Salt

Mason promised to call if anything new came up in the case. That was all I got from his end, and Fletcher's, apparently, but as Ambrose walked me home, I couldn't shake the bad feeling in my bones.

Unsure whether or not I slept, I bolted upright on my bed when I received a text from Jett. It was short, as expected, but his language was off. You know how your friends individually talk, it was obvious.

Throwing the covers off, I dressed up in a simple violet romper. The chill outside wouldn't bother me.

By the time I made it downstairs, I could hear his Honda Civic wheeling up the drive. I looked around, nobody was in and Zoey was likely at school, so at least I didn't have to suffer with inane questions.

I'd barely just got in his car when I had to adjust to the sight. His wondrously moonlit hair radiated in the morning sun, but clashed with the rest of him. Not just his outfit, either, but the sudden black and bruise of his handsome face. Lips ripped open, eye purple and blood all over his hands... I had to gasp, reaching out unconsciously.

Understandably, he recoiled sharply, pressing the ice bag in his free hand to his spasming mouth.

"Jett, what the fuck?"

"I got into a fight?"

I rolled my eyes. "You don't fucking say?"

He groaned, leaning back in his seat, watching me as I went to touch him again. This time, he was cool as my fingers traced along his jagged cuts. They were deep, deeper than any pocketknife could inflict.

Withdrawing, I got some blood under my nails.

"Stevie got some of his old buds to keep an eye on me, they've been following me for weeks. They know what I've done, they're going to..." Drifting off, his eyes connected with mine, glassy and vulnerable.

I swallowed, letting him see that I was going to hold his hand. His pulse was rapid, like it was smart to be, hammering through his flesh and vibrating into mine.

"I'm here, we can go to Mason together."

"No!"

Involuntarily, I know my eyebrows furrowed, but I swiftly pulled myself together. I had to be here for him, no matter the reason.

There was a nagging thought at the back of my head that I shut down as many time as possible. The crazy, singular and nonsensical one that longed to know what exactly Jett had done that was so despicable.

People kept secrets for years and didn't just unveil them at ceremonious campfires, it appeared. Some were horrible and some weren't as perilous, but if they were so damaging to your well-being, what would make anyone want to keep it?

"Ashley, do you think maybe you could... stay with me?"

There were an array of words to describe Jett Lawrence. Intense, angry, misguided throughout his teens, but if I learned anything about him these past few years, then it was he never knew real fragility. Plenty in the sense of family and relationships, but not with himself. He was raised in a household where crying over spilled milk was correct, where signs of weakness was literally used against you. I honestly couldn't and would never want to imagine what that was like.

Stevie was behind the old Jett. The kid in school who set fire to desks. The boy who never knew when to let go of the gas pedal in a street race, who snorted lines of cocaine off naked girls and destroyed his veins with meth. The broken young man who ultimately crumbled when his mother was sent to the emergency room with internal and fatal bleeding.

I was the year below, and the rumor mill went wild with the news. While I tried not to listen to it, it was all over town by the time I returned home. Stevie was sentenced to six years imprisonment, a year tacked on when his son was brave enough to take the stand and testify against him in court.

Rightly so, he didn't like to talk about that time in his life, and none of our friends pressed. Every now and then we'd see him zone out and we'd just go along with it. There were just some things you don't touch.

And Jett was still angry a lot of the time, but who could blame him? I sure as hell didn't. If he needed all the time in the world, I'd give it to him. As long as he had a proper outlet this time around, he had my undying support.

Gently pulling him in, he brought me in close until his face was shrouded in my hair. He was hot, too hot.

"Hey, how about we go to the park? We can buy bread and feed the ducks."

He chuckled, chin digging slightly into the crook of my neck.

"That sounds stupid."

"It's got ducks."

"Exactly. Stupid."

"You say that but you love ducks."

Kissing him on the cheek, I sat back fully onto my seat as he faced the front. Finally, there was a smile on his face.

And we did exactly that. Sitting on the hood of his car, we watched the stream and the little bastards peck at the food we threw. Their wings danced along the water's surface, cleaning and some flying free all around. There was a small raft of them squawking and swimming, the enthralling emerald and onyx of their feathers tainting the pond they populated. The once algae littered water was glittering duo-chromes, the Aurora Borealis of the sea.

Lying back on my elbows, I took in the fascinating lack of heat from the sun.

What was it they say? Sun, sea and... vehicle parts?

I was just about to close my eyes and take it all in when Jett shifted, to see that he was lying back with me, staring into the soft sky. Leather coat tensing up as he put his hands behind his head.

"I didn't know who else I should ask. I mean, our friends are great, really great, I just..." Biting his lip then wincing, he released it. "I've known you the longest. Even back in school, when everybody was crowding me, or trying to fuck me, you lingered. Waiting for me to become who I am, eventually."

I continued to lie there, knowing if I move too fast or at all he'd get flustered. It was like walking around a landmine, I feared with every step.

"But I'm not. I'm not there yet. I try to be, trust me, I do. It's harder than I anticipated. I feel like everyone's got their lives all sorted out. Lu is out of the closet and living his best life, Jesse's up and coming, Fletcher's been solid throughout his training and Ambrose tackles issues not a lot of people want to talk about. You may have little here, but it's something. Even if it's Zoey. So, I'm wondering: am I ever going to catch up?  Why aren't I moving forward? Am I in the wrong job, is it just stalling the real thing?"

I thought he loved working at the garage. Every time he repaired a bike there was a smile on his face and he seemed to know exactly what he was talking about.

I suppose knowing a lot about something isn't the same as liking it.

"It all changes every day and it's... it's scary." Swallowing, I saw the rapid rise and fall of his chest. Believe me when I said I wanted to sidle up to him in that moment, if it would take his pain away, even if it wouldn't. "I'm scared of what's going to happen, or what's not. My friends and the monsters. I don't know who I am, but I don't know if I want to."

I squeezed my eyes harder. This was getting heavy, which was so unlike him. He was normally so aloof, mysterious and cool; a complete one-eighty from the bad boy he was when he was in school.

But that was the point, wasn't it? He was trying to distance himself from that image, the unremitting disbelief that he was exactly who they made him out to be.

And while he could run and run, maybe get out of town, there would always be that one person who followed him and remind his world.

"Which is why it's all the more confusing. Stevie's mates had trailed me to the pharmacy, but I wasn't buying today. I..." Falling off again, he turned to me, face quivering.

With that look of permission, I stepped in, trying to read him but finding nothing.

"What?"

He sighed lowly, eyes deliberately avoiding mine. "I went in to see Derek."

Even after it was out of his mouth, it remained in the air, dancing all around us. It wanted to sway a lengthy waltz, to rest deep in both our minds until we'd stomp our feet.

But I stayed seated.

"And they saw you?"

He pointed at his black eye. "Well, I didn't walk into a doorknob."

I tittered, hesitant to be loud with it, until he joined in. He did it so infrequently that my stomach fluttered, it was a lovely sound.

"Nah, they said on top of my 'being a faggot', I had it coming. Said Stevie would be disappointed in the way I turned out. So, good!"

It was silent again, save for the ducks rustling their wings. The stream had calmed down too.

"I'm not gay, Ashley. At least, I... I don't think I am."

I moved to rest on my side, gradually extending a hand to his face. Nimbly, I stroked it, the blood from his ripped skin dry and crusted. It had soaked through his facial hair, coloring it a dark auburn.

"Then you're not. Not that I'd blame you either, Derek is cute." I sang the last part.

"Yeah," He grinned again. "Except I don't think guys are cute. They're rough and gross and messy, but–"

"He isn't?"

He exhaled deeply, nodding. It must be difficult for him. Twenty-two years old and he didn't have a clue.

My finger smoothed like wind over the fracture in his face. I'd touch so lightly, delicately that I was almost hovering. It's the best way to do things.

But I wanted to hold him, to prove to him that he was still himself. He had changed, it's true, but the essence was there, it never goes away. I wouldn't want it to, that's why he was so valuable to me. I hoped he knew that.

"You don't have to label it, you know? If you like him, then you like him. It's simple."

He scoffed. "But what am I supposed to say? Am I gay, bisexual?"

"Jett, it's not the nineteen-fifties, there doesn't need to be labels if you're not comfortable with it. Sexuality is fluid, most people aren't 'definitively straight or gay'. It would probably make for a good read, if you're curious."

He went to grin, but winced in pain as his cheek prevented it from being too wide. In response, he snickered, and I joined in. Over and over, and each time we stopped, the giggles returned. Amplified by the fact that we were so loud the ducks began quacking at us.