Chapter Fifteen
I just feel stupid. I feel manipulated. I feel lied to. My phone pings and I read the notification. “Liam, can we talk please?”
I flip my phone over. Power it down. I can’t look at it.
My world is spinning and it feels like gravity has stopped. Everything is floating free.
How could he do this to me? This must be how people who have been scammed feel, except I’ve been swindled by my best friend. I can’t even think the words.
I have finally made it home and am curling myself into an ever-tightening ball on the corner of my sofa.
I feel like my skin has shrunk and doesn’t fit anymore.
My jaw aches like I’ve been chewing sand.
I curl my head into my knees, squeezing hard, and begin to quietly shrink, trying to fit back into my skin.
A floodgate of tears opens and I can’t think straight, then hear myself howling, and stop when I realize how stupid I sound, then start again. My clothes feel hot on my skin.
My mind starts ticking through the moments of the last several weeks and my body cringes with every recollection.
I stole a book from the bookstore, my feet dig into the couch.
I sang a song at that bar, my knuckles whiten around my shins, pulling ever tighter.
My shirt stretches across my back. I tried on all those stupid clothes, I visited that old man, unbolted his stupid dresser.
My eyes can’t possibly close any tighter, but I try.
Somehow I have to block out all of these ludicrous things I fell for.
It was all a trick and I fell right in like an idiot.
I’ve been traveling around town making a fool of myself, being lied to at every turn.
And by Martin. I can’t think it. My brain has no space for his name in this turmoil.
I scream into my knees, tears soaking into my clothes where I’m burying my face.
Nothing makes the pictures go away. They’re still there.
I scream again. There might be words, but I can’t make them out over the chaos that’s happening in my brain.
I imagine myself in that jewelry shop, boldly telling the clerk my story.
The hope I possessed in that moment. The trust I displayed.
How could I be so blind? I uncurl myself with a loud roar, and then curl back tightly. Nothing makes the shame go away.
It was Martin. This whole time. Martin! I think about our digital date.
About our together-separately date. It was him all along.
What was he thinking? Why would he do this to me?
I feel dread pressing on me like the ceiling is collapsing.
My vision goes dark with rage, then embarrassment.
Why? I scream the word aloud to my knees.
Suddenly, there’s a knock on my door and a word spoken outside: “Liam?”
I feel like there’s a monster outside my door. Where can I run? Where can I hide? I’m looking around the room for something to fight off the monster. There’s nothing. I move to the far side of the sofa and curl up tighter to escape.
The monster knocks again, gently, three little taps, and speaks: “Liam, can we please talk?”
I feel my mouth trying to form words. None will come.
Shame slides through my veins like molten worms. How did I not see this coming? How could I let myself be tricked in this way? I want to scream, hideous words for the hideous monster.
There’s another soft knock on the door, the same three beats. And the voice again, “William, I’m sorry.” The monster’s voice is slow and broken. The monster has Martin’s soothing, grounding tone, and is using my full first name. It’s too much to take in.
I will not be tricked again! I won’t fall back into that trap.
I try to wipe away the embarrassment with my wrist, but it’s sticky like dried honey.
I don’t respond, which seems to work this time because the monster is quiet.
No more knocking. No more hideous, soothing voice.
I hear footsteps shuffling away from the door slowly, then nothing.
The room closes in a little tighter and the sofa holds me tight. The silence outside my door won’t stop.
I’m left alone with my knees.
I guess I fall asleep, curled in a ball on the far end of my sofa because I awaken with a start and some confusion about where I am.
The room is completely dark and it takes me a minute to piece together that the small blue lights from the kitchen and the glow from somewhere behind the TV indicate that I am actually in my living room.
My face is sticky with tears and my insides ache.
I make my way to the bedroom, working mostly from spatial memory, hoping there is no obstacle in my way, feeling for the doorway. My knee locates the end of the bed softly and I make my way to the side table, flipping on the lamp with a click. What I see makes me freeze in place.
The book. On my nightstand. Right where I left it.
The stolen book.
I’m not sure how long I stand looking at the book through blurred vision, unmoving, but my brain is functioning slower than normal.
I pick up the book slowly and flip through the pages mindlessly, fanning them against my thumb.
I land on the cover page with its sloppy message written in blue pen.
Written by Martin. In Martin’s messy blue scrawl.
The words blur in and out of focus several times. The heat in my neck begins to rise again. I don’t know if it’s anger or shame, but I feel it bubbling up from my core. I try to stop it. I can’t process any more mental replays tonight.
I flip to the next page, the first chapter, and mindlessly start reading. At first, I welcome the escape, a mental break from my emotional treadmilling. But then, I become engrossed in it.
This book is about two stepbrothers, well, actually two men who grow up together in the same foster home. I can’t put it down. The brotherhood these two men share through their life warms my heart.
I discover that I’m still standing. By the bedside table. Seventy pages into the book and I can’t stop reading.
I read about the small things they do for each other to simply stay sane in their crazy world.
The older boy protects simple things like sleep and meals so the younger one does well on the important moments at school.
He never finds out. The younger boy fronts the cost of sports fees for the older without him knowing.
In a family where they have been pieced together randomly, they become the only family that each other has, and they do it secretly for each other.
I’m deep into the book when I realize the sunlight is leaking through the windows and I’m leaning on the edge of the bed, entranced by these two characters.
I suddenly realize that I can’t go to work this morning.
I’ve been up all night, I can’t leave this story.
I get on the phone and make arrangements for work to function without me until noon, at least. Then I grab my book, plop myself against the wall by the bedroom door and disappear again into the pages.
There is an ache in their relationship, these two men. Their entire life, each man sacrifices for the other and they never find out. It remains a secret kept between them, or rather, from them. They love each other, and they simply never know. Or say.
I turn another page and realize a beam of sunlight from the window has crawled all the way across the floor and has enveloped me.
I’m sitting in a square of sunlight, dust particles swimming in the beam.
I exhale and watch them spiral. I dog-ear the page and slowly flip back to the cover page, nearly blinding in the harsh light.
The blue pen.
The scrawling words.
Martin’s handwriting.
I lean my head against the wall, book in my lap, and watch the air spiral. It feels like I’m underwater.
I love him.
The words float in the mystic air, in the ray of sunlight that engulfs me.
And in this calm whirlwind my world shifts.
I would sacrifice anything for him, give up everything to make certain that he could thrive.
I begin to see things clearly in the spiraling brightness.
It’s been right in front of me this whole time.
Of course, my secret person is Martin! He was my secret person long before that first note on my doorstep.
Every time I’ve needed someone, he’s been there.
He was with me when I was new to the city, through the start of my job at Pratney, through the lonely times being away from my family and old friends.
And all I’ve ever wanted is to be there for him too.
When his mom died, my heart broke with his.
I love him more than I’ve loved anything in my whole life.
I love him.
I can’t stop the words. They keep repeating, floating in the particles around me, shimmering in the light.
I look back to the writing in the front cover, and I see it. I see the person who is Martin in everything we did together, everything we did separately. The brownies and the pay-it-forward. The street fair and the thrift store. And the karaoke.
That was where it shifted. Every task before that was just some simple fun.
Go get something. Have an adventure. And then it shifted; it became something bolder.
He believed in me. He knew what I could become, what I was capable of if I just believed in myself too.
Then the tasks became about living life to the fullest, stretching and enjoying the moments that make us who we are.
And every time I wanted only one thing: Martin.
I wanted him to be there, to share the moment with him.
To channel his wisdom and energy. To be with him.
And for him to be with me. For me to be his William.
The blue scrawl has become a blur through the tears welling in my eyes. I don’t wipe them away. I just let them feel, let the world blur around me as it all becomes so clear.
And now I’ve messed it all up. I took his grand gesture and made it something selfish and untrue.
Closing my eyes, I lean against the wall again, trying to block out the striped square of light slowly crawling away from me, changing shape as it goes.
Instead of seeing, my mind replays a touch: holding his hands at the concert, feeling his breath on my face, the brush of his eyelash against my temple.
It sends electricity through me, and I let it flow.
I don’t stop it and it becomes fully incandescent, my skin prickling in cold shock.
I love him.
My secret person is Martin. Of course my secret person is Martin. And I’ve been his secret person all along, too.
Suddenly I have the tendril of an idea that makes me sit up straight. It grows into a vine as I climb up from the floor, set my beloved book on the bedside table and grab my phone. I have two phone calls to make: one to let them know I won’t be into work today at all. The other to Martin.
I hold my phone up to my ear, listening to the pattern of ringing.
Please answer. Please answer. I can’t talk to voicemail.
I know right now the phone in Martin’s hand says my name and has my photo.
I’m not sure what that will mean to him, so I’m pleading inside: please answer. I’m pacing through my apartment.
“Liam,” I hear Martin say. “I…”
I cut him off abruptly. “Martin, I just need you to listen. So please don’t say anything, just listen.” I’m breathing hard and my words are flying.
I hear him exhale quietly, then maybe sniffle. He says nothing.
I realize I’m breathing too hard to actually speak.
“Hold on,” I huff, trying to catch my breath.
My heart is beating in my neck and I think my ears are ringing.
I drag in a deep breath, exhale forcefully, and attempt to speak, my voice breaking.
“I’ve had some time to think.” I pause, hoping the tornado I’m breathing into the phone will stop, “And I’m lost without you, Martin.
” I can’t catch my breath, so I pull the phone away from my ear and switch it onto speakerphone.
I hear nothing from the phone. “I’m hoping we can talk in person.
I really don’t want to talk to you over the phone.
” I deposit myself into the dining room chair, which squeaks on the floor, and set the phone on the table. “Are you okay with that?”
Seconds tick by. I twist the phone around on the table as if that might encourage time to move faster.
“I would like that. A lot,” he says. His words are slow and cautious and, as always, calming. I feel my heart rate slow, my breathing becoming manageable. I think I smile a little, even.
“I have an adventure for you. It’s my turn to send you on an errand.
” When I ran this through my head earlier, I had planned for it to sound coy, and fun, and intriguing.
Mysterious, even. It comes out flatly, like I’m listing pizza toppings.
I carry on, hoping it improves: “I mean, if you are willing. If you want to.”
The phone is silent. I know I’ve asked him just to listen, which he has granted so graciously in his Martin-way, so I’m wondering if I need to ask him to speak. My mind is racing.
“I would love to,” he says, I hear the smile in his voice, his words still slow. “Like a secret adventure?”
I’m smiling so big now, I’m shaking. I lean my whole body over the table, inches from the phone, bracing my arms against the surface. “Yes. A secret adventure.”
There is a long silence between us, but a welcome one.
“Liam,” he starts softly, “Can I say something?”
I sit up in my chair, shaking my head, my hands squeezing the table’s edge. “No. Martin.” I’m humming my words. “No. Let’s talk in person.”
“I’m sorry, Liam,” he says anyway.
I snatch up the phone and hold it close to my face.
“Please don’t be sorry, Martin. Just trust me, instead. I’ll send you instructions and some clues. We can talk then.” I’m looking at the phone in my hand like the screen can read my face.
“Okay.”
“Okay.” I repeat.
There’s a short pause and then, “Okay.”
We’re stuck in a loop of time. I really want to hang up and I really want to keep hearing his voice, but instead, I say, “Okay,” and then a “bye.” I can almost see him smile on the other end of the phone.
I press “end,” dig through my texts, and reread the one I’ve drafted for Martin.
“Midnight tonight. Where the Cereus blooms. Be there to witness it.”
I click send.