Raze (Riven 3)

Then there was Marshall, the boy almost next door. He and his brother and sister had lived across the lot behind our house growing up, and we’d all been friendly as kids. One afternoon, he kissed me in the woods behind our middle school. So began years of kisses and touches in secret. Our encounters were unpredictable and short, both of us working hard to make sure no one knew. Him because he didn’t want anyone to ever know he kissed boys; me because I didn’t want my siblings to tease me about liking Marshall. When I’d left New Brunswick, Marshall was still working the same job in the Bravo supermarket that he’d worked since our freshman year of high school. I hadn’t seen him since.

I didn’t sleep with anyone until I got to New York, and I’d only dated a few people.

It wasn’t that I was uninterested, just…when I thought about sex, it was always more than sex. It was little things like someone brushing hair away from my face, or kissing the sensitive skin behind my ear; tugging me in the right direction, or putting his hands on my shoulders. Giving me a bite of his dinner off his fork, or resting a casual hand on my thigh.

The intimacy of his voice as he was drifting off to sleep, or the smell of his hair.

A vision of Huey drifted unbidden into my mind. How would his large hands feel resting on my shoulders? How would the vast plane of his muscled chest feel against my shoulder blades if I leaned into him? How would his stern lips feel as they yielded against mine?

As I was walking home, Sof texted to say that she was going to a party at Casey and Dan’s place in Tribeca if I wanted to go. It was already ten thirty and I had to work at nine the next morning; besides, I wasn’t much for parties, so I told her I was just gonna go to bed.

The apartment was lonely without her. I was lonely without her. Having grown up with six of us in our small house, then living with her in the dorms, then living here together, I wasn’t used to the quiet. I wasn’t used to being unobserved. It felt frightening somehow, the sense that I could do anything and no one would ever know.

The next day at work, everything got to me more than usual. Generally, I liked my job okay. It wasn’t something that I imagined doing forever, but my boss was a nice guy and I’d save up the most ridiculous customer stories to tell Sofia at the end of the day. Usually she’d respond with her own stories of entitled students or absurd bureaucracy from the Fordham office, and we’d roll our eyes and talk about how everything would be better in the future, when she was a successful musician and I could wander through museums listening to audiobooks all day.

But that night when I told Sof about the woman who wanted her bagel toasted but not sliced, and the guy who peered at the menu then asked for a “late” instead of a latte, it didn’t feel much like bonding because Sofia hadn’t spent her day at work, but in meetings with the band. She told me about it excitedly, but it wasn’t the fun eye-rolling, ranting, one-upping exchange it usually was.

Her future was now. And mine…I didn’t know what the hell mine would be.

Because the truth? Was that, no, I didn’t want to be a rock star. But for just a moment, when Theo and Coco had been looking at me expectantly, waiting for me to sing, I had felt it: that I was standing on the precipice of something more. Something big and exciting and just for me. A spotlight was illuminating the promise that there was more out there than what I had. And even though I hadn’t wanted that, it had made me realize that I wanted something.

* * *

—

A few days later, I’d made a decision: I was going to go back to the bar and talk to Huey. Because, okay, I might not know what the hell I wanted, like, out of life. But I couldn’t get Huey out of my head, even though we’d only spent about ten minutes actually talking. And that had to mean something, right?

I couldn’t stop thinking about the way he held himself so still, like he was watching everything, taking in every detail with a sense of perfectly controlled power. Of how he remained quietly neutral no matter what I said, as if I could say anything to him without fear of how he’d react.

About how he asked if I was okay as if he really would have listened no matter what the answer had been. The way his voice curled around me, low and rough as a cat’s tongue.