Twenty-Four
Long after the sun had dipped below the horizon and the entire Moore family were snuggled in their beds upstairs, Mary Moore sat cross-legged in the living room, eyes swollen and sniffling softly. Trash bags full of demolished Christmas wrapping surrounded her from where she sat in front of the tree, its colorful lights still blinking.
Though most of the gifts had been opened, a handful still remained.
She swept up the smallest of the unopened gifts with hands that hadn’t stopped shaking since that morning, heart heavy as she read the card.
To: Dad
From: Jon
Brows furrowed, she tore open the gift and was met with a small picture frame. A chain had been attached to a frame, which Mary presumed was there to make it easy for Robert to hang it from the rearview of his car or even the city bus he drove every morning.
Tears burned her eyes as she drank in the photo of Jon, Robert, and Milo, so many years ago. Milo sat next to his big brother, looking up at him with stars of worship in his eyes on the very living room couch that sat behind Mary at that moment. Robert sat on the opposite side of Jon, smiling proudly. And in the middle, Jon was cradling his very first guitar—the one his father had given him on Christmas day. A day Mary still remembered like it was yesterday. When Jon’s guitar skills had seemed like a lost cause as his father struggled to teach him the basics from the ground up.
Fighting back tears, she set the picture frame down and ripped open the card Jon had taped on top of it, slamming her eyes closed the moment she read the note he’d left.
I only climbed so high because I wanted to make you proud
I hope one day we can find our way back to this
I love you, Dad.
Jon
“What are you still doing up?”
Mary’s watery eyes flew over her shoulder with a gasp, the first tear jetting down from her reddened eyes just as they locked with Robert’s, who was lingering at the bottom of the staircase.
Robert’s face collapsed, darkened with a cringe at the sight of her tears.
“I’m torn to pieces.” She stood on trembling legs, still clutching Jon’s card while making a claw at her stomach. “How can I sleep when I’m shredded inside?”
“Mary—”
She nearly cracked the glass of the picture frame in her hand. “Jon’s gone. Milo’s gone. Viola. Betty hasn’t even come back from Mr. Washington’s place…”
Robert’s head fell.
“It’s only a matter of time before Jackson goes running for his life.” Mary swept her hand under her runny nose as her voice rose. “And eventually Beau too. You won’t rest until this house is completely empty. Until we have great-great-grandchildren that we don’t even get to see!”
“Right. So this is all my faul—”
“What kind of father is jealous of his own son?”
Her words stole the breath from his lungs. She saw it the moment it happened. When his entire body shut down. To the point where he wondered if he’d ever breathe again.
“Fix this,” she hissed, unmoved by the hurt her words had caused him, one pained tear after the other now popping out of her wide eyes. “Fix it now. Or our kids won’t be the only ones leaving this house and never coming back.”
Robert’s shoulders sank at the threat, and he lifted his chin high as his own eyes glistened with emotion.
Chest heaving in the wake of her threat, Mary stomped out of the living room and swept past him, her stomps reverberating through the house as she charged up the stairs, leaving Robert, all alone, at the bottom.
——
Jon had never been more terrified. Not just because, after performing for a sold out house at Madison Square Garden, the barriers in the pit had given way and the crowd had rushed the stage, giving the band’s security only seconds to react before he and his bandmates were pummeled to death by well-intentioned fans. No, the real terror bulging his eyes, tensing his stomach, and making his entire body roll with ice cold tremors, was the fact that he’d felt nothing. The rush that never failed to charge through his body when he was on stage, filling him to the brim with an adrenaline that no drug in the world could dream to match, hadn’t come that night. Not once during the band’s entire performance. Not even when his life had flashed before his eyes as thousands of adoring fans had charged the stage.
Nothing.
He was empty.
That empty feeling hadn’t left his body for days, but he’d been sure it would’ve made its exit that night, the way it always did during a show. He swallowed thickly from where he was crouched low in a chair at the far corner of the band’s backstage dressing room. All around him his bandmates were still lucky enough to feel the high. Still coming down from the punch. From the inexplicable charge of exuberance, vibrancy, and light that’d made them fall madly in love with what they were lucky enough to do as a career over the years. Voids filled, they were already discussing what nightclub they’d all be going to that evening, but Jon wanted nothing more than to take a long nap.
Everyone in the room donned the typical rock star attire. Nothing but ripped jeans, leather vests, and tattered shoes and boots.
Even Shaun Green, the most high-strung woman he’d ever met, wore a form-fitting leather mini dress as she took a seat in the empty sitting chair next to Jon. “You okay, babe? Been looking kinda down tonight. Been looking kinda down since the moment you got to New York actually.”
Jon gave Shaun a soft smile. “Just haven’t been feeling well, that’s all.”
Adam plopped on the couch next to Shaun a moment later, wrapping an arm around her neck, taking a swig from his beer with his free hand.
Across the room, Noodle turned to look at Jon too, propping half his body on top of the white vanity table across the room. The bright bulbs that surrounded the mirror highlighted his sweat-soaked blonde hair and every dot of sweat that still littered his forehead. His chest was still heaving—because he could still feel something.
Must’ve been nice.
Jon’s chest remained motionless. “Noodle, please stop looking at me like that.”
“Like what? How am I looking at you?”
“Like you pity me. If I’ve hit a low so low that you, of all people, could look at me with pity in your eyes, I might as well end it all now.”
“Well, fuck you too, dude.”
“For real, though, man.” Adam tilted his head to look past Shaun at Jon. “You really haven’t been yourself these past few days. What is it?”
Jon went to insist to his bandmates, once again, that it was nothing, but the sound of the dressing room door creaking open stole their attention.
Jon’s mouth fell open. “Dad?”
Robert lingered in the doorway wearing a gray sweater and gray slacks. He had a matching winter coat slung over his arm and was playing a black skull hat between his fingers.
“Hey, son. Hey guys.” He smiled sheepishly as he waved to Jon’s bandmates, who all waved and nodded back with welcoming smiles before giving his full attention back to Jon. “That was a….a hell of a show…”
Jon slowly rose to his feet, his hand over his raging stomach.
“It really was a hell of a show, wasn’t it?” Noodle asked, leg swinging down from the vanity. “You might’ve known what a hell of a show they always are if you’d ever bothered to actually show up to one. Only took you a little over a decade, though. Better late than never, right?”
“Noodle!” Shaun roared.
“Yo, relax, Molten.” Noodle’s eyes widened at her while pressing the tips of his fingers into his chest. “Who do you think gave him the backstage passes that cleared his ass to get back here in the first place, huh? Who do you think is directly responsible for making this entire heartfelt surprise possible? Oh, right, that was me, and I think my good deed’s earned me one or two free zingers to Papa Moore over here. Am I right?”
“You did this?” Adam asked Noodle while pointing to Robert.
Noodle shrugged while popping his own collar.
“Noodle,” Shaun purred, defused in less than a second, poking her lips out at Noodle. “I was so wrong. I apologize.”
Noodle clicked his tongue and winked at her.
“I wanted it to be a surprise,” Robert said, stepping into the room for the first time. “And Noodle’s the only one who responded to my Instagram email.”
“They’re called DMs, Pop,” Noodle said.
“Noodle’s the only one who responded because he’s the only one whose DM’s stay dry as fuck year round.”
Noodle cringed, his eyes flying to the skinny, mohawked kid who’d just spoken up from the back of the room. “Hey, you’re still new, asshole. You haven’t done your time here yet. You haven’t earned the right to talk shit about me like that. We can find a new drummer in the blink of an eye, and don’t you ever forget it.”
“Noodle. I’m your cousin,” the new drummer spat.
“And?” Noodle’s cringed deepened.
Apparently taking his cousin’s threat straight to heart, the new drummer lowered his head and didn’t make another peep.
“It really was a great set, son,” Robert said, he and Jon never having broken eye contact throughout Noodle’s tirade.
Jon held his hands out to his sides. “It was a great set, huh? Funny. ‘Cause I thought I wasn’t your son. I thought everything I touched turned to shit.”
Robert’s cheeks reddened.
“Uh… should we go, or…” the new drummer motioned to the door, looking thoroughly uncomfortable.
Noodle shot him a poisonous look as if he couldn’t believe he’d had the nerve to open his mouth again.
“No, stay.” Robert took a deep breath while motioning for everyone to stay seated, his eyes never leaving Jon. “I want everyone to hear this. I want everyone to hear me tell my son what a… what a complete and utter idiot I’ve been all these years.”
Jon’s chest tightened, nostrils flaring as he sucked in a sharp breath.
Robert’s eyes began to glisten. “It wasn’t until I found my wife, crying on the living room floor at Christmas, that it hit me. The boxes I kept trying to shove all my children in. Boxes so small, so tight, that they couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. To the point that all they could think about… all they could ever dream about… was escaping. Running. Getting as far away from me as they possibly can. To the point that my own son was too terrified to tell me he was gay. To share one of the biggest parts of himself with me.”
Every stunned eye in the room flew to Jon.
“Jon, you’re gay?” Shaun frowned deeply as if trying to solve a complex physics equation in her mind. Probably recalling the sheer amount of female groupies she’d seen Jon sneaking into his hotel rooms, inviting backstage, and rolling around with in his tour bus bunk over the years. “But… that doesn’t make any sense.”
“Milo,” Noodle said, voice muffled since he’d just shoved a handful of chips from the snack bowl behind him into his mouth.
“Milo’s gay?” Adam beamed.
“How did you know?” Robert asked Noodle.
Noodle raised an eyebrow. “Was it supposed to be a secret?”
“We, literally, just met his girlfriend a few weeks ago, man,” Adam said.
Noodle shrugged, curling his lip. “I just figured that made him bi, but no way in hell he was ever full hetero, bro. Not in a million fuckin’ years. Thought it was one of those unspoken facts that everyone already knew but just didn’t talk about. Like Kevin Spacey or Jon Travolta. But apparently not….?”
“He’s not bi. He’s gay,” Jon said. “The entire set up with V was a farce. A way to fool everyone into believing he was straight because he was too afraid to come out of the closet.”
“Afraid because of me,” Robert interjected. “Because I was too… too hard on you kids. The choices I made… I hurt you. I left you… fearful. Fearful to be yourselves to the point you were unwilling to even come home. It was my fault, Jon. It was me all along.”
“Dad, it wasn’t you.” Jon shook his head. “I’m fucked up. I’ve always been fucked up. I made your life hell growing up. There’s only so much a man can take.”
“No.” Robert shook his head too. “That’s no excuse. That’s no excuse as to why I always doubted you. Always thought the worst. There’s no excuse that you’ve risen this high, and I’ve never been to one of your shows. I’m your father, and it was my job—” His voice broke, weak and hoarse when he finally managed to find it again. “It was my job to fight for you. To keep fighting even when my heart had given up. To give ten times more even when every bone in my body had collapsed. That was my job, Jon, and I failed. And I’m sorry.”
Tears burned Jon’s eyes, and he lowered his head to hide them.
“I’ve thought about it a lot on the plane ride here. Over these last few days.” Robert sniffled and pinched his nose, trying to maintain control. “I thought about how much I loved playing guitar in my own band when I was your age. How I had to give it up when your mother got pregnant. I thought about how I would’ve killed to… to live even a tenth of the life you’re living now. I thought about how my anger at you was never… it was never about you at all, son.” He covered his heart with his hand. “It was about me. My own fear of failure. Of inadequacy. Of thinking I knew what was best for you. Better than you knew it for yourself. I guess it hurt me that every time you defied me as a father—as the man who was supposed to know what was best for you—you only kept rising. Even as I tried to hold you down every step of the way, you just kept climbing, son. And me trying to hold you down? It was the ultimate betrayal.”
Even with his head lowered to hide his tears, the moisture in Jon’s eyes betrayed him as the act of dropping his head only helped the first tear to fall, plummeting through the air and splashing down onto the floor. Another tear jetted out after it and hit the toe of his shoe. He pinched the insides of his eyes with his trembling fingers to try to stop the rest, fighting to hold it together. He felt Shaun take his hand from beside him and squeeze.
“I’m sorry,” Robert breathed. “I’m sorry that I couldn’t find the strength as a father to tell you… how strong you are. How smart you are. How good you are.”
Jon’s watery eyes shot up, ripe with emotion.
“You’re such a good man, Jon. I couldn’t have asked for a better son. A better man. You’re the strongest man I’ve ever known, and I’m so proud of you.”
Jon charged across the room.
“I’m so proud of you—” Robert couldn’t even finish his sentence before Jon pulled him into a bone-crushing hug, wrapping his arms around his waist with equal ferocity, their soft weeps muffled in each other’s shoulders as they embraced.
Whimpering softly, with a hand over her mouth, Shaun stood from the couch and began making her way toward Jon and Robert, too. Adam was right on her heel, following behind her. But Noodle was faster than them both, his voice still muffled around a mouth full of potato chips as he raised his arms high in the air and made a beeline for Robert and Jon.
“Group hug!” Noodle roared, collapsing onto Jon and Robert and wrapping his long arms around both their backs.
“Group hug!” Shaun and Adam beamed, coming in and embracing Jon and Robert from the opposite side.
“Group hug!” the new drummer ran over with his arms open wide too.
Noodle pulled out of the hug, placed his hand firmly on new drummer’s chest, and shoved him away with all his might. New drummer went stumbling back, looking dumbfounded.
“Go sit down!” Noodle roared, pointing to the back of the room like he was speaking to a puppy who’d just pissed on the rug.
New drummer turned and shuffled away with his head hanging low.
Noodle watched him go, face stern, and waited until he’d plopped back down in his chair before he sank into the group hug once more, his soft smile warm like a steaming cup of hot cocoa on Christmas Day.
——
Silent Night
Holy Night
All is calm
All is bright
Viola’s utensils clanked down onto her plate.
“At what point does it stop being spirited and start being barbaric to play Christmas music after Christmas has already ended?” she roared, with a mouth full of chow mein stifling every word, catching the surprised eyes of every patron in the Chinese restaurant that evening. “It’s January 1st for God’s sake! Christmas is over, people! It’s literally a whole new year! 365 more days until you should be allowed to torture me like this all over again!”
The small family at the table next to her slowly vacated their seats, avoiding direct eye contact with her as they gathered their food and moved to the free table across the room.
“Yeah, go ahead and move!” Viola shouted after them. “I need my space anyway!”
Eventually, her fellow diners grew bored and began to ignore her completely. Similar to the way commuters ignored belligerent panhandlers plodding their way through the subway, too drunk or high to realize that their donation jar had tilted sideways, causing all of their coins to spill out onto the floor. And when a good Samaritan bent down to pick a penny up and give it back, the panhandler flew off the rails, accusing them of stealing coins from their jar.
Viola stabbed at her noodles with a sour look on her face, not even bothering to twist them around her fork. Opting instead to shovel them into her mouth like an animal as she prayed for the miserable music to come to an end. Several dots of splattered soy sauce had long ago stained her crisp white sweater, but she couldn’t bring herself to care.
The owner of the restaurant, Mrs. Li, wearing an ankle-length floral dress, paid little mind to Viola’s breakdown as she swept the restaurant floor with a Christmas apron tied around her waist. Viola could only assume that, in the wake of her earlier tirade, Mrs. Li hadn’t yet thrown her out because she was one of her most loyal customers. Before the Christmas vacation from hell, Viola and Milo had patronized that restaurant every weekend, religiously, for the past three years. So much so that Mrs. Li often started preparing their dishes before they even stepped inside the place. Firing up their plates the moment she saw Viola and Milo emerging from the Subway station across the street through the restaurant’s wall-to-wall windows.
Mrs. Li stopped sweeping once she made it to Viola’s table, cocking a leg out with a hand on her hip, using the broom as leverage to hold herself up as she tilted her head to the side.
“You okay, honey?” Mrs. Li asked in a deep Chinese accent.
“I’m fine, Mrs. Li, thank you. Food’s great.” Viola tried to smile, but it was shaky.
“Where your boyfriend?”
Viola assumed she was referring to Milo. “We don’t speak anymore.”
“Oh, no. You break up?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s okay, honey. He gay. He no like girls.” She shook her tilted head with a frown, illustrating how concerned she was that it had taken Viola this long to figure out that her boyfriend loved the cock.
Viola smiled softly. “Thanks for the heads up.”
“You pretty girl. You find new boyfriend soon.”
“Thanks, Mrs. Li.”
Mrs. Li continued sweeping with a smile of pure pity on her face. As if she and Viola both knew good and well she was going to die alone.
Right on time, almost alarmingly so, Viola’s phone beeped, notifying her that she had a picture text, and an image of Gleb’s dick popped up on the screen a moment later.
Gleb: You like?
Fuming, Viola spat and cursed under her breath as she snatched up her phone with every intention of sending it flying towards the window of the restaurant, hoping that when it smashed through and clattered to the ground, every pedestrian breezing by on the Brooklyn sidewalk would step on it until it was good and dead.
“Hey, peanut.”
That voice, however—that name—stopped Viola from foolishly throwing her phone. Her eyes flew towards Milo with her arm in mid-throw. She was embarrassed by the tidal wave of emotion that swept over her the moment she met his brown eyes from where he stood just a few feet away from the table wearing a navy blue puff coat, and jeans. His eyes were a little more swollen that she’d ever seen them, but she couldn’t decide if it was from crying or a lack of sleep.
“Milo,” she whispered, lowering her phone-clad hand.
They hadn’t seen each other since Milo had asked her to leave Utah a week earlier. After nearly seven days had passed with him ignoring all of her calls and texts, Viola had accepted the fact that they were never going to speak again.
Milo took a deep breath. “So… my Dad came to visit me today.”
She clutched her fists on top of the table. “He did?”
“Yeah. He apologized for… I don’t even know how to put it into words. All I know is that everything he said was everything I’ve been feeling since Christmas Day in Utah.”
“And how have you been feeling since Utah?”
He smiled softly. “Free.”
Tears stung her eyes.
“I feel free, peanut, for the first time in my life. And now I know that I’m free to be myself without worrying about losing my father. Losing my family. The only shitty part is that… is that I’ve lost you.”
She shook her head softly. “You haven’t lost me, Milo.”
He drew in a sharp breath. “I haven’t?”
“Never. Not by my choice, anyway.”
“I’m really sorry, Viola. You were right all along. I should’ve just told my family the truth, but instead, I decided to be a coward. Such a coward that I completely disregarded what you wanted. What you needed. What you deserve. You told me how you felt about Jon and I disregarded it. I had no right to ask you to ignore your heart. I was wrong. I’m so sorry.”
“I’m sorry, too.” She took a deep breath. “And it’s not your fault that it didn’t work out with Jon. It’s my fault. He was right. I lied to him, and that’s unforgivable.”
Milo shifted. “I actually got a visit from him too.”
Viola’s heart ground to a stop. “From Jon?”
The madness that instantly ensued in her body must’ve shown itself on her face as well because whatever Milo saw in her eyes at that moment caused him to smile widely.
“He apologized for not being there for me when we were kids,” Milo said. “For not being a better big brother. And I apologized to him too, for not being a better little brother. For almost losing him the love of his life, just like I almost lost you yours.”
Viola went to remind Milo that she and Jon hadn’t almost lost each other, they had lost each other, but the words got caught in her throat when Milo took a step to the side and looked toward the door. And the words disappeared completely when the bell above the restaurant dinged, and Jon stepped inside.
The moment their eyes locked across the room, Jon froze in mid-step, lingering motionless in the doorframe long enough to let the cold air in and earn him poisonous looks from every diner in the restaurant.
“Close the fucking door, asshole!” a random voice shouted.
And, just like that, Viola was no longer the only belligerent psycho in the joint.
Jon stepped inside, unaware or unmoved by the profane tirade that several people in the restaurant were now throwing his way. Unaware, also, of their poisonous looks, since he had eyes for only one.
Viola stood from her seat, suddenly deeply regretting what a slob she’d been during that entire meal as she looked down at the dozens of soy sauce stains on the front of her sweater. Not exactly leading lady material even though the man coming toward her at that moment looked like a damn movie star. He was wearing a long, black, wool trench coat that had been cut into a snapped collar, which only drove home the James Dean-esque beauty he was exhibiting right then.
Viola held her breath as he came to a stop in front of her. Close enough to touch. She wanted to speak but didn’t have the courage. She suddenly understood better than ever the fear Milo must’ve been feeling since the moment that whole rollercoaster had begun. A fear poignant enough to make a person more willing to stop living their lives completely than face the pain of rejection from the people they cared about most.
At that moment, Jon had the power to crush her.
When he took a deep breath, and she heard it shaking, however, Viola couldn’t help but wonder if she had that same power over him too.
“I’m sorry—”
“I fucked up—”
They both breathed out a laugh when they spoke at the same time. Their heads fell for a moment, and when Viola looked back up, his eyes were locked to hers once more.
“Viola…” A lump moved down his throat. “I’ve had a lot of really high highs and a lot of really low lows in my life, but I’ve never known a low quite as low as the one I felt when I realized I’d made the biggest mistake of my life.”
Viola came to her toes, tears stabbing her eyes.
“I should’ve just listened to you that day. But instead, I did what I do best. I ran. I was so down, so desperate, and so broken from the hurt I felt over my family, that I couldn’t help but drag you down with me—”
“No, Jon, it was all my fault. I should’ve told you the truth sooner—”
“Just, let me finish.” He held his hands out and took a step closer. Close enough to accidentally brush the tips of his fingers against her stomach.
A blast of blinding light went through her even at that gentle touch.
“Three weeks ago, I believed the only thing in the world that could heal me—that could fix me—was my father finally loving me. Wanting me. Looking at me and seeing something… good. I wanted so badly to be good for him that I didn’t even notice when I started wanting it even more for you. I made amends with him yesterday, and it was crazy because after wanting it for so long, it hit me that I still wasn’t happy. That the only piece still missing was you. You, V. The only person alive who gives me the same rush on solid ground as I get being on stage. Or with the engine full throttle on my bike. The one in a million woman I’ve always secretly hoped for but never believed could actually exist.” He took a deep, heaving breath, took another step forward, and cupped her cheeks. “The only woman I’ve ever loved, so much, that I was willing to risk losing everything just to have one touch. One taste. The one woman on Earth with a heart so pure, she could set aside her own happiness to protect her best friend. My baby brother. I couldn’t see that the whole time, you were just trying to protect him. To protect me. To protect all of us—my whole family.”
Viola placed her hands on his waist and curled her fingers into fists, taking handfuls of his sweater.
“Without you, my family would’ve never been forced to face our biggest fears. Our hardest truths. Without you, we would’ve never had the courage to take the first step toward something better. Something real. Something good. My family loves you. My brother loves you. I love you. You’re the love of my life, V.” His eyes danced across her face, a soft smile picking up his lips. “And, if you’ll have me, I promise you there’s no woman alive that I could ever, or will ever, love more.”
She drew in a sharp, trembling breath.
His voice lowered. “Will you have me?”
Viola answered with her lips, wrapping her arms around his neck and coming up to her toes to cover his own a passionate kiss. Jon moaned into the embrace, his arms instantly slinging around her waist, pulling her in, and taking her off her feet.
The entire restaurant broke into applause as they embraced, tilting their heads and deepening the kiss. Viola knew her fellow patrons were only clapping because the uptight crazy woman who’d been ruining their dinner all evening was finally going to be placated with a much-needed dick in the pussy, but she lied to herself and decided to pretend she was the star of her own romance movie instead.
A movie that was ending in a happily ever after that, once upon a time, she’d never felt herself worthy of. A happily ever after that she believed only existed in movies, for the beautiful, untouchable women being worshipped beyond the screen. An ending meant for a princess, a movie star, any other woman but herself.
That ending was hers now.
And it was all thanks to him.
Jon fuckin’ Baca.