Epilogue
A Time Later
I watched his bruises fade away.
I watched the cuts heal.
The doctor pulled out the stitches, leaving a fine line over Easton’s cheek as a reminder of his misguided bravery and his infuriating trust in me.
From that first night on, we sat together in the small apartment on West Chestnut Street, Easton holding a mug of tea between his hands, me with my cigarette, and we talked.
We really talked. It was as though we had crossed mountains and seas, hellfire and snake nests, and were finally in a place where saying things no longer scared us.
Easton told me about the fire. Again and again. He told me about it from every angle, assuring himself each time that I didn’t hold it against him, not even if some small part of him wanted me to pay the price, not even if he’d tried to burn out his feelings for me.
We took our past by the throat and looked into its eyes. Then, we turned away from it. After looking it over this way and that, after facing all it had done to us, we put it down and walked away.
What was it like to grow up without a home? What was it like to never belong? The scars we bore weren’t visible to the naked eye, but they ached nonetheless. They ran deep under the surface of the skin.
For so long, the pure need to survive the ruthlessness of the world had placed these problems somewhere on the back burner. They slow-cooked, waiting for a moment where our survival wouldn’t be threatened before they could be served to us.
It was not an appetizing dish, but it was one we had to eat.
“What do we do?” Easton asked me once when we found ourselves sitting hopelessly and looking at the walls, the floors, the ceilings of this place that simply wasn’t yet a home.
“We try harder,” I told him.
When you don’t have the vaguest idea of what a home is, not even a blueprint of someone else’s, you need to think about it from the very ground up. The foundation was Easton, so long as he was mine. He was the tether that kept us together. And if you asked him, I was the very same thing.
A home needed walls to keep the warmth in. It needed a roof to protect us from the night. Yet we didn’t know where else to turn but to one another. And that was enough. It was enough to reassure me, in every moment of doubt, that we were in the right place.
We needed to try harder.
The Harpers hadn’t taught us how to find peace within ourselves. They hadn’t learned that lesson in their lives. For them, never again reaching out to Easton was all the peace they would find. But for us, it wasn’t as easy as that.
Easton toyed with the idea of seeking help, although it filled me with cold dread to sit with some careless, uninterested therapist who nodded and walked me through the loops and over the bars like a showroom dog.
He didn’t hate me for resisting, and I didn’t resent him bringing it up every once in a while.
We healed one another in less conventional ways. We fed off one another’s strength and took away each other’s pains. We masked them with pleasures and minimized them with dares.
In January, we stood on a pier, watching the frozen surface of Lake Michigan in the bay. The winds lashed us and made the lake sway, the blocks of ice floated violently on the tide, and flurries of snow lifted and descended and swirled around us.
The incredible force of nature, the tempest that ravaged the world around us, made me feel good.
My hands were deep inside the pockets of my black bomber jacket, and Easton stood tall and strong in his nice black coat as we gazed out at the storm.
A few eager photographers dotted the pier, trying to capture the terror laid upon the lake.
It didn’t frighten me. It reminded me that all the troubles and all the wounds I felt were nothing compared to how vast and incredible this world was.
I looked at Easton, his cheeks pink, the scarf lifted to his mouth, and I rediscovered—as I did every day—the profound depth of love I felt for him. Standing there in the flurry of snow, he looked like an impenetrable tower, frowning against the wind.
At that moment, I would have given my life for him.
I walked toward him and offered him my hand, bare and pink with cold.
Easton hesitated for only a moment, glancing beyond me as if he had a reason to hide who he was. The impulse flared to life now and again, but Easton thrust his hand into mine, and we stood shoulder by shoulder, facing the great lake.
When we returned to the apartment, Easton covered me with hungry kisses.
The snowstorm raged outside for another two days, making it more and more impossible to leave the apartment.
So we sat together, Easton playing the piano.
I pondered the choices I had made and the crossroads that could have taken me further away from him rather than bringing me closer.
Facing these small, insignificant moments in time filled me with greater terror than a storm ever could.
And when the winter weather finally broke, Easton renewed the lease for the apartment with my name added to his. “It’s only fair,” he said. “You pay the rent.”
It was a point of friction between us. Easton tracked how much rent I paid with my winnings and the money from other hustles.
He worked a weekend gig at the local rink, giving hockey lessons to small groups of interested kids whose parents needed that little break.
It didn’t pay much, but Easton was the only one who was bothered by it.
I could make enough money for both of us.
I never said it was good or right, but I could do it.
Ivan the Generous made his gratitude work beyond simple words.
He connected me to the right people, letting me stay behind the lines I had drawn in the sand, letting me stay within my codes while helping me make some cash.
Things would turn eventually. Easton had a bright future. My own would be just fine so long as Easton was a part of it. I didn’t want to be a lowly scammer all my life, but I needed to make sure there was a life for me before climbing that dreaded ladder.
As our sleeves shortened and shorts replaced our pants, life seemed to rush like a bullet train.
Easton was torn to shreds between classes, competitions, and his part-time gigs.
I used the time to milk the cash cows in the smoke-filled basements, planning my exit.
I didn’t hunger for money or respect. I didn’t thirst for the risks this thing involved.
All I wanted was to breathe deeply in and out and know Easton and I were safe.
A lifetime of not knowing when the next blow would land did something to you. You stayed alert. And when times seemed safe and quiet, you were scared the most. Was not pain well overdue? The enforcer was on his way, wasn’t he? Collect the debt, one way or the other.
Yet the knock never came. Things were, as they never had been before, good.
When heat came and threatened to pull us apart, we locked eyes and enforced a truce.
Easton would stalk away from me, and I would follow, my hand reaching to his throat, holding him as he gazed at me.
“Have me, Jace,” his eyes would beg. “Put me back in my place.” And I would.
He reined me in at times. It was his nature to counter my forces and return the universe to its balance.
I loved him for it. I loved the strength with which he could hold the leash.
I loved the firmness with which he held me back, tethered me to the ground, stopped me from flying away in moments of rage or desperation.
“Please, Jace,” he would tell me later. “Just think about it.”
But I wouldn’t. It felt too foreign, too intrusive. I didn’t want someone’s fingers all over me. “Aren’t we enough?” I would ask.
“We are,” Easton would assure me. “We always will be.”
And it would put the debate to rest. For a time, at least.
Spring melted the snow away and brought a new promise of life. The dreadful, gray coffin opened up to let in the sunlight and the blue sky. Summer followed soon, bringing us near an impossible milestone. Just a few lazy, relaxed months and we would mark a year of this crazy, wild thing.
Loving him no longer felt like a dare, like a risk.
It wasn’t a whirlwind of infatuation—or it wasn’t only that.
It was a solid love. It was as palpable as an obelisk.
It towered over everything, always visible on the horizon, and I never lost its sight.
Storms came and went, floods and droughts.
In brightness and in gloom, in light or night, I could look into the distance, down the far line of the life ahead of myself, and I could see it, unwavering, indestructible, wonderful.
And when I put my hands on his broad chest and pushed him back to land on the mattress, Easton’s eyes turned glassy with lust, and he huffed shortly before holding his breath.
My hands wrapped around his wrists and trapped them above his head, and I kissed him the way he deserved to be kissed.
Those devastating, life-altering kisses filled me with power and light until my skin glowed with heat.
When I had him, his body belonged to me, but there was more to it than that.
He surrendered his soul with it. He gave himself to me and to the pleasures I could give us both.
He let go of his consciousness and his reservations.
His eyes rolled back, and he let himself transform into a being made of impulses and urges, of yearnings and curiosity.
He would take all he was given and beg for more.
And after, he would curl up against me and tell me how much he loved me.