One two three four . . .
The first Monday Auden comes into the public library, St. Sebastian doesn’t even notice him at first, that’s how antithetical the library is with the presence of someone like Auden Guest. This bland, soulless library with its dirty rendered exterior and nubby carpet the color of a January sky, with its prefabricated shelves that someone had gamely tried to paint in a cheerful scheme of yellow and blue—but the shelf surfaces had repelled the paint, so now it bubbles and peels off in long strips, and the blue and yellow look flat and sickly under the fluorescent lights anyway.
Everything about this building is ordinary and mediocre, including him, and for the last three years, he’s found comfort in it, comfort in knowing that no one here notices how cheaply made his clothes are, knowing that his lip piercing is scowled at because it represents youth or rebellion and not because it represents a transparently obvious need to recreate one of the few moments in his past when he felt truly seen. Knowing that his lack of education, his lack of money, his lack of everything is neutralized by his competency, by his expertise in this one, unimportant corner of the world; here he is a king of sorts, a king of RFID tags and overdue fines and new book displays.
It never occurs to him, even in his robust and varied fantasy life, to imagine a real king coming to his paltry little kingdom and standing inside it. It is so outside the realm of possibility that it could happen that even when Saint looks up from the circulation desk to see Auden in front of him, a hand casually in his pocket, his cheeks ruddy from the brisk wind and his honey-brown hair tousled from the same, he still can’t believe it. He must be dreaming this, this is some kind of sex-starved hallucination, perhaps he’s going to wake up alone in bed with an aching cock and a heart that aches even worse.
But no, there’s no dream. Auden’s mouth twists at the corner—not up or down, not a smile or a frown—and St. Sebastian recognizes it as a look of determined resignation. Which is something even St. Sebastian is not masochistic enough to fantasize about: Auden looking down at him with resignation.
And strangely enough, that comforts Saint as much as it hurts him. If it hurts him, then it must be real.
“Can I help you?” he asks, and Auden considers his question.
“I think we can help each other,” Auden says after a moment.
“Oh?” St. Sebastian asks. Casually, like it doesn’t matter that Auden is here with tousled hair and a twist to his mouth.
Auden doesn’t clarify. He says instead, “What do you do here?”
St. Sebastian wishes suddenly that he were Proserpina, that he had rarified knowledge, a graduate degree, any library job more arcane and interesting than the one he actually has, a job of small drudgeries and no excitement. No matter that he likes it; he just wishes he could impress Auden with his answer, instead of having to deliver the underwhelming truth. “I’ll shelve for a while. Check some books back in. Stock the displays.”
Auden nods as seriously as if St. Sebastian told him he was going to perform a heart transplant.
“All right, then,” Auden says. “Then I’ll help.”
And he does.
Half-disbelieving and all wary, St. Sebastian gets up from the desk and pulls out a cart of nonfiction fresh from the book return. He shows Auden how to shelve, watching as he pulls his clear-framed glasses out of his pocket and bends over the books, checking and double-checking the labels to make sure he’s shelving them right. And then together they shelve in silence, working shoulder to shoulder for nearly an hour. Only two patrons come in during the hour, and so St. Sebastian has lots of time to surreptitiously study Auden as Auden fits the books between the others, as he uses the outside edge of his hand to nudge all of the spines into a perfectly straight line after he’s done with a row.
St. Sebastian is reminded dizzyingly of the time they went swimming in the Thorne River, of looking at Auden in his designer black briefs and with his expensive watch and feeling inadequate—or feeling something more complicated than mere inadequacy, feeling like a novice, feeling like one of Plato’s cave people at the mouth of their cave, gaping and blinking at the real world with all its brightness and colors and depth.
Although now it’s like someone from the real world has instead come into the cave, has come into the world of shadows, and so here’s Auden’s everyday brogues, which cost more than two months of St. Sebastian’s rent, on the dull gray carpet. Here’s Auden’s fingers, normally moving nimble and brilliant over plans and drafting tables and tiny models built out of paper-thin birch and basswood and styrene, handling stained cookbooks and dog-eared gardening guides. Here’s Auden’s eternally faceted hazel eyes on the peeling-paint shelves. And here’s his mind—sharp, arrogant, made for form and shape and color and light—bent to the numbing task of menial work so repetitive that St. Sebastian usually doesn’t even remember doing it.
Why is he here? St. Sebastian wonders. Why is he doing this to himself? To me?
But then St. Sebastian remembers the money, and his discomfort and awe fades into irritation. To anger, and to shame, because St. Sebastian might be furious about the fact that Auden tried to hurt his family, but unlike Auden’s presence at the library today, St. Sebastian doesn’t have to ask himself why Auden did it. He knows why Auden did it, he doesn’t need to ask. In fact, he doesn’t need to ask anything, not one single goddamned thing.
Except after they shelve that cart, and then three more, Auden finally glances at the large watch on his wrist and says, “I should go,” and St. Sebastian can’t help but blurt, “What was the M for?”
Auden stills, glances at St. Sebastian without lifting his head from where he’d bent it to look at his watch. “It was a long time ago, Saint,” he says.
“Surely you remember. And it wasn’t for mistake.”
For a minute, Auden looks like he wants to argue, like he wants to say something unkind, but he swallows it back. “No. It wasn’t for mistake.”
“What then?” St. Sebastian asks. “Masochism? Morality? Money?”
The word money seems to roll through Auden like a cold wave; his head snaps up and his eyes narrow. “The money wasn’t until later.”
“Maybe you had it planned all along.”
“Jesus Christ, Saint—all along?” Luckily, they’re alone in the building, because Auden’s voice has risen. Risen louder than St. Sebastian’s ever heard it before, excepting that day in the graveyard. “I didn’t even know about it until you were in Texas—I had no earthly way to know until my father was in the accident and I had to take over his finances—I can’t believe you’d—”
St. Sebastian finally snaps. “I’d what? Accuse you of planning to steal from my mother? How dare I, clearly, of course the great and moral Auden Guest would only steal spontaneously from a single mother, he would never stoop to planning it—”
Auden takes a step forward, stabbing his fingers through his hair. “She was taking from us,” he says, agitated, cheeks glowing. “She stole first—”
“No,” St. Sebastian seethes, also taking a step forward, “she didn’t steal, she took because your father gave—”
“My father was sending money to a woman he didn’t know for no good reason, and she took his money also for no good reason, and all I did was put a stop to it.”
St. Sebastian could levitate, he’s so angry, he could breathe fire, he could incinerate this spoiled twat who’d never felt any privation, who’d never seen the inside of a bare cupboard, who’d never stared at a stack of bills and had to decide which ones to pay and which ones to leave for a better month which might never come. “Her good reason was that she needed it,” he says furiously. “Her good reason is that she couldn’t afford to live without it. You putting a stop to it meant she had almost nothing left to live on! She needed what he sent!”
“For eight years?” Auden demands. “You’re telling me that you think it’s normal and fine that my father was sending her money for eight years? She couldn’t find another way to m
ake ends meet when she had eight years to come up with it?”
“You sound exactly like your father—”
“Fuck. You,” Auden bites out, but St. Sebastian isn’t done.
“—except your father still had more decency than you, because at least he was helping—”
Auden takes another step and they’re literally toe to toe, scuffed leather boot to gleaming brogue. “Don’t you ever compare me to my father. Not ever.”
St. Sebastian leans forward, he jams his finger against Auden’s chest. “Admit it: you hurt her so that you could hurt me, so that you could hurt me because I hurt you, just fucking admit it—”
“Fine!” Auden roars. “I admit it!”
There’s silence after this, a silence that seems to fill the whole library, the air itself is ionized with silence. St. Sebastian realizes that his finger on Auden’s chest has moved, he now has his palm flat against the thin cashmere sweater Auden’s wearing and he can feel the angry pound of Auden’s heart against his hand.
“It wasn’t the only reason I did it,” Auden says. His voice is quiet now, brittle but no longer angry. “In case you were wondering.”
St. Sebastian should shove him right now, he should fist Auden’s sweater in his hand and shake him until he apologizes, until Auden admits he was wrong, he was an arsehole, that if he wanted to hurt St. Sebastian, St. Sebastian would have forgiven any other way than the way Auden chose. Any other way that didn’t also hurt Jennifer Martinez.
He doesn’t shove him. He doesn’t shake him. In fact, he’s about to drop his hand altogether when Auden reaches up and traps it against his chest. Thump thump thump goes Auden’s heart against St. Sebastian’s hand.
“I thought,” Auden says in a whisper, his eyes closing, “that if I hurt you enough, maybe you’d come back. Maybe you’d come home.”
The silence returns, filling more than the room now, filling St. Sebastian’s entire body, his entire mind. Auden’s words have killed any and all thoughts dead and now there’s only room for the silence and the feel of Auden’s heartbeat.
Maybe you’d come home.
Auden opens his eyes, and for a moment, St. Sebastian can’t think about anything else except how much he wants to kiss that mouth, that wide, nearly perfect mouth with its hitch on one side of the upper lip. What St. Sebastian did in the graveyard, what Auden did after to his mother—none of it matters when his mouth is that kissable, he thinks. How could it matter?
But then he remembers that it does. It does matter.
He and Auden could fuck seven times a day for the next seven years and it would still matter.
“You should apologize,” St. Sebastian whispers.
“You first,” Auden says back.
They’re still inches apart, St. Sebastian’s hand still trapped against Auden’s chest. St. Sebastian realizes, in a distant sort of way, that he’s hard. That he’s ready for anything—a fight, a fuck, yelling, screaming, kissing, biting—anything so long as it happens here and now with Auden Guest.
But none of those things happen.
Instead, Auden breaks away with a sigh but without another word; he releases St. Sebastian’s hand and steps back. “Don’t,” St. Sebastian says. He’s not ready for this to be over, not yet, he’d rather spend the entire night fighting if it means Auden stays.
Auden gives him a look from under his eyelashes as he turns—a look impossible to interpret—and then he leaves the library without saying goodbye.
And watching his wide shoulders move through the library door, St. Sebastian wishes he’d counted the seconds earlier, any of them, even just one, just to have one minute longer with him.
St. Sebastian assumes, in a very levelheaded and not at all miserable way, that their fight means the end of . . . well, the end of something, the end of whatever it was the three of them were going to try to build. This is it, this is the final (and also unneeded) proof that he and Auden are irrevocably broken, that no amount of lust can knit together what was splintered apart. Not just splintered but poisoned, and not just poisoned but killed.
Some things can’t be mended.
That weekend, Augie needs help on a lonely, muddy site near Two Bridges, and he goes gratefully, knowing it means he’ll have an excuse to avoid Thornchapel that weekend, an excuse to avoid Auden and to avoid telling Poe the truth—that no matter how much he loves her, he’ll never be able to do the impossible and make Auden forgive him. That he’s not even sure if he wants to, because it will mean forgiving Auden in return, and he’s not sure if he can, if it’s possible to grow forgiveness in a place so thoroughly scorched clean of life.
And anyway, as adept as he is with Augie’s accounts, as naturally inclined toward books and words and dusty stories, he’s also good with his hands, he’s also soothed by the work, ordered and planned, framed and grooved, demanding nothing of him but his time and his sweat. He’s so good at it that Augie—as he does every time St. Sebastian helps on a site—makes noises about how he’d love to expand the business with a new team, about how when he retires, he’d love to know someone like St. Sebastian is there to take over the business, because St. Sebastian is so good at every part of it and all of Augie’s sons are either in the big smoke or only barely interested in the work of building and fixing houses.
St. Sebastian always demurs, smiling and making agreeing noises like he’s truly considering it, but the truth is that after a lifetime of existing on the fringes of everything—this town, his father’s family, England, America—it’s impossible to trust someone begging him to come into the heart of the fold. It feels like a trick or a mirage, some kind of elaborate lure, like the minute he agrees, four walls will spring up out of nowhere and trap him in a box and he’ll be cramped and alone and mocked from the outside. Declared foolish for thinking he could ever be part of any family or any circle, because he doesn’t belong anywhere.
He feels this way about the others at Thornchapel too, like any day now they’ll turn and tell him that they all despise him, that this was all a long ploy to humiliate him. That they were waiting for him to expose his aching and vulnerable need for love and friendship, and now that he has, they can laugh at him and scorn him and cast him off.
He’s very glum by the end of the weekend, so morose and convinced of his own unlikability that he doesn’t even answer Poe’s phone calls and texts except once to tell her he’s too tired from working at the job site to see her or come to the house. He skips dinner to take a long walk up to the moors and then down a narrow, unmarked path to the thorn chapel, where he wanders around until the sky is black and he’s so tired his bones hurt.
He trudges home and he stares at his mother’s office, knowing that tonight of all nights he’s not brave enough to wade in and start packing away the existence of the only person he was ever sure truly loved him, and then he goes upstairs to sleep. He doesn’t indulge his needs, not tonight, he just lies there with the covers kicked to his feet and throbs into the empty air, the discomfort comforting somehow.
And then that Monday, after going into Augie’s workshop in the early hours of the morning to update invoices and send out orders for Thornchapel’s renovation (trying not to stare overlong at the wiring and plumbing schedules annotated with Auden’s neat, decisive hand), he goes to the library and begins his shift, trying to remember the satisfaction and pride he sometimes feels at this life he’s carved out for himself, this life that hasn’t asked anything of anyone else. There’s a dignity in this, he reminds himself. There’s a quiet kind of worth. He may be alone, he may always be alone, but he is surviving and he is surviving in the one place in the world he wants to be, which is near Thornchapel.
Maybe no one else, no other place, has chosen him, but he can choose himself. He can choose here.
And just as he thinks he finally believes all this again, Auden walks through the door.
It’s just as shocking as last time, to see Auden here, and St. Sebastian, who’s been trying to diagnose why one of
the public computers won’t turn on, stands up and stares at him wordlessly, having in no way internally prepared himself for the possibility that Auden might come back again, that Auden might seek him out, that things are not as bleak as St. Sebastian convinced himself they were.
The day is clear and cold outside, and so Auden is dressed like a winter fashion spread in a thick, wheat-colored sweater and long wool coat, looking so delicious and so rich and so very, very Auden that St. Sebastian’s throat aches.
Auden surveys the room—empty, save for St. Sebastian—and then walks toward him and the recalcitrant computer.
“How can I help?” Auden says, as if last Monday never happened and they were starting fresh, trying this whole thing again from scratch. “Is it not working properly?”
“It won’t turn on,” St. Sebastian says, too blank with surprise to do anything but answer the question.
Auden nods, once, and then strips off his coat and folds it neatly over the chair. It’s nothing really, something polite people do in public every day, and yet the sight of Auden disrobing with such purpose, draping his coat over the chair with such care, has St. Sebastian flushing.
Auden comes over and gracefully kneels under the long table that houses the library’s six public computers, and begins working, power-cycling and switch-flipping and finally performing the right series of checks and button-presses to make the screen light up again.
“There we are,” Auden says, standing up and smoothing his trousers. “What next?”
Still blank and uncertain, St. Sebastian stammers, “There’s more to shelve, I guess?”
Auden nods again, like of course there’s more shelving, of course he wants to do it. Of course he wants to stay here and do whatever it is he thinks he’s accomplishing with St. Sebastian even if it makes no sense and will probably hurt both of them again.
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