Chapter 13
He wants to be at Ry’s and not in the din of the saloon. What he doesn’t want is to have to explain himself. Why his heart is choosing Ry over Sam and Abbi, his longest and closest friends. Doesn’t want to explain it to his parents, doesn’t want to explain it to Sam or Abbi, doesn’t want to explain it to himself. The only person he knows he won’t have to explain anything to is Ry and he feels his insides being wrenched with guilt because of this. What is wrong with him to make him a worse friend to someone more understanding?
He sits in the mould of his former self, making jokes with Sam and pretending Abbi isn’t entirely uninterested in them both, pretending that Penny and Maru are a regular part of the trio despite the mathematical impossibility.
Sam does most of the talking without seeming to feel any of the oddness. Maru says next to nothing, Sebastian’s surprised she’s here. She seems to have her eyes on Penny, watching for something Sebastian doesn’t know about.
At a certain point Abbi disappears from them. Quietly, naturally, like maybe she’ll come back. But she doesn’t. For most of the rest of the night she’s at the bar talking to Emily, Clint, with some tourists passing through.
Sam gets called over to be with his parents and their friends, promising to return soon. Maru tries to talk to Penny once he leaves but she’s halfway through a sentence when Penny’s up and excusing herself to the washroom.
She doesn’t come back and neither does Sam. Instead Penny goes to where he’s entertaining and he wraps a casual arm around her waist.
Maru sees it first, shakes her head.
“I’m going.” She says, getting up and wrapping her coat around her shoulders.
“Can’t stand hanging out with just me?” He means it as a joke.
She shakes her head again, “can’t stand watching.” She doesn’t elaborate, just leaves him to observe on his own.
When she had been in Ry’s kitchen she couldn’t speak. Her tongue had been glued to the back of her teeth.
She had taken the basket of cranberries into her hands and stood there waiting while Ry had rummaged around looking for some other gift, contemplating her sudden and keen desire to be pushed into the wall and kissed senseless. There were so many sensory facts she didn’t have access to yet; what would Ry feel like against her, how soft was her mouth, what did she taste like, how hard did she kiss, what would she do with her hands, what sounds she would make –
“You alright?” Ry had asked her, eyeing her from where she stood across the kitchen. “You look kinda flushed.”
“Are your stitches okay?” Maru had blurted out. In attempt to cool her mind she’d tried focusing on the bandage that had become visible when Ry had pushed up her sleeves.
“Stitches? Oh, not totally busted. You did a good job.”
Praise was not what she needed (or it was, but not in order to escape).
“I wasn’t really supposed to.” Maru admitted, sounding sheepish but maybe that was more to do with what was currently occupying her mind.
“Do a good job?” Ry had been amused, had seemed amused most the time they were together and Maru couldn’t help wondering if it was because her new desire was plain on her face.
“Do it at all.”
“Really?”
“…I’m not technically qualified.”
“Oh?”
And then they’d talked about Harvey, and her job, and she’d been so desperate to get away from her own desperation that she’d started rambling about the past, trading one inner truth for another.
“I was always getting into it with the faculty at school, they didn’t like that I valued my own competence over procedure. I didn’t take it very well. I took it very badly actually, very badly. And it kinda ruined me.” And then she’d laughed this weird high pitched awkward laugh and kept going, “and now I don’t really understand my place in the world, but my dad wants me to be incredible but I can’t be incredible in the way the world wants me to be, and my oldest friend hates me. So…”
“You’ll find your own way to be incredible, Maru.” Ry had said with this simple –possibly ironic but she couldn’t really tell- smile that made her feel weak and embarrassed.
“Sure,” Maru had said, “but I’m not right now.” It was just a statement, just a fact.
“You don’t need to be. In fact, it’s probably good to take a break from being exceptional every once in a while.” Ry had replied, that ironic quirk in her lip, in her eyes too. Maru hadn’t meant to come off sounding sorry for herself, but this twinge in her gut told her she had.
They’d walked back to the fair in silence and Maru’s intense feelings of desire were replaced by shame. She wasn’t supposed to talk about that stuff. She didn’t want to be the kind of person who failure destroyed so utterly – never mind the fact that she hadn’t exactly failed, just hadn’t succeeded in the way she’d envisioned – and she especially didn’t want to come off as someone sounding sorry for herself.
Why had she gone and let desire cloud her mind? If she hadn’t allowed that to happen she wouldn’t have been feeling so embarrassed, Ry wouldn’t be walking around knowing how dumb and immature she was.
When they’d gotten to town Ry had taken the basket from Maru, saying she’d get it to Gus herself. She added to the load she was carrying easily, and it was clear she’d never needed Maru’s help which only made her feel more embarrassed.
But then Ry had said “if I had known all it took to get you on the farm was asking you to do stuff for me I would have done that a lot sooner.”
“You didn’t ask.” Maru said, promptly feeling stupid for it.
“Right… well, I’ve got more stuff you could offer to carry around for me. If you wanted to do that tonight.”
Maru’s entire body tensed, was Ry propositioning her? Had she been reading Maru’s mind this whole time?
But then she’d continued, “I don’t know how many people Shane’s asking over, but probably not many. And I’ll ask Sebastian, but maybe he wants to be with Sam and Abbi tonight.”
Relief and disappointment flooded Maru’s system, she could feel the chemical spill beginning in her chest and spreading outward. “Right, I might… be with Penny.” Maru frowned, not a very good excuse seeing as she’s already admitted to Ry that Penny hated her.
Ry had just smiled – the irony replaced by something Maru didn’t want to engage with – and then had gone on to make her delivery to Gus.
She was left standing there thinking what the fuck?
She didn’t know how long she just stood there, in the middle of the fair, before Sebastian found her. He was alone now, and seemed morose.
“What’s wrong?” He’s asked her before she could ask him.
“What’s wrong with you?” She’d said back.
She was expecting him to snap back and storm off but instead she’d sighed, “I don’t really like this festival.”
Maru nodded her agreement, and then they’d walked quietly to a less centralized part of the fair and tucked themselves into the shadows of the trees.
“Ry’s inviting people over tonight.”
He’d nodded.
“She invited you.”
He’d continued nodding.
“So are you going to go?” She asked a little too harshly. She wanted him to say yes, because if he went then it wouldn’t be so weird if she did. Not that she really thought she’d let herself anyway.
He’d looked her in the eye, sceptical. “Sam made me promise to meet him at the saloon.”
“Right. Tradition.” She felt like she’d lost something, like now the option of deciding not to go wasn’t even there, it was just you can’t go.
“Are you going ?” He’d sounded suddenly interested and she’d avoided eye contact.
“I’ll probably try to hang with Penny.” She didn’t look at him so she didn’t know how he reacted to that.
“Alex?” A genuinely surprised voice sounds from the dark, then he sees the dim silhouette of Shane stepping out of the root cellar, his arms loaded with bottles of apple cider.
“I’m not too late, am I?” He says, shoving his nervous hands into his pockets.
“No.” Shane says flatly.
“Good, I wasn’t sure… traffic was bad.” He says it awkwardly. He doesn’t mention that he almost didn’t come, that all he could think about was how slimy the photographer had made him feel, but then after driving in silence for an hour his grandma had said “Shane seems to really like you,” and he’d gripped the steering wheel so hard his knuckles went white, and she’d kept going, said “he seems to really have built a life for himself” and Alex had taken too big a breath and said, “yeah,” and then she’d said “I’m glad you have a friend like that,” and he’d almost started crying because he’d never thought of Shane in that way before and he wished they actually were friends. He thought about it the whole ride back too, and then he’d started wondering how he could make it real.
“I didn’t think you were coming.” Shane says now, sounding somewhat aloof.
“Why wouldn’t I?” Alex says, trying to sound light, but really is wondering if maybe he shouldn’t have, if the invitation had just been an empty courtesy.
“You just…” Shane begins but trails off like it isn’t important, but Alex feels otherwise.
“What?” Alex takes a step closer, so he can see Shane more clearly through the dark.
Shane takes a moment to weigh his words, “you seemed uninterested when I mentioned it.”
“Oh…” Alex rubs the back of his beck impulsively, “I… yeah, that photographer guy really sucks.” He admits, not sure if Shane will take that as an explanation.
“Fuck, you don’t have to tell me. Ry almost cried of happiness when I told her we weren’t interviewing with him. Did he make you model for hours?” Shane’s aloofness melts and Alex feels his heart thump differently when this Shane is standing in front of him.
“… He wanted me to take my shirt off.” Alex admits, half grinning half wincing.
“Serious?”
Alex nods.
Shane’s eyebrow lifts. “Did you?”
Alex jokingly shoves him and Shane almost drops his bottles. Reactively Alex reaches out to steady him saying simultaneously, “you wish.” Alex feels Shane’s intake of breath, his body tensing in his arms. He releases him. “Here, let me help you,” he takes half the bottles.
They take a few steps and then Shane pauses. “Did he cross the line? I mean he obviously crossed the line asking you to take your shirt off and being an unpleasant fuck-head, but like… are you good?”
This catches him off guard. It’s not that he wouldn’t think Shane would care about this kind of thing, he just doesn’t seem the type to verbalize concern or… anything serious.
“Yeah… Uh…”
“I’m sorry, I’m not really good at talking about this.” Shane says, and at first Alex thinks he’s trying to say let’s drop the subject but then he says, “but we can. If you need. Someone. If you need someone to um, listen. Yep. Yoba, I sound like an awkward dad, I’m sorry.”
“A well-meaning dad, though.” Alex says quietly.
Shane looks at him and Alex gives a small smile back.
He looks away, shakes his head. “Yoba, I’m getting old.” They both start walking towards the bonfire, where Alex can hear people talking and laughing.
“You look good though.” He says it because he wants say something nice to him, and because in the dark, not facing each other, it feels easy. “And uh… I don’t think I need to talk about it, not right now. Thanks though.”
There’s a pause and he wonders if what he’s said is lost in the dark, but then Shane, with more softness than he would expect, says “anytime Alex.”