Chapter 38

Merry Christmas, Iz…

I miss you. We all do.

This is our second Christmas without you. Time seems to be speeding up, taking me further and further away from you. I wish I could stop it. Slow it down. Every day that passes, means less and less of a chance of you being found alive.

There's so much I regret. So much I would've done differently. So much I would've told you.

Now would be a good time for you to finally come home… give us a sign, something, anything.

I'm sorry. I never should've left you

I wish it was me

AGE 18, DECEMBER

It'sChristmas Eve when I finally come out to my parents.

We're seated at the dining room table, just like every Christmas growing up, except it's only the three of us, and there's Chinese take-out scattered across the table, because the days of home-cooked meals—even for holidays—are long gone.

Well, with the exception of the occasional lasagna or pasta, the only things my dad really knows how to cook well.

But at least this year we're making some attempt at normalcy. Last year, the first Christmas without Izzy, I didn't even realize we nearly skipped over this holiday completely until Sherry and Phoebe showed up Christmas night with a stack of containers overstuffed with food.

Mason wasn't with them. I honestly don't know what he did that day, prior to stumbling into my bed later that night, smelling like beer and cigarettes.

And while it stings that he mostly avoids this house, unless he's fucked up of course, I can't really blame him.

Too many memories.

The fact that he still comes here at all…

Well, that's grief for you, or whatever you want to call this. It's unpredictable and nonlinear. One second the memories are just that—memories—and the next you're rocking in a corner, praying to whoever might be listening for some kind of relief.

Or breaking your hand off some dumbass's face…

And yet, we still continue to torture ourselves by revisiting them, rather than shoving them all away, and starting over.

It's when Dad's in the middle of slurping up pork lo mein from a fork, while Mom's twirling hers in a bowl of chicken and rice she's barely touched when I finally break the silence that seems to pervade this house like a living, greedy thing.

"I'm gay," I say out loud for the sixth time in my life.

No warning.

No preamble.

No hitch or inflection in my voice.

It just is what it is. The sky is blue, and the grass is green, Izzy's still missing, and I, Jeremy Montgomery, am gay.

It's a long moment before one of them seems to notice that I'd even spoken.

I take a big bite of sesame chicken, chewing slowly, mechanically, wondering if there was even a point announcing something so trivial compared to everything else that's been going on for the last year and a half.

Even if my parents didn't know about me—because come on, who are we kidding here? My sexuality's been a neon red sign hanging over my head since before I even knew what limp wrists and lisps meant—I can't see how this in any way measures up to the gaping emptiness represented by the vacant chair across from me.

Dad's the first to snap out of it. He lowers his fork, and brings his hand up to shove a noodle into his mouth that tried to escape. He swallows hard, and clears his throat with a little shake of his head. "Sorry, kid, what was that?" he says in a raspy voice.

I stifle a sigh.

I know he heard me.

I don't know whether to be grateful or pissed off that he wants a re-do, but end up settling with a resigned sort of acceptance. This is just how it is now.

He's trying… and that's more than I can say for the version of him last year. The one who forgot my birthday until there were only hours of it left.

I'll take this one over the ghost roaming the halls and staring off into space any day.

Swallowing my mouthful of food, I take a sip of iced tea, washing it down, before speaking.

"I'm gay," I say for the seventh time ever. This time, I meet my dad's dark brown gaze, rather than tell the empty seat facing me.

I didn't realize how shakily I said it the first time—the first time tonight, that is—not until this very moment when I hear how clearly and confidently my voice rings out across the otherwise silent room.

This isn't a revelation, but a confirmation.

It's making peace with the inevitable.

And I see that evidenced in my dad's gleaming eyes, just as much as I feel it in the way my chest seems to expand, like my body is finally able to accept its first full breath of air since we sat down.

Dad's mouth tightens at the corners and he nods a couple times. It takes him a second to find his voice, and when he does, it's just three ragged words I haven't heard from him in so long, that I can't even remember when he last said them.

"I love you."

My eyes grow hot, and tingles spread across my face. It's doing that thing again, twitching and slackening, like it's melting from my bones.

For one bright, hot, agonizing second…

I feel it.

All of it.

The burning in my chest…

Rage and resentment, bitterness and helplessness, and so much goddamn sadness that I don't know how I've been able to stave it out for so long.

But then, just as quick as it makes itself known, that ice wall comes slamming back down before I can even decide if I'm brave enough to finally face it all, once and for all.

"Eva?" Dad says, still looking at me, his voice wavering the slightest bit.

My swallow goes down like glass.

He clears his throat, turns to look at Mom across the table, and says more firmly, "Eva."

Chest tight, I hang my head, staring hard at my plate.

If I disappear, she'll notice me…

"Y-yes?" a soft, distant voice says.

Chewing my lip, I peek over at the occupied seat on my right, and through a veil of messy blond hair long overdue for a trim, I watch Mom as she blinks out of her daze. Brows knitted. Lips turned down in a frown.

I don't have to look at Dad to know he's frowning too, but for different reasons.

A year ago, he wouldn't have even noticed how withdrawn she is. Probably wouldn't have cared much either.

Not because he didn't want to… he just couldn't.

Dr. Priatt made sure to drive that point home when we started our weekly sessions with a grief and family counselor a little under three months ago.

"It's a capacity issue. Not a want issue. Think of what you're going through as an illness. You can't very well go to work or even visit with loved ones when you're bedridden and unable to hold any food down. You want to get up. You want to eat. You want to be there for those you love. But you can't. You need to ride it out. Listen to your body. Your mind. Give it what it needs to heal, even if that's just time."

Ironically enough, my Dad seems to be the only one really benefiting from the sessions. He still has his forums, sure, but he's not spending 24/7 staring at a screen and chasing imaginary leads anymore.

He's…functioning.

Moving forward.

As for Mom and me…

Well, how can I blame her or judge her for being so distant, when I go through my days like a zombie? Only difference is I have a Mason to distract myself. A purpose… even if that purpose is feeling more futile by the day, as he continues to spiral and fade away before my very eyes.

But it's better than… than that. The thing I keep out. The unbearable agony that comes when I remember half of me is fucking missing. Gone without a trace. Likely fucking dead in a ditch somewhere, or floating face down in a shallow river at the bottom of a ravine.

Or, worse, being tortured and abused and raped and who the fuck knows what else.

Meanwhile, here I am, sitting in a cushy house with both of our parents, eating cold Chinese take-out when she could be starving, telling my parents I'm gay like it amounts to anything actually meaningful other than, oh wait?—

I'm the only kid they have left.

So much for their heteronormative wedding dreams coming true.

So much for grandchildren, seeing as I'm pretty sure I won't have any.

Scowling at my stupid thoughts, I stab my fork into a piece of chicken, the metal creaking between my fingers.

"Bubs," Mom chokes out, from where she's crouched down next to my chair, and I have to blink a couple times to ensure I'm not just hallucinating.

So lost in my head, I didn't even hear her move.

"I'm gay," I say out loud for the eighth time in my life. It just feels empty now.

A tremulous smile stretches across her face, and I find myself surprised when little cracks don't form across her pale, too-tight skin. Where mine feels like rubber, hers looks like porcelain on the cusp of shattering.

Thick tears bubble up around her lashes when she reaches for me, and my fork drops with a clang, rice tumbling across the table. She hauls me into her arms like I weigh nothing at all, when she's the one who has a carton of strawberry flavored Ensure next to her plate because eating hasn't exactly been a priority this last year and a half.

Thin arms wrap around me with vice-like strength that is borderline painful. My bones protest, grinding against each other, chafing against my muscle and flesh.

I can't remember the last time she hugged me…

She hovers and she worries… but it's from a distance. The second I'm in her sights—the second she's assured I'm home and safe—she pulls away again.

And I wonder if she's having the same thoughts—the same realization—because her grip on me tightens impossibly more.

I can't breathe.

I don't want to.

If I do, I'll feel the hands now cupping my cheeks, and I'll smell her skin, and I'll remember everything I've lost.

I'll remember that she's hugging me so tightly, like she's terrified I'll disappear, because she can't hug her.

Mom loves me, she loves me. I know this.

If she didn't, she wouldn't be hounding me to check in every five minutes that I'm not under this roof.

But it does little to erase that little voice whispering in the back of my head, that she's not secretly wishing I was someone else.

Wishing…it was her daughter instead who was spared from whatever force swooped into our lives and tore our family apart.

We stare at each other until her face blurs into something indistinguishable, and the emotion clogging my throat gets so dense I feel like I might throw up. And before I'm even aware of what I'm doing, I'm prying myself away.

Dad calls after me. Mom reaches for me. I even think I hear her fall to her knees, but I'm already gone.

It's as if an impenetrable wall has slammed down between me and them, and the Chinese takeout left abandoned on the table, barely eaten, and the empty chair that no longer feels strange anymore. A wall not unlike the one in my head that is currently quaking, crumbling under the shifting pressure.

It's a joke.

All of this is a fucking joke.

I don't wake up forgetting anymore.

Izzy's absence is no longer this glaring hole in our lives, but a toxic sludge that has moved in and contaminated every aspect of our lives, making what once was, the oddity. And this, the norm.

And it's stupid. It's all so fucking stupid.

The hallway shrinks to a slit. The stairs disappear from under my feet. I'm practically floating into my room. Flying.

My door slams behind me, and fingers that no longer belong to me reach around to lock it.

I find myself crashing to my knees in front of my nightstand.

A drawer opens.

Reality shivers around me.

I'm staring into the dull glint of a razor, and my mouth is open in a silent scream, my jaw stretched so wide, I don't know how I don't snap something. The world is shaking. Blood is roaring in my ears.

I hunch over, and the razor tumbles to the floor between my knees. White fingers dig into the rug, turning red around the nail beds. I push and I push, desperate to feel something, anything.

The blade taunts me.

Beckons me.

It's been years…

For him, for him, always for him…

I squeeze my eyes shut and curl forward into a tight ball, knees digging into my chest, and my head bowed to the ground like I'm in prayer.

"Izzy," I whisper thickly in a voice I don't even recognize. It pours out of me from some deep, untouched place.

"Izzy, Izzy, Izzy."

It becomes a chant—choked, yet hiss-like, until it's all running together in a constant stream until once more I'm screaming soundlessly at the floor, fists clenched so tight I feel a sting in my palms where my blunt nails push against the skin.

Bleed. Bleed it out.

Release it.

Let it all go.

Time loses all meaning, but I'm vaguely aware of someone at some point knocking on my door. How I manage a response I have no idea.

"I'm fine," I call out, falling back on my ass. And it scares me how believable it sounds, even to my own ears.

Whoever it is hesitates, lingering—Dad probably. I picture him standing there with his head bowed to the door, hand splayed against the wood as he fights with himself.

Let it go, please let it go, I beg silently.

And a moment later, he does. His footsteps retreat, and I swallow, blow out a breath, and tip my head back, staring blankly, numbly up at my star-smattered ceiling, wishing on plastic that is about as gracious as what's in the sky.

Later,I snap out of my heavy fog when my door creaks open.

Before I crawled into bed, I had just enough wherewithal to remember to unlock it, as I always make sure to do, just in case.

There's still enough light in the hall, surrounding the silhouetted figure slipping into the room that tells me Mom and Dad are still downstairs.

He's early.

Like really fucking early.

The door closes behind him with a soft click, plummeting the room into near total darkness once more, with the exception of the faintly glowing stars and planets above our heads of course.

Mason says nothing as I hear the distinct sound of him toeing off his shoes. And the zip of a jacket as he rounds the bed, followed by a quiet rustle as he removes it and hangs it over my desk chair.

The mattress creaks and sinks when he joins me, sliding under the covers on his side.

Distantly, I wonder what my parents must think. I have no doubt they know he stays here sometimes; sleeps in my room—Mason isn't exactly quiet when he stumbles drunk into the house, up the stairs, and all but falls into my room. But at least when it's the middle of the night, we can pretend otherwise.

Regardless, I don't have the energy to worry about it.

Nor do I wait for him to curl around me.

Rather I find myself rolling over, and before my brain can catch up with what my body's got planned, I'm throwing my arms around him and burying my face in his chest.

He stiffens, going utterly still.

His heart pounds in my ears, and I swear there's a momentary skip—or a hitch of his lungs. But I'm probably just imagining it.

I squeeze my eyes shut, wondering if maybe I can get away with pretending I'm asleep. Maybe if I hold really still…

Breathe. Don't forget to breathe.

Big mistake.

He smells like Heaven. It's woodsy and clean with a hint of something sweeter—like engine oil.

And it has me going still.

"Your dad called," he says in an unreadable voice.

Oh.

I chew the inside of my lip until I taste iron, and hold him even tighter.

He releases a breath, his chest collapsing beneath me, and slowly, clumsily, arms come around me, agonizingly sweet in their familiarity.

Ear pressed against his chest, I listen to his heart pound, counting each beat as it speeds up.

Shaky breaths coast along my hair, growing hotter and heavier with each passing second. The strands curled over my forehead dance and flutter, tickling me, but I don't make a single move to fix it.

"He said you… he said you were upset?"

Throat squeezing, I remain mute. Still.

I wait for Mason to pry me off him—push me away.

We don't do this. Not like this. Not consciously. For all I know, he doesn't even remember those nights. He only ever reaches for me when he's drunk or high off his ass.

Is he high now? I wonder.

Maybe that's why he doesn't smell like he bathed in vodka tonight. He's had the cast off for almost two months now, but still insists that it hurts. Hurts enough he still needs the Vicodin.

My chest squeezes as I remember that night back in September, the one year anniversary of Izzy's disappearance, and what I asked of him deep into the night, unable to help my worry from encroaching on us.

"I trust you," I'd told him.

Hoping that would be enough.

Hoping he wouldn't be so weak as to cave to the lulling lure of prescription painkillers. I could tell from the second they kicked in that night—the way he seemed to just sort of melt into this relaxed version of Mason I'd never met before, not even before Izzy, that prescribing those pills was a mistake.

But what the fuck could I do? He was hurting.

But now he's always hurting…

"Jer?" he says gruffly, pulling me back to the present. He's not slurring, but that's what's so sneaky about the pills.

It's easy to pretend it's helping him more than hurting him.

"Yeah?" I say quietly, finally speaking.

"Do you…"

Emotion momentarily steals his voice, but I feel the weight of whatever it was he was about to say nonetheless. Feel it in the rapid panicked pattering of his heart against my ear. And I understand. Even before he gets the words out, I get it now—why he's as tense as he is. Why he trembles. Why his heart is threatening to burst from his chest.

"Do you still feel her?"

Because of course. Of course he thinks that's what this is all about.

My fingers flex against his side, sinking into that soft spot under his ribs, getting twisted and lost in his shirt.

"Yes," I lie, like I always do.

And he exhales, like he always does.

I try to push off him to pull myself away…

But he doesn't let me.

Everything in me goes pliant, and I'm jello.

Strong, lean arms creep higher, folding over themselves as he wraps them securely around my upper back.

And for some reason, I find myself saying no louder than a whisper, my voice devoid of any emotion, "I came out to my parents."

He remains quiet, but I know, like my dad, he heard me.

"Mom…she hugged me. Smiled too," I tell him robotically. "Dad said he loves me." I blink. "I can't remember the last time…" My voice crackles, fading, emotion finally slipping through.

A sort of dangerous stillness overcomes Mason, tension blanketing the room that even through my still mostly numb haze, I can sense it.

"I just…" I start to say.

"You just what?" he says raggedly.

I close my eyes, suck in my cheeks. "Nothing. Never mind."

I just wonder if they would have gone this long without saying it to Izzy, had it been my chair that was empty instead.

But I keep the doubts circling in my mind to myself. I won't do that to him.

Sure you're just not scared of what he'd say? You know he probably thinks it too. Imagines it… wishes it…

I seal my eyes shut once more, slamming a steel door down on that line of thinking.

Because that's exactly it. But at least my silence provides me with the illusion that no one actually thinks that. We all know the truth. We all know the fates fucked up.

Seconds pass slowly, unrushed.

When it happens, I'm certain I'm mistaken. That he is drunk, just not reeking of it. That he is high—high out of his mind, which is the likelier scenario here.

Because there's absolutely no way in this universe—in this timeline—that Mason Wyatt—Mason fucking Wyatt—is burying his face in my hair and kissing my head and holding me so tight I almost forget what it's like to not be held.

"I'm gonna throw you a party," he whispers roughly, his voice muffled.

A short, rusty laugh bursts out of me, and I'm blinking rapidly into the darkness. "No, you're not."

"Am so." And he says it so simply, like it's a done deal.

It reminds me of the Mason from before—the one who'd smile in the face of my bristling reluctance. The one who'd seek me out from across a crowded room, when I was certain I was invisible.

He was never as pushy or aggressive about things like Izzy. Instead it was more a comforting, matter-of-fact sort of determination that never failed to make me simultaneously outraged and weak in the knees. He knew me better than I knew myself…

Just like I knew him.

It's been so long now since I've seen glimmers of the old Mason, that I forgot what it does to me.

But that Mason never held me like this…

Spurred by the sudden fear of losing this—losing him—I strengthen my grip on him like I could keep him here, keep him from destroying himself. Like it could make up for the fact I only have this to begin with—this touchy, cuddly Mason who needs me—because she's not here.

And I think I get it now. Mom's desperation tonight. Mason's, too, every time he curls himself around me late at night, with only the moonlight and plastic stars and ghosts as our witnesses.

It sneaks up on you—this soul deep, terrible need.

It snatches you up in its spindly fingers, before you even realize your feet are no longer touching the ground. And you're as helpless to break free as the person you smother with it.

Difference is…

In his arms, I'm a stand-in for someone else.

In mine, he's everything I've always wanted.

Would I trade this to have my sister back?

Most days, I'd say yes. It would kill me, yes, but without her I'm already half gone, withering away by the day. Barely hanging on. So what difference does it make anyway?

Tonight though… tonight, I don't know.

I don't know that I could actually choose. This or her. Not when I have him to hang onto.

And that's the ugly truth of the matter, one I'll carry to the grave, one that won't even scar.

It'll stay buried inside me, pushing and squirming at my too tight skin until I'm old and gray. Skin that is currently smooth, and unbroken all over, save for the tiny red crescent-moons decorating my palms, the only evidence of this evening's spiteful victory.

No, no. I'll keep this one inside.

Let it rot me along with everything else.