4. Ari
FOUR
ARI
I’m fifteen again. The metallic tang of hot metal mixes with the stale smell of dirt as I follow Trace Simms further under the bleachers, where it’s darker and we’re less likely to be seen.
I can’t believe this is happening. He didn’t say as much, but I can feel it coming like an inevitability. My first kiss. With Trace. It’s perfect.
I've had a crush on him since the beginning of Freshman year, when we were assigned seats next to each other in homeroom and study hall. I didn’t think he noticed me, but he did.
My heart is beating out of control when we finally stop. Trace turns to me and smiles sweetly. His hand comes up to cup my face, and he tugs my bottom lip free from my teeth. He says something, but I can’t hear most of it through the rushing in my ears.
“…our little secret.”
I nod. I understand. Technically, I never came out, but everyone seemed to know before I even figured it out.
People are assholes over something I wouldn’t have chosen for myself, but I do choose to lean into it and be out and proud—mostly because it pisses off my foster dad.
I’m being honest with myself, it’s also because I like the attention.
I like people’s eyes on me, especially if there’s even a fraction of the appreciation I’m seeing in Trace’s eyes right now as he skims his gaze down my body.
We’re both in our gym class uniforms, although unlike the basketball shorts he’s wearing, my running shorts are on the shorter side, and my shirt is snug rather than loose like his.
It’s worth the ridicule from the other boys in our class just to see him look at me that way.
Trace takes a step closer to me, close enough that I can feel the heat of his body against mine. He leans in…
There’s pressure, but not the soft touch I’m expecting. Hands shove at my chest, and I hit the ground before I know what’s happened. Gravel bites into my palms and the backs of my thighs.
Shouting. Laughter. Words that burn worse than the scrapes on my body being thrown at me from all angles. They’re loudest from him. Slurs. Hate. Ridicule.
I hear Will before I see him. His deep voice cuts through the noise.
His sharp, furious threats being thrown to the crowd surrounding me.
I believe he could probably take them all on, but his fist only hits one of them.
A sickening thud echoes against the metal bleachers above us, and then I’m not the only one on the ground.
Trace glares at me, but I don’t understand what I did wrong.
The world tilts, and I’m lifted off the ground. Will doesn’t set me down, only cradles me against his chest as he carries me out of there like some kind of damsel in distress.
“I can walk,” I say, but my voice is broken and small. I hate how small I feel. Hate how everyone is looking at me. This isn’t the kind of attention I want.
Will ignores my weak protest and carries me across the field through a crowd of students jogging around the track, like I should have been. He’s not wearing a uniform. He’s not even in this class. Why is he here? How did he know?
He finally sets me down in the locker room.
It’s empty, class only started twenty minutes ago.
He finds a first-aid kit and wets some paper towels before kneeling in front of me.
He’s gentle as he dabs at the scrapes on my palms to clean out the gravel, disinfecting them and bandaging the spots that are still bleeding.
Then he makes me stand and turn around so he can do the same for the back of my legs.
He thinks I’m crying because I’m hurt. I let him believe that. It’s easier than explaining that none of it stings as much as the shame. But he sees through me like he always does.
Will stands and turns me to face him. My face is hot, eyes stinging, throat tight with the humiliation of not being able to hold it all back. He wraps his arms around me and holds me to his chest like I’m something fragile. He always holds me like I might break.
“It was supposed to be my first kiss,” I admit with my face pressed into his chest to muffle the words, hoping he can’t actually hear or understand them.
“Ari,” he says softly. I don’t look up. I’d rather hide here for the rest of high school.
But he doesn’t let me. Instead, he cups my cheek and tilts my face up. I can’t bring myself to meet his gaze until his thumb gently swipes below my eye to wipe away a tear.
When his lips press against mine, it’s a barely there caress, soft and gentle. Careful, as always. There’s no tongue or anything like that, just warmth and pressure and the promise that there’s nothing wrong with me. And I’m not alone.
I know it doesn’t mean anything, but it still feels special. It feels safe. He’s my safe space, always has been.
I know it doesn’t mean anything, but for a moment, I let myself pretend it does.
Reality rouses me slowly, awareness returning in pieces as the dream fades away.
The spot on my cheek where Will’s hand was feels cold, a lingering pressure like he was actually there and just moved away. My eyes open slowly, lashes sticking together, and I wince at how bright it is.
It takes a few moments of blinking to register where I am, or why I feel so empty. Then the weight of the present settles in, and I turn to see the vacant space next to me. I exhale through my nose, disappointed in a way that is embarrassingly old.
I frequently dream of the past, but somehow this sweet memory hurts me more than the nightmares.
Maybe because the majority of the time, when I wake up from a nightmare, Will is here with me.
Not just beside me, but wrapped around me, so all I know when I come back to earth is him. His weight, his warmth, his scent.
But he’s not here. He’s not here because I pushed him away. Again.
Because I was clingy and needy and he always provides.
Because I take even when I know it’s not something he can give.
This time I actually tricked myself into believing he really wanted me, too. For just a moment. Before the high wore off and I saw the shift in his eyes. Before I woke up without him next to me and a certainty that he’s not home.
Not that this is home. We’ve been staying at this rental for over six weeks. We wanted to be nearby when one of our best friends was struggling. It took a lot for Jesse to decide to check himself into rehab.
He tried to sober himself up and move on without everything Francis had been giving him to cope, but he kept falling into a bottle or finding different things to swallow or snort to help slow the world down and smooth out the edges.
He said he has too much noise going on to hear the music, that even his own hair growing feels like a tangible thing, that he doesn’t fit into his own skin.
The doctors talk a lot about overstimulation. About anxiety. About finding a baseline without drugs. Jesse nods and listens and agrees to whatever they suggest, but I can tell he’s terrified of needing anything ever again. He doesn’t even want to take an ibuprofen if he can help it.
For now, it’s a lot of downtime and therapy. Facing the why of things and learning new coping strategies to process the extra sensory input. He’s doing better. He’s just quieter than I’ve ever seen him. Subdued.
Everything is.
It’s like all of us have paused in time, afraid to move forward and refusing to go back, suspended, waiting for the next thing.
Part of it is because the glue that holds us all together is struggling.
Part of it is because we don’t know what to do with ourselves without tour dates and promo spots, a different hotel every week, sometimes every night.
The last five years have been a rush of traveling place to place, putting on a show or partying every night.
Even the few days off we’ve had here and there have been filled with some kind of action to fill the time.
Now we’re just… stagnant.
I want to be here for my friend. But I also want to get the hell out of Raleigh.
There’s only so much time I can spend here before I want to crawl out of my own skin.
This is the place I was born, but there’s a reason we left the moment I turned eighteen and never looked back.
Other than short visits with Jesse and Naz, we never stay.
Being here for an extended period fucks with my head.
I’m always looking behind me, wondering where the monsters of my past are hiding.
Don still lives in the same house. He’s never tried to contact us, at least that I’m aware of, but it’s enough that I still catch myself looking over my shoulder when I’m here, half-expecting to see his truck parked crooked in the driveway or his silhouette in a doorway.
I don’t want to see Don, but he doesn’t haunt me like my mother does. Or the man she killed to protect me.
When things get bad, I can still feel his hands around my neck, how hard the ground was when he dropped me. And no matter how long it’s been, I’m still in the same skinny, malnourished, too-weak body I was then.
The nightmares get worse when I’m here for too long, and every time I wake up reaching for Will. I need a distraction.
I’ve been writing more, which is nice, but it’s not like I’ll ever use any of it. Jesse is the one who writes the good lyrics. I help out, fill in gaps and improvise here and there, but I’ve never turned over my own stuff to see if it could work.
My brain doesn’t hear the music the way Jesse’s does.
He says the melodies come with the lyrics, or he’ll think of a line, and it just naturally falls into a pattern that becomes a melody.
It’s not like that for me. My words are more like poems with no tune.
They have a rhythm, but no sound. Cadence, but no music.
And, more often than not, whatever words come out don’t get the feeling right the way Jesse’s words do.
There’s no depth. It’s just empty words in my chicken scratch handwriting, surrounded by stupid doodles because I can’t get my brain to focus.
And the longer I’m here, the more it just becomes trauma dumping in rhymes.
There isn’t a distraction strong enough when I’m stuck here. Everything gives me a headache—from the sense of dread to the smell of the nasty Bradford Pear trees blooming.
Maybe I should talk to Jesse, get an idea of whether it would bother him if I went anywhere else for a little while.
Blake will probably tell me I need to bring a bodyguard—we each have our own now.
Jesse actually has two, probably because he kept giving Blake the slip when Cory was off or sleeping, and because he seems to attract trouble.
Or maybe I just need to go out, let go of some of this tension, maybe get laid.
Yes. That’s what I need. I need to get off with another person who isn’t my hand…or my foster brother when I wake up in the middle of the night dry humping his leg.
My body and mind are wired to turn to Will for comfort, especially when I’m not fully awake. It doesn’t help that he’s never once pushed me away, told me to wake up or stop.
I wasn’t asleep last night, though. And I know he wasn’t either.
He held me close and looked me right in the eyes while I pulled my cock out and stroked myself.
His hand tightened in the nape of my hair when I groaned, and I swear he pulled me closer.
I swear I heard his breath hitch when my cum hit his stomach.
Then the way his mouth dropped open…
When I stretched up to meet his mouth with mine, and my hand left my spent cock to reach for his, that’s when he chose to run away. He rolled onto his back, went to the bathroom to clean himself up, and returned with a washcloth for me.
Not a word was spoken about what happened.
I’d tried to say something, to apologize or joke away the awkwardness, but he shushed me and pulled my back to his chest again.
It took hours for me to fall back asleep.
The reality of what I’d done kept me awake, itching more than the remnants of cum still drying in my pubic hair.
Is he as conditioned to give me whatever I need as I am to taking comfort from him, no matter how inappropriate it might be? How much of himself is he sacrificing to keep giving what he doesn’t have to give?
Things can’t continue on this way. If I don’t make a change now, he’ll only keep chipping away at himself just to keep me whole.