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“What was the matter with him?”
“Ah, do you really want me to say? I mean, I know you remember him fondly, or at least I believe you do. I don’t want to tarnish your image.”
I was ready to blurt out the same words that were becoming a litany, “Tell me,” but quickly—and perhaps wisely—decided against it. All sorts of possibilities ran through my head, but the two most likely were he’d gotten AIDS or that he was a drug addict. Or both. The two often went hand in hand, especially if one was an IV drug user. These days, you don’t hear much about people getting sick from AIDS. There were drug cocktails for it now—things like Truvada and Nevirapine—and they’d made the disease treatable, no longer a death sentence or often even a serious threat. I knew because I’d been positive myself since 1999. Thanks to taking care of myself and a daily regimen of wildly overpriced medications, I’d never been sick and had always tested undetectable. Yet I also knew people sometimes grew resistant or contracted a variation on the HIV virus that didn’t respond well to treatment—or was resistant to it.
If he was a drug user, or addict, that would and wouldn’t surprise me. His parents were both addicts. He’d grown up around it, seen the good and bad firsthand. Hell, with that mother of his, Jeb may have even come out of the womb addicted. Could he have the propensity for addiction in his genes?
So, he could just as well be pre-disposed toward drug use and abuse as he was against it.
But I wondered:do I really want to know these things? Do I really want my last memories of my Jeb to be of disease, addiction, suffering? Or should I simply hold on the images I still retained—that of a handsome young teenage boy with his bright green eyes focused on a future of love, with me?
“Are youpositivehe passed? I mean, do you, like, have an obituary or something you can point me toward?”
Jeb took a sip of his coffee. “I can’t say.” He stared down at the table. I did too, noticing someone had etched a heart on its surface. Inside the heart—EJ + BT.
“Can’t or won’t?”
“Both. Look, his death seems likely. We were in touch up until he vanished six months or so ago. He just wouldn’t up and leave us, me, I mean. He cared. Or at least I thought he did. It sounds sick, but it’s easier for me to think he died than that he just didn’t want to be with us, er, I mean me, anymore.”
The scenario sounded familiar. I had been more comfortable, I think, when I thought Marc might have been murdered. His letter was both a relief and a hard slap across the face, defeating my sense of self-worth. I was unlovable, I guess.
But just like that, hope returned. It wasn’t like the sun coming out or anything. In fact, I looked at it as both a good thing and a bad thing—sunshine or storm clouds, depending on how I viewed things.
Knowing would have at least given me some relief. Not knowing at least gave me some relief.
There’s a chance. He’s out there, somewhere. Why are the two most significant men in my life doing their best to keep away? And why am I unable to let go?
I stared out the window for a long time. My tea had gone cold. The chatter in the café, a low roar punctuated by laughter, seemed unreal, the experiences of beings in a world other than my own.
“Are you okay?”
“No. Of course I’m not okay. Tell me how you knew Jeb.”
Hunter stared into my eyes for the longest time. “I’m afraid you won’t believe a word of what I say.”
“Try me.”
“You know that old adage?”
I replied, “Truth is stranger than fiction.”
That made Hunter laugh and I had maybe warmed to him just a little. His laugh was, I don’t know, innocent and vulnerable. He had a warm smile and the laughter, under other circumstances, would have been infectious. “You hit the nail on the head.” Hunter turned to look at the round black-and-white clock on the wall. “What time does this place close?”
“Not sure. Probably ten, I’d guess.” I glanced over at the door, where I could see the hours and days open in reverse, painted in bronze below the Nervous Center logo. “Eleven. They close at eleven.”
Hunter nodded. “Buckle up, then, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.”
I tried to relax, but found it impossible to keep my spine from stiffening, to restrain my shoulders from edging up toward my jaw line.
“Go ahead,” I said.
Chapter 13
1986—Hunter
I
“I think he might be coming awake.” Hunter glanced over at Keith, who was driving the van. Keith’s face was impassive, a sort of silvery-green from the moonlight filtering in through the dirty windshield. It reminded Hunter of the Wicked Witch of the West.
