Page 65 of Fruit
Joshua nods, and I hope he understands what I’m trying to say. That he still has a safe space where he is useful and wanted.
Before they leave, Mrs. Hume catches Sebastián’s arm. “Thank you,” she says. I can see the guilt and sadness and love on her face.
Sebastián nods, squeezing her arm.
We drive Hugo home, and I call Jasmine as Sebastián walks him to the door. When Sebastián returns, I turn to him, more exhausted than I ever remember being.
“Can I come back to yours?” I ask quietly.
“Yes,” Sebastián says.
He leans forwards and presses our foreheads together for a few moments. The car is quiet and still and safe. The night is one degree of separation from us. Here, for a few seconds, there’s only us.
We have a small, quiet meal of buttered toast when we get to his and then get ready for bed. My limbs weigh me down, moving slowly. I crawl into bed as if it’s been years since I saw one, collapsing on my side next to Sebastián. He pulls me towards him, and we press against each other, seeking comfort.
I think I’m going to crash straight into sleep, but I still feel jittery with worry. The tattoo on Sebastián’s bare chest is just a shadow now, but I know its lines by heart and I trace them lightly, restlessly. I think the silence will deepen into sleep and stretch until morning, but I feel him take a deep, bracing breath before he talks.
“It’s for my brother. That tattoo.”
I look up at the shadows of his face. I don’t need to ask. His hushed, pained voice, his face when he talks about his family, the tattoo. It’s an answer all on its own. I press my palm against the flower over his heart and wait for him to talk.
“I was seven, when…he was sixteen when he, when he killed himself.”
My fingers twitch against his skin.
“He—he was gay. I mean, at the time, I didn’t really know…he’d—our parents weren’t exactly…the best. They were trying, maybe. But they didn’t take it well and I just…didn’t really understand. I thought, because of the way they treated him, the way they told him off, that he was doing something wrong. Like he wasn’t doing his homework or coming home too late. I remember…once, I remember, I asked him—can’t you just stop?Stop being bad, I told him. I just…”
“Sebastián.”
“I know. I know what you’re going to say. I was seven. I didn’t know any better. But…you know, that’s just the funny thing about death. It doesn’t care. It doesn’t give an inch. It doesn’t matter why—my brother thought he had no one. I can’t go back and tell him that I didn’t know, that I didn’t understand, that I loved him. He’s dead and that’s—” His voice cuts off.
I wrap my arms around him. “Sebastián, you had as much control over the situation then as you do now. I know that hurts, but the fact is that if you’re seven years old, you live in the world the adults build around you. Taking responsibility for that makes the same amount of sense as taking responsibility for not being able to go back in time and tell him all that.”
Sebastián breathes against me. “I know. But…”
“It hurts.”
“Yeah.” He strokes my hair as if he’s the one comforting me. Pain is like that sometimes.
“Is that why…you said you were angry with the world when you were a kid…”
“Yeah. I was angry at…everything. At first, I mean, shit, at first I was angry at him. Because he’d just…taken himself away from my life. Left me behind, broken our family. And I wanted to knowwhy. And I dug and I dug and it took me a while to really understand. And then all these little moments between him and my parents started making sense. The fights, the way kids would treat him in school. I mean, a black, gay kid in high school back then…”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah. Fuck. So, I was angry. And stupid, and I didn’t care about anything because the worst thing was death, and I thought I had complete control of that. Which is kind of fucked up, that that was one of the lessons I thought I was taught. Nothing could be worse than what had happened to Jamie so, bring it on.”
I press my forehead against his chest, desperately thankful that he’s here right now and not in the millions of other places he could have ended up.
“If it hadn’t been for Thiago and his family…it’s easy to get swallowed up by juvie. It’s like it sets you up for jail. Makes you angrier, distrustful, gives you connections to people who are willing to do worse things than you and drag you along. You’ve got to learn to be ruthless in there and that’s not a particularly good quality to have out here. Thiago—he was more of a dumb rich boy than anything else. We balanced each other out.”
“I need to meet this guy. And his mom.” And thank them.
“They live in the city, actually.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. They’re like family, now.”
