Chapter 5 February 2003 #3
He looked over his shoulder, and for the first time in a long time, I saw the boy I knew.
The boy I loved. “I wish that was true. You don’t know how much I wish that was true.
” He grabbed his empty bag of chips and shuffled slowly toward the trash can, shoving the wrapper inside.
With his back to me, I was able to breathe again.
So long as I couldn’t see the resentment storming in his eyes or hear the hurt in his voice, I could pretend like nothing had changed.
That he hadn’t taken back what he’d given me willingly.
That he didn’t even seem to care that it was killing me.
It felt like he was skipping away. I could feel our tether stretching to its limit, and I panicked, blurting, "She only wants you because your daddy's the pastor. She don't care about you, Kent. She doesn't love you." Not like me. She could never love him like me.
“This isn’t fair, Two-liter. You’re my best friend. You’re supposed to have my back, but you’re just making everything worse.”
I had to swallow the sob that was creeping up my throat. Those words; those nasty, hurtful words of his slashed at me, cutting me until I was little more than ribbons of eviscerated skin.
“I’m trying to look out for you,” I said, trying to harden my voice.
The last thing I needed was to crack in front of him.
I wouldn’t be able to explain away the tears.
Not with him. He’d know. He’d take one look at my heartbroken face, and he would know how I felt.
The big secret. The one that had been threatening to steal him away since those feelings settled into my soul.
“If you want to help me, you’ll stop this. Grayson, I can’t lose …” His voice trailed off into the most pained sigh I’d ever heard. Without so much as a second glance, he walked past the trash can, through the hallway, and back into the classroom, leaving me all alone. Again.
***
It had been a week since I’d blown up on Kent in that lonely little lunchroom. Since then, I’d done my best to ignore him, hoping it would make him see sense. That he’d realize what he was missing when I wasn’t there to smile at him or sing his special song.
It wasn’t working.
Kent Fox had a habit, and it was one I loved. When he finished his workbook, he’d swivel his chair to the right, give me that big goofy grin of his, and call out “I win!” despite neither of us being in competition with each other.
He hadn’t done it all week.
I mean, he had, but instead of swiveling to the right, he now turned to the left. Toward her.
He had to know what he was doing to me. What he was putting me through. I didn’t know if he was doing it on purpose, but every time, it felt like a betrayal.
He also had a habit of whispering things to her. Probably saying something super charming. Then they’d grin, and both burst into laughter. Or she’d just give him those stupid flirty eyes of hers that made me want to puke.
Friday afternoon, about an hour before school let out for the weekend, I’d overheard them making plans. He said he was going to take her out somewhere special. That he had something he needed to tell her.
My chest ached.
She’d smiled, beaming at him like he’d hung the dang moon, and she’d told him he could take her anywhere.
He could take her straight to Hell for all I cared.
Kent didn’t even tell me goodbye before he left. He just gave me a clipped nod like I was a stranger on the street.
I walked into the woods Friday night, making my way toward the lake. It had been weeks since we’d spent an evening together, and I knew the time was coming. The day I’d finally have to let him go, like he’d done with me.
I sat in front of an old pine tree and pulled my legs to my chest. I’d wanted to go out to the lake—to our spot—but that felt impossible.
It had been ours, mine and his, back when we were still an us.
It didn’t feel right to go out there alone.
To radiate in the moon’s light reflecting back at me through the water.
“I need you,” I whispered, unsure if I was talking to God or the memory of Kent. The boy with tangled hair who taught me to dance. The person he was before he’d given Kate the one thing that was meant for me. “I need you so much it hurts.”
There was laughter in the distance. Far-away voices that traveled toward me on the wind. I followed them, figuring it might be Trevor and his buddies. Trevor didn’t like when I tagged along with him and his friends, but I was too close to breaking to worry about making him mad. I needed something.
Someone.
Anyone.
The voices grew louder as I approached the clearing.
The man’s voice was muffled, but there was a distinct sound of moaning coming from the other side of those trees.
The voice was light, almost airy, so I knew it wasn’t Trevor.
His voice carried enough bass in it that it could double as an instrument during Sunday service.
I tried to rack my brain and think of who the heck even knew about the spot—our spot—but I kept coming up empty.
It wasn’t until I stood behind the pine tree closest to the lake that they came into view.
My stomach dropped.
No.
Kent.
My Kent.
He was lying on his back, hands stiff at his sides.
Kate knelt beside him, her fingers touching a place she had no gosh-dang right touching.
The full moon that hung overhead lit them up like a spotlight, making every touch—every single stroke—visible to me.
The scene played out like a movie. The worst movie.
Kent’s mouth was hanging open like he was trying to speak, but nothing came out. He was a silent symphony, his quiet song of pleasure—a song he was meant to sing to me—ripping my heart in half as it echoed across the still water.
He was enjoying it. Kent was enjoying her.
I had to turn around. They were at our spot.
The one I found for him. For us. It had been our refuge from the prying eyes of West Clark and all of her hateful citizens.
The place where we could just exist. Not as Christians.
Not as the pastor’s son and his clingy best friend.
It was the place where I was his and he was mine.
Of all the places he could have brought her, why did he have to bring her there?
Behind me, Kent Fox was naked from the waist down.
Any other time, I might have kept watching, just to admire his beauty from afar.
I turned around, because this wasn’t a party I’d been invited to.
We were on my father’s land, but my heart held no jurisdiction.
He moaned, and I had to bite my own tongue to stifle the sob rising up in my throat.
Eventually, curiosity got the better of me, and I turned around.
She pumped him, her hand gliding up and down with no real precision at all. She was sloppy, and I couldn’t understand why he was allowing it to happen. I didn’t know why he was bucking his hips into the air to meet her touch. He was mine. He was mine, and he was ruining everything.
He called out her name when his release finally found him. That hurt worse than everything else.
I stayed until they left, my back turned, ears covered with my hands to drown them out, unsuccessfully blinking back tears.
When they drove away in her car, I walked to our spot—the one I’d found just for him—and I knelt in the place where Kent found his pleasure moments ago.
The dirt was still warm. From him. Because of him.
“God, please. I don’t ask you for much, but I’m asking you for this,” I whispered.
There were no tingles. No chills running up or down my spine.
“I know Kent’s daddy says that people like us are wrong.
That we’re an offense to you.” I stared up at the sky, searching for God.
“But I don’t offend you, do I? I’m good enough, ain’t I?
Am I still worthy to walk in your light? ”
God said nothing, the same way Momma didn’t say much when I’d tell her about things going on in my life. God was there—I knew he was—but he was ignoring me.
“It’s not fair. I do everything you ask, but you’re taking the only person that matters to me.
What did I ever do that was so bad you thought I deserved this?
” I flung my arm to the spot where Kate had ravaged him moments earlier.
“We were everything. He was everything, and now you’re taking him away. ”
It started slowly. Like a soft buzz in the tips of my fingers that spread through my hands. I raked my finger through the dirt beneath me, my fingers sliding through something sticky and cold.
I cried. Probably harder than I ever had.
Still, my fingers moved, dancing through dirt like a debutant at cotillion. My fingertips tapped and tugged through sand and Half-pint’s semen, and a soft flame sparked inside of me. It was warmth. A cozy comfort that pressed past my palms, up my arms, and across my chest.
Verses crept through my mind.
My hands twirled through the sludge I’d created, writing without reason. Looking down, it said, Luke 11:9.
We’d just learned it the week before. Maybe it was still fresh in my mind from Pastor Fox’s sermon, or maybe it was God working through me. I didn’t know. Didn’t really care one way or the other.
And I say unto you, ask, and it shall be given you; seek and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.
I stared at the sky, tears trickling down my cheeks. “Please,” I said, my voice hoarse from crying. “Please?”