#michex

         Alex shouldn’t have gone to school that day, but he hadn’t wanted to be at home, either, where he was so terrified of what his father would do next that he hadn’t slept a wink and the metallic flavor of cortisone ruined everything he tried to eat. Waste of time, too; sitting in the back of the class in history in a heavy sweater he’d done nothing but scribble dangerous little drawings in the margins of his notebook. He’d cut thumb holes in his long-sleeved t-shirt so he could keep his hands covered and hide the swelling on his left wrist. Wrist? There was no definition at all. No one knew his ribcage was black and blue, and no one paid too much attention to his black eyes, or the swelling on his septum where the ring had been tugged until it tore just a millimeter and then snapped open.

No one was paying much attention to anything at all, after the three girls had died in a fiery wreck out on the highway. Alex wanted to talk to Liz, but she wasn’t there.

He wanted to talk to Michael, even more. Also, he didn’t want to talk to Michael. Not that day, and not ever again. He couldn’t look at that mangled hand and know what he’d cost the only person who’d ever really liked him. It seemed impossible that only a couple of days ago he’d been so fucking happy, had felt an ache in his cheeks from smiling so wide, that he’d had Michael Guerin’s lips warming his skin. He rested his face in his hand for a moment, the weight of it all bringing him low, and yelped as the pressure against the bruises on his face had sparked pain.

The teacher, of course, thought he was quietly emoting about the loss of Rosa and her friends. And yeah, Alex had been upset about that too and he wanted to tell Liz he still loved her a whole lot but he hadn’t had enough room in his heart for all the grief right then. He’d flinched as the teacher pressed a sympathetic hand against the shoulder Colonel Jessep had done his best to dislocate, and as she’d tried to apologize, as if she’d only startled him, he’d closed his notebook and walked out of the classroom. He’d tried to chase the memory of the sound of his father’s fists hitting his flesh by remembering Michael’s quiet moans beneath him, the way Michael had breathed his name when Alex laid hands on him, but that memory hurt at least as badly.

He’d wandered aimlessly for most of the afternoon, and then gone home, jammed an old cassette tape under the door to create the illusion of security, and stretched out on his bed, fillings the faded patches on his fingernails with a sharpie. Of course, the cassette did nothing, and when Manes Senior pushed the door open a few hours later and startled Alex awake, immediately defensive, accidentally resting his weight first on his swollen wrist and then on his fucked-up shoulder he’d felt an instant bolt of fear and adrenaline. He’d thought in that moment that he hated himself for his weakness even more than his father did.

“I’m enrolling you in military college,” he’d slurred. “And not in Roswell. Nowhere near that kid. You’re never speaking to him again.”

“Actually, after what you did to his hand, he’s never speaking to me again,” Alex had replied, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. Didn’t make him feel any less vulnerable, especially when his senses kicked in properly and he smelled the liquor streaming from his father’s pores, seen the red in his eyes.  “Send me as far away as you can. From you.”

“And you’re not bumming around here all summer, either. You drive straight from graduation to your uncle’s garage in Austin and learn to fix a car. Get a head start so you don’t embarrass me too badly.”

Alex had forced himself to swallow the lump in his throat. “You done?” he’d asked, and his father had pulled the door closed again.

At graduation, Alex had barely been able to crack a smile, not once. Nor look at Michael. His ear had felt strange with the plug gone, but he hadn’t been prepared to die on that particular hill, so whatever. Not a scrap of eyeliner. Nothing that made Alex feel like himself. The unfamiliar weight of a graduation robe he’d ice thought he cared about. A tassel over his eye.

When it was all done he’d walked to the outer edge of the parking lot. Michael’s truck was there; unlocked, the way it usually was, as if he was trying to show the world he had nothing worth stealing and they could help themselves. He’d opened the passenger door slowly and sat on the seat for a few moments, inhaling the spicy fragrance of Michael’s skin for the very last time.

He had pulled the rings from his finger, and let hem drop one by one into Michael’s ashtray. Michael would probably throw them out the window on his way to UNM.

And then he’d driven all the way to Austin with his eyes dry and his mouth in a straight line, away from all he’d ever really cared about, and with no intention of ever coming back.