I want it to fight.
I want Eden to find his way back from whatever cliff he’s trying to throw himself off of.
I want to stop feeling so alone. Stop freezing my ass off on a log. Stop counting down the minutes until Tek needs me, and pretending I don’t care if he does or not. And, most importantly, I need to stop wanting things I know I’ll never get.
Digging my heels into the rocks I watch two gulls fight over a limp strand of seaweed.
The sun makes a second appearance and the day starts lighting up in tiny flecks, but the water stays flat, and the sky stays mostly grey.
I drag my wet behind back to the parking lot and drop my board ready to head towards Main.
The streets are still empty enough that I can push off into the center of the road, and I make it almost the whole way before a pickup swings around the corner and I have to bail to the sidewalk. But as soon as it’s passed, I’m back on the road.
I glide through the green light of the intersection and past the open coffee shop that starts off the stores of Main Street. The sun still isn’t all the way up and I can see the lights from inside Teken Ink spilling out amongst all the other dark storefronts.
The front windows have frost around the edges that is starting to melt from the heat inside, and when I cup my hand over the glass to look in, I see Tek rolling over the shop’s graffitied wall with charcoal paint.
I knock and he turns his head slowly towards me, only to stare for several seconds like he’s pondering whether or not to tell me to fuck back off home again. Eventually he gestures for me to use the alley entrance and returns to painting over the only brightness the shop has.
In the back lot I stop by Tek’s van and look through a small gap where one of the curtains on the side door isn’t pulled across the whole way. There’s a cupboard behind the front seats with asmall sink, and the rest is a bed made up with a pile of pillows, a comforter, and multiple blankets. The whole interior is lined with wood panelling and it looks straight out of the pages of a van life magazine. It’s a direct contradiction of everything I've learned about Tek so far.
I picture him reclined on the pillows, headphones on and a paperback in his hands, reading in the spare time that I don’t think he has. There’s a weird twist in my stomach at the thought of him sleeping in there alone. At the thought of him doing anything quietly, or gently…
I back away before my brain starts painting any more pictures.
The shop door catches when I first try to open it, but with a nudge from my shoulder it opens on the second try.
“Hey,” I say, closing the door behind me.
He doesn’t look up, just says, “You’re early,” as if it’s a flaw in my character.
“By like ten minutes,” I reply, stripping myself of Eden’s plaid jacket because it’s hot as fuck in here right now. Distracted by the extreme change in temperature, I trip over a pair of—size fucking enormous—combat boots. Catching myself on the door jam, I curse, and look to Tek who chooses now to glance back at me; all cheek bones and sharp eyes.
“Why the hell is it so hot in here?” I ask, kicking his boots back beside the door before walking to hang my jacket in the back room. If he answered me, I didn’t hear it, and that’s probably for the best.
Back on the shop floor I ask him if he wants a coffee but he shakes his head no. Sensing he doesn’t want to be interrupted, I pull up the stool behind the reception desk and watch him finish the wall.
The mural was a mess of cohesion; angels and demons and topless pin-up girls that screamed of my brothers art style, with technicolor highlights resembling the tattoos on Tek’s forearms,criss-crossed with black geometric tribal patterns like the ones I saw covering Reeze’s neck.
Like he can sense I have a question, the next time Tek dips the roller in the thick gunmetal paint, he says, “I couldn’t look at it anymore.”
“I get it,” I reply softly, and he nods his head.
We might not have much in common. There might be thirteen years and several cultures between us, but my loneliness matches whatever demons he’s housing well enough for us to agree on something.
With a final pass of the roller Tek steps back and looks at his work. “It’ll need another coat tomorrow—fuck.” He looks down at the slippers he’s wearing. The same ones he had on when I was here yesterday. “There’s fucking paint on them.”
Scuffing them off, he squats down and wipes them on the drop sheet.
I stand up and walk towards him. “Were they expensive?”
“No!” he snaps, catching himself but choosing not to apologize. “They were—fuck,” he curses again, throwing them to the ground as he stands up. “They were a gift from my Halmae.” As he finishes the sentence, Tek looks at me then down at the ground, almost like he’s ashamed of what I think of his outburst. “My Grandmother,” he mumbles, snatching up the slippers before shuffling past me to slip his feet into his combat boots and push through the back door with the paint roller still in his other hand.
With no instruction I fold up the drop sheet and take it to the back room then collect the paint tin and tray.
“What do you want me to do with this?” I ask at the back door, holding out the mostly empty tray towards Tek.
“Chuck it.” He jerks his head towards the dumpster then pushes back past me, his bicep hitting me hard enough to knock me into the door frame.
