“Yes.It would.He’s going home.And what the hell are you doing?I just heard you tell him he couldn’t stay.”
“I’m just saying, one night isn’t really a hardship.”
“This is being sex negative.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Yes, it is.You’re trying to turn off the tap.”
“You’re being ridiculous.”
“Turn the tap back on, Tean.”
“I don’t even know what you’re talking about now.”
“Turn it on!”
Somehow, Tean found himself laughing as he put his phone away.He found Jem’s hand on the steering wheel and wrapped his fingers around it.
“I want dick,” Jem said.
“I know.”
“Tonight.”
“We’ll see.”
They drove for a while in silence.
“Are you okay?”Jem asked.
“Yes.Are you?Oh my gosh, Jem, you fell.Did you hurt yourself?”
“No, dummy.I’m fine.I meant, you know.Everything.”And then, as though clarifying, “It was a lot.”
The sun had disappeared behind the mountains, but the last light still glowed behind the ridges, an orange deepening to red.The basin slipped into shadow.
“It was a lot,” Tean said in answer.“They don’t just kill them, Jem.They torture them.”
“I saw.”
“It’s like you said.He must hate gay people.”
“Well, he’s definitely fucked up,” Jem said.“I mean, his stepdad screwed with his head.But he’s also psycho, Tean.People can be screwed up by their parents and still be psycho.”
Tean surprised himself with another laugh.“I guess that’s true.I don’t know what’s more awful.I was upset because I thought maybe there was no explanation for why Kai did the things he did.But then we learned about his stepdad, and that was worse.I hate knowing that those kinds of things happen.I thought maybe they’d feel like an explanation, like I could understand how he could do those kinds of things to people, but I don’t know… It’s like you said, I guess.He’s really fucked up.”
“Swear jar.”
Tean smiled, but it faded quickly.
“Maybe we just won’t ever know,” Jem said.“I mean, people study this kind of thing, serial killers and all that.But they don’t everknow, you know?Not really.”
“Maybe not.”
“Do you need to know?”
“I don’t know.I think it’s worse, somehow, knowing all the things that happened to him, but still not knowing what could make a person do those kinds of things.It’s terrifying, actually.That something so horrible could happen, and we only explain part of it.It makes me think there is something out there.Something evil.That it’s real, and it exists, and you can’t explain it or understand it or rationalize it away.”
