Chapter 5
MYLES
Ten and a half years ago…
If Dad could see me right now, he’d lose his shit.
Usually, the two of us get along okay, but that’s mostly because I just show him what he wants to see. Unless I can’t, like how this year’s the second year in a row I didn’t make it onto the school football team—for obvious reasons.
Or how much it pisses him off that, yeah, I’m already almost six feet like I’m supposed to be, but no matter how much he breathes down my neck about working out and eating more, I can’t seem to get above a hundred and forty pounds. Or stop tripping over my own damn feet.
Not my fault, but he still seems to think it is…
It’s why, for all Dad knows, Charlie’s the super star athlete he’s spent all my life trying to make me. That way, Dad doesn’t give me shit for spending all my time with him when I should be working out. Practicing.
As far as Dad’s aware, that’s exactly what Charlie and I do spend our time doing, not wandering around at the edges of the forest or hanging out in his room while I sketch and the two of us talk until our voices give out.
That would be bad enough.
Hiding in the woods, parked at the base of a cedar tree, bawling my eyes out over the fact that Charlie’s leaving Riverside for good today though?
Crying is for babies, women, and fags. His words. Not mine. Never mine.
I fucking hate that word, and I hate what he said.
It’s what he’d told me the last time he caught me crying. Last summer, when a kid on my rec league team who weighed a good fifty pounds more than I did bowled straight through me during a scrimmage.
Two broken ribs and a concussion? Shake it off. Take it like a man.
So I’m out here where no one can see how I’m breaking.
I feel like a complete asswipe for how I’d been with Charlie this morning. If I’d stuck around or tried to talk or even looked at him for too long though, I wouldn’t have made it out of his house and into the woods before I’d cracked.
Charlie is…my person.
Yeah, that’s a weird thing to call him, but it’s not like I’ve ever told him that’s what he is.
I’ve just always hated the whole best friend label.
It reminds me of some of the girls at school, how they’re always bitching about someone behind each other’s backs and getting all cliquey and close for a little while before swapping off to someone new.
And never mind about the fact that Charlie is my only real friend, so calling him my best friend seems like it’s just by default. Not to mention not nearly enough.
He’s my person. No other words for it.
Squeezing my eyes hard and tight against more tears, I let my head fall back against the trunk of the tree. It doesn’t help.
With my eyes closed, all I can see is Charlie’s face. Those brilliant green eyes of his that sometimes drive me crazy because, regardless of the fact that I’ve seen him pretty much every day for the past four years, I’ve never been able to pin down the shade of them in my head.
I’ll get a glimpse of them and be sure I’ve got it, and the next moment, his mood or the light changes, and they’re different. Just as bright, just as green, but different.
Not sure how long I sit like this, but eventually, my breathing evens out a little.
Even though eating’s the last thing on my mind, my stomach gives a loud, almost painful growl.
It feels way more like I’m gonna be sick than like I’m actually hungry, but considering the fact that it’s almost noon and I haven’t eaten since last night, I think getting something in it is probably a good idea.
Anyway, if I put off getting food, I’ll be risking running into Dad later. Right now, it’s got to be early enough that he’ll still be doing that extra shift he picked up at the mill.
Go now, and I’ll be able to be in and out of the house with something to eat before he gets back.
I’d gone way off any of the actual trails, but I’ve grown up in these woods, so I don’t have to even think where I’m going to get myself back home.
Ha. Home.
For the last four years, Charlie’s house has been home.
Just in case it’s later than I think and Dad is actually here, I stop before I get too close to the house. Try and clean myself up by wiping my face with the hem of my t-shirt. Take some long breaths to make sure I don’t sound like I’ve been crying my eyes out for the last who knows how long.
It would probably be better if I had some water to splash on my face or something, because my eyes have gotta be all red and puffy, but whatever. Like I said, it’s not like Dad’s around to see.
Besides, if worst comes to worst and he is there, I’ll play it off like I’m high. That would probably piss him off, but I know he’d let it drop way faster than if he knew the real reason I look how I look.
Not that I smoke, but Dad doesn’t know that. He doesn’t know anything about me.
Life is a bitch though, because no sooner than I’m stepping out from the trees and into the rat’s nest Dad calls our yard—a graveyard of useless shit his grandpa piled up over the decades the house was his—do I hear the slam of a car door closing.
Goddammit, he is home.
But is that Dad?
It doesn’t really sound like the creaking thunk of his truck door, and the engine that starts a few seconds later is definitely quieter…
From around the house, out of sight, there’s the crunch of gravel as whatever vehicle it is starts to move, and I’m running, dodging rusted scraps of metal and a fifty-plus year-old fridge that no one is ever going to want for anything.
All that’s left of the car by now is its back end, but I’m sure I recognize it—
“Myles.”
The taillights of the car disappear around the corner, blocked out by the thick growth of firs and cedars and untrimmed brush on either side of the driveway.
I could probably still catch up…
“Myles. You hear me, boy?”
A heavy hand lands on my shoulder. Spins me around.
Vaguely, I can see that Dad’s face is red.
Redder than usual, with a vein popping in his forehead.
His hand’s too tight on my shoulder. All that fully registers though is this weird, cracking sensation in my chest, like there’s this piece of me that’s breaking free to follow after the vanished car I can’t hear anymore—
“Was that Charlie?” My question sticks around this thick lump that’s caught in my throat, and I can’t bother even trying to pretend my eyes aren’t prickling at the thought of how I’ve only just missed him—
“That’s just what I was gonna ask you—” Dad narrows his eyes, and suddenly I realize how hard that vein in his forehead’s pumping.
My stomach bottoms out somewhere down at my feet as reality clicks into place. This is so fucking bad—
His lip curls. “—because you told me Charlie’s captain of the JV baseball team. That cream puff fairy boy that just left here isn’t captain of nothin’, unless it’s the chess club or some shit like that.”
A shot of rage-fueled adrenaline detonates in my chest, and all on its own, my hand balls up into a fist at my side. Terrified by the impulse I’m only just barely holding in, I jerk away from him, almost tripping over my own feet as I stagger a step back.
Dad might piss me off sometimes, but I’ve never wanted to punch his face in before.
“So what I’m tryin’ to figure out here—” he doesn’t reach out to grab my shoulder again, but the step he takes after me is menacing.
Even though he’s got a temper, Dad’s never hurt me.
Right now, he’s not even shouting, but there’s something cold and disgusted about the livid glint in his eyes I’ve never seen before, no matter how badly I’ve disappointed him by not being the carbon copy of him he so clearly wants.
The sight of it makes my stomach twist with dread.
He’s almost toe to toe with me, and even though I don’t have to look up all that far to meet his eyes, I can feel the way he towers over me. Larger than life. “—is how come he says Charlie’s his name. Charlie Lancaster. Myles’s friend.”
Alongside the dread that’s bubbling up in me, there’s a weird prickle of heat at the way he says friend, like it’s something dirty. Obscene. Like—
“You’ve been sneaking around all this time, haven’t you?” Before I can react, he grabs hold of my shirt, right at the collar. His face is right up in mine, choking me with the stale stink of beer and sweat and axle grease. “Hidin’ it from me that your friend’s a little faggot.”
My hands are on his chest before I can stop myself. Trying to shove him off as my rage spikes. “Don’t call him—”
“Why?” He shakes me hard enough that my teeth rattle together and a flash of real fear cracks through me, because I can feel how close he is to snapping. “‘Cause you’re one too? Is that what you’ve been off all this time with him doing? Fucking around with a goddamn fag?”
“I’m not gay!”
And I’m not. Even if I don’t like girls and even if being away from Charlie makes me feel like my heart’s literally being ripped in half. Because I don’t want him or any other guy, any more than I want any girl.
I’m sure as hell not telling Dad, because I know it’s just proof that there’s something fucked up and wrong with me, but I don’t want anyone.
Whatever that confusing, contented warm rightness that feels like it’s just about to overflow from me whenever Charlie and I are together, it isn’t attraction. I don’t have to have felt it to know I’m not feeling it.
I don’t want to kiss Charlie, or—or…do things with him. Just…be near him. All the time. Forever—
Dad’s hand on my shirt goes slack and I jerk back, shaking him off. “I said I’m not gay.”
The next moment, all I can feel is shame, because even though I’m not, and even though he’s never told me, I’m pretty sure Charlie is.
And what am I doing while my dad rips into him just for being who he is?
Getting stuck on making it clear that I’m not the same as he is, instead of standing up for him to my homophobic asshole father like I should be.