WHENEVER HE BROKE up, Wyatt went through a cleansing after some much-needed crying that is, all of which happened to be among his post-breakup rituals.
It involved listening to slow music, eating junk food while he FaceTimed his sister, deleting every trace of an ex from his phone (but only after he backed them up, because there were some really cute selfies and text screenshots he couldnât let go of), boxing and mailing out every paraphernalia of the relationship, etc., because as the saying went: Out of sight, out of mindâeven though he usually forced himself to not bring up the absence makes the heart grow fonder argument, and almost always lost.
So it was in detention the next dayâTobi was absent because he was at soccer practiceâthat Wyatt realized that he hadnât seen much of Rashad since they last spoke; which was the bathroom incident from two weeks ago.
It wasnât that he wouldnât have noticed earlier, but rather that he had tried his possible best to put anything Rashad-related out of his mind for as long as he could, even if he had checked off everything in his purge list except deleting his contact.
Wyatt sat back in his chair, drumming his fingers on the desk as his mind wandered to Canyon, with who heâd spent the previous dayâs lunch with after ditching Tobi, who was already familiar with Wyattâs idiosyncrasies.
Sighing, he rested his chin on his knuckles as he stared listlessly at the digital wall clock which read four thirty-six p.m. in bold black characters and whiled away time by letting his mind fill up with images of what kissing Canyon would feel like.
He was a sucker for love, not naïve; and so Wyatt did not expect technicolor and poppy fields, but he imagined that it would feel like smoking pot, which may not have been the most romantic descriptor, but it was the closest that he could come up with bored out of his mind in detention.
The kisses would settle heavily over him with a quiet potency that made him want to laugh or cry, and when he finally got high enough on them, belts fumbling, he would hit the ground running with the velocity of an asteroid, crash into a million pieces, and those pieces into a million more.
Or maybe he was just being melodramatic, again.
With his track record this was most definitely the case, and kissing his latest crush would involve lots of tongue and saliva that would probably end up in a drunken one-night stand that he would not remember the next morning.
Someone cleared their throat bringing him back to the present and Wyatt shook his head to find that the detention supervisor had his eyes on him.
He was a substitute who Wyatt had caught glimpses of here and there around the school premises. He was also sure that he was Slutty Masc 69 who constantly tapped him on QWERTYâWyatt could not burn the image of those overgrown armpit hairs heâd sent as nudes from his retinas. From how he kept staring intently in his direction, he knew.
There were rules for this kind of thing, like torts or something. He was sure that heâd caught it from all those hours heâd spent binge-watching How to Get Away with Murder and Suits reruns. Wyatt was in the middle of typing do the laws of torts include assault when he was interrupted.
âHey,â the sub called out, âno phones allowed. Bring that here.â
Wyatt paused, looking around as others around him began to hide their phones. He eyed the sub distastefully, deciding that ignoring him would be the best option.
âIâm talking to you, yes; you at the back.â
He looked up, blinking innocently, to find the sub pointing at him.
âMe?â
âYes, you, now bring it here.â
Wyatt took his sweet time pushing his chair behind him as he stood up, leisurely dragging his feet when he began to close the distance until he stood in front of him.
It wasnât that the substitute was ugly, far from it. He just didnât fall under Wyattâs type. For one thing, he was muscular, which may not have been a problem if he wasnât short. And Wyatt loved tall, not just tall, but freakishly tall.
He held out his phone, which was snatched gingerly from his fingers, and promptly dumped into a trash basket with the other confiscated cellphones.
âCan I help you with anything else?â the sub asked when he noticed that Wyatt was not going away.
Wyatt rested his hands spread out on the tableâs edge as he blew a bubble with the gum he had been chewing.
âNo, you canât,â he replied with a flourish, popping the bubble as he let the beginning of a smirk form at the edge of his lips. Wyatt caught the look of faint discomfort that settled on his face then winked, straightened, and sauntered to his desk.
âNo gum allowed,â the sub spluttered.
âAlready on it, boss,â he called back.
Pausing to spit out the gum, he aimed and then threw the wad so it fell neatly into the recycle bin at the front of the class.
His fellow detention-mates stared at him through heavy-lidded eyes, some with barely-there interest and others with apathy, but he didnât care and was in the middle of a power trip when sadness hit him in six letters: Rashad.
A sudden urge to cry enveloped him as he slowly lowered himself on his chair.
Wyatt put his head on the desk and stared at the desk, breathing through his mouth slowly as a familiar pain made itself known in his chest. His tears fell in drops, and a part of him wondered how he could go from feeling like a boss to washed-out diva in seconds flat.
It was pathetic, the way his emotions controlled him.
How was it that even after almost a month of being separated from someone he still felt this torn up about it? The hardest parts were moments he forgot, and then remembered they were no longer together.
He sniffled as quietly as he could manageâenough that he would not garner unwanted attentionâand resolved within himself to visit Heartbreak Twenty; for some closure, at least.
Like most of the people he knew, Rashad McCain lived in a three-bedroom Long Island City apartment one stop from Grand Central and on the East River. It sat on the top floor, in a building that came with a lobby and elevators instead of doors. Wyatt would never forget the first time his ex-came over to his place, staring at the bungalow he and his father had moved into after his parentsâ divorce, a look of faint curiosity on his flawlessly brown face.
âWhat?â Wyatt had asked.
âNothing, itâs just smaller than I expected.â
The first words that had come to mind after hearing him say that were words that began with a b and rhymed with witch, and so Wyatt had gone with his second option instead.
âYouâre the worldâs biggest snob, you know that, right?â
Not bitch. Not bitch.
In retrospect, it was a red flag he shouldnât have overlooked, but at the time he had simply wrapped his arms around the broad shoulders loved so much, then placed a gentle peck at the base of his neck, before slowly moving up to the shell of his ear; which was where the story ended if Wyatt intended to enter into the apartment building boner-free.
Heâd spent half of the previous summer at Rashadâs, and so he was let in by the porter after only a cursory glance.
Wyatt slipped into the elevator, heart-pounding as the full weight of what he was about to do crashed into him. He gingerly typed in the house code and waited as the elevator began to ascend.
Left with his thoughts for company, his mind roamed.
Wyatt: I am only here to check on a friend, see if he is alright. We donât have to end badly. We invested too much in our relationship for it to end badly.
Wyatt: Iâm also doing this for myself. I need closure.
Wyatt: Closure is important.
Wyatt: Yes, and an absent friend. Anything couldâve happened to him. His parents are never around. A serial killer may have gotten to him.
Wyatt: Girl, shut up and stop playing yourself. You know youâre only here for some closure dick.
This was true and it continued like this until the elevator slid open. He walked in to find nobody waiting to meet him as he stepped into the condo.
Rashadâs living quarters had always amazed him, with the allegedly original art pieces that decorated its interior. A Caravaggio hung above the currently lit fireplaceâwhich accentuated the yellows and oranges used on the canvas; photographs by Robbie Mapplethorpe: seminude images of the male form, some holding each other, others with their bodies artfully contorted; and West African ritual masks interspaced evenly around the walls of the room.
Wyatt blushed as he imagined what the hollowed-out eyes of the masks had seen in the times he had spent here, nights he would lie to his father about staying over at Tobiâs to finish a project due the next day.
âRashad,â he called out, timidly at first, but then he grew confident when no one replied.
It wasnât until he stopped moving in the middle of the living room that he realized he could hear music coming from down the hallway, from the bedroom area.
It was a space that Wyatt was intimately familiar with, and a rush of nostalgia reared itself as he rounded a corner, passing a polished ceramic vase tastefully set on a Greco-Roman style pillar.
The music was not coming from Rashadâs room, but rather his parents. Still, Wyatt knocked on the formerâs door, and after a moment he let himself in.
His exâs penchant for control and order was something heâd always suspected as being the manifestation of some mild form of OCD, the evidence being his freakishly neat room and how he never watched TV unless the volume was set at an even number, among other things. He checked for signs of Rashad everywhere but found none, not even in the bathroom.
The right thing to do wouldâve been to move on. Step out of the house and then corner Rashad the next day to talk things out. But Wyatt wasnât wired that way.
The older McCainâs were always on business trips and so Wyatt did not know them enough, but even if he had it was unacceptable to go snooping into their room to look for their son. Loud music boomed from the other side of the door, and Wyatt promised himself that all it would take to ease his mind was just a peek.
Maybe Rashad had ODed and needed critical medical care. Yes, that may have been the case.
Wyatt: But, in his parentâs bedroom?
Wyatt: Shut up.
With newfound resolve set in place, he slid open the door and a small gasp escaped his lips at the sight that greeted him.
At first, he thought the back belonged to Mr. McCain, but on closer inspection he recognized it. That skull tattoo, the way it moved sinuously in tandem with the hips, which thrust deeply into another figure that lay prone, face down on the bed.
The moans were audible now, and as the polished oak doors slid beyond his fingers Wyatt stood at the entrance of the room, mouth agape as he watched Rashad pause to grab the other boyâs hair, who moaned like he was crying as he screamed things like yes daddy and, oh papi!
Something inside Wyatt cracked, and in its place, a putrid thing rose to the surface.
â â â â â â â â â â â â
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n o t e
we are finally getting somewhere in this book and you guys have absolutely no idea how happy this makes me. if by this point i haven't bored you off then all i have to say is that from here on out it's a rollercoaster, so buckle up.
and thank you so, so much for 2.8k reads, almost 400 votes, and all the supportive comments! keep them rolling in ya'll. they mean the world to me.