14. 14
Remy hands me and Chester a beer, because that’s all they sell at the music venue we’re at on Friday night. The concert is half-way done and I’m so fucking ecstatic. Remy was able to get us tickets to The Foo Fighters, knowing both Chester and me get googly eyes whenever Dave Grohl is mentioned. Remington doesn’t necessarily like the music himself, but he did want to go out with both Chester and me. Turns out he knows a guy who knows a guy and suddenly we have tickets to a performance in a small venue that nobody was able to get tickets to, but Remington did. He’s my new hero I think, while Dave belts Hero through the mic.
Chester was elated to go, couldn’t shut his fucking mouth about it. And to be honest? I think we need a night off. Just forget about everything, let go, not think about missing kids or murdered women and especially not missing kids that turned into murdered women. But now that we’re here, he seems to be down. I’ve seen him get lost in music, like, literally could-not-be-reached lost in music. It’s the way his emotional system works. He feels in music, he thinks in music. It’s a mathematical approach to the turmoil that’s going on inside him. Me? I think in pictures, in words. He doesn’t. He thinks in numbers and in music. We’ve had the weirdest conversations about it, trying to understand the other, but we’re just wired differently.
The crowd around us is going crazy, jumping, bouncing, singing and shouting along to the music. I’m somewhere in between it all. I feel a bit weird letting go while Chester isn’t and I feel a tad self conscious letting go with Remy being there.
“I don’t get this,” Remy says in my ear as he wraps an arm around me.
“What?”
“The dancing to this music. I don’t get it. There’s no coordination.”
I chuckle. “No, that’s the whole idea. You just go along with whatever feels good.”
“And what would feel good right now?”
I think about that for a second before I answer. “Screaming along to the song at the top of my lungs and jumping around.”
“Then why aren’t you doing that?”
I shrug, taking a sip of my beer. Ugh. Definitely not whiskey, but still better than wine. “Ches isn’t being his normal self right now, and I don’t know if I’m ready for you to see me belting along to music that’s definitely not your cup of tea.”
“Might not be my cup of tea, but it could be my cup of beer,” he says while raising his cup to me. “And this isn’t how Ches normally acts at a concert?”
I turn around to see what my friend is doing. He’s talking to some girl with blond hair with pink dye at the tips of her hair. She looks like she’s flirting with him, showing just a little too much of her black lace bra. And Chester? He seems to actually go along with it, leaning into her to say something in her ear.
“No,” I say as I stare at the hacker open-mouthed. “I can honestly say I’ve never seen him act like this at a concert. Usually, he’ll be bouncing around through the crowd, pulling me along, finding us an even better spot, because there’s always one there. And while he hooks up, it’s never at concerts. The music is more important, socializing can be done anywhere.”
Remy looks at Chester, before he focuses on me again. “We all respond to stress in different ways, ma chanteuse.”
Guess that’s true.
“Where does the French come from, by the way?” The question’s been bothering me for a while, but somehow I never end up asking him.
“My grandmother was French, mother’s side. My grandfather was Irish. They fell in love. He was a Catholic and my grandmother was a Protestant. Both their families shunned them because they had the audacity to follow their heart. So they left everything, moved to America and lived a long, happy life. Now, work-a-holics that my parents were, they weren’t home a lot. So they watched me. Grandma taught me how to speak French, Grandpa taught me how to swear.”
The idea of that puts a smile on my face. “You swear?”
“Like a real Irishman,” he states proudly.
“I’d like to hear that some time.” He pulls me closer to him.
“You first.”
“What? Start swearing?”
“No, start belting those tunes. Show me how to act around here, I’ll forever be in your debt.”
“I like the idea of that.” I chug my beer and start jumping and singing along to the music. It only takes a minute for me to forget all my worries and just let go.
I haven’t seen Chester for most of the evening, but the concert has ended and we have to find each other to go home. We never lose each other during concerts, but then again, usually we go together. Remy and I ended up almost in front of the stage and by the end of the concert I had him jumping along to the music. I’d say that my mission is accomplished.
Most people are leaving the venue by now, and there’s not many of us left. He has to be around here somewhere, right? I grab my phone to call him and ask where he is, when Remy grabs my arm and turns me around so I’m facing the far side of the venue. It’s there I find my friend, his back pressed against the wall, the girl from earlier that evening against his chest, kissing him. And it’s like I’m tripping or something. I’d sooner believe someone has roofied my beer and I’m seeing things, than actually finding Chester kissing a girl.
It takes me a while to understand that Remy is pulling my elbow in order to walk to Chester and that I’m just standing there, gaping. The girl he kisses is tiny, and he’s bending down over her in order for their mouths to meet. They look kind of hot together. I’ve seen Chester kiss men before, he’s rough with them. But this? This looks tender. Perhaps there really was some kind of drug in my beer? This is too weird.
Remy takes me along with him as he makes his way to Chester, as they keep kissing like the world around them doesn’t exist. They don’t even notice us coming up to them, as I just keep studying them, staring, stunned. Remy doesn’t seem to have such problems. “Hey,” he greets them. They finally break their kiss, and I find myself staring at their lips. They’re a little puffy.
Chester somehow makes the girl take back a step, creating some distance between them. “Hey,” he greets us back, combing a hand through his long hair. He’s looking at his shoes and doesn’t meet my eye.
“We’re about to go, are we driving back together?” Remy asks.
“Yeah, I’m coming,” he answers a little too quickly for my liking. He raises his face to the girl again. “So, bye.”
“Oh, well, okay,” she stumbles before she bites her lip. “You, eh, you could come back to my place if you want?” She’s fiddling with the hem of her shirt.
“Oh. No, I can’t. Well, so. Bye.” Before he gives her a chance to react, he takes off and starts walking to the exit in enormous strides. The girl just keeps standing there, looking a little crushed, and I feel bad for her. Here she is, making out with a guy, inviting him over to her place, only to be rejected and then left. It’s kind of harsh and she doesn’t look like she deserves to be treated like that.
“Sorry,” I mumble as I walk past her. “Bye.”
We only catch up with Chester when we reach the car, where he’s waiting for us as he sits on the hood. He takes a seat inside without saying a word as soon as I open the car doors. Remy grabs the keys and starts the car, as I slide in the back, next to Chester instead of riding shotgun.
“Why are you sitting in the back?” he asks me in an irritated tone.
“Because you just made out with a girl and you won’t look me in the eye and it’s harder for you to ignore me when I’m sitting right next to you.”
“Yeah, I was afraid it’d be something along those lines.”
Remy keeps quiet as he drives off, but our eyes meet in the rear view mirror every now and again. I wait to see if he starts talking, but there’s only so much restraint I can show really. ”So you kissed a girl...”
He ignores me.
”Did you like it?”
The only answer I get is a glare. Remy gives me a mischievous look in the rear view mirror before he says: ”The taste of her cherry chapstick?”
The corner of my mouth pulls up, but I see Chester closing down on me. His eyes flick down to where he’s spinning his thumb ring with his middle finger. His foot is nervously tapping on the ground, his shoulders are tense and his breathing is strained.
“Treasure,” I say softly, for the first time since we arrived at the concert, his eyes meet mine. He wants to talk, he wants to trust me, but his eyes quickly look at the back of Remy’s chair and I can see the fear in them.
“You trust me?” I ask Chester.
“Of course I trust you,” he says.
“Remember that.”
My eyes find Remy’s in the mirror for a second. “I need you to listen to me, Remington Ashburn. And I need you to be completely honest with me.” He nods, so I continue. “When I met Chester in boarding school, we found a way to tell each other stuff. We’d call treasure, and whatever we told each other would stay buried in the past after that conversation. We’d never bring it up again if the person bringing it up never speaks about it again. Some things, after confessing them, became easier to talk about. But we’ve lived by these rules for a long time. Now, I need you to think if you’re willing to hear whatever we’re about to speak about in this car and bury it afterwards, even if you have to pretend it was never told.”
He takes a second to consider it, but then nods. “Yeah, I can do that.”
“Okay, good. Now, don’t take this personally, but Ches will need a little more convincing, so just… let me.”
I turn myself to Chester, who’s not looking very trusting at all.
“So, you’ve met Remy yourself, you’ve trusted him enough to hook up a couple of times with him. You don’t normally hook up more than once, so you have some basic trust in him yourself. You’ve given him my number, which you would never do if you knew something is inherently wrong with him. He’s asked me about your past once before, but when I told him that’s not my story to tell, he accepted it and never asked me again. He did, however, say he’d talk about it with you sometime himself, because he’d like to be there for you. He asked you to go along to a concert, obviously willing to be your friend. I trust him. Without a doubt. You trust me. Ergo, you should trust him.”
The car fills with a silence that’s so fragile it would take but a sneeze to break it. Then, after what feels like minutes but is most likely just seconds, Chester grunts in agreement.
“Why did you kiss that girl?” I repeat.
“Treasure, right?” my blond friend says, looking very much like the twelve year old boy I met all those years ago.
“Treasure,” I repeat.
“Treasure,” Remy says, a slight tremble to his voice, like he’s uncertain whether he should. Speaking that one word invites him to the sanctity of our little ritual.
“Because I just needed to see if I could… I don’t know… get over my issues? See if it’s worth the hassle?”
“Was it worth the hassle?” I ask, trying to stay objective and not question him too much. I’ve learned it’s better to let him do the talking than to ask the questions that I think are relevant.
“It was… really, really, smooth.”
“Smooth?”
“Smooth, yeah. Like… No stubble. And she was soft. I’m not used to them being soft.” I can’t help but chuckle. “But I don’t know if it’s worth the hassle. I’m fucking freaking out, Abs. It’s like I’m back again, not having a choice, but that’s not true, because this was my choice and I’m not back, but it feels like it and I shouldn’t feel like it because it’s all different but at the same time it’s not and I just…” He pulls his hair at the roots with both hands. I unbuckle myself and scoot over to him, holding him close, squeezing him tight.
“It’s okay,” is all I say, holding on to him for dear life.
“What happened to you, Ches?” Remy asks. The warmth in his voice is almost palpable.
“I… When…” he starts, but he shuts his mouth again. He makes himself smaller than he usually is. “You tell him, I can’t, it’s… too… I don’t know how to talk about it.”
I sigh. The fact that I’m allowed to share is big, I just don’t want to mess it up, make him regret this. He’s taken his feet from the floor and put them on the edge of his seat, practically hugging his own knees.
“The Von Liechenfield family is old money. Like, way old. And Chester’s parents, whom we lovingly refer to as Satan Co, made a pact, sold their souls to a crossroad demon and got married. I’m pretty certain about this part of the story.”
Chester laughs, and I can’t describe how relieved I am to hear that.
“Now, as annoyingly rich people tend to do, they married, had a kid, produced an heir on the first try and then gave it to a nanny to raise, while they were off doing important stuff. Esther was Chester’s in-house nanny since the day he was born. I don’t exactly know where they found her, but my best guess is in the same place where Dante Alighieri found his inspiration for the Divine Comedy.”
Another snort from Chester. Good, he can use it before we get to this next part.
“Esther could be a great dictator, would fit right in with Hitler. But a nanny? No, she doesn’t make a good nanny. It started with punishment. Getting hit for asking questions. Getting kicked for childlike behavior. Broken bones, for when he was disobedient. But Satan Co liked Esther, so they encouraged her abuse. Besides the obvious physical abuse, there was a buttload of mental abuse I won’t even get into now. We’d have to drive to Mexico and I’d still have more to tell you.”
Remy is so silent I wonder if he’s even breathing at all. His eyes are firmly on the road, his knuckles white from his grip on the steering wheel.
“As he got older, he started to get too strong. He started fighting back. She was no match for him in the brain department, he was smarter than her when he was five. So she started using a tool he had no defense against. She started grooming him. Praising him when he was good. Rewarding him with affection when he was good. He’d never had any affection before that, so that was completely new. Things escalated when she started to sexually reward him for good behavior.”
“That’s not sexually rewarding,” Remy snaps, no longer able to hold anything back. “That’s rape.”
I turn Chester’s head with both my hands, forcing him to look at me. “See, I told you so.”
He grunts, something I think means he’s admitting I’m right.
“Anyway, that went on for years. He told Satan Co about it when he was eleven, said he’d go to the police. But the people who were supposed to love him, to protect him, his parents, said he must’ve wanted it, because it doesn’t work that way with boys and that Esther had only ever loved him. Even went as far as saying that if he ever went to the police, they’d just bribe them and make sure he’d end up in juvie. They didn’t have to elaborate on what happens to young boys in juvie. So he chose the evil he knew over the evil unknown. SatanCo did decide it was a good moment to go to boarding school after that, and I think that’s the nicest thing they’ve ever done in this goddamn thing they call life.”
I sigh. I’m so glad we ran into each other in boarding school. That we instantly connected. That he anchored me to life and I could help him heal. Some Native American tribes believe they’re two parts of one soul, spread over two bodies. That’s how Ches and I have felt since the very first day I found a crying boy with big baby blue eyes in the hallway, bawling his eyes out because he didn’t know how to make friends. Nobody had ever taught him and books weren’t helpful. That’s when his part of our soul clicked with mine, I sat down next to him and told him I had no clue how to do the living thing, but perhaps we could try together and help each other on both things.
“What happened to Esther?” Remy asks, his teeth grinding.
Chester laughs out loud, head-in-neck out loud. “She’s still at my parents’ mansion. She does housekeeping now.”
Remy steps on the brakes of the car, stopping it in the middle of the road, before he starts to turn the car.
“What are you doing?” I ask confused.
“I’m driving over to that motherfucking house right now, I’m getting Esther out and I’m going to skin her alive and laugh while doing so.” There’s a slightly deranged look in his eyes. I can’t even tell if he’s being serious right now or not.
“No,” Chester says softly, “just take us home please. Besides, we don’t have any skinning knives in the car. If you want to become a murderer, Remy, you should do so better prepared.”
Silence returns to the car, but Remy keeps driving in the general direction of Chester’s parents’ house. Eventually, he starts slowing down and turns the car again. I can visibly see him swallow.
“What’s this got to do with kissing that girl tonight?” Remy asks when he finally seems to have calmed down.
“I’ve never trusted a woman since her. Not in… that… department anyway. Besides, I like men. I love men. So it’s never been an issue. But tonight I wondered, do I like men because I’m gay, or do I dislike women because of my past? And I wondered if it was worth the hassle.”
I’ve never really considered the option for Chester to be anything but gay, his trust in women being broken too much. I’ve always sort of assumed he was into men anyway.
“So, was it?” I finally ask.
“I’ll let you know once I figure it out,” Chester says, staring out of the window.
Remy is coming over for a sleepover, which is a first for me. Not just for Remy and I to spend a night together, but for me to consciously spend the night with anyone. I’ve slept in other people’s beds after a hook-up, but I’ve never spent the night. I don’t have any clue as to what the protocol is in this case. I don’t think Chester will be any help in that department either
Chester isn’t going to be much use at all right now. He stormed inside once the car stopped, went into his office and started blasting music that’s so Indie I didn’t even recognize it. It sounded Norwegian or something like that. Noisy, in any case.
“Stop freaking out,” Remy says, as he puts a hand on either side of me on the bathroom cabinet while I’m staring in the mirror trying to figure out how this all works.
“I’m not freaking out,” I mope.
“Yes, you are.” He presses a kiss against my shoulder. “What’s freaking you out?”
“Should I have bought you a toothbrush? Or did you bring your own?” I say, staring at my bathroom cabinets in confusion. I don’t have any guest toothbrushes, we don’t have guests over, like, ever.
“I brought my own, in my very fancy overnight bag. I also brought a clean set of clothing and underwear, you’re not supposed to supply me with it. I will, however, be raiding your kitchen for snacks, because I haven’t brought those myself. I’m going to sleep in your bed, I’m going to pretend to stay on my side, then I’m going to tangle myself into you and hog all the blankets. You can cuss me out over it in the morning.”
By the end of his little speech I’m chuckling.
“Now, what’s really bothering you?”
I turn around in his arms, making sure I face him before I release a sigh. “I can’t figure out what’s going on with Chester. He suddenly starts driving, wants to be taught how to shoot, starts working out with us, now he’s kissing girls? It can’t all be because of the serial killer, right?”
Remy pulls me closer to him, pushing one of the strands from my hair behind my ear. “It might’ve started out with the serial killer, but I think the serial killer was just the catalyst.”
“Being?”
“You’re shitting me, right?” he asks me as he stares down at me, trying to find any trace of me shitting him.
“Euh, no, I seriously have no clue what you’re talking about.”
“Chester’s in love with you, mon amour,” he says, letting his forehead fall against mine. I pull my head back like he’s burning me with a hot iron, punching him in the chest.
“Shut your mouth,” I say, my eyes going wide. Chester? In love with me? No. That’s like a major no. That’s the no-est of all no’s. It’s a hell to the nope. Na-ah.
“You really don’t see it?” he asks, as he rubs the spot on his chest.
“Chester? My best, very-much-into-dudes, friend Chester? Listen, we’ve been roomies or lived in the same house for the last fifteen years. I think I would’ve noticed.”
“Have you ever seen how he looks at you?” Seriously, Remy is deranged, Chester can’t be in love with me.
“Yeah, just like he’s always looked at me. Like his best friend.”
“You’re the only woman he’s ever trusted. And he looks at you like he’s got a new superfast supercomputer with all the newest super features.”
I start laughing. “Say super one more time.”
“He’s super in love with you.”
“You’re super crazy.”
Remy starts laughing, pulls me against him and gives me a kiss on the top of my head. Then he lets me go, grabs his toothbrush out of his overnight bag, squirts some of my toothpaste on it and starts brushing. I copy his motions, lost in thought.
He can’t be right, can he? That would be really weird. But it would also explain the awkward behavior. It’s just such a foreign thought that it’s giving me the blue screen of death in my brain. Then again, I also never expected to see Chester kiss a total random girl, and I caught him doing just that this evening. Then I get even more confused and spit out the toothpaste before I rinse my mouth.
“Why are you so relaxed with this if you really believe Chester is in love with me?”
He spits out his toothpaste as well before answering me, our eyes locking in the mirror, his face serious. “I don’t think I believe in monogamy. I believe in walking together with each other for a part of each other’s lives. Whether it’s just a few blocks or all the way across the globe. I just don’t think you’re meant to make the journey with just two people. And if I get to walk with you for a while, you’ll make me a very happy man. But if there’s more people walking along with us? Well, who am I to deny someone else their journey?”
Fuck, that’s what you get for dating an artist. They have a way to make things pretty.
“And you forget I’ve been with Chester,” he adds, getting a boyish smile on his face, “I greatly recommend tapping that.”
While the idea of Remy tapping Chester is like a natural thought to me, the idea of me getting together with Chester is so foreign to me it’s like NASA has finally found proof of alien life in outer space. I try to shrug the thought off.
“Now, time for the real question,” I say, as I look at Remy. “Did you also pack pajamas, or are you sleeping in the buff?”
He grabs my hand and pulls me after him in the direction of my bedroom, giving me a wink. “Let’s find out.”