by Mj Fields
“No, screw that. Tell me more,” she insists.
“I imagine the angels sound an awfully lot like him.”
“Then fuck Dad, fuck My, and seriously use that as a muse and a rebound.” She links her pinky with mine. “Because you deserve better, and you know it.”
After my shower, I send a message to Mom and Dad, asking them to come up to my room and say goodnight. It takes them all of two minutes. I take my pill in front of them then climb into bed, lean over, and grab my favorite childhood book, my preferred bedtime story, and hold it up.
“Read to me?”
“Yeah.” Dad nods. “Yeah, of course.”
Mom tries to smile, and I laugh.
“You never pretended to like it before; don’t start now.”
“If you like it—”
“Oh my God, Mom, don’t agree with everything I say. Don’t tiptoe around me, please.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry.” I pat the bed beside me. “Be you. I really need you to do that for me. I need both of you to promise me now that, when you come to Italy, you stop looking at me like that. I want to go back to my version of normal, and I need you to do the same.”
“I will, I promise.” She sits beside me, and Dad sits on the other side.
After we have all gotten comfortable, Dad opens the book and smiles. “Ready?”
“Yes.”
And he begins, “The night Max wore his wolf suit and made mischief of one kind”—he flips the page—“and another”—he flips the page—“his mother called him ‘WILD THING!’ and Max said, ‘I’LL EAT YOU UP!’ so he was sent to bed without eating anything.”
Unwell
Matteo
Sleep has been interrupted by nightmares of her crying, her self-loathing, of her inconsolable self-hatred and the misplaced guilt and shame that she carries. No one should have to carry that heavy a load alone.
Her father, Zandor, was not particularly fond of my presence, but how could I have left her, even at his insistence, when she looked for me when she’d had enough and needed a break from her own madness.
I do feel badly that she didn’t fall into the arms or laps of those who I can see she needed. And, even though at times they may not see it, nor will pride and anguish allow her to tell them, she needs them desperately.
When she said goodbye to me, I saw the hurt in the words, but I also knew she meant it. I should have rejoiced in the fact that she was walking away, that she had family whose arms were open to fall into, but I wasn’t.
I’m still not okay.
I … miss her.
I live out of a suitcase, unable to trust that those I once thought of as family would not revel in the reality that I would be gone much sooner than the lifetime we all expect to have. I hide a disease that caused me to be a sickly child, thought of as lazy, because I didn’t want to run and jump, and play football and tennis. I was thought of as a pansy because drawing pictures, painting, and reading is where I found joy. I was thought queer because the girls who threw themselves at me were not fucked or treated like animals as my brothers did their women. Oddly, I was fine with it until burdened with the family’s fortune and the reality that my health was failing at a near breakneck speed.
Growing up, I never had a friend until the year before University. He was two years older than me and also the headmaster’s son, Carlos Rubio. Both of us loved to be challenged academically and enjoyed art and literature. We hung out with smart people—women, men, older, younger, sometimes together, and sometimes on our own.
After his first experience, with an older gentleman, an experience in which he told me about in great deal, about the extreme pleasure, the high from orgasm, very soon after, he came out.
One night, he persuaded me to experiment with him, believing I, too, was gay. I wasn’t sure if I was but held no biased against anyone for any reason.
All I knew was that the first time he got me off with his hand, it felt better than when I did it, and the first time he sucked my cock, the heat and the warmth, the wet surrounding it, felt better than either of our hands.
Carlos was right; orgasms were nearly spiritual.
When I fucked him, it was an amazing feeling, but after, he changed. He began talking about a future together. He couldn’t wait until we were both attending University and we could hold hands in public and kiss when we felt the urge.
It dawned on me that I didn’t enjoy those things unless I was filled with lust, and I just … wasn’t.
I told him that type of closeness, one beyond friendship or orgasm, didn’t appeal to me. I knew it upset him, but lying about what was obvious wasn’t something I could do.
He continued to suck my dick, at his choosing, obviously, until he left.
I loved the closeness with Ilsa. I learned love from her, and all the emotions people have toward others. Those feelings and desires grew by the day.
When I found out I was truly sick, not just different. I had to find a way to end it, to save her and myself from our connection that continued getting deeper.
I called upon Carlos, who had just become a lawyer, and he helped me do just that.
With Tris, there is no talk of love, but there is an earth-shattering urgency and need to be close to her, to allow her the closeness that she seeks from me. A magnetic pull to her.
God help me, I’m not sure I can stop it. The only silver lining is I know, even if she doesn’t, that she is unbreakable.
I need to be her friend, because that is all I can give.
I look at the canvas and realize I have mindlessly painted her again. The beautiful girl living amongst her monsters, as she calls them.
This time, her eyes … God, I love her eyes, so telling until they shut down, or close. Yet I still feel their affect. I see her trying to crawl out of the darkness that they become. If it is that last thing I do, I will make sure that happens.
I have thought day in and day out about how I can be in her presence and her in mine.
I must trust her with my reality and hope that she reacts the way I know she will.
In the strangest twist of fate, she, a girl who thinks she is broken, was thrown into the path of a man who truly is. And the truth in two negatives is, together, they become something positive.
“Are you going to clean up before our meeting? You look like shit, my old friend.”
I look over my shoulder as I wipe my hands to free them of paint before hitting the volume on my phone to lower the volume.
“Fernando Sor?”
I nod as I glance at the time. “You’re early, old friend.”
He looks well. Always a handsome man. Always takes care of himself.
“Well, I thought I’d come and see for myself that you’re mentally well. You’ve not been acting yourself.”
“I’m fine.”
“If all your faculties are straight, then tell me, Matteo, why is the thought of wedding Gabrielle even giving you a pause? She will take care of your legacy, your art. The rest, I will handle, as planned. And then you, my dear friend, can rest your mind and worries, which are taxing on your health.”
“She drew a line I am not willing to cross.” I walk over and open the refrigerator to grab a bottle of water for myself and Carlos.
“Then Gabrielle was right; you’re taken with this pops singer, this Tris Steel.”
Turning, I see him smiling. “None of this humorous.”
He points to his smile and shakes his head. “This is not in jest; this is because I know you all too well, and you do not fall in love often or easily. This smile, my friend, is genuine happiness.”
Anger boils inside of me to an uncontrollable heat, and I throw the bottles, one then the other, at the painting and watch as it tumbles to the ground. “This is not happiness; this is torment. This is a dying man finding someone who he could love easily, who he could build a beautiful life with, who is seventeen years old and has her whole life ahead of her. This is a man who has f
inally found contentment in his circumstance and accepted his fate, only to have found someone who may understand me. This is—”
“Matteo,” a sob comes from beyond my studio wall from the front, the empty storefront.
I must be hearing things, I think as I step to the side so that I can look around Carlos, who is filling the doorway, blocking my line of vision.
Black waves of hair hang down her neck, cascading around her shoulders, framing her beautiful face as light illuminates her from behind. She’s wearing a soft white dress, cashmere perhaps, and she looks like an angel.
This is it. My time has come.
My chest tightens, but not in a way that feels as if I may be suffering an attack. No, the pain is not physical; the pain is sufferance.
My head swims in clouds and thoughts. “Am I seeing an angel? Is it my time? Am I finally to meet my mak—”
“Matteo?” Tris whispers a sob as she hurries past Carlos to get to me.
“Este sería un bello final,” I whisper just before her arms wrap around my middle and she hugs my so tightly yet gently, as she rests her head against my chest, above my heart.
“This would be a beautiful ending.” The sound of the translation app comes from her hand that’s against my back.
“You are not dying. We’ll fix this, okay?” Beautiful hazel eyes, flecks of golds and browns in fields of green, shimmer behind the mist.
“I love your eyes. I could stare at them forever.”
“Then do it.” She forces a smile and sniffs back unshed tears.
Pulling her head to my chest, I whisper, “En otra vida.”
The app translates my words, “In another life.”
She clears her throat as she takes two steps back, continuing to fight tears. I can see the struggle in her to do so. She looks like an angelic warrior.
“The way I see it, we only have one life, right?” She holds up the app.
“Will you tell her you speak English well enough to carry on a conversation?” Carlos huffs. “You’re an educated man, Matteo.”
She crosses her arms and scowls at him. “I know he can, but if his head hurts, we do it this way. Our way.”
I could drown in this. I could lay beneath the waters and look up at her and never miss a breath.
Carlos chuckles as he walks over to the small table in front of the dingy floor to ceiling windows, surrounded by brick, and sets down his briefcase. “You’re fond of Matteo.”
She responds quickly with, “As are you, I’m sure.”
“Then you won’t mind signing this NDA, promising to never mention any part of what you may have overheard.”
“I’ll sign whatever after you give me every bit of information about his condition and why you get him medication from Arthur Schindler of London, England, and he doesn’t go to his own physician to help him get better.”
Carlos aches a brow as he looks back at me. “It seems you have kept some things from me, my friend.”
“How are you his friend if you are—”
“Tris, enough,” I interrupt her. “He’s loyal to me.”
I look at Carlos. “We need to reschedule our meeting.”
“No,” Tris says in a demanding tone and points to Carlos. “He’s going to tell me everything, because you don’t think I can handle the truth.”
“I see your strength and the beauty in your fight. I am aware—”
“And I see your struggle.”
She looks back at Carlos. “You want my autograph on those papers, start talking.”
“No,” I bark out like a rabid animal.
“Yes!” she gives back to me.
“What is it you Americans say? I wish I had popcorn for this show?” Carlos laughs as he sits down.
In a battle of wills, we stare at one another, both unwavering, both unrelenting.
Her eyes still pinned to mine, she sits down. “I’d like a bottle of water.”
I narrow my eyes, and she returns the gesture.
Carlos claps his hands. “This is fabulous. Like a dramatic—”
“I’m not leaving until I know, and I promised my grandmother that I’d be back in two hours. And, as you know, she will call the dogs out after me.”
“Are you threatening me, Tris?”
“I’ll do whatever it takes.”
“Get the lady a drink, Matteo, and while you’re at it, grab me one. This time, stirred, not shaken.”
Tris breaks eye contact and smirks at him.
“I win.”
She looks back at me. “Oh no, you didn’t.”
Turning around to grab beverages, I mumble, “I most certainly did.”
Returning to the table, I set the bottles of water down then open hers. “I won’t break your heart.”
“It’s Steel.” She takes the bottle and holds it up. “Thank you.”
“What happened to you at home?” I ask, because I’m completely bewildered by her sudden change.
“I did some healing. But, rest assure, Matteo Arias, she’ll return, and I expect you to be there to hold her together when needs be.”
“I cannot make you any promises, Tris.”
“Then tell me no lies,” she says in a quiet demand then looks back at Carlos.
“Proceed.”
After giving him a nod, I turn toward the mess I have made, to clean it up, knowing the wreckage was caused by my loss of control.
“Matteo is in stage B of congenital heart failure.”
She quickly asks, “How many stages are there?”
“Four.”
“How can we fix it?”
“There is no cure for his condition.”
After several minutes of her looking out the window, she gets up. “Please excuse me. I need a moment.”
“Of course,” Carlos says, standing with her.
Clearing her throat, she walks back the way she entered.
When the storefront door shuts, I begin to walk in that direction, for fear she is going to leave without saying goodbye.
“Where are you going?” Carlos calls after me.
I don’t stop, nor do I answer. I rush to the sidewalk and look left then right, afraid her car will whisk her away again like it did from the restaurant.
“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” I yell out to the busy, pedestrian-filled street, gaining me dastardly looks of parents who obviously don’t expect a madman to be spewing profanities in such an affluent area, just steps from the Trevi fountain.
“Matteo,” Tris calls out from behind me.
I turn as she hurries toward me. When she’s near enough, she lunges into my arms, and I hold her as I walk us back to my studio, a place I one day hope to open a gallery.
Once inside, I ask the question burning inside me, “Why did you go? Do you not wish to be my friend?”
She cups the sides of my face. “Of course. Yes, of course I do. I am. I will always be. I just needed to breathe.”
I want to kiss her—I want so badly to—but I’m not sure I can do just that any longer.
Every Beat
Tris
I should not be wishing he would kiss me right now. I should not need that from him.
He needs me to quiet his worries and, for some reason, unbeknownst to me at this time, yet I’m sure I will overthink the hell out of it later, his supersede mine.
Scowling down at me, he pushes my hair from my face and looks into my eyes with great intensity and even greater concern.
“I’m fine, but you—”
“I’m fine, as well.”
“I know you’ve probably looked into every option available, but my aunt Carly and Momma Joe’s husband, Thomas, run the medical research department at Steel Incorporated. They can—”
“I have an unfortunate condition. That is incurable and—”
“So is hers. It’s called Long QT syndrome, and Kiki, um, my cousin, Katherine Falcon, has an irregular heart rhythm, and … and … and … Why do you take drugs in a name that’s not yours? Are you even see
ing real doctors, Matteo?”
The lawyer sighs, and I spin on my heels to look at him. He’s seriously good-looking, but in the kind of way that you know he knows it and makes them less so.
“Have fuck-boy hair and thousand-dollar shoes.”
And here I go … There are stages to grief. Go figure I would hit them all at once.
“She’s who you choose to spill your secrets to?” He laughs and sits back.
“Carlos,” Matteo scolds him.
“No, by all means, proceed. I’ll just sit back and revise the plan already established until the American popstar with the foul mouth has had her say.”
“Fuck you,” I snap. “He needs a doctor, not a—”
“He’s an intelligent man. He’s had several opinions. He’s lived with this for a years and didn’t even know it. And, against many odds, his disease hasn’t progressed.”
“Then why?” I turn back and scowl at him.
“Let’s have a seat,” he says, taking my hand and leading me back to the table.
“The NDA, Matteo,” Carlos insists.
“I’ll sign whatever.” I glower at his smug face. “But you do know I’m seventeen and technically—”
“I trust Tris.” Matteo pulls out a chair for me. “As she has trusted me.”
Carlos smiles fondly at him. “After all these years, you finally trust someone other than me?”
Matteo runs his hand through his hair as he sits in the chair beside me as Carlos slides the NDA across the table then holds out his pen.
After taking his pen, I look down at the small stack of papers and see the name Gabrielle.
My mouth has the decency not to unleash the tirade it would love to go on as I push it back. “Wrong name.”
I look at Matteo. “You will not marry that … that … pussy. She stood there like one of your sculptures when you nearly passed out. There is no way in hell she can take care of you.”
“It’s in name only. She won’t be privy to what you already know, and she will ensure his legacy, make sure his art lives on and is profitable, to ensure those he feels responsible for are taken care of,” Carlos explains.