Authors: Mimsy Hale
“Was it worth the wait?” Jake asks, his voice cutting through the haze of Aiden’s sated drift.
“I think this is what they mean when they say ‘blissed out,’” Aiden says.
“I don’t know how we’re going to get any driving done from now on,” Jake says, head bobbing on Aiden’s chest as he shakes with silent laughter.
“Right? I mean…
God,
” Aiden replies. He presses a lazy kiss to Jake’s damp hairline and holds him close.
“Not quite, but close enough,” Jake says. “We should probably move.”
“Or not,” Aiden says, eyes drifting closed, limbs heavy. There will be time later to move, clean up, and lead each other to bed; for now, he just wants to be.
He feels Jake curl closer and brush a kiss over his nipple as he winds an arm loosely around Aiden’s waist. Rain still pounds dully on the roof of the RV, and Jake’s contented sigh is only just audible. The last thing Aiden hears before falling asleep, a light tone of surprise behind Jake’s words, is, “It means something with you.”
5,229 miles
Day Forty-three: Ohio
As far inland as it is, Ohio is not spared the effects of Hurricane Sandy as it gets closer and closer to making landfall on the East Coast.
Jake pulls his heavy jacket tighter, crosses his arms over his chest and leans into Aiden; he revels in the extra warmth when Aiden puts his arm around his shoulders. The rain falls in fine droplets, soaking them through, and the wind whipping around them makes it feel even colder.
The weather seems to have done nothing, however, to dampen the spirits of those lined up outside the Value City Arena, eager to get inside and watch Ohio State play Walsh University. The line stretches all the way around the building and moves at a glacial pace. Aiden grows bouncier and more excitable the closer they get. Jake wishes he could muster the same enthusiasm, but his feet drag and he has to work overtime to distract himself even slightly from… well, everything about this situation.
“You look like someone just kicked your puppy,” Aiden says, nudging his side.
Jake plucks at the collar of his gray shirt—borrowed from Aiden’s closet; it’s a bad fit around the shoulders—and gestures at a group of Walsh supporters farther up the line. “Their colors are red and gold. Why couldn’t we have supported the… Chevaliers, or whatever they’re called?”
“Cavaliers,” Aiden corrects him, obviously struggling to keep a straight face. “You can’t wear Cavaliers colors, Jakey. It’s Ohio; we have to support the Buckeyes! They’re the state team!”
“I don’t care who they are; you made me wear gray. You know it washes me out.” A particularly strong gust of wind pushes him back on one foot, and he braces himself. He lets out a great sigh and buries his face in Aiden’s shoulder. “I can’t believe this is the only thing to do in Ohio on a Monday.”
“Did you speak to Charlie, yet?” Aiden asks into his hair, and Jake feels a kiss amongst the words. It lifts him. A little.
“No. Let me try her again,” he says, and fishes his phone out of his pocket. Droplets of rain obscure the screen almost immediately.
He’s been trying to reach his sister on and off all day, wanting one last check-in before the hurricane hits, but every time he’s called, he’s received a busy signal. This time, to his relief, the call connects, and Charlie picks up on the fourth ring.
“Hey, Jakey,” she says, her voice sounding crackly and far away. “Is everything okay?”
Jake lets out a breath, belatedly noticing that he’s been holding it. “I’m fine, we’re both fine. I mean, it’s cold and raining, but otherwise fine,” he rambles. “What’s going on back there?”
“Nothing much. Everyone’s staying home and they pulled all the boats in yesterday, so it looks like people are just waiting for it to pass. That’s what we—what
I’m
doing, at least.”
Jake’s mind finally quiets and he closes his eyes. Conversations between him and his sister have been tepid at best; feeling genuinely worried for her is a little surprising, and very welcome.
Maybe I’m a “Real Boy” after all,
he thinks.
“Okay, so you’re safe?” he asks. “Will you go down to the basement if things get really crazy?”
Sounding surprised and touched by his concern, she says, “Jake, you don’t need to worry about me. We—I’m gonna be just fine.”
“Is Martin with you?” The pause on the line is so long that Jake checks that the call is still connected. “Sis?”
He hears a sharp inhalation. Charlie finally says, “We broke up.”
“Oh,” Jake says hesitantly, surprised and relieved in a different way.
“Yeah.
Oh,
” she says.
Pretending he can’t hear the tremor in her voice, Jake pauses and bites his lip. “I won’t lie, I’m not
un
happy about it—”
“Don’t, Jake—”
“But are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Charlie says, a hair too quickly and far too brightly. “I’m fine, just leave it alone.”
Jake kicks the ground before deciding that a straight-up, left-turn change of subject might be for the best. “The storm isn’t supposed to hit us too badly, right?”
“Jake,
seriously
. I’ve got plenty of food and water, we still have electricity, and—”
Jake stands up straight; static crackles through the phone. “Sis?”
“Just carry on having fun—in ag—over the week—”
“Charlie, can you hear me? Charlie!”
With one last explosive crackle, the line clears and Charlie’s voice comes through uninterrupted. “Oh, before I let you go, I actually need to run something by you.”
The unbroken sentence allows Jake to relax again. Running a hand through his wet hair and turning his face up to the rain, he closes his eyes and asks, “What is it?”
“I’ve been thinking that… maybe I could go back to school,” she says.
“Charlie, are you kidding? That’s great!” Jake says, and smiles at Aiden, who looks back at him with a bemused expression. “Why would you need to run that by me? You know I’ve always said you should go back and finish.”
Though the line is clear, Charlie’s voice grows a little hesitant. “Well, Caltech isn’t exactly cheap. I’d have two more years and everything I’ve managed to save up would barely cover books.”
“Okay, so…”
“I think we should sell the house.”
“You think we should
what?
” Jake asks without thinking, sure he’s misheard her.
“Hear me out,” she says, all hesitation gone as her words spill out in a pleading rush. “The mortgage is finished now, and all the money I got from Dad is tied up in the shop. Gary can’t afford to buy me out of my half, so… doesn’t it just make sense?”
Jake shakes his head, sending rainwater trickling down his neck, and leans a hand on the wall for support. If he didn’t know it was just his knees shaking, he’d think the ground was falling away beneath him. It might as well be. “Charlie, we can’t. We
can’t
; we grew up in that house! Can’t you just… you’re co-partner, wouldn’t that cover tuition?”
“I ran the numbers myself,” she says, and Jake can almost see her sinking back into the couch, the couch they all used to sit on together, drawing her knees up to her chest and tracing patterns on her thigh. “I’m the only who has time to do my pieces and train the newbies. We’d probably have to bring in two people to replace me, so… it just wouldn’t work. This is the only way I can come up with.”
“There
has
to be another way,” Jake snaps, pushing all the finality he can into his words. “We’re not selling the house.”
“Jake, there
isn’t
another way. I mean, if you wanna come up with a plan then be my guest. But I’m telling you, I’ve looked at this from every angle I can think of,” she says, her voice just as firm. “We could get tenants, but both of us will probably end up hundreds if not
thousands
of miles away, so how would we check in on them or do maintenance? And it’s not like you can buy me out—”
“I could petition, get the money released early, like you did,” Jake protests.
“Come on, Jakey,” she says softly. “There’s only one reason I got access to mine, and you know exactly what it is.”
“I know,” Jake says, sighing. Aiden looks at him with concern, and Jake tries to smile back with a reassurance he doesn’t feel.
“Anyway, I had the house valued, and it wouldn’t be enough,” Charlie continues. “Plus, we might already have a buyer, so—”
“Wait,” Jake interrupts. “What buyer? How long has this been going on?”
“Only a couple months—”
“A couple
months?
And you did all of this behind my back?”
“Jakey, it’s not like that. Just wait and—”
“No,
you
fucking wait,” Jake says, stepping away from the wall and turning his back on the line, the rain, the goddamn basketball game, all of it. “You tell me we need to sell the house I fucking grew up in, the house that’s all we have left of Mom and Dad, and this was all happening when I was still there?”
“I’m not
telling
you to do anything, I’m just asking for your help,” Charlie says, her voice raised; she sounds exactly like their mom did when she was letting them have it for misbehaving. “Don’t you want me to be able to finish school?”
Fury makes his vision go red. “Don’t do that, Charlie. Don’t you
dare
try to guilt-trip me into this.”
“Jake… it’s time you figure out a way to let go of Dad. It’s been seven years—don’t you think you need to move on? This could be—”
Nausea washes over him, and he can’t listen anymore. He disconnects the call and walks back to Aiden on shaky legs. They’re almost at the front of the line now, he notices. As deliberately as he can, he leans into Aiden and buries his face into Aiden’s neck, breathing deeply and trying to keep from vomiting all over him.
Everything seems to speed up; momentum is building around him and carrying him along as if he is in the eye of a storm, the middle car of a runaway train. The most unsettling part, however, is not the sensation of speed—it’s that he doesn’t know where he is going. All at once he wishes he were back home in Brunswick, sitting on the couch with Aiden opposite Charlie in their father’s ancient chair, laughing hysterically as they all try to come up with the most outrageously incorrect answers to questions on
Jeopardy.
Everything used to be so much simpler,
he thinks. A rush of nostalgia sweeps over him, and he imagines the sound of a videotape rewinding, the way the machine churned into high gear after ten seconds or so; the click of jewel cases as he thumbed through CDs at Studio 48; the beeping and scraping of a dial-up modem.
Warm fingers wrap around Jake’s wrist and Aiden asks, “Are you okay?”
“Not really,” Jake answers dully. “Charlie wants to sell the house, I still have that fucking crick in my neck from sleeping on the floor the other night, and everything was better in the nineties.”
“All right, come on,” Aiden commands softly, taking Jake by the shoulders and hauling him upright. Jake doesn’t have the energy to argue. “So why was everything better in the nineties? Because the way I see it, we’ve got a hell of a lot more now than we did back then.”
They crowd under the awning above the doors to the arena, sighing as a blast of heat from inside thaws them out a little. Grateful that Aiden didn’t ask about the house, Jake asks, “Like what?”
“High-speed Internet, iPods, cell phones, DVDs—”
“No, those can’t be separate things. Those all come under the category of technology,” Jake interrupts. “I defy you to name one thing that wasn’t great about the nineties.”
Distracted, Aiden hands over their tickets and they both submit to the security screening, but as soon as they’re through and following signs for the game, he triumphantly announces, “Scrunchies.”
“Something relevant to
us,
Dan.”
“Lack of equal rights.”
“Point. What else?”
“Not being able to use the Internet when someone was on the phone.”
“And what about all the books, the TV shows, the
music?”
Jake counters, dredging up long-forgotten memories. “You were
all
about alternative and ska in the nineties; don’t think I’ve forgotten. And another thing—”
“Okay, okay, oh my
god,”
Aiden exclaims, laughter running through his words. “I get it. The nineties were awesome. You win, Twentieth Century Boy.”
“Thank you,” Jake says smugly. Winning a ludicrous argument shouldn’t feel as good as it does, but he’ll take every little victory, every tiny lift in his spirits right now.
It’s stiflingly hot inside, and he takes off his jacket and folds it inside out over his arm. All too soon, however, and almost without thinking, he takes out his phone and starts pulling up the news and weather reports he’s already checked countless times. He can feel the tension seeping back into his body, but he’s unable to stop himself from scrolling through news report after news report.
“Couldn’t have done that in the nineties,” Aiden mutters, and when Jake ignores him, Aiden takes the phone from his hand and pockets it. With a reproachful glance, he says, “You’re going to drive yourself crazy. Let’s just go watch some basketball and I promise you’ll forget all about it.”
“Doubtful,” Jake says, unable to hold back a note of petulance. Still, he gives in and hooks his arm through Aiden’s as they head inside the arena. “But fine. Let’s do it your way.”
Once they find their seats and the players jog onto the court, Aiden smiles and cheers with the crowd. By the time Jake has figured out who he’s supposed to be cheering for, though, the game is already starting.
Jake doesn’t understand the game, or why they keep having time-outs when it would be over that much sooner if they just kept playing, and though Aiden tries to be helpful by explaining the rules, none of it sticks. He’s trapped in Charlie’s words, sentences playing over and over in his mind like a broken record.
A player dunks the ball.
It’s time you figure out a way to let go of Dad.
The ball zooms back up the court.
It’s been seven years.
A Cavalier intercepts it and passes it to a teammate.
Don’t you think you need to move on?