Promises of Forever, page 19
The chipmunk scurried off among the brush and ferns, and I couldn’t see him anymore. I waited, chin propped on my upturned hands, elbows digging into the dusty remains of the disintegrating trunk innards. Maybe I had grown bigger. Either that or the trunk had grown smaller during the winter.
An army of ants entertained me for a while, and I listened to a woodpecker hammering a tree nearby. No matter how hard I searched the branches overhead, I couldn’t find him.
A short time later, crunching leaves and snapping sticks announced the arrival of someone. I grinned. Jersey had never been good at stealth. It sounded like he was trying to sneak up on me, but I heard him loud and clear. I covered my mouth so I wouldn’t laugh out loud and slowed my breathing.
He inched closer.
Closer.
It was him. It had to be. Who else knew about our secret spot?
A moment later, he jumped into view, shouting, “Boo!”
But I wasn’t scared, and I burst out laughing.
Jersey laughed too.
It had been more than a year, and Jersey did look different. Older. He didn’t turn thirteen until August, but anyone comparing us would have thought he had a year or two on me. His hair was messy and longish. His skin was tanned, even though summer had only just begun. He was broader, thicker limbed. Brawny. I knew he played sports, which was obvious in how he carried himself. Athletes had a look.
And the biggest difference of all was the white plaster cast on his left arm. It covered his wrist, part of his fingers, and went to his elbow.
“Oh no! You broke your arm.” In his letter, he said it was one of his fears because it could ruin his hockey.
Jersey’s smile told another story. He waved the covered appendage in the air. “It’s nothing. It’s just my wrist. No big deal. The doctor said it should be healed by hockey tryouts.”
“How did you do it?”
“Did a ramp jump with my skateboard. Didn’t nail the landing. Crashed hard. It was wicked awesome though. I heard the bone snap.”
“Eww.”
“It hurt, but I didn’t cry.”
Crying when you were almost thirteen would have been mortifying. I still cried—a lot—but I tried not to when people were watching. I didn’t want to be tagged as a baby.
Jersey’s eyes crinkled like they always did when he was happy. “Move over,” he said, dropping to his knees. “I want to come in.”
“There’s not much room.”
“So? We’ll squish.”
The tree had definitely shrunk, but we didn’t care. We burrowed deeper than usual, inching back as far as we could go so not even the sun, where it bled through the canopy of leaves, could find us.
Jersey struggled to find a comfortable place to put his bulky cast. He said it hurt a bit when he leaned on it, so he kept squirming and moving.
“Did you take the top bunk?” I asked.
“Yep. I forgot your book again.”
“Again. Your memory sucks. Did you read it?”
“Not yet… Ouch. Stupid arm.” He angled his body sideways. Our knees bumped. “I’m, like, halfway or something.”
I wasn’t sure Jersey would ever finish it. It had taken him years to get that far. I’d read a hundred books since then.
“Have you met Huck yet?”
“Yeah. Once. You didn’t tell me he’s a homeless kid.”
“So? Huck’s cool. It’s not his fault. His dad’s a drunk.”
Jersey rested his casted arm on top of me. We were squished in the log so tight it was comical, arms and legs crunched together. Jersey headbutted me, laughing. “I missed you.”
My belly fluttered with his words. “I missed you too.”
“You’re gonna stay the whole time, right?”
“I’m going to try.”
He moved his injured arm, sticking out a pinky. “Promise me?”
I pinky shook and said, “Promise.”
“Promises are for forever.”
“I know.” I couldn’t stop smiling and showed him I still wore his bracelet.
Jersey’s face was so close to mine that I saw every crease and divot. I could smell Jersey’s sun-kissed skin and feel its warmth bleed through my thin T-shirt. Coldness sometimes lived inside me, even on the hottest summer days, but when I was with Jersey, he made the shivers disappear.
“Are your friends here?” I asked.
“Bruce is, but I’m not talking to him.” Jersey playfully headbutted me again, a smile stretching from ear to ear.
I headbutted him back, and he copied. We goofed around like that for a while, then Jersey groaned and shifted to his back, taking up all the space, but it looked like he was struggling to find a comfortable way to lie down with his arm.
With Jersey on his back, it forced me to lie half on top of him. Where else was I supposed to go?
In the past, during the nights when my dreams woke me, I’d lain against Jersey for comfort, and he never seemed to mind. But those were secret times when I was not okay in the head, and he’d comforted me. This wasn’t one of those times, and I was afraid if I got too close, he might call me a fag and push me away.
Mikey’s words rang in my ears. Do you have a girlfriend? No, but sometimes I wished I had a boyfriend, and I wished even more that his name was Jersey. I knew what that meant, but I hadn’t told anyone.
“Lie down. Stop squirming,” he said.
When I couldn’t find enough courage, Jersey tugged me against him. I giggled when I landed awkwardly, sprawled halfway across him. “I think our log is too small for us.”
“It’s our lair. We can’t abandon it. We have to make it work.”
I stopped fighting and settled. I didn’t rest my leg over his or wrap an arm around him. I kept tight to my side of the log and wished my heart would calm down. I put my head on Jersey’s shoulder since it had nowhere else to go. He didn’t complain. He kept his good arm folded behind his head and the one with the cast resting on his chest.
I liked being close to Jersey. I liked the way he smelled and the way my skin came alive in his presence. The noises inside my head both calmed and went crazy in a different way. The bad stuff was always more manageable when Jersey was around. Sometimes, I wished I could be with him forever.
He still didn’t know about my past. I wouldn’t ever tell him. Grandfather said it was best to stay quiet. Telling could mean the TV and newspaper people might come back, and they had been awful.
I had two secrets now. The second one was both bigger and smaller than the first. Grandfather didn’t know I liked boys and not girls. No one did. It scared me a little, but not like the first secret. It also excited me, making Pop Rocks explode in my belly. Like now with Jersey.
If Jersey didn’t mind being this close to me, maybe he had the same second secret as I did. Maybe he liked lying against me too. It was his idea, wasn’t it? Did it make his belly swoop the way it did mine?
I didn’t tell him how I felt. I couldn’t. I lay still and soaked up the feelings instead.
The birds sang in the trees, the woodpecker went to town, and it sounded like messy classical music all around us. Jersey talked about the last hockey season and how he couldn’t wait for tryouts for the next. He talked about school—we would both be starting grade eight in September. And he talked about wanting to lift weights like this kid he knew in high school who was majorly buff and played hockey.
“Then no one would get past me. I’d be a brick wall.”
When he told me about a girl he liked in his class, the coldness that always lived inside me returned. Her name was Abigail. Jersey said she was super pretty. Blonde hair that curled all the way down her back. Pretty blue eyes and long lashes.
“She plays girls basketball,” he said.
Grade eight meant they’d have their first dance at his school, and he hoped and prayed she’d dance with him. “Like, to a slow song. How cool would that be?”
Jersey said he was going to ask her out to a movie. He’d never been on a date. He said he wanted to kiss her. He said a boy in his class had kissed a girl before and told him it was the best thing ever.
Like Mikey, Jersey asked if I had a girlfriend.
I said no.
He asked if I knew any hot girls.
I said no.
He asked if I’d kissed anyone before.
I said no.
He asked if I’d been on a date.
I said no.
I didn’t want to be inside the log anymore. I didn’t want to feel Jersey’s warm body against me. But when I told him we should go back, he trapped me in his casted arm and said, “Not yet, Tom. We need to make a plan for this summer.”
The arm stayed around me. Like a hug I wasn’t sure I wanted anymore.
I was confused.
Maybe Jersey was too.
All that summer, I stayed confused. Jersey kept his promise. He and Bruce didn’t talk. Justin accepted me warily. Peter took Bruce’s side, and Daniel didn’t attend camp.
We canoed together—Jersey wasn’t allowed to swim. We caught frogs at the pond—he had to wear a plastic bag on his cast so it didn’t get damaged. And Jersey always sat beside me during bonfires, close enough our legs touched. He dragged me back to our log time and again just so we could lie there and chat, and since the space was small, it meant we had to lay close. Super close.
I didn’t have as many nightmares—not with the meds I took—but a few times, Jersey snuck down from the top bunk when everyone was asleep, and we lay side by side, whispering into the night.
During one of those nighttime chats, Jersey fell asleep in my bed. I studied his slack face, knowing I should wake him up. His lips were parted, and I stared at them, wondering what it would be like to touch them with mine. Wondering if he would taste as good as he smelled. I almost did it. I almost pressed our mouths together. Our noses were almost touching. It wouldn’t take much. His breath fanned my chin. If I moved a fraction closer, his breath would be on my mouth, and we would be kissing.
But I didn’t dare. If Jersey woke up, he might get mad. He might not stay my friend, and he was the only friend I had.
So I let him sleep awhile and imagined it a hundred different ways instead—which was dangerous since it made my whole body wake up with tingles.
Jersey startled awake on his own a short time later. I smiled at him in the dark. He grinned back.
“I better go to bed.”
“Okay.”
But he didn’t move. His smile changed. The look he wore was serious. Questioning. The fingers poking out of his cast brushed mine, and I didn’t pull away. He didn’t take my hand, but we touched like that for a long time. Once, and only once, Jersey’s attention moved to my mouth, and I wondered if he might be thinking the same thing as me.
He didn’t kiss me, but I thought maybe he wanted to.
Maybe he’d forgotten about Abigail.
Jersey went back to bed then, and he didn’t spend another night beside me after that. I think whatever happened inside his head scared him away.
22
Koa
Present Day
Cooking, like reading and journaling, gave me comfort. The mathematical concepts involved. The methodical rhythm of it. The way it stimulated various senses at once. It was rewarding and one of the few things I took pleasure in. Cooking for another person was oddly satisfying, and I’d pondered extensively how such a response was innately human. It fulfilled a fundamental nurturing component scientists believed was ingrained into our species. It made my existence in a meaningless world feel less alien.
I’d never shared that with anyone. Not even Niles, who had always enjoyed my meals.
Jersey took to the same stool where he’d sat the first time he was over. Hoping he would accept my invitation for a quieter evening, I’d tidied the accumulation of novels and other debris from the island, ensuring nothing personal was lying about like it had been previously.
“I have a Brunello di Montalcino to go with dinner.” I indicated the bottle of wine as I located the corkscrew in a drawer. “But it needs time to breathe before we can drink it. Can I make you a cocktail starter? Maybe a negroni?”
“I’m not sure what that is, but sure. Whatever you’re having is fine.”
“You’re not one for cocktails, I assume?” The cork popped, and I waved the bottle under my nose, inhaling. “Or wine?”
“Busted. I mostly gravitate to beer. Does that make me a Neanderthal?”
“No, but beer wouldn’t pair with the meal.”
“I’m not too sophisticated when it comes to alcohol, I’m afraid. Still painfully twenty-one at heart, happy with cheap beer or vodka coolers. But I’ll gladly participate with whatever the appropriate adult beverage is you’re serving.”
I smirked. “Negroni it is.”
I set the wine aside to breathe while I collected the ingredients to make our cocktails.
Jersey sipped it hesitantly when I sat it before him, shifting the curling garnish of orange rind aside with a finger. He moved the liquid around his mouth before swallowing, considered, licked his lips, then sipped again.
“And?” I asked, waiting for the verdict.
“What’s in it?”
“Gin, vermouth, and Campari.”
“It’s not bad. Strong.” But that didn’t stop him from having a third, heftier mouthful.
“Should I cut you off at one?”
“I guess that depends on where you intend this date to end. If I can’t drive home, you’ll need to put me up in your bed.”
“I have a couch.”
“What fun is there in that?”
I hummed and made a point of scanning and judging the entire package that was Jersey Reid. “I guess we’ll see.”
He snorted, shaking his head at my assessment. “You’re a hard sell, Dr. Burgard. You could do worse than my forty-four-year-old ass, you know.”
“Perhaps.”
And since flirting wasn’t my forte, I found some nice background music—classical piano—and set to work on dinner, seasoning the lamb and preparing moussaka in a casserole dish.
Jersey offered to help, but I turned him down. Drink in hand, he moved in beside me and watched instead, leaning against the counter. I wasn’t used to having an audience, and his presence so close to my elbow was distracting.
“Where’d you learn to cook?” he asked as I sliced and salted the eggplant.
“Self-taught. I’m passionate about decent food, but eating out at worthwhile restaurants adds up over time. It’s not a difficult skill so long as you apply patience and can read a recipe.”
“Ah, it must be the patience part where I fail.”
“Are you sure? I hear you’re not much of a reader.”
“You’re a funny man now. I see how it is.”
I smirked. “You don’t cook?”
“Simple stuff. Spaghetti, steak, anything that doesn’t require too much prep or ingredients. I can barbecue the hell out of most meats. I can fry an egg and boil a potato. That’s about where I cap out. When I played hockey, eating out was all I did. We were always on the road, or the intensity of our practice schedule meant there wasn’t time for anything but takeout.”
“But you haven’t played in over a decade.”
Jersey chuckled. “Can’t teach an old dog new tricks, I guess. I get by.”
“Excuses.” We chatted about our favorite foods while I stirred, mixed, and prepared the moussaka. It was a complicated dish but worth the effort. I was pleased to hear Jersey’s palate was so diverse. I had an interest in cultural dishes and was eager to have someone to try them out on.
“How’s your drink?” I asked as I put the finishing touches on the moussaka and checked the temperature of the oven before sliding it inside.
“Gone.”
“And your head?”
“Not buzzing yet.”
“Good. You can make us another.” I gestured to the bottles I’d left out. With instructions, Jersey was more than capable. Although his orange curls left much to be desired. I teased him when he set my glass down.
The lamb and moussaka would need time to cook, so I invited Jersey into the library. We sat together on the couch, bodies angled toward one another, knees touching. His presence in my house and life was incongruous with all I believed. It upset the harmony I’d learned to live with, yet I couldn’t seem to turn him off or disconnect the way I’d done before he’d resurfaced.
It concerned me. Disconnecting had been a means of survival for so long that I feared the incapacitation of the reflex.
Isolation was familiar. Jersey was not.
I sipped my drink and closed my eyes, seeking balance in a maelstrom that had battered me raw for as long as I could remember. Jersey left me to my thoughts, which I appreciated. It was something I’d had to teach Niles. He was a talker and often invaded my peace.
Words, as they often did, came to me out of nowhere. Had I been alone, I’d have written them down in a journal. As it stood, I spoke them out loud. “Like shadows, my sorrows lie at my feet. Chained and bound. An infinite defeat. Stretching long, bleeding pools of sadness. I weep, unable to get free. For if thy heart knew such pain, you shan’t share my woes. You’d fight. You’d tell me, son, remember, shadows cannot exist without light.”
I opened my eyes and found Jersey regarding me with a tender fascination.
“That’s beautiful. Tremendously sad but beautiful. Who wrote it?”
I stared into my tumbler, at the orange liquid, slipping like oil around the melting cubes of ice, refracting the light. “A once tormented man.”
“Is he still?”
“At times. It’s why he struggles with this.” I gestured between us.
Jersey touched my knee, thumb stroking ever so delicately. “Does he want to talk about it?”
“No. He wants nothing more than to forget.”
“Okay. If he changes his mind…”
I met Jersey’s gaze. Being with him wouldn’t fix anything. It wouldn’t erase the past. It wouldn’t break the bonds that held me captive. It wouldn’t change the future. All that was, and all that was yet to be, was forever black and tainted. Spoiled.
