I attended to my familiar routine when I arrived home. I cracked open a beer, switched on the TV, and collapsed on the couch.
My eyes glazed over while I gazed at the screen.
My mind was stuck on Kay.
I flipped from my side onto my back and stared up at the ceiling.
I wondered how it was possible to be repulsed by men and simultaneously be attracted to them.
All they ever did was hurt me.
It had been so many years since I had been on a date with a man, and even longer since I had been intimate with one. I had decided I was done with them after my third boyfriend began putting out cigarettes on me and finally landed me in a hospital and himself in jail by stabbing me with a knife.
But there was something about Kay… He had wormed himself into my brain.
I couldn’t stop thinking about how kind he had been to me or how he was the only one who wanted to see my smile in the longest time.
Smart socially… I thought to myself. Perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps there are uses for such a talent.
I should have let him hug me earlier. Maybe then I would be able to stop thinking about how nice it might feel.
I rolled onto my belly and stifled oncoming tears.
I never learned from my mistakes. When would I learn that I was better off alone?
The business with Lyle was only making me feel sadder and worse about the world. He was being abused, and I began thinking that it might be a good idea for me to find another job so I wouldn’t have to be around that or Kay.
__
I kept thinking to myself that I would quit while I tried to sleep that night--I kept thinking it while I got ready for work. I intended to tell administration that I was done and was seeking other employment, but it didn’t happen.
I couldn’t tell if it was because I was too scared to incur such a stressful meeting with administration or if it was because I wanted to stay in my heart-of-hearts.
Regardless, I met up with Kay and Lyle again, and Kay asked me, “Do you want to paint with me?”
I rose an eyebrow. “Paint with you? I don’t think Rosy would like that. Besides, I don’t really like art.”
Kay was offended. “Don’t like art? I think that’s a…” He paused and tried to think of the phrase. “A cry for help! I think Rosy would be okay with you joining us for a session if I asked!”
I rolled my eyes. “Well, if you can convince her, I guess I’ll join you.”
Kay grinned ear from-to-ear. “I will!”
After he was done with his adjustment, he approached Rosy and had a brief conversation with her. After I was done with Lyle’s adjustment, Kay told me, “She says it’s fine! It’ll have to be on Saturday, though. Are you okay with that?”
My jaw went slack. I looked over at Rosy who returned my look with an apologetic one.
I tried to be cheerful about it. “Sure, that sounds fine. What time?”
His face went blank as he tried to remember. “Ten in the morning!”
A different clinician who was helping Rosy shepherded the shells out of the room for her so she could have a word with me once they were gone.
“I’m sorry about that… Kay has…” Rosy cleared her throat and tried not to giggle. “Kay has a little crush on you. I tried to tell him that you only liked girls and that we aren’t allowed to date patients, but he just laughed and told me it was okay. He could really use some friends outside of the clinicians and shells, though. Could you indulge him? I’ll get you cleared with the higher-ups for the appointment on Saturday.”
My face was blank. I felt like my blood had left me. My fingers and toes felt numb. I told her yes, but I wanted to tell her no.
There were two thoughts that horrified me and circled around in my brain restlessly.
He knows the truth about me. Did he tell Rosy? Does she know the truth about me?
Even as I went home and repeated my nightly routine like I had so many times before, I couldn’t get those two thoughts out of my head.
Nothing was more horrifying to me than my workplace finding out that I was one of those poor souls born with pointless attractions.
__
The room me, Kay, and Lyle were painting in was blindingly white and empty but for art supplies, large canvases, and security guards dressed in white who were nearly indistinguishable from the walls. Hanging on the walls were completed artworks: There were charcoals, oil paintings, and color pencil works of varying quality.
I knew Kay had painted many of them just by looking at the unique, almost tormented, style they had been painted in. “How many of these are yours, Kay?”
Kay held out a hand to me—intending to show me. I didn’t reach for it.
Rosy, who was watching the interaction, implored me to take his hand with a nod.
Feeling like I couldn’t refuse, I reached out with a trembling hand and let him take it.
Kay didn’t know what to make of my nervousness. He cocked his head to the side. “Have you eaten today?”
Having him call me out on my nervousness just made me more nervous and volatile, but I managed to be polite. “I’m fine. You can show me which ones are yours.”
Kay gladly obliged.
He giddily led me to a surreal painting of nightmarish tower; the red lighting was creepy and yet bizarrely captivating. I couldn’t look away for a moment.
I supposed shells were allowed to paint whatever they wanted since their works would likely never see the light of die. In some ways, they were lucky.
“What is this?” I asked him.
“I have a dream about this tower a lot.” Kay said. “I want to go back there.”
“Go back?” I asked.
I looked over at Rosy for guidance on what to say. She gave me no cues.
“You were there?” I couldn’t help asking.
Kay, who had been staring at the painting, now turned and faced me. “I was. That’s where I was before I spawned. I remember it so clearly…”
“I don’t understand.”
Kay’s face went blank. He touched the painting and gazed at it with such an intensity that I thought he must be visualizing that he was inside of it.
“There was a place Milo was in before he became me, and it was inside this tower…” Kay murmured robotically.
I wondered if this was a delusion of Kay’s that Rosy was trying to get rid of. Regardless, I found it a little disturbing and I asked him, “Can you show me the next one?”
Kay didn’t answer. The painting seemed to have taken him.
Rosy let him stare for a little longer, and then she intervened. She snapped her fingers. “Kay, you were showing Matthew your paintings.”
Kay shook his head and immediately came back to reality. He grabbed my hand and dragged me to the next painting.
His paintings were so vivid; I felt like I was looking into Kay’s mind when I gazed upon them. Some of them were so tortured and twisted that I couldn’t believe they came out of such a simple mind as Kay’s. Others painted a sweet and idealized reality where everyone was impossibly beautiful and happy.
Once he had shown me his paintings, we all sat down together in front of three blank canvases and began new paintings. Kay sat between me and Lyle, and Rosy sat on Lyle’s other side.
I was bored to tears while I watched them paint. I withheld a yawn and tried to stay focused on Kay’s technique.
He was precise and methodical; every brush stroke was flawless and meaningful.
Kay glanced at me from time-to-time with flushed cheeks. Our close proximity drove me crazy. I scooted away from him.
He was disappointed. He wanted me closer. It was an intoxicating thing to realized.
“You’re supposed to be painting! Come here and paint!” Kay took the opportunity to fearlessly grab my wrist and tug on it.
I didn’t know why, but I could feel tears beginning to brim at the corner of my eyes. It could have been stress, or it could have been the fact that someone cared enough to include me in something.
Or it could have been terror I felt from being touched by another man that conjured my tears. Because Rosy was standing nearby, I swallowed them and indulged Kay.
“Well…” I lowered my eyes. “What do you want me to do?”
Kay didn’t understand. He tried to gauge what I was asking with a befuddled face. He chuckled. “Just start painting! You can finger paint or use a brush or… Or… Just do what your feelings tell you to do!”
I felt extremely embarrassed and out of my depth, and it showed. My cursed fingers wouldn’t stop trembling as I dipped them into the blobs of paint and smeared them about on the canvas.
Kay leaned a cheek on his hand and watched me unblinkingly.
The fear of being judged on how awful my painting was ate me alive. My painting looked like a child had done it; even Lyle’s looked better than mine.
Eventually, Kay said, “You’re really good!”
I snorted. “Please, don’t flatter me.”
Kay was confused again. “Why shouldn’t I?”
With every ugly drop of paint I smeared onto the canvas, I felt like I was laying my soul bare, and it was an ugly thing to expose to a man who I liked so much. “Because it’s terrible.”
Kay’s face furrowed with compassion. “Don’t say that. It’s pretty.”
Rosy saw that I was getting visibly upset. “Matthew, you don’t have to paint.”
I was thankful to her for giving me an out. I stopped working on my ugly picture.
Kay was about to tell me to keep going, but Rosy shut that down with a single, stern look. Kay lowered his chin onto his hands.
Kay asked, after a time, “What made you want to adjust shells for a living?”
“I thought I could do some good… I wanted to improve someone’s life.” I said with an uncertain shrug. “It’s selfish; I thought it would make me feel good about myself.” I smiled bitterly.
Kay watched my facial expressions attentively. He looked lost, and I wasn’t surprised. I wasn’t sure he could comprehend complex feelings like the ones I had described.
Kay shook his head with concerned compassion. “That’s not selfish at all.”
I lowered my eyes and wished he would stop giving me credit where no credit was due.
We finished painting later on, and just as we were all saying goodbye for the day, Kay made my heart race in terror and joy.
He threw his arms around my neck and asked, “Will you be my boyfriend?”
“Kay.” Rosy said sternly.
His face fell. He removed his arms from around my neck. He whispered, “I’m sorry.”
Rosy sighed. “I’m sorry, Matthew. That won’t happen again.”
I said nothing in return. I waved goodbye again, and I quit my job the next day.
__
It took me only three days to find another job. I wasn’t good at making friends, but I was good at being a competent and professional employee, so I was hired in an instant.
Being away from Kay destressed me immediately.
I was completely calm again, and I attended to my usual routine with the same efficiency I always did.
Something was different, however. I had an aching in my heart that wouldn’t go away.
And I kept thinking of Kay. And Lyle. And I just wanted to go back to the clinic.
Despite not being stressed, life seemed drearier than ever.
A year passed, and I thought that, with its passing, I would shed the unhappiness that held me still. Nothing helped; not even therapy.
On a rainy night, I decided to take a walk with an umbrella shielding me from the on-pour.
Cars zoomed past me as I strolled past the familiar decrepit and dilapidated buildings of a dying world.
Up ahead at a crosswalk, there was a man who looked familiar, but it was hard to tell if I knew him or not because I didn’t have my glasses on.
Keeping my eyes down, I passed by the man.
“Dr. Green?”
The voice was familiar; I turned toward the man.
It was Kay.
My words were caught in my throat. I thought about walking onward—I would have done anything to avoid this encounter.
And yet, I stood where I was. “Kay? Did you graduate?”
The yellow streetlight seemed to cast an angelic glow on his face. He nodded with a frown. “I did… Why did you quit? Was it because of me?”
My silence and refusal to look at him was my answer.
“I’m sorry…” Kay murmured. “I… I don’t have good control over my feelings sometimes—”
“No kidding.” I said tersely. “Why can’t you shells learn even these basic things? You were a patient Kay, and a shell… It’s sick to date a shell.”
Kay was shocked and offended. “People date shells all the time. I’m not stupid, I can learn things. I’m smart enough to love people.”
“You’re like oversized children.” I had no filter from time-to-time, and now was one of those times.
Kay’s mouth moved, but he was too stunned to speak.
When he found his words, he retorted, “I’m not a child! I’m not an idiot! I’m at peace with who I am, but you… You’ve worked at the clinic for years and you hid the fact that you were gay from Rosy that whole time!”
My automatic reaction was to say, “I’m not gay.” Even though I had fully come to terms that I was long ago.
“I know you like me. It’s obvious.” Kay insisted. “I’ve graduated—I can live on my own—I even have a job! What else do I have to prove for you to like me?”
“You can barely even write your name.” I replied coldly. “I could never date someone so stupid.”
That comment got under his skin. I watched him cry with a pitiless face.
It was a long, uncomfortable block of crying.
When he had his fill of sobbing, his sadness turned to anger.
“You were abused by a man, is that it? Well, you’re not special. I see shells getting abused every month at the clinic! Not just by men, but by women! You’ve gotten… Gotten comfortable locking yourself inside and avoiding love just because you’ve been hurt. You think the source of your pain is who you’re attracted when really… It’s just you! You can hate me all you want because I’m a man and because I’m a shell, but it’ll never make you happy!” Kay turned his attention back to the crosswalk.
My cold expression held as I watched him depart.
An intense moment passed, and I realized a good chance at happiness was walking away with him. I thought he was simple, stupid, and beautiful, but in reality…
He was like a rose carpet.
Unbelievably wounded insides covered up by flawless skin.
Kay was halfway through the crosswalk.
I had a choice to make; I could walk away and live safely, but colorlessly, as I had been, or I could risk falling in love, having my heart broken, and letting my life bloom with color one more time.
I chased after him. “Kay!”
He turned around.
I didn’t give him a chance to answer; I threw my arms around him and kissed him.
I blinked.
When my eyes opened, I was standing before the crosswalk, watching Kay walk away in complacent silence.
To think that I thought I had no imagination nor creative talent; I had made that whole romantic scene up.
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