Chapter Text
1. Who lives when it’s all over
from the moment you wake up, your teeth sit on edge, too riveted together to permit the toast your mother has made. Instead, you sip milk, glowering silently at the breakfast table.
Your mother suggests you smile, for once, and you scowl even harder. Like a basset hound, your face just wasn’t made that way. When she gets up to make eggs, you bolt for the door.
At school, you scowl more, this time across the aisle. He pretends not to see you, but you know he’s watching, sneaking glances at you under the fringe of his stupid fag haircut. You crack your bruised knuckles; you can’t wait until after school.
“Fag,” you yell out. He’s waiting outside the school, behind the gymnasium, as if he’s got the same plan in mind.
Out here, you’re out of earshot, out of view from anyone who might tear you apart.
“Articulate as always, Christophe,” he says, running his hands through his stupid fluffy hair, as though he’s checking to make sure it’s securely attached to his skull. You want to tear it out for him. Then he really would have to check for sure.
“Suce ma bite,” you say.
He looks up. “Ironic, considering you just called me a fag, isn’t it? Now you want me to go down on you?”
His bright eyes regard you as though you’re just a feature of the landscape, as though you aren’t worth his time. Stupid posh bastard.
“Take that look off your face,” you say. “You fucking snob, I’ll knock it off of your face for you!”
Your fists connect with his jaw, his fists connect with your chest.
Even if you beat each other into twin pulps, you’ll wake up the next morning and do it all over again.
2. Father’s suit
Your mother has a brace of suits hung up in the guest room, a few in her room as well. Most people would keep pictures of their ex-lovers. All her pictures of your father are hidden away, but the suits remain.
You’ve thought of digging a hole in the back yard, burying the suits, where they belong. It would upset her too much, though, so you never do it. Instead, you sneak into the guest bedroom, and reach into the breast pocket, where you find a decorative white handkerchief.
You take it out to the yard, where you hold it aloft, like someone waving goodbye on the deck of a steam ship. Digging into your pocket, you find your lighter.
It takes only a moment to catch, the fire gnawing greedily at the fibers, and then the whole thing goes up in a puff of smoke, crumbling into grey ash.
3. Storm preparations
Your mother is crossing herself over and over, but that’s not unusual.
She’s mumbling Bible verses, but that’s not unusual either. What is unusual is that she sits down at the table with a thump, grabs your hand, and motions at you to sit down next to her.
“Christophe, I need you to be honest with me,” she says, voice tear-choked.
“I didn’t knock over the flower pot in the kitchen, Mother, that was probably your fucking cat.”
The cat, unaware that she's just been maligned, winds around your feet, purring as though she expects you to rub behind her ears.
She takes a deep breath, strokes your hand. “This isn’t about the flower pot. Son- are you, perhaps, homosexual?”
You’re expecting something like, are you on drugs, are you knocking up some girl. Not “are you a homo.”
“Mother!” You jerk your hand out of hers, and you’re up and out of the chair, ignoring her protests. Your stomach heaves. You might be sick.
You dash out of the kitchen, out the front door, down the street.
Spring thunder rolls in the clouds above, and the air is thick and muggy with heat and the incoming storm.
You run until your side hurts, and then you stop, near the park. The rain has begun to fall, so you duck beneath one of the park shelters, where people go for church gatherings, family picnics.
You sit at one of the park benches, and watch the rain plummet down.
4. June routine
School is out. Good. You hate school. You hate seeing Gregory every day.
You wake up at 5 am most mornings, and put on your jeans and your work uniform polo.
You have two, and you hate them both, chalkboard green and just as ugly.
You brush your teeth, attempt to comb gel through your unruly hair before giving up completely, and tiptoe down the stairs to avoid waking your mother.
The last thing you need to do is to have her bustling around, trying to make you eat breakfast, making you late for work.
At 5:30, you open for the KwikTrip, trying to keep your eyes open as you stand behind the counter, the humming of the fluorescent lights a constant.
Two hours later, Gregory stops by. You could swear he does it on purpose, coming in when you’re on duty. He always goes to the glassed-in refrigerated section, and selects an orange soda.
Orange soda is disgusting, just like Gregory, so they’re perfect for each other.
He takes his time combing through each section. The drinks section, the hotdog section, the snack session, the little clothing section. You see him in one of the shoplifting security mirrors, trying on a trucker hat, and grimace, almost a reflex.
He poses, model-esque, one hand on his hip, the other jutting out as though he’s about to walk the runway, and makes eye contact with you through the mirror.
God, you hate him.
Finally, sans trucker hat, he brings his (single, solitary) soda up to the front of the store, the soda that he has taken fifteen minutes to purchase, and places a handful of change on the counter for you to sort through. You glower at him, but it’s legal tender, so you have to sort out the pennies and nickels and dimes into one dollar and fifty cents.
“Thirty cents is your change,” you say, with your best customer service smile on, and pass him his receipt, change, and soda.
“I’ll see you around,” he says, grinning at you like a canary that just ate the cat.
“I won’t,” you say, even though you’re already planning to go smoke at Stark’s Pond after your shift. Maybe you’ll get to deck him in the face, you think, and you ride on that thought until the end of your shift. June days are predictable, but at least there’s no school.
5. Places you don’t want to see again
Gregory’s house, with its stupidly neat lawn, painted white shutters.
Gregory’s room, tidy except for all the places you know it’s not.
You’re probably the only one who knows he shoves things under his bed, in his drawers, and everywhere else he can hide clutter.
Gregory’s bed, with his soft cloud-printed sheets, and his stupid hair caught on the pillow.
After all, you hate Gregory, and he hates you.
Right?