Page 171 of Beneath the Stain

“Wish You Were Here,” Trav said, and a sigh riffled through the room.

“We’ll close with that,” Mackey said. They all knew the songs—they were practice favorites. They’d even done some of them on stage. But they weren’t Outbreak Monkey songs. Just this once, they were going to let someone else’s words, someone else’s pain, speak for them. It was pretty damned clear the band didn’t have words of their own. That was okay. Sometimes that’s what rock’n’roll was for.

He looked up then, conscious that he was a grown-up, and he needed to mend his fences as he busted them. “And I’m sorry, Mom, for swearing at you in your kitchen.”

His mom grimaced. “And I’m sorry, Mackey, for picking the wrong way to parent at the wrong damned time. Go shower. I’ll let Briony set up the garage.”

“Sure thing, Ms. Sanders—just let me talk to Mackey first.”

Briony met him in the hallway just as he was wondering if he was really going to need some Motrin for a little bit of weed. No. No, because the hangover, the letdown, was important. He didn’t like this feeling. He should remember that.

“How are you?” Briony asked as Mackey grabbed the handle to his door.

For a moment Mackey let his shoulders sag. “Trav ain’t talked to me since we left,” he said, letting her see it. “I… it’s complicated. But I was tender with Grant. Sweet. I think Trav saw. I woulda told him, but….”

“He’s not the forgiving sort,” Briony said softly.

“I had to,” Mackey said, believing that. “God, Briony. It don’t matter what we were to each other when no one was looking. He was a boy I grew up with—theboy I grew up with. It’s….”

Trav walked in, and suddenly Mackey couldn’t talk. He had no words. None. He walked away abruptly, heading for the shower.

Ah, God, water was supposed to purify, wasn’t it?Help me, Jesus, wash away my sins, wash away my past, ’cause I wouldn’t trade a thing, but it wasn’t meant to last.

He started singing, loud, louder, the rhythm of the water nothing on the rhythm inside him.

Help me put shit into boxes, help me ship it all away, ’cause I don’t want to trade the home I built for the shelter I built yesterday.

Oh God. God, Trav’s eyes searing into Mackey from across the hallway. Mackey didn’t know what it meant.

Help me read the grown-up runes carved in my skin and bone. Help me keep my lover while I learn to stand alone.

He could. Hecouldstand alone.

Help me make amends, oh please, ’cause it sucks to be alone.

It’s hard to take the memories, hard to put them on a shelf

Even harder when I’m by my fucking self.

’Cause I put the dishes with the clothes and

Clothes with the magazines

And none of the labels I got for shit

Are really what they mean.

And I’m working hard on frameworks

And I’m starting to break a sweat.

’Cause every box that I’ve unpacked is labeled with regret.

I’m fucking tired of regret.

Break that fucking box, destroy what’s all inside.

Until there’s not another regret to fucking find.