Chapter 11 Reason Four #2
As I sat there, staring at a man with ice in his veins, I wondered if it had been easy for him.
I wanted to know how long it took to build up the courage to make the first snip with his scissors.
To erase his Half-pint like I’d meant nothing.
Like we'd meant nothing. The boy he loved with his whole heart. Allegedly. I forced a smile because if I hadn’t, twenty years of bitterness would have overtaken me.
“How is she?” I asked.
“Mom? She’s good. Real good. Daddy, too.
He talks about you all the time.” He cradled the photo in his hand, stroking his finger against the glass.
It took me a second to realize where his thumb was grazing.
Whose shoulder he was stroking in that picture.
“I really am sorry, Kent. For smacking your hand just now. For last night. I was …” He sighed. “You’re back.”
“I’m back,” I said with a nod. The brokenness in his voice quickly expelled the last of my anger over the night before.
I didn’t enjoy fighting with him. In all the time I’d known him, we’d never been that way with each other.
It wasn’t always panic and dread and rage.
In our prime, we were twin flames, each burning just as bright—just as beautiful—as the other.
We’d just never gotten our chance to shine.
“It’s okay.” I pointed at the clipboard.
“Do you want me to fill those out in the back?”
“You’re fine here. I’m not scheduled until five. I just came by to ...”
Just came by to see me?
I traded the picture frame for his clipboard.
As I filled out the paperwork, he slid the picture into his desk, locking the drawer and sliding the key into his pocket.
He stood, making his way toward the exit, and I pretended not to notice the sharp breath he sucked in when his bulge brushed against the back of my head.
I turned to nod at him, but he was already walking down the stairs.
The door swung open again, and my cheeks burned as he turned back to sneak a parting glance at me.
“See you at five?” I said.
“Yeah, I’ll see you then.” His cheeks were just as red as mine, and the faintest smile crept across his face. “Have a good shift, Kent.”
“Looks good,” Gray called out from behind me. The trouble was, the store was empty and I hadn’t heard another voice for half an hour. I was basically in a shelf-stocking trance. The sudden surprise of it all sent the boxes of macaroni I’d been holding flying into the air, and I let out a yelp.
"Sorry," Gray said, kneeling beside me, picking up discarded boxes of Kraft mac and cheese. He handed them to me one by one as I placed them on the shelf. He was quiet for a while, and the air grew a bit too cold for my liking.
“So, you work at a grocery store?”
He chuckled. “Yeah, I think we’ve established that part already.”
“How did that come about?” I paused, choosing my words wisely, so as not to offend him.
In part because I didn’t want to dredge up memories he’d buried decades earlier, but also, I didn’t want us to get to a place where nightly terminations at the Pick-n-Save were an everyday occurrence.
“I just wouldn’t have expected it. You wanted to be a singer. ”
“I did. For a little while, at least,” he said, handing me a box of macaroni.
“What happened? Why’d you give it up?”
“Daddy. He said that they’d wasted too much of their savings by letting me chase my dream.
Said he wanted me to come home and get a job like a real man.
” The words left his throat with a coating of resentment.
I couldn’t blame him. Gray had talent. His voice had a habit of sending chills down my spine when he got going.
“It was this or working at the auto shop with Trev—”
“Don’t.” My chest tightened, and all I could do was close my eyes and try to steady my breathing. Though we were alone in a grocery store, not a single ounce of gas around us, the smell of it consumed me.
He sat silently, knowing exactly what had caused the air to catch on the way to my lungs. Once I was able to open my eyes, his expression was overwhelming. Softer than I’d seen it since I returned.
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.” He seemed closer than he had been before I'd shut my eyes. “You still struggle with that?”
If it had been anyone else, I might have taken the question as a dig.
Gray wasn’t just anyone else. He’d been right there with me when it happened.
He’d seen firsthand what his brother had done to me that night.
Well, the first part of my unraveling, at least. He hadn’t been privy to what happened out at the lake. At our lake.
“It’s fine,” I said, even though it wasn’t. The last thing I wanted was for Gray to feel sorry for me. “I’m fine.” Judging by the look on his face, he knew it wasn’t true.
“Mom came with me when I went on the road,” he said, trying to lighten the mood.
“She was like my little groupie. It only lasted a little over a year. I played for a few of the mega-churches, though.” His eyes widened.
“The conference!” His voice boomed across the tiles and echoed down the aisle.
“The Southgate Evangelical Conference. I played there. The camp we—”
“Yeah, dude, I know what it is. That was the best week of my life.” I was staring at him in awe, as if he’d just told me he’d played Madison Square Garden.
The conference was just another word for glorified church camp.
Four hundred boys and girls from all over the country, coming together to celebrate God.
But for me—and, I suspected, for the macaroni-holding songbird to my right—it was more than that.
It was a chance to get away from the strict rules set in place by our families.
There had been no threats of eternal damnation at the dinner table, no scorn or shame when we acted slightly effeminate, no terrifying tyrant of a brother sleeping in the room next to the young man that I had been hopelessly, recklessly in love with, just waiting for a reason to attack.
It was a week without fear. A week without shame.
A week shared by two best friends. Surrounded by hundreds of other children, all I had seen was Gray.
“It was?” he asked. “I thought you didn’t believe.”
“I believed in you. In your talent.”
He blushed, quickly averting his gaze. “I recorded an album.”
The macaroni fell out of my hand. “Don’t lie.”
“Until We’re Old and Gray,” he said, speaking nothing but gibberish as far as I was concerned.
“What?”
“That’s what I called it,” he said, staring as I sucked on my cheek and covered my mouth. “Don’t. Don’t even think about it,” He glared at me as I lowered my hand. “I swear, Kent. If you—”
I cackled so loud, I was sure my mother must have heard it three miles away.
He sulked, and then he picked up a box of macaroni and threw it at me.
My dodging skills left much to be desired, as I somehow shifted directly into its path.
It connected with the center of my forehead, and I let out a yelp.
“I hate you. I really, really hate you.”
Gray leaned against the shelf behind him. “I’m sorry for firing you yesterday.”
“I’m sorry Rhonda bullied you into hiring me back.”
He groaned. “She’s a tyrant. She’s great, though, isn’t she?”
“I adore her. She doesn’t really fit in though, does she?
Like, she’s kind of out there by West Clark standards.
We were talking when she was training me, and I’m pretty sure she’s a liberal, dude.
Said she worked at Planned Parenthood before moving here.
How did she even manage to climb the corporate ladder without a citywide revolt? ”
“We’re not that bad,” he said, his voice growing colder.
“You make us sound like a cult. You always did. I hated that.” He was getting frustrated.
Twenty-four hours ago, I would have welcomed it.
I would have reveled in it, even. But he was being nice to me now.
Hell, he almost felt like my Two-liter again.
“She just showed up one day and gave herself the job. Came in and said, ‘My name is Rhonda Macknemera, and I’m your new operations manager.’”
“And it worked?”
“Would you want to tell her no?”
I shuddered at the thought.
“Exactly. Then she just barged into my office and started redecorating. Threw out all of my stuff. I had to beg her just to let me keep my bonsai tree and our picture—” He closed his eyes and sighed. “Dang.”
“Our picture?” He was right to stop himself because those words weren’t even remotely accurate. Not anymore. I looked up at him, but his eyes were still glued to the floor. “You erased me.” I hated myself for letting the moment get to me. For letting him see me crack.
That was my life. I was a part of it. The boy that couldn’t be seen in that photo anymore was his Half-pint.
That beautiful beagle in Mrs. Collins’ arms was named Abraham, Abe for short.
The day in question was, up to that point, the worst day of my life.
We’d buried my grandmother four hours earlier.
That was my life. That was my moment. And God dammit, that was my dog.
The dog he’d convinced his mom to get me because he knew I was hurting.
He knew I was hurt, and he wanted to fix me.
That’s what he told me right before the camera flashed.
What you couldn’t see in the photo, in its current state, was my expression.
Tears were pouring down my cheeks, there were big, bright eyes that stared directly at the man now sitting in front of me, and there was so much goddamn love pouring out, you’d have to be a fool not to see it.
“You just cut me out like I was nothing.”
“What did you expect?” His words weren’t harsh.
There wasn't a trace of bitterness in them. The worst part was, I understood his predicament. God knew my escape wasn’t born of my own courage.
I’d never had much of that, to begin with.
Leaving the church, coming out to my parents, being exiled from West Clark: life journeys that were forced on me, not forged by me.
Gray didn’t have that. He never got that gasoline-soaked push. “What did you expect me to do, Kent?”
He could have fought for me. For us.
But that wasn’t an argument I was ready to have.
Not at the Pick-n-Save, of all places. So, instead, I smiled.
I sparkled. I slapped my hands against my thighs and stood, glancing down at the macaroni.
“I’ll pick these up. You go ahead and do whatever they’re paying you for.
” I looked him up and down. “Honestly, what are they paying you for? I swear, all I’ve seen you do so far is shoot the shit with the employees and sit in that depressing little excuse of an office. ”
“I do a lot of things,” he said, rather proudly. “I make the schedules, I handle the administrative side, I ...”
“You …?”
He wriggled his eyebrows. “I do a lot of delegating.”
“Of course.” I leaned over, picking up the discarded boxes of mac and cheese.
“A strong leader has to learn to delegate. Can I tell you a secret? I used to delegate a lot, too.” I reached down, tugging at the tail of my smock.
“Might want to rethink your leadership methods, Two-liter. Lest you wish to move back home with your mother and work for an absolute dictator.”
His jaw went slack for a moment, but then his hanging mouth formed a smile. The biggest one I’d seen in twenty years. “Okay,” he said, crossing his arms against his chest. “Half-pint has jokes.”
I glared at him. “You know, when I gave you your nickname, at least I had the decency to embellish, Two-liter.” I stared at his crotch and smirked. “I think we both know Half-pint is grossly inaccurate, though.”
He shrugged. “Not that inaccurate.”
I could have slapped him. Nothing but lies and slander sat in that sentence.
Of all people, he would have known best. He’d seen that penis.
He had personal experience with that penis.
Still, I knew we weren’t in that place. “I’ve got about fifteen-hundred ex-colleagues and a Christmas-themed sock that would be more than willing to call you a liar right now. ”
Gray cringed, picking up a forgotten box of macaroni and staring at it as he spoke. “I heard about your email. Why would you do that?”
“Tequila,” I said, regretting my choice of penis-size defense.
“I don’t know why I brought that up. It’s the most embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to me.
I didn’t leave my condo for months.” For the life of me, even as the words left my mouth, I didn’t know why the hell I was sharing this part of me with him.
We weren’t in that place. We hadn’t been in that place in decades.
“I lost everything I worked for. I worked so hard, Gray. I had nothing when I left here. Just enough for the bus ticket and a few meals.”
“Where did you go?” His voice was hushed. It was like this moment was just for us. Like he’d been wanting to ask me for years. He probably had, for all I knew.
“Dallas. You know, on the bus, I actually felt free. Like this giant weight had been lifted off of me. Then I realized I had nowhere to go. I ended up sleeping on the streets for four months until I landed a hotel job. My boss felt bad for me, so she let me stay in an out-of-order room until I could get a roommate. I reached out to her after it all blew up in my face, but she wouldn’t even take my call.
Everyone treated me like I was a monster. ”
“I thought about you when I heard what happened. Thought about trying to get your number from your mom. I know that we …” He set the macaroni back on the floor. “I just wanted you to know that somebody was thinking about you. That somebody cared. I cared, Kent.”
Whoever was in charge of the universe—God, Goddess, the stars, or fate—must have felt like they owed me one. Before I could make an even bigger fool of myself, Becca’s monotone voice beckoned over the intercom, telling Gray he had a call on line one.
He was gone by the time I made it to the front.
At the end of the night, I left my smock and nametag (Matthew Jr. because, apparently, this was a family business) in the locker at the end of the room.
Becca assured me I’d be next in line for one with a door, but if I wanted one that locked, I’d be waiting for a while.
I reminded her I had no intention—or need—to wait for a lockable locker.
She then informed me, “That’s what they all say,” which frightened me more than any other words ever had.