Page 56 of The Boy Who Loved Wicked
Her mouth opened and closed like a gasping fish.
“I’m kidding,” I said, failing miserably at adopting an easy tone. They were expanding in my absence. Was Mom right? Had I wanted them to be more like me? Had they been limiting themselves in an effort to not leave me behind?
“You can meet them when you come over.” She was too hopeful to turn down, and also, the thought of being forgotten by the few people I had left felt like trying to breath under water.
“I can’t today, but how about this weekend?” I’d need the time to shape myself into something fit for company.
“I’ll move it to this weekend,ifyou promise totalkto me, Pheeny,” she implored.
“Okay.”
“Okay. And you’ll get to meet the girl Danny wants to take to prom,” she whispered.
The doorbell sounded that evening. I stepped over my books and notes spread out on the living room floor to peek out the blinds before rushing to the door.
“Delivery for”—the Fedex driver read the label on the large box he held—“Phoenix Michaelson.”
I signed for it and kicked the door shut, taking the box into the kitchen. “Denwin University: Department of Philosophy.” I cut through the tape. “What the hell?” Grateful there was a chair behind me, because I fell without a thought for where I would land. I pulled the first binder out and read the sticky note attached to it.
Dear Mr. Michaelson,
Some of your father’s academic notations and personal effects were lingering in one of our storage rooms. For a time they were very useful in our transition after his unfortunate passing. We thought you might like to have them now.
Signed by the department’s secretary.
The note was attached to his student grade book. I ran a finger down the page of names, scores, and notes made in the corners before setting it aside and digging through the stacked binders until I came to an old, dog-eared planner. It opened to a page that held three photos in between. The first shot was of my dad smiling into the camera with his arms around the shoulder of a dark-haired guy. I recognized him from Mom and Dad’s wedding photos. Dad’s best man, Adam. Adam held up bunny ears behind Dad’s head. They were standing at the top of a boulder wearing helmets and rock climbing harnesses. The back of the photo read:We made it to the summit.
The next shot showed Dad wiping out on a surfboard at the beach.Dad surfed?He couldn’t have been older than me. Mom was in the shot too.
The last picture was taken here at the house. Dad read a book while I slept in his arms. The date on the back put me at about three years old. Under the date it said,better than any night out on the town.
Mom came home hours later to find me still at the table reading through Dad’s handwritten notes and learning about what he did with his hours not spent with us. She dug out the old photo albums and filled me in on their wild party days and Dad’s adventurous side. The side I hadn’t known. The side I’d been cheated out on by his death. The side I never thought to ask about. My father had lived a full life.
I knew better than to visit Sebastian’s journal entries when I needed to be a fully functioning human out in the world. It was Saturday, and as promised, I was dressed and ready to meet Danny and Theory’s new friends. But I’d been occupied with the box of Dad’s things for days and hadn’t kept up my nightly routine of falling asleep in my own river of tears with Sebastian’s words both soothing and upheaving me. I had missed his writing, I had missedhim.
With a murmur of defeat, I removed my coat and retrieved the journal from under the guest bedroom mattress. Flopping to the floor, I opened to the page I’d left off at.
It’s been a few days and Phoenix is still morose and unwilling to share why. It’s left me unhappy as well, because my happiness is dependent upon his. I’d compare it to the process of osmosis—
I flipped to the next entry. No need to relieve the week that I waited in anticipation for Emily to admit to her pregnancy. And I didn’t like knowing that I couldn’t make Sebastian happy, because happiness obtained through someone else’s eyes wasn’t true happiness at all.
I made love to Phoenix without restraint tonight. We were unrecognizable to each other on the surface, but there was a thing in us both that identified its counterpart and latched on to our actions. It guided and controlled us. I unleashed everything. My jealousy, anger, hurt, resentment, mygrief.We clawed at each other. Molded ourselves until we were one skin. One mind. I didn’t care about his pain, and I don’t believe he cared about mine. We were selfish beasts raging at the world over the hand we were dealt. And we extracted our vengeance on each other. No longer was he the sweet boy that purred from my touch and begged coyly for my cock. His curls swam around his head like Medusa’s snakes and the words that deployed from his tongue were equally as poisonous.
He was a feather in my arms, and I plucked and cast him about until all his feathery barbs floated away and he was left with only the center spine.
I touched his dried tear drops on the page. There were many of them, and they increased in size as the entry progressed.
I needed him to recognize the darkness in me. To know me in all ways and accept me in all ways too.
Just for tonight, with my cock buried so deep in him, and my teeth threatening to burst through the surface of his skin, I wanted him to carry some of it. Because it’s always too much to bear alone.
I cleared my eyes with the backs of my hands and brought the book closer to try and make out his last sentence. It was as if he’d written it while shaking.
I want someone to make it better…
I rocked with the journal to my chest.I shouldn’t have read this now.No way could I make it to Theory’s house like I’d promised.No way.
There was one entry left, and I decided to get it over with because I couldn’t go on like this much longer. I pulled my t-shirt out of my jeans and wiped my face. My stomach rebelled at the idea that there would be no more Sebastian after I finished this. I ignored the swords and the tiny men shouting for my retreat and turned the page.
