Shadows You Left

by Jude Sierra

  Jadis’s laughter almost threw them out of the chair.

  Desiree, who took this new development far more seriously, arched a dark brow. “Toothbrush?”

  Erik rolled his eyes. “Yes, he brought a toothbrush.”

  Desiree’s eyes widened along with her grin. “You’re in deep, Erik. You might wanna slow down.”

  “Shut up, I know.” Erik threw his hands over his face and heaved a sigh.

  “The U-Haul lesbian, who moved in with her girlfriend after month four, just told you to slow down.” Jadis could hardly speak through their laughter. “That’s rich. My God, Erik. This guy must be somethin’.”

  “Yeah, he is, that’s the goddamn problem.” Erik hung his head back and stared at the ceiling. “He’s…” Literally the best thing I’ve ever had. “I just don’t want to screw this up.” He peeled his sweatshirt off and dropped it on the table. Desperate to change the subject, Erik asked, “I left a shirt behind the bar, right?”

  “Yeah,” Desiree said, but her attention was glued to Erik’s bicep. She snatched his wrist before he walked away. “That’s new. Let me see.”

  “I got it last week after the mid-month fight.”

  “It’s pretty.” Desiree tilted her head to get a look at the rest. “Different for you, though. What made you pick this?”

  “I…” Erik heaved a defeated sigh. “River designed it and asked if he could do it.”

  Jadis had to catch themself as another wave of laughter wracked them. “Kiss of death! You let him brand you, Erik? Kiss. Of. Death. You know better.”

  “It’s only the kiss of death if we get matching tattoos,” Erik hissed. Heat rushed into his cheeks. “And he didn’t brand me. He just…” Put a piece of himself on me. “Fuck you, seriously.” He tore his eyes from Jadis and looked at the dragon, spun in an assortment of watercolors, green and blue and violet, broken apart by thin, black lines. It was gorgeous. Surreal. Erik never thought he’d wear a piece like this. “It’s not the kiss of death,” he reiterated, “and it’s not a brand. Leave it alone.”

  Jadis held up their hands in surrender.

  Desiree shot Jadis a stern look and balanced on the back two legs of her chair. Erik rummaged through the cabinets behind the bar for his shirt, needing a barrier between his tattoo and their prying eyes. They watched him, Desiree both tender and worried, Jadis wearing a smug smile.

  Erik didn’t know when March had appeared, but it was the first Friday of the new month, and he couldn’t concentrate on a damn thing. Desiree was right. Jadis was right. They both saw through him, and he couldn’t do a damn thing about it. And then there was River who had seen the Erik O’Malley who had the potential to forgive himself, a person Erik never thought could exist.

  “Hey, boo,” Desiree said. Her chair clacked to all fours. “Who’s Beverly?”

  The blood drained from Erik’s face. He paced toward the table and leaned over Desiree’s shoulder. She turned her phone and scrolled through Facebook. His profile was open. A picture was stamped on his timeline, Beverly and Erik seated on the hood of a car with their middle fingers showcased for the camera. Above it, the text read: Coming for you, O’Malley. I hit Seattle this week. Not leaving ’til I see you. Comments from other high school friends appeared below it.

  You found him?!

  O’Malley’s in the great white north?

  Whoa! Bring him back with you!

  His jaw tightened, and his stomach flipped. He’d spent so much time staying hidden that he never considered what might happen if someone found him.

  Especially Beverly, who would try to align his broken pieces, who would include Lee’s name in every other sentence and reminisce about a past Erik couldn’t fathom remembering.

  “Erik,” Jadis said, uncharacteristically stern. “You okay?”

  “She’s a friend from high school.” Erik stared at Desiree’s phone until the screen went black.

  “You? Friends?” Jadis teased.

  Erik shook his head. “Yeah, I was the worst of them.”

  Jadis opened their mouth, either to apologize or to keep pestering him, when the cleaning crew waved and then shut the back door, signaling they were finished.

  Desiree nodded. She stood and tossed Erik his sweatshirt while Jadis zipped their long black coat to the collar.

  Erik couldn’t think or breathe. His heart beat a mile a minute, thoughts racing in every direction. He needed a shower. He needed sleep. He needed to check his Facebook, or delete his Facebook, or change his number, or face his fucking past.

  Desiree fumbled with her keys at the front door.

  Jadis grabbed his wrist. “You’re freaking out.”

  “I’m not.”

  “You are. I can see your heartbeat through your shirt.”

  He chewed on his lip. “Yeah, okay, I’m freaking out. It’s fine.”

  A cellophane baggy hit his palm, and Erik flinched.

  “Thank me later,” Jadis said.

  “I don’t—”

  “C’mon, let me lock up.” Desiree ushered them out the door.

  Jadis raised their brows at Erik and nodded. “See you later,” they said, shoulders sharp and hands stuffed in their pockets as they disappeared around the corner.

  Once Jadis was gone, Desiree sighed and locked the door. She glanced at Erik, a soft smile curving her full mouth, and shook her head. “I always knew you were running, but you’ve never told me what you were running from. Is it that girl?”

  “Yes and no,” Erik said. He slid the baggy into his pocket, concealing it with his hand. “It’s complicated.”

  “As is life.” Bronzer lit Desiree’s dark cheeks, but it didn’t mask how tired she was. “Take care of yourself, okay? I’ll see you tomorrow.” She pinched his chin gently and strode off toward the parking garage across the street.

  Erik watched her go, fiddling with the bag in his pocket. Beverly’s message left him restless. Horribly, violently restless. He leaned against Gem’s front door and took out his phone. Clicked Beverly’s profile. Opened messenger.

  He typed out: I can’t see you, I’m sorry. He deleted it. This isn’t a good time. Deleted it. Please, I can’t talk about him. Deleted it.

  Erik clicked on another name.

  Erik: What is this shit?

  Jadis: Xanax.

  Erik shoved his phone in his pocket, walked into the shadows that clung to the back of the building, and took out the baggy. He gathered shards of orange powder in the hollow of his thumb and snorted it, immediately welcomed by a warm, dizzying rush. It chased his anxiety away, turned his bones soft and his fears into mist.

  Everything disappeared. He stared at the sky, littered with stars, their glow diluted by too many city lights.

  His phone buzzed.

  Watermarked: How’d it go?

  Wolfbite013: I won.

  Watermarked: Come over?

  Erik closed his eyes. He sniffled and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. Guilt nagged the better part of him, the part that was tired of running. Austin was right around the corner. Another city. Another beginning. Another life. He looked at the half-full baggy and tossed it into the dumpster across from him.

  He wasn’t any better than what he’d been—a kid dead-set on escaping.

  Sometimes he thought the drugs were his only way to remember Lee. Sometimes he thought the drugs were a suit of armor. Sometimes he thought the drugs were just another excuse to keep hating himself.

  Really, the drugs were just drugs.

  Wolfbite013: Omw

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  River opened the door with a smile and pulled Erik in by the cuff of his jacket.

  “Pax is asleep,” he said quietly. Erik nodded. He made no move to hug or touch River. He’d fought that night—maybe bruised his ribs again. His lips were cold when River sought them out.

  “Where are you taking me?” Erik asked. River walked him down the hallway.

  “Bathroom.” River flipped on a single light. It
didn’t mitigate the bright shock after the darkness. Erik sat. “You don’t look so bad,” River said past the slight tremor in his throat. It was clear Erik had taken pains to clean the blood from a split eyebrow. River probably had a butterfly bandage somewhere in his first aid kit that would suffice.

  Erik nodded, eyes closed, and gripped River’s hips, tilted until his forehead was against River’s belly. His shoulders were set wrong, too heavy, too fluid.

  “Anything hurt?” River touched the back of Erik’s head.

  “No,” Erik said. He didn’t move.

  “Erik—” Something was wrong.

  Erik often touched him carefully, but never like this. He didn’t usually let himself nakedly need affection. Usually, River had to soothe him away from panic and defense into the vulnerability of it.

  Erik looked at him. “River…”

  River knew then. He knew it. River had heard his name spoken like that most of his life. Alcohol and guilt had their own tone. But Erik rarely had more than a social drink or two, and all River smelled was the sweat of a fight and the aftermath of blood.

  River held his face in his palms and looked into his eyes. Erik was high.

  If I leave you, how will I stop the bleeding?

  River had fought it, he’d hid it, he’d lied to everyone, including himself, but—God, he loved him so much.

  “River.” Erik hooked his thumb under the elastic waist of River’s flannel pants to hold him close. “Please.”

  Please? Please, what?

  River put a hand on Erik’s head. Through the thunder of his heart racing, Erik’s broken little noise crept into his chest.

  River understood, then, how much he’d bleed for Erik.

  Erik’s coat was on the floor, and his heart was in River’s hands. Whatever he’d taken or done had stripped one layer away. River bit the inside of his cheek and forced a smile. Sometimes Erik’s eyes were olive, often they were brown. Tilted into the light, like this, River could see every speckle of jade.

  River could ask him to leave, and Erik would. They’d made no promises, had no words for the thread between them. They’d let that tie go unnamed out of fear. River knew why now—the familiarity was the echo of an old, old wound.

  Erik stood. His hands followed the slope of River’s shoulders, around his elbows and to his wrists. He didn’t touch River’s hands. “You can stay,” River whispered. Erik pulled River close, and it wasn’t Erik he had to fight, then. It was years of being pulled into his mother’s arms, muscle memory of rigid refusal to easily forgive. River tucked his face into Erik’s neck. “Take a shower. You have some clothes here.” River’s smile, a private, bitter thing, went unseen. He sent its shape into Erik’s skin and knew it would go unread.

  Erik pulled back. His hands held River’s face carefully, framing his cheekbones. They were rounder than Erik’s—River knew he looked younger than he was, his face refusing to leave his boyhood behind. His eyes stung. He wouldn’t let Erik see that. Couldn’t control how Erik would read him. Truth was, River wasn’t convinced Erik could read him, not really. River worked so hard to keep his secrets buried, wanted so badly to know Erik’s story. Often, he wondered if he’d succeeded so well that Erik only knew a portion of him. He only saw River through self-loathing, and River was used to his own pain being unseen.

  “Not tonight, I think.” Erik’s lips were still cold. “I’m—”

  “Don’t.” River’s index finger slipped over his lips. Don’t apologize now. Don’t tell me you love me.

  “I’ll call you, okay?”

  River swallowed, and swallowed again, and reminded himself sternly to breathe. “Yeah. Sure.”

  …

  River’s third client of the day canceled. Usually he hated cancellations, but he was immensely grateful for this one. Tattooing was like yoga for him in a fundamental way. It got him out of his head. It brought him to a state of mindfulness that was only about that moment, that person. No matter how hard he tried, River couldn’t achieve that today. His work didn’t suffer for it, but he did.

  Erik leaving for a second time burrowed into him.

  He didn’t put his head down like he wanted, and he didn’t go make himself some tea—he wouldn’t put it past Cheyenne to corner him, pulling information out of him with a single look. There really wasn’t any advice River would take right now. Not because he wanted to keep Erik’s secrets, but because he wasn’t, fundamentally, ready to make choices.

  Perhaps it would be a good night to work on the painting of Val. He wouldn’t contact Erik, not when the ache was so tender and River so turned around. He doubted Erik would contact him. Morgan’s birthday was coming up. River wanted to give the painting to Val but knew from experience that she struggled to accept portraits of herself. Morgan would have no such compunction. Nefarious means that pleased everyone weren’t so bad. Morgan would be delighted regardless.

  It wasn’t coming along as he wanted, though. He wasn’t as used to acrylics, and River wasn’t sure that he was in the right state of mind for the challenge. Ink and watercolor, maybe. Only everything was wrong, his skin too tight and his head pounding, his heart too fast and sharp. River gripped his phone with shaking hands. Panic attacks weren’t new to him, but it’d been years since he’d had one. He slipped into the bathroom, refusing to meet Cheyenne’s eyes, and out of instinct, dialed.

  “Hey, Riv,” Val said.

  “Val.” River leaned against the wall and slid to a crouch on the floor. He cleared his throat.

  “River.” Val modulated her voice. River knew that Val loved him more than anyone, that she loved him uniquely. She often tempered her kindness, but it wasn’t because of him. It was how Val had learned to navigate the world. She knew him, though, well enough to read three letters in a single syllable. “Honey, are you okay?”

  River ran a hand over his face and took a breath. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

  “River, honey, take a breath. What—”

  “Could we maybe have dinner?” he asked, words hastily tripping over each other. Echoes filled the small room. River pressed two fingers to his lips.

  “Of course.” He could hear the rapid flip of pages. He knew she was checking her calendar. She would cancel anything for him when he needed her. “Come to mine. I’ll make you goulash.”

  “Yeah,” he breathed into the phone.

  “I’ll have Morgan pick up the meat,” Val said. “You can help me cook.”

  “Thanks, Val.” River’s heart kept its steady thrum, its panicked rhythm, because now a truth would have to come, too. He wouldn’t have called her if he didn’t need to speak one. He just had to pick which.

  …

  “What’s going on, then?” Never one to beat around the bush, Val pushed past initial pleasantries as soon as he’d gotten hands-deep into cubing the beef. “Is this about the guy?”

  River sighed. “No, it’s not about Erik.”

  “River, you’re the shittiest liar, I swear.” Val brushed her hair out of her face with her wrist. It fell right back down.

  “Okay, yes but no.” He had spent the rest of his afternoon thinking of his approach. Erik, his mother, memories of failed relationships and unhealthy boundaries. There was too much, and it was all coalescing into a single, pervasive anxiety he couldn’t shake. He wasn’t about to tell Val about the mess their mother was dragging him into. But he could talk about some of the rest. “Remember Brigid?”

  Val shot him a narrow look. She was their father in expression and coloring. It wasn’t often River actively missed his father. They spoke on the phone every month or so, and he flew in for holidays from time to time, but they weren’t close. Sometimes, though, River was his younger self, seeking calm. Adulthood had taught him what it meant to project something you didn’t feel. He was sure, now, that the calm his father chased had been for their sake, and not always genuine. Still, River remembered it from time to time.

  “All right, so you remember her.” He smirked.

 
; “This isn’t one of those ‘I think I miss her’ things, is it? I thought you were really gone for this guy.”

  “No, it’s not.” River washed his hands, taking his time. “And yes, I am.” Pressed his lips together to steady them. “It’s not about missing her.” Missing Erik sat in him, its own beast, too big and ugly to be spoken of. “It’s about not wanting to do the same things. Make the same mistakes I made back then.”

  Val put her bowl down. “Riv. Honey. You know that she did those things to you, right?”

  River shook his head, not in disagreement, but a reflexive gesture toward everything that had run deeper between him and Brigid.

  “You didn’t make her cheat on you. You didn’t make her out of control—”

  “But I couldn’t help her.” River’s lips were numb.

  “That wasn’t your job,” Val insisted.

  “No, but it was. Not to fix anything, I guess…” He took a breath. “But to support her. To be there for her.”

  “You were.” Val touched his shoulder, led him to the table. Butcher-block style, deeply scarred and a rich brown, its texture was lovely, soft wood with ridged edges under his fingers. “But you didn’t just want to be there for her. Support and love and understanding are one thing—saving is another. And I’m sorry, but you let her hurt you. I’m not saying you did it on purpose, but that’s what it amounted to in the end.”

  River chewed on his lip. Objectively, it was the truth. It hadn’t felt like letting, though, not at the time. It had felt like failure and helplessness. It had felt like stupidity at his own blinders. With her, he’d tasted his first heartbreak.

  “What are you trying to save him from?” Val’s insights were always too cutting.

  “No, that’s not it. That’s not why I’m here.” River forced a smile, relaxed his shoulders, and put up a false front. Perhaps she accepted it out of kindness—perhaps he’d fooled her for once. “It’s about being scared.”