Summer Sons

by Lee Mandelo

Andrew monstrously pleased to know he hadn’t been cast off, hadn’t been left behind, that Eddie still wanted him in his final moment, even if he’d failed him in the grandest possible sense.

Subdued, Luca had said, and he thought he maybe understood a glimmer of what she was trying to explain to him.

Something akin to disdain, there and gone.

They’ve always had a famous connection to the supernatural, you know,” she allowed, smiling like a conspirator.

“I remember the search, because my youngest was your age then. Edward’s parents were distraught. It was such a relief when you were both found.”

It was the second time they’d been alone. In the ambient light, the square cut of Sam’s jaw was ghostly familiar.

Andrew had done this more times than he could count, with a different man at his side.

Eddie were driving, he might’ve reached across the console to grab Andrew’s knee. He’d have dug his thumb into the notch on the outside for a moment of grounding discomfort.

conducting from their hands on the stag’s skull to the swelling neglected thing in Andrew’s belly with an agonized ripple.

Andrew was struck again at the chameleon effect of his roommate: one minute a grubby punk with an ugly, fast car, the next a svelte young academic. The contradiction made his skin crawl with sympathy. He had to fit in somehow.

The disappointment outweighed his understanding that the lack of material was also significant.

He’d kissed that mouth more times than he could count. He’d watched Eddie do the same.

“I saw those fucking tattoos and all I could think was that he’d marked you. The three of us were supposed to be … working on something together, but neither of you would’ve ever thought to give me a goddamn tattoo. Neither of you really gave a shit about me except as a conduit for the feelings you weren’t going to talk about.”

He was yours. “Andrew, yes it was like that,” she said. He scrounged for something to say, and found a meager offering: “I did love you.” But I loved him more.

“You know, I came to the dorm one night and let myself in, back when we were together, and he was in bed with you. You were asleep. He was running his hand through your hair and he had his mouth on your neck. He made some pretty serious eye contact. It wasn’t friendly. I left. I don’t know why I never brought it up until now.”

The phantom image of Eddie kissing him in his sleep was doing something to his insides he didn’t appreciate.

“Instead you fucked me, and then he fucked me, and then both of you fucked me together, and it was great until I realized you were using me like a goddamn sex doll. You two used me because he wouldn’t admit what you were, and neither would you. He used me to be with you. I deserve better than that. I deserved better then, and I deserve better now. I’m a person, Andrew.” Did we do that? he thought. Out loud he asked, “How long have you been saving this up?” “Years, probably. You fucked me up good.”

He was head over heels for you, and everyone knew but you, and maybe him. No, I think he knew. I think he hated seeing you with me, so he got himself involved.”

that old scene was less of a beautiful coming-together and more an opportunity they’d taken advantage of.

He hadn’t realized, and that was her whole point.

No one else was Eddie, and no one else held him the same as Eddie had.

He gnawed on the sore patch of skin over his wrist bone and tried to pack it all into the box where he kept the things they didn’t talk about, didn’t even fucking think about, but it wouldn’t go back neat.

Raw vulnerability stung at his nerves, but he had to delegate.

grinned to see him there, and started to whistle as he crossed the street to his car.

He saw it how Del saw it, for a moment: a claim, not a bond.

He wasn’t cut out for the life he’d inherited. It should’ve been him, not Eddie, in the ground.

Both of them were spoiled enough to assume they’d be their own undoing, he guessed, but Eddie had paid the price.