It's Like This (17 page)

We’re drunk enough that the movie seems funny, but before long Cody’s snoring and we’re all just laughing, except Rylan, who’s practically purring. Parker and Matilda are very tentatively holding hands and looking pleased. I stare at Brice incredulously, asking him if
he
sees what’s going on here.

“What, man?” he whispers. “Your sister’s hot shit.”

I shake my head, bewildered, and stretch down, clasping my arms in front of Rylan’s neck and kissing his cheek. He smiles and turns his head to kiss me properly. I really can’t say I don’t enjoy this newfound security. It’s kind of awesome.

* * *

Eventually Cody shuffles off to bed and the rest of the guys stumble home. Matilda passes out happily on the couch.

I’m drunk and in the mood for Rylan. I push him into my room and kiss him and he kisses me. He feels so fucking good and I wanna climb him like a tree but I’m also pretty sleepy and obedient and glow under his attention as he undresses me and tucks us into bed.

“Ry?” I find myself asking.

“Yes, Drunk Niles?” he responds, pressing his lips against mine a couple more times before pulling away far enough to look me in the eyes.

“What’s it like? And I’m not trying to be an asshole even if it sounds that way, but…what’s it like to…not have…a family? Like, parents who are around, and sisters to look out for? I mean, you’re our family now, but, you know, before?”

I lick my lips, worrying he’s going to be pissed, but instead he just looks steadily at me. He slides his hand back over my side, and links my fingers with his.

“It’s exactly what you’d expect,” he says, calmly. “It’s lonely.”

“And…and you’re sure that it’s not in any way salvage—salva—fixable?” I question, trying, and failing, to sound sober and mature.

“Stuff between me and my parents?” he asks and I nod. “Positive. But if you really want proof, baby, I’ll show you.”

“It’s not that I don’t believe you. I just—want to know.”

“Then I’ll take you.”

“Thanks,” I whisper.

He looks at me for a long moment, then runs his hand up my arm and nips my collarbone.

“You know,” he says, voice light. “I just had this wacky idea.”

“Oh?” I answer, taking his bottom lip between mine for a second, “And what’s that?”

He shifts closer to me, pushing his knee between mine. “What do you say to you and I having sex like normal people, just this once?”

I touch my nose to his chin, liking this idea. “And what does that involve, exactly?”

“Hmm.” He considers, rolling me onto my back, only to kneel between my legs, looking down at me. “Something like this.” He kisses me slowly, contently, on the mouth and neck. His hands drag up over my stomach and chest and shoulders and I grip his hair with my fingers before pulling him close.

“You know,” I say. “That might just be something I could get into. But just this once.”

“How opportune it is to find both of us naked, then,” he whispers, lightly circling my cock with his fingers.

I gasp, smiling. “Indeed.”

“Now,” he instructs, “if you’d just go ahead and kiss me…”

And I do. And somewhere in the middle of it all, I swear I hear him mutter, “Kinky.”

“Well, this is it,” Rylan says, pulling my parents’ car up to the curb.

We’ve driven for twenty minutes or so, going from the suburban neighbourhood where I grew up, through some shoddy commercial area, to here.

It’s not a stereotype, exactly, like we’re still in Victoria; and it’s not like the front yard is filled with broken down bathtubs or old junker cars or anything. The grass is, well, not dead, but not mowed, either. The steps are cracked and the paint is peeling, and little sections of the sharply-pebbled siding have fallen or been picked off, leaving awkward bare patches. There’s a not quite-rusted white Fiesta with a dark blue door in the driveway. The Venetian blinds in the biggest front window are droopy, but shut.

“She home?” I ask.

“Should be,” Rylan answers, his voice flat. “Mom used to finish work around four, home by four thirty. Groceries and booze on Saturdays. So unless something’s changed in the year and a bit since I last spoke to her…” He tails off, shrugging.

It still seems totally incomprehensible to me that he hasn’t had contact with her for that long. Two weeks without talking to my mom, and I start to feel like a guilty little ingrate.

Rylan swings the car door shut and hits the lock button. The car honks and the lights flash. Rylan pockets the keys. He doesn’t take my hand.

“Ready?” he asks, grimly.

The last time I was here was Halloween, grade ten, just a couple of months before Rylan and I started anything. None of the guys’ parents (including mine) would let us crash together—it wasn’t a weekend—so finally, reluctantly, Rylan said we could come over to his.

I remember he had been nervous. The house had been spotless. I realize now that that must have been Rylan’s doing, but at the time I just assumed his parents were clean freaks or something. I guess I hadn’t known him long enough at that point for him to divulge that his dad was rarely in the picture. I remember that Brice and Ethan were drunk, but the rest of us were sober. We’d gone trick-or-treating even though my parents had told me I was too old.

Rylan’s mom didn’t seem to be around, so we threw down pillows and blankets on the living room floor, eventually intending on going to bed. At some point though, Ethan, drunk out of his mind, got the genius idea of looking for the bathroom in the dark, and apparently opened the door to Rylan’s mom’s room instead. The rest of us were horsing around; we didn’t notice he was gone.

And then we all had our first glimpse of Rylan’s mom, standing in a grungy lavender bathrobe, glowering at us all.

“What the fuck is going on here, Rylan?” she’d demanded.

I’d been shocked because my parents rarely swore around us.

“Remember, Mom?” Rylan had asked, his voice unnaturally high. “I asked if I could have some guys over for Halloween? And you said it was OK?”

“Of course I remember.” Her voice was sharp, biting. “But it’s not Hallo-fucking-ween, yet.”

Parker and I had exchanged worried glances.

Rylan bit his lip. “Yeah, Ma…it is,” he said, quietly, trying to smooth over the embarrassment.

The rest of us didn’t know if she was going to snap and throw something, or hit someone, or what.

Instead her expression changed completely. “Is it? Well, silly me, I didn’t even carve the pumpkin.” Her voice sounded as if we should all accept that this was a perfectly natural error, one that anyone would make, and that we should all just forget about it and move on. “Where is the pumpkin, baby?” She directed the question to Rylan.

“On the counter, Ma,” he said, his voice wavering with helplessness. “But you bought it a couple weeks ago.”

“Well? Bring it here. Me and your friends will carve it up. Isn’t that right, boys?”

We hadn’t known what to do, so when Rylan reappeared with a guilty, tight face, a moulding pumpkin, newspaper, and all the necessary supplies, we sat and…helped. Helped Rylan’s gin-smelling mother empty out and carve a grimace into the stinking pumpkin at two a.m. on Halloween.

Rylan didn’t invite us over again, after that. I’d seen his mother only twice since. Once as she walked out of a bank on a street downtown, and the other time at our high school graduation. She had to be escorted out by an administrator early, though, because she wouldn’t stop cheering for Rylan. She waited for him in the lobby of the hall, where she showered him with kisses, telling him she’d started celebrating early. He’d called her a cab, and came out for dinner with my family.

I’m realizing now I really shouldn’t have pushed this.

“Ry—we don’t have to—”

But he just places his key in the dead bolt lock.

“Might as well,” he responds. “I thought I’d keep a key so the paramedics don’t have to bust down the door, when that day comes, right? But this way we can put it to use sooner.”

Rylan shoves the door open. It catches on the rug inside, and he kicks that out of the way. Inside smells like I remember it: cigarettes and mould and booze, but it’s not totally overwhelming. Maybe she’s keeping it together well enough.

“Mom?” Rylan calls out.

There’s no answer. Rylan straightens out some free city newspapers on the coffee table, and turns off the TV, which is talking to no one.

“Wait here for a sec, ’kay?” he asks me, and I nod and sit down awkwardly on the arm of the couch.

He goes upstairs and returns a minute or two later. His mom is behind him. She’s dressed in slightly rumpled work clothes: a blouse and pants. Her feet are bare and her skinny arms hang uselessly to her sides, exposing big breasts and a bigger stomach, straining the blouse buttons.

“Mom, you remember Niles, right?” Rylan asks, voice soft. “My friend from school?”

“Of course,” she responds impatiently, as if Rylan’s re-introduction was stupid. “How are you, Myles?”

I look at Rylan for support. He crosses his arms, and I know I don’t deserve a rescue. I don’t bother correcting her.

“Well, thank you,” I answer instead. “And yourself?”

“Oh, you know,” she replies with a sigh of camaraderie. “You want something to drink? Tea or something?”

I look to Rylan, but he’s still not giving me anything. “Um, sure, thanks,” I say.

She claps Rylan on the back, making her way to the kitchen. “You should bring your friends round here more often, baby. Might teach you some manners, or something.” It’s mean. She doesn’t say it in a mean way, but it’s still mean.

Rylan ignores her words and my blush.

“I’ll make the tea, Ma. You sit down.”

“Don’t mind if I do,” she replies, and pulls out a chair, motioning for me to sit, too.

Even though Rylan hasn’t lived here for years, he still seems to know his way around the kitchen, and within a few minutes the kettle is whistling, and he’s pouring hot water over Red Rose tea bags in mismatched mugs. He gives a floral one to me, and a faded
Garfield
one to her. His has planets or something on it.

“How’s work, Mom?” Rylan asks, carefully wrapping his fingers around the mug, and looking her straight in the eye.

“Oh, you know,” she replies once again. “Rich getting richer, and all that.”

“Still getting your benefits?”

“Oh yeah, they’ll never take those away. I’m a good worker. Get my job done alright.”

Then we surrender back into silence.

“What do you do?” I ask, finally, bravely.

“Government. Human Resources. Just make up reports, mostly. Boring shit, but someone’s gotta do it, right?”

I offer a weak smile.

“What are you boys up to?” she asks, as if she’d seen us the day before and just wants to know how we spent our morning.

“Uh. I’m at school,” I answer. “At the university.”

She smiles. “Oh, excellent. Good for you. Beautiful campus. I used to…well. Walk around thereabouts sometimes.”

“Eons ago,” Rylan snorts under his breath.

His mother looks like she wants to smack him on the head, but instead she pulls her face into a smiling grimace. “Yes. Well.”

There’s another pause. “How come you’re not getting yourself an education, Ry-baby?” she asks.

I blush. How could she say that? He managed to afford one semester before having to drop out—had to pay his rent, and he refused the money my parents offered to loan him. He said there was no point paying until he knew what he actually wanted to study.

“Must be the genes,” he replies.

“Don’t be a shit,” she fires back.

We lapse back into nothingness for another few minutes.

“So, whatcha doing down this way, anyway?” she asks.

“Just strolling through the neighbourhood,” Rylan answers sarcastically. It’s hard for me to watch him act this way, bitter and cold. I’ve never seen him like this.

“You need something?” his mom asks and I think there’s genuine concern in her voice.

“Well, I did. But I suspect it’s a bit too late for nourishment and sobriety.”

Rylan’s mother emits a pained sound, but doesn’t say anything.

Ry drains his tea, and clunks his empty cup back on the table. “Look, Ma. Nigh just wanted to make sure you’re doing OK. And it looks like you are. So we’ll get out of your hair.”

“Sure, sure.” She watches him carefully until he pulls out his wallet and drops two one-hundred-dollar bills on the counter.

He looks at me. I stand and follow him towards the door. We stuff our feet back into our shoes.

“I love you, baby,” we hear.

Rylan sighs and grabs my hand, suddenly and tightly, his other hand on the doorknob. “I love you, too, Mom.” he says.

We leave.

* * *

For several minutes, we sit in silence. Once the car’s in drive, Rylan takes my hand again, and doesn’t let go. Eventually we arrive at the breakwater, park, and look out over the ocean, watching seagulls dart around over the waves.

“She seems OK,” I brave, finally. “Nice.”

For a moment Rylan doesn’t respond. When he does, it is in the form of a low, cold laugh. One I don’t recognize.

“Don’t,” he warns. “She was totally smashed.”

She was?

I don’t have to say it out loud.

“Impressive, no? That’s how she stays on at the office. Denial, denial, denial, and faking it.”

He doesn’t want me to ask, but I can’t stop myself. “And you can’t…do anything?”

He chuckles and then goes quiet and then chuckles again, his hand leaving mine, his eyes fixed on the side view mirror. “You’re sweet, Nigh.”

“Don’t patronize me!” I’m frustrated and scared. I haven’t seen him like this. I don’t know how to react, and I just want to—I don’t know, help or something.

He turns back towards me, puts his hand on my cheek, demands eye contact. “I’m not. I’m being honest. You are sweet.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I mutter, darkly.

“It means you want to find the good in people, or at least make things better, and hell, babe, sometimes you even can and that’s one of the thousands of reasons I love you. But this? Nigh, you can’t fix this.”

“How do you know? Couldn’t you…get her into a program? I mean, I know it’s expensive but, maybe my parents could…”