She leaned down and kissed me, putting her tongue inside my mouth. Her breath was sweet, and for the second time in less than a day I was about to fuck a woman who wasn’t my wife.
Carly
Five Days after Truman’s death
You think it is Tommy, but it is not. It has nothing to do with him. I hope he dies right now. I hope he is caught and put in prison for the rest of his life, strapped to a table and injected with something to kill him. Truman. No. It cannot be. Tommy could not have done that! No way! I still cannot believe my Truman is dead. I cannot believe I stood there and watched it happen, that I didn’t run and take the bat away from Tommy. That I didn’t stand between Tommy and Truman. That I didn’t go to the police right away. That I didn’t.
I remember I went inside the house and I could hear the rain coming down so hard. I thought for certain it would wake my father, or that he’d already be up waiting for me. I know if I’d walked into the living room and he’d been sitting there, his face etched with concern, I would’ve told him everything. Why didn’t I tell him? Everything would’ve been different from that moment on. Yes. Everything would’ve been different. Everything. I would’ve never been able to walk into the Engroff house again, never put my arms around Amy or Ethan, never been able to walk into Truman’s room and smell him, sense his presence.
But I wasn’t thinking that then. Not when I ran home. I wanted to get in my shower and wash away the shouting, the fists I’d seen Tommy use on Truman’s body. I scrubbed and scrubbed and it would not go away. I got under the covers and put the comforter over my head. I could still hear the sound of the rain crashing down, against the window, and it was like Truman’s voice telling me to do something. And all the time I lay there and heard Truman’s silence, all the time Tommy was attacking him and I knew that his silence was directed toward me. I knew he was saying to me,
Why were you with this person? What could possibly have made you want to be with this person?
And all the while I’m saying to Truman,
I only wanted you. You know that! It is just like you, God damn you, to be private in your murder! Not a word from you. Not a look of admonishment toward me.
And all the time I knew you were totally fucking against me hooking up with Tommy Beck, but you never said a word. You never once said, “I don’t understand what you like about him. You are so much smarter and more interesting than that.”
And when my father came up after church and told me the news about Truman, the first thing I thought was
Tommy did not do that. There is no way the boy I have slept with the past few years has murdered my Truman. No way.
And so I did not say I was there the morning Truman was killed. I couldn’t.
And Ethan. If he knew I’d been there, how could I have ever looked at him again? How could I ever again see my Truman in his face, his actions, the way he smiles?
Carly girl. Go upstairs and make Truman smile. Go up there and do your magic.
I felt privileged. I always felt privileged there. All three of them made me feel privileged. A genuine friend of the Engroff family. Such a good friend I could just walk in the side door and go through the kitchen and head on upstairs. Not say a word if I didn’t feel like it. Just head on upstairs and knock on Truman’s door—no matter who you were, you always had to knock—and then go in. Go into the inner sanctum of Truman Engroff’s private world. I was allowed in there and very few other people were.
But that wasn’t enough for me. I wanted to be a part of him. I wanted to share everything with him. And he just wouldn’t let me, wouldn’t let anyone. But the Engroffs love me. They trust me. Amy knows I mourn as much as she does. I suffer as she does.
Drink wine,
she said, and I knew I couldn’t ever tell them. A boy I’d actually let enter my body, whisper in my ear, trace the full length of me with his lips. How do I tell Ethan and Amy that? How do I tell my father and mother that?
He calls me every day. He texts me. He attempts to reach me on Facebook. He comes up to me in the hall. I cannot stand the sight of him.
Please Carly,
he whispers.
Please believe me when I tell you I did not do that! Please, won’t you believe me?
But that is as far as he goes. He doesn’t dare go any further. He knows there is that thin line that, if crossed, would push me to go to the police. To walk in and finally tell Detective Parachuk what I saw. That I was at that square and so was Tommy Beck. But I couldn’t. I can’t.
When I was told by my father that Truman had been murdered, bludgeoned to death, and I thought of the long night in my bed with the rain thundering down, the covers felt as if they weighed more than my entire seventeen fucking years of living. It was more than I was capable of pushing off me to walk into my parents’ room and announce I’d just witnessed the only boy I’d ever loved beaten to death by an imposter: a stealer of my heart, of my virginity, of my Truman.
When my father sat next to me on my bed and I wept into his smell and the heat of his body and his strength, I was thinking,
And all the while the rain kept thundering down on the roof above me, and I could visualize Truman out there, alone, with the other dead, unable to speak his outrage, unable to turn his Truman eyes toward me with absolute admonishment
. If he could have, this is what he would have said:
This is what you chose, Carly? This is the way my life ended? How could you do this to me? How could you forsake my life for such a violent, dull-witted person? I thought I knew you better than that. I thought you were the Carly who I could always trust in to be by my side, to accept me for who I am. I thought you loved me, Carly Rodenbaugh. I thought we were lovers sharing our life with no one else. I thought.
And still, I said to myself, Tommy could not have done that.
And the next morning, before we all knew about Truman, my father knocked on my door. I’d heard them stirring when the black became grey through my window and I began to hear the birds, like the final violation of what had happened in the black hole of night where all of my life was pulled into a vortex of anger. I wondered: How could the birds sing? How could my father knock on my door?
Carly-Barly, are you awake?
Didn’t he know, couldn’t he hear the hate under the covers that still would not release me, or see that he could no longer give me pet names? No one could after what I’d done. Oh, my God! Oh, my God!
The sun is coming out today. I took Tug for a walk and it’s going to be the first, the very first real day of spring. Not our fault you stayed out way too late.
And then the knocking again. My father. He was the one person who trusted me always. The only person to know about Truman without really knowing about Truman.
How in the hell did that kid get so goddamn smart? Stick with him, Carly. There ain’t too many out there who can match wits with you, Carly-Barly. I like that kid.
I remember once, a few years ago or more, he came to my room and sat down next to me. I could smell him, his cologne, the first whiskey on his breath. He is handsome. My father is handsome. I could feel the heat of his love next to me.
“Why are you crying?”
I shrugged my shoulders. Of course I knew, but I didn’t think I could say. My handsome father put his arm around me.
“Is it Truman?” he asked.
I began to cry again and he pulled my head into his chest. I felt so protected at that moment. My lovely father.
“I don’t know what I can do,” I finally said. “He’s so fucking frustrating.” It was the first time I’d ever ever used the word “fuck” in his presence.
“Why?” he finally said.
“We’ve always been friends, right? I mean, it’s always been Truman and me. Our whole lives. And now I feel like a stranger.”
“When did this come about?” he asked.
I couldn’t tell if he was placating me. I was only fifteen. Not old enough in the eyes of most adults to be truly heartbroken. But my father knew how close Truman and I had been for nearly our whole lives. Because of that I think he took this moment seriously.
“It’s been gradual. I mean, I feel like I’m not welcome. No, that’s wrong too. I’m welcome, but I’m not allowed to know everything about him anymore.”
My father laughed. “Carly, he’s a boy. He’s fifteen. He’s trying to figure out who he is. Boys at that age have no idea. They know so little about themselves that they begin to withdraw, if they’re smart, and make a lot of noise if they’re not. Truman is smart, so he’s not going to do a lot of sounding off and he’s going to pull back from the world. I wouldn’t worry too much about it.”
I wondered if he was making reference to Tommy Beck who, at the time, I was beginning to show an interest in. Tommy
was
loud. But he was also cute. But I knew my father didn’t like him, didn’t like his father. Mostly, though, I was glad I could talk to my father and be taken seriously. My mom was a different story. She was more concerned about my grades, about what college I should go to, about dressing properly for school.
He took his arm from around me and pulled back to look at me.
“What do you want me to do, Carly?”
I shrugged my shoulders again. “I don’t know. I guess you could tell me about boys, maybe.”
This time he laughed loudly so that his whole body shook. When he stopped he said, “The sign post on the road when I was fifteen is way back in the distance, sweetie. I can tell you boys don’t know what the hell they’re doing at fifteen, but that’s all I’m sure about. That’s probably the only thing I can tell you.”
“Yeah, but Truman’s different, Dad.”
He sighed. “I know he is, Carly.” He cleared his throat. “I wonder sometimes if he’s gay.”
I was shocked to hear him say that, not because I didn’t already know he was, but because I didn’t know my father paid such close attention to my friends.
“Why do you say that?”
This time it was he who shrugged. He looked at his fingernails, which he almost always did when he was thinking. I often wondered if he did it when he was in court.
“I just wonder, is all. It isn’t even that he’s particularly effeminate.” He poked me in the ribs. “Maybe I think that because he isn’t gaga over my Carly-Barly.”
“Don’t, Dad.” I pulled away from him and gave him a frown. “Well, let’s say he is gay. Can that change?”
“If he were really gay, no. That doesn’t change. It’s a genetic thing, Carly.”
“Yeah, but a lot of people say it’s a choice.”
“I don’t care what a lot of people say. Being gay is not a choice.” He let out a deep sigh. “Homosexuality, unfortunately, has become defined as a moral issue, at least in this country. Well, probably in a lot of countries in the West, and certainly in Muslim countries. But all of that is tied to religion. Those who think that homosexuality is a choice view it as immoral. I don’t know where that comes from, and it doesn’t matter, really. Or it wouldn’t, if it weren’t mucking up the legal system.”
“But if it’s a religious thing, it can’t be in the law, right?”
He patted my head. “It’s not supposed to be. But a lot of people forget that.”
“So the people who say it can change…they’re wrong? I mean, you’re sure they’re wrong?”
He smiled a sad smile.
“Those people are trying to view a genetic fact through a religious lens. Some things aren’t moral issues or choices. Some things just…some things just are, Carly. You asked, if Truman were gay, could he change. My answer is no. IF he’s gay, he can’t change any more than you can change the natural color of your hair.”
“IF he’s gay,” I said.
But his answer was depressing. Truman thought he was gay and I didn’t want him to be. I think once he began to think he was gay that’s when he began to pull away from me. He closed me out of his private world and it hurt. And now that my father had told me it wasn’t something that could change, it made it worse.
“But, Carly, even if Truman thought he was gay, he wouldn’t know any more than you or I would know. Boys are still figuring all that out at fifteen.”
My talk with my dad helped, but it didn’t change anything. Tommy and I became more involved and Truman became more distant.
Now there is no Truman. Now I have to live with that for the rest of my life. I have to live with the fact that I did all sorts of things with Tommy Beck. As I lay here with the covers weighing me down I have to feel the weight of that also. The weight of Truman not defending himself from Tommy’s fists. I stayed awake the entire night trying to make sense of the fact that I’d had such intimacy with both Tommy and Truman. How could I even…how could I? Until finally, in the morning, my father knocked on my door, wanting me to get up and go to church with him, and that reminded me of those hours earlier. I told my dad I was sick and I needed to stay in bed.
“Do you want your mother to take your temperature?”
“No!” I shouted, then said more softly. “I just have to stay in bed.”
I knew he stood on the other side of the door for a long time. I could hear him standing there as if he were deciding whether to ask me if I was sure. I never missed church and I wondered if he was suspicious of how late I’d come home. It wasn’t until the second time he knocked on my door that day, when he told me Truman was dead, that I knew my life would never be the same.
Knock, knock, knock. Carly-Barly. Carly, I’m so sorry…
Knock. Knock. Knock. As if those knocks were the sound of my broken heart exploding in my chest.