Chapter 19 Pratt
Chapter nineteen
Pratt
The knock came. One rap.
I'd found "Peace of Mind" on Spotify. Sully was right about it. The loss weighed a little heavily, and the music was helping.
I crossed to the door and opened it.
He was in the hallway, wearing his winter coat. He didn't wear a hat, and his hair had been tossed by the wind. He wasn't carrying anything; no bags or bottles. He'd come the eight blocks from Carver's with both hands empty.
"'Peace of Mind'—you're listening."
"You were right about it."
I stepped back and let him through.
He walked past me into the living room and sat on the couch, but not in his usual way. He set his feet flat on the floor with knees together.
I shut the door and sat on the couch beside him. He was still breathing a little hard, like he'd walked quickly.
"I watched it at the bar," Sully said.
"I knew you would."
"I told myself I wouldn't." His right hand gripped his thigh and then released. "They ran the replay twice."
"It wasn't my best."
"Your hip?"
"It's fine."
We were both quiet, and then Sully turned toward me. He reached out for my jaw, leaned in, and kissed me. I reached a hand behind his neck and held on . The kiss was warm and wet.
He kissed the side of my neck and then reached for the hem of my shirt. I lifted my arms. He pulled it over my head and dropped it on the floor. I began to unbutton the shirt he'd worn to work. I caught a faint scent of bourbon. Maybe he'd had a spill.
His shirt opened. He was cold underneath it—the weather had seeped in beneath his coat. When my fingers touched his stomach, he flinched once and didn't settle.
He kissed me again, harder. One of his hands slipped into my hair at the nape of my neck. He leaned forward, but there was something wrong with his pacing. It was too fast, and every few seconds, I felt a catch in his movements.
I lowered my hand to between his shoulder blades and resisted the urge to pull him in further. I let whatever he was doing unfold.
He stopped with a hand open, palm flat against my bare chest. His breathing was wrong, too fast. He wasn't looking at me anymore. His eyes focused beyond my shoulder.
"Fuck."
The word was quiet, almost as if he was saying it to himself.
Then, he said it louder, "Fuck."
I didn't move, but Sully stood. His feet were slightly spread, shoulder-width apart, as he faced me.
"Bryan." He repeated it louder, and his voice cracked.
"You asshole." His voice was rough but conversational, like he was talking to somebody in the room.
He turned to face the wall. "You absolute—you fucking coward.
You didn't call anybody. Not even your mom.
You didn't call your sister, and you didn't call me.
I would have picked up. You knew I would have gotten in my car and come to you. You knew, and you didn't."
He turned back to face me. His cheeks were already damp as his eyes focused on me.
"Two weeks, Pratt. Two weeks he was—and I was—I was busy. I was pouring fucking Manhattans for a bridal shower in Providence. I ran a Sunday brunch shift for people who wanted me to smile. I was busy."
He raised his hand to his mouth, pressing a knuckle against his lower lip. He pressed harder and then lowered the hand.
"He used a gun."
Sully's body flinched when he said it.
"He could have called."
He stepped closer to me. "Fuck, what am I saying? I could have called him. I said I would, and I didn't. I didn't call, Pratt. I fucked up—so bad."
He hung his head, and his shoulders shook. When he looked up again, his eyes were damp.
"He could have called me. We had a thing.
When we were sixteen, we got lost in a mall in Burlington because I told him I could get us to the food court without looking at the map.
I drove us there, and then we lost each other.
When we finally figured out where we were, we both swore—we swore this—that whichever of us was more lost, the other one had to come get them.
Wherever. Whenever. It didn't matter. We shook on it in a fucking Orange Julius. "
He laughed once, bitterly.
"Orange Julius, Pratt. That was the whole promise. And he didn't call. He had to be lost. He used a gun."
Tears streamed from both eyes, and he didn't wipe them away. He let them fall.
"I'm so angry at him." Sully turned to look at the corner of the room again. "I know how that sounds. I told Nora, but she didn't flinch. I am — I'm furious at him. For fifteen years, he was six houses away, and then he wasn't anywhere, and he did that on purpose, and he didn't even—"
He stopped and sat down . It wasn't on the couch or in a chair. He sat on the floor, hard, with his back against a chair. He pulled his knees up and crossed his forearms over them.
His voice was softer. "He was my best friend since I was nine. And I—"
His shoulders shook again.
I moved to the floor, my back against the couch. I didn't cross to him or reach for him.
He focused on me, looking into my eyes.
"The last time," he said. "Last time. A last fucking supper. It was a diner outside Alewife. He ordered eggs, wheat toast, coffee with half-and-half in it because his mom did it that way. He always ordered that. I had a turkey club. We talked for two hours about—"
His mouth twisted.
"—about a guy we went to high school with getting engaged.
I wondered whether I should get a permanent place in Providence or keep subletting.
He told me his boss was an idiot. Bosses were all idiots then.
He said Springsteen's late albums were depressing.
I couldn't disagree. He walked me to my car, and he said for me to call.
I said, yeah, definitely. I got in the car, and I drove to Providence.
I meant it. Fuck, I meant it, Pratt, but I didn't—"
He lowered his head onto his arms.
"I didn't."
The sounds he made sounded like an animal in pain with snuffling attached. The Boston album ended somewhere in the middle of it, and the silence on top of Sully's crying made it even harder to sit through.
"Cath sent his records. That's his mom. He said they were mine, but they were really his. I meant to see her in Boston and get them, but I can't go back. Not to the house."
He looked up again. "You know how I play Fleetwood Mac, right?"
I nodded. "Rumours was one of the albums she sent. Bryan was always crazy about Fleetwood Mac. We were at that concert together, and he'd won a backstage thing on a radio station, and Stevie signed the album in silver marker. He wore — " He stopped.
His voice was thinner when he started again.
"He wore a t-shirt he'd made himself in silver fabric pen to match, Pratt.
He made a shirt. It said Gold Dust Woman on it, and the W was crooked because he'd run out of room.
He was so proud of that fucking shirt. He wore it in a pic I have somewhere, and he is so—his whole face—"
He pressed his forehead down against his arms.
"Nobody else knows about the W. Nobody. Not his mom or sister or anybody else at the damn funeral. I am the last person alive who knows about the W."
His entire body shook from his shoulders down to where his heels pressed into the hardwood.
"She put a note at the bottom of the box, Cath did. She said he talked about me all the time."
He was quiet for a long beat.
"If he did, why didn't he call? Why didn't he call?"
Another silence.
"But I didn't call him back."
I didn't speak. I had nothing that made sense to say.
"I've been moving since Boston." His voice was a little more even. I considered whether he'd rehearsed this part. "That's why I'm here. That's why I took the late shift. I took a job where somebody needs something from me every eight seconds for nine hours, because the minute I stop—"
He stopped the sentence there, and he lifted his head.
His face was wrecked. Red around his eyes. His hair plastered to his scalp.
He looked at me and focused again.
"Then you. You, Pratt. I didn't know what to do with you.
" His voice was soft enough I held my breath to listen.
"I still don't. You're a professional hockey player.
How—Nora told me not to ask questions like that.
" He paused. "You don't need me to be on.
You didn't say that, but I see it. I've been on for three years.
I don't know who I am when I'm not. I don't—I don't have the version of me yet that isn't on, and I—"
He dragged the back of his wrist under his nose and continued.
"And I keep thinking—what if you do the same thing?"
I watched him. I almost said, "I wouldn't," reflexively, but there was no defensible reason to interrupt him.
"I know you wouldn't." His words were louder, and he sounded almost like he was pleading. "I know. I know that. You wouldn't. You're—you're the most—"
He stopped and swallowed.
"But I don't actually know that. Nobody does. I didn't know that about Bryan either. I sat across from him at the diner and ate a turkey club, and I didn't know."
He looked at me. "Say something."
I ran through the options as quickly as I could. It seemed early for reassurance. I'd been told I wasn't good at that anyway.
What was left had been sitting in my head beside his words since somewhere around his description of their last supper. I'd set it aside because it hadn't seemed like I should bring it into the room. It still refused to leave my head, and now he was looking at me.
"I've never had a best friend."
I said it plainly. It wasn't meant to comfort. It was true.
Sully's mouth opened a fraction. A laugh started, but then he dropped his forehead back onto his arms. After ten seconds, he looked up again.
"Pratt."
My name in a flat tone.
"Yeah?"
He reached a hand out, sliding it across the hardwood, palm up.
I put mine in it.
His fingers closed around my hand. He didn't pull. He just rested it there.
We sat.
After a few minutes had passed, he let go of my hand and pushed himself up to standing. He took it slow and wiped his face again with his forearm. He picked his shirt up off the floor, slipped his arms into it, and began buttoning it.
"I should sleep at my place tonight."
I considered my response. Asking him to stay would probably ask him to do more than he could handle.
"Okay."
He picked up his coat and walked to the door. I followed at a measured distance and stopped three steps back where I wouldn't be in his way.
At the door, he stopped with his hand on the handle. His mouth opened, but nothing came out.
I closed the gap and hugged him. He hugged back and then turned toward the door.
He opened it and stepped into the hallway.
He didn't look back. I heard his key go into his lock, and then nothing.
I shut my door.
In the kitchen, I took a glass from the cabinet and filled it at the tap. I drank it all down.
I've never had a best friend.
I'd known it as fact my entire life, but I'd never said it out loud.
I put the glass in the sink.
My t-shirt was on the living room floor. Sully's shirt should have been with it, but he'd put his back on.
I brushed my teeth, went to the bedroom, and climbed into bed. The side I didn't use was cold. I lay on my back.
On the other side of the drywall, there was no sound. I lay there and listened to it.
I was still listening when the clock on the nightstand read one, two, three, and then four. Finally, I slept.