Page 107 of The Leaving Kind
“I have no idea what you’re referring to, but your last text seemed to indicate you two are no longer together, which probably means you’re lying on the couch in your underwear counting the row of wine bottles along the coffee table.”
Victor pulled the phone away from his face and checked his text messages. He’d sent his last as a reply to Tez’s casual What’s up. Fan-bloody-tastic.
“I am dressed, in my studio, standing on my yoga mat, and thinking about going outside to shovel gravel,” he informed her.
“Do you want to talk?”
“About me and my idiocy? Not really. How are you, my dearest?”
“Oh, you know. Same old, same old. I’m going on a date tonight and expecting I’ll be home by eleven.”
“What happened? I thought you liked this woman?”
“We texted better than we talked.”
“Oh, well, if you’re not excited by this date, why are you bothering?” Victor snagged a stool and sat down.
“Remember what my grandmother used to say?”
“That sitting on cold concrete would give you piles?”
Tez’s laughter knocked a chink into the armor of sadness he’d built around himself over the past week or so.
Victor tried again. “No, wait, I have a better one. If you were making that face when the wind changed, you’d be stuck that way forever.”
Another chuckle. “And absolutely everything was bound to put hair on my chest whether I wanted it or not.”
A smile. A real, honest-to-goodness smile. Victor touched his cheek and massaged the sore muscles there. “What would be her advice regarding your date this evening?”
“They could be a friend you don’t know yet.”
“And we can always use another friend,” Victor finished for her. Idly, he opened the top sketchbook and winced as he recognized it. The one he’d pulled out to torture himself with during this latest descent into depression. He flipped the cover closed. “Tez?”
“Mm?”
“Thank you for always being there. As my best friend and as the one who kicks me off the couch when I’ve wallowed hard enough.”
“Thank you for always being my best friend, even when I thought bright blue hair worked with my complexion. For buying us a house and never asking me to kick in until I could. For laughing at all of my jokes, especially when they’re awful. For letting me cry when my grandmother died. For holding me throughout those same months. For raising our kids so I could go back to school.”
Victor’s eyes welled with tears. “Thank you for sharing our children with me,” he said, his voice strained.
“Are you all right?”
“I sent him away.”
“Are you going to go get him back?”
“I don’t know.” Victor flipped open the sketchbook again and paged through until he found the sketch that always hurt him the most. The study for the painting that had broken his heart. He adored all three of his parents and had always counted himself lucky to have had two fathers. Rain had taught him to love the outdoors. The thrill of sinking his hands deep into soil. They’d caught worms together and carried them around in cupped hands. Frogs. Salamanders. Fireflies.
Victor’s thoughts drifted forward and sideways to the tattoo on Cam’s shoulder. The stars and fireflies. He’d never asked about it. He’d never asked about the dates, either. The lack of understanding left him feeling as though they had unfinished business.
He closed the sketchbook.
“There’s a part of me that wants to go see him and apologize. He’s so good for me, Tez. It’s been a while since I felt so engaged with the world. But I don’t want him to see the ugly parts of me, though I realize it’s already too late. I mean, he met me on one of my worst days and he saw me this week.”
“And he’s still texting you? That’s a man you want to hang on to.”
“Unless ...”