Page 144 of The Sound of Him

He smells sweet, almost fruity - like his strawberry licorice.

When he's breathing easier, I step back and sign,Want you to tell me,before pointing to where he has another candle sitting on his desk.

He perks up, that big puppy energy that’s always clung to him making a return. “You want to know about my candles?”

I nod with as much enthusiasm as I can muster for a conversation about candles. It’s not about the candles, anyway. It’s abouthim.

“Yeah. Yeah, sure. Of course. Really? Cool.” He sits back down in his chair that’s still between the coffee table and the door. I sit down on the couch again instead of climbing into my corner spot. Just a minute ago, I would have given anything to be hiding, but now I don’t want to. Not from him.

I want to be close while he lights up with his excitement. I want to bask in the warmth of it. I kind of want to see if maybe I can give him some warmth of my own.Wouldn’t that be nice, if he could get something out of this thing too?

“Alright, so I don’t know if you’ve noticed this yet, I’ve kind of been pretty busy and haven’t been able to enjoy myself much, but I’m a bougie fucker, you know? I mean, as I established just now, you maynotknow, but yeah - me, Ace, bougie fucker. I love the good things in life. I mean, you spend enough time wading through the kind of shit this world has to offer, you might as well enjoy what you can, you know?”

Idoknow, so I nod.

I nod and it makes him smile.

And there’s that warmth.

I give him a smile of my own.

He’s warmer, once I do.

The whole world feels so bright.

“Anyway, I went through this phase where I was obsessed with scented candles. I didn’t know they even existed and suddenly I could make my bedroom smell any way I wanted. It could smell like the fireplace on cold nights or the blueberry scones we’d have at breakfast on Sundays. There was one that smelled just like the fancy coffee Kea - uh, my friend- would always orderjust to piss our -hisbrother off. One smelled like the garden out back. One smelled like fucking Christmas, even if it was the middle of summer. One smelled like birthday cake baking, which I always thought was cool because I never got homemade birthday cake, you know? I mean, you didn’t know, but - uh - you know now. So, yeah. I didn’t know what my birthday cake smelled like when it was baking, but there was a candle that let me experience it still. It was thebest. I was obsessed. I had so many.”

“But then I went to college and my roommate would always drag me onto the red line to hit a farmer’s market in Back Bay. We’d go every week. I was pissed the first time because it sounded boring - I mean, we had food in the dining hall that wasn’t half-bad, why bother going all that way for the same stuff? Especially when we had to wake up so damn early. But then we got there and it wasn’t just some apples and oranges and carrots, you know? I mean, therewereapples and oranges and carrots, don’t get me wrong, but there was also this booth owned by Jewish immigrants from Europe and I thought I was going to cry the first time I tasted their babkas. There was some really fucking good cheese from Wisconsin - don't even ask me how they got fresh Wisconsin cheese there, man, maybe just the cows were from Wisconsin? I don't know, why did I never ask that? Ah man … anyway, there were these Polish jelly donuts that were to die for and all sorts of flowers and - oh and plants! I got my first ever houseplant from that place. I killed it, of course, but I got more and learned and ended up with a pretty good green thumb. They had flowers, too. I always thought-”

Something must happen with my face because he pauses and asks, “You okay?”

It takes a second to decide if I am.

Then I realize where my head had gone. The picture that had popped up, conjured by his words.

I nod, because Iamokay. I'm thinking about my mamá’s garden. I'm thinking of the little plant she gave me one spring when she deemed me old enough to take on the responsibility of caring for one of my own. It’d been cilantro.

I’d killed it that first time, too.

I want to tell him.

I hold up a finger and scramble for my notebook, excited to share this with him.

But then the words just sort of… get tangled up in each other. Tangled and blurry andwrong.

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong-

“Hey, hey, it’s alright. You - uh. Was it about the food?”

I shake my head.

I hadn’t liked the mention of food. It had made me feel hungry and nauseous and weird, like I was nostalgic and afraid all at once.

“The flowers?”

I suck in a breath, about to nod, but - but notreally.

Not really theflowers.