Page 8 of The Boy Who Loved Wicked
He tilted his head. “You wanted to be the only thing he loved left behind?”
My eyes snapped to his, widening to the point of discomfort.
“Take it,” he said, waving off my weak protest.
“Thank you,” I said, and his half-smile returned. So mercurial. “I’ll see you in class tomorrow.”
“Good job today, by the way. I look forward to having you as a student.”
I slipped out the door before my excitement embarrassed me further. Halfway outside, I peered behind me to see him gazing out of his patio sliding doors with a look of longing. It was in that moment that I fell from grace.
Chapter 2
Phoenix
“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”
~Socrates
Mr. Wicked developed a late night habit that precipitated my own and left me exhausted most mornings. By his pool, he’d write into the wee hours with only a scant amount of light coming from inside serving as a halo in his otherwise shadowed corner. In the darkness of my bedroom, I’d kneel by my open window, partially hidden behind the fluttering gauzy curtain and watch him. It was wrong, and if my mind didn’t tell me so, my body gave off more than enough signs. The clammy hands were easy enough to ignore. The loud shallow breathing was another story. For sure he could hear me between the screams of the cicadas.
We were on the fifth day of this routine, one I’d memorized by now. Emily would return home late, anywhere between nine and ten p.m. She’d move around their bedroom undressing, ignoring Mr. Wicked’s scowl from the doorway before entering the bathroom and shutting him out. With a hand speared through his hair, he’d grab a leather-bound notebook from the nightstand drawer, and make his way downstairs. The patio chair closest to the sliding door was his preference. That’s where he’d sit and stare unseeingly, until all movement from upstairs ceased, and the bedroom light went out, leaving him cloaked in near darkness. He’d take his first real breath then, and write.
On the surface, Emily appeared full of life. One look at him and I concluded that she couldn’t be what she tried to present herself as, because how could she be happy when the contrast of her other half was as severe as a razor’s edge.
I thought back to her cheerful greeting when we met and how readily she’d invited a stranger into their home and her action took on new meaning. She was relieved to not have to go back in alone.
By definition, philosophy was the examination of one’s life, and for the first time, I’d found myself consumed with the examination of someone else’s, overtaken by the mystery.
He stood abruptly, squinting in the direction of my window. Whether drawn there by scopaesthesia—the feeling of being watched—or pure alignment of trajectory I didn’t know, but I reared back, hiding completely behind my curtain. At the sound of splashing water, I peeked to see he’d dived to the bottom of the pool. I inched closer on my knees. The moonlight cast an even glow across the rippling water, but when he broke free from its surface, the scope of its glow adjusted to fully spotlight him.
He went back under, and my eyes shifted to his pajama bottoms that now hung precariously off the back of the chair like he’d tossed them there without looking to see where they’d land. Too desperate to drown his troubles to pay attention to such details.
My mouth went dry. I licked my lips knowing what I’d see when he made his way out of the pool. Sure enough, after several laps, he emerged naked as the day he was born. I silently gasped, my face ignited by flames, but nothing could tear me away.
He circled in place, lost. And, once again, the light of the moon only had eyes for him. I felt envious that it got to touch him.
I fetched the binoculars that rested on the floor near me. A whistled breath left my mouth at the sight of his tattoo. A set of wings spanned his upper back, the tips curved over and around the mounds of his muscular shoulders to cradle his chest lovingly. This buttoned-up, stern man remained an enigma to me. I wanted to know his story. Who he was when he’d gotten that tattoo, because it couldn’t be the man he was now.
He grabbed a towel I hadn’t noticed before and dried off before relaxing in his chair. Exhaustion written on his face and in the way he slouched to rest the back of his head on the top of the seat. The towel hardly covered his groin.
The tips of his fingers trailed down his strong neck, and then he criss-crossed his arms so he could pursue the droplets that ran past his shoulders and down his arms, and then back again. His movements were tender, weirdly intimate.
He traced across his lips, across his collarbone and down the center of his chest tothatplace.
The way his eyes closed serenely, the way he nuzzled into his own touch like a satisfied cat, like a long sigh finally expelled, said more than words ever could. My hands fell away, the sharp edge of the binoculars hitting my knee. I found something of myself in his vulnerability right then. It both angered and broke me a little.
Movement brought my head up. He’d entered the house. I exhaled, our night was over. Before I stood up, I watched as he went into their bedroom, slipped under the sheet, and leaned against the headboard gazing straight ahead.
She didn’t stir, but I could barely breathe.
Mr. Wicked was starving for affection, and I shared in his hunger. I understood his unspoken language.Maybe he needs a friend,my ignorant mind supplied. Maybe...it could be me.
If only it were that simple.
I found myself standing outside of Mr. Wicked’s office after school. He sat at his desk staring out the window, deep in thought. Not wanting to be caught staring at him, I knocked on the open door.
“Mr. Michaelson.” He removed his glasses, resting them on the stack of papers in front of him. “Is everything all right?”
