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“What is this?” Ethan whispered, because he somehow had a feeling that when one stood in front of something awe-inspiring, it was a good idea to whisper. Like at his grandma’s funeral when he was twelve and he’d stood in front of her open casket, his hand firmly clasped in his mom’s. His mom had whispered then and Ethan had wondered why. Because his Grandma Gladys was already dead. But now he got it. Certain occasions in life just called for silence.
“It’s calledGuernica to Wounded Knee.It’s my favorite painting.” Avery looked at him, a ceremonious look in his eyes. “I remember the very first time that I saw this painting. It was on a high school field trip, and I remember not being able to take my eyes off it.” Avery smiled at the memory. “I got away from my class that day—I never even realized that they’d moved on to other parts of the gallery until a security guard asked me if I was lost.” Avery had a faraway look in his eyes. “I remember feeling like telling him‘not anymore,’because in that moment I just knew.”
“What?” Ethan murmured, taking in the impressive monstrosity in front of him. He hadn’t yet decided if the painting was really awful or the most amazing thing he’d ever seen. Avery swallowed and closed his eyes briefly.
“That everything is connected. That no matter who we are or where we are born, our struggle is always the same. Our fears are the same and so are our hopes and dreams. The core of the human spirit transcends everything… time, place, language, culture… oppression, even.”
“What do you mean?” Ethan wasn’t sure that he followed Avery’s stream of thoughts. To him, the painting was a huge mess of colors, human limbs, screaming animals and just… horror.
“I mean… It doesn’t matter if you were fighting against Franco’s fascist regime in Spain in the 1930s or if you were slaughtered at the Massacre of Wounded Knee in 1890. Or if your children were taken from you while you were incarcerated. Or if the land that your ancestors had inhabited for thousands of years was taken over by multibillion dollar oil companies. It doesn’t matter. The human struggle is always the same. Birth. Survival. Death. It’s all we ever know for sure. Everything else is just a random collection of moments.” Avery nodded at the painting, lost in his memories. “And in that moment, I got it. I finally got it. Standing in front of Natchez’s testimony of human greed and suffering, I got it.”
Ethan looked at the explosive colors and his gaze narrowed in on a mother and a child, wounded or perhaps even dead.
“What?” Ethan whispered, tears gathering at the corners of his eyes. “What did you get?”
“That life is just so random. Where we are born. And to whom. How our life will turn out and how we will leave this world. I know to most people, it seems disheartening that we don’t know anything for sure, but to me this insight felt liberating. An endless row of possibilities. An endless road paved with places, people, experiences…”
“Yeah, I know. I know what you mean,” Ethan replied, momentarily stunned out of his mind, and then overwhelmed by a sense of regret and resignation.
“You do?” Avery’s face glowed in the dim light, his golden eyebrows raised in surprise.
“Yeah. I mean, it makes sense, right? If nothing is certain, anything is possible… Or at least it should be…”
“Exactly!” Avery whisper-yelled and the security guard looked in their direction before he once again relaxed into his chair. “I remember coming home that day, telling my parents about the painting, and they looked at me like I was fucking crazy. Like I’d lost my mind. I probably had,” Avery shrugged, biting his bottom lip in deep thought.
“No, I get it,” Ethan nodded. “It’s like my map, you know? The one that Matty and I made. All the Xs. They’re these… perfect places. Or at least, that’s what Matty called them. I mean, at a glance they are just random spots on a map, but Matty and I made them ours. Every X is significant. It marks a conscious decision. A dream. A possibility.” Ethan’s voice sounded gruff, and he swallowed. “We were supposed to go to all these places together. That was the idea. It was silly, really… A childish fantasy…”
“It’s not silly, Eth,” Avery shook his head, blond locks flowing around him. “It’s beautiful.”
“You think?”
“Of course. One of those Xs lead you to me,” Avery blushed, eyes downcast.
“Yeah, I guess. In a way, Matty lead me to you,” Ethan murmured, astonished.
“How so?”
“Because it was Matty’s X. The Ouachita National Park. It was his dream.” Briefly, Ethan had to close his eyes, or else he had a feeling that he would cry. It was all too much. All of it. This moment. The painting. The map. Matty… Avery.Avery.
“That’s what I mean,” Avery breathed as he once again turned to the massive painting. “That’s what life is truly about, Eth. To move and be moved. To connect with others, transcending time and place. To be blown away and to experience greatness in the simplest of things. To acknowledge our own mortality but that we can escape it momentarily in those brief moments where we connect with the past and with others.”
It suddenly dawned on Ethan that Matty had known this all along. That this was what Matty had meant all those years ago in the tree house, drawing on the map, coloring in all the perfect places.
“I’ve been chasing it ever since, you know,” Avery continued, a frailty to his voice. “That feeling of overwhelming amazement and insight I felt the first time I saw Natchez’s painting. These… I don’t know… loud places, you know?”
“Loud places?” Ethan repeated, consumed with Avery’s beauty as his face lit up talking about the painting. He saw the teenage version of Avery telling his parents about his experience. He must have been a few years younger than Ethan was now.
“Yes. Loud places,” Avery nodded. “Places that are so spectacularly beautiful that they make so much noise that it wakes up your dormant heart. My heart was fucking kick-started that day, Eth. And every day after that when I’m overwhelmed by the beauty of something. Like the wall paintings. Or the vastness of the desert… Or that day… In the changing room… The entire world was suddenly so loud, screaming at me all at once when I saw you.” Avery swallowed audibly and Ethan felt the hair at the back of his neck rise. A chill ghosted across his naked arms.
“The world was screaming so loudly that it woke up my fucking heart, Eth. You woke it up.” Avery focused back on the painting, eyelids fluttering, while he linked his left pinky with Ethan’s. “It’s been yours ever since…” he whispered.
Yeah, me too, Avery. Me too,Ethan thought to himself. Because it was true. He, too, had been sleepwalking through life when Avery had blasted into it like a fucking ray of sunshine. And he knew that when he left for Maine in a few days, he would miss it. The light. He would miss Avery. Because even though Avery had told him that night that he, Ethan, was the light, he knew better. Because Avery was the fucking light.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
Matty – Now
“JESUS, SWEETHEART, WHATa day, huh?” As soon as Austin closed the door behind them, Cassie came shooting from the living room like a heat seeking missile. She knew better than to jump at them since she was no longer a puppy, but she still spun around in circles in front of them, unable to contain her excitement.
