✾ Wisteria ✾

I never thought I would sink to such levels. But, then again, I never thought I would ever want to leave at all, much less come here. 

I'd been expecting some sort of rom-com happy ending, despite how stupid it made me feel. I thought...well, I thought he cared about me. No, he did care, just not in the way that I wanted him to. That I needed him to. 

No, that's dumb, too. I didn't need Ren anymore. Maybe I had once. Relying on him. Craving something that would never happen. Not anymore. I had to let it pass, let go. I'd lost people before. This was easier than that. 

"You sure you're ok, Beau?"

I looked up from my phone. I'd been staring at the blank screen. I nodded. "Yeah, I'm good." Or, I would be. Eventually. Sometimes things don't work out how you want or expect. I took a deep breath. I can do this. 

I'd gotten all my tears out already. Flying back to New York had been a nightmare. I was trying not to sob the whole time. The lady next to me offered me a tissue but thankfully didn't say anything. 

As I landed, I realized that I didn't really have any right to sob. So, Ren was bi. So, Ren didn't feel the same way. So, he was in a relationship with a guy who'd unquestionably acted like a prick to me and undeniably hurt him. But he didn't owe me anything. I randomly thought of my essay: On Gratitude. If anything, I owed him.

Still. He'd never actually ended up painting me.

"You know, I wanted to give you your space. Once I found out that you were safe and ok, I didn't want to step on your toes," my uncle said out of nowhere. 

I stared at him as he drove his expensive car. "Yeah. Thanks." For a while, space had been good. 

He exhaled sharply through his nose. "I guess I'm just glad that you changed your mind." 

"I didn't change my mind," I said as calmly as I could. "I still don't want to be a part of your family. I just have nowhere else to go." 

I could have gone to Sallie's or maybe even Amory's, but I knew I wouldn't be able to hold it together if I was around them. My sanity and emotional stability was pooled in my palms; I had to do everything I could to keep it from leaking through my fingers. Those two would give me that sad, pitying look. My fingers would split, and I'd start crying all over again. I just wanted to forget. I wanted to be alone, to have time and quiet. I needed to focus. Their incessant texting wasn't helping, though.

"I know," he said. "Just, I feel guilty all the time. Your mom was an amazing, kind person, and I feel like she's frowning at me from whatever wonderful place she ended up. I've let both of you down, you know?"

We're all just specks, in the end. We pretend like there's something tying us together: fate, humanity, love. But we're insignificant specks, floating, drifting randomly. "You don't owe me anything," I said quietly. 

"Maybe not, but I do care about you," he said. He glanced at me before looking back at the road. "I just care about my family, too, and that puts me in a difficult position." 

"I get it," I said. I wished I could push a button that would transform his entire life. He couldn't just have married someone who wasn't a homophobe? Maybe things would have turned out differently. I vaguely remembered what it was like to have a dad, but things disappear as time goes on. Maybe if I'd had one growing up, I wouldn't feel so lost. I'd have had someone to teach me how to be a man.

He pulled the car up the driveway. Picket fences, baby blue house, perfectly trimmed shrubs. I cringed. I should have visited my old house when I was in Florida, but I'd been so eager to leave after I saw Ren and Liam together. The image was burned into my eyelids. Shirtless, glistening, embracing... That fucking asshole. 

We sat in silence for a moment after he shut the engine off. He finally turned to look at me, twisting his body, one hand on the steering wheel. "Why did you decide to come here? What happened?" 

"Nothing happened." 

He didn't believe me. "It seemed like you liked it there. I know we barely talked, but even I could tell that." 

"I don't want to talk about it." 

He didn't let up. "Your roommate. Was he...?"

I recoiled. "I said I didn't want to talk about it," I hissed, shoving the door open and slamming it behind me. I angrily opened the trunk, hauling my backpack onto my shoulders. 

"I'm sorry," he said, stepping out of the car. "I won't ask anything. Just...I'll help you carry everything up. I'll talk to Anne so you don't have to. I didn't mean to make this harder than it must already be." 

"Stop acting like you know anything about me," I said. I regretted it when I saw his face distort. 

"Sorry. You're right. I'm just trying to think how I would feel in your shoes, but I overstepped. We haven't done anything with your room. It's still the last one on the second floor, so you know where to go." 

I hesitated, glancing at the house and back at him. "Sorry," I said. And then, "Thanks." I ran up to the house, pulling the door open and sprinting up the stairs before I ran into Satan or her offspring. I didn't need homophobic remarks about my 'lifestyle' or my 'choice' on top of absolute and utter heartbreak. One form of misery was enough for today, thank you. 

I shut the door behind me, sliding down against it until I flopped over in a haphazard, empty heap. My next exhale was a very long, drawn out curse. 

What had happened? One minute I'm on my way to profess my love, the next I'm shacking up in a bible-thumping, homophobic hell-house. What the fuck, universe?

I felt like a child, which was the worst because I wanted to be independent and stand on my own two feet. I wanted to prove to mom and to myself that I could. Time passed and passed and yet here I was, right where she left me. She left me. 

I refused to cry again. 

❦

I tried not to sprint up the stairs but did anyway. When I'd landed, I'd immediately sent a text to Beau. He hadn't responded, but maybe he was asleep already. It was nine o'clock, earlier than he usually went to sleep but not unreasonable. I just didn't want him to be awake and ignoring me. I couldn't stand the thought of him not wanting to talk to me, even if I couldn't blame him.

I was a little scared to see Beau. I didn't know what I would do when I saw him, what I would feel, how he would seem. Would he be mad? Probably. I'd left without any real explanation and hadn't spoken to him since. 

The text I'd sent him said, "I'm back in New York. Home soon. I'm so sorry, Copper. Please let me explain." 

Maybe it was too much? But maybe it wasn't enough...

I slid the key into the lock, swinging the door open. "Beau?" I yelled. 

The apartment was dark. There were no lights on. If he really was asleep, I was going to wake him up. I just needed to see him. I needed to talk to him. 

I needed to try to tell him everything. Everything. 

"Copper!" I yelled. No response. He could be out with Sallie or with Amory. I felt a prick of jealousy when I thought of Amory, but realized that I was being a hypocritical asshole. I'd just disappeared for days to see an ex without saying a word. God, I needed to see Beau. He probably thought...

Maybe Liam was right. Maybe Beau did feel something for me. Fuck, I definitely felt something for him. Terrifying as that truth was, I couldn't lie about it. I was boiling over. 

I tossed my keys onto the counter and dropped my bag at my feet, beelining for his room. I rapped my knuckles on it. "Beau? You in there?" 

I closed my eyes. My heart was beating heavily in my chest. 

I twisted the knob slowly, creaking his door open. A floorboard groaned under my foot like it was warning me to turn back. I should have listened. 

"Beau," I breathed. My voice broke. "No." 

I stepped further inside his room. My room. My extra room, now. It was empty. His giant sequoia, gone. His whirring laptop, gone. His clothes. His sheets. His everything. My everything. 

I pulled my phone out. It rang, and I started panicking. Beau still hadn't responded to me. Had he been this angry? This angry? Just because I left? Because I didn't say enough? 

"Well, it's nice of you to finally call your best friend," Sallie said. 

I felt like I couldn't breathe. "Sal, what's going on?" 

She sounded concerned. "Are you ok? You sound like you're mid-heart attack." 

"I am. Why didn't you tell me this was happening? What the hell? What's going on?" 

"Shouldn't I be the one saying that? You're the one that vanished without saying anything. To see that absolute toadstool, by the way. In Florida. What the fuck, Ren? Do you realize how angry that makes me? And now you finally call after that weird text bullshit and ask me what's going-" 

"Sallie!" I shouted. She stopped talking. "Sallie, what happened?" 

"I don't know what you mean, Ren," she said quietly. 

"Where's Beau?" I asked, desperate. I got a little dizzy and sat down on his bed. It was still his. He couldn't just leave.

Sallie didn't say anything. "What do you mean?" 

"Where is he, Sallie? He's not here. His stuff is gone." 

"Oh my god," she said. "Oh." 

"You know something," I said. 

"Yeah, I know something. I mean, I don't know where he is. He isn't with me. But..."

"Was he angry that I left without talking to him? Is that why his stuff is gone?" I asked. 

"I don't...I may have told him to..." 

"To what?" 

I could hear her take a deep breath. "I told him to go to Florida to find you and rescue you from Liam." 

My heart left my body and shredded into pieces in front of my eyes. "You what?"

"He left. I drove him to the airport, and he got on a flight to Florida. I thought he found you there and that you two were...that you guys were ok. He hasn't been responding to my texts." 

"I never saw him. He never..." I legitimately couldn't breathe. I thudded my fist against my chest to try to get my heart to stop hurting and start beating normally again. "Sallie, why would you tell him to follow me?" 

"You just left without saying anything to him! I mean, a shitty note? You can't do shit like that!"

"So you told him to fly to Florida, Sallie?" I was shouting. I couldn't stay in this fucking empty room for another second. I stumbled out of it and tried to steady myself. Beau was...had I lost him? How could I... What should I... 

I'd fucked up. I should never have tested him like this, should never have pushed him this far. I knew he could live without me, so why would I do this? I had crippled our relationship before it even got a chance to reach its full potential. It was that habit again; I pushed Beau away before he could do the same to me, before he could hurt me or break my trust. God, I hadn't even realized it. 

I shook my head. "I can't... Listen, I finally have my fucking head on straight, ok? I finally figured it out. I can't lose him right now. I need him."

She didn't say anything. In that imposed silent space, I realized that I was crying. It had been so long since I'd cried. I tried to breathe, but it was a half-breath piled on top of another and another like an accordion. 

"You love him, don't you?" she said quietly. 

I nodded. "Yeah," I choked. I sounded like a wounded animal. "Yeah."

"Listen, I'll text Amory. Maybe he knows something. But you gotta find this kid, ok? You don't rest until you do. I don't give a fuck why you went to Florida. It's your shit. But you need to find Beau and tell him why you left him. Because that's what he thinks you did."

"He really followed me?" I asked. 

"Yeah, he followed you." 

"Why?" Why? 

"You ask him that, ok? For now, we've got to figure out where the hell he went," Sallie said. "I'll text you. Check his room to see if he left anything behind. Think about where he might've gone. And don't you give up on this, on him or on yourself."

She hung up. I sniffed, wiping my tears away. "Fuck," I whispered. I turned and went back into Beau's room. There wasn't anything left. The entire room was empty. There wasn't so much as a sock left behind. 

I opened up the closet. A few coat-hangers dangled lonely and twisted. There were some dustballs in the corner. I opened the wardrobe and desk drawers one by one. There were three number two pencils in his desk. Nothing.

My phone chimed. I eagerly checked it. 

Amory doesn't know anything. Beau disappeared. Anywhere else he could've gone?

School? But it was break. I didn't know about any other friends he could be staying with. A sinking feeling settled in my stomach. It evolved into nausea. The roof. 

What if he went back to that roof? The place where we started, where he'd wanted it to end. Liam had said something dickish in Florida about it, but what if he was right? What if Beau really didn't want to live without me? I thought of all the times he'd come to me crying, fragile. All the times he'd needed me. And I'd treasured those moments. I liked being needed like that. 

God, what a fucking asshole I was. I wasn't changed. I used to enjoy attention, sure. But this time, I'd used Beau. Beau. It was so much worse than before because this time I actually did care about him, and I still used him like that. I still craved his attention, the way he looked at me, up to me. 

I slammed my door open. I had to get rid of those fucking, "...paintings."

My room was a mess. Portraits were scattered everywhere. The bed. The dresser. All over the floor. "What?" I exhaled, barely realizing I'd made a sound. 

The portrait of my mother was still sitting on its easel in the center of the room. The shadow of my father loomed taller and taller. I squeezed my eyes shut. 

"Beau," I said, wincing. "Beau, no." He'd seen them. I felt naked. I felt hideous. The painting of Liam lay crooked on a pile of other paintings. He knew about me and Liam, then. 

I only knew what I had to do because every inch of me was telling me to run away and pretend like none of it had happened at all. Obviously, I had to do the opposite. I'd been around my broken self long enough to know that my instincts were usually wrong. I had to get over them, past them. I had to try to be strong. For once. For Beau.

I froze, turning back and staring at Beau's door as I realized something. He wouldn't have gone back to that roof. He had changed. He was so happy and alive it shocked me sometimes.

He'd found something. Hope. A future. Something. 

That left only two options. One: he stayed in Florida. He knew someone there who he could crash with, maybe? But Beau had told me that he never really had friends before he got to New York. Relatives? No, none in Florida. 

Final option, then: relatives in New York. The ones that he hated. The ones he barely spoke to. The ones who sent him the rest of his things!

I stumbled back into Beau's room, falling onto my knees and peering below his bed. My heart lurched into my throat. I strained to reach the dusty box, tugging it into the light. It was discarded trash Beau had been too lazy to throw out because he'd wanted to recycle it instead of just tossing it. He must have just forgotten about it, despite my reminding him at least twice. It had been so long ago. No wonder he'd just left it. 

I stared at the shipping label and exhaled. A return address. 

I texted Sallie. I know where he might be. Text you later. 

First thing in the morning, I'd go to him. I'd go to the one person I loved most, try to mend cracks, and tell him the truth no matter how scared I was to do it. Even if he didn't want to listen.