James sat by himself on a log around the side of the house because he needed space, he needed air, and he needed a cigarette. No matter how much he had braced himself, how much he had thought he was ready, the reality was he was never going to be fully ready to see Nico again. And he definitely hadn’t been ready to meet his girlfriend.
James took out an American Spirit and lit it with a match from the matchbox he had swiped from his mom’s kitchen drawer, “it’s okay to own cigarettes as long as you don’t own a lighter” being one of those little lies he kept telling himself. He took a deep inhale feeling the familiar sting in his lungs and eyes and tried not to think about how different Nico looked after just a year apart. (a year, two months, and ten days, but who’s counting?)
Nico had finally grown into his height in the last few years, no longer having the long-limbed gangly look of their teenage years. He now wore his hair slightly longer, whether that was a general change or it had just been too long since his last haircut, James had no way of knowing for sure, but it looked good regardless. The button-down shirt he wore today made him look far more grown-up than the combination of Target brand and thrift store t-shirts and jeans he was still wearing everywhere the last time James had seen him. And of course, he now apparently went by Nicolas.
“I thought you were sober,” Cait said from behind him.
James knew it was Cait without having to turn around, without having to check. Like Nico, James would know her anywhere in any shape and form. If she shaved her head and showed up in full clown make-up, he would still know it was her.
“I am sober,” he replied. “Nicotine isn’t a narcotic.”
“Neither is alcohol,” Cait replied, settling down on the log next to him tucking the folds of her skirt between her knees and holding out a hand.
James placed a cigarette into her upturned palm figuring it would probably be better for him to run out sooner anyway.
“I haven’t been drinking either,” he said as she pulled out an actual lighter to light her cigarette. “No alcohol, no narcotics.”
“So if I told your sponsor you’ve been smoking, she’d be fine with it?” Cait asked.
“Yup,” James lied.
They smoked in silence for a bit, listening to the sounds of the party inside. James wondered if anybody in the chaos inside had noticed they were gone. Nico probably had; he’d been watching James like a hawk all night, probably scared he’d run off again.
James felt guilty about that. It was one of those things he hadn’t meant to do. He’d been busy. And miserable. Withdrawals had felt like his nightmares about dying, his shitty roommate made him fantasize about murder. A side effect of the staff keeping them busy enough to not think about drugs was being busy enough to not have much time for letter writing, and after everything that had been said, James hadn’t even been sure Nico wanted to hear from him, so in the end, the only people he wrote to were Cait and Mom.
After he got back, one excuse stacked on top of another as to why he couldn’t talk to Nico: it had been too long, it hadn’t been long enough, he was busy, it would be awkward, Nico didn’t want to talk to him anyway, etc. And then, before he knew it, Nico was back off at graduate school, a six-hour plane ride away. And then James had a very convenient excuse for ignoring Nico.
James probably would have probably continued to wallow silently in his own misery, had Cait not spoken up, giving him the perfect opportunity to wallow aloud in his own misery.
“I can’t believe she showed up in your shirt!”
“Yeah,” James said. “What the fuck.”
“It’s either a real power move or a real dick move,” Cait said.
“Or it was a mistake,” James said. “Though I don’t know why Nico wouldn’t have stopped her from coming here like that, even if she did just pull it out of his closet.”
“You weren’t there during introductions,” Cait said. “I don’t think he’d told her about us. She knew some things about us, but it wasn’t the kind of stuff Nico would say.”
“It was the kind of stuff Donna would say?” James asked, smiling, imagining that interaction.
“Or Nina, but yeah,” Cait said.
James huffed and watched the smoke billow out of his nostrils. “So he really has just moved on and built a life without us, huh?” James knew he should be happy. This was what he said he wanted, and to an extent, it was what he wanted for Nico, but it still hurt.
“I hate her,” Cait said. She didn’t need to specify who.
“You don’t have to,” James said.
“Don’t you?”
“No,” he lied. “Well, I’m trying not to,” he amended.
“Why?” Cait said, waving her hands around to emphasize her point the way she always did when she got excited. “Nobody’s gonna give you some kind of prize for being the bigger person. There’s no cosmic reward for being nice!”
James smiled. Cait’s nihilism made him almost nostalgic for when they were teenagers putting edgy spiral notebook poetry to power chords in his parent’s garage. “It’s not for some kind of cosmic reward, it’s for my own mental health. Carrying anger around drags you down.”
Cait raised an eyebrow. “Which Brene Brown book is that one from?”
“Oh fuck you!” James replied, knocking her with his elbow. She laughed and stubbed out her cigarette on the dirt. Nobody around here had grass around the side of their house. “But seriously,” he said. “You shouldn’t just hate her on my behalf.”
“Yes I do,” Cait said, turning back to him. “Two of the only out queer people in this town gotta stick up for each other. After all you’ve done for me, this is the least I can do for you.”
“First off, you’ve already paid me back at least twice over in the last year,” he said, and quickly, before Cait could interrupt him he added, “and second off, there’s also Nico.”
Cait shrugged. “That’s different.”
“What, because he’s dating a woman now?” James asked, chewing on the butt of the cigarette he had long since finished off in an attempt to stop himself from pulling out another one.
“No,” Cait replied quietly, looking down at the dirt she was pushing around with the toe of her boot. “It’s different because he left us.”
And there was nothing James could say to that, because it was different, and they both knew it.
Most of their friend group had been lucky enough to be able to leave, at least for a little while, and go off to college on a combination of scholarships and having parents who were middle-class enough. Cait had been the exception. Her parents both worked minimum wage, and her grades were nothing special. Her extracurriculars had included playing in a punk band with friends and smoking. When she had tried to talk to the school counselors about applying for college, they had told her to look into community college, an option her mom had told her she’d only pay for if Cait studied something practical, something Cait was completely unwilling to do. When the rest of them had come back from their time out in the world and told stories of the adventures they’d had, James suspected he’d been the only one able to see the blinding jealousy in Cait’s face.
James’ own story was a little different. He had gone off to college originally. And he had loved it. Being able to study what he wanted to, having teachers who weren’t burnt out, having classmates who cared about the classes. And that was just the academic side of things. James remembered what it had felt like to be surrounded by people whose social life hadn’t revolved around church, to have having a boyfriend something people were jealous of him for instead of something that caused people to throw rocks. And it was James’ own fault he had lost it.
Looking at Clarissa, who gave him the suspicious looks and wide berth of someone who had never spent a day so hungover they had a fever and couldn’t keep water down only to go out and get blackout drunk again the next night because they couldn’t stop themselves, James couldn’t help but feel like Nico had moved on to a better life without them in it. A life as Nicolas.
James spit out the cigarette butt he’d been chewing on and stood up. “We should probably head back before people notice we’re missing.”
He held out a hand to Cait, which she ignored. She stood, brushed off her skirt, and smiled at him. Together they walked back to the party
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