Hush (21 page)

He’s soaked through his shirt
by the time he gets to his room, panting and red-faced. Nate is waiting for him, which is intensely aggravating.

“Maggie texted me,” he states. Cam ignores him, strips off his shirt and gathers things for a shower. “Cam, come on, talk to me.”

Cam slams out of the room without looking at him. It’s rude and he doesn’t care, because riding a wave of anger feels better than what churns underneath it.

He does brief stretches in the shower, as much as he can in a cramped space with his long body, just enough so that he won’t hurt unbearably in the morning. He’ll definitely hurt, though, and he wants it. Wants the reminder that he’s let something—lots of things—go. Wants the impetus to work back to those things and to himself, and then find solid ground on which to figure this out.

In bed, he calculates what he’s left behind for this train wreck of a romance that wasn’t a romance at all. Or that was, under all of the denial and manipulation and
desire
to be manipulated. Cam lets himself own how much he loved,
loved
, letting someone take him out of his body and his scattered, unexplored self. It’s okay to want that, he knows, to seek and pull and desire that, because it is who he is. But not at his own expense. He wants that with Wren for
them
, not just because he wants to be fucked.

Nate snuffles in his sleep. Cam thinks of Ellie, whom he hardly knows. Of Nate changing so much, too—Cam has hardly talked to him about it, he’s been so self-centered and caught in this whirl­wind with Wren.

Rather than accepting what he’s had, he has to convince Wren to come to him for more. Or accept more.

Actually, first Cam needs to think. To separate himself enough to really examine himself and figure out if he can manage to be a good friend and a good brother and good to himself. Figure out how badly he’ll need Wren once he’s taken the time to look at all that. Can it be healthy to need Wren so wretchedly?

“Tell me everything about Ellie,”
Cam greets Nate as soon as Nate wakes up.

“Hrm?” Nate mumbles, scrubbing his hands over sleep-crusted eyes and the tiniest bit of scruff on his cheeks.

“I’ve been a shit friend,” Cam says, louder, as if that will help get the message across.

“I’m not awake.”

“I can see that,” Cam says.

“Hold your horses, man. Are you deflecting?”

“For someone who claims not to be awake, you are using some big words.”

“I worry about your education if you think deflecting is a big word.” Nate swings his legs over the side of the bed and runs his hand through the mat of his hair.

“Touché.” Cam gives up and lies back down.

“Let me shower. And wake up. Then food. And talking if you insist,” Nate says.

“You’re the one who sat up last night to talk to me,” Cam points out.

“About you,” Nate stresses.

“Okay, so we’ll do both.”

“You can, now?” Nate hones in on the nuance.

“Nothing left to lose, I guess.” Cam shrugs and looks away and ignores the pang he feels at the words.

Nate examines him, transmitting a tangle of care and sympathy that has Cam closing his eyes. He’ll have to deal with it, he knows. But instinctually he wants to put it off, to push it away. But if he wants to turn this around—himself and this thing with Wren and everything else—he’ll have to face it all.

“What can I do?” Nora
sits next to Wren
on his bed, where he’s mostly under the covers watching the watercolor light seep through the rain outside his window.

“Nothing,” he responds, his voice dull.

“I wish—” Nora starts.

“I know. Sometimes I wish you could, too.” Wren almost never wishes his gift on someone. Right now, though, a balm warming his bones and easing this ache would be so welcome.

“You could call Kevin,” Nora offers. Wren doesn’t dignify that with a response. He’s been raised to respect his gifts, and although Wren has his own moral compass, he doubts his family will appre­ciate it—and there’s no way he’s going to tell his brother how he’s been using them.

He feels rubbed raw; even the oasis of his bed and the safety of his sanctuary betray a host of things breaking him down. His sheets scratch too-tender skin and the imagined smell of Cam lingers—or maybe he wants it to linger. Even Nora’s fingers pet­ting his head softly are like knives, because it’s not her fingers he wants.

“I did everything right,” he says in a tight, cracking voice.

“What do you mean?” she asks.

“So this wouldn’t happen.”

“By this, are you thinking of—” she ventures.

“Yes,” he closes his eyes and turns his face into the pillow. He can no longer push away examining what happened with Robert, and how that particular misery left him a complete mess.

“Wren…”

“Just don’t,” he interrupts. “Please just go.” He tries to be gentle, even though he recognizes that there is no polite way to kick some­one out of your room when they want to help you. He’s not sure that he can he helped, or that he even wants to be right now.

The door clicks so quietly behind her that the sound is almost lost in the calming mutter of rain against the buildings. There’s a fleeting memory, an intangible flash of Saturday morning warmth under the sheets with Robert: the rain against the windows, hard pelting, and the sense of something indelibly precious captured in the heat of their hushed laughter.

Wren rolls over and opens the music app on his phone. That Wren is an unrecognizable creature to him now. So young and hopeful and open. So stupidly trusting, easily handing crystallized treasures to Robert only to watch as he dropped them on the floor, glittering shards scattering all around. Wren thought he’d bleed from those wounds forever, had spent days in his bed wondering how he could ever patch himself together again.

But I did,
Wren tells himself now. He had gotten up out of that bed and pulled himself together. All he needs now is to pick himself up as he did then, and he’ll be fine.

“So what do you want
now?”
Nate asks.

“Swallow before you talk,” Cam says. Nate smirks and Cam just knows he’s biting back a quip about swallowing. It’s not the time for that, though, they both know.

“From him. This thing?”

“I…” Cam takes a breath.

“I mean, do you want to try to keep doing the thing you were doing. The just, um,” Nate looks around the restaurant and whis­pers, “fucking thing?”

“I don’t think we can. I don’t think he will, because I can’t stop him from sensing what I’m feeling, and I can’t hold it in, and that scares the shit out of him.”

“So, you want more?”

“Well… in a perfect world, yeah. He’s so scared. But I think…” Cam fiddles with his fork, using the tines to draw through the pile of ketchup on his plate and making feathered lines across the plate. “I think he wants more. I think that’s why he’s scared. And I don’t want to give up if that’s it.”

“Are you scared too?” Nate pushes his plate away and folds his arms on the table. “Or is it just fucking with your head too much?”

“Um…” Cam squints and thinks. “Both?”

They smile at the waitress when she comes to collect their plates.

“What do you think?” he hedges.

Nate shakes his head. “Oh, no. You don’t want my opinion. I don’t know anything but the bits you’ve told me, and what I’ve seen, and it doesn’t look that good from here. But you know him and whatever you’ve been feeling.”

“I wish I did,” Cam muses. He puts his head in his hand and sighs. “You know, I think he thought this whole time that what­ever pulled us together was only his doing— that he was doing it all by himself. And I think last night he realized for the first time that it’s always been there between us, naturally. That it’s been working both ways.”

“What about you?”

“I don’t know when I realized it. I don’t know if I did, exactly. But whatever it is, it doesn’t scare me.”

“Cam,” Nate says, his face calm and serious. “You are literally the bravest person I know.”

Cam shrugs, uncomfortable with the praise. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You… all these things about yourself and your life—you fig­ured them all out, or found them, and instead of being scared or upset, you… it’s like they made you happier. Which is awesome. I don’t know of many people who suddenly realize they are gay and just keep rolling and don’t falter in some way. And now this… being willing to risk yourself for a chance—”

“I guess,” Cam starts shredding his crumpled napkin. “I never thought of it like that. I just… it’s like, one day someone turned on the lights, and I could see, and it felt good. Easier.”

“So, brave one,” Nate lowers his tone, adds a little comedy, “will you be going on a quest?”

Cam laughs and shakes his head. “Like I said, there’s that
thing
. Maybe he’s not ready for it. Maybe he’ll push me away. But… I don’t think I can ignore it. I don’t want to give up.”

“Well then,” Nate nods, “may the force be with you. Just be careful. Take care of yourself.”

Cam laughs louder.

Maggie answers the door
after
long minutes of knocking. She’s sleepy-eyed, her hair is almost wild and her leggings and long, soft T-shirt show that she was either about to fall asleep or asleep already. Her shirt is a bright and nearly see-through pink. She confessed to Cam long ago that she wears her ruched mater­nity shirts to bed because they are so comfortable; she discovered them acci­dentally when she bought a mismarked one, but once she wore it, she was a goner. It’s these little things that endear her to him, even if he can see a little more of her in that shirt than he probably should.

“Well, come in,” she gestures with quick hand movements. “I’m not offering free shows to the others.”

“Just me?” he laughs awkwardly, keeping his eyes carefully on her face.

“Nothing here is a mystery to you,” she points out.

“Still, it seems weird,” he says. Maggie just rolls her eyes and smiles. Her hand is hot in his when she pulls him toward the bed; she was definitely asleep. Her body temperature always rose dra­matically while she slept.

She snuggles back under her covers with a yawn. “Want in?” she holds the corner of her blanket up in invitation. He shakes his head and sits carefully.

“I need his address,” he says plainly.

“No.”

“Maggie.” He’s not above pleading, and she can tell.

“This isn’t a good idea. And I don’t want to take sides. Or misstep.”

“I’m not asking you to take a side. Are there sides?”

She looks away.

“Okay, wrong question. Just—” he clears his throat against the raw scrape of helplessness. “I know what I want now, and I know how I want to try to get it. But he won’t answer my calls and I don’t know where he lives because he was so secretive about it.”

“Cam, I feel like this would be a violation of trust. I only know because of Nora, and I don’t want to give out their address if they want it kept private.”

He swallows back a groan of frustration and the instinct to take it out on her.

“Cam, are you sure this is even what you want?”

“I already told you it is.” He says, voice flat, and turns his eyes to her. “I need you to trust me.”

There is a long silence. It’s obvious she’s weighing her words. “I’ll try,” she says after a bit. “That doesn’t mean I’ll give you their address, though.”

Cam stands with a sigh. “I guess I’ll have to settle for that.”

“I’m sorry—”

“No,” he interrupts, already at her door, “I get it. I’ll figure some­thing out.”

* * *

Wren doesn’t want contact with
him.
And Cam has an idea why—well, he hopes he knows why. Falling in love doesn’t scare Cam at all; realizing over the course of this year that he wants to fall in love, that he has something so rich inside himself, is a surprise, but a most welcome one.

Wren, though… Cam can look back at the times they were together, the times they’ve come closest to actual intimacy, and all the ways in which Wren has shut them down, pushed Cam in another direction. Wren always brought Cam pleasure, but with his gift, and not himself. For some reason, falling in love scares the shit out of Wren. Perhaps it isn’t even love—that’s Cam’s hope speaking—but just something deeper, something that runs further than just play.

Cam is not who he was when he first got off that plane from Nebraska. Nor the one who emerged again at the end of that first summer, puzzling himself out. He’s not even who he was last week; he’s not willing to stand apart from the world the way he used to. This connection with Wren is something he needs, and he’s going to fight for it.

So maybe fighting for it means he does something sort of creepy. Needs must and all that, right?

He sits down and tries to sketch out what he knows about Nora and Wren’s schedules, frequenting places Nora goes often, but where Wren rarely does, looking for times when he might catch her on her way home. Once he’s made his list, he takes a moment to evaluate his choices; somehow, even knowing how out of line this is, he stays the course.

It only takes a week to luck out. He followed Nora twice that week to places that turned out to be busts, but on the third try he manages to tail her to her apartment. It’s not in the student housing neighborhood, but north of campus among much nicer homes. Theirs is a lovely deep green with cream scallop trim and a two-story bay window. Obviously, at least one of them has a lot more money than he.

Once she’s inside, he tries peek into sneak in. There are two doors outside the house, and the one she goes into leads to a hallway and what appears to be an upstairs and a downstairs apart­ment. Checking the mailbox, he sees that theirs is upstairs.

Back in his room, after the longest and most tedious and trying day he’s ever had, he’s thankful to find Nate gone. In his desk drawer is the schedule he’d made. He tries to pin down a time when Wren will be home without Nora, and manages to narrow it down. There’s a better chance of this conversation happening—of something happening—without someone else nearby.

Through the window, a glooming light throws his furniture into strange relief, lighting the faux wood top of his desk, but throw­ing the further recess of the room into darkness. Cam closes his eyes and feels his body absorb the last warmth from the day’s end. He’s caught there, between something incandescent and tethering and a dark­ness that he could live through but that would never feel right.

He thumbs over his contacts thoughtfully. He has the number Peyton gave him a few days ago. She might still be where she was, since his parents refused to give her more money. Taking a chance, he dials the number.

“Hey you,” she answers nearly immediately, quietly. The lin­gering annoyance he’s carried since their last conversation, the frustration from believing he had to mediate and from being hung up on, melts away.

“You too.” Cam closes his eyes and lays his head back against his pillow.

“Tell me about it,” she says.

“I think I’m falling in love,” he admits.

“That’s… Cam, that’s amazing,” Peyton says in a thickened voice.

“Don’t cry, Pey.”

“I can’t help it. I’ve been waiting. Ever since you escaped home and changed so much. You woke up. I’m so sorry, you know?” she tacks onto the end of her sentence. Cam frowns, watching the last of the sunlight wane in ripples across the ceiling. He’s not sure he’d ever describe his choice to go to Chicago as an escape; on this side of it, he sees it more clearly as flight.

“For what? Me changing?”

“For being a part of what put you to sleep.”

“Peyton,” he starts, but doesn’t know how to finish. It’s not her fault. Not entirely. Retreating was his coping mechanism. He just never figured out how to come back out—probably because he’d never examined his own reactions to the turmoil in their home until Wren had come and jolted him into his body and mind and self with a single kiss.

“So, love,” she says.

“It’s not… I don’t know. It’s complicated,” he says.