WICKED BOY (14) (Patreon)

(a/n: first chapter of two that are coming your way today.  warnings: again, for less 'glance and you'll miss it' allusions to child abuse.)

There was a strike at the door, a quick crack of my dad's fist over mahogany.  That, of course, turned to fists.  Urgent.  Rough.  The noise sounded like thunder — the prelude to a storm, and Lucas had a habit of seeing me at my worst, whether he wanted to or not.

"Milan Minett."  My dad called, and his tone was already foreboding at best.  I could hear his hand twist at the knob in rattling jerks, the way that he slammed into the door, the way the hinges shook.

"What does he want now?" I sent a panicked glance to Lucas, because while he visited night after night, my dad had never barged his way inside my room, hadn't noticed what a constant that Lucas had become.  And... Lucas had never seen —

"Milan, you've two seconds to tell me you don't have that fucking Gotthardt fellow in your room."  He shouted.  His voice raised again, and I wondered which room my mother had drunk herself to slumber in.  "I said two god-damned seconds, Milan."

"Holy shit... He sounds pissed."  Lucas whispered, a bit shaken, standing from where he'd perched himself at the edge of my bed.  "Dude.  Should I call someone?"

"No," I choked, felt my nerves flutter as my friend stood up straighter — his hackles raised and jaw tense.  "Lucas, — um.  Let's — don't.  Just leave,"  I whispered, nodding towards the open window.  I feared the creak of his foot on the floor.  "Quietly."

"... And if I leave, then what happens?"  he grimaced, looked as if he might — second-guessed himself, and stood at the end of my bed.  "... Just come with.  It's no biggie."

"Then, I have to come back."  I paused, a cold sweat forming.  My chest felt tight.  My friend squeezed my shoulder.

"I'm gonna call the cops."  He whispered.  "Okay?" 

But he left.  The door eventually gave way.

And the cops never came.  But I forgave him.

I forgave both.

—

The imprint of Ez's warmth lingers on my cheek — on my ears.

I, of course, attempt to avoid this thought. I chalk it up to a drunken sentiment, one that will fade in the late hours of the morning, along with the liquor that still drenches my system.

It's cold on the ride home, but I leave the window down, maybe because I've decided that it's my last trip in or out of Huxley's crosshairs.  I smile a bit at that. Before my run-in with Lucas that shook everything from its place, I was good at just treasuring memories. I held them fondly, warmly, and they took up the space that generally felt empty otherwise.

I tried not to dissect them.

"Gonna vomit?"  The taxi's driver fumbles with the heater, but it fails to kick in, and the tip of my nose feels cold. 

I shake my head, find myself drawn away by the lights reflecting off the precipitation on the back window. There's something ever-humid about Huxley at night, and especially as dawn breeches; cold and damp — where the air still clings to my clothing like a bottle of laundry fragrance.  I don't want to forget this part of it.

I contemplate that as I watch the road beside me — changing from the atmosphere of false city light, to trailer park, to stray cat and quiet gas station. The supermarkets all close early; there are no 24-hour stores like Pennbrook, but I can see the stands for street-corner farmer's markets and emptied late-night diners.

It should feel barren, like a ghost town, one that rings brightly with neon lights and distant electrical humming but dies when night falls. But it doesn't. It feels lived in. It feels alive, even in the dark.

I try to imagine a life here, a childhood here, and I'm ashamed when I think — I just can't.

I stare at Huxley's dead grass, at the rust of a truck left beside the road, tires sunk into the wet earth. Huxley created Ezra. It made Daphne. I almost smile at that, too, but I find that it's hard to.

You don't want to be a Pennbrook boy?

I was never a Pennbrook boy, I think. I never belonged to Pennbrook like Ez belongs to Huxley. I have always just belonged to the romanticization of every escape that life has to offer me. I belong to my father as he belonged to his.

But, I think, even at times when I want to — I can't let that part of me go. I can't let my memories spill over into something less pleasant and real again, or I'll fall apart. 

--

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