Page 12 of What You Own
“Get in,” Adam said. “Please, Rye, let me drive you home.”
“So I can make a fool of myself again? No thanks.”
“You haven’t made a fool of yourself in front of me yet, but this stubborn streak is inching you a lot closer to success. Please get in.”
How could I say no to a pretty man asking me to get into his car?
He didn’t press, didn’t ask questions about either kiss. I told him my address, and he drove. The silence was crazy-making, but I didn’t feel like figuring out his peculiar radio, which was some newfangled digital setup. I hoped he’d take me home and this fucking bizarre day could end.
I’ve never been that lucky.
Two blocks from my apartment building, he asked, “Did you ever visit me?”
“When?” I asked. We hadn’t been talking, so I had no idea where his thoughts were stuck.
“I was in the hospital for a month and a half. Did you ever try to visit me?”
“Of course I did! You father forbid me from seeing you, or even giving you a letter. He changed your cell phone number. He blamed the whole damned thing on me.”
Raymond Langley had used his considerable power to weave a story to the cops that made Adam look like an innocent bystander. Said I got into it with Chad and his pals, Adam tried to stick up for me because he was a nice guy like that, and we both got beat up. No one, not even Chad, mentioned he’d seen us kissing, that he’d called both of us fags, that he’d threatened to break Adam’s other arm….
Fuckers got off with suspended sentences and community service. I lost my best friend, the last half of my senior year, and the ability to walk alone in dark parking lots without heavy bouts of ice-cold panic.
“I hate him for that,” Adam said. “For blaming it on you.”
“Didn’t stop you from going along with it.”
“What else was I supposed to do, Rye? I was seventeen with a skull fracture. It was a week before I really understood what had happened to us.”
He had no real idea what happened to us that night.
“After you healed up and turned eighteen?” I asked, because I wasn’t letting him off the hook. “What then?”
“Father would have disowned me. He’s the only family I have.”
“You had mine.”
“For how long? We were seventeen. I didn’t remember us kissing. I didn’t know we’d… changed our relationship. And even if I had….”
“What?”
He swallowed hard and pulled in to a spot in front of my building. Shut off the engine. He seemed at war with himself while he sat there, thumbs tapping the steering wheel. “Even if I had, nothing lasts when you’re so young.”
Ouch. Just fucking punch me in the junk. “Sometimes it lasts when it’s right. You and me, Adam? We were right. I know you don’t remember, but we were. For a few minutes, we were fucking perfect.”
He swallowed hard. “What are we now?”
I wanted to scream to the rooftops that we were still special, could still be happy together. But he didn’t remember, and he didn’t want to believe it. His father had locked him into a closet a long time ago and the door was shut tighter than a tick’s ass. “We’re on a fundraising committee together, is what. You get your college credits, I’ll keep the center open, and we’re both golden.”
“And after the benefit?”
“I don’t know. I’ve only ever wanted you, Adam, but unless you want me too, and you figure out how to say it to your old man, then come July twenty-eighth, I want you the fuck back out of my life.”
He didn’t stop me when I climbed out of his car and slammed the passenger door shut. He didn’t follow me into the lobby or the deathtrap of an elevator that was broken half as often as it worked. I took no real pleasure in slamming my apartment door shut. Ellie’s bedroom window looked over the street. I peeked out without turning on the light.
Adam’s car was still there. Hope played my heart like a fiddle string for a handful of beats—until he pulled away and disappeared down the block. The fiddle strings snapped, and I let hope die.
I went into my room and collapsed onto my bed, exhausted and spent, and not in the good way. Felt like I’d been eaten by a bear and shit off the side of a cliff. In twelve hours, I’d reconnected with my first love, learned he didn’t remember our first kiss at all, and then felt him kiss me back. All the while defending the asshole father who tore us in half in the first place.
