tried to kiss him or his reaction.
“I still have your bracelet,” I said when the conversation lulled.
“You do?”
“In a box at home with a few other camp mementos.”
“I can’t believe you kept it.”
I’d been staring across the backyard, but I turned and met Jersey’s eyes. “I believed in your promises.”
A wash of red light from one of the lanterns pooled around his chair and caught the side of Jersey’s face, touching his beard and making it glow auburn.
I saw blood.
I heard screaming.
I blinked, and it was gone.
“They were big promises for a young kid,” he said. “I did my best.”
“I don’t fault you.”
“I’ll make it up to you.”
I could only smile, but the tension remained. I looked across the yard again. I didn’t like how the scarlet light touched him. I didn’t like how precariously balanced I was between the past and present.
Too much reminiscing was dangerous.
It was getting late, and the more serious tone I’d injected into the moment felt like a mistake.
“I should head out. Rask will need to be fed, and I have papers to mark.”
“It’s Friday.”
“And it will take all weekend to get through them.”
Jersey didn’t protest. He told me to leave the takeout mess, and he would tidy it later, then he escorted me through the cavernous house and out the front door. My Audi was on the road. I hit the fob to auto-start it and turned to Jersey.
“Thank you for accompanying me to the concert.”
“Thank you for inviting me and agreeing to have dinner afterward.”
“It was nice.”
We stared at one another, and I found myself unable to retreat yet unwilling to do something about the tension that had been building between us all night. In my mind’s eye, I saw the catastrophe on the horizon. I heard the frustration in Jersey’s tone some day in the future because I was too closed off, too distant.
Then I saw the boy. The boy who, without knowing it, had rescued me from myself long ago at camp. The boy with friends who had bullied and teased. The boy who wasn’t always kind but who took care of me anyhow.
The boy I’d once loved.
Until he left me too.
Then I’d shattered.
All those roaring thoughts hit me instantly, and Jersey had no idea of their tumultuous impact, how they unbalanced, unsteadied, and disrupted my equilibrium.
He reached for my hand, and I let him take it. His thumb massaged mine as he peered at me in the dark, seeing everything and nothing. Jersey was taller by an inch or so, but it wasn’t enough to make a huge difference.
“Thank you,” I said again, circling back to the beginning, unsure what else to say.
“I want to kiss you goodnight, but I don’t want to overstep. I didn’t ask last time, but I’m asking this time.”
For all I struggled to understand where any of this could possibly land us, I couldn’t say no. This was Jersey, and I had wanted his kisses since I was fourteen. “I would be all right with that.”
But he didn’t close the gap. Using the backs of his fingers, he brushed the hair from my forehead as he read the expression on my face. “You’re troubled.”
“I’m still coming to terms with the idea of you being back in my life, and I’m preparing for this, whatever it is, to prove to be as pointless as everything else. It’s unsustainable, Jersey. You’ll see.”
“That’s dreary.”
“Niles prefers the term morose. I know, and I can’t change it. I fear you’re woefully unprepared for the likes of me, so it’s not liable to last. You’ll realize soon enough how disastrous this is.”
Jersey smiled, his eyes creasing. “You have a truly fatalistic approach to life.”
I chuckled. “Not you too. I swear, I’m going to put you and Niles in a classroom and give you both a lesson on fatalism. That’s not what this is. You misunderstand me.”
He squeezed my hand, stepped closer, and lowered his voice. “I’m here when you’re ready to explain it, but I get the sense these qualities you allude to are worse in your head.”
“They’re not. Trust me. Niles left because I couldn’t give him what he needed.”
“Sex?”
A short laugh escaped me. “What? Where did you get that idea?”
Jersey shrugged. “You said you wouldn’t put out tonight, but is that a forever thing? Is that why Niles gave up? I’ll be honest, I’m not sure I could wait indefinitely on something like that, but I’m all right if you need time.”
Jersey was joking, but a hint of concern tainted the question.
“Relax. I’m not sex adverse, but I have standards, and they include not putting out on a first date.”
“Second date?”
I gave him a look. “You’re incorrigible. I thought you were going to kiss me.”
“I am.”
And he did.
Strong, slightly callused hands took my face and drew me in. Jersey’s warm, pliable mouth descended on mine. Firm. Controlling. The essence of a man who knew who he was and what he wanted. I envied him.
Closing my eyes, I savored the connection, searching for those tendrils, that barely perceptible spark of life his kiss had given me the last time we’d come together like this at the bistro.
And I found it.
That time, when Jersey’s tongue grazed my lower lip, I invited him in for more. His taste, the gentle, caressing way he advanced, consumed me. It was as though Jersey alone could draw me from the shadowy world where I lived into a place full of sunshine, color, and promise.
But what would I do in that world?
It wasn’t real. The illusion was a hormonal reaction, a bone-deep yearning for a pleasure I often denied myself. The physical aspects of a relationship had never been the issue. The human body—for the most part—was hardwired with a desire for sexual contact.
It was the layers of emotional bonding where I failed. It was building a connection, falling in love, and believing in tomorrow that was impossible. Jersey and I could kiss all night, and I could break my rule and let him take me to bed, but it wouldn’t create meaning in a meaningless world. It wouldn’t create hope where there was none to be had.
My inability to form attachments would still exist in the morning.
And when Jersey realized how I operated and understood I could no longer love him like I had as a boy, he would leave too.
The kiss naturally ended. Jersey hovered near my mouth, touching my face, our breathing wispy and labored.
“Can we do this again?” he asked. “Have another date?”
“Yes… but give me time to… process.”
“But you’ll text me, right?”
“I will.”
“I’ll hold you to that. I’m not letting go.”
“Okay.”
“I promise.”
He planted one last kiss on the corner of my mouth before stepping back. The moment he released me, an acute chill entered my system. The desolate world where I lived swept back in around my feet and dragged me away to the shadows. The moment of pleasure and escape had ended.
I left, and Jersey watched me go, standing in the dark by the front door outside an empty house that had once belonged to his parents. As I drove home, I wondered what life might have been like had things not turned out the way they had.
It was not a thought process I allowed myself often, but the first boy I’d ever loved was back in town, seeking a romance we’d never been able to realize as children. I wondered, if I’d grown up differently, might we have had a fighting chance?
As it stood, I had my doubts.
18
Jersey
Camp Kawartha 1991
Someone brought a cap gun to camp this year. The counselors didn’t know. The boy, eleven, a year younger than us, brought it out during free time on the second week we were there and pretended to shoot people. The gun was plastic and had an orange tip. It didn’t look real, but the bangs were loud, and we all got into it, acting the part of victims, falling to our deaths or taking cover so we wouldn’t get hit.
It was a riot.
Until it wasn’t.
Koa lost his shit.
First, we heard him scream. Then, before anyone could stop him, he ran at the boy with the gun and tackled him to the ground. Koa wasn’t playing. We realized that when the punches flew. He aimed for the boy’s face, hitting him once, twice, three times. Blood smeared the boy’s lips. He cried and tried to shove Koa off. Declan, our cabin leader, managed to tug him free, but then Koa turned his aggression on Declan.
