Chapter 15 The Monk by the Sea #2
I stand to the side, leaning against the window, watching and listening, fascinated by him—the sweeping and somewhat frantic gestures of his hands, the movement of his glossy lips.
He has a nervous tell I pick up on. It’s an adjustment of his sleeves.
He pushes them up, then pulls them down.
He always does it on an inhale with his head turned down, his eyes briefly closed, and a purse of his mouth.
It’s unsettling to me—like every time he does it, he’s gathering himself back together—pulling his strength inward to continue his story.
But more importantly: Tristan.
The boy who wouldn’t take no for an answer is now a man absorbed by his phone, chewing on the corner of his bottom lip.
This is all he does while I stand there trying not to lose my mind.
I can’t tell if he’s texting someone or checking social media or reading a book, and before I can figure it out, a cold hand clamps down on my wrist.
Jayne’s hands are always cold.
“I need to talk to you,” she says.
Tristan glances up to study Jayne’s hand on my arm. He meets my eyes and shakes his head before looking back down at his phone. The thought bubble over his head reads something along the lines of “fucking figures.”
But before he touches his finger to his phone screen again, he reaches up to his neck.
His fingers lightly touch the base of his throat and the gold Gordian knot hanging from the black silk string.
It’s a mindless gesture, and after only a second he goes straight back to scrolling, but it rattles me.
Was he wearing that in class? How could I not have noticed?
Hope burns through all my anger. I want everyone else gone.
I need to be alone with him. I need to talk to him—to try to understand—to try to make him understand—how fucking sorry I am.
And I need Jayne to get her hand off me. She knows better.
I twist my wrist from her grip and lean down to say in her ear, “We do need to talk. About a lot of things. But it’s not gonna be now.”
She draws back, worry flickering through her blue eyes. She glances quickly at Tristan and then back up to me, her gaze narrowing slightly. “I just meant there are some people I want you to meet,” she says in a smooth, cool voice.
“Now’s not a good time for me.”
“I’ve been planning this party for weeks. The least you can do is suck it up and mingle for five minutes.”
I glare at her. “I never realized how good you are at keeping secrets.”
She flips her new bangs off her forehead with a little shake of her head and smiles tightly, misinterpreting my subtext. Miscommunication is the house special here. “Surprise,” she says.
“I think I’ve had enough surprises for today. I’m gonna take a walk.”
“Archer, don’t be so grumpy. Have another drink. Loosen the fuck up.”
Jayne’s and my relationship is a complicated animal.
She lives here, so I can’t deny we’re in one the way I once did with Carrie, but we’ve never been intimate on a personal level.
We’re like roommates who share a bed and have sex.
That’s how I think of it, anyway. She thinks because she knows my schedule, understands my moods, and I listen to her talk that we’re closer than we are.
She’s penetrated my house, but she hasn’t managed to scale a single wall inside me.
While I’ve done what I could not to get her hopes up, she still thinks marriage is our next step. She calls it practical, I call it gold-digging.
It’s not like I hate her. We actually get along really well.
I’m angry with her today—very, but she does her best to be a good house guest and keep me company.
She’s filled a void since West’s been gone.
She’s not the best in bed, but that’s what Liam’s for.
I’m really fucking glad he’s not here tonight.
Somehow, he and I have managed to keep our affair off everyone’s radar.
He’s honestly, and somewhat ironically, the primary reason I’ve learned to appreciate my wealth.
For the price of the downtown building that houses Strange Days, privacy can be bought in the form of a loft apartment I use as both a studio and a place to meet up with my very gay lover.
I move past Jayne, knocking her off balance in my rush to get off the porch.
I leave the house through the back yard and walk into the cold wind with my hands shoved deep in my pockets.
I walk all the way down to the lake, thinking that with any luck, when I get back, everyone will be gone, and I can deal with Jayne with no witnesses.
The fight brewing inside me won’t be pretty.
Two and a half years. She’s been keeping me away from Tristan for two and half years.
Of course, the more I think about it, as my anger begins to ebb, I realize I was the one who put Jayne between me and Tristan.
I made that choice long ago when the lack of Tristan and West threatened to bury me alive.
But just so it’s clear—I didn’t stay in Austin for Jayne.
I stayed for West—for Strange Days. Jayne and Liam are side effects of a chronic loneliness I’ve never learned to cope with on my own.
As I stare out at the black water, I can’t stop thinking about the necklace.
It’s eating at me, calling me back. Regret twists at my insides until I’m hauling ass to my house, hoping for just a few seconds with Tristan—to explain why I never called.
He needs to hear it. He deserves at least that, even if he’s past wanting anything to do with me.
But in the half hour or so since I’ve been gone, the entire world has shifted again. What I see when I come through the back gate stops me cold. If there were a dragon on the porch it would shock me less than this.
West is on the porch swing, in a full-on, sloppy, drunken hook-up with the person who shredded my soul.
From where I stand, I see everything—Tristan’s gorgeous face cradled in West’s tattooed hands.
Tristan’s palm resting lightly on West’s chest. The grip Tristan has on my best friend’s neck is so firm, I can see the indentations of his fingertips.
I watch his closed eyes, his mouth working itself into West’s. His leg sliding past West’s hip, West’s hand wrapping around Tristan’s thigh. I can see their tongues. From twenty feet away.
And that’s about the outer limit of what I can take. The term blind rage is bullshit. There’s nothing blind about rage. I see everything crystal fucking clear. It’s like watching my blanket burn. Remember? The perils of attachment? This is what I was talking about.
I go back around to the front of the house and make a general announcement as I come through the door that everyone needs to move along home. Thank you, thanks for coming, please get the fuck out.
Then I head out back to break up the porch swing porno. At the sound of the opening door, West and Tristan move apart from one another, Tristan’s leg swinging off my friend’s lap.
I want to kill West. I have never been so angry. Not ever.
I stare hard at him.
“What are you up to, brother?” he asks me like nothing—
Like he hasn’t just done the worst thing—the most unforgivable, unbelievable thing.
I look at Tristan, who glances once at me before he picks up his phone to study the screen some more.
“Nothing. Brother. Party’s over, but thanks for helping Jayne put it together. It’s been a real eye-opener.”
West looks at Tristan and then over to me again. I hope it’s starting to sink in—what he’s done.
Tristan scrolls through his phone, boredom personified.
West looks ready to nail himself to a cross.
I change my mind. They can stay as long as they want. I have to get the fuck out of here. I try not to break into a run as I make my way to my car.
The last glimpse I get of Connor is of him standing on the sidewalk in front of my house, looking out into the street.
He looks so small, and a particular frailty surrounds him.
A grayness. A loneliness I could touch if I reached out for it.
The light-hearted young man I watched only a little while ago has disappeared, leaving no trace he existed at all. Because maybe he didn’t.
If I weren’t so angry…
If I weren’t so shut down…
Maybe I could go over and talk to him.
Maybe I could convince him to let me give him a hug.
Maybe it would make us both feel better.
But I am angry. And I am shut down. And I leave him there all alone staring at nothing, the smoke from his cigarette lifting into the air and wafting away on the cold breeze.
The Monk by the Sea.