Page 32 of Painted

Rhys turned around to face the other problem spinning him out of control.

His throat closed up and whatever air he had left in his lungs froze at the sight of Early. They looked somehow smaller and paler than usual. Their eyes were large and worried. That wasn’t what brought everything inside of Rhys to a full, crashing stop, though.

“What the hell are you wearing?” he blasted out before he could stop himself.

“I….” Early tensed even more, glancing down at the slacks and cardigan they wore.

“That’s Raina’s jumper,” Rhys blurted, his hurt and grief still too big for him. “I gave that to her on her last birthday. How dare you take something that belonged to my sister and?—”

“Rhys!” his dad snapped.

It was a good thing, too. Rhys felt frighteningly out of control.

Worse still, Early’s face pinched with misery, and their eyes went glassy. “Sorry,” they whispered, then turned and practically ran off down the hall.

Rhys was too stunned by his overreaction to do a damn thing to make the situation better. He noticed that Early was wearing a pair of old trainers instead of the heels they’d been sporting for the last few days. That last little detail broke his heart entirely. Something was wrong, and it was almost certain he’d caused the problem.

“Way to be an asshole,” Nick fired at him as Macy burst into full-on wails. Nick shook his head and turned to head down the hall, presumably to his and Raina’s flat.

“Rhys, you know I love you,” his dad said in an unusually firm voice, “but you’re being a dick.”

The incongruity of having his nearly seventy year old dad call him a dick in such a stony voice, all while dressed like the hippiehe was, shook Rhys out of the cage of anger he’d trapped himself in.

“I’m sorry,” he gusted out, rubbing his face with both hands. “I don’t know what’s gotten into me. The last few days have been…intense.”

“I know,” his dad said, still firm, but warming a little as he stepped forward to enfold Rhys in a hug. “Grief is a bastard that sneaks up on you long after the fact. Everyone handles it differently.” He stood straighter, holding Rhys at arm’s length. “You need to get yours under control and get with the program. I don’t care how you feel about it personally, we, as a family, are hosting this fundraiser, and if that means celebrating the life of someone who made one bad choice on one night, then that’s what we’re doing.”

“I know, I know,” Rhys said in defeat, even though he was still furious.

“Now you need to go make things right with Early, too,” his dad went on. “Because that was a piss-poor display of nastiness right there. That young person has enough to deal with right now without you hurting their feelings with something that has nothing to do with them.”

“I know,” Rhys said, feeling a little sick. His dad had no idea just how much he had to make things up to Early now. “I’ll go deal with that now.”

“Good.”

His dad slapped his arm in encouragement, then walked with Rhys into the front hall before peeling off and heading to his office.

Rhys headed to the main office, no idea how he could find words sincere and deep enough to apologize to Early.

Except Early wasn’t in the office when he popped his head in to attempt to make things right.

“What did you do to them?” Rebecca demanded after telling Rhys they’d gone to run an errand. “They were in tears.”

Rhys felt abjectly awful. “I was a dick,” he said, repeating his father’s words. “And a few other things,” he added, feeling his face heat.

“Yes, well, of all the people you do not need to be a dick to, Early is at the top of the list,” Rebecca said, glaring at him. “You’d better make things right with them or I will put nettles in your underwear drawer again.”

It was a sign of just how bad things were with him that Rhys didn’t laugh at the reminder of the prank Rebecca had played when they were teens. It took weeks before he could get dressed without thoroughly inspecting his briefs after that little incident.

“I’m going outside,” he said, rubbing his forehead in an attempt to dispel his growing headache. “I’ll try not to be late to class, but I can’t promise I’ll be ready in half an hour.”

“I’ll let them know,” Rebecca said, her righteous anger melting into concern.

Rhys nodded, then left the office, heading for the front door. There was only one person he wanted to talk to when life hit a rough patch, and since he would never be able to talk with her again, he did the next best thing and headed to his and Raina’s bench.

The weather wasn’t half as nice as it had been the day before. It wasn’t raining outright, but the sky was spitting, like it was trying to annoy him by being undecided about what it wanted. The stone bench under his classroom window was damp, but not so wet that he couldn’t sit down.

“What am I doing?” he breathed out, leaning back against the house and tipping his head up to the fickle sky. “That the actual fuck am I doing?”

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