Chapter Twenty-Three
SKYLAR HAD NO idea what had possessed Xander, but something clearly had.
“I’m redoing my show,” was the only answer he got. Skylar tried to press him for more details. He got none.
“What do you mean, ‘redo’?”
No reply.
“How much are you changing?”
No response.
“Do you need any help?”
Here, at least, he could get Xander to shake his head. Imperceptibly.
This was when Skylar became nervous. “Did I do something to upset you?”
Xander unthawed slightly then. “No. You’re fine. It’s nothing to do with you. I want to change things, is all. And it’s tense. But I need to do this on my own. It’s nothing against you, but my process doesn’t invite people in. In fact, if you’re involved, even a little, it will fuck it up. Also, if you thought I was cranky before, you’re in for a ride now. You’ve never seen me cram for a project before, and I’ve never crammed for something like I’m about to do. It’s not even that it’s best that I don’t talk about it. I can’t talk about it. I’m sorry. It’s not personal. And I apologize for not being there for you right now. But…I need to do this. For just another ten days.” He let out a breath. “Form new straight lines.”
Skylar gave in to a temptation that had been eating him for some time now. “What does that mean, exactly? I know it’s the Lucky 7 slogan, but…why? What does it signify?”
“It’s something to do with Shintoism. Straight lines are prized in Japanese culture.”
“Yes, I know that, but…why form new ones?”
“I…don’t know? I guess it’s just always been the slogan.” Xander was harried, running his hand through his hair. “Probably it has to do with Benten being neo-Japanese culture. God, I don’t know. Maybe it’s bunk. Maybe I’ve been repeating this fucking mantra this whole time and it’s messed up. Maybe everything is messed up.”
Skylar, watching his boyfriend deflate, did his best to prop him back up again. “No, no. I think you’re right. I think it’s something unique to Benten, and I think it’s clever. It makes sense. Straight lines are pleasing and good, but sometimes we have to make new lines. Sometimes our lives are too full of familiar grooves. Sometimes the straight lines are our prisons, not our paths.”
The fire had come back to Xander’s eyes. “Yes. That’s exactly it. Thank you. And now I have to get back to work.”
It was tough, Skylar wasn’t going to lie. Because Xander was cranky. He barely slept. He forgot to eat. He came home late and left early.
He wouldn’t talk about what had happened with his stepfather, but Skylar knew Xander was out of money now, that as soon as his show was over he had to get another part-time job, maybe two.
When the next care package came from Mason City, Xander wouldn’t so much as look at it. Skylar opened it, and inside, instead of the usual I love you, it also said, I’m sorry. There were also four times as many cookies, and Skylar noticed they were almost all oatmeal chocolate chip.
He put a large plateful in the kitchen without comment, along with the note. Both remained untouched, and Skylar noticed the junk mail had been shifted to cover them up.
Mostly though, Xander worked. If he painted in the apartment, which he rarely did, he kept his easel turned away from the main part of the room and admonished Skylar to not ever peek at it. But then, sometimes, whether or not it was convenient for him and with less and less grace in the request, Xander asked Skylar to sit for him. With and without clothes. In some strange positions too—standing, sitting, lying down, holding random objects around the apartment. The weirdest one was when he had to hold a colander.
“Is this some kind of cooking-themed picture?” Skylar asked, unable to contain himself. Because he wasn’t wearing any clothes and was holding a colander, and that was odd as hell.
“The colander isn’t important. I just need you to be holding something, so I can judge the hand position.”
He wasn’t abrupt exactly, but he was terse, and Skylar was almost out of patience with his cranky artist boyfriend. “It’s a little late to ask, but am I myself in this portrait, in which I’m not holding a colander but am wearing nothing at all?”
Xander stopped painting. He turned to Skylar slowly. All the color had left his face. In fact, he seemed ready to pass out.
Skylar couldn’t tell which was worse, breaking his pose to check on him or letting him fall onto his painting. “Are you all right?”
Xander was not all right. He was shaking. When he spoke, his voice cracked and trembled. “I—oh my God. I didn’t…I didn’t even…oh my God. I didn’t think.” He dropped his brush and covered his mouth. “I didn’t ask you. I didn’t ask you. Yes. Yes, you’re in it. And you’re naked.”
Skylar wasn’t sure he liked that, and he was annoyed, but something about Xander’s freak-out told him he was about to be a lot more than annoyed. “What aren’t you telling me?”
Xander sank to the floor. He looked like he was having trouble breathing. “Every painting. You’re in every single painting.”
Skylar’s eyes widened. Now he was having trouble breathing. “I’m what?”
Xander shut his eyes, shaking his head. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I wasn’t thinking. It’s such a dick move—I don’t know why I didn’t…I wasn’t thinking. Which is no excuse. I was panicked, though. And I was in the woods, and I had this stupid vision on the bluff, and then I went to the studio and painted over all my canvases—”
Holy fucking shit. “You painted over all of your canvases?”
Xander nodded, eyes still closed. “It was like a crazy dream. I just painted them all. Everything that wasn’t in that manga/oil style. And then I stood there with no show. And then I started painting. You. Over and over. You. All I could paint was you. It was so right, it just burned in me like it was the most right thing in the world. I didn’t question it. I didn’t think.” He put his hands in his hair. “I didn’t think. Fucking hell, I used you the same way everyone else did! I turned into everyone else that fucked you over, and now I either have to go through with it or fail my entire senior project. I’m a fucking shithead. I’m the biggest asshole in the world, I’m so fucking sorry—”
Skylar went over to him, knelt on the floor beside him, pulled his hands from his head, held them in his own grip. “Look at me.”
Xander did, reluctantly. He had tears running down his face.
Skylar wanted to kiss him, but he made himself wait. “You are not the biggest asshole in the world. And you are not the same as the others. You used me in a different way. Yes, you should have asked for my permission, and no, I’m not happy that you didn’t. If anyone else had done it, I’d be angry, but I’m not, because it’s you. I know you wouldn’t use me for anything bad. And I’m the one who told you to use the Benzaiten painting in the first place, so you could argue it’s my fault for giving you the idea. Whatever you’re doing with the paintings, I trust you. You have my permission.”
Xander looked poleaxed. “You don’t understand. You’re the exhibit. You’re not only in every painting. You are the theme.”
Now Skylar was curious. “What’s the theme?”
“I don’t want to say.”
“But don’t you have to? The forms, you have to have them filled out, and the social media—”
“The forms had to be turned in months ago. People change their themes all the time. For social media, all my old samples are still running, but three days before, I’m changing everything to black squares and saying the theme is TBD. I’m announcing it on site.” He rubbed his thumb against Skylar’s. “So you know, they’re going to hate it. The committee. They’ll call my theme insipid. The style—that’s more complicated, but they won’t like it.”
“They might surprise you.”
“No. This isn’t a movie where there’s a dramatic reveal and everything works out and the hero gets the big prize. I’m going to pass, but I won’t get the grade and the marks and the reviews I was going to. It will affect my admissions to graduate school. But I don’t care. Or rather, I care—and I’m happy. Because this is who I am. It was bothering me a lot, my old show. It was just what they wanted and nothing that I did.” He laced his fingers through Skylar’s. “I don’t care if I go to graduate school or not. That was a dream I had when I thought I was going to marry my art.”
Skylar’s heart skipped a beat. “Is there…something else you want to marry now?”
“Yes. You.”
Xander wasn’t smiling, still too caught up in the seriousness of his decisions. But it was perfect, Skylar decided. A very Xander proposal.
If, in fact, that’s what it was.
“Are you saying this generally, or are you asking me formally and wanting to set a date?”
“Formally.” Xander considered a moment. “Does New Year’s work for you?”
“New Year’s sounds wonderful. I don’t want anything fancy. I definitely don’t want to wear a suit. I only have one request.”
“Name it.”
“I want to change my name to Fairchild.”
For the first time in almost a week, Xander smiled, and it was a wonderful one. “I’m fine with those terms.”
Skylar smiled back. “Good. Then it’s settled. We’ll get married on New Year’s.” He kissed his fiancé’s nose. “Now I’ll go back to my colander so you can finish your painting.”
“Don’t look at it,” Xander said as he stood, downshifting immediately back into cranky-artist mode.
Skylar didn’t mind. Not even when, as the day of the show came closer, Xander became practically a bear. He simply reminded himself this was his bear, that he was marrying him for better or for worse for the rest of his life, and the grouchy beast in his living room became the dearest, most wonderful creature on earth.
Then it was the day of the show, and time for him to see what Xander had been working on all this time.
Unc had convinced Xander, once he saw the god-awful black squares and TBD notices, to run a more sleek Coming Soon banner with an actual graphic. Since he was, you know, a visual arts major. It was Zelda’s idea for the graphic to be a red tori. And it was Sara who designed it.
Cory and Jacob beat the drums with a special edition of the Lucky 7, letting everyone know they should go see the show to find out what the creative team behind Hotay & Moo had in store for them today. They leaked the information that Xander, the artist, would be featuring a series of paintings based on his boyfriend and scriptwriter, Skylar, and that they would be done in a style the administration didn’t care for. They didn’t say it was the art administration, and they made it sound like porn, which was misleading as hell—but they ensured the instructors would have no choice but to mark that Xander had a sellout crowd for his show, if nothing else.
Family, they said, took care of family.
Speaking of, Skylar was surprised but pleased to see Xander’s mother, against all expectations, had come up from Pennsylvania and was waiting at the Palace of the Sun to go over with the others. She hadn’t seen Xander yet, having arrived too late, and privately Skylar was glad because he worried it would have upset Xander’s mental balance.
He wondered if Kirsten had known this as well.
Xander’s mother looked a great deal like him, except where he had a natural scowl, she was warm and sunny, smiling brightly as Pamela introduced her to Skylar.
“Are you Xander’s boyfriend? My, aren’t you handsome.”
“Thank you very much.” Skylar couldn’t help but like the woman on sight. They chatted together as the two of them rode along with Pamela and Zelda to the show. “I must confess, I’ve been enjoying your cookies all summer and fall. The chocolate drop ones with frosting are my favorite.”
She blushed, but she smiled too. “I enjoy baking for people. It’s how I show them I love them. I try to give Xander enough extra so he can share with the people he loves too.” Her smile faded a little. “But he tells me the two of you are leaving the country, going to Japan?”
“We hope to, yes. We got notices of our interview just the other day. It will be in January, on the second, in New York City. We’ll probably do the wedding there at city hall, then stay and do the interview.”
She blinked at him, twice, and he realized she didn’t know, because Xander wasn’t talking to her. “Wedding?”
“Ah.” He rubbed at his cheek. “Yes. Xander and I plan to get married. A small ceremony at the justice of the peace.”
She covered her mouth and shut her eyes. Tears ran down her cheeks. “I’ve missed so much. I let him get away, and I missed so much.”
Skylar touched her arm. “It’s not too late. You’re here today. And you can be there for him tomorrow, and the day after that as well.”
She squeezed his hand and nodded.
Skylar was eager to get inside the building and see the exhibit, to put family drama behind him. But as they pulled up, a black town car blocked the stairs to Art Building West. He had a bad feeling about that car. As he walked to the stairs, he found he had good reason for that feeling.
Leighton Stone stood beside the car, chatting with President Hardin.
Pamela took Skylar’s arm. “It’s going to be all right.”
Zelda came up to flank his other side. “Do you want me to kick his ass?”
Skylar wished his first instinct upon seeing his father wasn’t fear and flight even after all his work to feel otherwise, but there he was, right back in the soup.
Kirsten looked concerned. “What’s going on? What’s happening?”
“Skylar’s father,” Pamela explained, leaning in close to speak quietly, keeping her gaze on Leighton.
“Not actually his father,” Zelda added, also not looking away from the enemy. “The guy’s here to bully Skylar into something, that’s for sure. But we’re not going to let him.”
“Oh, my.” Kirsten put a hand on Skylar’s arm, and for a moment it was like looking at a feminine, gentler Xander. “Can I do anything?”
Skylar shook his head. “Thank you—all of you. But I’ll deal with this. Alone.”
Zelda regarded him dubiously. “I think that’s a stupid idea.”
“How about a compromise?” Pamela motioned to a shady area near the entrance. “We’ll wait for you there. We can see you, but not be involved. If he tries to stuff you into the trunk of a car, I’ll send Zelda over with a battle axe.”
“I think if it comes to that, we should call the police,” Kirsten said, alarmed.
Skylar smiled and nodded. “All right. It’s a deal. Except I’m not going to end up in the trunk. And we won’t need the police.”
I hope. He took a breath, squared his shoulders, and went over to face Leighton Stone.
The president scuttled away as soon as he saw Pamela waving at him, but Leighton advanced at the sight of his son, and Skylar could see the man putting on every trick he’d ever taught Skylar to use. Squaring his shoulders, positioning Skylar into the afternoon sun. Avoiding eye contact until the last possible second. Adjusting his swagger—God, it went on and on.
It made Skylar so tired.
Skylar already knew this wasn’t a battle he was going to win—it was going to come down to strategic withdrawal. He put his hands in his pockets and stopped walking, waiting for Leighton to approach him. When Leighton came close enough Skylar didn’t have to raise his voice, he began speaking.
“I’m not sure why you’re here, but this needs to be brief, because my fiancé has an important event about to start, one I will not miss, so choose your words carefully. And bear in mind there is absolutely nothing you have that I want.”
It would have been such a great speech, if his voice hadn’t quavered there at the end.
Leighton pursed his lips and adjusted the cuffs of his sleeves. “Yes, about this event. I heard rumors you are the center of the theme, and I have my doubts anything I’m about to discover inside is appropriate. Be advised if I don’t care for what I see attached to the Stone family name—and I won’t—I’ll sue that boy until he bleeds.”
The words were meant to fill Skylar with terror, and for a moment they almost did. Except Skylar was so tired. And so absolutely over this man. “On what grounds? It’s not you in the theme, and I’m certainly not giving you permission for anything.”
“I will cut you off, boy. Completely. You won’t—”
“Do it.” Skylar took a step closer to Leighton Stone, standing up tall so he could tower over him. He still trembled, but he wasn’t giving in. I’m leaving you. I’m walking away. Watch me go, Father. Watch me turn away, just like Xander said I could. “Please, sever all ties with me. In fact, let me do it for you. I don’t want anything to do with you, or my mother, or anyone involved in what has been my life.” He held out his arms. “There. Now you have no grounds to go after Xander. And with that, I’m going to go see Xander’s show. I hear it’s going to be incredible.”
He spun on his heel and walked as fast as he could toward the stairs, trying to look cool and confident, not like he was about to crack into a heap because he was shaking so hard. Behind him he could hear his father stomping angrily after him.
“Don’t you walk away from me. I’m not done with you—”
Skylar stopped and turned around, borne on fury this time.
“Oh, but you are. We’re finished, you and I, sir. I don’t want to be the man you raised me in a bottle to be. I’m not your ball of clay, not anymore. I’m my own person, and I get to be who I want to be. You don’t have to support that person. You don’t have to fund my choices, or stop them, or love me any longer if you don’t like them. But you don’t get to control them. Who I am is my choice. Though to an extent I don’t get to make that call. Who I am is who I am.”
Leighton curled his lip. “Are you going to quote that insipid pop singer at me?”
“Who, Lady Gaga? No, but I could. I could quote Shakespeare to you instead, if you like. To thine own self be true. Or Katherine Anne Porter: I was right not to be afraid of any thief but myself, who will end by leaving me nothing. Or how about: If we keep un-perverted the human heart—which is like unto heaven and received from the earth—that is God. That’s a revelation to Mikado Seiwa, the fifty-sixth emperor of Japan.”
“I’m not going to stand here on the street and listen to you spout a bunch of nonsense philosophy.”
“That’s fine. Because as I said, I have nothing to say to you, you have nothing for me, you seem incapable of seeing who I am, and I have somewhere else I need to be.”
He turned and headed once more toward the stairs.
Leighton continued to follow him. The fury was gone from him—he was almost desperate now. “I see you fine. I see everything you can be. Everything you should be.”
“What I can be and what I need to be, what I want to be, are not the same. And should is a dangerous word.”
“This is that boy’s doing. He clearly put nonsense into your head.”
“It’s absolutely Xander’s doing. But he didn’t put anything into my head. Quite the contrary—he helped me get the nonsense out.”
He felt Leighton make a swipe for his arm behind him but managed to dodge it in time. “Goddamn it, boy, turn around and listen to me when I’m talking to you—”
Zelda, Pamela, and Kirsten stepped between them.
“The boy has somewhere to be.” Pamela’s voice was silky dangerous. “Oh, and for the record, if you sue any of these young men, don’t think you can railroad over them because they’re poor, defenseless college students. I’ll pay for any legal fees you try to stick them with. And I’m happy to countersue as well, if you step the wrong way. Tread lightly, Mr. Stone.”
Skylar heard Leighton grumbling, but he ignored him—new straight lines, he told himself, and went through the door, into the exhibition hall, to Xander and these paintings he’d been modeling so blindly for. He was at the top of the stairs now, but before Skylar could so much as reach for the doors, they burst open, and Sara, Cory, Unc, and Jacob came through them. Their eyes were wide, and they looked like they’d seen a ghost. They were all staring at Skylar.
Oh no. “What happened? What’s wrong? Oh my God, are they shutting it down? Is he all right? Is he okay? I need to go to him—”
Sara put a hand on his arm. “He’s fine. His show is fine.”
Skylar frowned at them, totally lost now. “Then why are you all looking at me like that?”
They stopped looking at him and looked at one another.
Leighton fought his way through the crush and stepped between them, his cool reserve breaking down. “Skylar Stone, I am not finished speaking with you.”
Christ, Skylar couldn’t wait to get married and change his goddamned name. “Funny, because I’m totally over this conversation.”
He pushed past Leighton, his friends, and through the doors.
And saw his fiancé, draped in fire, standing on a dais of cracked and glittering silver stone, surrounded by…Skylar.
Xander wore a crimson toga, clipped with a gold fastening at the shoulder and a gold belt at the waist, but the fabric was…iridescent. It really did look like fire. He wore a gold leaf circlet on his head, and he held a golden paintbrush in his hand—he’d dipped it in gold paint, rendering it useless as a brush, but it was gorgeous as a piece of art. The tip was red, though, to match his toga. He had a manga marker in his hand too, and it wasn’t colored at all.
The paintings hung all around him, on the walls, stood on stands. And all of them were Skylar.
Fudō Myōō Comes to Remove Benzaiten’s Obstacles was there, and it was gorgeous, but next to the ones Xander had done in his last-minute flurry, it was clearly an early work, the artist whetting his appetite. His manga/oil style had only strengthened, to the point that the other paintings looked almost like manga panels propped up around the room. He’d done a proper painting of the sketch he’d done of Skylar beneath the cherry tree, only he’d dialed it to eleven and made it nearly life-sized. Again, manga style in oil. There were ones of Skylar sitting, standing, lying—looking vulnerable, soft, sad, scared, angry—he was himself though, always himself. His true self, his sakura suit self.
But better than any other painting in the show, behind Xander’s dais, was the masterwork. A huge, filling-the-wall piece stood there, Skylar larger than the painter below by twice the size. He was nude. Completely, utterly. Gray top to bottom—a dull, flat gray, like the color Xander had painted him that night, that wonderful night. The painted Skylar’s eyes were closed, and he held out his hand—this was the colander business, Skylar realized.
He didn’t hold a colander in the painting, though. He held the sun. All around him, up his body, his arms, the earth and sky, were cherry blossoms.
Snaking up him, blooming on him, falling like rain around him—the cherry blossoms were everywhere. They were, in fact, all over every painting, once he looked more closely. And in the main focal painting, smaller, hiding in the vines, were Sara and Pamela and Jacob and Unc and Cory and Zelda.
It was so perfect, so incredibly perfect that Skylar could barely breathe.
“What,” Leighton growled from behind him, “the hell is this?”
Skylar met his lover’s gaze. His lover standing in a pile of shattered, glittering silver stone, his expression serious and intense, ready to do battle. For him.
Do you see yet? Do you see what I see in you? What I’m trying to show the whole world?
Oh, Xander. Oh, his heart.
Both their hearts.
“What the hell is this?” Leighton demanded more loudly.
Skylar kept his smile on Xander as he nudged past the velvet rope of the exhibit and the placard with the name Pygmalion.
“This is me,” Skylar said, loud enough for his father, the room, the earth, the stars, and all the gods in heaven to hear.
Then he took a seat at the feet of his lover, who had shown him, and the world, who he was.