by A. M. Arthur
I try to remember, I really do. My last clear memory is of sitting at home alone, wishing I was performing my part in Rent. Hating myself for giving up Ryan’s friendship. Missing him, wanting to see him so badly I ached. “I don’t know,” I say at last, because it’s true. I don’t know why I was with him. “What happened?”
“Saturday night you went to the theater department’s cast party at Pizza City.”
I did? I was beyond embarrassed to have quit the play so close to opening night—again, because Dad insisted. He hated that I was in the play itself, instead of doing stage crew, and he hated more that Ryan was in it too. Playing my best friend. The only reason I’d go to the cast party is to talk to Ryan.
My heart jolts with hope. “I saw Ryan there?”
Dad nods, his eyes cold. He still doesn’t like Ryan, I can tell. He liked Ryan just fine up until he found out Ryan is gay. It sucks. “Yes, you and he went outside to talk.”
“What about?”
“I have no idea.”
“Ryan didn’t tell you?”
“Ryan and I have not spoken, and that isn’t likely to change. While you two were talking, three of your peers came over and began harassing Ryan because of his sexual preference.”
I want to scream that it isn’t a preference, that he simply likes men, but I don’t say it. Fighting with Dad on this again won’t give me answers.
“They harassed you, as well, deciding you were gay by association.” Dad looks nauseated when he says that, and something deep down inside me dies a little bit. “The harassment turned physical. During the fight, your arm was broken, and you were hit in the head with a brick.”
“I don’t remember any of it.”
“Maybe it’s for the best.”
“Why?”
“You don’t need to remember that kind of violence, Adam. Violence directed at you because of that boy I told you to stay away from. You wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for him.”
“He was my best friend.” For three years. We shared everything. He told me he was gay first, even before his parents. I didn’t care then, and I don’t care now.
“Your best friend?” Dad makes a weird, snorting noise. “Where is he then? He hasn’t come to visit you once since that night.”
Something cold skitters down my spine. “He hasn’t?”
“No. Your so-called friendship must not mean as much to him if he can’t be bothered, especially after what you’ve been through. You could have died, son.” Real grief fractures his face. “I almost lost you.”
I hate seeing him like this, so lost and scared. Raymond Langley isn’t scared of anything. He needs to be strong, stoic, in charge. “I’m okay, Dad.”
“I already lost your mother. I cannot lose you too.”
“You didn’t. You won’t.”
He does something he hasn’t done since the day of Mom’s funeral. He leans down and hugs me. It’s awkward because I’m lying down, but I try to hug him back. To show him I’m on his side, that I love him too, even as my heart is breaking over Ryan’s betrayal…
…A loud pounding near my head jolted me upright. My forehead felt funny from pressing against my knuckles, and my head was swimmy from the weird air. I coughed and blinked. More pounding turned my head toward the car window.
Lucinda made a rolling gesture with her hand, so I hit the window button. “Turn off the engine, idiota. What are you doing?”
I turned the key, surprised I’d let the car idle for so long. Long enough to fill the closed garage with exhaust fumes. Lucinda reached inside and hit the garage door opener clipped to my visor. The door cranked open, letting in fresh air. My head throbbed behind my eyes. How long had I been breathing that mess, totally unaware?
Lucinda yanked open my car door, then squatted down to my eye level. “You could have killed yourself.”
“Wasn’t trying to.”
Are you sure?
“What happened?”
“I got lost in thought, I guess.”
“With the engine running in a shut-up garage?” She was getting higher-pitched, which meant her temper was rising. “People die like that, even by accident.”
“It won’t happen again.”
She looked at me, really looked at me the way only a few people ever did. Lucinda missed nothing, and she read people well. “Did you have a fight with your father?”
“No. Someone else.”
“Someone who means a great deal to you?”
“I love him, Lucy, and he left me.” The words tumbled out without permission.
Lucinda didn’t ask for details. She pulled me out of the car and into her arms, and there I felt safe enough to cry. To let out all my anger and grief and frustration. She held me through all of it, patient as always, until I had nothing left but a stuffy nose and a headache.
Lucinda put me in a chair at the kitchen table, and I stewed in my own misery while she made me hot cocoa from scratch. Even though it was ninety degrees in July, the cocoa was exactly right. She’d done it often enough over the years. It was her universal “I want to fix this for you, but I don’t know how” maneuver.
“Did he love you too?” she asked as she put the mug down in front of me.
I studied the slowly melting marshmallows, waiting for the lump in my throat to go away before I answered. “Yes.”
“Then perhaps all is not lost. You may yet fix things.”
“Maybe.”
Please let this be fixable.
I had to do something. Living without Ryan Sanders was simply not an option.
Chapter Fifteen
Ryan
God bless Ellie and her big box of wine. Drunk was how I spent most of the weekend. I called out all my shifts at Walgreens, which actually freaked out the manager a little, because I never called out. I said I had the flu, and that made me a big fat liar.
But I wasn’t a coward, no sir.
I’d stuck to my guns, and it netted me absolutely nothing. I felt empty inside, hollowed out. The wine helped a little bit. It warmed me up and made everything hurt less for a while. Ellie tolerated it for two days, and on Monday she finally cut me off. I deserved the hangover I suffered through when I went back to work, and it kind of made the whole flu thing more real. I still felt like an asshole for lying about it, though.
Returning to work was an exercise in self-control. After breaking up with Adam, my anxiety had gone haywire. The wine-fest had been a bandage and not a real good one. After I sobered up, I dragged out the meds I hated using because I needed to calm the hell down. Every shadow was dangerous, every car door meant someone was coming. The noises were louder, the bad things more deadly. I even had a screaming nightmare that got Ellie threatening to call my parents.
Thank the Lord I was on an even keel by Thursday’s tech rehearsal, because I had to see Adam again tonight, and I fucking refused to let him see me spazzing out. Would not let him see that he’d scooped my heart out, torn it to pieces, and then thrown it back inside. A big old mess. Maybe I still was a mess, but I’d be damned if he’d know it.
Putting me in my tightest, ass-worshipping jeans and abs-hugging black T-shirt was Ellie’s idea. “Let the bastard see what he gave up,” she said with violence in her voice. I hugged her tight, because Ellie had been there for me since the bashing. We might get mad and fight sometimes, but we had each other’s back. Always.
Some of the money from LQF had gone toward renting proper lights and a board. Susan and Cindy were figuring things out when Ellie and I arrived. We were middle of the pack, not first and not late. Lou was in the middle of everything, coordinating the sound cues with Larry and the light cues with Susan, and a whole lotta kids were bouncing around the auditorium thanks to the juice and cookies set up on a nearby table.
Right before we were about to start with the first act, Lou cornered me. “Adam called me a while ago,” he said. “Says he’s sick but swore to make it tomorrow night for the dress.”
Irritation prickled my s
calp. Sick my ass. “Fine, we’ll scratch our duet,” I said.
“Good enough.”
After Lou turned away I yanked out my phone and sent the most passive aggressive thing I’d ever texted right to Adam: Coward.
Adam
The single texted word hurt, but it wasn’t completely wrong. Ditching the tech rehearsal tonight wasn’t really about me being scared to face Ryan. I didn’t want to see the hurt in his eyes—or worse, the complete and total apathy I so richly deserved from him. More than hiding from Ryan, I was spending tonight making sure the decision I was about to make was a decision I could live with.
I’d spent the week on the phone with different offices, getting information and assembling a plan. Living without Ryan these past six days had been the worst sort of agony. The emptiness inside of me was ten times worse than anything I’d felt in the hospital, thinking my best friend had gotten me hurt and then abandoned me. I did this to myself, and now I was fixing it.
I hoped.
Coward still glared at me from my phone’s screen. I debated deleting it. I considered calling Ryan and begging for his forgiveness, and to assure him I hadn’t given up. He probably wouldn’t take my call, though. Ryan was a stubborn mule, and if he’d made up his mind about us being over, a phone call wouldn’t change it.
“I love you. Do you hear me saying that?”
“I hear it.”
“I hear it, but I don’t see it.”
Ryan wouldn’t believe it until he saw it, and I couldn’t fault him for that. He was open about himself and his sexuality. He’d invited me to his parents’ house for a barbecue. He didn’t hide me from Ellie like a dirty secret, and he didn’t deny that we were together. I knew he loved me before he said it, because I saw it in his actions—saw it in things far beyond great sex.
My bedroom was tidier than it had been in years, because I’d gone through and collected certain things. I had two suitcases and a box packed up in my closet. I would tote them downstairs and stow them in the trunk of my car after Dad left for work. Clothes, books, playbills from dozens of Broadway shows, yearbooks, and my laptop—things I couldn’t live without.
I had no idea how tomorrow night would end, and I didn’t want to run the risk of being homeless with nothing but my car and wallet and the clothes on my back. After tomorrow, I was done hiding.
More nervous than I expected to be, I picked up my phone and dialed. The other line picked up after two rings with a terse, “What?”
“I know you hate me, but I need a favor.”
Ryan
Adam snuck into the auditorium right before Lou got up to announce we were ready to start the final dress rehearsal. He slipped over to the stage, not even looking around. Like he belonged here and wasn’t just a visitor for two more days. I wanted to hate him so bad, but I couldn’t. Seeing him again made my body clench up with want. I needed to go touch him, and I hated that.
Lou practiced his opening speech, which thanked LQF for backing the fundraiser, and a little, angry part of me wished I’d never walked into that building. Never asked for Langley money. Never seen Adam again, gorgeous, blue-eyed asshole.
The rest of me was sad.
The wings of the auditorium stage weren’t big enough to hold us all comfortably while we waited, so everyone stood in small groups or sat in clusters of folding chairs to watch. At least twenty kids, a dozen teenagers, and as many adults were there, all for the same reason. We loved the center, and we wanted to see it stay open.
The kids’ half went smooth, except for a few minor lighting cues. They treated it all like a real performance, the little champs. We had treats for them in one of the classrooms, and they went off when Lou announced intermission. The intermission was scheduled to last forty-five minutes. It gave plenty of time for toilet breaks, plus the silent auction. Prize winners would be drawn, prizes available for pickup after the last performance.
And we had some damned impressive prizes locked up in Lou’s office. Spa treatments, designer purses, wine baskets, restaurant certificates, fancy chocolates, and gift cards to all kinds of local businesses. As mad as I was at him, all Adam had to do was flash his name around and people coughed up donations.
My song with Ellie was third, so I perched on a chair near the stage right wall, trying to calm my racing heart. Adam hadn’t looked at me once since he got here, and we had to sing together in six numbers. I hoped I didn’t sound too pissed when I finally performed. Lord knew I felt it, bubbling up inside like too much chili.
In the middle of Lou’s half-decent rendition of “Dentist!” from Little Shop of Horrors, the auditorium door opened, spilling in orange light. I glanced up, mostly to make sure a seven-year-old wasn’t about to hear a grown man sing about his love of causing people pain, and I swear my heart almost stopped.
Raymond Langley stepped inside and let the door shut, his body shadowed by the dim light. He was wearing a suit, like he’d just rolled out of his fancy office and into our dinky little auditorium. A few people noticed him, but didn’t know him, because no one went over. Langley gazed over the crowd, and when he looked at me, my heart kicked back into gear—high gear. I was scared my heart was gonna bruise itself, it was going so fast.
If his expression changed at all, I couldn’t see. But I felt it. Felt his hate leveled right at me like a branding iron, hot and damaging, and I wanted to hide behind my chair. Lord knows how I stayed still. I even stared back until he looked away first, and a tiny part of me cheered. Didn’t cheer for long, though. He’d still won Adam.
Adam went over during the next number. I used the opportunity to sneak closer to the stage, since Ellie and I were up next. What was he doing here?
“Isn’t that Adam’s dad?” Ellie whispered. She’d sidled up behind me.
“Sure is.”
“What’s he doing here?”
My question exactly. “Gettin’ a sneak preview of what his money bought, I guess.”
“This is going to be fun.” I heard the eye-roll in her voice.
“Fuck him.” I looked down at her and forced a smile. “Fuck ‘em both.”
Ellie planted a kiss on my cheek, and then it was our turn. We put it all into “Light My Candle” and it was over too soon. I ignored the pair of Langleys still standing in the back and went off stage to wait for my next duet. Adam stayed back, chatting with his daddy until right before it was our turn.
It only hit me then that Langley didn’t know Adam was performing. Adam told me he wasn’t telling him until the actual fundraiser, so his daddy couldn’t pitch a fit. And he hadn’t tried to shove Langley out the door before we had to go up there. I suspected something was significant in that, but I had no time to puzzle it out.
Adam and I took to opposite sides of the stage, and the music started. His lovely voice belted out the lyrics. I wasn’t supposed to look at him, so I squinted beyond the stage lights, trying to see his daddy. Langley hadn’t left, but even from a distance he looked stiff, pinched up.
Mad.
I hit my cue perfectly, and we sang the song we were always meant to sing. I felt every lyric, felt every beat of music. Adam and I weaved around each other, so close but still miles apart and it hurt so bad. I had tears in my eyes when I finished. I didn’t bother with a practice bow. I stalked offstage.
A change in music froze me in place near the wall. Not the music from the next scheduled number, either. The soft, sad strains of “Without You” filtered over the speakers. I turned, curious. Ellie walked onstage and began to sing. Wistful and sad. The perfect Mimi.
I wasn’t the only person confused, either. Larry had to know what was going on, because he was doing sound. Adam was standing with him, holding one of the microphones, watching me. I stared at him, so fucking confused. “Without You” was a Roger/Mimi duet, sung after their breakup—life goes on, but they’ve both died inside without the other. I loved the song, but Ellie and I hadn’t practiced, so who the hell was going to sing Roger’s part?
; And why was it stuck in the middle of the dress rehearsal?
“…without you,” Ellie sang.
“The world revives.” Adam, soft and soulful, sang from his spot by the sound board.
Reality shifted around me.
Heads turned. The song continued as the Roger/Mimi parts intertwined. Adam sang from the auditorium floor. His eyes locked onto mine, and a bolt of electricity shot up my spine. He wove his way toward me, around people and chairs, never once missing a cue, never once looking away from me. His voice coiled around my heart and held tight, warming it with something a lot like hope.
The song faded out, along with the music. Adam stood in front of me, his blue eyes gleaming. Apologies seeping out of his pores. He’d been singing to me. About us. Right in front of his daddy.
Fuck me.
“Only you, Ryan,” he said, the words so soft I barely heard them. “Only you.”
What’s a guy to do?
I hauled Adam in and kissed him. Didn’t care who was watching or what it meant. Only cared that he went limp against me for a split second, before clinging hard. His mouth opened for me, letting me claim him. Punish him. Mark him as mine.
People were applauding. Someone wolf whistled. I let him go, my face flaming.
Lou shouted something, and music for the next actual performance started up.
Adam gazed at me in dizzy wonder, as happy and scared as I’d ever seen him. “I don’t want to lose you, Rye, not ever,” he said. “I’m so sorry for last week.”
“Shut up.” I cupped his face in my hands, which were trembling. My whole body was shaking a little. “I can’t believe you did that.”
For the first time he looked unsure. “I figured it was the best way to show you that I mean it. I love you. I want to be with you, no matter what.”
Hell. We both looked at the same time. His daddy was gone.
His hip buzzed right next to mine. He checked the text. His whole body wilted, and he showed it to me: Don’t come home tonight.