Page 18 of The One Decent Thing

“Yeah, of course,” I said reflexively, but I knew I didn’t sound like it. “I just — you did this, right? Of course you did. Just, how? And why?”

The frown faded, and his face went blank. Neutral. Like he’d practiced wiping his expression of any emotion at all, and had gotten really good at doing it in a millisecond. “I’m sorry,” he said, and looked away, down at his hand. He seemed to suddenly remember he had a cigarette there, and he put it to his mouth and took a long, long drag. The smoke rushed out in a huge cloud. “It was stupid. You hate it, right? It was stupid.”

“I just don’t…” I stopped, unable to even formulate what to say next. To buy a little time, I looked at the flowers again. Six potted plants, and it was the most thoughtful thing anyone had done for me since my best friend Chris had driven over to bring me breakfast when I was hung over a year before.

The fact that I remembered that breakfast was a sad reminder of how rarely that kind of thing happened.

“They look really nice,” I went on lamely, and then winced. “It’s so pretty.” Oh God, oh God, oh God. He was already angry with me about the Target incident. And now he was angry that I didn’t like what he’d done, even though I did, and now I was making it sound like I was humoring him.

On my sixth birthday, I’d gotten a wooden truck from my grandmother, with a working steering wheel and everything. I loved it. But I’d also gotten a stack of comic books, and I was so excited that I dived right in. I guess I didn’t seem enthusiastic enough, and mom was embarrassed in front of her mother-in-law. She snapped the steering wheel off the truck and yanked off the tailgate, and threw the whole thing in the trash while I hopped from foot to foot and grabbed at it, and at her hands, and cried and begged and apologized. She told me that was what I got for being an ungrateful brat. That moment was crystal-clear all these years later: the look on her face, and my horror and nauseated grief and longing for that poor little toy that I thought was my friend, because I was six.

Aidan stood up suddenly, setting the laptop on the chair, and I stumbled back. “Please don’t!” My voice cracked on the words. He was going to kick them over, or throw them all in the trash, or shout at me, and I couldn’t take it. “Leave them, please, I like them, I like them a lot. Really. I’m sorry, I’m really sorry —”

“Sebastian, Jesus fucking Christ!” His eyes had gone wide. “I wasn’t going to do anything. I was just gonna — I don’t know, move them around the yard? So they’re not just sitting there looking dumb in a row?”

“I like them where they are,” I whispered. The housekeeper had found me crying later that day, coaxed the story out of me — the hiccupping, incoherent kid version, anyway — and fished the truck out of the garbage. One side was stained with coffee grounds, and the splintered edges of the snapped-off pieces had stuck out like broken bones. I kept it, carefully hidden from my parents. I still had it, still in pieces. Even if I’d tried to fix it, it wouldn’t have been the same. If Aidan moved those flowers, then the thing he’d given me would be broken, and even moving them back into the same arrangement wouldn’t fix it. “Please leave them. I’m sorry.”

Moving slowly, like a lion trying to make friends with a fidgety zebra, Aidan carefully bent and put out his cigarette in the empty pot he was using as an ashtray, eyes fixed on me sidelong the whole time. “This would probably be a bad time to tell you how much you owe the sorry jar,” he said softly. “Actually, now I owe it a dollar too, right?”

I swallowed, unable to muster up a smile. “I guess.”

Aidan knelt down by the rosemary bush in the middle and poked at the soil around it, patting it down a little more around the edges. “So I found your spare house key in the kitchen drawer and walked down to Home Depot this morning after you left, thinking I’d see if I could get some work there. Guys hang around there — day laborers. You get cash, the biggest qualification is being able to carry stuff, and no one’s going to care about running a background check or anything.” He glanced up at me, gauging my state of mind, probably, and then went on, his voice soothing and even. “Nothing today, because I was too late for most of the contractors. They show up really early in the day. You can pick up work all day long, but it’s less likely.”

Aidan stood up and dusted off his hands against the sides of his jeans. They were one of the pairs we’d bought yesterday, and they made his thighs look like muscled tree trunks. The dirt streaks just added to the effect.

He paused, like he was waiting for me to say something. Of course he was. This was supposed to be a conversation. All of a sudden, I felt like I could maybe hold up my end of it. He wasn’t yelling. My chest had loosened a little while he talked — and it hit me, like a ton of bricks, that he’d done that on purpose. Given me a little bit of space and distracted me until I calmed down.

“Is that —” I cleared my throat. “Is that where you got the plants?”

Aidan smiled, like a teacher whose most difficult student had finally gotten the right answer. “Yeah, they had a whole section out front of plants that were on sale.” He shrugged. “I thought you might be happ— I thought your yard was a little bare. They were cheap, so I hope they don’t all die. But I’ll keep them watered and stuff.” His hand twitched toward his mouth, like he’d forgotten he wasn’t smoking right then. “You know, if I stay here for a few days.”

He hadn’t phrased it as a question, but it was one. I sucked in a deep, cleansing breath. This was why I’d come home, after all. I could do it. I had to do it. I would hate myself if I didn’t, and I had enough of that going on already.

“You know how I called you my roommate, yesterday?”

Aidan’s frown came back with a vengeance. “Yeah, I remember,” he said darkly, almost in a growl. My mouth had opened, apologies ready to flow out in a torrent, when he added, “That was really nice of you, not to tell that douchebag the real story about me. I know it must’ve been so fucking embarrassing to be caught with someone like me by someone you know in the real world, even if he’s a fucking asshole.”

There was a lot to unpack there, although I didn’t need to do much unpacking of the part where he hated Brody on principle without even knowing how much of a sleaze the guy really was. Warm, fuzzy relief blossomed in my chest at that, and I knew I’d be a lot happier if I didn’t examine it too closely. Willful ignorance was bliss.

But the rest? “The real world? Aidan,you’resomeone I know in the real world. You’re not in — in prison anymore.” I had to force the wordprisonout of my mouth. It tasted like all my regrets balled up into two syllables.

He stared at me, and then blinked, and then stared some more. “Yeah, but I’m not — I’m not someone you know, am I? I mean, someone you chose. Someone who’s part of your life. I’m your obligation, or something.”

Maybe I would’ve gotten defensive or upset if he’d sounded bitter, or resentful, or angry. But that was resignation. Defeat, even.

Screw that. I’d planned to man up, and by God I was going to. I lifted my chin and stared him down in my turn. “You’re my roommate,” I said firmly. “Keep the spare key. And — like, I think we need to go grocery shopping.”

The corners of Aidan’s lips turned up in a tiny, tentative smile. “You have expired mustard in your fridge, Sebastian. How does that even happen? Mustard never goes bad.”

“I don’t like mustard, so I don’t care,” I said loftily.

“Then why do you — fuck, I give up,” Aidan said, laughing. “I don’t even want to know. But you know I don’t have any money, really, right? I’ll get work as soon as I can, but I can’t sponge off you. Target was enough.”

“It’s just money. I mean, my parents always argued about money. Can we not argue about money? I have enough for groceries for both of us.” I had enough for groceries for half the city, but I wasn’t going to get into that. Inspiration struck. “Please don’t argue with me about it. It stresses me out.”

Aidan’s eyes narrowed. “That’s a low blow, dude. Seriously.”

I gave him my best innocent smile. “Does that mean you’ll stop arguing?”

---