He wasn’t wrong about that. Over the past month, Jake had been less combative and more agreeable. It was easier to reason with him, easier to calm him down, and if I really thought about it, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d worried about him becoming violent. It was great and even though I felt triumphant at the praise from my father, I knew I couldn’t take the credit.
It was all Audrey.
Well, Freddy, too. But mostly Audrey.
I wasn’t the only one she had fixed.
“I haven’t noticed much of a difference,” Mom all but snickered, crossing her arms and shaking her head. “He still fights with me.”
“Well, I’m not saying he doesn’t fight anymore, he’s always going to—”
“Then, let’s not act like he’s cured, Paul,” she snapped, leveling my father with an ugly glare.
Dad lifted the platter and turned to me with the look of a man who’d just had his balls handed to him. “Ready to eat?” he asked, his voice tense and struggling for control.
“Yeah, Dad,” I nodded, as I grabbed the biscuits, and I thought again about my conversation with Dr. Travetti. About my role as the bad kid and if it’d been as real as I’d been made to believe. Or if I was just doomed to wear a red mark handed to me after one very, very unfortunate accident.
But that’s all it was. An accident.
***
Jake was quietly watching Gremlins on the floor in front of the TV, his arms wrapped around Mickey’s neck. I came up from behind him with a slice of apple pie, topped with a heaping mound of vanilla ice cream and whipped cream, and asked, “Hey, buddy, want some dessert?”
Jake turned to look up at me with a bewildered grin. “You betcha!”
“Here you go.” I passed the pie down to him. “Don’t make a mess, okay?”
With both our hands locked on the plate between us, his eyes fixated on mine with that look. The one that managed to work its way through my retinas and into my brain, with the intent of digging deeper and deeper until there was nowhere else to go but to burrow in the pit of my chest and curl up between my lungs. I was frozen and unable to look away, as his smile slowly stretched.
“You’re still blue,” he seemed to assure me, nodding. “But you’re pink also. So pretty and bright.”
“Ew, pink?” I twisted my mouth with blatant disgust as my curiosity ignited. “That’s gross, man. Don’t tell me that.”
Jake laughed, taking his pie into his lap. “It’s not gross! All the colors are pretty.”
I scoffed, crossing my arms and shaking my head. “Yeah, whatever you say, pal.”
He shrugged and turned his attention back to the TV. “You should tell Audrey your colors. She put them on you.”
Instantly sobered at the mention of her name, I reached down to ruffle his hair. “Maybe I will.”
“Tonight.”
I chuckled under my breath. “Yeah, I don’t think so, Jake. I’m not seeing her tonight, so—”
“You are.”
I froze on the spot, startled by the sincerity in his tone. I had no plans of seeing Audrey until tomorrow night, after she and her mother had gone Black Friday shopping. What would make me see her tonight? What reason could I possibly have to change our plans now?
Breaking out of my stupor, I laid a hand over his head and said, “I’ll see you on Sunday, buddy.” He was quiet now and simply nodded, keeping his attention solely on the movie. I sucked in a deep breath and quickly moved into the kitchen before he had the chance to say anything else. There, I found my parents in conversation with one of my aunts. Quietly, I snatched my keys from off the counter, hoping to make a quick getaway before being roped into the chatter myself, when my mother turned to me.
“Oh, Blake, while you’re still here, I wanted to mention something to you.”
I caught Dad’s somber downward gaze and furrowed my brow. “What’s up?” I asked.
“Just so you know,” Mom went on without hesitation, “Dad and I went back to Shady Acres earlier this week and signed the papers. We’ll be moving Jake over there after Christmas.”
It took a few moments for the words to make sense in my head, while the impact instantaneously caused my heart to combust, leaving my chest open and bleeding onto the kitchen floor. I expected my mother to scream at me to clean it up, to demand I get the mop and get to work on making her floor sparkle again. All I could do was reach a hand out to grip the edge of the counter and try to remain steady, to keep myself from falling over into the puddle of blood collecting on the floor.
“Blake? Did you hear me?”
At that snappy tone, I did hear her, and I finally reacted. I curled my other hand into a fist and sent it sailing into the refrigerator door. The sound rang throughout the house and the faces of all my relatives turned to look on at the family drama about to unfold. The refrigerator contents rattled and spilled inside, and the stainless steel did nothing to cool the immediate throb that seared the side of my palm. But that all went ignored as I stared into the startled eyes of my mother.
“You didn’t fucking talk to me,” I growled through gritted teeth.
“Blake, calm—”
“You didn’t fucking talk to me!” I repeated, louder. Angrier.
Mom spread her arms wide, palms open. “Why do we have to talk to you about anything?”
I uncurled my fist and daggers shot up through my fingers to my elbow as I pointed one throbbing finger at my mother’s disbelieving face. “You didn’t say anything to me! You told me you were looking around. You told me you would keep me in the loop. But instead, you went behind my fucking back and signed the goddamn papers! How the fuck could you do this shit to me? There are other fucking options and—”
“Options?” Mom spat condescendingly. “What options?”
And I finally uttered my deepest wishes to the woman who could make them come true. “He could stay with me! He likes my place, he’s happy there, he’s—”
Her eyeroll cut me off. “You can’t be serious.”
“Yes, I’m fucking serious! I wouldn’t even ask you for anything. He’d be fine, we’d—”
“Should I remind you of why we’re in this position to begin with?”
I shook my head, blinking at the burning sensation in my eyes. “Don’t you fucking dare. I will fucking—”
“Blake,” Dad said, standing up from the table, “go home. We’ll talk about this in a couple of days after you’ve cooled—”
“Fuck you,” I shot back, now aiming my finger now toward him.
“Excuse me?” He scowled, crossing his arms.
“I said, fuck you.”
“I’m your father,” he said, as though that meant something.
“Yeah, you are, and you promised me,” I replied, as if that should’ve meant something to them, and I turned away with my throbbing hand and stormed out of the house.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
AUDREY’S MOM, Ann, a resident nurse, held my hand in both of hers as Audrey grabbed one of the beers she kept for me in her fridge. I winced at her mother’s manipulations on my fingers as she slowly studied each digit.
“Well, your fingers aren’t broken,” she declared, slowly moving her fingers to my palm, and I hissed through my teeth. “But you might’ve fractured something in here. Might just be a sprain, but you should still get it X-rayed.”
I shook my head. “I’m not going to the fucking hospital.”
Ann peered at me through a pair of matronly eyes I don’t think I’d ever seen before in my life. “Well, I guess you could just leave it alone, and then we’ll see how much longer you’re able to work after your bones mend improperly.”
Groaning, I thrust my other hand through my hair. “Couldn’t I just wrap it tonight and go to the hospital tomorrow? I can’t even fucking think straight right now.” My voice cracked under the pressure of my emotions and I cleared my throat, instantly embarrassed by how fucking weak I’d become.
Audrey came over with the open bott
le of beer and passed it into my good hand. As I drank, she asked her mom, “Where are your bandages? I’ll go get them.”
Ann sighed and patted my hand before laying it on the table. “Nah. I’ll go up. Be right back,” and with that, she turned and left Audrey’s apartment.
The drive from my parents’ house had been done in a blind flurry of rage and desperation. An endless string of curse words and a periodic smash of my fist into the steering wheel had been the soundtrack to my post-Thanksgiving trip back to Salem, and in a single shred of clarity, I knew I couldn’t be alone. I knew being in that dark house, alone with all those liquor bottles, wouldn’t lead to anything productive or good. I’d turned in the direction of Audrey’s place with only one thought in mind: Jake knew. Somehow, he fucking knew, and now, I sat at Audrey’s kitchen table, shaking my head and pinching the space between my brows, asking nobody how the fuck that was possible.
“How is what possible?” she asked softly, reaching out to touch my arm.
“Jake,” I choked, my chest heaving and aching. “How the fuck did he know I’d be here tonight?”
Audrey faltered before replying, “Um … maybe he just figured—”
“No.” I shook my head and dropped my hand to the table. “He knew I wasn’t seeing you for a couple days, but he was insistent that I’d be here tonight. And I just don’t fucking understand how he could know.”
“You don’t know the extent of his, um …” Gift. I saw the word written on her face, etched into the blue of her eyes and highlighted across the tops of her cheekbones. But she hesitated to say it, knowing how I felt about it. Knowing I’d shake my head and shut her down with an insistence that there wasn’t such thing as gifts. But right now, I wished she had said it, declaring that’s what it was so that I wouldn’t have to. The word never left her lips, though. She simply shrugged apologetically, shifted in her seat, and the cross around her neck glinted in the light.
My gaze fixated on the delicate piece of silver, rising and falling with the rhythmic expanse and collapse of her chest. I found a hypnotic calm in its gentle glow and matched my breath with hers.
“No, you’re right. I don’t know the extent of it,” I answered, my voice gruff and rumbling in my chest. Then, I harshly admitted, “I fucking hate this shit.”
I could’ve been talking about anything—my pulsing hand, my parents and what they were doing, Jake’s symptom, that fucking cross—but Audrey didn’t ask for clarification. She just simply nodded somberly and said, “I know.”
I could’ve gone on to elaborate. About the breathing anger I held toward my mother, nestling deep inside my gut and turning sour with my Thanksgiving dinner. Or the conflict between my brain and heart over what the hell I believed. And the weight of my helpless and broken heart, crushing against my chest and splintering my ribs. I wanted to tell her everything I hated about it all, but the words failed me as I looked into her eyes that seemed so impossibly blue and kind.
“What the fuck are you doing with me?” I asked, shaking my head.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean,” I went on, reaching out to take her hand, “I can be such an insufferable, angry piece of shit. I’m a total fucking mess. And I still cannot understand why, after everything these past couple of months, you still want to be with me.”
Audrey cocked her head as those delicate fingers intertwined with mine. “You always say this like I have a choice. Like I could just walk away.”
“Well, yeah,” I replied. “’Cause you can.”
Shaking her head slowly, she smiled so sweetly and so adoringly, the weight against my lungs was lifted. Just a little. “But I can’t.”
“Oh, no?” I challenged. “And why not?”
“Because …” She hesitated, as though choosing her words carefully, before going on, “Because there are certain things in our lives—certain people—that are just supposed to be there. We don’t choose them, or what they’ll mean to us; they’re just a part of who we are.”
My old instincts said to laugh, snicker, or belittle her insistence that this wasn’t all one big accidental misunderstanding. But I couldn’t give in to them when that voice, getting louder every day, told me there was something to what she was saying. Something honest and true and so fucking terrifying, I could hardly stand it.
“And what is it you think I am to you?” I asked instead, surprised to find my voice so hushed, I could barely hear it myself. And without hesitation, she answered, “You’re the man I’m meant to love.”
A simple four-lettered word had never choked me up as much as it did in that moment. And it wasn’t that it had never been given to me before. My brother loved me and often told me so. Sometimes Cee admitted to a platonic love, while giving me a hug or in parting. Yet, this love from Audrey was new and strange and one I had never felt worthy of before. But with her hand holding mine, I knew it was the truth. The Real Deal.
You’re still blue. But you’re pink also. So pretty and bright.
You should tell Audrey your colors. She put them on you.
“I—” That one word caught in my throat and I choked around its sound.
As I coughed awkwardly, Audrey unleashed a smile that left me breathless and convinced I’d die in this moment, finally a happy man. She held my gaze as she said, “You don’t have to say anything,” and it occurred to me that she didn’t believe her feelings would be reciprocated. And how was it that she could seem so perfectly content in settling for something so sad and mediocre?
The remainder of my bricks fell with the crushing realization. Ignoring the pain in my busted hand, I reached out to lay my palm against her cheek. “Jake told me to tell you that you put the colors on me,” I confessed.
“What colors are those?”
“Blue,” I told her, and with a deep breath, added, “and pink.”
Audrey’s recognition hit her in small doses. First, with the lift of her chin, and then, the parting of her lips. She nodded slowly and whispered, “That’s the color of love.”
I nodded, knowing nothing else needed to be said, but needing to say it anyway. “For the first time in my life, I made the decision to feel hurt and angry with someone else and not alone. You make me so fucking vulnerable, Audrey, and I hate it so much. I fucking hate that I don’t have a choice in any of this shit, and that nothing makes sense anymore. But I love you, and I guess that’s all that really needs to make sense.”
Her smile wobbled as her emotional control slipped away with tears that flooded her eyes and slipped over her cheeks. I brushed away what I could with sweeps of my thumbs, but the battle was impossible and I succumbed to the defeat, settling for a kiss instead. I relished in the wet warmth of her tears against my face, the salt that moistened her lips and mine, and the taste of passionate joy on her tongue as she kissed me with the strength of every confession she held in her heart.
Nimble hands gripped my cheeks and inked hands gripped hers, and when her forehead touched mine, she whispered, “Thank you, Blake.”
“The hell are you thanking me for?”
Shrugging, she smiled and smoothed the hair at my temples. “For letting it happen.”
I choked on a gruff chuckle. “I don’t think I ever had a say.”
“But you stopped fighting it,” she pointed out gently.
Audrey’s mother announced her presence with an awkward clearing of her throat. Unable to control her smile, Audrey released my face and went to change into her pajamas, leaving her mother to wrap my hand. Ann worked in a gentle silence, periodically taking a glance at my eyes to smile. Her touch alone was a healing agent, soothing and softly affectionate. I watched as she weaved the bandage meticulously and tightly, but not so much it cut off the circulation, and I could understand why she’d chosen to care for people for a living. It’s who she was. But whether it was simply her professional bedside manner, or a true affection toward me, I relished in her touch and in being cared for.
When she was done, she gave
my bandaged hand a soothing rub before laying it on the table. “You should be fine until tomorrow, but you’re going to the doctor whether you like it or not, got it?”
With an obedient nod, I replied, “Got it.”
“No more punching refrigerators, okay?” She smiled warmly, crinkling her eyes.
I chuckled. “I’ll try not to.”
Her smile slowly faded as she packed away the rest of her bandages in a zippered bag. Then, with sincerity, she turned to me and said, “I don’t know if it’s my place to say something, but after the way you showed up here tonight, I feel like I should.”
“Okay,” I said, nodding and permitting her to continue.
Folding her hands against the table, she went on, “I don’t know what the situation is with your family, but I do know how close you are with your brother. What your parents are doing to you is abhorrent. But not just for you, but Jake as well. As a mother, and knowing how you two are together, I couldn’t imagine separating you.”
I sucked in a deep, controlled breath before saying, “I guess they think they’re doing what’s best for him. And I don’t know, maybe they think that keeping him out of my place is going to help me, so I guess—”
“Honey,” she stopped me with a term of endearment that made me want to crawl inside her chest and call her my own, “it doesn’t take a doctor or specialist to know what’s best for the both of you.”
The comment was sobering. Eye-opening, even, and I began to wonder if it really was that obvious to everyone. And if it was, then why didn’t my parents see it, too?
Or did they?
“I always knew what was best for my girls,” Ann continued, revealing in her sorrowful smile the perpetual sadness of losing one of her daughters. “Did Audrey tell you Sabrina was a lesbian?”
I shook my head. “No, she didn’t mention that.”
Ann nodded and fiddled with a ring on her middle finger. “It was an adjustment for her father and me. Truthfully, we didn’t take the news all that well, and now, I look back on that night with so much embarrassment, because why does it matter, really?” She shook her head at the rhetorical question before going on, “But even still, when I met the woman she had fallen in love with, I fell in love with her, too. Because I knew right away that she was what was best for my daughter.”
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