by Lina Langley
I shake my head and get closer to him. I lie my head on his chest and close my eyes. “Why not?”
“Because we shouldn’t have,” he says.
I look up at him. “I had fun,” I say.
He smiles at me. “The problem isn’t fun,” he says. “I had fun too.”
I shake my head. “So what’s the problem?”
“You’re going to leave,” he says. “Or I’m going to leave.”
I lick my lips. The idea that this can’t happen again—that this is the only time I’ve ever been able to do this—makes me feel sick to my stomach. I kiss his lips. “No,” I say. “That doesn’t have to happen.”
He raises his eyebrows. “I’m not going to stop you from going to school,” he says. He doesn’t have to say anything else. There’s no need for him to answer him, because we both know that I’m not going to stop him from going to Los Angeles.
He threads his fingers in my hair and sighs. He kisses the top of my head. We fall asleep like that, our limbs intertwined with one another’s, the room warm.
When I wake up, Cyrus isn’t there.
CONTINUE
I let him go. He’s right, there’s nothing for us to talk about. I want him to stay, I want to work things out between us, but there’s absolutely nothing I can do about this situation. I wish there was something I could do to make him feel better about it, but there isn’t.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
He looks me up and down and then nods curtly. He turns on his heels and I watch him leave, my heart in my throat.
Once he closes the door behind him, I sit back on the couch and put my head in my hands. This is the second time today that someone has left and every single time, I’ve deserved it.
Montgomery needs to know the truth. I get that he has a crush on me, but nothing is going to happen between us. I’m going to leave. I have to leave, because… because there is nothing left for me here.
I don’t want to stick around and make things worse for Cyrus. He needs to live his life and he shouldn’t have to worry about dealing with me. I also don’t want to make Montgomery feel bad by virtue of being around him.
I have to go. It’s the only thing I can do that makes any sense, and in any case, it was my plan in the first place. Doubt is real, but I could have pushed past it if I really wanted to. I could have gone before I hurt everyone around me.
Once I hear his car pulling away, I walk over to my bedroom. I try to ignore the tears in my eyes as I grab my laptop, which is sitting precariously on my dresser.
I grab it, sit on my bed and glare at the screen. It’s bright and I feel like it’s going to give me a headache.
This is what I need to do. I know it’s what I need to do. I type in my password and my computer takes a second or two to log me in. It’s enough time to make me rethink this. Maybe I can talk to Cyrus. Maybe I can make all the pain go away. I go on the seminary’s website, the green and blue logo prominent everywhere I go. There’s no way I can escape this now. I log into the site and click on the admissions button.
This is it. All I have to do is put in a deposit and I’m in. I sigh as I look at what they need from me.
“This is what you’ve always wanted,” I tell myself. “Just pull the trigger.”
I look at my phone, which hasn’t rung or beeped. There are no notifications lights blinking on it. Cyrus isn’t going to reach out to me and I just need to come to terms with that.
I finish inputting my credit card number and the website starts to celebrate, little graphic streamers appearing out of nowhere.
Congratulations, Alejandro Del Bosque! We look forward to seeing you in September for orientation.
There’s more after that, but I don’t read any of it. I slam my laptop shut, put it on my bed and lie down next to it.
This is good, I tell myself as I stare at the popcorn ceiling. This is what you’ve always wanted.
Maybe if I say it enough times, it’ll start sounding like the truth.
CONTINUE
Chapter FIVE
I have no idea how I manage to do it, but I sleep. It’s a short, fitful sleep, interrupted and uncomfortable, but it does happen, and I do feel better after I wake up. The gates of the drunk tank open and an officer I’ve never seen before stands there with a notebook in her hands.
“Banks,” she says. “Del Bosque. You’re both free to go.”
I smile at her, but she doesn’t have patience for me. “Now,” she says. I nod and turn to look at Montgomery. He’s completely out and every time I pull his sleeve to get him to wake up all he does is groan. I don’t like doing this, but I end up elbowing him in the side. It does the trick, startling him awake.
“Morning, princess,” I say. “We’re getting out.”
He rolls his eyes, but nods. The officer is waiting for us, her eyebrows raised. “Go get your stuff at the front desk,” she says.
“Thank you, officer,” I reply.
She doesn’t say anything as we step past her and walk toward the reception area. Montgomery groans, rubbing his eyes. “Ugh,” he says. “It’s so bright out here. Why is it so bright?”
It’s not, there are no windows in this hallway, but I can’t help but smirk. I can’t help but feel like he deserves it a little. I wouldn’t be here if he hadn’t gotten drunk and then caught by the police.
We check out—or whatever it’s called, this isn’t a hotel—without talking. The officer at reception is someone different and not much for small talk. Our things are given back to us and we walk out of the police station without saying anything.
The day is clear and sunny. The moment we walk out, Montgomery turns to me. “Hey,” he says. “Can we talk?”
I smile at him. “We’re already talking.”
He rolls his eyes. “Ha-ha,” he says. “You know what I mean.”
I turn to look at him, just for a second. “I do?”
He rubs his eyes and sighs deeply. “I’m not in the mood for this,” he says. “I really just want to talk to you, okay? I’m not in the mood to be fucked with right now.”
“Jeez, okay,” I say. He has done this to me a million times, but there’s an edge in his voice I think I’ve never heard before. “Just talk, then.”
“I just wanted to thank you,” he says. “For coming to get me.”
I shrug. We’re crossing the street now, getting close to the apartment. “It’s fine,” I say. “Seriously.”
“No,” he replies. “It’s not fine. It’s—fuck, stop running away, I’m trying to tell you something.”
I glare at him. I’m hardly running away, I’m just walking at a normal pace and he’s lagging behind, probably because walking is loud and everything is too bright for him right now. I slow down for his benefit, because it seems like whatever he has to say is important. We’re getting to the apartment complex and we’re finally in the shade. “Fine,” I say, turning to him. “What is it?”
“Do you have to be so hostile? This is already hard for me.”
I raise my eyebrows, unsure of what he’s talking about. He sighs. “Okay, look,” he says. “I wanted to call you because I knew you’d have my back.”
“Yeah, of course,” I say. “I mean, you’re an asshole, but…”
He smiles and looks away. “I probably deserve that,” he says. “And other than thanking you, I’m pretty sure I owe you an apology.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know, for antagonizing you for like a year?” he asks.
I shrug my shoulders, flashing him a smile. “Never noticed.”
He shakes his head and laughs. “I’m serious, Alex.”
“Right…”
He takes a deep breath and sets his gaze right on mine when he speaks. “Alex,” he says. “I am sorry for being a jerk to you. It’s something that happens when I’m intimidated by people.”
“Wow,” I say, shaking my head and walking toward our apartment. “For a moment there, I thought you were serious.”
I sigh. I’m tired, my head hurts, and I don’t want to deal with him. I push the door open, the apartment cool from the air conditioner. I walk inside. Montgomery follows me. “Seriously,” he says. “It wasn’t. Ever since you got here, you scared me.”
I lean back against the counter and look him up and down. I don’t think he’s talking about physical intimidation, because he’s broad and strong, and he looks like he could pick me up and put me over his shoulder just to stop me from talking. But I don’t know what else he could mean, since he has made it abundantly clear that all I ever do is annoy him. My stomach churns and I sigh. “Do you want breakfast?”
He looks me up and down. “Are you offering?”
“Sure,” I say.
It takes him a long second, but then he nods. “Okay,” he says. “Thank you.”
I walk toward the fridge. He gets out of the way as I lean down and open it, taking the eggs out. “Omelette okay?”
“You’re asking me if it’s okay to make me an omelette,” he says. “And then you can’t understand why I say I’m intimated by you.”
I sigh. “Hey, Montgomery, you’re going to have to dumb things down for me,” I say. “I had a terrible night’s sleep and I can hardly process what you’re saying.”
“And that’s new how?”
I chuckle under my breath.
“Shit, sorry,” he says.
“It’s okay,” I reply as I take out the rest of the ingredients. “You only apologized for being a jerk. You never said you wouldn’t be one.”
“You do know me so well,” he says. “Do you want me to make the coffee?”
I nod. He starts making the coffee, and for a second, everything is perfectly fine. It feels domestic. Once the coffee machine is on, he turns to me and shakes his head. “You don’t get it,” he says. “But being this nice to me, and you know, having your shit together, it’s a little scary.”
I snicker over the eggs I’m whisking. “You think I have my shit together?”
He leans back on the fridge, his arms crossed over his chest, and sighs. “I mean, more than me, I guess.”
“High bar,” I reply quietly.
He laughs. “Yeah,” he echoes. “High bar.”
CONTINUE
“Thank you for the coffee,” I say. We sit down in the living room, our breakfast on the coffee table in front of us.
“And thank you for breakfast,” he says. “I appreciate it. I mean, considering you were the one to get me out of the drunk tank.”
I roll my eyes. “Seriously,” I say. “It’s not a big deal. Stop making it seem like it’s such a big deal.”
“You’re wrong,” he replies, his voice a whisper. “It’s a big deal to me.”
I roll my eyes, still smiling at him. “Stop it,” I say, taking a bite of my breakfast. Montgomery does the same time and moans when he puts the fork in his mouth.
“Holy shit, choirboy,” he says. “You should cook more often.”
“Get arrested more often,” I say. “So I have to.”
He laughs. “I wasn’t arrested,” he says. “Technically, I was only held, you know. For public drunkenness.”
I laugh and shake my head. He keeps eating and telling me how good breakfast is. It is really good, and maybe he’s right. Maybe I do need to cook more often.
“I’m surprised,” I say.
“Surprised?”
“Yeah,” I say. “I mean, you didn’t have to call me, and also, you’ve never been arrested before?”
“Held,” he replies, his eyes shining. “It wasn’t an arrest, Alex. That doesn’t go on your record.”
“So this won’t go on your record?”
“I doubt it,” he says, snickering. “I make sure all my offenses are committed on international soil.”
“You’ve been abroad?”
Montgomery snickers as he finishes his food. He leans back and moans. “Oh my God, Alex, that was so good,” he says. “And yes, I’ve been abroad. You think I’m some sort of uncultured swine?”
I snicker, pushing my empty plate away. “Yes,” I say. “I mean, have you met you?”
He laughs. “Dick,” he says. He points at his forehead, at this scar between his eyebrows, right on top of his nose. I don’t think I’ve ever noticed it before. He catches me staring and smiles. “You see this?”
I nod. “Yup,” I say. “War mark?”
“Something like that,” he says. “I got it the first time I ever got in a fight. In England, just so you know.”
I raise my eyebrows. “Is that supposed to impress me?”
“Hell yeah,” he replies.
I laugh, then he keeps talking.
“It was when I lived in Hull,” he says. “A few years ago. I was in school, my friends and I wanted to go out to this gay club, but I insisted we had to go to this trendy bar downtown. Because I was an idiot.”
“So what happened?”
“My friend Stephen—with a ph, not a v, he would kill me if I didn’t tell you that—decided that he would lean over the staircase to try and get a bottle of booze from behind the bartender. Stephen was almost clear, he had the bottle in his coat, and then some guy decided to rat him out to the manager,” he says, a smile on his face. “Except that wasn’t the manager. It was just some random dude who looked far more sober than he was and he decided he wanted Stephen’s booze So he tried to get it out of Stephen’s coat, but Stephen acted like this random was hitting on him. That was… not a good idea.”
“I bet,” I say, a smile on my face.
“That’s when everything started to go wrong,” he says. “Or, you know, worse than it had before. Stephen’s fist made contact with the non-manager’s face and then a full-on fight started. Then the guy threw a bottle and made contact with my face. Here.”
He puts his hand on the scar between his eyebrows. He smiles. “They did a good job,” he says. “Didn’t they?”
“Yeah,” I reply. “I’ve never noticed it before.”
He nods, leaning down to grab his coffee. He takes it from the coffee table and takes a long sip. “I know,” he says. “They did an amazing job with the stitches, especially because I’m such a baby. I couldn’t stop moving, you know, even though the doctor kept trying to keep my head in one place. I think she literally had to hold my head in place, though I might have blocked that part of it out.”
“Because you were drunk?” I ask, tilting my head.
“No,” he says. “Because I was ashamed.”
I smile at him as I finish my second cup of coffee and put the mug down on the coffee table in front of me. “That’s silly,” I say. “And they did do a very good job, especially if you were squirming.”
“Yeah,” he says. “Do you want to touch it?”
My heart starts beating fast when he asks me that. I don’t know if I should say no, but before I can, I’m holding out my hand. He grabs it and his fingers are soft and warm as he guides my outstretched finger toward his forehead. His skin is soft and cool to the touch, and as I touch his forehead, I can also touch strands of his dark blond hair.
He takes a deep breath before as I’m touching him. His eyes are open and he’s watching me, his gaze right on my face as I trace the outline of his scar. It’s very small, only about an inch, and I could have removed my hand from his face a while ago.
I should remove my hand, but I don’t. Instead, I trace the outline of his face with my fingertips and he leans into my touch. His face is soft in my hand, his eyes closed. He opens his eyes and looks right at me. He swallows as he looks at me. “Alex…”
The moment he says my name, I feel like my hand is burning. “I’m sorry,” I say, my voice quiet, my hand still burning at my side.
“No,” he says. “You don’t need to apologize to me. I—I need to talk to you about something.”
“What?” I say.
He licks his lips. “I haven’t alway
s been entirely honest with you,” he says, then laughs quietly. “I’ve never been honest with you, in truth.”
I narrow my eyes and cock my head slightly. “Are you going to start now?”
“Yes,” he says. “But I’m, fuck, I’m worried about what’s going to happen when I tell you the truth.”
“No,” I say, leaning over so that I can put my hand on his shoulder. We don’t normally touch, so I think I startle him. “No, nothing bad is going to happen when you tell the truth.”
“And how do you know that?”
I shake my head as I let him go. “I don’t know that,” I say. “But look, I went to pick you up, and we’re friends. Whatever is going on with you, I’m sure I can help you figure it out.”
He laughs, no humor in his voice. “You’re always so fucking helpful, choirboy,” he says. “Even helpful when I don’t need you to be.”
I look him up and down. “Do you not need me to be right now?”
“I—I don’t know,” he says. “This feels out of my control. It feels out of your control, too, which scares me.”
I laugh and shake my head. “Why? Everything is out of my control,” I say. “Literally all the time.”
“Yeah, but you pray,” he says. “And that helps. Right?”
“Sure,” I reply, shrugging my shoulders. “That helps sometimes.”
“I could try that, I guess,” he says, more to himself than to me. He looks away from me before he speaks again. “Fuck, sorry, I keep putting off telling you the truth.”
I raise my eyebrows and wait for him to say something else. Whatever it is he’s so afraid of, I wish he would just spit it out, because he’s making me nervous. “Just tell me,” I say. “You clearly need to say it. You’ll feel better once you do.”
He nods as he rubs his hands together, something I’ve noticed he only does when he’s very nervous or upset. “Alex,” he says, looking away from me. “I don’t think I even know where to start. I guess thanking you is the best way.”