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“Not anymore.”
“I envy musicians. Did guitar once, lessons were forced on me. Tutor was a cute Korean dude with long hair, one of my mom’s friend’s sons. I suck. Don’t have the fingers for it.” Elias taps a couple of notes. An A, then a C#, Kyle recognizes.
“My … My younger brother Kaleb. He played violin.”
Elias glances at him. “The one you lost?” he asks gently.
Kyle can’t help the emotion swelling in his chest. He’s in the company of a strange young man he barely knows the first thing about, a man who’s hiding from something, just like him. Despite the man’s reluctance to share, Kyle can’t dismiss the fact that this man saved his life. Without question. Without any repayment. He simply refused to let Kyle die.
And Kyle, now more than ever, can’t stand the burden of his lonesomeness another second. This man is right here. Elias, standing in front of him, asking him about pianos and singing, staring at him with his deep, dark eyes from across a deep, dark room. Like an answer dropped out of the sky, yet again.
“You were expecting a ‘thank you’ earlier,” murmurs Kyle. “I want to thank you for saving my life, I do.” Kyle lowers his head. “But not yet. I’m not sure whether I feel thankful.”
Elias takes that in. “I didn’t save your life for a ‘thanks’.”
“It doesn’t matter the reason. You did it anyway. Because of that, I’m still here. And now you’re in my life, running from your own thing. I guess I don’t have to know what it is. We’re both hiding something. That’s fine. We can be strangers. You owe me nothing. I may owe you my life, but maybe can’t thank you for that yet. Thought I understood my life this morning. But now … you’ve made me …” He looks away. “… peeved.”
Elias grunts, “Peeved?”
“Now I don’t understand anything. I don’t understand this piano. This empty house. You. Donuts. Fucking eggplants,” he says with a smack at the t-shirt he’s wearing that Elias lent him. “I think before I can thank you … I owe an apology. But I don’t know to whom I owe it. I think I’m …” Kyle grimaces, feeling pained. “I think I’m sorry for not valuing my life.”
Elias stays silent, listening, eyes and ears on Kyle.
“All I ever wanted was to be seen. Truly seen. That’s all I asked for.” Kyle comes up to the piano, thinking about Kaleb, the sound of his brother’s violin, the squeak it made when he struck a wrong note, the scowl on his face when he scolded himself. “I just wanted my life to … to mean something.” Kyle lowers his head. “Then he abandoned me right when I needed him. Turned into a pile of ashes with my ring sitting on top.”
“Pile of ashes …?”
“He had the audacity to leave me a letter,” Kyle goes on. “Sitting there on the pillow, right by my head, like a dinner mint. A stupid fucking letter. I woke up, feeling unusually cold, middle of the afternoon, too early to be awake. That letter, it sat in my face. I didn’t even read it. I just knew, the second I saw it, I knew something wasn’t right. Flew out of my room and onto the porch, the one we’d shared so many nights sitting on, stargazing, listening to the night … and … and I saw …”
Kyle experiences it all over again. Like a nightmare that won’t leave him alone, he sees the pile of ashes sitting in the middle of their backyard, right by an aging oak tree.
On top of that colorless mound of ash, a tiny shimmer that caught the afternoon sunlight. The ring, the one Tristan swore to keep for Kyle, his tiny silver burden.
“This is hard for you,” says Elias. “I can see that. Look, you don’t have to—”
“I want to tell you,” Kyle cuts him off. “I want to tell you everything. I want … I want someone else to know. I’m so sick of carrying this burden myself, of being alone.”
“You’re not alone.”
“And I’m tired of living without purpose, of having nothing to strive for … of this sick, hedonistic existence. Tristan said I would be happy eventually. He was so wrong.”
“So Tristan is the guy …?”
“He’s a pile of ash now, he’s fucking nothing.” Kyle steps away from the piano.
Elias comes right up to Kyle, catching him by surprise. He takes hold of his shoulders and brings his face close. “Maybe you never wanted to die. You considered that? Instead, you’re realizing that you are finally ready to be seen. And boy, do I see you. Look what you did already. Caught me when I was at my worst, stole my spot in the desert. You saved my life today, too. This isn’t a coincidence. Don’t let that pile of ash tell you what you are or how to live. Maybe it’s the old you that burned away in the desert this morning. Tell you what.” He leans forward. “I’ll make you a promise. I’ll stand between you and what haunts you. I’ll be your new rock in the desert. Got it? And if you want, only if you want, you can be the same for me.”
