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As I sat there, staring at a man with ice in his veins, I wondered if it had been easy for him. I wanted to know how long it took to build up the courage to make the first snip with his scissors. To erase his Half-pint like I’d meant nothing. Likewe’dmeant nothing. The boy he loved with his whole heart. Allegedly. I forced a smile because if I hadn’t, twenty years of bitterness would have overtaken me.
“How is she?” I asked.
“Mom? She’s good. Real good. Daddy, too. He talks about you all the time.” He cradled the photo in his hand, stroking his finger against the glass. It took me a second to realize where his thumb was grazing. Whose shoulder he was stroking in that picture. “I really am sorry, Kent. For smacking your hand just now. For last night. I was …” He sighed. “You’re back.”
“I’m back,” I said with a nod. The brokenness in his voice quickly expelled the last of my anger over the night before. I didn’t enjoy fighting with him. In all the time I’d known him, we’d never been that way with each other. It wasn’t always panic and dread and rage. In our prime, we were twin flames, each burning just as bright—just as beautiful—as the other. We’d just never gotten our chance to shine. “It’s okay.” I pointed at the clipboard. “Do you want me to fill those out in the back?”
“You’re fine here. I’m not scheduled until five. I just came by to …”
Just came by to see me?
I traded the picture frame for his clipboard. As I filled out the paperwork, he slid the picture into his desk, locking the drawer and sliding the key into his pocket. He stood, making his way toward the exit, and I pretended not to notice the sharp breath he sucked in when his bulge brushed against the back of my head. I turned to nod at him, but he was already walking down the stairs. The door swung open again, and my cheeks burned as he turned back to sneak a parting glance at me.
“See you at five?” I said.
“Yeah, I’ll see you then.” His cheeks were just as red as mine, and the faintest smile crept across his face. “Have a good shift, Kent.”
***
“Looks good,” Gray called out from behind me. The trouble was, the store was empty and I hadn’t heard another voice for half an hour. I was basically in a shelf-stocking trance. The sudden surprise of it all sent the boxes of macaroni I’d been holding flying into the air, and I let out a yelp.
“Sorry,” Gray said, kneeling beside me, picking up discarded boxes of Kraft mac and cheese. He handed them to me one by one as I placed them on the shelf. He was quiet for a while, and the air grew a bit too cold for my liking.
“So, you work at a grocery store?”
He chuckled. “Yeah, I think we’ve established that part already.”
“How did that come about?” I paused, choosing my words wisely, so as not to offend him. In part because I didn’t want to dredge up memories he’d buried decades earlier, but also, I didn’t want us to get to a place where nightly terminations at the Pick-n-Save were an everyday occurrence. “I just wouldn’t have expected it. You wanted to be a singer.”
“I did. For a little while, at least,” he said, handing me a box of macaroni.
“What happened? Why’d you give it up?”
“Daddy. He said that they’d wasted too much of their savings by letting me chase my dream. Said he wanted me to come home and get a joblike a real man.” The words left his throat with a coating of resentment. I couldn’t blame him. Gray had talent. His voice had a habit of sending chills down my spine when he got going. “It was this or working at the auto shop withTrev—”
“Don’t.” My chest tightened, and all I could do was close my eyes and try to steady my breathing. Though we were alone in a grocery store, not a single ounce of gas around us, the smell of it consumed me.
He sat silently, knowing exactly what had caused the air to catch on the way to my lungs. Once I was able to open my eyes, his expression was overwhelming. Softer than I’d seen it since I returned.
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.” He seemed closer than he had been before I’d shut my eyes. “You still struggle with that?”
If it had been anyone else, I might have taken the question as a dig. Gray wasn’t just anyone else. He’d been right there with me when it happened. He’d seen firsthand what his brother had done to me that night. Well, the first part of my unraveling, at least. He hadn’t been privy to what happened out at the lake. Atourlake.
“It’s fine,” I said, even though it wasn’t. The last thing I wanted was for Gray to feel sorry for me. “I’m fine.” Judging by the look on his face, he knew it wasn’t true.
“Mom came with me when I went on the road,” he said, trying to lighten the mood. “She was like my little groupie. It only lasted a little over a year. I played for a few of the mega-churches, though.” His eyes widened. “The conference!” His voice boomed across the tiles and echoed down the aisle. “The Southgate Evangelical Conference. I played there. The camp we—”
“Yeah, dude, I know what it is. That was the best week of my life.” I was staring at him in awe, as if he’d just told me he’d played Madison Square Garden. The conference was just another word for glorified church camp. Four hundred boys and girls from all over the country, coming together to celebrate God. But for me—and, I suspected, for the macaroni-holding songbird to my right—it was more than that. It was a chance to get away from the strict rules set in place by our families. There had been no threats of eternal damnation at the dinner table, no scorn or shame when we acted slightly effeminate, no terrifying tyrant of a brother sleeping in the room next to the young man that I had been hopelessly, recklessly in love with, just waiting for a reason to attack. It was a week without fear. A week without shame. A week shared by two best friends. Surrounded by hundreds of other children, all I had seen was Gray.
“It was?” he asked. “I thought you didn’t believe.”
“I believed in you. In your talent.”
He blushed, quickly averting his gaze. “I recorded an album.”
The macaroni fell out of my hand. “Don’t lie.”
“Until We’re Old and Gray,” he said, speaking nothing but gibberish as far as I was concerned.
