Page 58 of The Boy Who Loved Wicked
I dropped the pen and thought of Phoenix. It would’ve been selfish to ask him to wait for me. Was it too much to hope that he’d still be there when I was ready? That he’d be available. That he’d still want me.
“Sir?”
The moving men waited just inside the door to haul the desk and chair to the truck. “Ah, yes, sorry.” I grabbed my satchel and journal. “It’s all yours.” I stopped on my way to the front door, my gaze fixed on the journal. Phoenix would show up to school tomorrow only to discover that I’d no longer be there. As much as I didn’t want to wipe away my very existence from his life, how could I stay? How could I torture us like that?He won’t understand. He’ll be devastated.
This would be the first place he ran to. I quickly scratched out a note before giving myself time to second guess and left it with the journal on the kitchen counter, running my fingers one last time over the inscription. My words would reaffirm for him that he was loved, because he would doubt that in the days and weeks to come. He’d know he wasn’t alone in his agony. Maybe it would even gain me his forgiveness. One could hope.
I followed the moving men out and with one last look behind me, I closed the door.
I sat in front of the coffee table gazing pensively at the boxes filled with my father’s personal effects. They were the only things of his I’d kept after his death, but I had yet to go through them.
A hand on my shoulder startled me. Emily held a mug of hot chocolate out to me wearing an amused expression for my complete absorption. I accepted, nodding my thanks, and then was hit with a blow of crippling sentiment after noticing it lacked marshmallows. I’d never taken my hot chocolate with the puffy confections before. She wasn’t to blame for not knowing that I could never drink another cup without them.Not after Phoenix.
I placed it down next to me, watching as she stretched out on the couch rubbing her rounded belly and holding one of thoseit’s never too late to love yourselfself-help books. It reminded me that we were in this together. I gave a shake of my head to clear it before opening the first box.
A photo of my mother lay at the top. She wore a wedding gown fit for a princess that swallowed her petite frame. She had been a docile woman with dark, gentle features, and she loved me dearly. But in the end she always marched to the beat of my father’s drum. I viewed her as one of his casualties. Even back then, it made it easier to love her in spite of her shortcomings. In spite of her not defending me when I needed it most. My father hadn’t been an easy man to go against.
The next photo showed them coming down the aisle. My father towered over her like the night’s shadow over a city, but gazed down on her with a wordless promise to protect. That was the thing with my father. He truly believed his will would be what saved us all. We were outwardly identical, down to our impeccable posture, but that was where our similarities ended. Or so I’d thought.
Foraging through the items, I withdrew a decrepit notebook bound by a makeshift rope of tinsel. I ran a hand over the front before unraveling it. The pages were stiff and stuck together as if it’d been placed in water and then left to dry closed. But the words were intact on the sheets of paper, which led me to believe the book was merely old and hadn’t been preserved properly. It took patience to unglue them from one another without ripping them to shreds.
I’d left the estate manager in charge of packing up my parents’ home and saving anything that seemed important, so this book was a mystery to me.
Father wouldn’t allow Mom to hold me last night. He said strong men don’t need to be coddled when sick. I cried all night into my pillow. He’d be upset if he knew.
I twisted around to Emily, heart racing, intending to share what I’d found, but she was asleep with her book lying across her chest. I moved on to the next page dated August of 1956.
I found a bunny in the garden today. It’s small, white and fluffy and hiding in a box filled with grass and chocolate under my bed. Father can’t find out about her. He’ll make some comment about needing to be tough-as-nails and ready for what the world will throw at me. To him a bunny would be the antithesis of that. I don’t want to be a man that doesn’t like bunnies. I don’t want to be like my father.
My heart banged against my breastbone as I tried to dredge up an image of my grandfather. I could only catch vague impressions of an imposing, derisive man that I associated with some of my father’s worst moods. He didn’t come around often, and in fact, had become estranged from us before my adolescent years. I’d asked my father about it once, and he’d said, “We’re better off without him.” And that was the end of it. We never spoke of him again.
“To understand the son you must first break bread with the father,” I thought. Phoenix had said as much to me once.
I released a profound breath as my lungs expelled and freed me of an ounce of self-hatred.It wasn’t me.And it wasn’t evenhim, and I suspected it didn’t start with grandfather either. But it would end here.
My stare fixed lovingly on Emily’s belly. I covered her with the throw, settled my father’s journal under my arm, picked up my mug and went in search of marshmallows.
Dear Phoenix,
I’m finding it hard to be without you, but I’m learning so much in your absence, and I can only hope that if we’re meant to be together, we’ll be better for having this time apart.
I paint you at night. Did you know that? Of course you didn’t. Sorry if these letters tend to sound erratic, I don’t allow myself a moment to think before I write. I want my feelings expressed without filter. Without making them rose-colored for you.
I converted a corner of my bedroom into a makeshift art studio. I’d read that painting could be used as a form of meditation, or therapy, so I thought I’d give it a try. Turns out it’s also a good form of pornography as I can’t seem to paint anything else but your body splayed out sated across my bed. Or wrapped around me in ecstacy. Your head thrown back, mouth open, and the cords of your neck pulled tight as a bow string.
Don’t worry, I’m even worse at painting than I am at politics. The shapes formed on my canvas are clear to my eyes only.
I miss the saltiness of our kisses when we were so erotic and eratic that I often swallowed your top lip and the beads of sweat that formed above it.
Do you still tuck your hands beneath your cheek when you sleep? Does your mouth still pucker, beckoning me in for a kiss? Or have I stolen that from you as well? Do you...miss me?
I ended the letter there before the tears washed away my words. As was routine, I folded the paper, stuck it in its addressed envelope, sealed it, and pulled out the shoe box from under my bed stuffed with all the other unmailed letters to him that I’d accumulated over the last month. I’d need to start a new box soon.
I stripped down and entered the shower. I touched myself with my eyes closed, imagining it was him doing the honors. The hot water sluiced down my body, and I rolled my nipples between my fingers, pumping my hips into the air wishing it were his mouth. Resentful at the feel of my cock tapping my lower belly with every cant, reminding me that Phoenix wasn’t there. In anger I gripped myself, with nothing more than water for lube, and fucked into my palm until I came cursing his name. “Fuck, Phoenix!” I sank to my knees watching the water swirl around the drain. “I love you.”
I jogged up the steps of the university, excited by the flurry of activity going on inside. Students walked the halls with their noses in their books, flyers were hung on department bulletin boards. I hadn’t taken another job after resigning from the high school, instead deciding to focus on Emily’s pregnancy and my closure.
I was still scheduled to take over the department director position in the fall, and still on the roster to teach the Logics course that Phoenix had been accepted into. There was a possibility that I’d need to back out of one or both roles, but I didn’t want to think about that yet. This was my dream job, and I didn’t want to lose this too.
