Page 40 of Paint Eater
“Now, go socialise. Don’t make me say it again.”
Logan watched her leave, jade dress fluttering around her ankles, a long sash made of the same material trailing behind her. Her braids were done up intricately. She looked like a queen, and not a benevolent one at that.
Clenching his teeth, Logan joined the fray of people. He approached a group of people he knew, all around his age, each of them more insufferable than the last.
It wasn’t, Logan had to admit, like the rich and privileged were all the same. Nisha, for example, wasn’t, and he’d met a few people in passing that he didn’t want to stab. But the people his mom insisted they socialise with didn’t just have wealth in common—they all shared similar conservative values. The values his mother had.
Values Logan could barely stomach to be around sometimes.
But this was the world Logan belonged to. He’d been trained since birth to be part of it. He wasn’t sure what had gone wrong, what deep malfunction had caused his mother’s discipline to penetrate only so far, but Logan knew that, as surely as he would never escape, he would never adapt, either.
So Logan stood and nodded and didn’t argue when they talked about bills they wanted passed, about political candidates they were rooting for, about how entitled poor people were, always wanting more.
He just bit the inside of his lip and stayed silent and tried not to let the guilt corrode him into nothing.
**********
Logan was settled on a couch, sinking into the brown, corduroy cushions, one side pressed against the couch arm, the other against Jay. The buzz of the party Jay had taken him to managed not to overwhelm him, somehow.
“I’m not even kidding,” Jay was saying, gesticulating both hands in a circle. “They have colonoscopy parties. Like, they’ll spend the day before drinking veggie smoothies or whatever and then not eat or something, and then they all go together to get their colonoscopy done in the morning.”
The guy Jay was talking to, a skinny white dude with a cap on backwards like it was the 1990s, laughed. “How the fuck do you know that?”
“Uh, how does anybody know anything? The internet.”
The guy, Rex, laughed again good-naturedly. “Man, I want friends like that.”
“That’s whatIwas thinking.”
“We should totally do that when we’re old, man. We can be colonoscopy buddies.”
“Hell, yes!” Jay turned to Logan. “You in?”
Logan raised an eyebrow. There was no way they’d still know each other when they were that old, but there was no point in saying that. “Sure.”
Jay missed the sarcasm and crowed.
Logan could feel the warmth of Jay’s body along his side, ribs and thighs pressing together. Despite all the people in the smoky room, the sound of hip-hop and chatter filling the air, Logan felt like closing his eyes and sinking into the cushions, into the feel of that solid touch. He’d let himself be comforted by it—a dangerous allowance, he knew, but he’d started forgetting exactlywhyit was such a bad idea to let anybody be a source of peace.
Rex laughed again, bobbing his head along to whatever song was playing, something Jay seemed to recognise too as he burst into rhyme with Rex when the next bar hit.
“So,” Rex said when the song ended, “You two come here together?” He gestured at Logan and Jay.
“No,” Logan said, and Jay jerked to look at him in surprise.
Logan frowned, shrugging as if to say, ‘What?’
Jay had insisted he could take the subway there, so they’d arrived separately.
Rex raised his eyebrows. “Oh, shit, I woulda sworn.” He looked at Jay, his smile tilted to the side. “So…you wanna come back to mine after?”
It was in the pause that followed that Logan realised what ‘come together’ had meant.
“No,” Logan said before Jay could reply. “We didn’t come together, but we’re leaving together.”
Logan could admit that his voice was a little more defensive than necessary, considering Rexhadasked first, even if too subtly for Logan to understand.
Jay looked at him again, the smile on his face so small and intimate that Logan struggled not to lean forwards and taste it. The temptation was taken away as Jay faced Rex again.
