Rend (Riven 2)

In “Long Ride Home” Rhys had been on tour for weeks, months, years, only to find a mysterious lover waiting for him at home. When he’d first played it for me, I’d asked if the lover was Caleb, and Rhys had looked at me, half confused and half hurt. “No,” he’d said. “It’s not Caleb. It’s you, Matty. It’s always you.” And I’d kissed him for what felt like hours. Kissed him until he begged me for more.

My favorite was “Cross-Country Blues”—partly because of the melody and partly because it felt like such a personal glimpse of Rhys. His voice got so low at the bottom of the last verse that it was almost a growl, and it made me shiver every time. I played it over and over.

Whenever Rhys called, I asked about tour. I asked question after question so we never talked about me. He told me where he was, what restaurant he’d eaten at or what terrible gas station snacks they were living off of. He told me about the shows and how great this solo or that harmony had been. I drank it up, only allowing myself to close my eyes and picture the scenes Rhys painted with his voice to guide me.

If we had to talk about me, I told him about work, about a book I read, about something that Grin had texted me or the funny picture Theo had sent of Caleb covered in dirt and glaring into the camera after he fell over in the garden. I told him about how the days were cooler now, and I was starting to see the first signs of Sleepy Hollow’s long and meticulous gear-up for the Halloween tourist season.

We decided we would carve pumpkins this year and maybe even give out candy. We agreed we needed to hire someone to clean the gutters. We pledged to run more often as the weather cooled. We confirmed that we couldn’t wait to fuck each other every which way to Sunday. We agreed on all of it, down to what kind of candy to give out. And then I’d hang up, and another night would stretch before me like a marathon. Then another day.

And I knew—I just knew—that if I could get through the rest of Rhys’s tour then everything would be as it should again. We’d be back together and I’d sleep again, and Rhys would sing to me, and we’d learn how to cook for real, and . . . and . . . it would be fine. It would all be just fine.

One Friday, Imari caught me outside my office at lunch and asked me if I needed help. I didn’t know what she meant, and she walked me into the bathroom and stood me in front of the mirror. She pointed at the blue bruises under my eyes and shadows under my cheekbones. She said if I needed help, I would always have it from her. I shook my head, humbled by her care, and thanked her.

But how could you ask for help with nightmares, like a child? How could I say, I’m not on drugs, I think the headless horseman is haunting me and if I go to sleep he’ll crush me or Rhys will bury me alive?

I told her I just needed a weekend, and she sighed and said she did too, a whole month of weekends. I thought about it, and I couldn’t remember her ever taking a vacation in the two years I’d worked at Mariposa.

Usually I pretended that my journey home to Rhys’s didn’t skirt my old neighborhood. That I always sat on the river side because I liked the view of the Hudson once we were out of the city. But in truth, there was a stretch as we followed the Harlem River where I closed my eyes or looked the other way so I wouldn’t see it.

Hell, that was the beauty of New York. Cut three blocks over, take a different train, turn in the other direction, and whole neighborhoods, whole chunks of the city, whole chapters of your past disappear like they never existed at all.

Today on the train home, for the first time ever, I looked toward Washington Heights as we passed it. I imagined I could see dead into the heart of the neighborhood. I imagined I could see into my old house. See into the kitchen it was impossible to keep clean with that many kids running around. See the living room with the pullout couch that was always pulled out, shoes and sweatshirts and blankets strewn around. See my aunt sitting on the edge of her bed, eyes closed and fingers pressed to her temples against the din.

That night I fell asleep on the couch as soon as I got home despite myself and slept for sixteen hours. When I woke up the next morning, I had a bunch of texts from Theo, and four missed calls and five texts from Rhys. That’s when I remembered I was supposed to have gone to Caleb and Theo’s for dinner the night before. They must have told Rhys when I didn’t show up.