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"Turn that shit off!" Timothy tells from the bottom of the stairs. He won't come up—not yet. He's too lazy.
Burr rolls over in bed and cranks the volume until his ears buzz.
You seem disappointed that your stories got lost/ Down a hole in the back of my head/ All the infinite speaking and the secrets you told/w ell, I swallowed them all, then I crunched the ice
He closes his eyes and presses the ice pack down harder, until his eyes water. Lifts it up and feels cold metal through chilled skin. His fourth piercing this year. Not supposed to ice them. He does anyway.
Maybe if he closes his eyes and wishes hard enough Timothy will go away, and Burr will shrink down to this one island—a bed with the sheets pulled off one corner, floating in an ocean of shit.
The door jolts, shakes in its frame.
She's a rattlesnake/ Some stereo mind game I play with myself/ Yeah, she's on repeat, throwing up memories that haven't deleted
"Aaron! I said turn that shit off! Unlock this door!"
"Shit ," swallowed by the music. Guess he’s not so lucky. Rolls over and yanks the cord, a jolt into silent reality.
"Open the damn door or I'll take it off its fucking hinges!"
"What?" Burr says, yanking it open. "The fuck do you want?”
Timothy’s face is red-brown—that kind old men get when they don’t wear sunscreen, like, ever. Leathery? Yeah, like the backside of a belt.
"Excuse me?" Timothy’s eyes narrow, and he steps forward, between the door and the jam. No escape now. Burr rolls his eyes.
"The fuck do you want Sir ?"
"Aaron, if your parents could hear you—"
"They'd shit themselves in their graves, I know ."
He expects the slap. Doesn't mean it doesn't sting.
"Get your ass downstairs. Who do you think the school calls when you're late?"
Whatever. Burr slams the door when Timothy goes, flops back down onto the bed. What would it take to just die here and not have to do anything ever again? He could scream till he tears apart at the seams, send up little burning embers. If he’s lucky, the house will go with him.
“Now!” Timothy yells, muffled. If Burr’s unlucky, he’ll come back up. “Not five minutes from now!”
What the fuck ever. He rolls into yesterday's jeans and the blandest sweater he has. Better than the polos and button-ups that comprise the only shit Timothy will buy him. He’s got skinny jeans and a band tank in the bottom of his book bag. He’ll change at school. Lurches down the stairs like he’d rather be anywhere else.
“What is that?” Timothy asks, squeezing the car keys in his hands, looking Burr up and down.
“What? Jeans?”
“Don’t give me that shit. They have a hole in them. You know who wears pants like that?”
“Gangbangers ?”
“I didn’t say that.” Timothy says, clenching his jaw. How many times has he said he’s not racist? Doesn’t matter if he said it or not—he was thinking it.
It's a long, silent car ride, in a Chevy old enough to be more rust than car.
"The play—"
"Yeah," Burr says. Silence again.
Burr’s out the door before the car even stops in the drop-off lane at Blackwell High. Not that he wants to be here, either, but. It’s better than Timothy.
Blackwell. A dark necrotic bump on another necrotic bump on the spine of the west coast. A school that spits out more garbage than all the tour boats combined. Come see our whales! And while you're here, dump your shit in our oceans!
"Mr. Burr, I see you've decided to make good choices today," Montgomery says, sitting on the stone railing before the entrance, smoking.
"Come on Mr. Montgomery, the days only just started. Stick to history and leave the hypothesizing to the scientists."
"Clever as always. Maybe you can use that wit to finish your next paper on time ."
"Another hypothesis. You're on a roll!"
Montgomery smiles—a lazy, half-finished thing. Another drag before he stubs out the cigarette. No one knows he smokes, really, unless they get to school early. Montgomery likes to be a good influence . In Burr’s opinion, the only good influence is a bad one. Well, a bad ass one.
He’s a breath of fresh air, at least. Everyone else—the other teachers, it’s like, oh, Aaron Burr is so charming! Montgomery isn't fooled, but Burr thinks Montgomery likes him better than all the other teachers anyway. There's an edge there, with his science teacher at least, Mr. Arnold. That I'm nice to you because I have to be but secretly I want to punch you in the face kind of nice. Montgomery isn't like that, but he looks at Burr sometimes like—like he's sad. Who knows why.
He grabs Burr’s arm as he goes to push past, into the school.
“What happened to your face?” He asks, and his voice is harder but gentler. A too-close touch to something Burr doesn’t want to think about. Too serious to not make Burr want to crawl out of his skin.
“You should see the other guy,” Burr says, a weak smile. He’ll work on it.
“I wouldn’t want to do anything I’d regret,” Montgomery says, quietly. Burr hears it anyway. Whoa. Did Mr. Montgomery just imply he wants to beat someone up? Burr’s uncle? Rad. “Get to class,” He says, gentle, lets go of Burr’s arm.
Burr isn’t going to push his luck.
Inside, the halls are a mess of dropped papers and wayward erasers tumbling down hallways like geometric tumbleweeds.
Jefferson and Monroe and Madison are together, because they're always together, a group of band nerds that act like they're football quarterbacks. Who knew a violin player could pull so much tail. Even Burr is vaguely attracted.
“Burr,” Jefferson purrs, sidles up to him as Burr twirls the lock on his locker. “Haven’t changed yet?”
“You know Timothy,” Burr says.
“Yeah. Let me know if you want tickets to that show next week, kay?”
“Sure, Jefferson. Thanks.” Jefferson reaches over and squeezes his hand, goes. He’s always been able to make a handshake feel like a hug in some private place. Slow and unrushed. Maybe that’s the trick to making people fall into your eyes. Anyone can drown if given the time.
Burr stashes his bag then goes to the bathroom, changes. On his way out, sees the graffiti on the back of the bathroom door— Alexander Hamilton is a fag. Aren’t they all? At least…Burr knows more kids who would experiment than wouldn’t. Though—they’d admit that to Burr, when they got him alone. Not anyone else.
In the hall again—there’s Hamilton now. All flyaway hair and acting shorter than he is. Unless you dare him—then he’s all claws. School charity case and bundle of rage inside a know-it-all- personality.
Jefferson wouldn't get his elegant hands dirty. Monroe has no such compunctions.
"Watch where you're going, pig." And then everyone starts oinking. A stupid elementary school joke that’s been old as long as it's been around. You know, because Ham. Monroe is the only one who looks like a pig. He oils his hair like a greaser because that's probably what he saw in a movie about Wall Street. It just makes him look like a gas station parking lot.
Someone shoulder-checks him, and Hamilton goes down hard. A tinny-bone crash and books smacking linoleum.
“I’ll kick your ass!” Hamilton yells down the hall. No one hears him. Or, they do, and that’s worse. They laugh, like, all five feet of you? And Burr—maybe Burr can—
"Hey," Burr says. Bends over and Hamilton pulls back like Burr is going to hit him. Burr grabs his arm and tugs him up. No one should have to deal with Monroe’s shit this early in the morning.
"Uh…hi?"
“Oh no, you’ve got that look,” Burr says, mock horrified, stepping back.
“What look?” Hamilton asks. Not aggressive enough. Too mopey. Burr can fix that.
"Like, why is the most popular boy in school talking to me, Alexander Hamilton?"
Alex bristles—a little angry flush, tensing. Good. Looks good on him.
"Like, what the fuck is it you want?" Alex snaps.
"I'd like to see Monroe actually get his ass handed to him by Principal Washington…"
"Who wouldn't?"
"But I'd settle for a joint."
Alex does a double take—a little what the fuck kind of thing. Yeah, he's reactive. Burr would like to see him react to all sorts of things.
"Just cause I'm poor I'll have drugs?"
Burr doesn't say anything, fixes him with that look. Everyone knows Hamilton and the friends he hangs out with. Yeah, he’s a scholarship student, but the other students talk about his mother often enough that it's clear what she does. That, and the colored porch light. Best not to bring it up if Burr wants to get anything out of this.
"Fine, alright," Alex says, pulls the joint out of his pocket. "But it's not mine ."
"Whose is it?"
Alex shifts around, uncomfortable. "Nobodies."
"Right." Burr looks hard at Hamilton until he looks away, uncomfortable, and then Burr yoinks the joint.
"Hey!"
"If it's not yours we can smoke it." Burr says, turns it over and sees the burnt end. "Looks like you started without me," he says, just as Alex grabs his arm and tries to yank it back.
"You can't!"
"Why not?"
"It's not mine. It's Laurens'."
Right. That sickly kid who left today on the basketball trip. The kid Alex has a crush on. Why save a joint from him?
"You want your mouth where his was, right?" Burr asks while Alex goes red and swipes at him so Burr grabs his shirt and tugs him forward and closes his eyes and kisses him.
It's quick and it hurts—knocked teeth and pinched skin, but then Alex has his hands on Burr's face and he's tilting his head and— that little shit —licking forward with his tongue, and Burr's not gonna be the one to pull away first. He opens his mouth and he can just tell Alex's eyes widen, and then—
“No touching!” the PE teacher, Hitchcock, puts his arm bodily between them, glaring. Like, that's touching. Whatever.
Alex isn’t really looking at Burr now, as the PE teacher walks away. He’s still red but going pale.
“Uh—” Alexander Hamilton, speechless. It’s cute on him.
"Now it's not a problem," Burr says, with that smile like—
Alex doesn't say anything. Blinks at him dumbly and Burr frowns.
"Well?" Burr asks.
"Uh…"
“Right.”
Great. Burr turns, back to his locker. It was worth a shot. But why ever think Alexander Hamilton would want to hang out with Aaron Burr? Hamilton hates everything money, even when he’s trying to pretend he’s not the poorest kid in school. Burr’s shoes cost more than everything Alex is wearing combined.
"Wait!" Alex yells. Burr turns around, waits. Alex trips over his own feet, catches the side of a locker.
"Uh….wanna get high on the roof?"
"No," Burr says, and Alex's face falls. "I don't wanna spend any more time at Blackhell."
—
Burr's room is a disaster. A mix of fastidious straight-A student and trying-too-hard mess. Torn magazine pages tapped to the walls—no way his uncle would buy him real posters. Cassettes and CDs in piles, dusty school awards.
Too many dirty clothes, but—they're all in the hamper. Not like Alex's room. Expensive stuff here too, but—not the kind of expensive stuff a kid would actually like. At least, not one like Burr. All the other stuff—the posters and the detritus—scavenged. Probably more half-hidden, too. Things his uncle can't find.
"You're not gonna feel anything if it's your first time," Alex says. "That's how it works."
He's on the floor against an old tube TV, Burr on the bed with his feet dangling. Burr’s uncle won’t be home for hours, probably doesn’t even know Burr skipped. They’ll be hell, later. Who cares?
"What makes you think it's my first."
"What, Jefferson helped you out?"
"Please. Jefferson wouldn't touch the stuff."
"Who then?"
Burr's face falls, a sudden collapse into blankness. Alex sits up when Butt doesn’t answer. A nervous fluttering. What did he say? What did he do?
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Burr says. Alex fidgets.
“Okay, we can talk about something else…” Alex starts. Nothing. "Hey, what's this?" Alex asks, holding up a CD. And—nothing again. Why won't he—what's wrong? Alex kicks his legs, fidgeting. He's never been good at this. Making friends. He never knows what to say, and then he…fucks it up. He fucks everything up.
“Watch this,” Alex says, starts juggling spinning CD cases. Burr turns over, looks, turns back. What’s going on with him? Going from whatever before was to—this. “Burr—”
“Just—be quiet for once, okay?” Burr says. Sharp and…tired. Alex’s eyes start to water, because apparently he’s an overgrown baby and he doesn’t have any friends because he fucks everything up. He’s really good at fucking things up.
“Hey….” he starts. Doesn’t even know how to apologize. It’s not something that’s just—engrained in him. He only ever apologizes to his mother. They’d been having so much fun and then—
“Alex.” Burr says, hard, and just—fuck him, okay?
“I came all the way here with you, skipped school, and you just—you’re just gonna ignore me?”
“Sometimes shit isn’t about you.”
“Right, cause it’s always about you? You think you can do whatever you want because you're rich and cool? Yeah, maybe you can, but guess what? You get in trouble, you get the guidance counselor asking what's going on and that they're concerned about you. I get in trouble, I get fucking expelled ."
"They won't expel you."
"No shit? I had no idea you were the principal."
"They don't expel scholarship kids. At least, they don't like to. It looks bad ."
Alex scoffs. Stands up, and—a car backfiring and an engine cuts.
"Shit," Burr says, rolling to his feet. He’s got Alex by the arm and he’d shoving, pushing Alex far back into the closet. “It’s my uncle. He’s back early. School must have called.”
“What—”
“Don’t make a fucking sound.”
Shuts the door. Alex can still see, fractured through slits. Just—no one can see him. He hopes.
It’s quiet for a few moments, except for Burr—shoving shit under his bed, opening the window and fanning furiously. Then—pounding footsteps and the bedroom door roars open. There’s yelling, like— this again? Really? What the hell am I supposed to do and—your room is a pigsty, and then there's flying clothes and I’m getting a fucking garbage bag and anything not put away is going by the curb, I should just kick your ass out, what are you gonna do then and then it’s quiet and—
"Pull up your shirt.” Low and—dangerous.
"No, it's not—let go of me!"
"What the fuck is this?
"Let go—stop, that—that hurts!"
Alex can hardly see. He’s straining against the door, trying to see through crooked slats without bumping anything. Timothy has Burr by the back of the shirt, yanking it up. The other on the piercing, twisting. What the fuck .
"If I'd done this my dad woulda whooped my ass. Pulled is straight out. That what you want?"
Yelling loud enough Alex's ears ring. What—Alex can’t—Burr said not to come out. But he’s panicking. He has to do something, he can’t just—but what would happen to Burr if Alex came out now. Alex knows how parents are. It’ll be worse. For Burr .
Fuck Burr’s uncle. Seriously.
Burr screams, and then it’s—silent. Timothy says something, too quiet for Alex to hear. A gentle little mummer that turns his stomach. Then he’s gone. Alex is out and stumbling the moment the door closes. He’s on Burr, sitting next to him on the mattress. He’s got his shirt off, a bundle of white held tight against his chest.
Alex catches the gleam of the barbell—a little spot of reddened silver on the rug. He feels sick.
Burr swipes at his eyes. Not crying. Not.
"Fuck." Alex says. Yeah. "We need to go to the hospital." He’s panicking, hovering, hands out.
"Yeah."
"You need to get that looked at."
"Yeah."
"We need money."
Burr opens his eyes, a lazy, exhausted sweep. Red-rimmed. "Closet,” He says, “shoebox on the top shelf."
Alex rolls, and then he’s on his tiptoes and it tumbles down. Doesn’t come open. Back on the bed— what the fuck? It’s—didn’t he act like he didn’t have any weed? Also— what the fuck?
"Burr, this isn't—fuck."
"Lighters on the desk."
"No." Alex says, hard. He's trying to look tough. Put his foot down. It's ruined by the way his lip quivers. "You need to go to—"
"The only thing I need is to get, like, mega stoned," Burr says, thick. Yeah, there's the pain. His head is rolled back, eyes closed. Not kicking his feet anymore. He just needs—he needs someone to take care of him. Alex can take care of him. He can—he should have beaten the shit out of Timothy.
Alex lights the joint, hands shaking, drags on it once, leans down and puts it in Burr’s mouth. His hand lingers—a thumb on a swollen lower lip. Red. Must have bitten it when—
Burr turns away. Sits on the other side of the bed, head in his hands.
“Underneath the magazines—” Burr says. Alex picks up the box again, sifts through and—fake IDs.
"You don't look much like a Joseph Bellamy," Burr says, standing.
"What? Burr, what the fuck ."
"He used to go here. Another person who left me. I'm really good at being left behind." Alex doesn’t say anything. "You've got a car. Let's get wasted."
"What the fuck, Burr—"
Does he just say the same things over and over? Burr grabs him and kisses him, and—Alex can't help the way he melts. Every single time. Soft lips and a boy way too young to know how to hook someone and spend a lifetime reeling them in.
"I've been hanging out with you , Alexander Hamilton, the whole day and I am excessively sober."
"We aren't like that," Alex says, lame and not at all defensive like it should be. It's disappointing, Burr thinks, really, that all it took was one stupid kiss.
"Fine, then I'll go by myself and you can go home alone," Burr says, which is totally, completely unfair. But—
"Fuck, fine," Alex says. Yeah.
—
Believe it or not, they don’t get into the bar. They really don’t look twenty-one. With Bellamy it was different. Maybe because he was taller than five foot six. Alex and Burr look like middle schoolers undercover in a high school on the best days. Totally uncool.
But Alex has a plan—pulls up in front of that trailer home behind the dinner with the green porch light, inside a minute and then he’s back with a bottle of jack.
“Oh my god,” Burr says.
“Mom says not to drink it all,” Alex says.
“Your mom just fucking…gave that to you?” Burr asks. “That’s almost a whole bottle. Holy shit,” he laughs, on his knees on the passenger seat, leans over and grabs it, unscrews the cap and—immediately gags.
“First time ?” Alex teases and now Burr’s the one who flushes.
“I’ve had champaign, just not swill.”
“Holy shit,” Alex laughs, “you are so uncool.”
“Cooler than you,” Burr bites.
“Wanna bet? You can’t even kiss good—”
“What? Then I won’t do it again!” Burr says, too loud in the cab interior.
“Aw, you’re embarrassed,” Alex says. “It’s okay,” and his voice goes quieter. He reaches out to where Burr’s hand is clenched on the bottleneck, settles it on top. Cold hands. “I liked it anyway.”
Leans over and kisses Burr, whisky and smoke and then it's long minutes of kissing in the cab of his junker in front of Alex’s mom's trailer. It’s not how Burr imagined Teen romance. But it’s perfect. He needs this. He needs it.
Burr climbs over the center console, bumps his head hard on the roof, scrapes an elbow. Settles in Alex’s lap, a crescent against the driver’s side window.
“Hi,” Burr says.
“Hi,” Alex says. And they don’t kiss anymore. They sit, and the radio plays, and it’s raining again, and it’s perfect.
“I want to be anywhere but here,” Burr’s voice cracks in the silence. A sliver down to something deeper. He doesn’t want to go back. He wants Alex to drive and keep driving till they hit California. Alex’s hand is warm on his spine, tracing ridges. Skinny. Too-skinny.
“Where would you go?” Alex asks. Burr’s own hand is moving now, one fingertip pulling down the lines beside Alex’s nose. He’s going to have wrinkles soon. So young.
“Anywhere. My parents are from New York, but— God. I hate my own parents, the way he goes on."
“Your uncle?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah.” A minute of silence, and then— “does it hurt?” Alex asks. His thumb is hovering over the patch of crusty brown.
“No,” Burr says, lies. “I can’t feel a thing—ow!”
“Shit, sorry,” Alex says. “I thought you couldn’t—never mind.”
Quiet again. The lights flicker in the trailer. Power’s spotty here, this shit-lump town on the east coast. Logging and mudslides. It won’t be for long. Tourist towns all seem to get paved over.
“Why can’t we just drive?” Burr asks. Hamilton’s hand stops.
“I hardly know you,” he says. But Burr feels like he knows him better than anyone. A raw edge that never will heal over. A lump of scar tissue, both of them.
“All the more reason,” Burr says. He pillows his head on Alex’s chest. Closes his eyes. Alex’s heart beats like—not like waves. Not like here.
“We don’t have any money,” Alex says. Means, I don’t have any money.
“We’ll get some,” Burr says. But he knows then it’s passed. That’s not—it’s not the kind of thing you can make someone do. They have to want it. Jump on it electrified, the end of a live wire. People die in towns like this. People die here because it’s easy. And Burr dreams about it—never leaving. Dreams he sinks down into the earth like scar tissue, blacktop lumped and ugly through forests that once seemed to never end.
Easy, too, to fall into Alex. Unless Burr does something about it, he’ll be like his mom. A rising star who stops at an east coast dinner and stays because some man with eyes too soft for all the shit that will come after hooks her and won’t let her go. People are so powerless, but they can still just—flush the rest of the world away to nothing.
“At least now there won’t be any fires,” Alex says, voice rumbling through his chest, and Burr jolts. Raining harder—cold glass on his back. Clenches onto Alex’s arm when his chest brushes. Swollen.
“I wish this whole town would burn,” Burr says.