I tilted my head and made a face.
“He does,” she insisted.
We were both quiet. The wood hissed and spit as the fire licked it.
“I think Dad has a hard time communicating with you because you aren’t always forthright with him,” she said carefully.
I chuckled at that. “Are you calling me a liar, Mai?”
“No.” She shook her head severely. “I’m saying…” She paused and scrunched up her nose as if gathering her thoughts. “I’m saying you’re like a folded fan. This is what you show them.” She pressed her palms flat together so that the edges of her hands created a seam. Then she opened her hands to display all ten fingers, like a shadow-puppet butterfly, “but this is who you are, Hiroku.”
“Honne and tatemae,” I said, the Japanese expression for what she was describing.
“You may feel like you need to be tatemae for Dad, but you can be honne with me. Tell me what you’re feeling, Hiroku.” She settled into a cross-legged position that was almost meditative. I poked at the fire, marveling at the way it devoured everything, turning once living things into nothing but smoke and ash.
So, I told her. How it began, how it escalated, how Seth made me feel things I’d never felt before, how he accepted and encouraged my art, how we’d built Petty Crime from nothing and roped Sabrina into it along the way. I told her some of the downsides as well—his controlling tendencies, his subtle manipulations. But I could always tie it back to his shitty childhood, how he’d had no control over his surroundings growing up, and his fear of abandonment. I was practically an expert on the psychology of Seth Barrett, so why couldn’t I figure out for myself why I couldn’t leave him?
I told her everything. Well, almost everything. I left out details about our sex life. She was my best friend, but she was still my sister.
“And now?” she asked. I’d only spoken about my past feelings for Seth, not my current ones.
“I’m mad at him. I feel used and betrayed. He made me look so stupid, and he says it’s just sex with other people, but the same rules don’t apply to me. If all he wanted from me was sex, then maybe I could handle it, but he wants everything. He just doesn’t want to give the same in return.” I kicked at the ground. It wasn’t fair. That was what needled me the most. Seth wasn’t being goddamned fair to me.
“But you still have feelings for him,” she said softly.
“Yes. And I want to be with him all the time. I feel so weak. I wish I could be strong enough to be alone, but I miss him so goddamned much. And…I love him.”
She sighed. I added wood to the fire, feeding its unrelenting appetite. When my emotions had settled down a bit, I looked at her again.
“So, what’s your advice, wise old sensei?”
Mai shook her head sadly. “I don’t know, Hiroku. I think it’s going to take some time for you to heal. Seth really did a number on you. You need to focus on yourself right now. Make some new friends. Do the things you want to do. Pick up a hobby.”
I scoffed at that. “Knitting perhaps?”
“No, something social. You need to get out more in the daylight hours and meet people who are more like you. You’re so special…so kind and intelligent. You deserve someone who will treat you with the same respect and honor you give to them.”
I sighed, conflicted about it. In my eyes, Seth was perfect, except for that one thing. One really big thing. I wished I didn’t care, but the thought of someone else putting their hands on him, making him utter those noises and cry out their name, sharing in that communion as we had—it made me feel out of control, made my skin burn with a jealous rage. If Seth could get more or less the same experience from any number of people, then what was so special about what we had? What was so special about me?
“I’ll try,” I told Mai at last. It was the most I could promise her.
She smiled in the firelight and then gazed up at the steep canyon walls surrounding us on all sides.
“I can’t believe you convinced me to come all the way down here,” she marveled.
“Belly of the beast,” I said. I’d always been attracted to the extremes. This place offered them in spades. My sister went for moderation, for guys like Terrance. A steady companion. No surprises and no thrills. She didn’t have a bad wolf to feed. She didn’t go looking for trouble.
My phone buzzed in my pocket, more texts from Seth. I powered it down. If Seth asked, I’d tell him the battery went dead.
NOW
I think a lot in here about the paths not taken. Perhaps because the path I took was so bleak.
In one of these alternative futures, Seth never cheated on me. He found a medication that leveled out his moods without destroying his creativity. He quit the hard drugs. We’re still together and in love, and we’re planning to tour the world with Petty Crime after I graduate from high school. Then we’ll settle down somewhere bitchin’ where he can be a rock star and I can go to college. The sex is good, as always.
The most heartbreaking thing about that future is that it could have happened. We were so close. But maybe our ideas of forever were just different enough that they could never be reconciled. Perhaps to him, I was just another facet of the machine, making demands and trying to conform him into something he wasn’t. The old ball and chain.
In another future, I broke up with Seth for good that summer. I focused on improving myself. I rose to the top of my class, and now, instead of rotting here in rehab, I’m touring Ivy League colleges with my dad. Every once in a while, during our trip, he’ll glance over at me and give me that closed-mouth smile that says he’s proud of me.
But neither of those scenarios will come to pass. Instead, I sit across from my parents in a hard, plastic chair during their scheduled weekly visit. My dad won’t speak to me, won’t even look at me, so my mom fills the strained silence by asking me logistical questions about my lodgings and food and what types of activities we do as a group, which I can only partway answer because if my mom knew even half the shit I know about the people in here, she’d pull me out in a heartbeat, and even though I absolutely hate it here, I know there’s no other place for me right now.
I’m safe in here.
Safe from Seth. Safe from the drugs, and most of all, safe from my own destructive impulses.
So, I tell my mom what I ate for dinner last night, which is a random dish I’ve eaten at some point during my stay, but I can’t recall if it was last night because the days all tend to run together.
I tell her I’ve made a friend, but I leave out the part where I blew him and earned myself a single room as a result, though they probably know about it in some capacity because singles cost more than doubles.
I tell them therapy with Dr. Denovo is going well, that we’re making real progress, but I don’t tell her how I snorted Ryan’s antidepressants or how I spend most of my time in our one-on-ones crying.
I tell her I’m feeling better. I don’t tell her I still hate myself.
I tell her I look forward to coming home. I don’t tell her I’m terrified of leaving.
And that’s how I get by. That’s how I’ve always gotten by. By telling selective truths. Like Mai said, I’m not a liar; there’s just so much more of me that needs to be hidden. Because when you expand my folds, it isn’t a lovely depiction of a cherry blossom that’s revealed, it’s something ugly and selfish and dark.
Did Seth bring that out in me, or was it there all along?
THEN
Emboldened by my talk with Mai at the Grand Canyon, I came out to my parents that summer. Or tried to. It didn’t go over well. My dad dismissed it as an adolescent phase and told me never to speak of it again. He also insisted I take a martial arts class. He didn’t say it outright, but I believe he thought that by learning a fighting technique I might improve upon my otokorashi-sa, or masculinity. My mother didn’t say a word in my defense, which kind of crushed me. Perhaps she too was hoping I would, as my father insisted, “grow out of it.”
; That messed with my head. I began to wonder if Seth was only a phase for me and if I might venture back to the land of the straights now that our relationship was over. It also didn’t help that I couldn’t masturbate without thinking about Seth. Was my entire sexuality dependent upon one person?
I dealt with my confusion by trying to stay busy.
I bought some free weights and worked out in the garage. I played basketball with the neighborhood kids. I finally got good at it. I’d grown taller my freshman year and even more so that summer. My mom told me I should go out for the school’s basketball team. I considered it. As I said before, Hilliard was an arts school, so I’d probably make the team.
I still texted with Seth, but I didn’t make plans to meet up with him. I didn’t sneak over to his house in the middle of the night either. I made excuses as to why I couldn’t see him. I had jiu-jitsu or a family thing. I wasn’t feeling well. I was tired and going to stay in that night. Mai wanted to go see a movie. The last one was usually true. Mai was leaving soon, and good old Terrance was going with her, which meant she devoted most of her remaining free time to me.
I thought Seth would give up on me. Move on. I told myself that was what I wanted, but if that were true, I wouldn’t continue to text him back or answer his calls. We had a lot of arguments about my unavailability via FaceTime. He still insisted on seeing my face. It seemed safe enough.
Finally, fed up with my latest round of excuses, Seth asked the question I’d been asking myself. “How long are you going to punish me for this?”
“I’m not punishing you,” I said reflexively.
His brow furrowed in consternation. Seth never bought into my bullshit.
“I don’t know,” I said. Our conversation suddenly became much more serious. I didn’t want to mess with his head or play mind games, so I decided to be honest with him. “I’m trying to be your friend. I think that’s safer for now.”
“Safer how?” he asked with incredulity.
“Well, you’re not going to stop fucking around, and I’m not ready to get my heart broken again.”
“You’re too hung up on sex, Hiroku.”
I sighed, exasperated by his double standard. “What would you do if I got a boyfriend, Seth?”
His eyes narrowed to menacing slits. “I’d fucking kill him.” He scrutinized my face as if the secret was hidden there. “Are you seeing someone?”
“No,” I admitted. I had no interest in anyone but Seth, sadly. Not even my hot jiu-jitsu instructor who’d dropped me on my ass during our last class, then gave me his number afterward so that I could help him “practice his English.”
“Why can’t we be more than friends?” Seth asked.
“So, you can fuck me?”
“No,” he said like I’d offended his delicate sensibilities. “I just want this, in person. I want to sing you some of the new songs we’re working on. I want you to come see my new apartment. I want you hanging out during our rehearsals and see you in the audience at our shows.” He glanced away for a second before adding, “And I want to fuck you.”
I stared at my ceiling. My dick was instantly hard and extremely into that idea after so many weeks with only my clumsy-ass hand to occupy it.
“This is all I can offer you right now,” I told him. I’d come too far to go running back to him now.
He hissed through his teeth. “Fine. We have a show coming up at The Tomahawk. It’s the day before my birthday. It’d be really cool if you could make it. For old time’s sake.”
He was appealing to my sentimentality. Of course, I wanted to see Petty Crime play out at The Tomahawk—our big dream was finally being realized, and I didn’t want to miss it—but would I be strong enough to resist him?
I nodded without making any promises. “Congratulations on the gig. You guys are really making it.”
“We never would have gotten where we are without you,” he said earnestly.
He might be right, but I didn’t want to take too much of the credit. “You’ve earned your success. You should enjoy it.”
“I’d enjoy it more if you were here with me.”
He stared at me with his brooding bedroom eyes. I bit my lip to prevent myself from saying anything to encourage him. Then I acted like I needed to go do something super important, even though I’d just be lying there in my bad, replaying our sex highlights reel in my mind and torturing myself with what might have been, what could still be, if only…
A few things happened at the end of that summer in a collision of circumstance, which blew me off-course. A perfect storm.
Mai left for college at the beginning of August. We packed her steadfast Honda to the brim along with Dad’s Subaru. He followed her to Columbia like a dutiful footman and shepherded her into her new life. I wanted to go with them, but my mom had to work, and we didn’t want to leave her home alone and sad about Mai, so I put on a brave face as Mai, smiling and waving, drove away.
Mom and I did what we do best. We cried about Mai leaving, watched tele-novellas and The Bachelorette, and ate junk food on the couch, getting crumbs everywhere. But that only lasted until my dad returned, and then it was back to the business of living.
I hadn’t expected Mai’s absence to affect me so deeply or for me to be so lonely without her, but I’d kind of glommed onto her that summer. I didn’t realize until she was gone how much I needed her shoulder to lean on. We spoke by phone, but it was always hectic and scattered. Her mind was in a million different places, and she needed to focus on organizing her new life, rather than being sucked back into her old one.
High school started back up, and I hung out with Sabrina at lunchtime again. We’d gotten together a couple of times over the summer, but we had to make the agreement that any subject involving Seth was off-limits, and since Petty Crime was taking up more and more of her time, it left us little to talk about.
During the first week of school, we caught up on our classes and our respective summer vacations. Sabrina had quit marching band to devote more time to rehearsing with Petty Crime. Seth was a bitch to be in a band with, she said, but he did make them better. Then she apologized for talking about him at all.
“It’s cool, Sabrina. I don’t want you to have to dance around the subject. You can discuss band business with me if you want.”
So, she confided in me that she’d kissed Jeannie one night at an after party when they were both drunk. Mitchell didn’t know, or if he did, he hadn’t said anything about it. I asked her if she thought Jeannie was a lesbian, and Sabrina said she hoped so. Weirdly enough, Mitchell was giving Sabrina rides from school to band practice every day. I saw them as I was walking home. Mitchell pulled up to the curb in his Malibu and offered me a ride as well.
“Thanks, but I’ll walk.” I hoped he wouldn’t take it personally. He nodded like he understood. Mitchell, for as little as he said, was pretty good at subtext.
I was on my deserted island, trying to fill my time with homework and extracurriculars, but academics had always come pretty easy to me, and I’d never been much of a joiner. Not only that, but I was feeling that end-of-summer itch to get out on the town and stretch my claws. I felt stronger emotionally and physically than I had in a while. I suppose you could say I was suffering from an abundance of confidence, so when Seth called the day before his birthday and asked me again to come to their show that night as a birthday present to him, I felt it was completely manageable to attend as a friend—and only a friend—of the band I’d helped create.
“I’ll give your name to the front door,” Seth said with delight in his voice. “You won’t have any trouble getting in.”
And just like that, I was back on my bullshit, telling my parents I was spending the night at Sabrina’s, which actually pleased my mom because she thought I’d been spending too much time holed up in my room. Only this time, I really did intend to stay the night at her house, only after attending a bitchin’ rock show in Austin’s premiere outdoor arena.
Regardless of
what happened that night, I wouldn’t go home with Seth. That was my hard-and-fast rule. But even after making that rule, I tucked a couple of condoms in my pocket. Just in case.
The show didn’t start until midnight, so I milled around the arts district with my hands shoved deep in my pockets, reflecting on the band’s journey in just a few months and how my birthday wish appeared to be coming true.
I stood in line outside The Tomahawk, even though I probably could have told the bouncer at the front that I was with the band. Number one groupie, I thought. How true. But I wanted to get the full outsider experience of waiting in line, letting that anticipation build, seeing the band under the lights for the first time... Maybe too, I was stalling. I hadn’t seen Seth in person for more than two months. I didn’t know what kind of hold he’d have over me, if any. Maybe I’d see him and feel nothing. I had mixed feelings about that too.
When I got to the front and gave them my name, the bouncer waved me in and even gave me a 21-and-over wristband so that I could order a drink from the bar if I wanted. The stage was still dark when I got inside, so I meandered from the bottom floor to the upper levels where people were starting to crowd together. I’d seen the Petty Crime posters out front, a black-and-white photograph of the band I’d taken a while back with their name in a messy, hot pink font. It had a very gritty Sex Pistols feel to it and I approved.
I bought a beer, even though I didn’t care for the taste of it. I figured it might settle my nerves and help me to relax.
The crowd was getting a little restless—midnight was late for any show to start—and just when it seemed they were on the brink of forming a mob, Petty Crime took the stage. Seth was wearing black leather pants, a bedazzled jacket—no shirt—and combat boots. Leather was Seth’s thing. He liked for me to wear it, and he liked to use it as a restraint during foreplay and sex. I avoided buying leather along with any other dead animal skins, but I’d made a few exceptions with Seth. It was impossible for me to see him in those pants and not think about some of our past experiments that dealt in leather. I’d bet he wore them to remind me.
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