Page 22

22

Atlas

“Hey, your phone is ringing.”

I glance over to see Ryan, my youngest brother, poking his head out of my window. I’m sitting on the roof, having popped out the screen on my window and crawled through to have a smoke without being seen by my stepmom. I’ve also nabbed a bottle of whiskey from my dad’s stash, which I now nudge behind me and out of sight of my brother.

“It’s fine,” I tell him. It’s probably Nate, calling to tell me about cow tipping, or whatever the hell it is they do for fun on a ranch.

Instead of heading back inside to his video games like I expect him to, Ryan puts his palms on the windowsill and begins to crawl through. Pulling the cigarette from between my lips, I reach a hand out to him.

“Careful,” I admonish. He glances up at me, before slowly crawling over to where I’m seated. He scoots his butt close enough to me to press his body against mine .

“You’re not supposed to be smoking,” he says, watching as I put it out on the shingles. I wave a hand through the air, trying to keep any lingering smoke away from him. Making sure the whiskey bottle is still firmly out of sight, I turn back to him.

“And you’re not supposed to be on the roof.”

“You won’t let me fall,” he says, shrugging. “Do you want to have a sleepover tonight? We could put the sleeping bags on the floor in my room, and watch a movie on the ceiling with the projector.”

“Sure,” I agree, and say a silent prayer for my lower back.

“You can pick the movie,” he offers. I can’t help but smile a little bit at that. Ryan is sweet and gentle, often giving the impression of being younger than he actually is. Sometimes, I worry about him. He’s too kind. Like Henri.

“Ethan having a sleepover with us?” I ask, trying to distract myself from the pain thinking of Henri brings.

“No. You guys went to the golf course yesterday, so tonight it’s my turn to hang out with you.”

I snort at that. I’ve never been so popular as I am this summer—my brothers practically fighting each other over what I’m going to be doing, and who I’m going to be doing it with. I can’t say I mind, and I’m already a little bummed, thinking about a day in the future when hanging out with me won’t be quite so thrilling for them.

“Why are you so sad?” Ryan asks suddenly, skinny arm pressed against mine and bony shoulder poking me in the bicep.

“I’m not,” I reply immediately, even though it’s a bald-faced lie. Ryan frowns.

“Mom says you are. ”

I sigh and rub my eyes. Of course she does. My dad might be fucking clueless and not give a shit, but my stepmom is always two steps ahead of the rest of us. She’s also aware of the walls I keep built up between us, which is probably why Ryan is out here talking to me about this and not her.

“I’m fine, Ry.”

He huffs a little bit, scuffing his socked foot against the shingles. “Lying is bad,” he says testily.

“Okay, fine, I’m just…” I pause, trying to figure out a way to explain a breakup to a kid who still thinks other boys and girls carry cooties. “I had a good friend at school and I told him I don’t want to hang out anymore, that’s all.”

Ryan’s nose scrunches up as he thinks about this.

“Why did you do that? You probably hurt his feelings. You need to say sorry,” he tells me, in a tone of voice suitable for a lecture.

“Yeah, probably,” I agree, wishing I could take a pull from the whiskey. “But it’s too late, now. Some things you can’t apologize for.”

“That’s not what Mom says. Mom says if you mess up, you make it right. I have to say sorry to Ethan all the time.” He groans dramatically. “You don’t get to be mean to people just because you’re grown up.”

“All right, I’ll try,” I promise, because he’ll never let it go otherwise. Besides, the damn kid is right. I told Henri he meant nothing—said it right to his face. I should be begging for forgiveness on bended knee.

“What’s your friend’s name?” Ryan asks.

“Henri.”

“Cool.”

I laugh a little bit, feeling marginally better than I did even just an hour ago. My relationship with my parents might be a clusterfuck on the best of days, but I love my brothers.

“He’s from Germany,” I add.

“No way !” Ryan exclaims, finding this just as exciting as I’d known he would. “That’s so cool. You need to say sorry so that he’ll invite you to visit, and then you can take me along.”

“Sure,” I agree, even though I know it’ll never happen.

We sit there for a little longer, watching the sun go down over the rooftops. Ryan stays quiet, leaning against me and seemingly happy to just sit in silence with me. If Ethan were out here with us, he’d be losing his mind with boredom. After my butt has gone numb from sitting still for so long, I give Ryan a nudge.

“Let’s go in,” I suggest. “You can pick out a movie for us to watch tonight.”

We crawl back in through the window, and I do my best to keep the bottle of whiskey hidden behind my back. He doesn’t seem to notice when I slip it under the comforter on my bed, but walks purposely toward the door.

“It’s probably dinnertime,” he tells me.

“You go down. I’m not hungry.” That isn’t exactly the truth, but it’s close enough. The actual truth is, I’m not hungry enough to sit at a dinner table with my dad and listen to him talk over and around me like I’m not there. I’m not hungry enough to listen to the barely veiled barbs about what a disappointment I am. In short, I don’t need to listen to Dad expand on things I already know. I’ll go down later to raid the refrigerator when everyone is asleep. For now, cigarettes and whiskey will get me by.

“Okay. I’ll tell Mom you’re not hungry,” he declares agreeably. I nod, watching as he closes my door on the way out of my room. My stepmom won’t buy the I’m not hungry line, but neither will she call me on it. She and I will never be close, but we’re at the point now where we understand one another. She knows I don’t get along with Dad, and that pushing the relationship won’t help anything.

With Ryan gone, I pull the whiskey out and finally take a long drink. These last few weeks have been damn near unbearable, helped along only by the alcohol I’ve been stealing from my dad’s liquor cabinet. I’m not sure what it says about him that he hasn’t mentioned noticing the missing bottles, even though I’ve been at it for weeks.

Fingers wrapped around the neck of the bottle, I go looking for my phone after remembering that it had been ringing earlier. I find it and the bottle falls to the floor with a thump, tipping over and spilling whiskey across the carpet. I barely notice. My eyes are trained on the screen of my cellphone, illuminated and showing a single missed call from Henri Vasel.

“Fuck,” I mutter, shaking myself out of my stupor enough to bend over and right the bottle. I’m going to have a hell of a time explaining why my carpet smells like a distillery, but that is a problem for future Atlas. Fingers trembling slightly, I call him back.

The phone rings for long enough that I wonder if I missed my shot to talk to him. And serves me right if I did. Sighing, I’m just pulling the phone away from my ear—not intending to leave a voicemail—when the call connects and Henri’s beautiful, accented voice greets me.

“Atlas?”

That soft, lilting voice is like a fist to the throat. Closing my eyes, I take a deep breath and reach for calm. God, I’ve missed him. The only person I’ve ever missed so badly is my biological mother. It’s a terrifying realization—knowing that I care for Henri enough to give him that kind of power to hurt me. I fight against the urge to hang up the phone—my first instinct always being to run.

“Hey,” I whisper back, because that’s really the best I can do. Henri’s silent for a moment, breathing softly. I can practically feel his trepidation—our last encounter looming large between us.

“Is this all right for me to be calling you?” he asks.

“Yeah.”

He clears his throat, talking fast as though trying to get all the words out before I hang up or interrupt him. “How are you doing, Atlas? Are you enjoying your summer? How are your brothers?”

My summer has sucked because I miss you, and it’s my own fault I feel like shit and it’s everything I deserve, I want to say, but don’t.

“It’s been okay. Not…not great. It’s been good hanging out with Ryan and Ethan, though. Ryan and I are doing a camp-out on his bedroom floor tonight.”

Henri chuckles softly, the sound as soothing as ocean waves. “That sounds like a good time. I am sure they are missing you when you are at school.”

“Yeah. What about you? How’s the internship going?”

“It is good to be working. I enjoy it very much. But I…I am missing speaking to you every day. Perhaps we could be friends, yes? I know you do not wish to be with me, but maybe we can still talk. Friends,” he repeats.

Sitting down on my floor with my back to the wall, I take a drink of whiskey and close my eyes. Fucking friends. It’s a good solution. A way for us to keep in touch and maybe hang out every now and then once we’re both back at South Carolina U. A small part of me is grateful he’s giving me this out—presenting me with the seemingly perfect solution to the mess I made.

But the greater part of me doesn’t want to be his friend. I miss our accidental relationship. Friendship is great and all, but I want to be able to reach over and touch his hair whenever I get the urge. Count the calluses on his palms. Give lazy blowjobs when he’s feeling in the mood, and just fall asleep breathing the same air when he isn’t. Nearly a full month after I dropped a bomb on us, and I’m growing more certain every day that I made a colossal mistake.

I can either protect myself from the imagined hurt of the future, or live with the very real hurt of the present. I chose wrong.

“Henri, I’m sorry about what I said.”

There is a sharp intake of breath from the other end of the phone. Opening my eyes, I contemplate the whiskey bottle again. Henri wouldn’t like it that you’re drinking , I think. Sighing, I push it away and close my eyes again, leaning my head against the wall. Downstairs, I can hear my family sitting down for dinner. Ethan is laughing, probably at his own story or joke, and there is the soft rumble of my dad’s voice, probably telling him to quiet down. He’s always saying Ethan’s exuberance gives him a headache.

“It is okay, Atlas,” Henri replies softly.

“No, it’s not. I…I was a dick, and I said shit I shouldn’t have—shit I didn’t even mean. I’m not good at letting people in,” I admit, glad that we’re having this conversation over the phone and I don’t have to look into his blue eyes as I say the words.

“I know, B?rchen. It is okay,” he repeats soothingly .

My throat feels tight all of a sudden, and I’m wishing I hadn’t shoved the whiskey out of reach. I’m not used to people being this kind and understanding. I’m used to mistakes and apologies being dangled over my head as ammunition for future arguments, not this calm and generous acceptance without a trace of anger in his voice.

“It’s not okay,” I argue. “You can yell at me, if you want. You should yell at me.”

“Oh, I am not this kind of person who yells,” he says, and I huff a small laugh. “I wanted to hear your voice and talk about your summer. I did not call looking for a fight.”

“No, you wouldn’t, I suppose,” I muse. “I really got lucky the day Dr. Robertson assigned us to be partners.”

“That is funny, Atlas, because I am thinking that I was the lucky one.”

We sit in silence for a minute, breathing softly together. If we were in the same room, I’d ask him what he wanted and wait to see if today was a day when he felt like being touched. I’d ask him if I could spend the night.

“Atlas?”

“Mm?”

“Why are you not wanting to, how did you say it…let people in?”

I don’t answer right away. I’ve never actually told the story out loud, so I’m unsure of how the words fit together. How the hell do I pick the scab off of a wound that’s been festering for over a decade?

“My mom—my biological mom, that is—left when I was five years old. She…well, she just brought me over to the neighbor’s house one day, asked if they could watch me while she went to the grocery store, and then never came back. She’d bought a single plane ticket, on my dad’s fucking credit ca rd, weeks prior. Had her bags packed and everything—he never even noticed.”

I pause, trailing my fingers over the wet, whiskey-stained carpet. Henri is silent, thank God. I’m not sure I could choke the entire story out if he interrupted with platitudes and sympathy.

“She was, is, from Hawaii, so that’s where she went. Just packed up and left. And then it was like…Dad didn’t even care . He was more annoyed about the trouble of getting a divorce with someone thousands of miles away than he was with the fact that his wife and the mother of his child just left him. He was already dating my stepmom before the divorce even went through, and they were married less than a year later. Ethan was born right after that, and it was…it felt like my dad had just decided his original family was flawed, so he went out and found a new one. A better one.”

Needing to wet my throat, I bend forward and reach for the discarded whiskey. I’m not looking to get drunk, but the first time I tell this story isn’t going to be when I’m completely sober, either.

“And I look exactly like my mom. I don’t have super solid memories of her, because I was so young, but I’ve seen pictures and we are pretty much twins. I inherited all of her Japanese traits.”

“She was beautiful, then,” Henri comments softly. I let the words sit warm in my chest for a second, bolstering myself to continue.

“Dad hates it. I can tell every time he looks at me that he’s wishing I wasn’t a walking reminder of the woman who left him. Hell, he probably wishes she’d taken me along. My dad and stepmom are both, like, super blond and they have blue eyes; Ryan and Ethan look exactly like them. They look like a family, and I look like a transplant. Nobody ever assumes we share DNA. I look like the adopted Asian kid.”

“That is hard.”

“I mean…yeah, sometimes. Mostly because my dad makes it hard. He’s always saying I take after my mom in everything, which isn’t a compliment when it comes from him. It’s all: Atlas, your grades might be better if you took after me more than your mother . Every single thing I do, that he doesn’t like, circles back to my goddamn DNA. I hate it, Henri, I fucking hate it. And I know it bothers my stepmom, too, like their marriage has three people in it instead of two.”

“It would be difficult, I think, to trust someone not to hurt you, when the one person who is supposed to love you didn’t,” Henri says, so softly I can barely hear the words. It’s hard to breathe again; my throat tight around a golf ball–sized lump. He continues, still in that same low, soothing tone. “I am thinking it would be hard to love others when you are hurt so young.”

“I’m really sorry,” I tell him, because yes, my family might have broken my heart, but I’m the one who broke his. “I’m just really fucking sorry.”

“B?rchen, it is all right. Thank you, but I am not needing to hear apologies, okay? Do you want to talk of something else?”

“God, yes,” I say on a groan, and he laughs.

“Tell me something good,” he prompts. I walk over to my bed and lie down, getting comfortable. The only good things here are my brothers, so they are who I talk about. Long, rambling stories that probably don’t make a lot of sense to him, but nonetheless feel better to say than the one I told about my mom.

“Goodness,” Henri exclaims, when I tell him my dad bought my seventeen-year-old brother a brand-new car. “This is probably a bad idea, yes?”

“Probably.” I laugh.

“When I came here for school, Jakob helped me. He bought my car and Mama was not happy about this. She does not trust these American drivers.”

“Fair,” I concede. “Do you have to work tomorrow?”

I pull the phone away from my ear to check the time. Although he loosened up on the rigid scheduling of his days toward the end of the semester, I doubt that relaxation carried over into the summer. He’s probably past his scheduled bedtime right now.

“I do, yes.”

“I should probably let you go, then.”

He’s quiet on the other end of the line, breathing softly. I really don’t want to let him go. I want to keep talking well into the night, and hear all the things I’ve missed out on during these past few weeks of silence. What I really want is a confirmation that this is not a one-off. That I could text him tomorrow and expect a reply; maybe another phone call after work if I’m lucky.

“Perhaps I might call you tomorrow?” Henri asks carefully, and I let out the breath I didn’t even know I was holding.

“Sure,” I agree.

“Goodnight, B?rchen. Thank you for calling me back.”

I can’t fight the smile as we hang up the phone, Henri’s lovely, accented voice ringing in my ear long after the line goes dead. He doesn’t hate me. More than that, though, he still wants to know me. I feel almost dizzy with relief. This outcome was too much to hope for, and certainly not what I’d been expecting. And even though we didn’t have an explicit conversation about where we go from here, at least I know there will be something. Friends, boyfriends, whatever it is, I want it.

Three weeks without Henri Vasel was more than enough for me.