Chapter twenty-two
Sully
It was twelve thirty-two am. The knock came in a pattern I didn't recognize.
Two. Pause. One.
It wasn't my lockout signal or the single knock on the wall. It was new, which meant he'd made it up on his way over. I shot off the couch and walked to the door.
The TV was on behind me, sound turned low. It was some documentary about bridge construction I'd turned on an hour ago and lost track after five minutes. I'd been sitting with it running because the alternative was a quiet room.
I didn't ask who it was or bother with the peephole. I just opened the door.
Pratt stood in the hallway in a grey t-shirt and dark joggers, with nothing in his hands. He immediately looked into my eyes.
I stepped back and let him in. The door swung shut behind him.
We were both silent for a beat. It wasn't uncomfortable or awkward.
I walked over to the couch, picked up the remote, and turned the TV off. I sat, and Pratt sat on the other end.
A joke bubbled up inside. It was assembled and stored in the ice-breaker repository in my brain. I thought it could ease us in.
I stopped myself short, realizing there was only one way to do this. I'd known that since I last saw Nora.You don't get to manage his response.
I couldn't come at it sideways and shape it into a story with a soft landing. I did that too often with Bryan, and I'd done it with everyone since. It was part of my motion, keeping the people surrounding me from having to sit with any of my darkness.
Pratt was ready. He'd come to my place without being asked.
"I need to start at the beginning," I said. "And not skip."
He didn't nod or tell me to take my time. He shifted slightly on the cushion, looking at me with full attention.
"Lexington," I said.
The word felt strange in my mouth when I said it stripped of context. It was a starting point without a story attached yet.
"That's actually where I'm from. Not Boston. Lexington, Massachusetts. I say Boston because most people don't know the difference." I looked at my hands. "Some think muskets when I say it, but now it's mostly coffee and high-speed internet. Walden Pond's down the road. It all sounds more meaningful than it really is."
I stopped. I'd drifted too close to joke territory. It was time to pull it back. "Bryan was from there too. Six houses down."
"Let's start there," I said, more to myself than to Pratt. "Start there and go in order."
He said nothing.
"We were nine when we met," I said. "Bryan moved in from New Hampshire."
Pratt was close, at the end of the couch, eyes still fixed on me.
"He had this way of looking at you that made it clear he was interested. Not in sex, but knowing what made you tick." I rubbed my thumb against the inside of my wrist. "We were in the same classes all the way through. His mom and my mom became friends, too. His mom cooked. Mine opened cans. Dinner was decent at either house."
I went through the story in a logical order.
"He was the first person I came out to. I was seventeen, and I'd been trying to figure out how to say it for a long time. He just said, 'Okay.'"
I looked at Pratt, and he was almost smiling. "Then he said, 'You know how you told me that guy from the lacrosse team was annoying?' I said, 'Yes.' He said, 'You meant he was hot.'" I stopped. It sounded like I had a thing for athletes.
Maybe I did. I continued. "I said, 'Yes.' He nodded and then asked if I wanted to do something with it or if I was just telling him. I told him I was just telling him. He was okay with that." I paused. "That was the whole conversation. He never made it weird. Never. It was just another fact about me, and Bryan had approximately nine thousand facts about me filed away somewhere."
