A Wealth of Unsaid Words

by R. Cooper

  Alex shook his head as he denied himself the fiction that Everett and his family had been merely unhappy with his attempt to kill himself. Everett and his family had been devastated, with wastelands in their red eyes and fearful, angry voices when they’d thought he had been unable to hear them. Blaming themselves, each other, the school, his doctor, everyone but him.

  He had tried to express his guilt once, just once, and Everett had snapped at him, one of the few times he had ever raised his voice to him. Alex recalled every second, every breath of those moments, had lashed himself with them for years.

  Everett had been pale, shaking, and his bandaged hands had been curled into fists as though there were still doors he needed to break down.

  “No.” He’d raised his head and looked straight into Alex’s eyes, straight at him with words he couldn’t say making him swallow. “No.” He’d chosen that at last, to say it again so Alex would not misunderstand him. “You never say you’re sorry to me again, Alex.” The order came out without a single tremor, with Everett looming at the foot of his bed and holding on tight to his anger for another long moment. Then Everett had let Ally pull him into her arms and draw him from the room.

  Ally’s eyes had bored into Alex over her son’s shoulder. George had gotten up to close the door behind them, and then sat there with Alex whether Alex had willed it or not, and quietly taken his hand when Alex had turned his face into his pillow.

  George had cleared his throat, twice, embarrassed at the emotion or fighting words, but he’d finally only said some ridiculous comment about the weather, something so absurd that Alex might have laughed at if he hadn’t been so tired, and if George hadn’t followed it up with some mumbled remark about bootstraps.

  Like a few older people Alex had encountered over the years, George had seemed to think mental illness could be cured through willpower and hard work alone. His disappointment in Alex for his perceived failure had almost hurt as much as that look in Everett’s eyes.

  The fact that George had helped him afterward, without a word about being a man and being strong, probably meant Everett had argued with him. Alex hadn’t asked; it was bad enough now to think of coming between Everett and his father, and he couldn’t have taken the thought then.

  Alex took several moments to pull himself out of that memory, no matter how much he bled to think of it. Life was infinitely harder than death, but far more beautiful too.

  He looked at Everett.

  “You didn’t tell me.” Everett pulled up at the little convenience store people in the neighborhood went to when they didn’t feel like driving a bit farther to the big-chain grocery store. He parked and then turned to face him. He lifted one eyebrow, but then blinked and moved again before Alex could answer.

  “How did you even find this mysterious website?” Alex changed the subject and then swore the sky blue as he got out of the car and had to brace himself for the windchill. He couldn’t believe he’d forgotten his gloves.

  Everett quickly turned away, but not before Alex caught a glimpse of the flush spreading from his face to his neck where his scarf hid it. “I have your name on an alert. On my computer,” he admitted quickly, and then headed into the store.

  It took Alex a moment to follow. Hell, it took him a moment just to breathe. He’d done the hardest thing he’d ever had to do and left Everett for Everett’s own good, and Everett had followed him anyway?

  Alex thought about inches, miles, of unbearable distance and felt a familiar heat that reached even his fingertips. Sometimes hope taunted him, gave him dreams and memories that grew sharper with time instead of fading, and sometimes hope left him panting and speechless and with his blood hot. He was a wicked man, because it seemed a lovely thing to know Everett had yearned for him.

  He ought to give his therapist a little more credit as well, because he hadn’t seen that coming at all, but she had. He entered the store and looked around until he found Everett again, and then sighed at the tension in Everett’s shoulders.

  “I’m touched,” Alex murmured as he came up behind him. Everett shivered at the breath by the warm, pink shell of his ear, and his shoulders eased down a fraction. But he didn’t turn. Instead he pulled out Ally’s list from his pocket and stared down at it. After another moment, Alex took the handheld basket from him and went down a different aisle. He caught part of the startled, knowing glance Everett sent him from under his eyelashes and quickly moved to hide how he longed to stare back.

  The habit was ingrained and almost instinctive. He put his other hand to his stomach and made himself look again.

  Over the tops of the aisles he could see both Everett and the front of the store, where a bored teenager was sitting by the cash register where the old man who owned the store had used to sit. Income had been spotty in Alex’s house growing up, with his father often between jobs or incapable of working, but he hadn’t been poor. Stealing small things from this place had been more of a way to pass the time. He’d been good too. It had been Ally who’d caught him, not the old man. She had dragged him back, just the same, and made him apologize.

  He spotted a tiny wooden duck that a local must have carved and painted to sell here, and added it to the basket. It would have fit in his pocket, but he resisted at least that temptation.

  He looked up again as he headed in a new direction and watched Everett at the refrigerated goods section, hurrying on when Everett gave him another slow look. There was considerably more thought in this one, and heat.

  It was no different than any other look from Everett, except that now Alex was willing to admit that it was there, even if he couldn’t get himself to return it yet.

  Look, look back, look away. It was an old game. He scrubbed at his cheeks and thought of his sinful reputation, but he couldn’t find it in this small, square building full of memories and the typical bodega sundries.

  There were some old, used DVDs on sale as well, films he’d never heard of, and cigarettes—not behind the counter but right next to an array of snacks. Alex’s hands skated over everything, gum, mints, bagged popcorn, all oddly fascinating in its own way. Kitschy, silly things a child would eye with longing.

  He didn’t know Everett was close until he spoke.

  “I think I own that movie.” It made Alex jump, his heart a wild bird. Everett smoothly dropped a carton of cream and some packages of seasonings into the basket and picked up one of the movies. He was close, a smile at his mouth. Alex thought his lips would feel warm to his frozen fingertips, but didn’t touch them.

  “Why?” The cover had a cheesy charm, but one look told him it wouldn’t be good.

  Everett studied him and smiled evilly before turning toward the front counter. “It was a gift.”

  Alex grabbed a package of powdered donuts covered in a horrible shade of red and green sprinkles, and tossed them in too. He was supposed to be resisting impulsive purchases; they filled no holes and built no bridges.

  He glanced over as Everett started to move toward the cash register. It was not Alex’s smile that held devilish charm, no matter what the world thought. Everett was far ahead of him. He hurried to catch up.

  “I don’t expect you to keep everything I gave you.” Keeping everything he’d given out while in full mania would mean Everett would have an apartment full of convenience store knickknacks and old paperbacks and anything else that would have once set fire to Alex’s imagination for whatever reason.

  Everett was trying to pay, so Alex added in some of his money for the duck and the donuts, and watched Everett’s profile. He didn’t speak again until they were out of the store. The steam from his breath rose up and then vanished.

  “How about you? What have you been up to aside from trying to part the wealthy from their wealth?”

  “Working, of course.” Everett gave an angry sigh as he got in the car. “It’s so hard to convince these kids they are worth anything, and just when I have, a dozen more walk through the doors. There’s one… well….” Everett had g
one to school with the intention of becoming a psychologist, but with his family Alex should have guessed he would end up in social work.

  Everett’s hand was on the steering wheel. Alex reached out, felt the moment where Everett waited, but then settled his hand over the heating vent once again, an unabashed coward.

  “So no one in your life, then?” He cleared his throat. “I thought for sure with your new co-director you’d get more time for yourself.” He turned the other way to watch their high school go by once again. It had been the opposite then, Everett alone and Alex popular. Both felt wrong, but he kept his mouth closed and waited tensely for Everett to answer.

  Not wanting to hear the answer didn’t mean he could avoid it. Everett deserved a chance at a better life if he wanted one.

  “Me?” Everett waved it off and seemed honestly surprised, though it wasn’t as if Everett didn’t have boyfriends. There were always bank tellers and other social workers and the occasional cop who gazed at Everett with want in their eyes, even if they had never lasted beyond a few months. “You must be confusing my social life with yours.”

  “You know I don’t date, Everett.” Alex had never really dated in the traditional sense, though he had tried once or twice. But his brain chemistry hadn’t been geared toward stability, and he’d already known at the start of each relationship that it was going to be a waste of time. His eyes in those old pictures said it all. He’d been searching for someone else.

  Now, with everything in his life starting to truly feel secure, with schedules he stuck to and his thinking mostly even, he wasn’t ready to risk himself for anything less than what he really wanted. He had thought he’d made that clear, but Everett frowned before turning his face away.

  “I know.” Everett’s tone said he knew it, but he didn’t like it. “But I still think….”

  “Very few people would understand. Anyway, the only ones interested these days are either people impressed by a few articles or students, and I don’t want that in my life.” He was firm enough that Everett finally nodded. But his sigh was long and heavy.

  They were almost at the driveway before he spoke again.

  “What do you think of Molly’s new roommate? Ty, I think?”

  Alex had to stare at him. “Ty?” Ty had been attractive, if young, but a little too bold for someone like Everett, if that’s what Everett was leading up to.

  “I think he liked you.” Everett seemed to agree, though he was still sorely mistaken if he thought Alex would be interested in someone like Ty. It was like those moments after coming, when the fantasy was gone and he was alone again, the wrong person in his bed.

  Alex slowly put a hand to his chest and tried to think of something, anything, to say to express the confusion and need welling up inside of him. It had always been so much easier on paper.

  There was another car in the driveway, forcing Everett to park in the street. George wouldn’t be happy about that, but it was a distant thought because Alex was still staring at Everett. His heart was finally starting to slow, but his stomach remained tight, spiking with nerves and fear and heat.

  “Everett,” he said when the car was quiet, not angry but not happy. He didn’t want Ty. Everett didn’t want him with Ty either, but Everett wanted him to be happy.

  Everett set his jaw and looked ridiculously stubborn and righteous. “I’m not giving up. You deserve love, Alex. With someone.” He jerked his head to stare out the driver’s side window. “Especially now that you don’t need anyone to… care for you anymore.”

  “So you keep saying.” Alex’s students wouldn’t know what to make of him like this, choking and quiet. Everett half-turned back to him, but wrinkled his forehead and then shook his head. He heaved a breath.

  “One day you might even believe it.” He got out of the car, leaving Alex to get the paper bag of last minute groceries and tchotchke that had caught his eye. He looked inside the grocery bag and stopped without opening the door. Everett came around and opened it for him.

  “Oh yeah, I grabbed some bags,” Everett explained when he saw what Alex was staring at. Of course Alex had seen the waxy bags of handmade, old-fashioned, paper-wrapped candies hanging up by the cash register, but he hadn’t noticed Everett buying any.

  A local woman made them. Alex had never seen them for sale anywhere else.

  “I know there will be enough sweets at home for Christmas, but I’ll take these back to the city with me and keep them for later. I loved these as a kid.”

  “I know.” Alex moved but kept the bag close to him as he got out of the car. He was too quiet to be heard. “I’d never forget that.”

  Everett’s mouth had been sticky with them when he had explained with perfect Everett logic that they ought to learn how to kiss and that there would be no one better to practice with than each other. A man didn’t forget things like that, especially not a man in love.

  There was a lot of noise in the house when they returned. There was always a lot of noise of course, this many people in one house made noise, but as this was of the screaming, excited-child variety, Alex had left the kids to their redecorating of the already decorated tree in the living room and attempted to hide in his old room.

  As that option hadn’t been available since his room had apparently been given away, he had wandered around instead, chatting with uncles and cousins—wishing he still smoked and that he didn’t have uneaten donuts in his pocket and a wooden duck in his luggage upstairs—and had finally come out here.

  The Faraday home was not as large a home as it probably should have been, but it had a big yard and plenty of thick, tall trees. There’d used to be one rather conveniently located tree under Everett’s bedroom window, but disease had taken it a few years back. The one in the front yard was a similar size, currently frosted over and without leaves, with an equally cold and bare bench beneath it. He was frozen and shivering, but he hardly noticed. He’d thought to bring his gloves at least, so all was not lost.

  The sky had grown dark some time ago, making the lights from inside glow brighter. Except for the lack of blanketing snow, the house looked like a Christmas card, but he didn’t think that with the venom that some might have. He could still hear people talking inside, though the children must have been sent to bed already, their fun with what had once been a beautiful tree over. The adults were having their time now, catching up, hearing stories, fighting exhaustion in the name of spending time with loved ones.

  It was stupid for him to still be out here, freezing his ass off in full view of the neighbors who had never much liked him anyway. Their disapproving stares had never faded, not even after Everett’s parents had registered as fosters and reported his father for his own good. His father had always been back again before too long, momentarily medicated, sometimes overmedicated, though everyone, the neighbors included, had known it wouldn’t last.

  This house hadn’t had enough room for four children and two parents and the always visiting cousins, but the Faradays had redone their basement to give Alex a place to stay, something he knew had been partly a young Everett’s doing. He’d been born a crusader, flaming sword in hand.

  Unfortunately, as Alex had recently learned, the basement room had already been promised to Aunt Gigi and her children. Everett, just to further test Alex’s mad resolve, had volunteered that they share his room.

  Alex exhaled.

  They had not done that since they truly had been children. The temptation in doing it now was undeniable, so he didn’t try to deny it, though he did run the thought through his mind the way he always did, cursing therapists, cursing checklists, cursing madness in general. He could also curse fate, something he could believe in when he didn’t believe in much else. He was crazy after all, and was never quite sure about things like that. He’d also once believed that his father’s long silences had been because of something he had done to upset him and that his father buying every single box of cereal in the store for him was the kind of fun, happy memory that every chi
ld had of their dad.

  Both had actually meant his father had loved him. Sanity was a strange thing. Like distance, it offered perspective, and with it, Alex no longer had to choose between giving someone everything or pushing them away to protect them, not if he didn’t want to.

  And because there was fate, or because there was a god after all and he loved the seething brains of lovers, poets, and madmen, the door from the kitchen slammed closed behind Everett as he came outside and crossed the yard.

  He stamped his feet when he reached the bench, then sat down and said nothing for a few long minutes. He hadn’t bothered with more than his coat and finally coughed and scooted closer to Alex, probably for warmth. Alex looked over at him and the soft grin illuminated by hundreds of twinkling lights.

  “That’s enough of this for now, don’t you think?” Everett remarked with the suspicious calm of a nurse—or a social worker who had seen it all, but he was still smiling as he turned to face the house again.

  “Everett, you know not to interrupt a brooder when he’s brooding. It’s like waking a sleepwalker,” Alex responded seriously, but moved when Everett did, letting himself be pulled to his feet, his cold hand in Everett’s chilled one as they walked back toward the house.

  It was another thing they had not done in years, but when Everett did not let go, Alex chose not to comment. He thought of inches again, of miles, and distance, and then remembered that Everett was often a sneaky bastard, who took inches as miles and then smiled so Alex would not mind, not that he ever had.

  Rachel and Molly were still downstairs with the busybody roommate and some of the aunts and uncles, enjoying their adult time without the children. Alex was invited to join them, but they seemed used to his ways and didn’t press when he said he was going to bed early. No one, save Molly, even commented when Everett added he was tired as well, though Alex had glanced at him.