Sunset Park (29 page)

The edge in Caleb’s voice cut through me. He usually held everything in, remained controlled and even-keeled, and hid his feelings from the world. In retrospect, I should have expected the disaster in the apartment. I’d never seen Caleb that vindictive, and I’d never seen him this defeated.

I replayed Raymond’s scornful words, and guilt slid over the prickles of my anger like a velvet cloak. In the midst of all of the yelling, and the rising violence, I’d failed to consider how deeply it all must have gouged Caleb’s armor. I tried to imagine how I would have reacted if Oli had bragged about fucking Raymond while I slept down the hall, and knew I would have tried to inflict serious bodily harm. I’d almost done it over one kiss.

Caleb’s chin had dropped again, his light eyes downcast, but I tilted his head back up.

“I’m sorry.”

His eyebrows came down. “For?”

“For me.” I released a ragged sigh and sat next to him on the bed. I could feel him looking at me, but I stared down at the stain on the floor. I was almost positive it was old blood. “I know this is all my fault. I think it was wrong of you to call the police, but I know I turned this entire situation into a massive donkey fuck.”

“A donkey….”

“Can you not correct my language right now?” I felt more than saw Caleb spread his hands in surrender. If my voice rose in public, he was guaranteed to back down. Being tacky and drawing attention was not something Caleb wanted for himself or our relationship. “I’m sorry about what I did.”

“Which part, David?”

His voice scraped low and tired, and additional shame piled on top of the growing mound.

“The way I treated you when we were together, and… for what Raymond said. I didn’t want you to know about him. That—”

“That you fucked him while I slept in your bedroom?”

My jaw clenched, and I nearly cursed Raymond for blurting it out for spite, but then I remembered where he was, and the burst of heat flickered like the dying embers in a fire.

“You need to understand that we’re broken up,” I said. “I didn’t cheat on you with Raymond. You stayed that night because of the storm. You stayed in my room because I was being nice. And when he came home….”

“You just couldn’t help yourself?” Caleb put a hand on my upper arm, twisting me sideways on the bed. I didn’t want to meet his eyes, but I did, and the stricken look on his face soured my stomach. “You knew there was a chance I would see you with him, and you just didn’t give a damn?”

“That’s not it.”

“Oh come on, David.” Caleb slid to the edge of the bed, poised to stand. His jaw clenched, hand cradling his nose and covering the gauze packed in it. Even while sitting in a filthy hospital room, he probably could not stand the thought of being seen in such a state. “For once in our entire relationship, can you say what you mean and not whatever you have censored after deeming me too fragile for the truth?”

I flinched, but didn’t turn away from his flinty stare. “What I have with Raymond….” Caleb’s lip curled, but I pushed on. “What I feel for him is something I’ve never felt before, and I know you don’t respect that, and I know that might hurt to hear, but I can’t change it. So yes, when I worried for him all night because he was out in that blizzard, and I realized he was whole and safe in front of me, I wanted him. I could have stopped things, but I didn’t.”

Caleb’s eyes cut away. I thought he would stride off to collect himself, but he didn’t.

“You don’t care if you hurt me.”

“Fuck, Caleb, it wasn’t about you!” I got to my feet again, running both hands through my hair. “Raymond was
so
angry with me that night. He thought I’d brought you there to rub
our
relationship in
his
face. And even then he wanted me. You have no idea how good it feels for someone to want me the way he does.”

“Right.” Caleb glanced to the side. Our conversation was protected only by thin, dingy curtains separating the rails of the beds. “Because I never wanted you as intensely as he does.”

“Do you really want me to compare the two of you?”

“Maybe you should,” he said. “Maybe then I’d get it. He’s a beautiful kid, but you barely know him, and he isn’t good enough for you.”

“And you are.”

“Yes. I can take care of you.”

“Oh my fucking God, Caleb, this is exactly what I’m talking about!” I was nearly shouting by the time the sentence left my mouth. A stocky woman next to us hissed sharply in Cantonese. I held up my hand in silent apology before swinging my glare back to Caleb. “I don’t need you to take care of me. I don’t need… I don’t need anyone to take care of me, and he doesn’t need anyone to take care of him. We’re not children, for fuck’s sake, but you and his brother both act like we’re barely getting by!”

Caleb, to his credit, held his peace. He was good at gauging what to say and when to say it once I started losing my temper.

“This is how life is,” I said after a calming breath. “People try things and sometimes they don’t work and sometimes they do, but I’m too young to tell myself that I just have to choose the guy that’s safe. And that’s what you’re selling yourself as—the safety net. Is that really what you want to be for me? For anyone?”

“That’s all I’ve got when it comes to you.” Caleb dropped his hand, letting every inch of his bruised face show. The purple and red shadows beneath his eyes, the nick on the bridge of his nose, and the remnants of dry blood. “I tried to make you happy, and I don’t know how or where I failed, but I did. I couldn’t please you. All I could do was support you and do for you, and even that wasn’t enough.”

“Because you’re not my parent, Caleb. You were my boyfriend. It’s supposed to be more, and me wanting
more
doesn’t mean I’m stupid or delusional. There is such a thing as romantic love, and I think—”

“Oh, you have it with Raymond?” Caleb’s voice was heavy with scorn.

“Yes! I think about him all the time, and I want to be with him all the time, and I think it’s the same for him. We can’t stay away from each other. No matter what happens between us, no matter how we argue, we still want each other and want to be together. And you can’t say—” I hesitated, going on only after Caleb waved his hand brusquely. “You can’t say that you ever felt that kind of intensity with me. I know you didn’t.”

“How could you possibly make that assumption?”

I could have dodged the you-never-wanted-to-fuck-me bullet by diverting the conversation back to everything else that had been wrong, like his desire to parent and coddle me, but his earlier words still rung in my ears. I
had
censored myself to spare his feelings, and that was partially why he was still clinging to the belief that we would someday reconcile.

“If you felt that kind of intensity for me, you wouldn’t have rejected me so much,” I said. Caleb’s eyes went hard and narrow, but I kept talking in a low, even voice. “I know we’re different in that way. You didn’t want to fuck the way I liked to fuck, and you would just push me aside or make an excuse, and, goddamn, I started to feel like something was
wrong
with me because you never wanted me. And instead of just saying you were different, you were condescending about it. Like I was some slutty baby twink or an insane nympho.”

Some of the stoniness fled his expression. “I never meant to imply that.”

“But you did. A lot. I’m not saying anything is wrong with you, but that doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with me. There’s a
lot
wrong with me. But the parts that make us incompatible aren’t things that I can fix, and they’re not things that you can change either. Sometimes walking away is just the right thing to do.”

“Walking away to
him
? That brat? He doesn’t even have a real j—”

I put my hand over his mouth and shook my head. “Please don’t. You’re saying that because you’re hurt and angry, but if we’re going to salvage any of this, you can’t talk about him that way.”

I didn’t move my hand until Caleb sighed, his breath brushing against my fingers and warming them. He scooted back on the bed and watched me from beneath sandy lashes.

“Can we salvage any of this?”

“I want to.”

“Why? I hurt you. I was horrible to him. I’m a resentful bitch, right? The asshole ex-boyfriend. That’s the role I’ve cast myself in.”

“And I’m the slutty, cheating ex-boyfriend, but you don’t see me putting that on my résumé.”

Next to us, the Chinese lady peered around the curtain and flicked her dark eyes between me and Caleb. Caleb smiled at her, and she vanished.

“We can be friends,” I insisted. “Maybe not right away, but we know the same people, and I don’t see why we should pretend we don’t exist. You’re a great person, and I was lucky to have you in my life. Just because it didn’t work one way doesn’t mean it can’t work another.”

“And Raymond will be okay with this?” The question was colored with doubt. “After what just happened?”

“I don’t know.”

Caleb scoffed softly and tilted his head back again. “What a mess we’ve made.”

I nodded in agreement, and my thoughts skipped back to Raymond, of him sitting in the precinct in a cell. The sick feeling returned, that bottomless sour curdling of my stomach.

“I can fix it,” I said, trying to keep my voice firm. “I have to.”

Raymond

I’D SPENT
the better part of my teens being careless enough to smoke weed in public, loiter in abandoned buildings, brawl in the middle of the park more times than I could count, and cut school in places that should have gotten me picked up for truancy, but I’d never been arrested. It was a twisted irony that my first time being locked up was due to a fight with a clean-cut corporate clown. Over a guy. A guy who might not even want me. Being bisexual was not working out in my favor.

The cops had more or less reacted as expected. I was the thug, Caleb was the victim, and David had been relegated to some twinkle-toes fairy who’d stirred up the wrong kind of trouble. He took the attitude better than I’d expected. He was too busy stashing my weed and paraphernalia while Caleb tried to awkwardly backtrack. The dude had looked pretty damn regretful given the fact that he’d dialed 911, so I’d been naive enough to expect the police to leave well enough alone.

Right.

An hour later, I sat in a holding cell in the 72nd Precinct. Two hours passed before Michael and Nunzio showed up, and I stewed for another before I was allowed to go home with a Desk Appearance Ticket for Assault in the Third Degree, which basically meant I had to go to court the next day for an arraignment if the damn fool actually pressed charges.

“This is, by far, the most stunning turn of events in your life, Raymond.”

Why had I even called Michael? Some hair-trigger reaction of needing a family member nearby when I got in trouble, I guess. Bad idea.

He snatched my DAT, glared at it without even seeming to read, and thrust it at Nunzio’s chest.

“Are you going to say anything?” Michael said.

“Is there actually a thing I could say that would make you not lecture me? Jesus. At least wait until we’re away from the other criminals. This is embarrassing.”

Nunzio snorted, and Michael grabbed a handful of my hoodie. He hauled me out of the precinct and out onto 4th Avenue.

“It could be worse,” Nunzio said. “If he got a desk ticket, they know it’s bogus. They don’t let dangerous criminals waltz around the city before showing up to court at their leisure.”

“And how the hell would you know?” Michael was getting all loud and Puerto Rican on me, his voice extending down the avenues and streets and up to heaven. “You’re just defending him, as usual.”

Nunzio ignored that and folded the slip of paper into a neat square. “I know because I’ve been arrested before.”

“For
what
?”

“Drunk and disorderly conduct, graffiti, marijuana possession….”

“Oh, okay,” Michael said. “So you’re an idiot too.”

I sighed and shoved my hands in my pockets, striding away from them. If they were going to get into an argument over Perfect Michael having mentally blocked out all of the trouble Nunzio had gotten into as a kid, I wasn’t going to stand around and watch. I had better things to do. Like put an icepack to my face and figure out how I was going to explain to Viktor that I had to miss work over this bullshit.

“Raymond.”

Michael’s voice cut through me, stopping me in my tracks. He sounded just like our father.

“¿Qué coño pasó?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

Michael stood in front of me. His jaw was set as he finally looked me full in the face, but he’d wiped away the impatient scowl that had tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Did he hit you first?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“’Cause.”

Nunzio parked himself on a stoop. He lit a cigarette, indicating we would be here for a while.

“Because….” Michael crossed his arms over his chest, waiting.

“Just ’cause.”

I expected him to throw his hands up and stalk off toward my apartment, but Michael tilted his head to the side and continued to wait.

“Fine,” I said. “He was talking shit about David, so I got pissed and said some things back. Dude got his feelings hurt, hauled off and slugged me, and I whooped his ass. Is that a good enough summary, or do you need a play-by-play?”

“What did he say about David that inspired this defensive reaction?”

I hated being around teachers all the time.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters if it landed you in jail, damn it.” Michael did throw up his hands this time. He looked down at Nunzio for backup, but there was none to be had. Nunzio wouldn’t spill my business unless I gave him the okay. “I’m tired of you acting like you can’t trust me,” Michael said. “What did I do to make you think I would look down on you for whatever is happening between you and David?”

“I just know how your mind works, and there’s a real strong possibility that you’ll think I’m only into guys because I stumbled on you getting busy one time too many, and you’ll get all guilty and dramatic like it’s some huge deal.”