✾ Amaryllis ✾

The house was three stories. It was painted light blue. Baby blue. Annoyingly pure and pretending it wasn't filled with evil, hateful people blue.

Nothing was real.

I closed my eyes, trying to erase the images of white picket fences that hovered behind my lids. I'd dreaded this the entire train ride over. This was the moment where I either plucked up something as close to courage as I could get or bailed like the fucking wimp I suspected I was, like the fucking wimp I didn't want Ren to think I was.

I sat outside the house on an old stone wall across the street. I bit my lip and stared at one of the mossy stones beside me. It felt soft under my fingers, slightly damp with the recent rain. I chipped the moss away with my fingernail to feel the callous stone beneath.

I sighed and stood as I cleaned the dirt from beneath my nail. A car crept by right in front of me. I felt like the driver was watching me. He wasn't, of course. He didn't even turn his head to look at me as he passed. But I still felt like I was being watched. I was being judged.

I bounded across the street, resolving to do this quickly else it would never happen at all. "I can come, you know," he'd offered. I'd shut down Ren's proposal instantly. There was no way I was going to let Ren meet my homophobic family members. Besides, Ren didn't even know I was gay. That was an entirely different can of worms that I wanted to keep safely sealed away. They'd spill everywhere and ruin everything.

I'd never been afraid of being honest about my sexuality before, but everything felt tenuous. I was walking on thin ice. I could hear it fracturing beneath my feet. I just wanted to stay still, freeze and disappear.

I could hear the muffled doorbell from outside. It was only moments before the door swung open at an alarming speed.

His smile faded as soon as he saw me. "Beau, we were worried about you."

I nodded awkwardly. "Yeah. Sorry."

"You just ran away. What were we supposed to do with that? We don't even have your number," he said. He looked frustrated. His hand still hung off of the door. His silvery hair was perfectly in place. I doubted a strong wind would ruffle it at all.

"I didn't mean to worry you," I said. There was a little bit of venom in my voice that I'd meant to conceal.

His expression cracked and his hand slid off of the door. It landed limply by his side. "Beau, I know this is hard. I didn't mean...I mean, I was worried about you."

My entire chest ached. He seemed earnest, and he probably was. But it didn't matter. This house was toxic, even if he wasn't. "I found a place to stay," I said quickly. I knew I would boomerang back. If I went easy on this man, I would go right back to hellish isolation and insidious insults. I couldn't let that happen. "I just need my stuff."

"Beau, this can still be your ho-"

"It's not." I cut him off harshly. He looked hurt. "I know you feel guilty about my mom, but please just let me take my things and leave. I don't want to live here."

His jaw twitched. "Give me your number, and I'll give you your things."

"Come on," I groaned. "It's my stuff. You can't just-"

"Your mom would kill me if I let you go with no way of finding you," he said.

I stared at him. I really just wanted to go back to the tiny apartment where no one looked at me like I was actively spouting demonic tongues and scuttling crab-like across the ceiling all the time.

"Who is it, John?" she called from inside. I tensed. 

He sensed my anxiety and shook his head. "Salesman, love! I'll take care of it!" he yelled back.

I crossed my arms and stared at the ground. "Thanks," I whispered.

"So what'll it be?" he said.

"I can't carry everything," I said. "I came here on a train."

"Do you want a ride back?" he asked.

I shook my head, annoyed. "No, that's not... Ok, you don't owe me anything, but if I leave my new address, can you send my stuff there?"

He smiled very slightly. "I can do that."

"That ok?" I asked. Was it enough for him? If this was the only way to get my stuff, he could have the address.

"That's ok," he said, easing away from the entrance. "You can come in if you want. Figure you'd rather I just grab some things and bring them down."

I scuffed my shoe against the ground. "Yeah. Thanks."

❦

"This is it?" Ren asked, circling the tiny pile of stuff I'd dropped on my bed. It was mostly clothes and some material memories of my mother.

"I mean, no. Most of it is still back there," I replied. "But I couldn't carry it all."

"For the hundredth time, I could have come," he pointed out.

"No, you couldn't have."

Ren fell silent and stared at me. He scratched his forearm. "Ok. Whatever." Without saying anything else, he left the room. I stared after him. It had felt so good to waltz right back into this little apartment. It sort of scared me how comfortable it had been.

I stood, reaching up and plucking at one of my curls. I moved across the room. The door frame bit into my shoulder. "Are you mad at me?"

I watched him from where I lingered between my room and the dark living room. It was evening, and a cool breeze drifted through the apartment. Ren froze, shutting the fridge door and extinguishing the meager light that had silhouetted his body. He vanished into the darkness of the kitchen. "Why would I be mad at you?"

He emerged from the shadows and stood in front of me. I glanced at the blank canvas behind him. "I don't know. You seem frustrated. I thought I did something."

He hung his hands on his neck. I stared at a vein on his forearm that snaked beneath his tattoos and up to his wrist, fading beneath the flower on the back of his hand. "It was a shitty day. I'm just tired. Kind of surprised you noticed, actually."

We went silent. A gust of wind stirred the white curtains in my room, catching my attention. The city light poured in through the open windows to illuminate the pale cloth. The sounds from below were louder with the window open, but it was too hot to close them.

"Why was it shitty?" I finally asked. Why had I let the silence last so long? It felt like it had been too long since he'd said anything about it. Was it weird for me to ask now? 

Ren was staring at me again. His eyes narrowed as he tilted his head back. "Why do you want to know, Copper?"

"Why does everything have to be so weird with you?"

"Weird?" He chuckled and walked past me. I smelled his cologne as he breezed by me, and my heart stabbed me a little bit. I rubbed my sternum.

Ren let himself fall onto the couch and looked up at me. "If you must know, an ex showed up."

"Oh," I said, swallowing hard. Had my voice shook just now? Annoying but unpreventable. 

"We parted amicably, though. So I guess I don't really know why it was so shitty," he said. "It was just..." He smiled. My face felt wrong. "Weird."

Silence again. "Come on," Ren finally said, patting the couch beside him. "You're making me nervous."

I walked quickly towards him, landing on the couch in a heartbeat. "I get that I don't know you that well yet, and I do mean yet." He waited for me to meet his eyes before continuing. "I fully intend on getting to know everything about you."

It sounded both exciting and terrifying to me. Ren didn't seem like the kind of person to judge me. But what if he did? I would probably break, I realized. I probably would. I'd felt a soothing trust between us from the start, and to have that trust violated when so much had gone wrong so recently? I shivered. 

"So I don't know you that well yet," he repeated, "but it seems to me like everything you went through on that roof was...kind of a spur of the moment thing."

I didn't say anything. Ren leaned forward, sitting up straight beside me so that he could see my face better. He wove his fingers together. "Am I wrong?"

I bit my lip and quickly shook my head once. A curl fell between my eyes. I'd gone to that roof after my aunt had called me a fag under her breath, one of many not so subtle displays of her homophobia. I knew more would have come. All at once, I realized how alone I was. If I left, no one would really care. The thought had slowly invaded my mind when I said goodbye to my mom at the beach, and then all at once like a broken hourglass. "I'm just in a dark place. It happened so..." I whispered. 

"So you must have had a plan before, then."

"A plan?"

"What were you going to do? What was your life going to be like?" Ren asked.

I shook my head. "That's not my life anymore."

"It doesn't have to be," Ren reminded me, "but maybe we can make something of it."

I hesitated. "I...got into NYU."

"Are you fucking kidding me?" he said loudly. I blinked, suddenly nervous.

"What?" I asked.

Ren looked away, shaking his head. For some reason, I thought he was mad at me again. "So unfair."

"Unfair? I'm not-"

Ren turned back to look at me, and he was smiling from ear to ear. I almost leaned away because of how brilliant he was with his perfect teeth and shining eyes. "Unfair, don't you think? You're beautiful and you're a genius!"

I laughed. "Are you serious?"

"Why? Did that sound like a joke?"

I nodded. "It's got to be because neither of those things is true."

Ren's face transformed. His eyes darkened. "Now I'm angry."

"What?" I was alarmed. What a whiplash-inducing one-eighty.

"It's dumb to belittle yourself. You're amazing. Just let yourself be amazing," Ren said.

"But I'm-I'm not..."

He didn't look impressed. He collapsed back against the couch pillows, looking up at me. "You're not what? A genius? Being smart's not about knowing the answer to every question or memorizing facts to vomit them out again. And being beautiful isn't about being flawless."

My mouth hung open. I was back here again, watching Ren like he was a shooting star. Such childish delight welled up inside of me when I laid my eyes on him. It wasn't me. It was him. He was the genius. He was beautiful.

I was just the lost kid staring up at the night sky, wondering if I'd ever get tall enough to touch it.

"Sleep, Copper," Ren said. He stood up, and I craned my neck to watch him. He lingered in front of me. "We'll talk about what comes next tomorrow morning. If you're not up by eight-thirty, I'm barging in."

"Ok," I consented. I was hopeless. For some reason, I sounded so serious. I sounded vulnerable. I sounded...eager, almost. I cleared my throat and looked away, trying to hide.

A little puff of air told me that Ren was laughing at me. But then...

The apartment was never quiet. You could always hear cars honking and people shouting from the streets. But at that moment, I couldn't even hear that. The world around us was silent.

The back of Ren's hand was cold, just like I remembered it. He brushed the curl between my eyes aside. "Sleep well," he said softly...fondly. Fondly? "Copper."

And then he was gone. The scuffed, peeling door to his room swung shut behind him. I reached up and touched my forehead, which was still strangely buzzing. Was I imagining that the skin there was more sensitive all of a sudden? I was. My forehead hadn't changed. That was stupid.

But...something had changed. Something had.

I twisted the rogue lock around my finger, pulling it back down in front of my eyes. I stared at it, pinched between my forefinger and my thumb. My cheeks were still hot. "Thanks," I said to my own hair. I dropped it and blew it out of my face, propping my feet on the coffee table and resting my head on my knees.

I stared at Ren's door. "Thanks," I whispered.