Twenty-Seven
Sawyer
It has been corrupted into my every thought for years that a man being with another man in any other way than as toxic sport fans who chug beer by the gallon, is a sin, a disgusting act to commit, a reason to disown the ones around you.
Well, I’ll happily accept being a sinner, being a part of any of these supposed disgusting acts, and I’ll lose everyone around me if it means my hands never leave Avory’s bare skin. My hands will have to leave his body one day, though. Maybe if I leave enough of my prints on his sculpted and burning skin, then he’ll be able to relive this exact moment whenever he wants? Maybe if he marks my skin hard enough, that tender yet soothing pleasure of prodding at his bruises will never leave, and will forever be embedded in my muscles?
No, I can’t think like this, I can’t be thinking about the future, because we’ve agreed to think about now. Us right now, with my legs wrapping around his hips, his low hum vibrating against my skin, and my fingers struggling to undo his goddamn belt buckle.
“S-Sawyer, are you sure? We haven’t spoken about this before, have you ever—”
My rationality is still with Avory telling me about leaving while every other motion and thought has been overthrown by our decision for our final days. Which leads to where we are now. With my mind minutes behind my actions, I start to consider what I’m doing. With my fingers still wrapping around his belt buckle, one thought becomes prominent in my mind, and it forces me to stop and consider all of this.
I have never done anything near to this with a man, yet it's another thing to add to the list of why everything seems so effortless and natural with Avory. He makes me forget that I’ve never been with anyone before, and that I would need to be guided through it all.
I couldn’t imagine anyone else to be my guide.
As my mind attempts to rationalise the idea of going any further with Avory on the café’s counter, like a chilling glass of water to the face during an interrogation, the fire exit door slams shut and every single scenario possible rushes to the front of my mind. Every possible person in every possible scenario who could come through that door stumbles over each other, but one woman stands front and centre and thoroughly enjoys the chaos which spirals within my mind. Fuck. Fuck. FUCK.
Avory seems to figure out the severity of that goddamn fire exit door slamming before my mind finishes processing every possible scenario as his lips, hands and warmth strip themselves from my goosebump covered skin. Avory grabs my hands and pulls me to my feet, the stinging sensation spreading up my legs as it seems so long since I last used them.
Avory throws himself over the counter and onto the tiled floor where he crouches behind the counter, seeming to tuck himself in by the bins which slot nicely under the marble tops. Even with everything he knows, with our agreement, he still puts my safety and secrecy first. Why is it only smacking me across the face now how much I’m going to miss this man?
The staff room door flies open, and my breath refuses to leave my chest. My lungs remain tense, and my eyes remain forward. Her heels click against the floor with each step, and each click seems to replace my heartbeats. As she storms closer towards me, the familiar scent of burnt coffee and liquor lingers in the air, the scent turning into a taste which sizzles at the back of my throat.
A chesty cough of hers releases into the air before she spits, “Paperwork. Where is it?”
I know exactly where it is: Tucked away on a shelf, under the till, which is behind the counter, alongside a shirtless Avory.
“I’ll get it, hold on.”
My eyes lock onto her being, refusing to even blink because she cannot come back here. As I approach the till, I glimpse Avory in my peripherals, but I refuse to look for him. I can’t give her any reason to poke and prod behind here.
“Hurry up, for fuck’s sake, I don’t have all night. Got somewhere to be.”
I pull out the folder and begin my cautious walk back to her as I speak, “What do you need the paperwork for? Because I’ve been told something about the café being—”
“Sold? Yes, it’s no use to me, and I want it gone.”
So, it is true. She is selling. She is getting rid of everything I have worked on in a feeble attempt to fix what shattered years ago. Everything from my hanging text message last night; Gwen this morning, Avory leaving, Avory’s kisses and hands all over my delicate frame boils to the surface, and when a kettle is overfilled, it boils over.
“Did you ever consider how I felt in this? I’ve lived and breathed this café for years, for a chance to fix this—us! I want my mother back! The woman who would dance in her flowing dresses, the mother who would hold me when anything went wrong, the mother who actually gave a fuck about her son!”
Only once the words leave my lips do I realise the tears that are rolling down my face. The salty streams fill the rims of my glasses, making the statue of a woman standing in front of me blur. I’m glad I can’t see her reaction, because I can already feel my legs beginning to collapse in on myself.
I don’t know where this need to stand up to her comes from, but even if he is ducking underneath the counter, shirtless and hearing the truth of my situation for the first and last time, I can feel the ghost of Avory’s touch all over me. His touch lingers around my hands with the way he holds them, kisses the back of them, and how they fit so perfectly.
Her powerful, crackling exhales are all I can hear alongside her slow and haunting steps. Click, click, click against the floors. I’ve been in this position before, but the clinking of platform boots and all their buckles bring comfort to me, rather than these fateful heels.
She finally pillars in front of me, her nose only inches from mine as her eyes burn through me. Eyeliner collects in the corner of her eyes, and that’s the only thing that makes it possible to stare back at her – I have a new focus rather than the looming thought of what’s about to be spat through her thinning lips.
She exhales once more through her dark lined lips before speaking, her voice low, slow and only for me to hear, or so she thinks.
“No, Sawyer. You didn’t consider how I felt when you ripped our family apart with your little fucking secret, which you just couldn’t keep quiet about.”
She jabs into my chest once more with her sharp, press on nails. My volume rises quickly in response, causing a crack to interrupt my words, but I somehow still get my words to spill out.
“Well, I’m sorry, Tracey, for believing that I could trust my family with a discovery I had made about myself, where on earth did I get that idea from?”
“It is mother to you, Sawyer!”
“Is it?”
Breathe, breathe, breathe. Avory shouldn’t have to see this. See us like this. I release myself from her deathly stare, turning away from her and raising my palms to my head. I begin threading my fingers through my hair, but this is quickly interrupted. Her hands reach for my wrists and wrap their dry and spindly fingers around, gripping tight enough that my fingers instantly release my curls. She pulls me roughly, forcing me to face her as she tucks my hands to my chest and refuses to release me. Every word is spit with such venom.
“Maybe if you weren’t some fucking gay boy, I’d feel like your mother. Maybe if you could just change, I could act like your mother. Maybe if you didn’t mess around with that fucking guitarist, then you’d have a mother.”
“So, you’re admitting that you don’t see me as your son?”
I yell, my lips so close to hers that I wouldn’t be surprised if some of her deep red lipstick has rubbed off on me.
Silence sits for far too long before her words strike a punch in every direction possible, yet none of them hurt because everything just feels numb.
“Sawyer Sombre, we may share a last name, but as long as you carry on your life in the way you think is acceptable, you will be no son of mine.”
She releases my wrists while throwing me aside, causing me to stumble into a nearby table, the legs screeching across the tiles. Her eyes refuse to look at mine as she snatches the files, which I never remember putting down, and marches her way out the way she came in.
The door’s slam ricochets across the café, which now only feels temporary, and all I can do is breathe. I don’t know what I’m looking at, I don’t know what I’m touching, I don’t know what I’m tasting, I do know what I’m hearing, though – platform boots with an array of buckles and chains.
Avory.
My vision is suddenly filled with Avory, his shirt hanging over his shoulders and messily buttoned up, his hands brushing across my shoulders, down my lack of biceps and resting on my forearms. My nose and mouth are washed in his cologne, and I want to sink into the tiles below. I want to sink, only remembering all my senses now because all of them are somehow linking me back to Avory. I would struggle in this moment until it causes me to succumb to it.
“Sawyer, I’m going to put my arms around you, okay? I’m going to hold you until you tell me not to.”
Avory’s voice is my sole focus as he does exactly as he says. His arms surround me, and his head rests on top of mine. Slowly, my arms regain their feeling, and I wind them around him, feeling his warmth through my layers.
Right here.
This is what is going to make him leaving feel even worse than I ever imagined it already could be, because once I lose him, I lose everything. The comfort, the happiness, the realisation of my true self which he has taught me through his absolute freedom and nature within this world, will be ripped from us and I will be alone. I cannot force him to stay, to stop him from following his dream, but I cannot fathom that my dream is off in only a couple of days to follow his own.
His consistent breathing reminds me to do the same thing, and over time, our breathing begins to match. As my breathing remains consistent, and my thoughts begin to clear, my words muffle into his chest.
“You need to go.”
I take as long as humanly possible, but I pull myself apart from Avory. His hands rest in mine, but I refuse to weave our fingers together in our usual way. I can’t.
“Sawyer, you don’t need to be alone right now. Why don’t you come back to mine for the night? Just while we think of a plan?”
I can’t conjure up anything, except the same four words.
“You need to go.”
I begin to walk him to fire exit door, and he follows, desperately throwing out any ideas that he thinks I can use to get out of this situation. None of them will work. I open the door, the one she slammed minutes ago, and I prop it open with my foot. My eyes remain on the ground in the exact same manner that they did when we first met, and as he steps outside, his hand cups my chin, pulling my eyeline to meet those goddamn ocean eyes of his.
He begins to pull me closer, and it takes every aspect of my body to fight his request. I place two fingers between our lips, refusing his touch, and Avory’s eyes widen in surprise which slowly blends into confusion. As his lips part to speak. I interrupt his chain of thought before it can be voiced.
“I don’t want my last memory of you to be a parting kiss after she ruined the remaining amazing thing in my life. I want to remember us. Us on that counter. Us on our café visits, the first time I saw you across the marble.”
His icy eyes begin to melt, forming tears which trickles down his face, and Avory even makes crying seem gorgeous. Like the most gorgeous thing anyone can do. His hand slowly pulls away from my face, and my chest aches for him. My heart pounds so hard I believe it may burst through my chest as I stop myself from calling out to him.
I have too much to sort out now, and I cannot continue to take refuge in someone who I believe I could fall in love with. Someone who I may have already fallen in love with. He can’t be the reason the worst happens to me, because he will always be the best thing to ever enter my life.
“Good luck with everything, Avory. The world needs to know who you are.”
I couldn’t move my body for hours after he left. My mind continuing to replay his footsteps as the familiar twinkling of buckles and chains turned from distant to missing. I return to my mother’s house hours past my set time, but I could not give a single fuck about it. Not right now.
I ignore her as I enter, running as fast as my feet will allow me up the stairs, eventually tripping over myself and falling forward. I lie on the stairs momentarily before rising again and resuming my fast pace. My bedroom door flings open, the handle wedging itself into the hole which I created. She created.
My cupboard doors creak as I rip them open, and I’m surprised the hinges survive my current force. I pull two straps which dangle from the top shelf of the cupboard, leading to my messenger bag amongst multiple pairs of cotton trousers and knitted sweaters. The mess I’m causing is the last thing on my mind. I begin to stuff my bags with whatever I can get my hands to reach first; shirts, trousers, boxers, jumpers, cardigans, a framed photo of myself and Gwen, socks, chargers, and his poster.
It’s the first time I stop since arriving at the house as my fingers trace his outline. He hasn’t left my mind as I wonder where he is, what he’s doing. It takes everything in my power not to message him, to take everything that I said back, to throw myself into his reassuring arms and to plant my lips on his once more.
“Do you realise how late home you are?”
I spin myself around to face my mother who is leaning on the doorway with her arms folded across her chest, her eyes staring at my being. Her voice is low, and her words hit at a slow pace. I scoff at her words – home. I continue to throw items in my bags, filling them to the brim and forcing the zips to travel around their openings. I’m lucky that I had quietly stuffed the bag full of the tips I had collected over the years into the bottom of the bag for her not to notice.
“Sawyer, I am talking to you!”
“And I am not talking to you!”
I rise to my feet from crouching over my bags, and my eyes meet hers; smeared in black eyeliner with a muted blue eyeshadow. Her face gives me nothing to judge from the way my words slip out of my mouth, but a part of me burns bright for saying it. For standing up for myself for once in my life. She has pushed me too far and now, into two messenger bags.
I turn away from her, my eyes staying on her for as long as my neck will allow, and silence rings loud throughout my bedroom. I sling both bags over my shoulder, struggling with the weight falling on one shoulder, and I move to my door where she remains standing.
“Can you please move? I have somewhere to be.”
“So, that’s it? You’re just going to leave your mother behind because you can’t face your problems?”
A small laugh escapes my lips. This is her desperate attempt to keep me here.
“My problems? Please, tell me about my problems.”
I cross my arms over my chest as my foot rapidly taps against the floor, waiting for her answer.
“Sawyer, if you could just get past this whole being gay thing, then we could rebuild what we have.”
My hand moves my glasses to my forehead as I rub my eyes, shocked that everything that has happened is still my fault.
“Please, there’s nothing to rebuild. Why is being who I am a problem? Why is being gay a problem? Why is loving the only person who has ever been willing to accept me as I am a problem?”
Her lips part as I say the words out loud.
Love.
“Face it, you cannot fathom the idea that Father was a bad man, who hid parts of himself for years from you, from us. Now, once those horrid parts of him came to light, you continue to forbid me from being my true self, demanding that I hide myself away, all because you can’t face him and his truth.”
My heart is in my throat as I speak, and if I continue, I can’t guarantee that my food from throughout the day will remain down. My mind begins to race with what could happen from my decision, but as I brush past her frail frame, she grabs my wrist tightly, her nails digging into my skin.
“Why won’t you ever take the blame for what you caused?”
I do not give her an answer. She does not deserve an answer, of which I know she will refuse to understand. I tear my wrist from her grip as I power down the stairs, my bags brushing against the banister. I reach for the front door handle as quickly as I can, gripping it tightly because I will not have this opportunity ripped from me.
Her voice, now higher and raspy, shrieks from the top steps of the staircase, “Sawyer Sombre! You can’t just leave me! I am your mother! If you walk out of that door, you will be dead to me!”
I can see her entire body shaking with every breath, her eyes wide and beading at me. For once in my life, I’m in control of my entire being.
“Wasn’t I already?”