Beneath the Stain - Part 3 (12 page)

Trav grimaced. Mackey was right—Trav needed to see him not awful sometime. He’d probably be stunning.

But Mackey didn’t seem to care about how sad he looked. His hair was scraped back in its queue (his brown roots were beginning to show—he’d probably need a touch-up when he got out), and he was halfway through the gourmet chocolate cake Trav had ordered the minute Mackey had texted.

“Thmfh iff mrrelly fckkn gdd!” he garbled.

Blake, who was working on the other half from the other side, looked up and nodded.

Both of them swallowed in tandem, and Blake spoke up. “I didn’t know ’til Mackey pointed it out, but coke really fucks up your taste buds. Man, it’s like chocolate cake is seeing in
fucking color
, you know?”

Mackey nodded and made sincere eye contact with Stevie, who was sitting next to him at the little picnic table. “Don’t ever start doing it,” he said. “You know how you love cherry freezies? That shit all goes away.”

Stevie looked appropriately horrified, and Jefferson put a comforting hand on his shoulder. Shelia had been making him cherry freezies since she got the damned blender—it was part of her mission to feed them better through Ninja.

“Yeah, well, we’re not as driven as you,” Stevie said apologetically.

Mackey paused in the middle of a bite. He chewed thoughtfully and swallowed. “Well, that’s not necessarily a bad thing,” he said after a minute. “I mean, you guys got each other, got Shelia—can’t do that shit if all you do is play guitar.” He wiped his mouth then, and Trav noticed his hand was shaking.

Apparently that idea was pretty close to the bone too.

“Mackey, you done there?” Trav asked quietly.

Mackey nodded. “Yeah. Blake, man, you can have the rest.” He smiled quietly, his shadowed gray eyes lightening up for a minute. “Trav, that was damned good. Where’d you get that from?”

That whole text message about just being friends sat uncomfortably in Trav’s lap.

“I, uhm, ordered it special,” he said, because he’d started punching it into his computer the minute Mackey asked.

“Special?” Kell snorted, rolling his eyes. “It was delivered to the house
this morning
, and I swear the delivery guy looked like he was from the secret service. I don’t think diamonds or rubies got as much red-carpet treatment as your chocolate cake, Mackey.”

Mackey looked up at his brother and smiled, and for no reason Trav could think of. Then, without warning, as he was looking at Kell, Mackey’s eyes got really red-rimmed and shiny and he blinked.

Trav decided he’d had enough. “Hey, Blake,” he said kindly, “do you want to show everyone the facilities? I was going to show Mackey the catalogs for his furniture, okay?”

Blake nodded and scooped the last of the cake in his mouth. Trav noted with satisfaction that they had demolished it. Blake had shaved since he’d gotten to the facility, and even put on five or so pounds in the past week. He looked a little tired, but it was clear whatever his addiction issues were, they weren’t as tough as Mackey’s.

Mackey watched them all go with a haunted smile on his face. “They look good,” he said, smiling quietly at Trav.

Trav nodded and slid into the spot next to Mackey at the picnic table, pulling out his briefcase with the furniture catalogs. His cast bumped the table, and he grimaced. God, that thing had been awkward this past week, and, yeah, a little painful. He refused to complain, though. He’d wanted this to be a happy thing—he really had—and he’d marked all of the bunk beds and the pages with the bedding, just to make it less of a pain in the ass.

“They look great,” Trav said brightly. “I’ve got them running in the morning—we’re almost like a little track team—and Shelia is cooking for everyone.”

“That’s not right!” Mackey said, suddenly passionate—Trav thought that was a plus in his favor.

“Yeah, I know. I hired a cook-slash-housekeeper to help her out. Astrid does the shopping and helps with the clean-up. She doesn’t speak much English—”

Mackey squinted. “We’re not… uhm, you know. Exploiting her or anything, are we?”

He seemed so concerned, and Trav reminded himself that Mackey’s mom had worked service jobs for most of Mackey’s life. “No, Mackey—we’re paying her top wage and providing her with transport as well.”

Mackey’s tension eased a little, and Trav felt him relaxing slowly against his body.

Trav needed to give him strength. He just seemed so weak, so quiet.

So not the Mackey who had fought Trav for nearly two months.

Trav wrapped his arm around Mackey’s shoulders, a little alarmed when Mackey leaned against him, sort of like a three-pound disaster of a stray cat.

“Mackey, how you doing?”

“Tired,” Mackey muttered. “The cake was really good, but… I’m talking a lot to the shrink and it’s wiping me out.”

“Yeah, I’m getting that. Do you want to look at beds now?”

Mackey shook his head. “I want to just sit here like this,” he said, and Trav tightened his arm. “I can’t, though. I need you to do something for me.”

“Anything.”

Mackey reached into the pocket of his hoodie and pulled out a notebook that had been rolled up inside. “I wrote these letters—the doc said I could communicate with my family this way. I need you to read them for me… you know, proofread them?”

“But aren’t those… private?”

Mackey straightened just enough to look at him. “You get what I’m trying to say and when I don’t want to piss people off. I need that here. I don’t want to piss people off accidentally. Can you make sure I don’t?”

Trav nodded. “Yeah, Mackey. No problem. Right now?”

Mackey leaned his head against Trav’s shoulder again. “Yeah. I was supposed to write one to you, but I wrote a song instead. It’s like, I don’t have the same secrets with you that I have with anyone else. And, well….” Trav felt Mackey shrug.

“Well what?” he asked, opening the notebook. Mackey had brought six or seven to rehab, and this one had scraps of lyrics in it as well as musical notations and even doodles.

A pair of eyes that looked suspiciously like Trav’s glared at him on a number of pages, and Trav could only be grateful Mackey had progressed enough beyond fifth grade that it wasn’t his penis instead.

“They’re all near the end,” Mackey said softly, looking at the notebook too. Trav’s cast was getting in the way, so Mackey reached out and flipped a few pages, stopping at one of several pages that had been dog-eared.

“Got it,” Trav said, his mouth dry. It hit him like an express train that this was a big, painful deal to Mackey. He wasn’t going to fuck with that. “Okay—Kell’s first?”

Mackey shrugged. “If he doesn’t get it, the band falls apart,” he said.

Trav figured that was pretty sound reasoning for an addict.

Dear Kell,

I’m gay. At first I thought I didn’t have to tell you, and then I figured you’d realize it all by yourself. But you didn’t, and you started saying “Only bi when high,” and I figured if you believed that, I wouldn’t break up your world.

But every time you use the word “faggot,” I die inside a little, and I’ve spent most of my life wondering if you’d still be my big brother if you knew I was gay. And I’m weak and sad and an addict, but I think some of what’s killing me is the not knowing. If I knew, even if you didn’t want to be my brother anymore, at least I’d know where I stood.

You’re still the guy who didn’t want me to get beat up and who didn’t want me to overdose, and I love you for that. I hope you can love all of me too.

McKay

Trav swallowed. Aces. This was McKay James Sanders, the real Mackey. The articulate young man who let his emotions out in lyrics and who swung a wide berth around anything personal, anything private, anything that let anybody in.

Trav felt something escape him, a sound, a sort of nonverbal violence, and his eyes burned.

“What?” Mackey asked, his voice shaking. “Bad? Was it bad? Is it gonna piss Kell off? Man, it’s gotta be—”

“Calm down,” Trav said, and he dropped a kiss on the top of Mackey’s hair. It smelled just washed, something masculine and sharp, and Trav liked it. “It’s great. I’m just… just being stupid because I’m so glad. Something this honest, Mackey, and I know you mean it. You’re working on it for real this time. Trying to make it stick.”

Mackey grunted. “Yeah. It really hurts, you know that?”

Trav breathed hard out his nose and tried to still the shaking in his hands. “I’m so fucking proud of you I can’t stand it. Let me read the other one.”

Dear Mom,

I’m gay. I think you might know already, but I’ve been trying not to tell you, not to give you anything else to worry about. But I’m in rehab, and things got really bad before I got here. I wanted to take care of you so bad, Mom, but I don’t think parts of me ever got taken care of first. It’s not your fault—don’t ever think it is. You did your best. You loved us all. You fed us when there wasn’t any money and kept us dressed and made us do chores. I really admire you for that—you should know that. I think parts of me were just needy. That’s nothing you did. But I love you and I hope you still love me too, even though I’m gay, and I’m an addict. I worried so hard that you wouldn’t.

McKay

Trav wiped a shaking hand over his mouth. God, this must have gutted Mackey. Must have ripped him inside out. It hurt Trav just to read.

The next letter sort of let him off the hook.

Dear Jefferson and Stevie—

I didn’t want you guys to feel left out by not getting a letter, but I don’t have too much to write, really. You guys just always accepted me. I love that about the two of you. I want you to know that I accept you and Shelia too. Don’t let anyone give you crap about being three people. You’re happy. I’m just so damned glad that kids I grew up with are happy, I wouldn’t care if Shelia was a whole other rock band fucking in your bedroom. I’m glad she’s not though—that would be loud. But I love her—she’s really nice. If she makes you happy, she’s even more awesome.

McKay

Trav laughed a little.

“Jefferson and Stevie?” Mackey asked, his voice taking on some animation.

“That was a nice one.”

“The next one….” Mackey sounded, if anything, more pained. “I’m not gonna send it. I can’t. I told Cambridge it would do more harm than good, and he agreed with me. But it felt good writing it, you know?”

“Good in a good way?” Trav asked, looking at the name on the top.

“Not really,” Mackey admitted, his voice clogged. “Just read it.”

Dear Grant,

I’m pissed. I’m really pissed. For most of my life, you were what love was all about, and you just ripped that away from me like skin. I try not to hate you, though, because it couldn’t have been any easier for you than it was for me. We both had shit we had to do, responsibilities that about crushed us after we split up. I hope your baby girl gives you joy. I hope you find it in you to love your wife. It’s taken me a fuckton of drugs and nameless men and pain to realize you were not the end-all and be-all of my life. But someday I will be over you, and I’ll be able to forgive you, and I’ll be able to go home and see your baby girl and not be mad.

I’m in rehab right now, and that’s my promise to myself. Someday, I’ll be able to do that. I think that’s when I’ll know that I’ve found peace.

I really loved you,

Mackey

Trav had to breathe slow and easy through that one. It was about as honest as a breakup letter got. It was a pure, unfiltered glimpse into Mackey James Sanders’s heart, and it was battered and bloody and still a little broken.

But healing.

Trav felt selfish, hoping there was enough of it left for him. Selfish, childish, all sorts of terrible things, because he wished he had a letter too.

He turned the page, though, and was still a little startled to see his own eyes looking back at him.

Underneath the sketch was the song.

I’m here

You thought you’d drive us crazy

All rules and lists and things to do

But that wasn’t the kind of crazy

That I got about you.

You looked at us and saw a mess

And put us back in order.

You looked at me and saw a mess

And instead of making me all pretty

You told me how to fix it.

You looked at me and saw me

And you saw I was still good.

And just that moment I thought

That I was born to scream and disappear

I realized that I’m still here.

So here we are in places freshly cleaned

Made neat with folded clothes

A roof a yard a picket fence

And privacy we’ve never known.

I’m scrubbing up my heart and soul

And getting rid of what’s mostly black

Because I know when I look at you

You’ll look at me right back.

Because that time when I was gonna try

To disappear

Has come and gone and gone away

When you see me

I’m still here.

Trav’s throat was thick, and he touched his fingers to the deep grooves etched on the paper by the ballpoint pen Mackey used. It was all so precise, he thought. No strike-throughs, no scratched-out places. Every word, both in the letters and the lyrics, had been chosen long before it was ever written down. Edited, yes, but edited in Mackey’s head. Trav wondered if there were rough drafts on napkins, program paper, brochures, and if the cheap notebooks only saw the purest things Mackey wrote down.

Or maybe just this one.

Trav wasn’t sure.