Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter
Twenty-One
Things at the farm were going well, and it
made Lucas nervous. He liked the animals, the chores, the
people—the whole job. He spent most of his time with Elise, not
talking much, just slogging through the hard work of looking after
all the different animals. She wasn’t exactly bubbling over with
feedback but he was pretty sure he was doing an okay job. She’d
started trusting him with some of the more delicate procedures,
which seemed to be a good sign. And she’d let him start tinkering
with an old truck she’d stashed away in the drive-shed. She’d said
he could have it for a couple hundred dollars and he was pretty
sure that by the time he had the truck running he’d have that much
money saved up. It would sure beat riding one of the halfway
house’s bikes way out to the farm and back each day.
And Alex was a regular feature of the place.
Lucas was supposed to work an eight hour day starting at five
thirty in the morning, so technically he should have been long gone
by the time the kid got there, but he usually stayed late. It
wasn’t like he had anywhere better to go. But that wasn’t the only
reason, if he was being honest with himself. He stayed because he
liked spending time with Alex. The kid was…it seemed wrong,
somehow, but the kid was a friend, and Lucas hadn’t realized how
much he’d needed one of those. Even on a rainy day like this one,
Lucas was happy to be outside, happy to be working, and happy to be
with Alex.
“Did you do anything fun this weekend?” the
kid asked as he struggled at the other end of the plank the two
were carrying, the wet wood slippery beneath their cold fingers.
“Go out or anything? See anybody?”
“Not really.” Lucas had worked on Saturday.
On Sunday he’d fed the squirrel, read a book, watched some TV, and
waited impatiently for Monday—that had been Lucas’s weekend, but he
knew Alex was hoping for something more exciting. “How about
you?”
“I did some reading, actually.” And there it
was, the strange undertone that had been slipping out ever since
Alex had arrived that day. Nothing too obvious, but enough to make
Lucas apprehensive. Was this finally going to be the thing that
ruined his new life? But reading? What could Alex have read that
would cause trouble?
“Put it over there, on the ledge,” Lucas
directed, and Alex obediently dragged his end of the plank in that
direction. “Watch the mud.”
“I’m not afraid of a little—” Alex started,
but that was as far as he got before his rubber boots skidded
across the sodden clay. There was a moment when it looked like he
was going to catch himself, using the plank for balance, and Lucas
gripped his end more tightly, hoping to provide support.
But it wasn’t enough. Alex’s feet abandoned
him entirely, slipping out in two different directions, and he fell
heavily to the mucky ground, his end of the board following him
down and landing somewhere near his face.
Alex yelled, in surprise or pain or something
else, and Lucas dropped his own end of the plank and scrambled over
to his fallen friend. “Alex? Shit, Alex, are you okay?”
There was a moment when Lucas wasn’t sure.
The boy’s face was twisted, but was it pain, or…
“Oh, my God!” Alex laughed. “You looked so
funny! Like a…a mud crab, or something, skittling over here!” He
propped himself up on his elbows. “You’ve got more dirt on you than
I do!”
Lucas looked down at himself and tried to
remember his movements. He hadn’t wanted to fall, but it had been
important to move fast, so he’d lowered himself to the ground, and…
“A mud crab, huh?” He tried to take a deep breath but his chest was
still tight with fear. “You’re okay? The board didn’t hit you? You
didn’t pull anything when you fell?”
“You’re not going to get in trouble if I get
hurt, Luke. I signed a bunch of waivers, and my dad did too.
Besides, it was totally my fault.” Alex was more serious now.
“I wasn’t…well, okay, yeah, it would have
sucked if you’d been hurt. I mean, I was the one who told you to
put the board there. It was kind of my fault. But I wasn’t worried
that I’d get in trouble.”
“No?” Alex sat up, bringing his face level
with Lucas’s. Level, and close. “So why were you worried?”
His voice was soft. “Because you care about me?”
“Of course I care—” Lucas started, but he
didn’t get any further. Alex was quick, his hand darting behind
Lucas’s head and tangling in his hair, pulling himself forward,
into Lucas. Into a kiss.
A kiss. Alex was kissing Lucas. He was…he
was…kissing? They were kissing! Lucas’s brain finally kicked
into gear and he scrambled backward. Alex gripped a little tighter
for a quick moment, then jerked his hand away and leaned back, his
eyes as big and round as Lucas was sure his own were.
Alex was the first to speak. “I’m sorry! I
caught you by surprise!”
“By surprise?” Maybe that was the right word,
but it didn’t seem nearly strong enough. “Jesus, Alex! You kissed
me!”
“Yeah. I…I…” Alex’s eyes grew even more
impossibly wide. “Oh my God, you’re not gay! I thought…”
“What? I’m…that doesn’t matter, Alex! It’s
not about being gay, it’s…I’m way too old! I’m nothing, nobody! I
mean…” Okay, Lucas needed to settle down. It had been a kiss, not a
proposal. Alex was just generous with his affections, that was all.
Or looking for a little action, maybe, and Lucas was just handy.
This didn’t have to be a big thing. This didn’t have to wreck
anything. Lucas forced a laugh out of his tight throat. “Yeah, you
surprised me!”
“But it was okay?” Alex edged forward a
little, scooting on his butt through the mud until his thigh was
pressed against Lucas’s knee. And then he put his hand on Lucas’s
leg. “Now that the surprise is over?”
Lucas was in no way prepared for this.
Everything was happening way too fast, and he struggled to find
words that would slow it all down. “It’s okay, like, it’s okay that
it happened that one time. But I don’t think it should happen
again.” Yeah, that was good. This wasn’t a big thing, but it had to
be dealt with. He was on the right track. “I mean, if somebody saw
that, they’d get a totally wrong idea, you know?”
“Wrong idea?” It was as if the confusion was
draining out of Lucas and climbing right into Alex. “What do you
mean? What idea would they get?”
Okay, apparently there was enough confusion
for them both to have a full serving. “Well, you know. They might
think we were…”
“In love?”
Lucas almost choked. “I was going to say…I
don’t know. ‘Involved.’ ‘Going out’, even. But, no, I don’t think
anyone would assume we were—”
“I love you,” Alex said, his eyes blazing
into Lucas’s. “I do. And I know about what happened. When I said
I’d been doing some reading this weekend? I was reading on the
internet, old news stories. I saw Father Mark last week and he told
me your last name, and I looked you up. I know what happened. I
know where you’ve been. And I still love you.”
Jesus Christ. Lucas thought back longingly to
that time only moments before when he’d thought he was so confused.
That time had been nothing, not compared to this. “Father Mark
Webber? He knows I’m working with you? And you know…you know what I
did. You’re okay with it?” Everything was too much. Lucas tried to
find the one stable thought in his mind, the one thing that he
would never, ever let himself forget or manipulate into something
other than what it was. “I did it, Alex.” That was the simple
truth, and saying it made everything more clear. Terrible, but
clear. Lucas tilted his face into the falling rain so he wouldn’t
have to make eye contact as he said, “I killed a man. Father
Webber’s brother. There’s no misunderstanding, no loophole or
amnesia or whatever else you might want to try. I did it. I killed
him. A man was alive, and then I hit him, and he wasn’t. I’m a
killer.”
But Alex wasn’t running away like he should.
Instead, he took his hand from Lucas’s leg and found his hand
instead. Their fingers were cold, but there was warmth in the
contact. “I read about it,” Alex said slowly. “And it freaked me
out, I admit it. But you were drunk. And you don’t drink now, you
told me that. It was a mistake. I understand.”
“Do you?” The words came out more like a sob.
How could this innocent kid understand something that Lucas had
been completely unable to puzzle out himself? “No. It wasn’t a
mistake. I did it on purpose. I didn’t mean to kill him, I guess,
but I was mad, and I wanted to hurt him. I did it.”
“And now you’re sorry. You did your time,
and…and Father Mark seemed to forgive you. I mean, he was weird
about it, and I was kind of…I was a bit of an asshole to him,
maybe. But he didn’t freak out. He didn’t seem mad at you.”
“He’s a priest. He’s like Jesus or something,
all gentle and forgiving. He’s not a normal person. A normal person
would still be mad.” Maybe it was time for Alex to get a little
more reality, here. “Normal people are still mad. This is
the only job I could get, and I only got it because Father Groban
helped me out. After months of looking, nobody would hire me
because they knew what I did. And they were right not to. I
shouldn’t be able to just walk away from all that like it never
happened. You shouldn’t look to Father Webber to understand how
people react. You need to look at everyone else.”
“I’m too busy looking at you.” And the kid
leaned in again, slower this time, thankfully, but his intentions
crystal clear.
Lucas was tempted to stay still. He wasn’t
attracted to Alex, but that didn’t really matter. It would be nice
to have some comfort, some physical contact. More than nice. It
would be like a warm blanket after a night alone in the arctic. And
going along, doing what Alex wanted, whatever he wanted…that would
maybe let them stay friends. Maybe Lucas could keep his whisper of
happiness for just a little bit longer.
But of course he couldn’t. Alex was young and