Page 10 of The One Decent Thing

I managed to stagger upright and weave my way to the door, which was halfway open and letting in a bit of a glow. My room was dark, otherwise. It was nighttime? The creak of hinges echoed through the hallway as I pushed the door open, followed instantly by the squeak of my couch and heavy footsteps.

Aidan appeared in the doorway from the living room, his face flushed and a little slack, like he’d been sleeping. He was wearing the same horrible Goodwill-reject clothes he’d had on when I picked him up, but his feet were bare.

He filled the doorway, his shoulders brushing the sides. With the only light coming from behind him, he was intimidating. Scary, like something out of a bad dream where you can’t move and someone’s after you.

“Sebastian? How’re you feeling? I was starting to wonder if I should try to wake you up,” he said, his voice a low, mellow rumble. So much for scary. My heart couldn’t have beaten faster than a steady, easy thump no matter what, given the drugs still in my bloodstream, but being afraid of Aidan suddenly struck me as ludicrous.

My memory was nearly a total blank after I lost my shit on the side of the road, just a few disconnected snippets floating through my head: the feeling of a seatbelt around me, stopping once and peeking out to see a gas pump, Aidan’s voice. So to recap, I’d lost my shit, and he’d somehow gotten me the hundreds of miles home and tucked in bed safe and sound even though he didn’t know where we were going, hadn’t driven a car in years, and didn’t like me very much.

Like, déjà vu all over again. No one was pounding on the door to arrest him this time, but I still felt like crawling into a hole and hiding my face in shame.

“Have to pee,” I whispered. “’M’okay.” My head chose that second to try to wobble off my neck, and I stuck out a hand to steady myself on the wall.

Before I could make contact, Aidan was right there, one hand curled around my hip to hold me up. He was close enough that I could feel his body heat and catch a whiff of his clean sweat mixed with a trace of my own soap and shampoo. I could’ve counted the stubble on his jaw, only a couple of inches from my eyes.

“Okay? You sure?”

I nodded, my throat too dry to answer. He pulled back slowly, not letting me go until he was sure I wasn’t going to topple over. I had to get past him to the bathroom door, a matter of two feet. Our bodies brushed as I shuffled by, sending little sparks down my spine. Oh God, this was bad. If he had even the foggiest idea I was reacting to him like that he’d be so pissed.

Shutting the bathroom door behind me was such a relief. I had a minute to wake up, to get my head out of my ass, to figure out what to do now that Aidan was here in my house, in my life. A minute wouldn’t be nearly enough, but all I could do was try.

Aidan

Sebastian slammed the bathroom door shut so fast I had to jerk back or risk losing the tip of my nose. No smile, nothing. Okay, then. It was clear enough that he wanted to get the hell away from me. I didn’t know if he remembered how we got here, but either way, waking up in his bed when he hadn’t gotten there under his own power was obviously a shock, and having me in his house was another. If he’d had a panic attack over being in the same car with me, how did he have to feel now, waking up to find me lurking around his house like a fucking creep? Like I felt entitled? I had to get out of here, because there was no way in hell Sebastian was going to get up the courage to tell me to go, no matter how much he wanted to.

Why the fuck had Itouchedhim? Poor guy, Jesus fuck. Scary enough having me looming in the hallway without grabbing him.

I lingered in front of the door for a minute, trying to convince myself it was to make sure I didn’t hear him fall down or break something.

Really, I couldn’t move. Moving meant I was leaving. Leaving meant I was walking out into the chilly October evening, alone and with nowhere to go. It’d been a passing thought, earlier in the day, that prison might be easier. Now it really hit me why so many ex-cons bounced straight back into the joint. I mean, don’t get me wrong, most of the repeat offenders were criminals, and they broke the law because they wanted to, and when they got out they broke the law again. Simple as that. I’d met a lot of guys like that.

But there were some who just — shoplifted. Or didn’t go to their meetings with their parole officers. Or didn’t register their cars. Stupid, simple shit. And it wasn’t because they couldn’t function well enough to drop by the DMV or make a note on a calendar. It was because they couldn’t function outside, period. They couldn’t handle it, and on some level they didn’t want to, because being inside was easier.

For me, it was the realization that the second Sebastian’s front door closed behind me, the hourglass turned over. Without money, without a place to stay, without friends or a job or any prospects for any of that, it was a matter of time before I got picked up for something and went right back in.

So why wait, right? If you’re going to end up in prison anyway, why not get it over with and skip the part where you try your best and inevitably fail?

I got it. Fuck, did I get it.

I turned away from the bathroom door and went to get my shoes, fishing one of my three clean pairs of socks out of my bag as I did. Why the fuck not go back to prison in clean socks, right? Like that thing where your mom wanted you to wear clean underwear in case you went to the hospital, or something.

Wait to say goodbye or not, that was the question. I had to go with not. It’d be a lot easier on Sebastian if I didn’t make him feel like he was the bad guy for kicking me out.

I was crouched down by the front door tying my second shoe when the bathroom door opened. Sebastian wandered into the living room, clearly not quite steady yet. “So I was thinking I’d just order a —” He stopped and blinked at me, his blue eyes sleepy and half-focused. “Aidan?” His voice wavered a little, and it nearly broke me. He couldn’t even say my name without sounding unsure. “Are you — oh, I guess you’re going out for a cigarette? There’s a back porch with a couple of chairs.”

The shoelace was as secure as it was going to get; no way to stall. I stood up and squared my shoulders. “I’m heading out, Sebastian. Thanks. For picking me up, and everything. But I need to get going.”

Sebastian’s mouth fell open and his eyes grew impossibly wide. It finally twigged what he reminded me of: he looked like a character from an anime a cellmate of mine had been super obsessed with, with his hair going every which way and his long skinny body and his huge round eyes.

“You’re — where are you going? You can’t leave. I mean, you just got here. If there was somewhere you wanted to go, why didn’t you say so? Shit, I guess you had to bring me home after I passed out on you, like, literally.” He wrapped his arms around his middle, his whole body curling in on itself. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, I can drive you —”

“Dude, shut up,” I said, going for light and teasing. It came out raspy and harsh, because that was what I sounded like now, and Sebastian flinched, his mouth silently forming the wordsI’m sorry. Again. Fuck. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded, okay? Just, we went over the apologizing thing already, right? You. Have. Nothing. To be sorry for. It was rough on you to come and pick me up. I get it. So I’m going to go. Nothing for you to worry about.”

I bent down and picked up my sad plastic bag and put my hand on the doorknob. My chest felt like it was squeezing in on itself, and my ears were ringing. But I had to go.

“Wait,” Sebastian said, with surprising strength. It shocked me into turning around again to look at him. He still had his hands tucked under his folded arms, but he had his chin up in that Sebastian-on-the-warpath posture. I’d forgotten about it, and fuck, but it was good to see him like that. “Why the hell are you smiling like that?” he snapped.

I was smiling? I was. Ugh, fuck. “I’m trying not to look like a criminal asshole, dude.”

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