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The sight of Ricky standing in Ben’s room covered in bruises makes him completely forget the apology he had been rehearsing in his head for the past few days.
But the frantic knocking scares the shit out of Ben first.
“Ricky where have you—” Ben stops and takes him in. “Ricky?” he whispers, not really a question. Even through Ricky’s already swelling black eye and the blood smeared on his forehead, Ben would recognize him anywhere.
“Oh my god,” Ben says under his breath, scared that if he’s any louder Ricky might retreat. He takes in the injuries on his face, the rumpled shirt. “What the fuck happened to you?” Ben can’t help himself—he cups Ricky’s unbruised cheek in his hand, and Ricky sinks into it, his warm skin feels right in Ben’s hand after so long apart. “You look like hell!”
Despite Ben’s harsh show of concern, Ricky’s brows pinch, glossy eyes softening. His head falls forward before Ben has a chance to engrave that image in his mind. Ben shifts with the new weight of Ricky’s head on his shoulder.
“Ricky.”
He shakes his head, and Ben feels it pressing against his collarbone.
“Hey,” Ben says. “Come on. Talk to me.” He leans closer to Ricky, heads side by side, inches away from each other.
Ben wraps his left arm around the other boy, hand on his shoulder blade, pulling them closer together. Ricky’s too short breaths are more obvious this close.
“It’s okay. Calm down, everything’s okay,” Ben tries. He gives into the urge to rub small, soothing circles on Ricky’s back and lets his hand wander, down to the rapid pulse of his wrist, delicate against his skin, fingers trailing feather-light up to his shoulder. Eventually the harsh breaths slow, and Ben can feel Ricky’s whole body relaxes against him.
“Ricky, please look at me.”
Ben gently pushes at Ricky, and he goes willingly. He lifts his head, and his deep blue eyes are brimming with pain, his face streaked with tears. Ben has never seen him this way—he’s seen Ricky messed up, of course, even given him a handful of black eyes himself—but never like this. This is different.
Ben wipes away as much of the tears as he can. The long lower lashes of Ricky’s eyes stick together, appearing even darker somehow.
Ben allows his fingers to find their way to each cut and bruise, light so Ricky won’t flinch away from the touch. Ricky’s eyes flutter closed, and he sighs like he’s never felt a hand kindly. Ben’s stomach twists at the thought.
“It’s okay. I’m here.” Ben smiles, and it's reflected back on Ricky for just a moment. “Tell me what you need.” He speaks clearly, hoping to finally get through to Ricky. The glaciers of his eyes search Ben’s for a second, and he seems to find what he needs, because Ricky closes the small gap between them.
After Ben jolts, he settles and their lips press against each other like puzzle pieces separated for too long. It’s similar to before, the kiss in the bathroom, with Ricky’s busted lip still healing and mint fighting for its life to disguise the taste of cheap cigarettes, but their argument remains heavy between them.
They pull away from each other, moving back only slightly, not wanting to let the cool air from the window get between them and break the fragility of this moment. Ben didn’t expect the kiss, especially not after the last time, and he’s worried about Ricky’s current state. Who hurt him? Was it his father again? Would he let Ben tend to his wounds this time? He takes a second to reevaluate.
They just look at each other. Ricky’s gaze is heavy, saying so much with so little. Wanting, desire so dense it aches, and Ben can feel it too. They’ve learned one another well over the past year. And In the stillness of the room, the usually repressive silence is freeing. They can be anyone here, want anyone. Here. Right now.
The only two people in the world.
Ben moves first, but it's almost simultaneous, so who’s really keeping track? The mint and cigarettes are still there, but Ben doesn’t mind; they’re the smells he associates with Ricky, and the tastes too, now. That sends a spark up his spine.
Their mouths move against each other gently, Ben’s more tentative than Ricky’s, who seems to be disregarding the cut on his own lip. His hand presses into Ben’s jaw, nearly bruising, and up further, fingers digging into his cheek bone.
Both of them let their hands roam, engraining the details of each other as if they haven’t seen the other in years rather than a week. As if this is the last time. Soft and hard caresses of shoulders, chests, a grazing of the thin fabric of Ben’s sleep shirt over his stomach.
Ricky kisses him hard when Ben tangles a hand in his hair, and Ben wants this so badly, too, and he’s getting lost in it. He never let himself explore this part of him before, scared of what others would think, convinced that what his mom and the church say about homosexuals—people like him—might be true.
How could this be wrong, Ben wonders, when my heart beats in sync with his, when all my overwhelming wrongness turns right when I'm with him?
Ben opens his mouth slightly to Ricky, and this is all that he wants, but there's something else to the familiar taste and smell of this boy who he loves so much.
Beer. The barest hint of it.
Before Ben can pull away, his mom opens the door.
“Hey Ben, have you seen Co—”
Ricky and Ben push away from each other at once. Ricky doesn't face her but turns his face away, wiping at his mouth. Ben stumbles as he whips around to see his mom, framed in the doorway, still gripping the handle.
He is suddenly all too aware of his flushed cheeks and sleep shirt pushed off his shoulder. Any embarrassment is crushed by a wave of panic. Seconds pass in silence.
She closes the door. Ben didn’t catch her expression, his thoughts too frenzied to pay attention.
Ben stares at where she stood seconds ago, just off of the doorframe, only a step into his room.
A beat, and then, “The cat.”
“What?” Ricky asks after a confused pause. His voice is rough with disuse.
“She, she was looking for Coco. The cat,” Ben says dumbly. He can’t stop shaking.
His mom saw them. She just saw Ben with Ricky, with a boy. Oh, God, did she walk in before or after Ricky’s tongue was in Ben’s mouth?
Ben felt nausea hit him like a truck, and he doubled over, hands tightening around his arms, nails digging into his flesh.
“What the fuck,” Ricky says in disbelief.
The words scratch in Ben’s ears against the rushing of blood.
Ben hears movement behind him, feels a hand on his shoulder. He’s pushing it off with a force he doesn’t entirely mean before he even processes what he's doing. He stands upright again, eye to eye with Ricky.
“Get out,” Ben demands. Then he reconsiders, rephrases. “You need to leave. Now.” He shoves Ricky back toward the window. Ricky seems hurt, and Ben hopes he is. Maybe if Ricky hates him, whatever comes next will be easier.
Ricky whips around and grabs Ben’s wrist while he's trying to unlock the window. He searches the depths of Ben’s brown eyes.
“Please,” Ricky begs. “Are you gonna be okay? Fuck, I’m sorry. I’m just drunk and I… what are you gonna do?”
“You’re—” Ben stops, sucks in a breath through his teeth. This is not the time to argue, again. “I don’t want—you can’t be here anymore.” There’s venom in his words, but he can’t help it. Anger and fear twist in his stomach. Ben can’t tell if he’s mad at anyone in particular. He wants to slam his fist into the wall, maybe then it will stop shaking.
The flash of hurt in Ricky’s eyes stings Ben, too. He does what Ben wants, turning away and moving toward the window, unlatching the locks with a soft click and pushing it up so he can leave. But, instead of climbing through like Ben assumes he will, Ricky suddenly strides toward him, crashing into him with a bone shattering hug. It’s exactly what Ben needs.
“I’m sorry,” he says into Ben’s shoulder.
Ben burrows his face into the longer pieces of Ricky’s hair, muffling his response. “Nothing to be sorry about.”
The hug loosens into something softer, more comforting than panicked, and Ben realizes that Ricky is shaking too as he twists his fingers through the ends of his brown hair. While Ben is pulling away, he takes one more inhale of Ricky’s smell, hoping it will be enough until they see each other again.
Ricky looks scared as he climbs through the window and disappears into the city.
After a few minutes—in which Ben locks his window, straightens out his pajama shirt, and combs through his hair with his fingers all while Coco looks at him worriedly—his mom returns, this time with a knock.
“Come in.”
“I was just—looking for Coco,” his mom says, barely stepping foot in his room. Coco runs to her at the sound of her name. “She usually sleeps with me,” she adds with an uncomfortable pitch to her voice. Finally, she lifts her gaze from the wall to Ben, but not quite at his eyes. Just below, around his cheekbones. “We, we’ll talk in the morning.”
She doesn’t even give him a chance to respond before she's closing the door and walking down the hall to her room, her door closing harsher than his had behind her. It echoes in the nearly empty hallway for a second, and then the only sound is the muffled traffic outside the window.
Ben slumps against his bed with his head in his hands. How did he mess it all up so quickly?
—
Ricky’s stomach twists itself into knots the entire way back to his house.
He tries to stay calm, but he can’t seem to slow his stride across the city to his small, pathetic excuse for a home. The cool night air of late spring bites as it hits his sweat-slicked skin. It’s dry and scratches his throat with each sharp inhale—not crying, but not not crying either—and he feels sick and unsure.
Going back to that place under normal circumstances is horrible. His definition of a normal circumstance is the kind that had neighbors whispering concern when he was young but only makes teachers and guidance councilors sneer in distaste now. A troubled teen, they’d say, sitting across from him in the principals office, assuming his freshly bruised cheek at 8 in the morning was from a fight and not from forgetting to fill up his father’s gas tank the night before.
Ricky hates the sight of the trailer. It makes his ears ring with memories, memories of his head hitting the floor, memories too fresh to linger on despite all the years between then and now.
Stepping foot in that place so soon after Ricky’s ‘normal’ came back in full swing feels like a death sentence.
Ricky stands motionless just past the closed door, grateful for the shitty carpeting of the living room, and hears nothing. Still, he makes sure to pad softly across the house and into his room off of the hallway. The bare mattress in one corner and pile of clothes in the other look particularly pathetic.
Ricky would rather look anywhere else than at the small spot of blood stained into the corner of his crumpled blanket from earlier that day.
His breathing has thankfully evened out, but his heart is beating out of his chest with the determination of a man caged. Ricky is anxious, sure, but… Ben. Ben is who he's worried about. It’s Ricky’s fault Ben’s mom caught him doing anything anyways. He shouldn’t have gone to him, shouldn’t have kissed him, shouldn’t have—
He squeezes his eyes closed tight, forcing the thoughts back. He can’t spiral like this right now, he needs…
Ricky’s wandering gaze snags on the corner of his mattress. His journal is usually wedged between it and the wall, and he knows writing will help, the flow and emotion of poetry being his safety for years, except—there’s too much space there. Something's wrong.
Ricky lifts the lower left corner of his bed, arms straining.
The floor is devastatingly bare.
Pulse pounding once again in his ears like a memory, Ricky flips the whole thing upside down. It bangs against his small nightstand and slowly inches back toward its place all wrong. Drawers are ripped out, the closet flung open, but it's only more mess and empty boxes. And it is all wrong, because his journal is nowhere.
Suddenly, Ricky hears the floorboards creak.
He moves slowly out to the hallway, so slowly his boots don’t even squeak, and his father’s bedroom door is open. Ricky braces himself, goes in, and looks up.
His father sits on the edge of the bed, leaning forward with his elbows resting on his knees. His hands are clasped together, so tight his skin pales and pulls over his knuckles. A worn, leather-bound journal lays open next to him, stark against the gray comforter.
When he finally levels his gaze at Ricky, it's the most intense look he's ever seen from him.
“What is this?” he asks, flat with an eerie calm.
“I don’t,” fuck, I’m stumbling, “I don’t know.” He lets the lie slip out desperately even though he knows it's too late.
His father picks up the journal, every emotion flashing through his cold eyes as he scans the page.
He doesn't read it out loud. “I think you do know, Richard. I think you know, so there’s no need to read it back to you, right?” Ricky can feel that he wants him to say yes sir, to bring himself down. He won’t. “I don’t want to anyways. It’s not the kinda stuff a real man should allow in his own home.” He closes the journal with a short thump of the heavy pages.
Ricky swallows as his father stands up stiffly, intentionally, like he's trying to scare him even more than he usually does. Ricky’s precious journal, a piece of his soul, is worse than wrong in his father’s calloused hands. Ricky understands what he means by that, but he’s not ready to hear it spelled out.
“Explain to me why, exactly, some queer, artsy bullshit is in a journal in my house. A good, honest man's house.”
He towers over Ricky. “It’s… not…” Any excuse dies on Ricky’s tongue.
“Well,” his father says, “It looks like it is. Is my son a pansy who thinks he's a poet? Is my only son not only a failure, but also a fucking faggot? Huh?”
Ricky’s breath catches and chokes him. The word burns, peeling away at his skin painfully until all he is is shame.
But he’s stuck, his feet planted to the floor of a trailer that reeks of resentment and grief. There's nothing he can do but hold and bear it. It slips in, this complacency, this weakness, like a knife making a too-warm home under his sternum, right next to his heart.
Ricky feels it there, in his chest, and he wants to take it out. To be someone else, someone who refuses the blade.
It's what his mom wanted for him; it's what she deserved to become herself, someday.
“Maybe he is, dad. What’re you gonna do about it? Fix me up, beat the queer out of me,” Ricky sneers with a crooked laugh. He leans closer, forced to look up past furrowed brows, basking in his father’s twitching eye. “Clearly that didn’t work. Being raised by a bum ass loser has its effects, I guess. Live with them.”
The silence is deafening, but then Ricky’s slammed into the wall, hearing his own gasping breaths and feeling fire race up his neck as his father wrenches his head back so hard his scalp aches.
“Get out of my home,” he says, close to Ricky’s ear, grating. “I want you gone, and I want you to never come back.”
The next thing Ricky knows, he’s out the door, tripping over gravel.
There’s no moon out tonight, and the darkness consumes him. As Ricky continues aimlessly out of the park, trying to catch his breath, he realizes something—his father had been stone cold sober.
—
Ben does not think this conversation will go well. None of the ones with her do.
He can’t be sure who’s fault that is, his or his mom’s? But that debate comes to a halt here, because she sits across the dining table, and whatever she is about to tell him will turn this conversation to rot and he knows it.
“I told you not to lie to me,” she says. “That boy is a bad influence on you, and I always knew that.” Ben is quiet and still. He can't bring himself to respond, knowing arguing is pointless. “I said he was too comfortable around you, in your bed, that it wasn't normal, and I was right. Do you remember me saying that?”
Ben nods, short and pained.
“So why was that boy, that demon, back in your room? At night. Doing…” His mom trails off, swallowing like she's going to be sick. “It’s unnatural, lust like that, and it is forbidden—in the church and for my child and in the world. Terrible, terrible things happen to boys like that.” She still won’t say it. “It's God’s punishment for disobeying his rules. I never wanted that for you, but now I know it's too late. The sin has spread to you, too.”
“Mom—” Ben tries, but she cuts him off. She can barely look at him, keeping her glossy eyes trained on her hands folded gently on the table.
“I should have done more… protected you from it. Maybe I didn’t take you to church enough,” her voice breaks around an incredulous laugh, “Or I should’ve sent you to that private christian school when you were still a little innocent kid and figured out the money later.”
Somewhere outside of this physical space, the crack between them stretches into a gaping maw with Ben’s feet right at the edge, threatening to swallow him whole. His mom was complicated and often overly harsh, but he had always believed that she loved him deep down. That felt like a lie taunting him into stepping over.
“I want,” she pauses, her lower lip trembling. “I want so badly for what I saw not to be true. Can you tell me that, Ben?"
It’s a hard pill to swallow, that his mom holds more love and care in her heart for God than she does for him.
Ben takes a sharp breath. “Mom, please, I’m not—” Not like that, Ben almost says. But he is, isn’t he? He loves Ricky, has for a while now. He doesn’t regret kissing him, or, at least, he wants to be able to not regret it, but everyone makes that so hard. “He’s my best friend, and I, I can’t just… I can’t tell you it's not true. We kissed.” Ben’s voice shakes. He sees his mom flinch, hard. “But I love him so much. It doesn’t feel wrong.”
He makes me feel sane, happy, like I haven’t been for a long time. Ben can’t say that though, that kind of honesty never came easy between them.
“Not love,” his mom says with disgust. “Lust.”
They stare at each other for only a second. Her eyes, the green brimming with tears but also stern, and his the same shade but weaker, tears falling out and over his cheeks. Ben hopes his sorrow isn’t as clear as it feels.
“That is the source of your anger issues, all those fights at school. Temptations of the flesh are corrupting you, and discipline is needed. So,” she says, and dread pounds behind Ben’s temples, “I’ve decided to send you to Saint Micheal’s Military Academy.” All the breath leaves Ben at once. No, no no no. “It’s a good Christian school with an ROTC program that will straighten you out, and you’ll be prepared in case of a draft. You can grow closer to the Lord and leave all the lust for boys behind.”
A Christian boarding school, military training. This means he won’t finish high school at Brooklyn Heights or be around anyone he knows for the next year at least. He’ll be leaving Ricky.
“You can’t do that!” Ben protests. “I’m not going to some fucking boarding school, I told you that! Why would you do this?” The yelling scratches his throat. “I thought you loved me.”
His mom has the nerve to soften at that. “I do love you. I love you enough to save you.”
Ben’s breath skips, heaving his chest and burning on each inhale. He doesn’t realize he's gotten up until his chair screeches and hits the floor. He barely even hears his name being called as he runs to his room.
Donna stands around the corner, tense in a way that means she must’ve heard too much of that. Her eyes are wide and worried. “Ben, hey, what…”
He doesn’t hear the rest, storming past her and into his room, locking the door behind him.
Ben collapses against his sheets, feeling anger rise up to mix with all his hurt and tears. Anger at his mom for opening that damn door, at Ricky for being there, at himself for being foolish enough to think that he could ever have this.
—
You will both change for each other. And you will never give up on each other. The words Ricky’s mom had spoken while stroking his hair, reassuring him that love is not always damaged. That it can be beautiful.
She didn’t know how hard the world would make it for him to never give up.
But his mom would never know about Ben Brookes. He wishes his dad hadn’t, either.
After making his way back into the city, Ricky finds himself going to Skeeter's house, having memorized the address from prom. He throws rocks at what he really hopes is her window until she’s glaring down at him before realizing who it is and shock takes over. He mouths ‘come down!’ until she disappears again.
When she makes it to him on her front lawn, all annoyance at his recent distance melts off her face. Ricky can’t take standing any longer, so he crouches on the walkway, head by his knees, looking anywhere but her. Embarrassment burns his ears as he starts explaining some of the events of the past few hours.
“I can’t go back,” Ricky says when he’s done.
“Not with him there you can’t,” Skeeter says. “Hmm. Is there a time he definitely won’t be there? I mean, assuming he’s not just a complete waste of space, like he seems to be, and actually has a job.”
“Uh, yeah. Yeah, he usually works from 7 to 5 and then drinks the rest of the night.”
“So we’ll go then, together. Get your things, maybe scrape up some cash he has lying around, and figure this shit out.” Skeeter had crouched down beside him at some point during his story, and now she looks him in the eyes. Her words comfort him more than any form of affection could—grounding and real, the words of someone who’s fought hard to stay around, just like Ricky will have to.
Skeeter sneaks Ricky up to her room to get some rest until then. There's a very good chance his eyes bags are permanently etched in at this point, and he falls asleep as soon as he curls up on her patterned rug with a spare blanket, having refused to take her bed.
They wake early and head out before Skeeter’s parents begin roaming the house to get ready for the day.
Skeeter insists that they take the subway and uses her own money to pay for it. Ricky complains about how unchivalrous it is, which earns him a smack to the back of his head, but secretly he’s grateful; his feet ache from all the walking, and he’s pretty sure he’s got shin splints from running from Ben’s house.
It feels odd, letting someone into his house. After years of never getting close to people, having someone he calls a friend see something so personal is like letting his brain be examined for fun.
Ricky starts packing, grabbing clothes and shoving them into a bag haphazardly. He takes a few other things, toiletries and his alarm clock, but most things weren’t valuable enough to even pawn. Once the bag is spilling over, Ricky goes quietly into the empty room at the end of the hall.
His father’s room is sad and barely lived in. It smells like his musky cologne and beer. Ricky’s eyes search the floor for his journal. He spots it under the window on the outer wall, as if his father had thrown it in his fit of rage, but it simply wouldn’t leave. Ricky picks it up and presses it hard to his chest before slipping it in his pocket.
Skeeter comes in with a wad of cash and smirks. “Guess the fucker is useful afterall. Useful and an idiot.” She pockets it and looks around. “You got everything?”
Ricky turns. “Yeah, I think,” his eyes catch on the open closet. “Hold on a sec.” He takes a few steps closer and reaches in, his hands meeting a soft, familiar fabric. Ricky removes it from the hanger and holds it up against the beams of sunlight from the window.
“Oh, wow,” Skeeter says. “That’s nice, like really nice. What’s it doing in your dad’s room?”
The smell of the coat hits Ricky suddenly, and he can’t form a response to Skeeter, can’t do anything other than hold it. He presses his face into the collar and breathes in, because it smells like warm cinnamon and the shampoo his mom used all the time. It’s faint, but it's there, after all these years, she lingers on something she loved.
Ricky feels the tears before he can stop it, a choked sob or laugh or something entirely unique to grief bubbling up in his throat. His knees hit the ground in a slow fall.
He wants to say something to Skeeter so she doesn’t think he’s crazy, crying into an old coat, but a part of him worries she won’t understand.
Then Skeeter is there with him, placing a hand on his back as he cries.
“Was my moms,” he sighs shakily, forcing the explanation out.
Skeeter is quiet, and then, “I get it.” Her girlfriend, Emily, Ricky remembers. She knows mourning as much as he does; she will not judge him.
They take the subway again on their way back to Skeeter’s. She doesn’t comment on the tight grip he keeps on the coat the whole time.
Now, in his best friend's room, Ricky feels safe. He doesn’t have everything figured out, but Skeeter promises to help him. They both skip school that day and just talk about anything, and a part of Ricky knows Skeeter’s trying to distract him, but he doesn’t care. He’s just glad to be somewhere he feels safe. Skeeter mentions a cheap apartment down the street with lots of roommates—miserable to most but a dream come true to Ricky. His chest aches with new and old pains, and he needs to talk to Ben desperately, but he feels the tiniest bit of stupid, idiotic hope rising.
—
The bus to Saint Michael’s arrives on Saturday in the parking lot of a very old church. There’s about a dozen families standing around, hugging their sons goodbye with weepy eyes. Ben’s mom gives him a hug too, though it's tense. They haven’t talked in the few days since she told him about her decision.
Her hands smooth down his hair and straighten out his shirt collar. Her eyes meet him with an expression he can’t quite read.
“I love you, Benjamin.”
Ben doesn’t say anything, only smiles weakly.
His mom walks back to the car and busies herself with talking to the commanding officer.
Some of the boys get on the bus, but they still have a few more minutes to say goodbye.
Ben finally lets himself look at his sister, and the sight of her already crying makes him move forwards, embracing her. Donna hugs him back fiercely, and she’s strong. Ben knows it, but it hurts to know that this is his fault, that his weakness is affecting her.
“‘M sorry,” Ben sniffles into Donna’s shoulder before moving back and wiping at his cheeks with the back of his hands.
“Hey. Hey.” Donna grabs his shoulders, forcing his tearful gaze to hers. “Nothing to be sorry about. I love you no matter what, okay? You’re my brother.”
Ben nods.
“We’ll figure this out,” Donna says, steady. “Promise me you will stay safe there. Don’t give up.” She looks deadly serious. Ben thinks back to a few nights before, confiding in her during their sleepover.
Ben bites his lip. “Promise.”
Donna shakes her head. “No, it has to be official.” She holds out her pinky finger for him to hook his own onto. He does with a small breath of a laugh.
“Promise,” they say in unison. Ben’s head aches with the thought of being so far away from her.
Donna goes around to the other side of the bus where Ben assumes his mom has moved to with the commanding officer. There’s a crowd of boys his age with buzzcuts, ready and eager for the military academy, standing between himself and his family.
Right when Ben feels himself getting lost in thought, a pebble hits his shoe. He looks down, confused, then hears a, “pssst” off to his right. Ben turns to see—Ricky. Beautiful, stupid Ricky standing near the curb, motioning for Ben to come over there.
Ben makes his way over, casually so as not to alarm anyone who might see him, and ends up only a foot away from Ricky. His bruises have darkened and shifted into a mix of sickly green and purple. Ben wants to reach out and smooth over it, feel this burn of his skin on Ricky’s like he had before, checking his bruises in his bedroom.
But there would be no space for the sweetness of young love this time.
“Shitbird,” Ben says, back to old nicknames, but it's become a love language of sorts for them, and it falls from his lips involuntarily. “What are you doing here?”
“I was told by Skeeter that you’d be here, who overheard Donna telling Brady about it,” Ricky answers. “Military school? Really?” Ben can’t tell if Ricky is shocked because he’s blaming Ben or Ben’s mom.
“What am I supposed to do?” Ben asks, going on the defensive just to be safe. “There’s nothing to do. She saw us,” the word ‘sinning’ comes easily to mind, but Ben pushes past it, lowering his voice and changing it to, “kissing. Your tongue was in my mouth, for fuck’s sake.”
“Um, pretty sure it was the other way around, Brookie,” Ricky corrects, his humor falling flat in the bleakness that surrounds them. Ben yearns for this—the teasing and easy flirting. The reality that he isn’t allowed to even step closer to Ricky, be in his orbit, sits heavy in his chest.
Ben asks, “What do you want?”
A flash of hurt crosses Ricky’s face. He quickly covers it up. “Okay, so my father, he found out about me. And sort of kicked me out.” Ben’s heart drops. Ricky is clearly putting on an indifferent mask, barreling forward with his explanation. “So I’ve been staying with Skeeter, and she told me about this cheap apartment looking for another roommate. I went to talk to them yesterday after school, and I think I can get a place there.”
Ben blinks at him.
“It’ll be hard, but I’m gonna get through it, try to live my life.” Ricky searches Ben for a moment. His eyes soften. “You could join me.”
Ben’s heart stutters in his chest. Living on his own, free from all the prying eyes of those who know about him and judge him for it. Living with Ricky, the man he loves, and being free to be who he truly is. It sounds impossible. The fear hits him then, overwhelmingly scared that if Ricky and Skeeter can do it, stay afloat as themselves, then maybe fighting all of this is actually possible.
“I want you to,” Ricky whispers, barely audible.
Ben longs to give in, to fall onto Ricky’s chest and apologize for every harsh word they’ve exchanged and harsher fists, let Ricky lead him to this apartment that would grant them freedom. But they’re so young. Ben’s mom can still dictate where he goes, and she won’t let him do anything until he’s fixed.
‘Terrible, terrible things happen to boys like that.’ And what if she was right? Ben would never forgive himself if something happened to Ricky because Ben selfishly accepted his love, love for someone as wrong as he is.
“I, I can’t.” He can’t bring himself to look Ricky in the eyes. “I can’t leave my family. It's all just… too hard.”
“Ben, please, don't do this to me. Don't just give up on us, on yourself.” Ricky sounds broken down. “We can be together, just the two of us, please.”
A horn blares from the bus. Ben looks over his shoulder at the driver. “Last call!” he shouts.
Ben takes two steps toward the door, stops, looks back only once. A tear has fallen from Ricky’s blue eyes, and Ben tries to take in the exact shade of them, hoping the anguish ingrained in them won’t be all he can remember while he’s away. Ricky’s soft lips, nearly healed from the cut now, form around a final, silent plea.
Ben steps onto the bus. The doors close behind him.
The engine rattles to life and fills the air with a vague smokey scent among the leather as Ben finds a seat at the very back. After half an hour staring out the window at the trees of upstate New York steadily taking over the road side, Ben searches through his bag, a bit desperate with pressure building behind his eyes, until he feels textured tin deep hard against his finger tips. He takes it out, cradling it in his hands. The tin holds the gel that Ricky had left in the corner of Ben’s room, the one dedicated to his stuff for when he stayed the night.
Ben opens it and holds it close to his face, drawing in the scent. A piece of him that Ben can keep without punishment, without guilt.
He hopes that one day he can hold Ricky, whole and without shame, instead of in pieces, hidden from the world.