Chapter 23
PAPA’S BOY
Papa was on the sidewalk again, telling Oscar he would be fine, calling him Spike, but Oscar wouldn’t be fine. Not this time. He couldn’t be, not if what Aaron suspected was true. That couldn’t happen to Aaron. Not to his Aaron.
When Oscar was jolted out of the nightmare he had every time he was a little too stressed about something, there was bright light shining in through the window, bathing Oscar in yellow.
His heart wanted to drill a hole through his chest and plop on the floor but had somehow climbed to the space between his ears, the nook where his brain should live.
Even without a semblance of orientation, Oscar knew he had fallen asleep on the couch.
His neck ached, his back reminding him that he wasn’t built to rough it, and this was an old budget couch he’d inherited from the previous tenant.
More than this, Oscar knew he was alone. There was no need for superhuman hearing to understand that Aaron was not at home. The silence was all-consuming, the fridge humming away like Oscar’s joy hadn’t just been trampled on by the possibilities Aaron had spread at his feet the night before.
Luigi’s paws thudded on the floor as he leapt off the bed, the creaking door betraying to Oscar that his cat had likely spent the entire morning chasing Aaron around after being locked out of the bedroom all night long.
“Hey, bud.” Oscar rubbed the fur between Luigi’s ears and bent down for a nose bump when the cat stretched his back to reach him, yellow eyes wide with blown pupils. Oscar told himself this was because Luigi loved him.
Aaron loved him too. Whatever they’d argued about, however loud their voices had been, it didn’t matter.
Oscar knew Aaron loved him. He certainly loved Aaron.
And as he sat up, stretching and cursing at the persistent ache in his neck, Oscar pictured him standing opposite, right at the edge of the coffee table, hands trembling and eyes rimmed with red as he poured out the fear and heartache he’d held onto for days.
Alone. Because Oscar hadn’t been here. And he had never hated the idea of being away from home as much as he did now.
In his mind, Aaron sobbed into his chest again and again, his soft fluffy hair brushing against his chin, and Oscar knew a lot about anger and rage; these were the entities that had reared him, that had forged him on the anvils of a childhood misunderstood.
Papa had been the fire blowing strength into him, his mother the blacksmith hammering away at every inch, trying to mold him into something he hated.
Aaron wasn’t iron. He wasn’t anger. He wasn’t rage. Aaron was cream paling coffee, marshmallows floating atop hot chocolate, syrup swimming in the concave pool on a stack of pancakes.
Oscar headed into the kitchen, eyes snagging on the coffee machine.
It was unplugged to the side, the plastic cracked and bent where Aaron had slammed his fist. He winced at the thought of how it must have bruised at first, how Aaron must have ignored the ache and punched it again and again and again.
If Aaron were here, Oscar would drop to his knees on the floor and kiss the skin on that hand, press gentleness where Aaron had ached. He could be cream, too, and marshmallows and syrup. He could be soft for Aaron. He could be anything.
Because Oscar might have raised himself in the corners of his parents’ bathroom, in the darkness of whatever his childhood had been.
But Aaron wasn’t Oscar. All Oscar could think about was how Aaron had looked that night his friends had come over to play games with them, how full of joy he’d been at Christmas, full of light.
Oscar wanted him always full of light, would drill a hole in his chest to make a well for this new darkness. He’d choke on it if he had to.
Right now, it felt like he might.
As the tears started to well up again, obscuring the broken coffee machine that held his gaze like a challenger, Oscar looked away, and his eyes snagged on the knife block, heart stuttering to a stop.
Because what if Aaron had been chopping up those stupid bell peppers Oscar liked in his stir-fry when his anger had come? What if he’d…
Oscar wasn’t sure what he cleared away first—whether it was the knife block or the steak knives still sitting out to drain beside the sink—but by the time he was done, all the cutting things were bundled into a reusable shopping bag with a knot tied at the opening, cast away to sit beside the door until Oscar found a good hiding place for them.
They didn’t need knives in their apartment; they had teeth. And if Oscar wanted a haircut, then he could pay for it or shave his head.
But his hands were still shaking, because forks were sharp, too, and countertops had edges, and his apartment was old enough that he had a gas stove. Besides, Aaron no longer kept a beard. He’d want to shave.
His phone was another blur as he pulled it out of his pocket, his plans to rack up as many hours as he could beta testing the latest video game he’d been sent going straight out the window. Oscar thought about flinging himself out, too, while he was at it, but he couldn’t. Not anymore.
His eyes snagged on the hoodie hanging by the bathroom door.
No. This time, Oscar wanted to stay.
Christina had changed the potted plant in her office, and Oscar wasn’t sure how to feel about it. He liked tracing the brown spots on the leaves, but this one was new and waxy and pristine—his favorite kind of green.
Oscar didn’t like perfection anymore, things untouched, flawless. He liked Aaron with his squinting eyes when he tried to read from afar without his glasses, he liked scars on the chest that he kissed, shoulders covered in freckles of all sizes.
“Thanks for seeing me on such short notice,” he said, reaching for the coffee she’d poured.
He normally had water at these things, but Oscar had left the apartment so quickly in the morning, not even a note to say goodbye after their fight, that he would drink a gallon of human blood if it meant having a taste of Aaron.
“There was a gap in my schedule, and even if there hadn’t been…I could ask someone else to move to a different time. I’m sorry about the last time this happened. I’m sorry I wasn’t available when you needed me.” Christina swung her leg, hands wrapped around her own mug.
In the movies, therapists took notes on fancy leather-bound notebooks or clinical sheets of paper strapped to clipboards. Christina didn’t do any of that shit. She’d written down a couple of things on their first appointment, but after that, it had been this way between them.
“Your hair’s nice,” Oscar said, eyes darting to the thick blonde strands now brushing Christina’s collarbone. He leaned into the armchair, tapping the arm with the fingers on his unoccupied hand.
“Yes, my girlfriend thinks so, too. But you’re here for a reason. What’s going on?” Christina arched her perfectly groomed eyebrows at him, pink lips pursing as she invited him to talk.
So Oscar did.
And what followed was a cataract of confessions about his shortcomings, a tapestry woven of all the patterns in which Oscar had failed as a human being.
“I’m not him,” he said, shaking his head.
“I’m not Papa. I can’t watch Aaron crumble and smile through my tears, pretend I’m laughing.
I can’t see his pain and not cry. I’m not strong enough.
I’m not.” Oscar shifted around on the chair.
“Christina, I don’t know how I’m going to manage studying and passing my tests and doing assignments and working full-time hours.
Because I’ll have to. If this thing decides to attack him, I’m going to have to pay for all of it.
I’m not sending him anywhere. He stays home.
With me. For as long as his doctor allows it.
No matter what. I can’t. I’ll have to get a live-in nurse. I’ll have to, Christina, I—”
Oscar gasped a breath as all of it caught up with him. The truth of what he’d said slapped him in the face, warming his cheeks, making his teeth ache. They felt big in his mouth, raw, like he’d just bitten into ice, like he’d just taken a big gulp of soda after a tub of vanilla ice cream.
If this thing. Oscar had already turned it into something, had already assumed that Aaron was right, that he was going to get sick. He’d already pinned him with a diagnosis they didn’t have, had already imagined him after. How awful must he be to—
“Oscar, I need you to breathe.”
Christina was no longer in her chair. For the first time since Oscar had stepped into her office a few years before, she had crossed the distance between them, that invisible line that marked the boundary between her and her patients, and she was crouching in front of his armchair, hands reaching out to grasp his.
Christina nodded and Oscar took them, not minding very much about the sweat on his palms.
“I’m awful,” he mumbled.
“You’re wonderful,” Christina said, shaking her head. “And you’re going to figure this out together. But first, you’re going to remember everything you’ve taught yourself about walking back from the worst-case scenario and letting it play out.”
“Yeah.” Oscar nodded, pressing his lips together, tooth snagging on his lower lip. “I’m going to have to learn how to carry it for him when he can’t. The waiting as much as the possibility.”
“Good, we’re getting somewhere.” Christina released Oscar’s hands and let out a sigh, walking back to her chair and settling. “Let’s focus on how to wait for a result, how to get the courage to ask for one, before we make plans for something we don’t yet know is real.”
“I will.” Oscar nodded, chewing on the inside of his cheek. “Hey, I don’t want to cut this short, but I have to go.”
Oscar left before Christina could say anything back. By the time he’d reached the ground floor, he’d transferred her the money. By the time he got home, Christina had returned it.
Christina: That was fifteen minutes. Here if you need a call.