by Trisky
"Fifteen more minutes..." I snake my arm around his stomach and kiss the underside of his jaw. We stumble, still attached, into the warm kitchen. I'm glad for the respite. Normally I can block the cold out on my own, but not when I'm responsible for someone else's shivering. "Don't let anyone corner you, keep your shoulders slumped and look at the ground as much as possible."
"I know how to act sick." He bows his head to the side to face me with forlorn eyes and a frown. If I didn't know better, I'd buy it in a heartbeat.
"Could you at least wait until we've served the cake?" Shit! Lindsay appears in the doorway trying to hide the gleam in her eye with the deliberate snit in her stance. "We've gone to a lot of trouble for him."
"It was his idea," I cast a pall on his innocent facade. So it was only *sort of* his idea. I just picked up on the suggestion to leave and ran with it. He creates the concepts, I come up with the sell. When we reverse positions it just causes more trouble than it's worth.
"I'm sure it was." She doesn't believe me, she doesn't even consider it. Instead she removes my arm from his waist and tries to draw him nearer her hip. "Besides, we haven't even done gifts." She smiles sweetly at me and I concede by shoving my hands in my pockets and giving him over to her. As if I could give him over to anyone he doesn't want to follow.
"Cake and a couple of gifts and then we really do have to go. I really don't feel well. I just didn't want to mention it because I didn't want him to start breathing down my neck again." He sighs heavily, and hugs himself with his arms, letting a slight shiver run the course of his body. I knew he wasn't up for this. Fuck the cake and the gifts. I'm tempted to grab him and leave now without explanation.
"You really don't feel well, huh?" Lindsay pats her instinctively maternal hands on his forehead to check for fever. "I'm sorry you have to spend your 21st so under the weather. I wish you could enjoy this more. Just a few more minutes." She leans over him conspiratorially and raises an unforgiving eyebrow at me for allowing him out.
"Don't give me that look. I didn't even want anything to do with this to begin with," I respond. Justin blinks his eyes twice in rapid succession and I know there's no taking that back.
"I don't want to see either of you in here by the time I get back. Get out there and mingle with the masses that we went to all this trouble to have over. This is *your* party. Have a little fun, even if you are miserable," she commands with a perfect smile belying the seriousness of her order.
Have fun, even with a two ton anchor of misery wrapped around you.
She squeezes his waist before strolling out of the kitchen, distracted by the fact that the carefully laid plans for her perfect party somehow didn't include taking into account the person being celebrated.
"If you didn't feel well, you should have told me. We wouldn't have come," I offer.
"I feel fine. I was just saying that so she wouldn't feel bad that I'm walking out on her party. Told you I know how to act sick," he smirks and pokes me in the chest. "You didn't have to come at all. I know you'd rather be anywhere but here. So thanks... for that."
His sight line slopes towards the linoleum beneath our feet. My breath clings to the interior walls of my lungs and fills it with all the words I should be saying. I feel my chest deflate and pockets of air straggle aimlessly between my sealed lips. Maybe next time.
I watch him leave and I resolve to stay put, to give him a moment to forget I exist and just be free of me and all the ways I disappoint him over and over again. He deserves that much. He deserves so much more than me.
"Are you coming?" He pierces my shallow breathing with one nod of his head and I swear I hear a wheezing sound of defeat whistle in my ear. I surrender. It's all over. Like a prisoner being led to the gallows, my feet respond unconsciously and follow to my appointed execution. So it begins...
I didn't know that when I met him, I would wind up here. If I did, I would have sent him in the other direction. I could have then, with little effort. I just didn't care enough to make sure I held firm back then. It's true, as much as everyone would like to re-write history. I didn't get hit by a mack-truck and lose all sense, that's not how it happened. I know all that romantic bullshit of love conquering all should make hindsight blurry and distorted. Make all that came before this moment not matter, so long as we got here. Only it does matter. If someone asked me, if I knew we'd make it this far, would I do it all over again, I would tell them no. Not because I'm a selfish asshole who doesn't give a shit, not because I'd want it to be that way, but because that's what would have been best for him and it still would be. I'm not the best thing that will ever happen to him. I'm not even in the top ten. If I wasn't such a selfish asshole that would be enough to let him go.
"Don't you both look nice?" Jennifer hugs his shoulders daintily, afraid she might break him, and brushes some imaginary lint off the front of his sweater, smoothing it down as she breaks the hug.
"Brian picked the sweater out."
"He has good taste." She still does that sometimes, talks about me like I'm not even there. That's the part of her that will never want me in his life, and who can blame her? Luckily for me and unfortunately for him, the better part of her accepts that what she wants is of little consequence to Justin. "I can't believe you're 21 years old. Seems like yesterday that I was bringing you home," her eyes well up.
"Mom, please, no stories." He strokes her arm tenderly as she regains her composure.
"Oh no, no, please feel free to share any and all embarrassing stories. I need all the blackmail I can get," I break the ice forming around the frosty moment of awkwardness between the three of us.
"I was a perfect child," he answers cheekily.
"A perfect holy terror." Score one for mom. "I'll forgive you that though, because you've grown into a beautiful young man." He has.
"No thanks to me," I bite my lip, once again amazed at my ability to find my voice at exactly the wrong moment. Usually this is when Justin will say something to cover up for me, turn the attention away from my stupidity. I squeeze my eyes tightly for a long second. "I'm just... I'm gonna leave the two of you alone." The way I should have to start with.
The faintest brush of Jennifer's fingertips on my hand stops me cold. "You stay, and be with him. That's what makes him happy. And that's what I want for him, especially tonight." We both look to her in unison. Two dumbstruck idiots, felled by nothing more than a whisk of approval.
"Sunshine, get your ass over here for this cake!" There's no mistaking Debbie, even in a crowd of thousands. "Someone shut the lights off."
"I'm coming!" He yells across the room to Debbie waving her arm frantically, as if he could miss her. "I better go," he looks between us and we clear a path for him to lead the way for both of us.
Halfway there we're plunged into darkness. "Thank you for taking care of my son." Her hand squeezes mine. I see nothing but a blur of bodies as my eyes adjust to the shadows.
The incandescent glow of the birthday candles on top of his cake makes its way out of the kitchen. Lindsay holds one end while Melanie holds the other and leads them both to the cleared table surrounded by all the people that count. I stand a bit to the side of him, Jennifer lost to me in the maze of people. I watch his profile as he sees the cake for the first time. His smile outshines all 22 candles and half of the streetlights lining the block. It really is a beautiful cake. Of course it is, it had a beautiful model. The chorus of "Happy Birthday" swims in my ear and I watch him blow the candles out with one long breath. Darkness resumes and clapping sounds throughout the room, but I don't participate, because my hand is preoccupied by his fingers slipping through mine.
"Well, someone turn the fucking lights back on so we can cut this thing!" Nope, not even in the dark could someone mistake Debbie for anyone else. The lights flicker overhead and we all peer over his shoulder to get a look at our masterpiece. "Sunshine, look at that. It looks just like you," Debbie marvels. We all look at the rendering of his face made of icing and food coloring staring back at us from the cake.
"I don't know whether to be scared or touched." He laughs. "Where did you guys come up with this?"
"Emmett did all the work." I give the Queen his due. "Vic and I just helped."
"Well we wouldn't have any cake if you didn't come up with that picture of him," Emmett starts removing the candles.
"Where did this picture come from? I've never seen it before." I can almost see his brain flipping through the handful of pictures people have snapped of us over the years and coming up empty-handed.
"Oh, it's just something I ran across in his office," Cynthia offers her glass to the air, across the table, in a toast to both of us.
"You keep a picture of him in the office?" Michael grins mercilessly. "I guess it really must be love." He's lucky he's too far away for me reach out and mash his face into the cake.
"It's almost too nice to cut." Jennifer to the rescue.
"Since it's the only piece of you that the rest of us are ever going to get, move out of the way and let me do the honors." Just like Ted, to be point blank and matter of fact about things.
"Everyone get out of the way and let the chef do his thing, would you please?" Vic shoos all of us out of his domain and takes to cutting up Justin's chin as painlessly as possible.
"I'll take a piece of the mouth." I point at the cake in mock seriousness.
"You get the mouth every night, you're getting a corner and nothing else," Vic wields his cake knife and serves Justin the first piece. We all chuckle.
"I can't Vic, I'm sorry. We're going to have to save me a piece. My stomach is really bothering me." He loosens his shoulders so that they droop several inches.
"You're rejecting food? You really must be out of it." Deb fixes plates of the cake as Vic cuts.
"You have no idea." He settles himself, leaning against the length of my body but I keep a firm grip on his hand behind his back and squeeze hard to let him know not to push the act too far. It has to be obvious enough for them to buy it, but subtle enough for them to not question it.
"Since you're just *so* sick," Melanie chirps suspiciously, "why don't you open a couple of gifts and call it a night? Brian has something he wants to give you and our gift doesn't make sense without it."
That perks him right up! He nearly bounces off of my body, but I hold him in place by the hand.
"He's been talking about this all day! What is it?"
I bite my fingernail and stare wearily at Melanie's retreating backside. Of all people, I can't believe she's the only one I trusted with this, and from the looks of an oblivious Lindsay, she didn't share it with her.
She comes back bearing the round tube and a large square frame, and I can feel the sweat forming on Justin's palm. He's trying so hard to not anticipate this, to be cool about it, to prepare himself for the inevitable disappointment. Hard enough that I panic at the last second that he's going to get the wrong idea and this is all going to blow up right in my face.
"Maybe we should do all the gifts at home."
"Brian don't be silly, he has to open at least one of them. It's tradition. Cake and then gifts," Lindsay insists. "He doesn't have to do all of them." Lindsay must have learned that talking about him like he's not even there trick from Jennifer.
"Besides, we're all dying of curiosity," Michael goads her on, judging Emmett's near panting at his side and Ted's questioning face, he's not lying.
"I say we let Justin decide," Jennifer reasons. "Justin?"
I didn't know that when I met him, we would wind up here. If I did, I would have run screaming in the other direction.
"I want to open it." I cringe, feeling the tsunami of a disaster that's about to flood this room.
"His is the tube," Melanie directs him. I can see the regret over participating in this all over her face and I know she's having the same fleeting moment of terror at her decision that I am.
He lets go of my hand and grabs the tube, removing the lid and shaking out the rolled up poster paper, tied in a red ribbon. He happily picks at the knot of the ribbon and unravels the poster, revealing a photo of Michelangelo's David.
"Happy birthday?" It's more a question than a sentiment by the time it leaves my mouth. "Red bow... fantasy man... get it?"
No one says a word.
"It's uh..." he tries to find an appropriate description. 'Disappointing', go ahead and say it Justin. This idea seemed so much better in the planning stages than it does in the actual execution. "I like it." He considers it and genuinely seems to appreciate it. "I really do. It was a good cover for the car trick. I knew that was my gift." He laughs and admires the poster some more. I exchange a look with Melanie over his head. Suddenly I feel like an evil genius, and that gives me confidence to actually pull this off.
"I know how much you want to see it in person, so I figured I'd bring it to you."
Melanie fakes a polite smile and runs with the ball. "That's why we bought you a frame. Now you can put it up and dream of naked works of art all day."
Myself included.
"Brian's going to be nice enough to let you hang it wherever you want when you get home, right Brian?" Lindsay prompts, unknowingly.
"Wherever you want."
"That's what the big fuss was about?" Debbie speaks the disappointment everyone else feels. Everyone but Justin, and he's the only one that matters.
"It was thoughtful. Very touching." Emmett tries to save face, very, very poorly.
"It's a ten dollar poster from the mall. Big deal," Ted argues.
"Well I, for one, like it very much. At least he was paying attention to what Justin wanted." Jennifer defends me. She's just happy that my gift didn't vibrate.
"Let's at least see the frame, it's gotta be better than that," Debbie blurts.
"No...." Melanie and I chime in at once.
"It'll get scratched... in the car... on the way home." It's a good thing she's a lawyer and can lie on her feet.
"I'll just open it when I get home," Justin offers both of us a lifeline unsure of what he's rescuing us from. "I love it. Thank you." He says it with such bare honesty, I want to shuck the plan altogether and rip the wrapping paper off the frame myself. He distracts me with a kiss. "I think we should really go. Before I get everybody else sick."
"Big celebration to get to at home I presume?" Ted gnaws his way through Justin's nose on his fork as Jennifer tries not to react. She fails.
"Huuugggeee..." Justin measures the air by casually separating his hands to a variety of disgusted and semi-excited stares. The party surrounding the cake table begins to disburse, leaving me standing with the amused, besotted newly young man that is my total undoing.
"You just ruined the entire act."
"Maybe. But I saved your ass." He taps my chest with the cardboard tube.
"Yeah... you did."
I didn't know that when I met him, we could wind up where we're at. If I did, I might have sent him in the other direction and it would have been my loss. I'm still pretty sure that I'm not the best thing that will ever happen to him, but maybe... he might be the best thing that ever happened to me.