Chapter Twenty-Three
Dear Elliott—
The handwriting was familiar. Elliott had first seen it scrawled on chalkboards and, in red ink, filling the margins of his exams and papers. Later it had adorned numerous versions of Elliott’s dissertation because John Davis didn’t believe in using Track Changes. “Ink is better,” he used to insist. “More organic and conducive to thought.”
The letter was written in black ink, not red, and the words crowded closely across the page. The paper itself was somewhat wrinkled, as if John had handled it repeatedly before putting it in the envelope. Or maybe prison officials were to blame—didn’t they read outgoing mail?
Elliott sat at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee in front of him and Ishtar near his feet. He could have read the letter in the living room, but that was his space to share with Anna and Ladd and Simon—not with John. The kitchen was better. Maybe somewhere impersonal like a Starbucks would have been best, but his hands were shaking and he didn’t trust himself to drive.
“Should just throw the fucking thing away,” he said to Ishtar. But he couldn’t bring himself to follow through. The pull of words was just too strong.
Dear Elliott—
The arrival of the holiday season has made me introspective and inspired me to reach out. The holidays are a melancholy time in prison. Some of the staff make an attempt, a bit of a nod toward the season, but the food remains awful and the atmosphere gloomy.
I hope you, at least, are enjoying the season. I asked my attorney to find your new address, so I’m aware you’ve relocated to California. You must appreciate the proximity of your relatives and the comparatively balmy climate, but it’s a shame you’ve retreated so thoroughly. I do hope you’re not squandering your potential. You have it in you to become a fine scholar.
Speaking of scholarship, I’ve been thinking a great deal about my book. Of course, my access to research sources is severely limited here, but I’ve been able to flesh out my thesis and outline, and that part is going well. When complete, my book will be an excellent contribution to the literature.
My attorney is working now on obtaining my parole, and I expect to be released by early spring. Once my book is published, the royalties will provide an adequate income, and I expect the quality of the work will persuade institutions to overlook my unfortunate history and offer me employment. Until then, however, I will need a place to live and access to academic libraries. This will be your opportunity to obtain the goal for which you’ve been pestering me for so long—we can finally move in together. You will have to relocate, as I cannot leave Washington while I’m on parole, but I assure you that you’ll be better off here.
You should begin investigating positions in Washington at once, if you’ve not already begun to do so. Even Portland would be acceptable, as it’s close enough to the border that we could live in Washington and you could commute. I understand that moving again might be difficult, but you can assist me with my book, and I’ll list you as second author. That should offset the inconvenience.
In the meantime, Elliott, do keep up with your own work. If you’d like to send some of it to me, I’d be happy to provide feedback. One thing I can continue to do while I’m stuck in this place is provide mentoring to you.
I look forward to our reunion.
Yours,
J
For a long time, Elliott stared blankly at the letter, the lines of writing blurring before his eyes. He felt disconnected from his own thoughts, noting like a clinical observer that his hands were curled into tight fists and his jaw was clenched hard enough to make the muscles jump. He was breathing rapidly, as if he’d just returned from a long run, yet his skin felt icy.
Rage. This was rage. And the focus wasn’t so much on John as on himself. How could he have been such an idiot? How could he have allowed himself to be seduced by such grandiose lies? How could he have pinned his entire life, his future, his heart to a narcissistic fuck-wad like John Davis?
“I don’t deserve Simon,” he whispered. He didn’t deserve anything. Not his loving family. Not his fancy degrees. Not the potential position in Nebraska or the online jobs he had now. Not the sweet dog who stood beside him, burrowing her head into his stomach.
For a long, cold minute, he seriously considered walking Ishtar over to Simon’s house, leaving her there, and then . . . disappearing. Erasing himself. Because continuing onward felt so fucking hard.
But that wouldn’t be fair to Ishtar and Simon, and it wouldn’t be fair to Anna and Ladd and his parents. They’d blame themselves. While he might have fucked up his life, he wasn’t about to ruin theirs too.
Fine then. If he couldn’t erase himself, he could at least start with a blank slate. He would move to Nebraska—or somewhere else far away—and begin a new career with people who didn’t know him. He would leave Simon to find his own way, because Simon was strong and wonderful and would recover from the loss of his family. Because Simon didn’t deserve to be saddled with someone who’d let himself be so easily conned by blatant deceits. Soon enough someone better than Elliott would discover Simon and help him find the life he deserved.
The only things Elliott would take from his old life were Ishtar and his books. Not even all of his books—just the ones he truly needed. He’d give the rest away.
That decided, he dashed off a quick note.
John,
Fuck you.
E
He put the note in an envelope, printed the address, and slapped on a stamp. Then he went to prepare for a run.
***
Monday was a strange day. Ginny Holmes called from Nebraska State to let him know they’d be contacting him with travel arrangements later that week. He tried to sound enthusiastic about the prospect, but he’d been numb since Friday. Simon texted him twice—once to ask for a book recommendation for Miri and once to warn him that a big storm was forecasted. Elliott answered both, but he felt that the messages between them carried more unsaid meaning than actual words. Too bad he couldn’t decipher what Simon meant. A student emailed with an unlikely excuse about having to go to Washington, DC, to meet with her congressman, and when Elliott replied with skepticism, she sent him a phone number for the congressman’s staff. Elliott called and the story checked out. So he apologized to the student, granted her an extension, and wished her well.
Shortly after lunchtime, the sky went an odd yellow color. “We’d better run while we can,” Elliott told Ishtar, who’d been restless all day. He put on his running gear, but Ishtar—who usually threw herself around the living room in ecstatic celebration when he geared up—hovered near the couch with her tail hanging low.
“It’s not raining yet. And even if it does, you won’t melt.” As he clipped on her leash, he wondered whether pets really could sense earthquakes and, if so, whether that was Ish’s problem. Hell, something felt off to him too. Maybe it was simply the drop in barometric pressure.
Although Ishtar wasn’t exactly eager, she didn’t hesitate to join him when he left the house. He locked the door as usual, tucked the key into the pocket of his jogging pants, and began to run. He didn’t take his phone this time. If it did storm, he didn’t want to worry about it getting wet. Besides, listening to music would make it harder to maintain an emotional connection with Ishtar, and if her anxiety increased, he wanted to be aware of it.
They took one of his usual routes past the edge of town and out into farmland, where a few cows and goats watched them race by. Since the livestock seemed calm, maybe no calamity was in store—just some rain and perhaps some wind. Hell, Elliott was going to have to endure a lot more than that if he ended up in Nebraska. “Blizzards!” he said breathlessly to Ishtar. “Hailstorms. Tornadoes!” She wasn’t impressed.
They reached an old farmhouse he’d always liked. Its white siding needed fresh paint, but he liked the wide front porch and wondered what the owners had done with the attached structure that had once housed a water tower. In late spring, the people who lived there sold cherries for two dollars a bag, usually on the honor system, with the fruit set out on a wooden table near the road. During the summer, their front yard was a veritable jungle of vegetables and bright flowers. Even with the calendar turned to December, a few blooms survived near the front porch and the short row of orange trees near the driveway promised a large harvest very soon.
Elliott would miss that house when he moved. Sure, Nebraska had plenty of farmhouses. So did just about anywhere else he might end up. But none of them would be this familiar place with the tire swing hanging from an oak tree and the chipped concrete fountain near the lavender hedge.
Although he often ran farther, today Elliott turned toward home.
He gave in to a bit of weakness and detoured by Simon’s house, but he didn’t stop. Sometimes Ishtar would tug him toward Simon’s door, but today she pulled him down the sidewalk, apparently eager to get home.
They turned the corner onto their street. Elliott was looking down at his feet, idly wondering how many miles they’d taken him over the years and how many miles remained. It seemed odd to realize you could measure out your lifetime one small stride at a time. He didn’t look up until they’d nearly reached home—and when he glanced toward his house, he cried out and came to an abrupt stop.
The library was in ruins.
The books were still there, but they’d been ripped to pieces. Paper scraps were now scattered across his lawn like the victims of a terrible war, bleeding words into the damp grass. The library’s wooden post was broken near the base, and the stump ended in a ragged edge. The larger part of the post lay on the sidewalk, while the book enclosure was only bits of ruined plywood and cracked plexiglass.
Elliott had dropped Ishtar’s leash, but while he stood still as a statue, she remained at his side, whining worriedly.
Elliott steeled himself. All right.
Moving deliberately, he picked up the leash and led Ishtar into the house. He disconnected the leash and hung it on the rack near the door. Then he found his phone and texted a brief message to Simon: Come get Ish.
Leaving both Ishtar and the phone in the house and the door unlocked to make it easier on Simon, Elliott strode across the street. A few raindrops fell on him, fat and cold, as he marched up to Mike Burgess’s house. Ugly house. Ugly yard. Ugly man. Forgoing the bell, he pounded on the door with his fist.
It took only a few seconds before the door swung open. Burgess stood just inside, cell phone in hand. He wore jeans and a Raiders T-shirt with the logo slightly peeling. “What do you want?”
“You son of a bitch.”
Fear flickered in Burgess’s muddy brown eyes, and he took a small step backward. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“You fucking son of a bitch.” Voice low and even, hands opening and closing at his sides. “You took a good thing—one of the only good things I’ve done—and you destroyed it just because you’re a small-minded, bigoted piece of shit.”
Burgess jutted his chin and tried to shut the door, but Elliott stepped onto the threshold, blocking him. The wind was picking up, sending rain against his back.
“You’re trespassing!” Burgess yelled shrilly. “I’m calling the police!” He lifted his phone, but Elliott batted it out of his hand, and it went flying across the entryway and onto the tile floor, where it shattered.
Huh, said an eerily calm voice in Elliott’s head. Too bad we weren’t that coordinated when we tried to play high school sports.
Burgess, on the other hand, wasn’t calm at all. His face bright red, he screamed at Elliott. “That’s assault! You’ve assaulted me!”
Elliott answered in a growl. “I haven’t done anything yet. I’d like to do to you what you did to my library.” He’d never hated before. Never yearned for violence. Never been so sure that the only logical course of action was to begin swinging with his fists and to keep on going until nothing remained but blood and devastation and a cold rain to wash everything away.
Do it, urged the voice. Our life is fucked anyway. Do it, and go out with a bang. Stop being a goddamn patsy.
Do it because Burgess fucking deserved it. Because right this moment, he symbolized an entire world full of hatred and rejection, and while Elliott couldn’t take on the world, he could at least pound this one abhorrent face. Do it because the worst that could happen was he’d end up in prison—just like John, who Elliott should have abandoned years ago if he’d had the brains and the balls for it.
Do it. Do it.
“Elliott! No!”
Elliott turned slowly and saw Simon’s truck stopped crookedly in front of Burgess’s house, the engine still rumbling and the driver’s door wide open. Simon, squinting against the pelting rain, hurried closer as fast as his bum knee allowed. Elliott was dimly aware of Burgess running more deeply into his house, yelling something incoherent the entire way. But that was of little importance. What mattered was the miracle of Simon’s sudden appearance—and the nauseating feeling as Elliott seemed to slip back into his own body.
“What the hell are you doing?” Simon demanded as he wrapped a hand around Elliott’s fist and pushed Elliott’s hand down.
Oh. Apparently Elliott had been about to punch Burgess.
“He wrecked my library.” That sounded almost rational, right? Elliott tried to gesture toward the evidence of the crime, but Simon embraced him, holding him still.
“Shit! El, you can’t— What the hell is wrong with you? You can’t hit people. You can’t— I thought—”
Before Simon could articulate what he’d thought, Burgess came tearing back into the entryway. “I called the cops! I called the cops!”
Elliott remained emotionally disconnected, tethered in place by Simon’s strong arms and shivering against Simon’s damp shirt. “Good. You can tell them what you did to my library.” He didn’t bother looking at Burgess while he spoke.
“I didn’t do anything!”
It was Simon who responded first. “Then where did you get those scratches on your hands and arms? And the splinters of wood in your hair?”
Burgess’s hand flew to his scalp. Sure enough, several long, shallow marks ran along his forearms, and his fingernails looked torn and slightly bloody. He crossed his arms. “I was working in the garage today. He assaulted me!” He jutted his chin toward the wreckage of his phone.
Elliott felt Simon sigh against him. “Fine,” Simon said. “We’ll let the cops sort it out.”
Considering that Burgess had been the one to call the police, he looked less than pleased with that idea.
Simon continued, his tone as pleasant as if he were discussing the weather. “Did you know simple assault is a misdemeanor? Someone like Elliott here, who doesn’t have a criminal history, he might have to pay a fine. Maybe get a few months’ probation. Which is about what someone would normally get for criminal trespassing. But vandalism can be a felony if there’s more than four hundred bucks’ worth of damage. And books are expensive, aren’t they, El?”
Elliott made an affirmative noise.
“Not only that,” Simon continued. “If the offenses were motivated by Elliott’s sexual orientation, they’re hate crimes. That can get you penalty enhancements. Mmm, maybe as much as three years in prison.”
Burgess looked as if he was going to be sick, which was oddly satisfying. But Elliott was shivering in the wind and rain, his hair and clothing sticking to his skin and water running under the collar of his shirt. Simon was equally wet—more so, since he was sheltering Elliott with his bigger body—but he stood straight and seemingly unbothered.
“I didn’t . . .” Burgess muttered. He didn’t seem to know how to finish the sentence.
A police car came zooming around the corner, sending up spray from a newly formed puddle. The siren was off, but the lights flashed brightly. The car stopped behind Simon’s truck, and a man and woman in uniform got out. They both looked profoundly unhappy to be venturing outside in this weather, although their faces brightened when they saw Simon.
“Odisho!” the man called out in a friendly greeting.
“Hey, Calvillo, Babb. We’re practically drowning here. Mind if we chat on Elliott’s porch?” He pointed across the street.
The cops seemed agreeable, so while the male officer stepped inside Burgess’s entryway, the female cop waited for Simon to turn off his truck and shut the door. She followed them across to Elliott’s house, where Ishtar barked a few times from inside until Elliott ordered her to be quiet.
“So what’s going on?” asked the cop whose name tag said M. Babb. She was thirtyish and nearly as tall as Elliott, her blonde hair cut short.
“This is Elliott Thompson,” Simon said. “My boyfriend.”
Babb’s eyebrows rose slightly, but Elliott was even more surprised—both that Simon still considered him his boyfriend and that Simon had acknowledged their relationship so easily. “Are you the one who called, Mr. Thompson?” she asked.
“No. That was Burgess.” By now the rain was falling so heavily that it was difficult to see Burgess’s house. The street would flood soon—downpours were anathema to hardpan soil—but fortunately the water had never risen high enough to reach any houses.
“Okay. Why don’t you tell me what happened?”
Elliott knew her shoulder camera was recording the entire incident. He felt no need to lie or hide the truth, so he told her everything—discovering the destroyed library, texting Simon, confronting Burgess, even slapping away his phone. Simon stood close to him, listening carefully but not speaking. Babb asked whether Elliott and Burgess had experienced any previous run-ins, and Elliott described those as well. She nodded thoughtfully, her expression nonjudgmental.
When Elliott was done, she nodded again. “Aside from the library and its contents, was there any other damage to your property?”
“I had a rainbow flag in my front yard. It’s gone.” He’d noticed this as they’d approached the porch.
“Okay. You two stay put, all right? I’m gonna go talk to Calvillo.”
“We’ll be right here,” Simon said.
They watched as she ducked her head and shoulders against the deluge and splashed across the street. She knocked on Burgess’s door, and a moment later Calvillo emerged. He and Babb ran to their car and sat inside, apparently to discuss the situation.
Simon put his arm around Elliott’s shoulders, lending his body warmth.
“He ruined my library,” Elliott said in a small voice.
“I’m sorry. He’s a shit-bag. But, Jesus, El. You scared the crap out of me with that text.”
Elliott wiped water from his face with the back of his hand. “I wanted to make sure Ish was okay in case . . .”
“In case what? What the hell were you doing over there?” Simon waved angrily in the direction of Burgess’s house.
“He ruined my library.” Even now, the wrecked books were nothing but soaked little heaps of paper and cardboard, and the remains of the library itself were splattered with mud and storm-tossed dead leaves.
“That’s worth going to jail over?”
“I don’t know. Maybe nothing I do is worth anything.”
“Elliott.” Simon sounded stern, an echo of what must have been his cop-voice coloring the name.
They didn’t say anything for a minute or two. Elliott sighed. “Thanks for coming over right away.”
“Of course! I love you, remember?”
“Is your leg okay?”
Simon shook the leg slightly as if testing it. “Yeah, it’s fine. But it’s my heart you really should be worried about. You nearly gave me a heart attack today.”
That was . . . interesting. Simon was a brave man. He’d faced gun-wielding bad guys, irate homophobic neighbors, and a horde of rejecting family members, all with calm and dignity. But what frightened him was believing Elliott might be in danger. Elliott truly didn’t deserve him. If such a good man cared about him, though, loved him, didn’t that suggest there was something valuable about Elliott? Something of worth?
Babb and Calvillo got out of their car—reluctantly—and hurried back into Burgess’s house. They weren’t there for long, and when they left, they headed for Elliott’s porch.
“Good to see you, man,” Calvillo said, patting Simon’s shoulder. “How’s the knee?”
“Recovering.”
“When are you gonna rejoin us?”
“I’m heading to the Parks Department instead. Ranger.”
Both cops seemed interested in that, but after a few moments of chatter, Babb steered them back to the matter at hand. “So, Mr. Thompson. Your story and Burgess’s are pretty close, although he keeps insisting your library violated some kind of imaginary city codes.” She shook her head. “Anyway, he’s willing to forget you broke his phone if you forget he damaged your property. That’s up to you, of course. We’ll arrest him if you really want us to.”
Elliott shook his head. “No.” All the anger had left him, flames doused by the rainstorm.
“Good choice. Just stay away from him, okay? We’ve made it very clear that if he even thinks about entering your property without your permission, he’s going to find himself bunking in jail.”
“Very clear,” Calvillo added gleefully. He was short but looked as if he spent a lot of time lifting weights.
“Thank you,” said Elliott.
And apparently that settled it, because both cops turned their attention back to Simon. “So, um, you guys are a thing, huh?” Calvillo asked.
Simon answered simply. “Yes.”
“That’s cool.”
The smile that spread across Simon’s face was enough to warm Elliott’s heart. “Do you want to come inside and dry off? Have some coffee, maybe?”
They spent a half hour together, the four of them. Calvillo ended up sitting on the floor with Ishtar mostly in his lap, and he laughed at how she was getting fur all over his uniform. Babb was interested in some of Elliott’s books. Both cops got the rundown on Simon’s surgeries and rehab, plus his future career plans, and they told him some of the department’s recent gossip. They seemed ready to stay all afternoon, but a call to assist at an accident scene came in. So after a round of handshaking and promises to get together later, they left.
“You’re still damp,” Simon said as soon as they were gone. “I’m gonna park the truck in the driveway. Go change into something dry before you catch a cold.”
“Colds are caused by viruses, not by being wet,” Elliott said. But he took a quick hot shower and then put on flannel lounging pants and his old Bulldogs sweatshirt. He emerged from the bedroom with a T-shirt and pair of sweats he hoped would fit Simon and found him in the kitchen, heating a can of soup. Ishtar was supervising.
“Sit,” said Simon, pointing at a chair.
“Are you talking to me or the dog?”
Simon shot him a look.
So Elliott and Simon had soup and a sandwich, and then they curled up together on the couch and watched the storm rage. The weather was still miserable. The library was still ruined. But in Elliott’s warm, dry living room, with his dog at his feet and Simon pressed against him, even a tempest felt survivable.