Sex & Sourdough (23 page)

Anders gaped at Joel. Joel couldn’t know about Kevin. They’d avoided him in Damascus. They hadn’t seen him or his car again. Joel couldn’t know about Kevin. Anders nearly gave himself away by screaming an outright denial.

“Who I chose to spend time with is none of your business, Joel.”

“Not my business?” Joel grabbed Anders by the front of his shirt and hauled him to his toes again. Anders shoved him back hard before he lost contact with the ground altogether. Joel stumbled backward. Anders saw Joel tighten his fist around his keys as he regained his footing. He stepped back to put some more distance between them. He backed up against the fender of Michael’s car as Joel lunged toward him.

What would have been a halfhearted, clumsy punch came with jagged metal edges this time. The keys cut into Anders’s cheek like claws, scratching deep even as Anders leaned back to avoid the blow. Anders caught Joel’s wrist and pulled Joel’s body toward him while he brought his knee up. He heard the crack as his knee connected with Joel’s ribs. While he was doubled over, Anders punched him in the temple, dropping him to the ground with an ease that seemed to surprise everyone, including himself. Anders stared at Joel for a moment, and then stepped around him in case he got up again.

Somewhere on the edge of an adrenaline-induced haze, Anders heard his brother on the phone with the police. “The police are coming,” Anders said to Joel. “Whatever else it might be, it’s assault now. My face is covered in blood. You’re not going to have bruises for at least a day. Who do you think they’re going to arrest?”

“As if it matters,” Joel muttered. “I’ve given up everything to be with you. Going back to Ocala, the master’s program, everything…. That grimy bastard’s not going to be there waiting for you, Anders, I promise you that….”

Joel got to his feet and sprinted in a low crouch toward his Jeep. He dove behind the wheel of the Jeep, slammed the door, and sped away down the gravel driveway. Anders stepped back, watching Joel’s taillights until they were out of sight. His sister-in-law and niece were holding each other behind the Lexus. His brother was hurrying up the steps, calling for their dad.

“Anders!” His father raced down the stairs and grabbed his shoulders, forcing his head up. “You’re bleeding. Michael, give the police that young man’s license plate number when they arrive, and a statement. I’m taking Anders to the hospital.”

Anders tried to turn away. “It’s fine.”

“It most certainly is not fine!” His dad spun him toward the garage and shoved him forward. “Is that the kind of man you date?” he asked, when they were several feet from Michael. “Is that why you never told us?”

“No. We were never serious.” Anders tried to run his hand through his hair again, but pulling on the tight curls made the entire left side of his face hurt. “We broke up four months ago, and he still hasn’t gotten it through his head. He left me so many voice mails I changed my phone number. Other hikers said they had run into him in Virginia, asking about me. He even broke into my place to leave me gifts!”

“He broke into your apartment?”

“I think he just made a copy of my key. I’ve already asked maintenance to change the locks, so you don’t have to worry about it.”

“I don’t have to worry about it? You don’t think that having a stalker is important enough to mention?”

“It’s not exactly something I’m proud of,” Anders insisted. His dad opened the garage door and shoved him inside.

“Well, maybe if you told us
anything
about your life, I’d have known better than to take him at his word. You never tell us anything, Anders. How was I supposed to know?”

“What do you want me to say?” Anders laughed miserably. He got into the passenger’s seat of his dad’s car and slammed the door shut.

His dad climbed behind the wheel and stared at him. “You could start by telling me the truth?”

“The truth. You want me to tell you the truth? That I was too fucking weak to stop him from hurting me? That I was so depressed I thought I deserved the way he treated me? That I’ve hated my life and hated myself for so long being with Joel made sense? Or that I was so ashamed of the way I let him hurt me that I would never dare introduce him to you?”

Anders wished he could block out the pallid look of horror on his father’s face, but even when he turned away and shut his eyes, he could still see it in his mind.

“What else have you been keeping from me?” his father asked, his voice trembling. “Drugs? Drinking?”

“Just Sourdough.” Anders laughed. “Although, right now I’d kill for a beer.”

“Alcohol interferes with blood clotting—no beer,” said his father smoothly. “What does sourdough have to do with anything?”

Anders laughed harder and squeezed his eyes shut tight. “I love him,” he said. “I’m never going to be able to find him again, and he wouldn’t want me even if I could…. And you wouldn’t approve anyway.” Anders couldn’t open his eyes. He’d just make a fool of himself if he did. “He never went to school, I’m pretty sure he’s homeless, and he’s terminally ill.”

“Terminally ill? How old is he?”

“He’s twenty-five.”

After a long moment, his father sighed. “You love him?”

“Doesn’t matter….” Anders shook his head. “He’s so convinced his life is over that he’s stopped even trying to live. No family, no home, no relationships, no
attachments
….” Anders spat the word. “And I don’t want to be a lawyer.” The words escaped before Anders could consciously stop them.

“Hmm?”

“I keep trying to tell you, but you never listen. I’ve never wanted to be a lawyer. I hate law school. I hate my classes, I hate my classmates, and I’ve been around your firm enough to know that I’ll hate practicing law,” he whispered. He felt his father’s hand on his shoulder for a moment and then it slipped away. He heard the automatic garage door open, and then felt the engine begin to hum. He cracked his eyes open, but he still didn’t dare glance at his father.

“You didn’t consider mentioning that before classes started?”

“I tried. Do you remember when you had to register me for the LSAT, and you lectured me about not registering for the test before the deadline?”

“I do. I don’t think I
lectured
you about it, but I did point out that I expect better of you.”

“I didn’t miss the deadline. I had the online registration form open on my computer, had the damn thing filled out, and I sat there and watched the clock until the deadline passed. I tried to tell you the next day and before I could explain, you signed up for me and paid the late fee. You had my letters of recommendation lined up before I even filled out the application. I’ve tried to say something so many times, but I always choke…. I’m sorry.” Anders shut his eyes again and then cleared his throat to try to control himself. “I’m sorry.”

“Does this Sourdough have a real name?”

“Kevin,” Anders whispered. “Kevin Winters.”

His father sighed again. “Stitches,” he said simply. “We can deal with everything else, but stitches come first.”

T
HE
NEXT
two weeks were a blur of highways and panic. Anders had expected Kevin to be through New Hampshire and into Maine by now, so he had started looking for him along the northern section of the Appalachian Trail, then moved south until he was back in Massachusetts. There, it didn’t take long to pick up what must have happened from gossip.

“Oh, that poor boy,” the old woman who ran a North Adams hostel said, shaking her head. “You’d think that he was just too young, but he had a heart attack right there in my van. We rushed him to the hospital, and then they had to fly him someplace else on a helicopter. One of the other fellows with him came back through here, going by the name Chex Mix. But I haven’t seen Sourdough or his friend Spider since. After something like that, I imagine he went home.”

“A heart attack?”

“That’s what they said.”

A week of frustrating visits to area hospitals followed, where Anders was told time and time again that the only information any hospital could release was whether or not a patient named Kevin Winters was currently admitted. He checked every hospital within fifty miles of Pittsfield, and he was told the same thing every time. None of them currently had a patient named Kevin Winters, and they were prohibited from telling him if they ever had. Anders tried to track down Chex Mix and Spider, but that was impossible too. From the shelter logs, Anders learned that Chex Mix had hiked to the next shelter on his own. He hadn’t signed into either of the next two shelters on the trail, though.

So Anders had convinced himself Kevin might actually have gone home. He’d already gone across half the country looking for him, so he looked up Bishop, California, on his phone’s GPS and drove there.

Driving out of the northern Nevada desert into the mountains was amazing. The landscape went from flat shrub-covered wasteland to towering peaks in an instant. And the peaks were so high that staring up at them made Anders dizzy. Nestled between the towering peaks was an airy forest of tall redwoods, ponderosas, and sequoias, all framing a picturesque tourist town. Anders drove past dozens of ski shops and sporting goods stores, a row of bustling two-story shops and restaurants, and a shaded, well-landscaped park. He couldn’t remember the name of Kevin’s bakery, so he looked up every bakery in town on his phone. He had the addresses of three bakeries in the town of Bishop and nearby Mammoth Lakes, but only one of them had a dozen reviews that raved about its sourdough bread. He figured that had to be it. He parked a block away and stretched until his back and neck popped and then checked his cell phone. He had no data coverage, but there was a cell phone tower somewhere.

Half eager and half terrified, he walked down the quaint sidewalk toward the Rock Creek Bakery. It was a busy shop wedged between a used bookstore and a real estate office, and he knew he was in the right place from the smell alone. He waited in line while an attractive young girl with wavy chestnut hair waited on the customers ahead of him. He stared at the round artisan loaves, rolls, pastries, and cookies in the display cases and felt a sharp pang of longing. And more than a bit of a fear.

He never should have left the trail, never should have left Kevin. But in the two weeks since he’d resolved to find Kevin and make things right, he’d been plagued by constant doubt. Kevin had made no secret of the fact that he didn’t want a relationship. Anders had basically stalked him across the entire country to beg the man to reconsider. If he was wrong about what they’d shared over the summer, if Kevin didn’t care about him, the only thing he would accomplish would be driving Kevin away forever. For a horrible moment, he imagined Kevin looking at him the way he’d ultimately come to look at Joel. He was basically doing the same thing, and if Kevin didn’t feel the same, it was just as crazy as Joel following him up and down the East Coast.

But he couldn’t imagine doing anything else.

For all he knew, Kevin had nearly died on the trail. He at least had to find out if Kevin was okay. And if Kevin was angry and never wanted to see him again, Anders figured that he would just end up in the same position he’d been in two weeks ago. If he had stayed in Florida, he’d never see Kevin again. If Kevin was angry Anders had chased him down, Anders would also never see him again. He really didn’t have anything to lose.

“Can I help you?” the girl at the counter asked. She tucked her hair behind her ear, then cocked her head to the side as a timer went off in the commercial kitchen behind her. “Oh, could you hang on a second?”

She dashed back and pulled a tray of cookies out of an oven, set the tray in a vertical cooling rack, and then hurried back to the counter. “We always run out of cookies by five. Now, what can I get for you?”

“Are you Jennifer? Jennifer Winters?”

“That’s right.”

“You’re Kevin’s little sister?”

The girl’s customer service smile cracked and fell. “Kevin’s gone,” she said flatly. “Did you know him from school?”

Anders heard the words but couldn’t fully process them. “Gone?” He fell to his knees, feeling like he was trapped in a bad dream. “He can’t be gone…. The hospitals would have told me if he had died!”

“What?” The girl hurried through the gate in the counter and knelt beside him. “What are you talking about? He took off years ago. No one has seen him since. How did you know him, anyway?”

“He’s…. He hasn’t been here?” Anders sat up fast. “Oh thank God, I thought… I thought you meant he didn’t survive….”

“Didn’t survive? What are you talking about? Have you seen him? Do you know where he is?”

Anders shook his head slowly, the relief so overwhelming it made him light-headed. “I was hoping he’d be here….” He shook his head. “We were hiking together. I had to leave the trail, but he kept going for about a week. When I got to the last place he stayed, they told me he’d had some heart problems and had to leave the trail. I checked with the hospital and they wouldn’t tell me anything. He wasn’t back on the trail, and I couldn’t think of where else he might go besides home.”

“Home? He hasn’t been home in three years, nearly four. He hasn’t come back, he hasn’t called, hasn’t given us any sign that he’s still alive! Where has he been?”