Chapter 9 - Shane
Shane
I glance back at Ethan. He’s got his eyes closed.
I’m not sure if he’s asleep or not, but I keep the CD player and radio off just in case.
On the map, there are highlights Ethan must have made and a few notes he’d written out.
I glance at it to make sure I’m still going the right way.
His handwriting is still the same. I smile to myself as I think about all those notes we used to give to each other.
He still capitalizes his Es and As in the middle of words.
I can’t remember exactly, but I think I read somewhere that when people do that it’s some kind of personality trait that means they’re constantly frustrated.
If it’s true, then it seems Ethan’s life hasn’t been any less frustrating over the last five years.
I turn my attention to the road. We have to stay on Route 8 for a while, then get on Interstate 88 to Binghamton. I’m thinking maybe we could stop there to eat or something. He’s got it circled, so maybe that’s what he was thinking too.
I sort of lied to him. My grandma had panic attacks, but I had them too.
I still do sometimes. They started, not unsurprisingly, after the night I last saw Ethan.
I got a brief reprieve after Mikayla was born, thinking that I had a purpose, but they came back after it was clear Gina and I couldn’t pretend anymore.
I didn’t have anyone there to talk to me, to tell me to recite things and calm me down.
And it isn’t surprising that Ethan would be having one on a trip like this. I suspected he was back at that gas station.
I glance over at Everett’s ashes. I wonder what he would do if he were here. If he saw Ethan and I doing this together. Would he be happy? The last time I spoke to Ev, he wasn’t happy at all. In fact, he was pretty pissed.
And I was completely caught off guard, so I reacted in the most cowardly way possible.
As I drive, I think back to that night, Everett’s graduation party at the Sawyer house.
His parents let him have one as long as it didn’t get too wild.
Ev and I went out to my Bronco to get something.
I had all my photos on the passenger seat inside a folder.
I’d just developed them. Some were close-ups of my grandpa’s hands as he carved a soldier figurine.
Some were pictures of my grandmother’s knitted Afghan, wrapped around her in her favorite chair.
And some were actually of Everett, running on the track at school.
I’d been trying to capture all these pieces of life, little things that most people just ignore, but always fascinated me.
And Ethan had fascinated me. A lot.
There was one of him sitting on the railing of the Sawyer’s wraparound porch.
One knee was drawn up, the other leg dangled.
His jeans were ripped, and that Depeche Mode tee was baggy against his thin frame.
I told him to look out at the street so the light could catch the side of his face, but he turned his face to me at the last moment, a smile just beginning in his eyes.
He’d stuck out his tongue and made devil horns with his fingers.
In the darkroom, I’d blown up the picture to get more of his face in the frame, because I wanted to see all the different Ethans I’d caught at once.
Spontaneous Ethan. Silly Ethan. Angsty Ethan. Edgy Ethan.
I captured Awkward Ethan out in the street with his skateboard. And then there was Curious Ethan in the Sawyer’s backyard, his head tilted up, gazing at the night sky.
Then there was one of Shy Ethan sitting by the river in the grass, looking at the camera with tenderness in his storm-cloud eyes.
And me sitting right behind him, with one arm around him and my chin resting on his shoulder. I remember us taking that picture just like I remember us taking the one out on the rocks. I remember them mostly because of what happened after.
But the picture Everett saw was the one with my arm around Ethan.
The way we were sitting, how close we were, it was obvious; it was an intimate moment I hadn’t intended on anyone else seeing but Ethan.
But that’s the one Everett picked up and stared at when he opened the folder, just lying there in the passenger seat, unguarded.
“What the hell is this?” he’d said, frowning.
My heart was pounding with terror and the pain of having that private moment with Ethan seen.
I’d meant to give Everett the ones I’d taken of him running track.
I don’t know why I brought the whole folder with me.
I guess I’d been stupid and not thinking.
Or maybe I’d been hoping to get Ethan alone at that party and show him those pictures. Especially the ones of us.
I still can’t get the look on Everett’s face out of my mind. He was angry. Even a bit horrified.
“What the hell is this, Shane?” He’d demanded, holding up the photo.
I stammered and stuttered and tried to come up with an explanation.
Something good, something convincing, something that wouldn’t lead to me being outed in our little sheltered town.
But Everett was so angry. And a bit confused too.
He was looking at me in a way he never had before, and I didn’t know what was going to happen.
I couldn’t stand it. I got inside the Bronco and drove off.
I shouldn’t have drove at all since I’d had a couple of Zimas, but that’s what I did.
I drove away from the Sawyer house that night, panicking, tears welling up in my eyes with my best friend yelling though the open windows, taunting me with that picture, “Shane? Shane! What the fuck, Shane?”
That was it. That was the very last time I saw or spoke to Everett.
We’d just graduated so I wouldn’t have to see him at school.
I wouldn’t have to see Ethan either. And it was Ethan that tried to reach out to me first. I ignored him.
He kept trying. I kept ignoring him. It tore me apart.
I couldn’t handle it. I couldn’t stop thinking about how Everett had looked at me.
Something had changed between us when he saw me with my arms around his brother.
I didn’t want to face it. Everett had photographic evidence right there in his hands.
I was ashamed. And then I was ashamed for being ashamed.
Everett could have shown anyone—everyone—that photo.
My grandparents and me were already looked down upon by people in our town.
The photo of me with Ethan Sawyer would have made it worse.
And Ethan wasn’t nearly as popular as his brother, but if Everett was going around showing people that picture, it wouldn’t be to shame Ethan.
It would be to shame me. Accuse me. Look what he was doing with my brother!
The terror over what could happen nearly ate me alive.
Months went by. I thought maybe I could like Gina and that being with her might put to rest any rumors Everett could have started.
Then Gina told me she was pregnant. Then we went to the hospital and Mikayla came into this world.
Then we moved into our apartment in Lyons Falls.
Then we moved out of our apartment in Lyons Falls.
Then I started working for a deck and patio contractor in Lowville.
And then I went to Ev’s funeral.
I completely dropped both Ev and Ethan in favor of this new life I thought would help me to move on and be normal.
And maybe it did for a little while. Everett wrote me emails some time later.
I deleted some of them. I tried to move on with my life, but I never really did.
My daughter doesn’t deserve a dad with all these burdens from the past. She doesn’t deserve a dad who can’t face who he really is.
She doesn’t deserve a dad who’s a coward.
Just a few months ago, Everett sent me one last email. I haven’t told anyone about it, and I haven’t read it. I was going to delete it, but decided I would just open it and read it when I felt ready.
That day hasn’t come yet.
I look in the rearview at Ethan again. I’ve wondered over the years if Ev ever confronted Ethan with that picture.
Ethan and I used to communicate through secret emails, and I deleted my secret email address after that graduation party.
I don’t know if Ethan ever told Everett about us.
I don’t know if Rick or Sheila knew. I was practically frozen over the fear of the Sawyers hunting me down with pitchforks over that picture with Ethan.
What would they think? Would anyone still like me if they knew I was gay?
For a while, I really thought maybe the news of me and Gina and our daughter would put to rest any rumors or questions.
But I don’t know anything. I was afraid to know. I was afraid of what people would think of me and say about me in our small town. Would they have told my grandparents? Would they have harassed my grandparents over me?
I can’t be afraid anymore. I just can’t.
But it’s painful to know the way Ethan feels about me now, and how he’ll never want to see me again after this. I selfishly wish for a time machine just so I can see him look at me in that sad puppy adoring way one more time.
But that’s the thing, that’s the bitch of it all.
There are no time machines.
Everett is in that urn.
And Ethan’s never going to look at me that way again.
Ethan sleeps all the way to Binghampton and wakes when I park outside of a rest stop. There’s a sign that promises that the best Denny’s in New York state is inside.
“What are we doing here?” Ethan asks sleepily.
“Thought we could both use some coffee,” I reply. “Maybe something to eat.” I reach over the center console to get my overnight bag for some cash, which is really just the old gym bag I used when I ran track in high school.
After I get out of the Blazer, Ethan gets out, goes over to the passenger side, and opens the door. He carefully removes Everett’s urn from the nest of cushions.
“What are you doing?” I ask him.