You're Always in the Last Place You Look (33 page)

“It’s Friday. Time to change—well, re-bandage him. You know if he doesn’t quit worrying his foot, it’s never going to heal.”

“Tell
him
that. I yell at him when I hear him licking. Doesn’t do any good though, ‘cause he just goes to another room.” Smitty felt for his chair, kicked the ottoman, then dropped heavily into the brown threadbare thing. He leaned his head back looking tired but content.

“Did you go to the senior center today?”

He shook his head, and turned his opaque eyes towards me. “Breanne came by. Her second visit in two weeks.” His arthritic hand patted the arm of the chair absently.

“Really? You didn’t tell me you two were talking again.”

He nodded slowly. “We are. It’s early still. Give me time and I’m sure I’ll say something to offend her.” He smiled at that, obviously joking.

“I’ll be out of your hair in a few minutes, then you can nap or something.”

“Nap. That’s an excellent idea.” He kicked his feet up onto the ottoman, and closed his eyes.

By the time I was done re-wrapping Ruger’s foot, Smitty was snoring loudly, his mouth hanging open. Ruger went over and lay on his pillow next to his master’s chair, snuggling his head down. I let myself out, locking the door behind me.

My phone rang as I headed to the truck. Unavailable. Lily’s grandparents were the only number not in my address book. “Hey, sweet-cheeks, about time you called me back.” I waited for her to berate me for using that awful juvenile nickname her grandparents still used.

“I think that might be my line, and I didn’t take you as the needy type. Was I wrong?” a teasing male voice said.

“Uh, who is this?”

“Oh, that hurt. Leave you alone for a week, and I’m forgotten for whoever sweet-cheeks is. I guess that’s my fault for not calling earlier.”

There was only one person this could be, unless the guy had a wrong number. “Al?”

“Of course it’s me. Who’s sweet-cheeks?”

I smirked at the phone. “A girl...”

Silence.

“She’s just a friend I’ve known since grade school.”

“
Phew
. You had me wondering there. I don’t have a very good track record with bi guys. Hey, you busy tonight? Thought I might drive down...”

Shit
. I slid a hand down my face. “Um, listen, I’m sorry, but I think I need a little more time. You know, I’m not quite ready for a new relationship.” That wasn’t too bad, was it?

“Ouch. Okay. How about you keep my number, and call me when you
are
ready?”

I knew I probably wouldn’t call, but I agreed. “I will. And, Al, thank you. I really did have a good time.”
Until the very end when I turned into a freaksicle
.

“Pity, so did I. Take care of yourself, and try not to forget me.” The line went dead. It had been the right thing to do, but why did I feel so crappy? Because Gary and Gavin had actually set me up with a nice guy, and I’d shot it all to shit.

*

The damn tears returned as I climbed in bed. Nothing triggered them. They just started trickling down my cheeks. Even though they didn’t seem to make me feel anything but stuffed up and empty, I assumed they were part of the healing process. They tended to bring thoughts of Zane back with them though, and that part was agonizing. By the time I stumbled over the sandman, my chest was on fire, and my toes and fingers ached from being clenched so tightly.

*

“Gabe.” The bed shook, and as I rose to consciousness, I realized someone was shaking me not the bed. “Wake up, Son.”

“
Marummhh
.” I slipped Zane’s bandana under my pillow before opening my eyes. “What?” Turning the clock, I saw it was only six in the morning. I sat up frowning. “Is something wrong?”

“Smitty needs your help. Ruger disappeared sometime during the night, and he still isn’t home. He’s really worried.”

“Okay. I’m up.” I yawned, and stood on slumber-sodden legs. “Dad, can you call him and tell him I’ll be there in twenty?” Trying to stretch the kinks out, my body refused to cooperate, and I zigzagged towards my closet, still sleep-drunk. “Any chance there’s coffee?”

“Already done and done.”

I nodded my thanks, almost falling over as I hopped into jeans.

*

Dad handed me a travel mug, and a food storage container when I walked in the kitchen.

“You
look
like you just woke up. You could have at least brushed your hair,” he said, a bit too judgmental for this early in the morning.

“I did just wake up, you woke me remember?” I indicated the red container with a half-shake. “What’s this?”

“Cookies. Your mom made them last night. They’re your favorite, but when she heard it was Smitty calling she told me to send some.”

I rolled my eyes, cracked the lid and shook my head at the chocolate peanut butter chip cookies. “Actually these were Zane’s favorite, not mine. I just ate them so she would keep making them for him. I’m sure Smitty will love them though.” I headed to the door. “I’ll see you tonight.”

“Have a good day, Son.”

I lifted my coffee in answer, and kicked the door closed. Long, yes. Good? Well, that remained to be seen.

*

Thankfully there hadn’t been a big black and tan body anywhere along the highway in front of Smitty’s or the surrounding properties. That left the woods, and I was seriously considering going home and grabbing AJ for the task. I headed up Smitty’s driveway to tell him Ruger wasn’t anywhere along the road and to see if he had any idea where he might have got off to.

Smitty was on the porch talking to a dark haired man in a Sheppler’s jacket, and baggy jeans. His green shirt had me thinking he must work for the forest service. The man glanced up as I rolled to a stop, then walked to the end of the porch. Smitty held up a hand as he hustled inside the house.

“Did you find Mr. Smitt’s dog?” I asked the second I was out of the truck.

He nodded, appearing tense as he brought a hand to his neck where a white bandage peeked out from under the collar of his Sherpa coat.
Jesus
,
please tell me Ruger hadn’t bitten him
. If a stranger cornered him I wouldn’t put it past him, but damn, what would that mean for Smitty?

Letting go of his neck, he ran both his hands through his short messy hair. His head bowed, and I hoped he was seriously considering the consequences of taking an elderly blind man’s dog away from him. Setting the cookies on the hood of the truck, I headed over to talk with him. Halfway to the steps the man on the porch turned, and Zane stared at me through raw bloodshot eyes. I would have crumbled to the gravel if shock hadn’t stiffened my spine.

Before I knew what had happened, I found myself in front of him. The anguish he had caused me returned, and in a fury I lashed out, shoving him so hard he stumbled, his back hitting one of the supports with a
thud
. He cringed but didn’t cower, didn’t speak, didn’t do anything.

I pointed at him. “You’re an asshole, Zane. It’s been almost two fucking months. No call, no letter, not even a text.
Nothing
. You’re a fucking coward for leaving the way you did.
Not even a fucking goodbye
! God, I just want to beat the living shit out of you for what you did to me.” I settled for slamming my palm against the nearest post though. He barely handled being shoved and I doubted he could handle even one of my crappy punches. I glared at him. He looked like hell. His eyes dark and swollen, lips cracked and red from worrying them, and as I stared at him, I noticed how thin he was. A dismal shadow of who he had been.

I took a step back, the fight inside me wavering. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

His mouth opened as his eyes closed. “I’m sorry, I was wrong,” he rattled weakly, then slunk to the plank flooring in a heap as if I had actually struck him.

“Gabriel...” I turned towards Smitty’s low gravelly voice. He held the door open, and I followed him inside. Ruger fawned all over me while Smitty closed the door. I’d been played. The damn dog had obviously never been lost. Ruger had been a ploy, one they all knew would work.

“This is bullshit.” I started to move Smitty from in front of the door, so I could escape this madness, when he held out a thin strip of yellow and white plastic. The noticeable tremble of his hand stopped me.

I took the strip. “What’s this?”

“Part of the story.”

I read the first bold line. Rivers Mental Hospital. My heart tripped. The admit date was a week after graduation—the release date was four days ago. Re-reading the dates, I calculated. Forty-five days. “How’d he get here so fast?” I wondered aloud.

“I think he drove straight through. He arrived early this morning, only stayed long enough to get some coffee then took off on foot. Hardly said ten coherent words to me. I found that on the kitchen counter. Between Beatrice and my own hospital visits, I knew it was a wristband. Harry came over and read it to me. That’s when I called your dad. I figured Zane needed you more than anything right now.”

So Smitty knew about Zane and I. Somehow that didn’t surprise me. I placed the band back in his hand, shaking my head at his confused expression.

“I can’t do this, Smitty. I’m sorry...” Moving him to the side, I opened the door and stepped onto the porch, closing the door a little too firmly behind me. I was halfway down the steps when I heard him and glanced over. That quarter turn of my head probably altered my life.

My heart crashed at the sight of Zane huddled into the corner of the porch, his head on his knees, shaking and sobbing. I tried to keep going towards my truck, but my feet betrayed me, and I realized it was probably more than just my feet dragging me towards him. Deep down I was still in love with him, I would always be in love with him, and leaving him like this went completely against my nature.

Chapter Thirty-Six

I made my way to him, and sat down. “Damn it all to hell, Zane.” I pulled him over, cradling him against my chest. Twisting around, he lashed his arms around my waist and pressed his face into my stomach. Fighting for breath, even through his coat I could feel his ribs press against my thigh with every gasp he managed. My eyes fell, desperate to see the boy I loved. They squeezed closed on the frail man who lay in my lap. His lustrous black hair, now dull and dark brown, was a ragged array of unevenness on top, and shaved short on the sides, leaving hollowed cheeks exposed.

The slender fingers clutched against the small of my back lacked the conviction they once held. His shoulders were rounded with the weight of whatever had happened to him since I last saw him. My hand trailed through his dry, gritty hair, and I felt him shudder beneath my touch. I leaned my head back against the railing, closing my eyes against the eastern sun, and tried to distance myself. I almost laughed. It was a little late for that. The second I sat down and took hold of him, I was done for.

Zane had owned my heart from the beginning, and now that he had returned with it, I had to decide if I wanted it back. Yes, he’d hurt me, but looking at him, there was no doubt he had hurt himself too. I stroked down his back, and he flinched, making me realize he’d dozed off.

Running my knuckles down his cheek, I said, “Hey, I think you need to go inside and get some sleep.”

He rose up, looping his arms around my neck, and pressed his forehead against my temple. “I really am sorry for what I’ve done...” Standing, he shuffled towards the door. “I’m not going to do anything crazy, so you don’t need to feel obligated to stay,” he threw over his shoulder.

I remained stolid on the porch floor, pulling my knees up, my lap cold and empty without him. “Why’d you come back?”

He braced his hand on the doorframe and leaned his head against it. “That’s the last first question I would have expected from you.” His eyes closed and a tiny crook of amusement flashed before a heavy sigh blew it away. “I left believing, I came back knowing.” He disappeared into the house, leaving me shaking my head in confusion. After a few minutes with still no answer to his riddle, I hopped up and followed him inside.

“Down the hall, room right past the bathroom,” Smitty offered from his chair.

“Thanks.”

Knocking softly, I slowly opened the door, surprised to see an actual guestroom, and not just a cot among a bunch of boxes. Other than Smitty’s room, I’d never been in either of the other two rooms along the hall, assuming they were empty, or at the most contained decaying memories.

I shook my head at Zane belly down on the bed, his coat still on. Even though his eyes were closed, I couldn’t believe he was asleep already—more than likely he was ignoring me. Sitting on the corner of the bed, I unlaced his brown suede hiking boots, wondering where his Converse were. But then not much of Zane looked like Zane right now—at least to me. I slipped them off and set them on the floor, then added his socks to the pile. Seeing only dirt on his toenails, I glanced to the tips of his fingers and found them void of color also. For some reason that hit me rather hard, and I had to fight to bring myself back under control.
Forty
-
five days
. I glanced at his thin frame in strange clothes, the shadows below his eyes, sharpness of his cheekbones, his lip lacking adornment, and the short dull hair. It was all on the outside, I told myself, just trappings that could be changed. It was what was on the inside that mattered, and I realized with everything I was, that I wanted him to still be in there.
Forty
-
five days
.

It was long enough—long enough to change him, damage him, even shatter him. Rubbing my face, I couldn’t figure it out. Forty-five days seemed a long time, even if Zane had suffered a full breakdown. Refusing to speculate, knowing doing so would only make me crazy, I turned on the fan sitting atop a floral stenciled mauve dresser, and aimed it towards him so he wouldn’t get too overheated. His mouth was slightly ajar, and he appeared to actually be asleep now. I left him, and headed home.

*

Dad’s gentle voice met me the moment I stepped from the truck. “I called Morris and told him you wouldn’t be working today.”

“You knew, and you didn’t tell me.” It wasn’t an accusation, just an observation.

He leaned a hip against the fender and searched my face, probably trying to access my emotional state. “It was around five when I got up to use the bathroom that I caught sight of someone in the backyard. If the vapor light hadn’t illuminated his tattoo—anyway, he was watching you through your window.”

“He’s done it before.” I admitted, not wanting Dad to think Zane was being creepy. I’d felt him there the night we had
discussed
his future, or rather felt I was being watched, and a careful peek from beneath my sheet had confirmed it was Zane, his head leaning against my window, eyes closed. He’d stayed there awhile, and something told me it hadn’t been the first time he’d watched me sleep.

His hazel eyes gleamed wittily. “I know. Once I knew who he was—and after the initial shock of seeing him wore off—I figured he just wanted to know you were still here, so I let him be. Then Smitty called. If I had told you he was back, would you have gone?” he asked.

Amused at how well he was coming to know me, I answered, “Probably not.” Heading towards the house, I added, “At least not right away.”

“Are you going to see him again?”

I stopped with my hand on the handle of the kitchen door. “Yeah, I am.”

Dad bowed his head, his face thoughtful. “Are you going back over today?”

I knew he was fishing, trying to figure out what I was thinking, feeling, without actually being invasive. He was becoming pretty good at that. I didn’t even have to think about it. The answer was nesting in my chest, scratching and clawing, and refusing to let me forget Zane was only a few miles away. “Since I don’t have to work—thank you by the way—I think I’ll catch a shower and head back over. We still have a lot to talk about.”

Dad smiled and squeezed my shoulder. “I figured you would.” Leering at me, his eyes wild, he added in an excited tone, trying to get me to laugh, “And your mother will be ecstatic.”

I did laugh, and she was ecstatic, but both my parent’s faces fell, and Mom paled, when I told them Zane had been institutionalized, and wasn’t quite himself. The way my mom took the news, as if he was one of her own, showed me how far she’d come since first meeting him. I loved her for that. I had to fight the urge to roll my eyes at her, however, when she started rummaging through the cupboards, attempting to put a care package together with our meager supplies.

“Mom...
Mom
!”

She glanced over her shoulder as she reached for a box of Pop-Tarts I didn’t even know we had. “What?”

“There’s plenty of food over at Smitty’s. It’s about all he spends his money on.” She didn’t look convinced standing there clutching the dusty box of blueberry Pop-Tarts. “Trust me, he’s got a serious food hoarding issue. There’s enough food in that house to feed a family of five for a month.” I’d barely been able to find room for everything that had been on his grocery list last week. I supposed living alone, and not knowing the next time you might get out of the house, was as good a reason as any to be ready for the apocalypse.

“Okay.” She glanced uncertainly at the box in her hands. “But if you need anything...”

“I’m perfectly capable of going to the grocery store,” I told her, adding, “How old are those anyway?”

Shrugging, she flipped the box until she found the expiration date. “They’re still good. They only expired two months ago.” Blowing the dust off, she put them back in the cupboard. I heard my dad trying not to chuckle.

I turned to him, and pointed out, “You know, it’s going to be your responsibility to eat them, since I probably might not be here.”

“Oh, honey, you could take some with you for breakfast tomorrow!” Mom chimed in, only she was serious while I’d been joking.

“I’d rather have eggs and bacon,” he said expectantly.

“Oh, well...we don’t have any bacon,” she returned innocently.

Dad blinked several times, trying to grasp what she had just admitted. “Pardon? Where’d it all go?”

I stood, not wanting to get in the middle of this. Twenty pounds of bacon gone? Yeah, that wasn’t going to go over well, especially after Dad specifically told her that it was to stay in
our
freezer.

“I’m going to take a shower,” I announced. Then, patting Dad on the back sympathetically, I added under my breath, “I guess you’ll be eating stale Pop-Tarts after all.” I scurried away from his flailing hand and towards my room just as Mom flusteredly began admitting to giving part of it to the Davis family. Poor Dad. Mom would never change, and we both knew it.

*

The turmoil over Zane’s return swamped me while I showered, and I had to hold myself up against the wall and wait for my bones to solidify again. It was just too much for someone like me, someone who wasn’t used to so many emotions at once. In order to keep my sanity, I thought it best not to think about anything at the moment. However my hands shook as I dressed and I realized the emotions were still there right beneath my skin. Fear of being rejected again, of being hurt, of what I’d learn about him, of what I may never know, of not being loved, of not being able to love him the way he needed me to. But most of all I missed being near him, even now. Like a pesky mosquito bite, it was impossible to ignore. I found myself hurriedly packing a bag, wanting to get back to him. Then, as I shoved a pair of PJ bottoms in, wondering what I expected.

I felt somewhat pathetic at that point. But dammit—I hoisted my bag and grabbed Zane’s sketchbook off my desk.

What did I have to lose? Happily ever after might be a myth for a boy like me, and maybe I’d never get to see it, and that was okay, but I’d felt it following us at one time, and maybe the reason Zane had come back meant he had felt it too. Of course that could just be the influence of too many
Nicholas Sparks
movies. I really needed to stop watching them.

I crashed to a halt on the threshold of the kitchen. There was never a time when catching your parents kissing was cute. And they weren’t kissing like a married couple should, oh no, they were kissing like Zane and I do—did—used to.

I cleared my throat. Mom giggled into Dad’s shoulder at being caught, and Dad gave me a look that was more proud than sheepish. “What, we’re adults, married, have a kid together.”

“And he’s standing right here. Did you forget he was still in the house?”

“No.” But I could tell from his look they kinda had.

“Yeah, sure, anyway I’m leaving. I’ll let you know if I’m going to stay the night.”

Dad raised an eyebrow at that last part.

I pointed to myself. “Adult remember? Besides, we haven’t really talked, and things could go to hell—heck, and for all I know, I might be back in half and hour.” I shrugged an unassuming shoulder. “I’ll, um...I’ll call if I decide to stay.” I nodded absently, and headed to the front door.

“Gabriel?” At my father’s voice I paused and looked back. “Remember we love you, and no matter what happens, we’re here if you need us. I hope you figure out what you really want, even if it’s just the closure you’ve been missing.”

I gave him a wane smile, still not sure what I wanted. “Thanks, and I love you too.”