Page 19 of The Boy Who Loved Wicked
It buzzed a few more times over the next couple hours, and after closing my textbook and shutting down my computer, it rang. I groaned, reaching for it, knowing she wouldn’t allow me a night’s peace until I agreed to her song-and-dance. But the screen lit up with Mason’s name.
I answered, and after trying unsuccessfully to get him to tell me where we were going for our date, I conceded defeat and agreed to be ready Saturday evening by six.
The phone slipped from my hand when the kitchen light came on at Mr. Wicked’s place. I hurried to turn off my room light, then from beside my window, waited for my cue to go over.
It came a short time later when he walked onto the patio holding his journal and took his usual seat by the pool.
I rolled my chair over, deciding to play voyeur for a little while. I learned a lot about him through my bedroom window. Like how any sound coming from inside his house sent his head around, his breath holding. And how when he surmised it was nothing, he tossed his journal onto the table next to him and leaned over elbows to knees. Was it in disgust for continuing to hope? Or for being let down, again? A small voice in my head told me it was because he was ready to have “the” serious talk with her. The one where he said he couldn’t go on like this anymore, and so his disappointment stemmed from having to put it off another day.
I leaned back. Out of sight. Because I also learned that after realizing Emily hadn’t come home, his gaze strayed to my window.
I learned more about myself too. About the darker shades of me. I watched with proverbial fingers crossed that she wouldn’t come home, because whichever way their conversation went it would delay my time with him and possibly ruin it all together. I wanted to be the one that made his night, and I secretly hoped that eventually, it would be the sound of me coming from my yard that gave him whiplash.
The soles of my feet itched to run to him now, but he’d be in a better mood if allowed him to finish his entry before my arrival called for pens down. It was the difference between seeing his lazy grin that highlighted the cleft in his chin and being greeted with, “Mr. Michaelson,” or a simple nod before setting his journal aside and waiting for me to stop convulsing internally and actually say something coherent.
His greetings and farewells always included my last name. It wasn’t until he relaxed into the conversation that he’d slip into calling me Phoenix. Those were my favorite moments of our conversations. My nerves vanished then. We were no longer student and teacher then, but something else. We were a realm of possibilities.
In the mirror, I tugged my shirt down and finger combed my disheveled hair. With nothing else to do, I left my room.
With my back to him, fixing the board after slipping through to his side, I flushed with glee and something hotter at his whispered, “Mr. Michaelson.” I schooled my features before turning and moving closer, taking the seat next to him.
“You’re in a good mood,” I said.
He shifted to better take me in, interest in my assessment written on his face. “How can you tell?”
“I…” I couldn’t tell him the truth. “You’re wearing a black shirt,” I finished, my last word unsure and turning the statement into a question. He laughed low in his throat, and my body felt too big for my skin. In fact, now that I’d had my fill of his laughing eyes, and the newly sprouted gray roots right at the edge of his hairline, I saw that in fact, he wore a black fitted t-shirt. My eyes drifted lower to his thin, black jersey sweats. “You’re not wearing a suit.”
“Hmm?” He stared down at himself.
“Nothing.” My heart smiled. Had I moved from “company” to something else? Was this a symbol of him shedding a layer of armor?Chill the hell out, Phoenix. Maybe he forgot you were coming over.
“I must admit, your visits are becoming the highlight of my day.” He grimaced. “I’m not sure I like what that says about my social life. Or my life in general.” And that fast, a gray cloud hovered over our time together. Mr. Wicked always struggled with some unseen force determined to keep his happiness in check.
With the exception of the occasional passing car which could be heard from the backyard, the neighborhood was quiet. It was still early enough, but with autumn ushering in and the now crisper nights, the summer action would be moving indoors. A wave of anxiety crested in the center of my stomach at the reminder that it would soon be too cold for our nightly chats by the pool. With that thought at the forefront of my mind, pounding down like sand in an hourglass, I decided there was no time for my usual dance of hesitancy. For once I wouldn’t allow his mood to dictate when I could be myself around him. “I don’t have a social life either.” I picked at a loose thread at the hem of my white shirt. “I have two friends—whom I often think stick around out of some sense of loyalty. I mean, other than growing up together and being ‘the rejects,’ we don’t have much in common.” We sat side-by-side, which made it easier for me to open a vein for him. A dragonfly skittered across the surface of the pool, giving my gaze a plausible reason for not meeting Mr. Wicked’s. “I think I have more in common with you.”
“What makes you think that?” he asked after an excruciating pause. I appreciated that he hadn’t tried to convince me that what I felt about my friendships wasn’t real.
I found the courage to roll my head his way. He’d taken his glasses off, and his chair had been repositioned so he could face me head on. I hadn’t heard him move over the frantic thrashing of my heart, and I hadn’t seen him through my peripheral as I’d been hiding behind my hair. I pushed the strands off my face. I’d been about to list all the shallow reasons why we were similar, but meeting his intense stare under the glow of the moon, coupled with the hint of yearning he wasn’t quite able to hide from his tone, I went with what I thought we both needed to hear. I went deeper. “We’re both in search of something to cure our sadness,” I said, and he inhaled and exhaled deeply. I sat so small beneath his measured stare, wishing his wings could unfurl from his back and carry us away from there. It wasn’t until I’d admitted that out loud that I conceived how poorly I’d been dealing with that truth, how close to the chest my heartache sat.
“You miss your father,” he said softly.
“Yes.” The word shuddered out of me in a great heave. “It’s been a lonely eight years.”
“And talking about him doesn’t make it better because no one understands what it’s like.”
“Exactly,” I sighed, feeling understood for the first time in forever. All it took was him not trying to make me feel better. Him not telling me togive it more time. Or attempting to convince me that my father would want me to move on. I knew all the rhetoric by heart. They never helped. They’re words that people say to make themselves feel useful in the face of your anguish. Sometimes, all that was needed was for someone to say what happened was shitty and unfair and you have a right to hold on to it. “Where does your sadness come from?”
He gave a smile that didn’t meet his eyes. “Loss.”
“Did someone you love die too?”
“Yes.” He swallowed. “But that was only the beginning of it.” He caught my eyes when they drifted to the inside of his home. “She’s not a bad person. She’s not the villain in my story, Phoenix. Emily is as much a victim of what we are as I am.”
I became enraged on his behalf. “But you’re the only one trying to fix it.”
“Or maybe, I’m the only one beating a dead horse. There’s much you don’t know that can’t be gained from assumptions.” After a weighted standoff he repeated, “She’s not a bad person.”
I grew overwhelmed wondering where to go from there. Again, I cursed my inexperience. From my perspective, he was the one suffering. The one sitting alone at night in this big empty home. Why wouldn’t she try or let him go? I glanced away from him, ashamed that my heart hoped for the latter. “I don’t understand.”
