Stray Fears - Gregory Ashe Page 0,49

many siblings do you have?”

“Have? Zero. My brother is dead.”

“Oh damn. I’m sorry.”

“Here we go,” I said, “just to get it all out of the way: he killed my parents and then himself.”

I kept my gaze on the glass. It blurred and doubled and the light on the rim turned into a white crescent when I tilted it at the right angle.

“Elien, I am so sorry.” Dag touched my shoulder, and I realized he was pulling me into a hug. For a moment, I pulled back, not sure what was happening. Then my face was against his neck, and I smelled his deodorant and his hair and the detergent on his shirt, and he squeezed me tight, and I started crying.

“It’s the rum,” I said, pulling away and wiping my eyes. “Jesus, it was over a year ago, and I don’t cry about it anymore, but I haven’t had a drink in a long time. It’s hitting me pretty hard right now.”

“You can cry about it,” Dag said. “Come here, I want to hug you again.”

And he did. This time, he squeezed so hard I grunted and had to tap out.

“Ok,” I croaked, and I drew in a huge breath. “Ok, so, now I realize you are a murderously compassionate teddy bear. Any more sympathy hugs and I’m going to have punctured lungs.”

Then I started crying again, but not as hard, and I finished the rum and Coke and started eating my sandwich so I wouldn’t have to talk. I had another drink, and even though Dag objected, I had a third, and I finished my sandwich and all my fries.

Dag had to help me out to the car. He got me stretched out in the backseat. The sun felt good on me, and the breeze when he drove, and I smelled clover and sorghum and the cool, damp places under trees, dead leaves and the shadowy greenness of Spanish moss. I wasn’t sure if I slept, but when my head was clearer, I sat up and realized the car had stopped moving.

“I have to pee,” I said.

“Pick a tree,” Dag said.

I staggered out of the car, put a few of the old oaks between me and the car, and peed. I took in my surroundings and guessed we were in a state park: lots of oaks, a few magnolia trees along the gravel road, Spanish moss and ferns and a thick layer of wet leaves that was spongy when I walked on it. Water glistened to my right, and I guessed that was Lake Pontchartrain.

When I got back to the car, Dag had hand sanitizer and a bottle of water.

“You’re a regular mother hen,” I said.

He just smiled.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“You’re going to be sorrier if you don’t drink all that water. You said you haven’t had a drink lately, but you put those rum and Cokes back pretty fast.”

So I drank the bottle of water, and we leaned against the car, the heat of his body brighter than the sunlight.

“This is a nice place,” I said.

“My dad used to take me camping here.”

“Do you have siblings?”

“No, just me and my parents.”

“And they’re insane about you.”

“They’re definitely insane,” he said with a smile.

I set the cap on the empty bottle and spun it closed, open, closed. “My parents loved me, I guess. But they were just kind of . . . quiet about it. I don’t know. They freaked out when I told them I was gay, and then they tried to be nice about it, but it was like this huge gap that never really closed. It’s not like they kicked me out or anything. I just couldn’t talk to them. Gard, that’s my brother, he and I were really close when we were young, but it got harder and harder. I mean, now I know he was really ill. But at the time, I just thought he was strange. He spent more and more time in his room. He wouldn’t talk to my parents, then he wouldn’t even talk to me, and I thought maybe he had really good friends online.”

Dag put his arm over my shoulders and pulled me against him.

“I know it’s not my fault,” I said. “I know, I know, I know.”

He made a noise low in his chest.

“I was in the other room getting fucked, if you want the whole picture,” I said. “My first time. I’d done other stuff, you know, but that was my first time getting fucked. You think I’m