Page 36 of Summer Skin
“SO, WHAT AREyou turning my bedroom into? It’s not something gaudy, is it? Like a shrine to capitalism?”
A hint of a smile appears as his mom considers him from across the table.
They’re doing dinner at one of her go-to spots in the city—a dockside restaurant serving Pacific Northwest seafood so pricey he wouldn’t dare put down his own credit card. But she invited him on a date for the evening, explaining that there’s a box of stashed belongings from his childhood closet to regift, and tsk’ing that they haven’t seen each other in way too long. Claiming she barely remembers what he looks like.
“Your father,” she begins with a long-suffering sigh, “has decided he needs more space to display his wooden ducks.”
Aven nearly chokes on a mouthful of black cherry margarita. “Come again?”
“Those awful duck decoys he’s so fond of painting, thinks he’s a regular Bob Marley.”
“Do you mean …” — his eyebrows scrunch together — “Bob Ross?”
“Right!” she says, snapping her fingers together. “That Bob. The happy little trees man. Aven, do you properly understand how much paint your father has gone through since he retired?” She lifts an eyebrow, taking a sip of her dirty martini. “We’ve practically purchased an entire craft store! Would you believe I’ve had to park my car outdoors for well over a month now because his flock’s taken over the whole damn garage?” She leans forward, lowering her voice. “He named his last duck Twilight, for Pete’s sake. It had a hint of purple on its wings.”
The corner of her mouth twitches, a glint of amusement in her eyes.
“You think his duck-painting addiction is cute,” he surmises.
She waves her hand through the air like she’s swatting away flies. “It’s a flipping abomination! Our entire house has been taken over by waterfowl.”
“You think he’s fucking adorable.”
“Language, please.”
A seagull squawks overhead, as though echoing her admonishment.
Aven pops a fried calamari into his mouth, chewing as he speaks. “I guess I’d rather my room go to the birds than the dogs.”
“Whatever that means, darling. So,” — her gaze snags on his own as she takes a small sip from her cocktail — “Iris tells me Chase Matthews is back in town?”
Dammit. Andi, spilling to their mom about Aven’s personal life, knowing she would race next door like her tea was on fire to spill it on his mom’s kitchen floor.
Aven clears his throat, poking at the salad in front of him. The late afternoon sun is casting glimmers on the water, and he lets himself get lost in the ripples of waves for a moment before he speaks. “Chase isn’t here for much longer. He’s leaving on a year-long tour in three days.”
Her eyes move across his face, searching for a clue, but he busies himself with a bite of feta cheese and cherry tomato. There’s a possibility she’ll let it slide, but knowing his mother—
“And how do you feel about that?”
Placing his fork on the side of his plate, he pleads for an out. “Mom, come on, seriously?”
“Well, he’s the only love you’ve ever brought home.” There’s a certain gentleness to her tone. “I’m just curious, angel.”
Angel. It’s been a long time since she’s called him that. Still, there’s a creeping tension in his gut, her bringing up Chase. He can’t help remembering how strongly she encouraged him to spend time with other friends, even when Aven was so freakin’ lovestruck he could hardly see past Chase’s face at all.
It was never a fair way to treat their relationship.
He meets his mom’s eyes, holding her gaze. “I feel like shit about it, actually. I’m in love with him.”
She nods, encouraging him to say more, but it all comes across as such bullshit.
“He has money, you know,” Aven says, with a sneer. “People kiss his poster before they go to bed at night. Which one of us do you think is dating out of their league now, Mom?”
Her face falls, and for a moment, he regrets being so nasty. But there’s still so much unresolved anger and pain surrounding this, lodged deep inside. The way she so often treated his relationship with Chase as a threat. The way it turned out she was right once he was simply gone.
“I never meant to imply Chase wasn’t worthy of your love, Aven, I only questioned whether or not the two of you were good for each other. At the time,” she stresses. “Chase was such a lovely boy, but you both had growing up to do, and sometimes certain relationships can get in the way of that.” She pauses, looking into her drink, finger tracing the rim of the glass. “You’re both different people now. Maybe you’re right for each other this time around.”
“No, Mom. No!” His hand wraps tightly around the napkin draped over his lap. “You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to rewrite history to suit your current perspective.”
“Your voice, please,” she implores. “We’re in public.”
“No,” he insists, “I don’t care. You don’t get to control my memories that way. The way you treated me. The way you treated him. Didn’t you ever notice I was different, Mom?” he demands, his breath going shaky. “Didn’t it ever cross your mind I wasn’t like the other kids you forced me into sailing lessons with on the weekends? The soccer games I never cared to play? The art lessons, the etiquette lessons, the whole fucking world of bullshit you forced me into being a part of?”
“Aven—”
“The way you made me perform, like a show dog. Until Chase, until I found him, people only wanted me because of the way I look. Because of the car you picked out for me to drive. I was some sort of status symbol, not a living, breathing human being aching to be seen, fucking terrified of not being enough. Of letting whatever unrealistic version of me everyone had in their head down. The thing is, Chase never made me feel that way. All he ever saw … all he ever wanted, was me.” He’s shaking, furious tears in his eyes like the petulant child his mother will always see him as.
Her hands quickly slide across the table, enveloping his own, and for one hot second, every fiber in his being wants to yank away. But he can’t hold on to this pain any longer, so he stays with her. Lets his mother smooth her thumb across his knuckles, allows her to murmur she’s always loved him exactly as he is and there’s nothing done that could ever change that.
“You know,” she says, looking over at him with soft eyes, one hand still grasping his own, “the world always wants us to be one thing. I let that get in my head. You and Chase, you had stars in your eyes for each other. I wanted to protect you from the world, wanted to protect Chase, too, but I should have let you two kids figure things out for yourselves.
“I was wrong for how I treated you. And for all the ways I tried to lead you into fitting in, when, darling, you were always meant to stand out.”
“Mom,” he says, his bottom lip quivering.
“The choices I made injured our relationship and they’ve kept us apart. I hope we’ll still have a chance to change that?”
She’s watching him with a look so sincere and raw, he can feel it all the way to his gut. His beautiful mother, in the magical glow of twilight, telling him what he never thought he’d hear.
In all of his childhood memories, she’s there. Bandaging his knee after a fall, cheering him on his first bike ride around the block, always nipping at his heels to bring a winter coat. Her best intentions with how she raised him caused a massive divide, and years of resentments don’t go away with just one conversation. But he loves her, and knows she loves him, and it’s worth his time to try to fix this.
“Okay, I’d like that,” he says, and her shoulders sag in relief. “Just don’t let Dad’s ducks take over the guest room in case I ever want to stay over for a night.”
***
The chirp of the alarm sounds as he disarms his car. Aven lifts the box of childhood closet memorabilia from his mom into the passenger seat. It’s most likely just forgotten items like team trophies, but there was a framed photograph of him and Chase together at open mic tossed somewhere towards the back of his closet he’s hoping may have snuck its way inside.
He was going to wait until getting home to open the lid, but curiosity and cats and all that. When he peers inside, his heart drums wildly. It’s even better than anything he’d imagined.
Packed right on top of the stack is the songwriting notebook he and Chase spent hours scribbling ideas into back in high school. He’d forgotten about this. Never once opened it after Chase took off. Their entire senior year, written out in black ink, lives inside.
He runs his fingers over the sticker on the cover—a punk rock band they took the ferry to see play in Seattle one night, lets his thumb follow an indented groove where the leather carries a scar, and remembers.
It’s like there are particles of their young love still breathing inside these pages. His body thrums with the memories of the teens they used to be. Of that first, innocent, ever-tender love they once shared.
Warm with nostalgia, Aven turns to the first page and a sheet of notebook paper folded into thirds flutters out. His name is written in Chase’s loopy, whimsical handwriting, and Aven’s brows draw together.
Carefully opening the note, his eyes scan the page and his stomach drops to the floorboard.
Oh.
Oh, damn.