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The only thing he’s sure of anymore is, he’s not alone in this house.
*
Gerard pulls up the gravel driveway, his worn-out tires crunching. His ancient Pinto wheezes with relief as he kills the ignition. The house is… drearier than in the pictures. Well, it’s grey today, the sky gauzed over with clouds that might obscure sleet or sunlight or some secret thing no one’s yet seen. He didn’t come to Connecticut in November for the cheer, did he? Nor for the house.
Gerard came for the sky, for the stone stillness of the Atlantic, for the solitude. Gerard came to be alone. Gerard came to write.
He shrugs his heavy, sweatshirt-lined denim jacket on, tugs a beanie over his long semi-clean hair. His fingerless gloves have been on the whole drive, pocked with burn holes and smelling of smoke even though he quit two winters ago. He doesn’t go up to the front door of the house, squat and slate-colored in the scrubby sand. The windows are covered in curtains, expressionless and dead-eyed, but still he feels somehow scrutinized, like the house is evaluating whether he’s suitable as an occupant. He doesn’t feel unwelcome so much as, he hasn’t been invited in yet. He gets out of the car, pockets his keys, and veers wide around the house. He heads straight for the sea.
The air stings his face, reddens his cheeks. The waves are sedate; Gee fancies they’re slushy. Smooth sea glass, clumps of salt, and other debris left by the tide crunch under his sneakers. The wind and damp sand locate the holes in his soles with brisk efficiency. He walks along the coast til he’s so cold he can’t feel his face, then he turns around and walks back.
The house grows on the horizon cheerfully. This time, Gerard has the distinct feeling of homecoming. He feels kindly towards the friends and family who encouraged him to take this trip—get out of town, give yourself some space, it will be good for you. He jiggles the key in his pocket, cold and eager to get inside.
He approaches the back door this time, which has a little wreath of twisted sandgrass perched on a nail. He fits the key to the lock, but the knob twists in his hand before he unlocks it. The door’s open.
Inside, the house is cozier than he expected, given the unbelievably cheap rental. He walks through the little one-story set-up, turning on lights as he goes. Kitchen, cupboards bare; combined living and dining space, fireplace included; dusty books on shelves and cracked leather couch. The tub is streaked with age, the enamel wearing thin and the dark metal beneath showing through in scratches of unsettling depth. Did someone try to claw their way out? No, that’s morbid, he’s not here to be morbid: more likely a big dog having an excited bath. Still, the rust-colored stains that ring the drain are ominous. The tile is cold beneath his sock feet.
There are two bedrooms, one narrow and sea-facing with a full window making up the wall across from the bed. The curtains are wispy white sheers, not even thick enough to dampen starlight. The other room is larger, less drafty, with a much bigger and comfier bed, but Gee fell in the love the moment he saw that view. He’ll fall asleep each night by the light of moon on water, dream of sea foam and fairy tales. He feels a rightness come upon him like an arm pressing down over his shoulders, a well-being and warmth so physical that he touches his own collarbone, as if checking for someone’s touch. Welcome, the feeling seems to say. It would be unsettling and strange, if Gee wasn’t already so unsettled and strange these days.
Yes. It will be good for him to be away.
He unloads the car in two trips, once for his luggage and once for his meager bags of groceries. Ramen, boxed mac and cheese, bread and peanut butter, kid’s cereal, a 24 case of Miller High Life: most of what he’s brought is carbohydrates. One net bag of oranges is his sole nod to the nutritional value of plants.
In the kitchen, there’s one metal pot, one spatula, one set of silverware and dishes. He pops the tab on a beer and hums to himself, cooking pasta. The smell of cheese powder in the air makes the dark little kitchen feel homey. After he eats, he tucks his feet under him on the couch and scratches in his notebook, trying to write, til the sky turns to black outside the windows.
He says “Goodnight” out loud after he strips to his boxers and undershirt and gets into bed. He’s not sure who he’s saying it to. He watches the waves hit the shore out his window til his eyes get too heavy and close. He’s almost or entirely asleep when he’s gripped by the intense, paralyzing conviction that there’s someone standing over him. In the way of liminal spaces, he can’t move, can’t scream, can’t convince his eyes to open: he just lays there, his heart beating against his ribcage like a nail dropped in a soda can, terrified. “Hello?” he tries to whisper with dry lips, his eyes screwed shut, his skin tight with ice-pricks of cold sweat. “Hello? Is someone there?”
Gerard falls back into an uneasy sleep before he can tell if he’s made any sound out loud, if there’s been any answer.
*
“I had a weird dream,” Gerard tells his brother in the morning. He’s eating cereal in the kitchen, staring out the window at the grey pearl sea. “I think. I can’t remember.”
“Is it the nightmares again?” Mikey asks. Even over the phone, Gee can hear his brow furrow. In the background of Mikey’s concern, the morning rush hour traffic that stretches from Jersey to the heart of Manhattan blares its discontent.
“Different,” Gerard decides, though he’s not sure himself. “It was like… it was like there was someone in the house. A presence, or something. There was something pressing on my chest too hard for me to breathe or scream.”
“Fuck you too, buddy,” Mikey snaps, and it takes Gerard til the horn blast to realize his brother is talking to another driver, not him. To Gerard, he says, “You’re locked up tight in there, aren’t you? I mean, was there any sign of a break-in?”
“I don’t think so,” Gerard says. His cereal is getting soggy, the milk discoloring into a halfhearted blue. “I’ll walk the perimeter, check for footprints. It didn’t feel like something from the outside, it felt like something from the inside, does that make sense? I dunno. It was probably just a dream.”
“Keep me posted, okay? Try to get this freaky shit out of your head and relax. Give yourself a break. You’re always so worried about everything.”
“Yeah,” Gerard says. In the cool, clear morning light, he’s feeling a little silly that he called his brother about this. What did he think Mikey would do? Drive out here and check under the bed for him? “It was just a weird feeling. Nothing a jog on the beach and a hot shower won’t fix. Thanks for listening.”
“‘Course. I love you,” Mikey says.
“Love you too.”
Gerard does feel better, jogging. Sand flies up around his heels and his breath puffs white clouds into the frigid air. It’s too bitter to breathe, even through his scarf. He picks a few ridged seashells off the beach on his way back. He lays them on the windowsills, smearing salt across the painted old wood, and sheds articles of outerwear as he moves through the house. Floorboards creak cheerfully under his feet. He’s naked, skin smarting and frozen bright red from the chill outside, by the time he reaches the bathroom. He leans over the tub to turn on the tap and jumps back, choking on a yell, when a huge pale spider uncurls from the faucet just before he touches the knob.
“Jesus,” he mutters, shuddering a little, as the fat shiny thing drops itself into the bottom of the tub. He doesn’t mind spiders, usually, but this one is juicy and albino, like one of those fish that live and die in underground caves without ever growing eyes or feeling sunlight. The spider skitters around the bottom of the bathtub, trapped and knowing it, and Gee wishes he had pants on. He’s not gonna smush it, not while he’s naked, so he does the only think he can think of: he turns on the water. It spurts out violent, the ruddy color of dried blood, while the pipes clear themselves. The spray catches the spider, which thrashes frantically for life til it’s swept down the drain. Gerard watches it drown.
*
The house behaves itself all day. He tries not to let himself get rattled by little things, tries to let himself get used to the quiet and solitude, tries to get some writing done. After all, isolation is what he came here for. The last thing he wants to do is invent new distractions. He shakes off the unremembered dream, the weird shit with the spider, and by the time the sun’s going down and he’s making a new pot of mac and cheese, he’s feeling good. He puts on a Bowie album, applies his Boy Scout skills to starting a little fire in the fireplace, and settles in to read on the couch. He keeps getting a weird feeling like there are eyes on the back of his neck, so he slips further and further down til he’s slouched so deep into the throw blanket and the cozy heat coming off the fire, it’s easier to drift off than it is to keep reading. Gerard falls asleep, and dreams.
*
The blinding summer sun bites into his belly, his bared skin pinking fast. “Help me,” he pouts. “My gothic pallor!”
The dark-haired boy turns and grins at him, a rogue’s toothy smile and glinting ring through his lip. His wet hair separates on his forehead, saltwater catching light like diamonds on his skin. He is all over tattoos and radiance. He crawls across sand, leans over and presses a kiss to Gerard’s shoulder. He reaches around from behind Gee and grabs the tube of sunscreen from his hands. The spot on his skin touched by Frank’s lips generates its own solar glow, and he melts into the sensation of cool sunscreen and big, rough hands against his back.
Frank’s hands slip around his waist, meeting at his soft middle. Frank hooks a thumb around Gee’s hipbone, brushes his mouth against Gerard’s neck. “You covered, babe?” he teases. “Where else do you need to be rubbed?”
People on the beach are looking at them, their tattoos and Gerard’s long hair, Frank’s piercings and their bodies mostly bare and tangled casually together on their sandy towels. “You’re a scandal waiting to happen,” Gerard says happily.
“Who’s waiting?” Frank nips at his neck, making Gee shiver. They’re a hundred feet from the house, full of window AC and all the privacy a seaside rental can offer, but Gerard likes being kissed right here. He turns, catches Frank’s mischievous mouth in a full kiss, and makes a sound somewhere between a laugh and a moan as Frank kisses him down onto the towel.
*
Gerard wakes to a crash from the kitchen, jerking to consciousness on the couch. The fire has burned to embers and his book has fallen closed on his chest. Another small clatter from the kitchen startles him to his feet. Disoriented, with an inexplicable hard-on and his heart rabbiting in his chest, he creeps to the kitchen to investigate.
The back window is open, though Gerard knows he didn’t open it. The curtains snap in the wind, and the shells he gathered this morning are spread broken across the kitchen floor. With clammy hands he slams the window shut, locking it. Outside, the beach is still and moonlit, the ocean slow. His carotid judders in his throat, and for a reason he doesn’t know, his skin burns in the shape of a kiss.
He checks the locks and latches on every window and door. “You’re losing your mind, Gee,” he tells himself. “It’s just the wind. You must have opened it while you were cooking and forgotten. You’re alone here. You’re totally alone.”
He gets in bed, tries to slow his breathing and convince himself to sleep. When he closes his eyes, he can feel someone standing over him; when he opens them, no one’s there.
*
“Gee, I miss you,” someone says, sitting down on the foot of the narrow bed. “Why aren’t you sleeping in our room?”
“I feel like I know you,” Gerard says, and he knows he’s dreaming, but it’s like he’s kitty-corner to the dream, like he stands diagonal somewhere halfway between his real self and whoever he’s meant to be in this dream.
“Are you mad at me?” It’s the same boy from the beach, only older. The lines in his cheeks, under his eyes, are especially deep-etched in the moonlight. His jaw has widened and softened with age. He looks as beautiful as ever. Gerard doesn’t know how he knows that his name is Frank. Hazel eyes under well-shaped brows regard him closely. Blueish stubble darkens the skin around Frank’s lips. Gerard’s gaze keeps dragging back to Frank’s lips.
“Are you Frank? I think I dreamed you.”
“Don’t you remember?” Frank’s face contracts in pain, and suddenly Gerard realizes he’s wet. His clothes are soaked through, a puddle of icy water is spreading across the bedding, a pool is flowing out across the floor around his feet. He’s shivering, his hair is crisp with salt, his lips are so blue. “Gee. Don’t you remember me?”
Gerard reaches out to touch him. His fingers brush ice-cold marble flesh, the stiff goosebumped skin of something no longer living.
He wakes up before he can say I don’t remember.
*
The morning run on the beach is on its way to becoming routine. Gerard laces his shoes, tugs on a grey sweatshirt, knots his scarf around his mouth. He feels like he has a thought on the tip of his brain, a memory he keeps nearly-remembering. He doesn’t think he slept very well. And his window must have a leak, because he woke to a puddle on his bedroom floor. He drops a towel on it, then goes for his run.
*
Gerard’s restless this afternoon, can’t concentrate on writing. The nagging feeling of forgetting hasn’t faded. He thinks about going to a movie, getting out of the house, but somehow he doesn’t want to leave its company. He runs himself a hot bath instead. When he’s totally submerged in water, he finally starts to relax. He opens his eyes underwater, takes in the distorted ceiling view, and then, responding to some instinct he doesn’t understand, opens his mouth and inhales deeply.
Gerard breaks the surface of the water, coughing up the contents of his lungs. He hangs onto the scratched enamel side, heaving and gasping, and vomits onto the floor. What is wrong with him? What is happening here?
*
They’re making breakfast in the kitchen, the space bright with Gerard’s laughter and Frank’s antics. He’s dressed all in black with a fat lip—Frank is particularly skilled at getting in scrapes, instigating fights in Gee’s honor, and generally injuring himself in creative ways—and he’s streaked with flour. He keeps juggling eggs, an obviously terrible idea, making Gerard yelp and run across the kitchen to try and stop him.
“This is how messes are made, not pancakes,” Gee laughs, trying to get the egg carton away from Frank.
“Stop fooling around with the eggs!” Frank says, hunching protectively over the carton. “Gee! So irresponsible. You’ll break them!”
Gerard leans in and steals a kiss off Frank’s cheek, trailing his lips across Frank’s ear as the other boy squirms away. Frank sets the eggs down, leans back against the counter, and pulls Gerard in against him. He grips Gerard by the belt loops, lining up their hips, and tips his head back like he knows exactly how sexy he is when he does this.
“You’re right, forget pancakes,” he says, his eyelids heavy. “I have another idea about what I can eat for breakfast.”
“I dunno, will you let me cover you in powder sugar and syrup? I was looking forward to something sweet.”
“I’ll let you cover me in anything. Roll me in sugar, throw strawberries on top, and have your way with me.” Frank’s smile is a leer at the best of times, and right now is no exception. Sometimes Gerard thinks the only thing that ever takes the sadness out of Frank’s eyes is mischief. Other times, Gerard’s hips are pressed flush with Frank’s, and he’s so busy feeling he doesn’t think anything at all.
Gee leans in so his lips are on Frank’s throat and inhales deeply. The smell of Frank’s cheap aftershave makes him weak at the knees. “I’m so glad we came here,” he tells Frank’s neck. “Let’s never go back.”
“We can live forever,” Frank tells him, “if you’ve got the time.”
In this moment, Gerard loves him too much to say it. He bites the truth of it into Frank’s tender skin instead, following the pain of teeth with the wet soothing pressure of tongue, and licks himself into a sweet, flour-dusted oblivion, the whole universe narrowing to this counter, this aftershave, this throat, these lips, these hips, those moans. The whole universe a closed circuit containing every wonder. The whole universe made of Frank and Gee, Gee and Frank.
*
Sleep, wake, dream. Maybe. He’s so exhausted lately, but every time he sleeps, he wakes up a few hours later, heart racing, jaw clenched, his bedsheets tangled and cold with sweat. He wakes every time unsure of what it is he’s trying to remember.
*
His friend Ray calls, and the sound of someone else’s voice makes him feel immediately less insane.
“I just wanted to check in, see how things are going,” Ray says, so cheerfully it makes Gee suspicious.
“Did Mikey ask you to call me?”
“What, I can’t be interested in how your big writing retreat is going?”
“I don’t know, can you?”
Gerard sounds so skeptical that Ray starts laughing. “Okay, Mikey may have mentioned that you were feeling a little weird in the empty house. But I’m also interested in you and your book! It can be both.”
“It’s so much quieter than the city,” Gerard tells him. The windows are touched with frost this morning. He presses his fingertip to the glass, watching the ice crystals slowly turn back to liquid on the other side, and he likes that thawing is that easy. That transmuting from one form of matter to the next only takes touch. “I guess I have been startling myself a little. I had to turn extra lights when I was sketching out this tense scene…”
Ray asks questions about the book, an idea Gerard’s been toying with since they were teenagers. He drew his first comic about it years ago, lovingly hand-stapled pages of copy paper and black ballpoint pen. Ray and Mikey, inseparable even then, were his only readers. Well, and his mom. To this day she likes to call herself Gerard’s patron. Gerard ambles through the house, enjoying the way the warmth and laughter of his voice, his connection with Ray, spreads through the rooms like sunlight. He directs the sound of happy, living humans into every dreary corner, to shore up against nighttime creepiness. The house is perfectly cozy in the daylight. It’s only at night that it starts to feel wrong somehow. Like the angles are too sharp, the corners too dark, the walls and doorways not quite where Gee left them. Like he’s not the only one in here breathing. Like someone or something else disturbs the air.
Gerard freezes at the back window, the one that blew open the other night. Early morning sunlight hits the pane, turning the frost into foggy wetness. There, traced into the brilliant beads of muggy water, is a word. Streaky and half-erased by melt already, Gerard’s window says FRANK.
The name is familiar, somehow: it catches the edge of some unspecified corner of Gerard’s brain, a jagged puzzle piece that won’t quite settle in to the rest of the image. It startles him so badly he drops off in the middle of his sentence.
“Gerard? Hello?” comes Ray’s voice.
“Ray, do I know anyone named Frank?” Gee asks. His voice is strained. Even with Ray on the phone, even with the sun on his skin, he feels frozen up in fear. His heart is electric in his chest, the current running up and down his spine, locking him in.
“Not that I know of. Why?”
Gerard pulls his hoodie sleeve down over his hand, wipes the window, scrubs the name out. “No reason,” he says. He’s shivering and doesn’t know why. He can’t prove it was ever there, but he’s sure—he thinks he’s sure—the writing was on the inside of the glass.
*
That night, the darkness on the beach outside presses in close. The thin walls of the little house are the only barrier between Gerard and whatever’s out there. Only, he’s starting to feel like he should be more worried about what’s in here. He’s writing at the desk in his little bedroom when he hears a kind of scrape-thump coming through the wall. Gerard draws his feet up off the ground immediately, like tucking his knees into his chest will provide safety. The sound is quiet, irregular, and deeply ominous.
“Frank?” His voice cracks, a jagged whisper. He doesn’t know anyone named Frank. He doesn’t know anyone named Frank and still, he calls out again: “Frank? Is that you?”
The noise stops. There is no answer.
*
Gee is writing in the cafe at the Barnes & Noble where his brother works. It’s one of his usual haunts: Mikey hangs out with him on breaks, he can use his brother’s employee discount, and no one harasses him for lingering too long. He doodles poems and lyrics up and down the margins of his notebook, and when he’s blocked, he draws thorny vines on his knuckles, spreading across the backs of his hands, swirling up his arms. Sometimes he thinks he’s soaked up so much ink through his skin that he’ll start bleeding it out again. Whenever he checks, though, the threads inside him run red, not black.
Gee is not especially okay. He’s 24 years old, off his meds, living in his tiny attic bedroom at his parents’ in New Jersey. He graduated from college a year and a half ago, hasn’t broken into the comics industry yet, has failed completely at life according to plan. The nightmares are worse than ever, and when he’s not drinking coffee, he’s usually getting drunk. He’s writing through notebooks, blacking out page after page with his cramped thoughts, like he can write his way out of this. He’s got more dreams than sleep.
That’s where he meets Frank.
This kid in an oversized Thrice hoodie, with anxious tapping fingers and short-cropped hair, puts himself into the chair across from Gerard. Gerard pulls his pile of notebooks and pens closer to him by instinct, shielding. He gets fucked with a lot, and this dude looks like the kind of hardcore asshole who would throw a beer on him at a show. The kind who would take in his clothes, his dyed hair, his eyeliner and sneer, Fag.
“You got a smoke?” the guy asks. His face is strikingly pretty, Gerard notices, stealing a glance.
Gee shakes his head, too wary to speak. The kid sighs heavy, rubs his hand over his face, and then surprises Gerard by smiling. He pulls a pack of Camels out of his hoodie pocket and rattles it. “That’s okay. I’ve got about half a pack. I just needed an excuse to talk to you.”
“Why?”
The guy’s neat, arched eyebrows jump. “Unfriendly, huh? I see you at shows sometimes. I always tell myself, Frankie, just talk to him, he’s gotta be nicer than he looks. And I always chicken out, and I always say, next time.”
Gerard can’t tell if he’s being mocked or not. He frowns and starts packing up his things. He doesn’t need this shit.
“Wait! Don’t go. My name’s Frank and, uh, I’ll buy your next cup of coffee if you want.”
Gerard isn’t in the habit of believing in four-leaf clovers, cute boys who want to buy him coffee, or any other superstitions. He keeps waiting for Frank to pull the rug out from him, to figure out exactly how he’s the butt of this joke. Still, there’s something about Frank’s face. There’s something in his eyes, a spark of something kind, a willingness to laugh—to laugh with, not at. It’s enough to make Gerard hesitate. He digs his fingertips in the metal coil of his notebook and asks, “Why would you want to do that?”
“Because there’s something about you,” Frank says. His eyes are big and brown and beautiful. In spite of himself, Gee’s heart leaps. Frank opens his mouth to say more, but the words are distorted. Gerard can’t hear them. He’s about to ask Frank to repeat himself when cloudy water starts pouring out of Frank’s mouth. His eyes are light and smiling, his face unchanged, while water gushes down his chin. Straggles of seaweed and handfuls of sand pour out over the table. Frank’s cheeks begin to turn blue. He’s choking, he’s trying to speak and he’s only choking. His hands go to his throat but his eyes, they still shine with his smile. They stay warm and fixed on Gee until they roll up into Frank’s head, til he slumps to the table choking, unconscious, then dead.
*
Gerard wakes in the middle of the night weeping and he doesn’t know why.
“It’s okay, babe,” someone’s voice says. Hands rub his shoulders, stroke his back, push damp locks of hair out of the path of his tears. “I’m here. I’m here. You’re okay.”
The touch is cold. Gerard presses into it. Eyes squeezed shut, he slides back into sleep.
*
He’s in the big bed and he’s not alone. Frank in moonlight is the prettiest thing he’s ever seen, and Gerard kisses him with bruising force, like he’ll memorize Frank’s smile by imprint, by impact. Frank’s hands are on him, rucking up his shirt, and he gets Frank’s shirt over his head in desperation. “Love you. Fuck. I love you,” Frank murmurs between kisses, and Gerard has no patience for romance, Gerard can feel Frank’s hard dick through his pajama pants, Gerard is in this for the friction, for coming together and coming apart. He slips his hand into Frank’s pants and squeezes, and Frank’s whole frame shudders against him, and Frank laughs from his belly on up. “Oh, is that what you want?” he teases, biting Gee’s lip. Gerard gets a handful of Frank’s ass, pulls their bodies to crush, his hand working between them, rubbing them both. Gerard’s breathing open-mouthed, halfway insensible with dazzle and want, and Frank’s pupils dilate when he meets Gee’s eyes.
“You know what I want,” Gerard growls. “So give it to me.”
Frank grabs him by the jaw and silences him with a rough kiss. He’s still smiling, Gerard can feel his self-satisfied smile. Gerard can feel his teeth. Gerard can feel. Frank holds him in place, grinding their hips together, kissing Gerard like he can make them both disappear. Gerard cuts his lip on one of Frank’s teeth and cries out, wriggling beneath him. It only makes Frank’s hips move harder. His hand slips down Gee’s hip, gathers a fistful of underwear, and tugs down. The bared skin of their hips brush, and Gee is dizzy with it. Frank’s fingers stroke him, outlining his length and dipping lower, finding his entrance. Gerard bucks into the sensation and Frank laughs again. “Easy, baby. I want to do this slow as you can stand it.”
Gerard turns to starlight wherever Frank touches him. He wraps one hand around a spindle of the headboard, his fingernails biting into the aging wood. It’s all he can do, just to hang on.
*
Gerard wakes with wet pajama pants and blood on his tongue. He’s disoriented by the daylight streaming in: it’s coming from the wrong direction. He sits up, the whole room feeling wrong around him, confused about which way he’s facing. Where is he? His childhood bedroom? His shitty apartment? Nothing’s laid out right.
The beach house, the small bedroom. It settles into his gut like the sudden application of an anchor. But why is he in here? He fell asleep in the other bedroom with Frank’s head pillowed on his bare chest. No—that was a dream. Wasn’t it? An incredibly vivid dream.
Gee swings his legs out of bed and steps in something cold. On the hardwood floor is a trail of wet footprints. Gerard follows them to the back door, which is cracked open. He throws it wide, his heart sluggish in his breast. “Hello?” he greets the day weakly. There are no footprints in the sand. It’s freezing out there. He looks behind him for the footprints that led him here, but the floors are dry as bone. He turns back to the door, to shut it against the biting wind, but it’s closed and locked, deadbolt and chain. It was open a second ago, Gee knows it. There were footprints on the floor. He fell asleep in the big bed with a boy named Frank. He doesn’t know anyone named Frank. There aren’t footprints. The door is shut and locked, just like he left it. He can’t breathe. Is he dreaming still? Or is he just losing his mind?
He types a text to his brother into his phone. I think the rental was so cheap cuz this place is haunted, he sends. His phone buzzes a moment later and he feels like it’s the only thing anchoring him to the real, non-hallucinatory world. Mikey’s sent back lol and a ghost emoji. Gerard grips his phone tight as the dream fades off him. Ghosts are jokes. Hauntings are a laugh out loud scenario. He’s here alone. There is no drowned boy who sleeps beside him. He doesn’t know anyone named Frank.
*
Enough bullshit. Enough haunting. Gerard has lost his mind before and he is not in a hurry to do it again. He’s gonna get to the bottom of this before he loses his grip on reality completely. It won’t be like last time.
At sundown he goes around the house, opens the windows and the doors. He smudges the salt lines he left on windowsills, breaking whatever barrier they may have formed. He tracks sand inside, pushes the couch against the wall and makes a ring of seawater in the middle of the living room. He carries in twisted shapes of driftwood and lights every candle he can find, emptying out the hurricane kit and every odd drawer. He places himself in the center of the circle he has made. He runs the fingers of one hand through the water he’s spilled on the floor; in the other hand he squeezes the broken pieces of one of his fallen shells, rubbing their edges together, pressing them into his skin.
“Is there anybody here?” he asks. Wind runs through the house; he takes a pull of his bottle of whiskey for warmth. Everything is quiet. He tries out the name of the ghost, of the unremembered memory. “Frank? Are you here, Frankie?”
The name on his tongue is as familiar as his own, like he’s practiced it for years. This summoning circle, it’s not making Gerard feel any less insane. “You aren’t real,” he tells the no-one-here. A big gust of wind slams through the house in answer, making the candles gutter. A few of them go out, their SOS smoke signals streaking the dark air.
Gerard blows out the rest of the candles. He seals up the house, checking each lock twice. He dries the floor. He’s never going to tell anyone about this. They’ll send him right back to therapy, he knows it. Who would believe him, when he can’t even believe himself?
He finishes another beer or three before he goes to bed. He feels a tug in his gut, like something’s beckoning him to the big bedroom, and steadfastly ignores it. He pulls the quilt up to his chin in the narrow bed and reminds himself he doesn’t believe in ghosts.
*
Sometime past midnight, Gerard’s bladder wakes him. He sits up to get out of bed when he sees it: a figure on the beach. Dark clothes and pale skin catch the light of the waning moon. He wants to call out, but the figure is fifty feet down the beach. They won’t hear him. As Gerard watches, the shape of a man moves towards the water, til the stranger is standing in the surf. It’s much too cold for swimming, Gee thinks. Then the man walks into the sea.
Gerard’s running, tearing out of the house without ever really deciding to. He throws open both locks on the back door and runs down the beach in his PJ pants, thin t-shirt, and bare feet. The sand bites his feet like shards of ice. The winter air punches the back of his throat, leaving him breathless. The figure slips under the waves, his dark form eaten up by the black of the water. Gerard runs, runs to the edge of the ocean. His teeth chatter violently as frigid waves lick his frozen feet.
There’s not a ripple, not a bubble, not a single indication a man just threw himself into the sea. He wades through the shallows, searching, but Gerard’s alone. There’s no one here.
He can’t just let them drown. He has to try and save them. Gerard takes a breath, girds himself for the frozen embrace of the sea, and—
*
Wakes up. Gerard wakes up in bed, shivering so hard the iron bedframe rattles on the wood floor. He throws the blankets off, grabs at his pants, his legs. He’s completely dry, warm to the touch. He goes to the window, stares out at the beach. There’s no one out there. It’s the middle of the night. He was only dreaming. He’s alone.
*
He doesn’t fall back asleep. How could he? He sits up all night trying to warm up. Even though his skin feels normal to the touch, he can’t stop shivering. He feels so cold inside. He stands under the hot shower til the heat runs out and cold, mineral tasting water is all that’s left. He drinks cup after cup of hot tea with whiskey. He wraps himself in half the blankets in the house. Only half—he doesn’t go into the big bedroom. Somehow he can’t. A terrible dread grips him at the doorway, the certainty that if he opens the door, he will find something sleeping in the bed.
He’s not alone in this house. It’s not something he can prove. It’s cups found not where he left them, towels he folded mussed on the floor, doors closed when he left them open and open when he left them closed. It’s the presence that stands over him at night. It’s the way when he’s running on the beach in the sunlight, he’s positive there’s someone just behind him, but when he turns there’s never anyone there. It’s the dreams.
Gerard calls Mikey first thing in the morning. “I don’t have internet here, so I need you to do some research for me,” he starts in as soon as Mikey picks up.
“Gee? What time is it? Have you been drinking?”
“Mikey, this is important. Can you see if there are any deaths associated with this house? I think someone drowned here, someone named Frank. Can you check it out for me?”
“Slow down,” Mikey says. He’s got his concerned, arbiter-of-health-and-reality voice on. It is one of Gerard’s very least favorite ways to be talked to. “How long have you been up? It’s 5:45 in the fucking morning.”
“And you get up at 5:30 for work,” Gerard says sensibly, “so it’s not too early to call. Listen, I need this information today. It’s time sensitive.”
“Is this for your book?”
“Can you help me or not?”
“Buddy, you’re scaring me.”
Gerard takes a deep breath, digs his knuckles into his forehead, forces himself to slow down. “Yes, it’s for my book,” he lies. “I’m sorry if I sound crazy right now. I’m just feeling so inspired—you know how I get about a new project. Seriously, can you just do a quick Google search for me?”
Mikey sighs, back to sounding annoyed and not concerned. Gee knows he’s in the clear. “Sure. Okay. Yes. You’re a pain in the ass. Hold on a minute, let me get to my computer.”
While he waits, Gerard flips to a new page in his notebook, ready to take notes on whatever Mikey finds. He pauses to look over his work from yesterday—he was in the flow, he remembers feeling pretty good about what he accomplished—but as he turns pages, all he finds are deep-etched drawings of some sleeping underwater prince, and the name FRANK scribbled again and again. Gerard turns page after page, his heart clawing up his throat. He’s been working on his book, he knows he has, he’s been writing, he’s been making progress—page after page of high, fine eyebrows, closed eyes, a pierced lip in a still face, a snarled seaweed crown—
Gerard slams the notebook shut and shoves it away from him. He jumps up from the desk chair and starts pacing. He can’t make sense of any of this. What is happening to him?
“Okay, Gee. What am I searching for?”
Mikey’s voice brings him back. Gerard forces his breath steady. “Um, drowning deaths, Mystic Connecticut… Haunting. Ghosts.”
He can hear Mikey typing. “So are you changing directions with this book? We going ghost?”
“Um, I’m not sure.” Hands shaking more than he’d care to admit, Gee pulls his notebook back towards him. He flips it open to a random page and finds it crowded with his own handwriting, the loops and swirls of a Doom Patrol scene he remembers writing yesterday. There’s no sign of drowned princes, no scribbles of the name Frank. Just the story he’s been writing, the work he remembers doing.
“I’m not finding anything,” Mikey says. “No suspicious drownings, no ghost stories. The house you’re renting keeps coming up, though; I think Google is spying on us. Anything else you need me to do a search for? I gotta get in the shower or I’m not gonna make it to work on time.”
“There’s nothing? No one named Frank?”
“I’m sure there are some people named Frank in the town of Mystic, Connecticut? But nothing’s coming up about drownings or ghosts.”
Gerard exhales, closes the notebook, and puts it in a drawer. “Okay. Well, thanks, Mikey.” He doesn’t say, Guess I’m just crazy then. Guess I’m just losing my fucking mind.
“You sound a little rough, Gee.” Mikey lingers on the phone, the concern creeping back into his voice, like he hears what Gerard’s not saying.
“I’m okay, I promise,” says Gerard. “I’m telling you the truth. I mean it. I’m okay.”
He’s not sure when exactly he started lying to his brother.
*
Gerard goes to cook himself dinner, and everything in the cabinets is soaking wet. He puts a doused elbow noodle to his lips and licks up salt. He goes to the fridge, opens a beer, and takes a huge sip of salt water. He spits it out again in the sink. All the food he brought is soaked through. Everything in the kitchen is ruined.
*
Gerard asks the delivery guy if he’s heard any ghost stories about this house. “Uh, not unless you’re about to tell me one,” the guy says. “How many people eating?”
“Two,” Gerard answers. The guy hands him two sets of chopsticks, napkins, and his brown paper bag of orange chicken and egg rolls. “Thanks.”
It’s not until the delivery guy is gone again that Gee realizes his mistake. One. He ordered food for one. Only one person eating, only one person here. He’s alone. He’s alone in this house. If he says it enough times he’ll believe it. He’s alone here. He’s alone in this house.
*
Gerard knows exactly what he’s doing. He steps out of the shower, wraps a towel around himself, and heads for the big bedroom. He doesn’t hesitate on the threshold, doesn’t feel dread. He just opens the door.
Frank’s laying in bed reading.
“Lazy,” Gee tells him, getting in bed beside him. His hair drips on Frank’s bare tattooed chest, the pages of Frank’s book. “Are you gonna spend this whole vacation in bed?”
“Depends. Will you spend it in bed with me?”
Frank marks his page, closes his book, and stretches to kiss Gerard. Gerard leans out of reach and Frank pouts.
“I—I have to ask,” says Gee. “Are you real? I mean, are you really here?”
Frank is so beautiful, blinking slow with a half-smile on his face. “Are you?”
Gerard’s hard under his towel. Frank is right here, smelling exactly like himself, warm and good and alive. There’s no way Gee can possible answer the existential question. He leans in and kisses Frank instead.
*
Gerard wakes warm and slow, his body pleasantly aching all over with the memory of being fucked by Frank. He turns towards the middle of the bed and opens his eyes, expecting to see his lover. But Gerard is in the narrow bed, alone and facing the wall.
“Frankie?” he calls out. “Are you making coffee?”
He grabs his threadbare robe off the back of the desk chair and slips it on. He walks around the corner and into the big bedroom without thinking about it. He expects to see rumpled sheets, the depression of Frank’s head on the pillow, expects to smell the pleasant mingled sweat and salt of the things they’ve done together in this bed: but it’s crisp and clean in here like a hospital room, like a crime scene. The bedside table, where he knows should sit Frank’s wallet, rings, and a polaroid of the two of them in sunglasses out on the beach, is dusty and bare. Gee pads around to Frank’s side of the bed and opens the nightstand drawer. It’s empty too. He bends to smell the pillow, the addictive freshness of Frank’s aftershave, and it just smells like musty cotton.
Vertigo crashes over him. Suddenly Gerard can’t tell what’s real. He pinches his arm, which hurts, as if pain alone could reassure him he isn’t dreaming. He crosses to the dresser and tears open the drawers, looking for Frank’s badly folded clothes, the box of condoms and the lube, their jumble of mismatched socks, the polaroid camera they’ve been using to document their getaway. It’s not there: nothing’s there.
Gee throws open drawer after drawer, rips the bedding off the mattress, looking for any clue, any sign, any memory of Frank. Nothing—there’s nothing. He goes through the vanity table, finds every drawer empty. He feels more and more panicked, his breath coming from high in his chest, his vision starting to blur with anxiety. How can there be nothing? How can there be no sign of the life he remembers sharing with Frank? Five years they’ve been together, half a decade and aiming for more—
Gerard doesn’t know which version of him is real and which version of him is dreaming. Tears run wet on his face, though he hadn’t realized he was crying. He throws empty drawers on the floor, gropes around in the empty space inside the vanity, panics, panics—
His hand brushes something papery. Gerard freezes. He pulls out a folded sheet of notebook paper, tucked up beneath the drawer frame at the top of the vanity. Deliberately hidden, or elaborately lost. His unfolds it with shaking hands.
His own handwriting splashes across the page. It reads,
Frankie—
Went to the boardwalk for our favorite donuts, since you’re bent on sleeping the entire day away. Put some coffee on, lazybones.
Love, G
He sinks back onto his heels, folding to the ground. The panic has drained out of him. He’s holding proof in his hands, isn’t he? Except it’s in his own handwriting. He could have written this at any time, if he’s truly losing his mind.
God, is he even awake? Is he sleeping again? Why can’t he tell the difference?
Favorite donuts. If he’s a regular somewhere, maybe there’s someone who will recognize him there. Gerard goes to the smaller bedroom, the one he remembers unpacking his things into with a strange kaleidoscope of memory, two fractal paths visible at once. He gets dressed, jeans and t-shirt, and is knocked back by cold when he opens the front door. He’d forgotten it wasn’t summer. He goes back for his coat and gloves, then strikes out for the boardwalk. There’s got to be someone wintering in this town who can give him answers.
*
On one level, Gerard knows it’s the first time he’s made this walk. It’s his first time in Mystic, his first time in this house, his first trip to the boardwalk. But there’s a level below that, pastel-toned and summer-bright, and it’s choked with memories of this wood-slatted path, leaning out over the water there, holding Frank’s spiderweb-inked hand. Laughing here, ducking into that corner by the taffy shop and kissing, grinning for the camera and snapping a polaroid there.
Gerard doesn’t know what’s true anymore. To test himself, he just walks in whatever direction feels right, and no one’s more surprised than he is when his feet stop automatically at the front door of a place called Deviant Donuts. He’s never, ever been here before.
He pushes the door open and walks inside. Out of the house, he feels lighter. The sense of Frank dragging at his neck feels less like a millstone and more like a locket, a close companion, a secret laid against his chest. The donuts are beautiful, perfect in rows with shining icing. His mouth fills up with saliva at the sight of them. He hasn’t been eating much since all his food was turned to brine. If it even has been: if someone else tried to drink one of those beers, would they taste malt or salt? What in this world is still real, and who does it matter for?
There’s a youngish girl behind the counter, wearing a big sweater, an apron, and reading a book with the cover folded back. “Um, hi,” he greets her. She eyes him warily, like he might be a creep. “This is gonna sound weird. Do you—recognize me? From, um, the summer? Maybe a few summers ago. I don’t remember.”
She looks at him like he’s done nothing to reassure her he’s not a creep. “A lot of people come here in the summer,” she says. “I’m more likely to remember weird winter guys. Bet I could give a real good description of you, if I had to.”
Her eyes flick him up and down in a threatening way. Gerard’s embarrassed. “Uh, no, sorry. I’m not trying to scare you. I think—I’m kind of trying to retrace my steps, from an old vacation. I was here a lot that summer, with my—his name was Frank. We were in love.”
The girl’s face changes. She opens the glass case, bends over consideringly, and emerges with a white iced long john. She hands it out to him. “Here,” she says.
“This is my favorite kind of donut,” Gee says, his heart quickening. “How did you know that?”
The girl just shrugs. “It’s everybody’s favorite. Our best seller.” Gerard’s heart sinks again. He bites into the long john, a slightly stinging Madagascar vanilla bean flavor bursting over his tongue. The pastry is dense but fluffy, the icing soft and perfectly sweet. It’s a good fucking donut.
“Frank, you said?” the girl asks. “Did he have like, a bunch of tattoos?”
Gee chokes on the donut. “Do you—do you remember him?”
The girl nods slowly. “I think so. He was really beautiful, right? And nice. He’d tell me bad jokes when he was here picking up donuts.”
“He’s real,” Gerard can’t stop himself from saying out loud. “Holy shit, he’s real.”
The girl goes back to looking alarmed. “Um, I don’t remember you, though,” she says. “It sucks what happened to him. Donut’s on me, okay? I hope you find what you’re looking for.”
“What do you mean, what happened to him?” Gerard’s voice is too quick, too loud. He’s squeezed the donut clean in half. He’s scaring the girl, he can see it on her face.
“He’s—I thought he was the one that drowned,” she says. “Shit—your face. I’m sorry. I could be remembering wrong.”
But Gerard can’t hear anything anymore, for the sound of his own blood screaming in his ears. He stumbles back out into the winter air, feeling numb. Somehow he finds his way home.
*
Gerard is on the beach. Everything is black and white, contrast reversed: he’s living in the negative of a photograph. It’s supposed to be summer, supposed to be sunny. Frank is supposed to be splashing in the surf, laughing and alive. In his arms he holds a lifeless form, skin thick and slippery as a dead seal. He’s cried so hard it’s torn his throat out and he can no longer make a sound.
It was an accident. He doesn’t understand. Frank was such a strong swimmer. Frank’s eyes are open but they do not see. Frank’s chest is waterlogged. His lungs do not move. His lips are so blue.
Frankie, Frankie, wake up, Frankie. Are Gee’s lips even moving? Is there any sound coming out? He’s underwater. They’re both underwater. He’s going to fall forever. He dives for the bottom. He wants to drown.
*
He’s crying so hard he can’t see anymore by the time Mikey picks up the phone. Gee’s breathing is ragged. He woke up with his eyes already swollen shut from tears. His cheeks are so crusted with salt he may as well have been pulled from the bottom of the sea.
“I can’t remember,” he gasps into the phone. “I don’t remember the funeral. Where did we bury him, Mikey? I need—I remember, I remember when he went, I pulled him from the surf and he wouldn’t breathe, I tried CPR and it was kissing a corpse, I just don’t—how can I not remember where he’s buried?”
Mikey sounds so worried, so scared. Gerard is nearly sobbing too hard to hear him. “Who’s buried? Who died?”
“Frank,” Gerard manages. “My—Frank.”
Mikey curses under his breath. The sounds are eaten up by Gerard’s tears. “I told you, Ray told you, even fucking Google told you—you don’t know anyone named Frank, Gee. You don’t.”
“When did we start lying to each other, Mikey?” Gerard yells. “I remember him!”
It’s not til he throws his phone across the room and watches it fly to pieces that Gerard realizes he’s in the big bedroom. He definitely, one hundred percent, did not go to bed here. He’s woken in an entirely different room.
*
Gerard’s on the couch writing while Frank clatters around in the kitchen behind him. “You’re cooking, I hope,” Gerard says. “I’m starving.”
Frank’s laugh is light on the air. “You would perish without me,” he teases. “Seriously, what would you do in the wild?”
“Forage for food in local gas stations, just like I did before I knew you,” Gerard says. “And eat dinner at my mom’s a lot.”
“Well, tonight it’s lasagna. For strong bones. Hope you’re hungry.”
“Starving,” repeats Gerard. He knows that as long as he doesn’t turn around, he can have this. It’s when he tries to see Frank that he loses him. So he writes, bent over his notebook on the couch, and listens to the sounds and light cursing of Frank cooking behind him. The sun sets slowly, the little house growing dark, and the presence of Frank gets stronger. Soon he can smell lasagna in the air. By full dark, a weight settles into the couch beside him. Gee puts down his notebook, closes his eyes, and leans into Frank’s side. Frank drapes an arm over his shoulder and pulls him in closer.
Gerard feels lips brush against first one eyelid, then another. His eyes flutter open and Frank is staring down at him. “You’ve got bags under your eyes,” he says. “Haven’t you been sleeping?”
“Excessively. Ten hours a night, and I keep falling asleep during the day. Easier to dream of you, isn’t it, when I’m sleeping?”
Frank’s brow is furrowed, his mouth tugging into a frown. “You need to take care of yourself, Gee.”
“You take care of me,” says Gerard.
Frank is shaking his head. Gerard grows colder. He closes his eyes again, leans in to kiss the frown off Frank’s face, but he just keeps going. His lips brush the leather of the couch. Gerard is alone.
*
Gerard’s got this erection that won’t go away. He’s stressed out, he’s losing his mind, he’s already lost track of what’s real and what’s not, but—fuck if he’s not horny.
In the bathroom next to the creepy tub, etched deep into the half-rotted wood of the windowsill and flaking where it’s been painted over, he finds the initials F + G outlined in a jagged heart. He rubs the pad of his thumb over the letters, not like discovery, but like memory. The fact that he can touch it makes it seem more real.
The fact that he can touch himself makes him seem more real.
Gerard’s head tips back, his eyes squeezed shut, and as he pulls his dick in long strokes, he imagines that he’s not alone. He imagines Frank’s voice in his ear, saying, “Let me help.” He imagines Frank kneeling on the tile. He imagines Frank’s mouth, and he feels it. Frank takes Gerard’s hand off his shaft and squeezes, crushing Gee’s fingers in his urgency. Frank’s mouth is messy, wet and overeager, and his fingers torque so deeply into Gerard’s hip that he knows he’ll bruise.
Frank blows him, or else he gets himself off, and it doesn’t matter. Either way Gerard comes so hard he sees colors, and Frank wipes his mouth on the back of his hand and stands on shaky legs to tip his forehead against Gerard’s, and he smells like that damn aftershave. Their chests press, breath from Gerard’s lungs brushing Frank’s parted lips, and he can feel Frank’s dick stir against his hipbones, and it doesn’t matter what’s real. It only matters that they’re together. It only matters that they have this time.
*
He remembers, vividly, breaking his phone against a wall, so Gerard is more surprised than anyone when he wakes up to it ringing. Or does he wake up? He’s on the couch, hungry and cold. He can no longer remember if he was asleep, if he’s ever slept in his life.
He picks up the phone off the living room table, where he did not put it. He answers, “Hello?”
“Gerard, your brother is very concerned about you.” It’s his mom. It takes Gerard a minute to fit his head around her voice in this space. He doesn’t know anymore if he’s in a love story or a ghost story, doesn’t know if it’s the bones of this house that are haunted or if it’s just his heart. His mother, though: she is the sound of life. She is the lighthouse that steered him through the rocks, time and again. Each time he broke open, it was his mother who brought him home. She picked him up from the hospitals, drove him to follow-up appointments, counted his pills, cooked his meals, changed his sheets. She was the lifesaving constant in his universe, til he met Frank. If he met Frank. It’s all so jumbled now.
“We had a fight, kind of,” he says. “About—Ma, do you remember Frank?”
“I don’t want to have this conversation with you, honey.”
“What conversation? It’s not a conversation. It’s just one question.”
“I just want you to focus on coping.” His mom sounds like she’s about to cry.
“Coping with what?”
“What?”
“You said coping. What am I supposed to be coping with?”
“I meant, I want you to focus on your book. None of these wild goose chases or ghost stories or distractions. That’s all.”
Gerard stares at his phone in outright suspicion and mistrust. His mother remembers Frank, she’s just trying to steer him away from the topic. Frank is real. Frank is—was—Mikey got to her. They’re working together to keep the truth from him. To protect him from whatever happened. To protect him from his own memories. It’s the only explanation.
It’s the only explanation, unless Gerard is losing his mind.
“What’s crazier, Ma? That I’m falling in love with a boy who’s already dead, or that you and Mikey and even Ray are in on—on some conspiracy to keep me from my own memories?” Gerard laughs in spite of himself. “Really, I’m asking your opinion. Which of those sounds more fucking nuts?”
“We thought it would be good for you to get away, after… what happened. But I think you should come back home now, Gerard. Let us take care of you. I’m worried about you out there all alone.”
“Frank’s here. I’m not alone.”
Gerard notices that she didn’t answer the question. The last thing he’s going to do is turn himself in, hand himself over to her custody. He has hickeys on his body in places his mouth doesn’t reach. No one can explain this, least of all Gerard. He can’t even trust his own senses, how can he possibly trust anyone else?
Gerard, pacing in his agitation, looks up and catches the sight of Frank disappearing down the hall. He’s heading for the bedroom, their bedroom, the one they slept in the summer they rented this house together. And Gee knows that more than what’s real, more than what’s true, what he wants is to follow Frank.
“I’m getting off the phone now,” Gerard tells his mother.
“Honey—”
But he’s already hung up the phone. He drops it on the table, or throws it out the window, or it never existed at all.
He follows Frank down the hall. Their bedroom door is ajar. He doesn’t need to look in the room to know what he’ll find there. Some things, you just feel. Some things, you just know.
*
Frank’s standing in their room, staring out the window at the barren grey sands. “The beach is so empty at this time of year,” he says, not turning around.
Gee crosses the room and fits himself against Frank’s back, tucking his chin over Frank’s shoulder. “But our house is warm, and our hearts are full.”
Frank leans into him. He sounds less sure than Gerard has ever heard him, if Gerard has ever heard him. “Babe, when are we going home? Haven’t we on vacation too long? We should have jobs. I—I don’t remember what I do. I have a job, right? That’s what people do, and I’m a person, so—”
Gerard lifts one of Frank’s hands, studying the callused fingertips in the light. “You’re a musician,” he says, and it’s true, he remembers. The day they met, Frank bought him coffee and invited him to a show. Gee didn’t quite believe it wasn’t a trap—what did a boy who looked like Frank want with him that didn’t end in violence and ignominy?—but he went anyway. Frank isn’t the type of person you just resist. He went, and he hung around the bar pounding $7 whiskey sodas, and he thought Frank had stood him up til the show started, and there was Frank onstage. It was a powerful, destructive show. Frank crashed across the stage like a force of nature, breaking himself apart. He was bleeding from at least two places by the time the set was done. He stepped off the side of the stage and Gee was waiting. Frank smiled, blood on his teeth, and Gerard was done for. “You’re really good,” he squeaked, and Frank kissed him there in front of everyone, and that was it. Sealed by blood. Gerard belonged to him. Gerard’s belonged to him ever since.
Frank coughs, his chest shuddering, and a spray of cold ocean water hits their interlaced hands. Gerard can’t deal with this, so he turns Frank around, away from the window, away from the sea. Frank’s lips are blue, so Gerard kisses warmth back into them, kisses Frank’s lips and eyelids and cheeks til they pink back to life. Frank kisses him back like it’s life-rescuisitating, and his hands shake so badly with Gee’s buttons that one pops off, and his body is cold til Gerard touches it, and then they’re both warm, and the places they touch bring each of them back to life.
“We can’t stay here,” Frank whispers.
Gerard pushes him back onto the bed, stares seriously back into Frank’s frightened eyes. “We can live forever, if you’ve got the time,” he promises. Frank said that to him once, and so he believes it. He leans down, kisses Frank’s cool mouth. Frank kisses back. Outside it’s winter, but inside this house, they cast their own sunlight. They make their own warmth. The cold can’t touch them, no matter how icy Frank’s fingers feel on Gerard’s back.
*
Gee falls asleep wrapped around Frank, their legs tangled up, his arm going numb beneath the weight of Frank’s dark head. He falls asleep, or else doesn’t. He holds his lover tight. He wakes up in the sea.
He’s drowning, he thinks. The water slaps his chest, stings his eyes, each drop an icepick. He’s naked, it’s dark, it’s November. Summer is over and he’s not a strong swimmer. Undertow, lively and hot, sucks at his ankles. He kicks, but he can’t see the shore. He slips under, gulps water, his lungs so fiery he expects to see them light up like a smith’s forge, the one point of heat in all this cold dark. He breaks the surface but only barely, his lips gasping and grazing air. He spits salt back into the sea and the sea spits salt back into him. He claws at the water, trying to stay on top of it, but it drags him down again. Which way is up, anyway? He swims in the direction of bursting stars, before he realizes that’s just his vision exploding with the absence of oxygen. He breathes in water again and again. His head breaks the surface, til it doesn’t anymore. His lips kiss the frigid air and freeze, til they slip under. He fights for life, til he stops.
In the big bedroom in the little house, in the bed he left, his Frank lies sleeping. Or else he doesn’t. Seawater and seaweed tangle the sheets where he once imagined a boy to be. Or else it doesn’t.
Gee swims until he can’t anymore. Then he sinks.
*
“Let’s go to the seaside,” Frank greets him.
Gerard’s day at work was long and brutal, but the way Frank’s face lights up like the kid swallowed a string of stars never fails to lift his spirits. Frank meets him at the door of the one bedroom apartment they can barely afford, kisses him on the corner of his mouth, and pulls him deeper inside. His laptop is open on the table, pictures of a vacation rental in Mystic, Connecticut pulled up. “Let’s run away. Let’s spend the summer in the sun. Let’s forget about our lives for a while. It will be good for you. It will be good for both of us.”
Gerard laughs, happy to fantasize. Frank is a dream every single day. He can’t believe he ever met a person like this, can’t believe he’s lucky enough to love him. He can’t imagine his life without Frank in it: what a fucking mess he’d be. He was on a bad road, when Frank found him. He’d hate to meet the version of him that kept walking it.
“I’ll be a fisherman,” Gerard suggests, nuzzling against Frank’s neck, “and you can work in a cotton candy shop on the boardwalk. I’ll bring you seashells and you’ll come home smelling like spun sugar, tasting sweet—”
Frank kisses him again and pushes him away. He guides Gee to sit at the table, to look at the rental on the screen. “I mean it. It’s ours for the month of August. Quit your job, run away with me.”
“We can’t—”
“We’ll figure out the consequences when we get back. We only live this one life, Gee. I want to spend a summer by the sea with you, and it’s nonrefundable anyway, so if you say no, you’re the one throwing away my savings.”
Gerard is glad he’s sitting down, because he’d fall over if he wasn’t. “You’re insane. I think you’re dangerous,” he tells Frank.
Frank sits close enough in the other chair that their knees brush. He’s so excited, it rolls off him in golden waves. It’s hard to resist, hard to stay sensible and grounded in the face of his eager glow. Gerard’s not sure why he’s trying so hard to stay grounded anyway. Why not let himself be swept away for once? Why not let this boy carry him away like the tide? He’s always liked the sea. He’s always dreamed of being able to afford a summer on the beach, his beautiful boyfriend and their own slice of ocean.
“Only as dangerous as any other boy,” Frank tells him. “Say yes, Gee.”
“Yes. Of course yes.” Gerard is laughing, caught up in Frank’s easy, impractical joy. “I’ll follow you anywhere, Frankie.”
“Forever and ever and always,” Frank says, and kisses him to seal it. No one’s lips are bloody, but it’s an enchantment all the same.
Clear-eyed like ice, sure like winter, it’s up to Gee to decide what’s real. Frank takes him by the hand, and they go to the sea together. Their hearts will stay forever. They’re gonna stay in love somehow.