Page 53 of The Boy Who Loved Wicked
The feet of her desk scraped the floor as she scooted closer to me. I chanced a look at her and was met with a half smile that I returned.
The door opened, and a short, round woman with salt-and-pepper hair walked in clutching an armful of files. Theory and I exchanged a look, and she shrugged. Dread sank to the pit of my stomach like sandbags in the sea.
“Good morning, class. My name is Mrs. Smith, and I’ll be taking over for Mr. Wicked for the remainder of the school year…”
I didn’t hear anything said after that. All my energy centered on staying conscious. Sweat peppered my pale skin, and my body vibrated like a jackhammer. My world existed in slow motion like the old crash-dummy commercials. Brakes screeched, body flung forward, but with no belt in place to protect me from the wreckage. Mrs. Smith planted herself in front of me, her lips moving at half speed. I blinked, and even that took too much energy.Why won’t the shaking stop?I turned to Theory only to see it was her shaking my shoulder. My binder and textbook littered the floor. Paper everywhere. And a cursory view of the class showed the same furrowed brows that Mrs. Smith and Theory wore.
“Breathe, Phoenix,” Theory’s lips instructed.
I wobbled to my feet and ran from the class as a sick feeling overwhelmed me. At breakneck speed, I bolted through empty halls, sailed through the exit doors and raced past the sleet-covered parking lot with my heart in my throat.
Exploding through my bedroom door, I cursed when met with the boarded up window. “Shit.” I dug my fingers around the edges, searching for a vulnerable spot to pull from. Backing away with my hands on my hips, my mind cleared, and I rushed downstairs, into the backyard, and through the opening in the fence.
I pressed my nose against the patio door and cupped the sides of my face so I could get a view inside. It was empty. I dashed around the side of the house, nearly tripping over my own feet when the door crashed open without a fight.
The bare walls gaped at me. My every movement an echo in the empty space.
While I’d spent the week drowning in my pain, Sebastian had vanished right from under my nose.
A book sat closed on the kitchen counter. Not a book, a journal. The one I’d gotten him. Keeping a chokehold on my sob, I reached a shaking hand out for it.Did he forget it?But then I opened it to find a handwritten note tucked inside.
To Phoenix: I hope leaving this behind was the right thing to do.
I read the first entry through flooded eyes.
We made love for the first time here at our lake house. The place that brings him the most joy, which makes me joyful by correlation. He doesn’t know it’s ours yet. My initial plan of renting it went out the window when I saw it was listed for sale. It would have been lost to him forever, and he’d lost so much already. I’m a bit nervous to see his reaction to the news. Will he be upset that I made such a grand gesture without asking first? Will he see my overture as a small means to ensure we remain tethered in some way?
I’m trying my utmost to curb my need to have Phoenix to myself. To give him room to flourish. To be careful with my possessive nature. Be careful, Sebastian, I scold myself over and over. The ego will tempt us with that which we already possess.
But it isn’t easy to avoid the mistakes of the past when you have yet to deal with said past. My life is a field of grass with hidden landmines. Always needing to tread cautiously to avoid an explosion. But how great would it be to run freely with arms wide open. Now that I’ve run in his field of sun and hills, I can’t help but want to invite him over to mine. I would need to clear the landmines first. Where do I begin?
I pressed the journal to my abdomen, where the knights were taking up position with their swords. And with a fist between teeth absorbing my screams, I sank to my knees in surrender.
The first couple years after Dad died had been the hardest. Mom didn’t know how to provide me with what I was missing, and I didn’t know how to see her as human. She misplaced patience easily, and I’d judge her for it. Then she would try harder, and fail, the next time I tested her tolerance, and eventually I stopped caring. I scared her, because I represented my father’s legacy and she didn’t know how to not fuck it up. She tried hard to parent me through her pain, but my pain needed something to beat on, so she was forced to bear the brunt of it. I don’t know how we survived.
She loved me, but unlike my father, I needed her to not just show me in her actions, I needed her to make mefeel.To connect with my inner and outer child that wanted to play and be held. I wanted her to quote great Greek philosophers. I wanted her to pick up the baton. Fuck all the fruits and vegetables and the tucked corners of my bed.
My father accepted her for who she was, but I resented her for who she wasn’t.Him. Some part of me knew that was ameproblem, but I wasn’t mature enough to fully understand what that meant yet.She worked more as well, needing the extra money to supplement what we now lacked. Dad’s insurance payout covered the mortgage, and the rest went into my college trust, but there was still everything else.
We gave therapy a go, but every session ended with one of us crying and the other one shouting. She didn’t understand what more I wanted from her. “I’m barely hanging on here!” she’d yell. Dr. Bell insisted it was progress, but when we returned home, storming to our rooms and slamming our doors, it didn’t feel like it. We were hurting and drifting at sea without our anchor.
In the end, what got us through was time and a shitload of avoidance. Mom would ask if I was okay, I’d lie and say “couldn’t be better,” and she’d pretend that she’d done her job for the day.
It’d been a couple days since I’d learned of Sebastian’s disappearance. I didn’t even know what day it was anymore. I was pretty sure Christmas had come and gone somewhere between all of my chaos. Christmas hadn’t been a thing in our house for some time now, though.
It was a true testament to how low I was feeling when I scraped myself out of the guest bed and went in search of my mother. She’d knocked on the door a few times; I yelled that I was fine and after a moment of held breaths on both our parts—me hoping she took the hint, and her wondering if she should push—her footsteps would recede and I’d exhale and roll back to facing the wall.
You don’t even see that she’s been trying.Theory’s words bounced around in my head like a ping-pong ball, and with a sigh, I knocked lightly on my mom’s bedroom door.
“Come in!” she chirped, as if she’d been waiting for me to need her.
She sat on her made bed in jeans and a t-shirt, the remote in her hands. “Er, why aren’t you in your work scrubs?”
She muted the TV screen. “I took a week off. I’ve got a few more days left until I need to be back.” She crossed her legs and patted the spot next to her.
“You did? You’ve been home?” I sat with caution, my body coiled with the urge to retreat, unused to the present situation I found myself in.
“Yeah. Lord knows I’ve accumulated enough time to take the next ten years off,” she joked, pushing her brown locks behind her ear.
