The Thrill of It

Chapter Sixteen

Trey

I have my armor on. My earbuds are in and Over the Edge blasts in my head, the music a shield. I make it through the lobby, feeling like a character in a video game darting and dodging cars and trucks to cross a crowded street.

I press the button for the elevator, and it’s empty when it arrives. I step inside, then seconds later, I hear a voice. A sexy, sultry voice.

It’s like I’m being tested, but then that’s the point. I want the test. I’m here to prove to myself I can do this. I can make it across the alligator-strewn waters of my parent’s apartment building.

A gorgeous blond with impossibly long legs and a red dress that looks as if it’s been painted on waggles her fingers at me. “Hold the elevator.”

I swallow, my throat dry. I push the open button.

She walks inside. “Hello there.” The words are a purr from her cherry lips.

I grab the brass bar behind me, holding on for dear fucking life as the elevator shoots up.

Her stop is before mine, and she casts a quick glance before she leaves. I heave a sigh as the doors close.

I passed the first test. I picture some army dude, a colonel maybe, in a room with one-way glass, barking out orders. “Cue the cougar in the elevator. Next, roll out the MILF.”

But seconds later, I’m at my parent’s floor. This is the real test. The assault rifles, the grenades–-the army commander is preparing to launch them all at me as I head to Antarctica.

I take out the earbuds and turn off the music. I know this hallway in the dark, without a flashlight. I could find my way in and out of this building blindfolded. This is where I grew up, became fucked up, and then was told to shut up.

I stop at the door, then take a beat. Gritting my teeth, drawing a breath, steeling myself.

I knock.

My mother answers, and even though it’s late, she’s up because she rarely sleeps. She’s still dressed too. She’s wearing jeans and a button-down blouse. Her hair is in a neat ponytail. She holds a medical journal in her hand.

“Trey, is everything okay? What are you doing here at midnight? Come in.” She gestures to the apartment, every surface perfectly and pristinely cleaned.

I shake my head. I don’t want to go in. I don’t even want to be here. This place is a vacuum seal on feelings. I’d enter and they’d duct tape my mouth and tell me not to say a word.

“That’s okay. I don’t need to come in.”

“Did you want to talk more about school? Your studies?” she asks, because these are the only acceptable topics.

“No, I don’t want to talk about school. I wanted to show you something,” I say, and this is when I see if I can do what Michele has been urging me to do all along. To say it. Because if I can say something to my mom, I can say it to Harley. I’m at the edge of a cliff, I’m jumping off without a parachute, and I’m hoping for a soft landing, even though I know I could crash and break every bone in my body.

I turn to my side, pull up my shirt, and show her my new ink. The bandage has been removed.

“These are three trees. And they’re for Will, Jake and Drew,” I say, and she stumbles when I breathe their names aloud for the first time in years. Like she’s been punched in the gut and is winded. “And you might not ever say their names or acknowledge they existed, but I have and I will. Because I don’t want to forget them. I want to remember.”

And that’s all. I don’t wait for a response. I don’t need a response, and I don’t warrant a response. Because even after I turn around and wait endless minutes for the elevator to arrive, she doesn’t call after me, she doesn’t try to tell me she remembers too. She’s stuck to her guns, to her orders from when I was fifteen. Don’t talk about it.

The doors open and I’m inside now. I’d like to say I feel like a new man, like my life is unfurling before me. But that would be bullshit. Instead, my heart is frantic, and my skin is crawling, and I want to go jump into the ocean and swim out into the night, the stars my only companions. But there’s no ocean nearby, there’s only this claustrophobic, sticky, sweaty, smelly, muggy city that I want to escape from, that I’ve lived in my whole life, that’s made everything I’ve done possible.

But I am also buzzing with adrenaline, because I can’t fucking believe I did that. And if I can do that, I can do something that’s more important. I can tear down the fucking walls I have built with this girl I am crazy for.

I’m ready to find her. Ready to tell her. Ready to let her know everything. Damn the consequences. Screw the costs. Telling her everything is like inking my body. I have to go into it with no regrets.

When the elevator opens into the lobby, my heart stops because she is walking toward me.

I don’t freeze. I don’t run to her like in the movies. I just keep moving, one foot in front of the other, and this is the real walking of the plank. This is the true blind dive. I have no clue why she’s here. All I know is she’s not dressed for work. She’s dressed for me. She’s wearing her skinny hipster jeans, all tight and dark, and a t-shirt with a cat smoking a pipe and the words No Smoking under it. She doesn’t even have Converse on now. She has on combat boots, and I’ve never seen a girl in anything hotter than Harley in combat boots. Her hair is loose, and she has on pink lipgloss, and I want to taste it.

Then I give myself a mental slap for automatically going to the physical. I should focus on everything else. Like why she’s here.

“Welcome to the lion’s den,” I say, because I don’t know what the hell to say and humor seems as reasonable as falling at her feet and telling her how I feel for her.

She’s not having it. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Why?”

She furrows her brows like I’m crazy. “Um, hello? You haven’t answered your phone, except once and then you hung up. And you haven’t responded to a text or anything for days.”

“I think it was two days. You know, if you’re counting.”

She parks her hands on her hips. “Well, I am counting. And I went to your apartment to find you, and now I’m here.” Her voice echoes across the rose-colored marble lobby with brass trim. The doorman in a dark maroon uniform fixes his focus on something unseen across the street, probably doing his best to pretend he can’t hear everything we’re saying. He’s good at his job – see no evil, hear no evil.

“Let’s get out of here,” I say and grab her elbow, gently leading her out of the building and onto the street. We walk several feet because I need space and distance from my parents. We stop near the end of the block and I lean against the stoop of a brownstone. She stands next to me, and we’re the only ones on the quiet street at this late hour. Somewhere, in the distance, a horn honks and someone shouts. But here, the space between us is carved with silence.

I turn to her. She looks back at me. Who will make the first move? But that’s not really a question. She came to me. She found me. She hunted me down. But even if she hadn’t done those things, I still have unfinished business.

“I’m sorry I kinda disappeared the last few days,” I say softly.

“Why did you disappear?”

“I had to figure some things out. Get my shit together.”

She inches away from me. “What did you figure out? That you don’t want to be friends with me?”

I laugh, shake my head. “That couldn’t be further from the truth.”

“Jordan said you got a new tattoo. Are you going to tell me now why you keep getting them? What this obsession is? Because I think what you told me when you were drunk was true. Was it?”

She meets my eyes without hostility, without anger, without fear. I’m struck dumb by how masterful the two of us can be at playing people, juggling men and women, reeling off lies with vigor and abandon. But then, in quiet moments, she can strip that away and ask me for all my truths.

I lick my lips, part them, and I feel mute again, like when she called. For the briefest moment, I have the sensation that my entire world can smother me, that the buildings on the other side of the block will break free, topple over and crush me. That I will die. But then I tested that hypothesis a few minutes ago outside my parent’s door, and I’m still standing.

It’s now or never. And one thing I know for sure – never isn’t an option.

“Yeah. It’s all true,” I admit.

“Oh, Trey.” Her throat hitches and her eyes are brimming with sadness. She steps closer, touches my arm. Rubs her fingertips against my skin. “I’m so sorry. Do you want to tell me about them? About Will, Jake and Drew.”

I stumble. Like I’ve been hit. But she grabs my hand, steadies me. “You remember their names?” I can’t believe it. I can’t believe she remembers.

“Yes,” she says with a nod. She links her fingers through mine, leads me to the nearby stoop. I follow her, and the feel of her hand in mine is extraordinary. She sits down, turns to me, takes both of my hands in hers. I watch her, amazed that she’s not looking away, that she wants to listen. That she’s not going anywhere. That she cares. Deeply.

“Tell me.”

So I begin at the beginning.

My parents were young when they had me, just finishing their residencies. I was the only child for a long time, but when I was twelve they were ready to expand, they said. They were established, with a well-respected plastic surgery practice that doubled as a mint. They were raking it in and ready to become a bigger family.

Soon my mom was pregnant with another boy. All was well and her pregnancy was picture perfect. But at four and a half months, I heard her wake up shrieking at four in the morning, then my dad rushed into my room, told me he was taking her to the hospital and that Mrs. Fitzpatrick down the hall would come babysit.

I didn’t go back to sleep that night.

I stared at the clock and waited. When morning came, Mrs. Fitzpatrick told me to get ready for school. She took me to the deli at the end of the street, bought me a bagel, and walked me to school, even though I knew the route myself, thank you very much. When the day ended, my dad was waiting for me on the steps of the school.

He shook his head, gave me a sad smile, and then when we were far enough away from the school he wrapped me in the kind of hug you give when you’ve lost someone and you want to hold on dearly to those you have left.

“We had a son. He was too small to live,” my father said, choking out the words, his eyes rimmed with red.

“I don’t understand. What happened?”

“Her water broke too soon.”

“So, where’s the baby?”

“She was only twenty weeks pregnant. He couldn’t survive.”

I was glad we were blocks away from my school. I didn’t want anyone to see me cry, but I could feel the tears prick at the back of my eyes, threatening me.

“What did you name him?”

My father tilted his head as if the question didn’t make sense.

“Did he have a name?”

“No, Trey. We didn’t name him.”

“Oh,” I said, and that’s when my chest felt like a dark, black pit. He was nameless. That was worse than death. I grabbed hard on my dad’s arm, desperate for him to understand. “We need to name him, Dad. He needs a name. He has to have a name.”

“Okay,” my dad said, holding his hands out wide, a helpless gesture. “What should we name him?”

“Can we name him Jake?”

“Sure,” he said in an empty voice. “We can do that. We can name him Jake.”

Then my father broke down and cried on Madison Avenue, falling to his knees on the sidewalk and clutching me, like I was the anchor.

“You miss Jake, don’t you?” I asked.

He nodded against my chest.

My parents tried again, and my mom made it further, but at her seven-month appointment the doctor couldn’t find a heartbeat. She went to the hospital that day to deliver the baby, and Mrs. Fitzpatrick brought me over in the evening so I could meet my second brother. I held him, the baby boy named Drew who was wrapped in a standard hospital baby blanket, with fingers the size of matches bent into a miniature little fist and a heart that no longer beat.

The next day, Mrs. Fitzpatrick came by the apartment with flowers and sympathy and a year later with wallpaper samples and paint chips since my mom was pregnant once more. I was fifteen then, and this was their last shot. My mom was optimistic, bright, cheery. Third time’s a charm, she said, as Mrs. Fitzpatrick helped her pick out colors for the baby’s room.

When Will was born – alive, red, screaming at the top of his lungs – everyone erupted into cheers. But soon after he was diagnosed with a congenital heart defect and given only a few days to live.

The doctors told my mom, “At least we know now why you keep losing the babies.”

As if that gave her solace.

We brought Will home to give him “comfort care.” We were hidden away in the apartment, on some sort of death watch. The clock was ticking, and we were simply unwinding the minutes until he died.

I was the one holding him.

I didn’t let go for the longest time.

Then, my mom cleaned out the baby’s room, threw away the crib, ripped off the teddy bear border from the wall, and turned it into a cold, sleek, modern office, with two desks where my parents buried themselves in medical journals each night.

The expansion plans had failed, and so it was time to move on.

Dust off your hands. Don’t look back. Don’t even breathe a word.

I planted the trees myself. In Abingdon Square Park alone, late one night, the moon and the city my only company. The only one who wanted to remember.

And if they were going to numb themselves, I figured I could too. When I turned sixteen, I started visiting Mrs. Fitzpatrick, ostensibly for her home-baked cookies and for her keen interest in talking about feelings and all the things my parents would never discuss. Like that card with the saying about the stars in the sky. She looked at it with me. She talked about it with me. She said she believed too. Then, we stopped talking about feelings because I was done with them. I wanted to feel other things. I wanted to feel her. I wanted to numb myself in pleasure, in women, in sex. I wanted nothing but euphoria, but never-fucking-ending ecstasy. I wanted the opposite to take the pain away. She taught me everything I knew, and sent me off on the merry path of curves, and breasts, and sixty ways to make a woman scream your name at the top of her lungs. I worked my way through the building and the beauties and the cougars and I made them feel all the highs that only losing yourself in sex could ever bring.

Her cheeks are stained with tears. Her lower lip is quivering. She’s swiping at her cheeks, trying to wipe the evidence of her sadness away. But it’s futile.

She blinks several times, swallows, and says in a broken, choppy voice, “I am so sorry.”

But her words don’t stick. They bounce off me, like I’m made of rubber. It’s not her though. It’s me. To tell that story I had to disengage. Disconnect. That’s the only way I could get it out without choking on a river of tears. I barely feel rooted to the steps right now. It’s as if my vision went blurry, and I’m seeing fuzzy, silver streaks before my eyes. I’m a ghost, floating above, watching this scene transpire from another plane of reality, from one where I can’t be hurt.

She brings her hand to her chest, and her shoulders are shaking. The tears fall like a fucking rainstorm now, unleashed, and it’s so strange to watch someone else’s reaction. I’ve been living my own reaction for years, inside of me and locked up in my head, and now this story that’s only been told in hieroglyphics on my body is someone else’s to own, to process, to feel. It’s as if I’ve given her a piece of my heart, and said there, do with it what you will. I’m frozen in time, waiting, to see if she’ll kick my heart away.

“I can’t believe you kept that all inside, Trey,” she says in between sobs. “I can’t believe that’s your history, and your family, and you never said a word.”

I shrug. Or the me I’m watching shrugs. He’s not sure what happens next. “I got used to not talking about it. It’s like this black hole in life.”

She grasps my hand, slides her fingers through mine. “You. Are. Brave.”

I scoff, then sneer for good measure. “How does that make me brave?”

She grips harder. “You are brave to tell me. You are brave to let me in. You are brave and crazy and you are stupid to think you can handle that all yourself,” she says, laying a gentle hand on my cheek, her smooth skin on my rough stubbled jaw.

“So I’m stupid. Like that’s news.”

“You are stupid brave. And stupid courageous. And stupid amazing. And I won’t let you go through any more of this alone,” she says fiercely, eyes blazing with an intensity I’ve never seen before. She grabs the neck of my shirt, pulls hard on it, tugs me closer. “I’m sorry about your brothers. And I’m sorry your parents never talked about it. And I’m sorry you had to carry all that around by yourself. But I want to know whatever you want to tell me, Trey. I want you to show me all your tattoos and tell me what they mean. I want to see the tree you planted for them,” she says and she twists harder on my shirt. “I want you to know they’re not ever going to be forgotten because I will remember them for you.”

In an instant, I’m back on earth. I’m no longer floating, removed. I’m here, next to her, and my chest is cracked open, and I’ve given her my bleeding, beating heart, and she’s holding it in her hands, and she’s not crushing it, she’s not destroying it. She’s doing the opposite. She’s getting me. She’s understanding, she’s burrowing her way so far under my skin, into my head, and around my heart that I am dangerously close to joining her in the tears department. I’m still a guy; I don’t know that I can go there in front of her. But I don’t have to because I’m going someplace else it turns out. She ropes her arms around my neck, and I bury my face in her hair, and I don’t ever want to let go of her. She clings to me, tugs and pulls and brings me closer, like she doesn’t ever want to let go either. And I don’t know how we’re here, how we’re back on a stoop in New York, and we always seem to wind up on a stoop in New York, but more than that, we always seem to wind up in each other’s arms. We are magnets and I can’t resist the pull.

There is no distance between us and I don’t want any more distance. I want closeness, I want connection, I want it with her. Then she loosens her grip. Not by much, but enough to bring her sweet lips to my ear. She grazes me with a whisper, her voice soft. “I want you to take off your shirt and I want you to tell me everything. I want to see your new ink. I want to understand you.”

I am an electrical line, buzzing. “Do you want to come to my place?”

“Yes.”