Chapter 17 Laz
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
LAZ
“IN CHAINS”
I want to be a part of that light in your eyes.
I want to be a part of the fight in your eyes.
I want to give you everything I don’t know how to give.
Like blood from a stone.
My fingers bleed from trying.
It feels like dying.
Knowing I’ll never give you what you need.
I stare at the words—lyrics, for once—feeling the darkness coming. Clouds that were always there on the horizon, a storm I could ignore if I just turned my back and faced the other way. Faced into the sunshine.
Into the light.
Marina is that light I faced into.
I was happily blinded.
“Hey,” Scooby says from the doorway, munching on cherry tomatoes straight out of the container.
I blink, trying to dispel that horrible, aching, clawing feeling, and come back to earth, back to normal. “Let me guess, you have an interesting fact about tomatoes?”
“No, just saying hello,” he says, popping one in his mouth. “No wait, I do. Did you know that the scientific name for tomato is lycopersicon lycopersicum which means ‘wolf peach’?”
I stare at him blankly. “How do you remember that? I swear, the more pot you smoke the smarter you get.”
“I know!” he exclaims. “That’s what I tried to tell my mother when I was in high school but she kicked me out of the house instead. So when are you going to the gay pride parade?”
That last bit would normally sound odd but the fact is, today I’m picking up Noah and taking him to the parade in West Hollywood. This year the parade has sort of morphed into a resistance march, so now Marina wants to come too.
Of course all of this will be unbeknownst to my mum and Daryl.
I’m telling them I’m just taking Noah to the beach.
Then we’ll swing by Marina’s and pick her up after she’s done one of her live hive removals and Noah can get ready for the parade there.
He’s just a spectator but he wants to say something by dressing up, whatever that may be.
“I should probably get going anyway,” I say, getting to my feet. I’ve donned a T-shirt with a rainbow steamroller graphic on it by The Oatmeal out of support.
“So, how is it going with your giiiiiiirlfriend?” Scooby asks like he’s ten years old.
“Good,” I tell him.
Because it has been good.
It’s been better than good.
We’ve been together for a few weeks now and, honestly, it’s been the best weeks of my life.
Ever since New York, I’ve been living a dream, on a high that never ends, floating over the clouds, basking in the sunshine.
I’ve never, ever had this connection with anyone before, never been so infatuated, so obsessed.
I just want to be with her night and day, inside her bed, inside her, finding myself, my place in this world.
Marina has become my sanctuary, a place for my heart to be at rest, sheltered from the elements.
And she loves me.
She loves me.
She hasn’t said it much since that night at the show, in the bathroom, after our fight. I know she’s shy about it, tentative, because I have yet to say it back. But it means the world to me that she’s given me her heart.
I just…I’m finding it harder and harder to not be scared by the whole thing.
It’s that insidious undercurrent that lurks beneath everything bright and new and happy.
I’m scared that what she feels for me, I’ll never be able to give back to her.
And I’m scared that when she realizes that, she’s going to leave me.
These are probably normal fears to have.
I’ve just never been so wrapped up in someone before, I wouldn’t know how normal they are.
Is this what it’s like in any relationship when you really care about someone?
Being friends with Marina before we got together made it so she knows me inside and out, as much as I can give, and is still there for me, by my side.
I just don’t see how I can deserve someone like her.
And yet I have her.
I have her big, gorgeous, red heart.
I have her open and giving soul.
I have her mind and body and every little piece of magic that she’s put together with.
I have her and yet I feel like I’m barely holding on.
She’s slipping through my fingers like sand.
And she doesn’t even know it.
“You all right?” Scooby asks warily. “You seem more dark and moody and tortured-writer than usual.”
“I’m fine,” I tell him, squeezing past him in the door way and heading down the hall, grabbing my keys from the hook.
“Maybe you need more lycopene in your diet,” he says, waving the tomatoes around.
Seriously, I’ve never met a stoner who ate so many vegetables when he got the munchies.
I get in my car and head out to the Murdock compound.
Along the way my thoughts begin to drift. I think about Marina.
I think about what's next for us.
I think about what's usually next for me at this point.
But there's never been a point like this for me before.
All those girls I've dated, none of them mattered in the end and they didn't matter because I didn't want them to matter.
I just wanted the company. I wanted someone by my side, someone who was dependable.
That's what my girlfriends became, someone to count on, a warm body in my bed, a presence in my life.
Growing up, I never had that. With them, I did.
But I kept my heart safe, I never invested. I never opened up. I never shared the real me with them. I never even came close.
It was the only way I could not be rejected.
That's not saying I was always the one doing the dumping.
Two girls I dated (no, not at the same time), Carlee and Jill, they dumped me way before I had a chance to do the same to them.
I know that sounds extremely callous but it's the truth.
Only I didn't mind. I didn't mind because I didn't care. I had pushed them away from me from the start, kept my distance, and some women know when they want more and know when they won’t get more.
I knew that the sex and company they provided would eventually be taken up by someone else.
If you don't invest your heart in someone, you don't get hurt.
It worked well for me.
It worked well until I fell head over heels for Marina.
Now, this was someone I cared about deeply, more than anyone else in my life. This time, there was a big, terrible chance that I could get ruined by her, by us. That every fear, every scabbed over emotional wound would become raw again.
I have no playbook anymore. I have no game plan. There is no experiment. I wish I could just let us take it one day at a time and stop thinking about the future. Just enjoy the sex, the company, the intimacy that both soothes and startles me.
That's what I've been trying to do but each day I'm with her, I'm so...sunk. Just in her, underneath her, that I can't even see straight. Can't think straight.
And those words, those beautiful words.
"I love you."
The more they mean to me, the scarier it gets. The more I want to run.
But I can't. I can't do that to her. I can't do that to the person I care about most.
I won't...
Traffic is light so I get to the house a bit early, heading through the gates and parking in the guest parking spot.
I knock on the door and to my surprise it's answered by my mother, not Rosalie.
"Are you the help now?" I ask her, joking.
My mother gives me a tight smile in return. Obviously not in the mood for jokes. But when is she ever?
"Come on in," she says. "Rosalie has the day off."
"Wow, you let your help have days off? You're so generous."
"Don't be snide, Lazarus," she warns me with a sigh.
"Never. Where is Noah?"
She points above her to his room. "In the shower. I'm afraid he just stepped in so you're looking at a bit of a wait. I don't want to know why his showers are so long but I'm going to assume it's normal for a kid his age, right?"
The comment bothers me. Not because it's weird to hear her talk about Noah that way, but because she doesn't know what is normal. If she had been a regular mother and not sent me off to boarding school, then maybe she'd have some idea of what teenage boys are like.
"What?" she says to me, frowning as she closes the door behind us.
"Nothing," I tell her. "Just find it funny that you did have a fourteen-year old boy at some point, if you remember."
She exhales, almost rolling her eyes. "I don't want to hear it Laz, I've had a hell of a day. Do you want a cup of brew?"
I nod and follow her into the kitchen. The place is massive and cold and all stainless steel. I sit down at the marble bar top while she puts the kettle on and goes about getting the proper teacups, saucers, spoons.
"Seriously though, mum," I say, "Why did you send me away to boarding school?"
"Laz," she says tiredly. Her back is to me as she fishes out Orange Pekoe, so I can't read her face but I'm guessing she looks inconvenienced as always. "You always ask this."
"I have never asked this," I say, adamant. "And if I ever have, maybe because you never give me a straight answer."
"Many children go to boarding school. I went to boarding school when I was young and I loved it. You know it’s common in England."
"Mum, you told me your parents were abusive." She had never gone into details before but it certainly explained a lot, such as why she married my father to start with and why she fell in love with Daryl.
"Yes, well, that was normal too. Look, Lazarus, I don't know what you're getting at. So you went to boarding school? You had a great time, didn't you?"
I laugh, the sound sour. "Great time? Are you kidding me? I made the best out of a bad situation. Mum, I was sent away to live elsewhere for most of my teenage years. I rarely saw you, rarely even heard from you. It’s like I ceased to exist."
She hesitates as she puts the tea in the cups. "That's the time you should be sent away. That's when you need, no, want separation from your parents."