Free Beneath the Stain - Part 3 by Amy Lane Page B

the damned sidewalk alone.

When the Levee Breaks
     
     
    Stefan Olsdal , Trav texted.
    Mackey rolled his eyes. Duh.
    Billie Joe Armstrong.
    Really? Mackey was surprised.
    He’s bi. Says it shouldn’t be a big deal.
    Note to self: Buy FOREVERLY. Mackey owned everything else Green Day had put out. Why not?
    It’s already on your iPod.
    Oh. He couldn’t remember. I must have been high.
    I am shocked. Rob Halford. Trav wasn’t letting up.
    Who?
    Judas Priest, you heathen.
    Seriously?
    Duh!
    Well, how do you like that? Mackey had no idea.
    Michael Stipe , Trav pursued doggedly.
    I am not surprised.
    Chuck Panozzo, from Styx.
    I know who Chuck Panozzo is.
    You didn’t know who Rob Halford was!
    Mackey let out a breath. I’m not big into the Satan metal, okay?
    * sigh * Heavy metal was my one rebellion.
    You mean you didn’t just squirt out with a crew cut?
    Mackey laughed as he texted, thinking that you never did know about people. He never in the world would have suspected Trav capable of anything resembling a rebellion.
    It was all the way past my ears in high school , Trav texted, and Mackey could hear Trav’s dry, deadpan sort of humor.
    So was that before or after the Internet and the invention of the cellphone?
    Shut up.
    Mackey laughed, enjoying the idea of giving him shit. Make me.
    There was an uncomfortable silence, and Mackey rolled over to his stomach on his little bed. It was “contemplation time,” which meant that they had about an hour to themselves to read, play on the net, call their dealers (yeah, Mackey knew a few not-so-clean-and-sober folks in rehab), or generally fiddlefuck around. The doc said the idea was to give them time to get used to being by themselves. Mackey figured it was just impossible to structure everybody’s day down to the last fucking nanosecond while they tried not to think about their drug of choice. Right now, as Mackey wondered if he’d crossed the line, gone too far, poked the one guy who texted him with impunity in this human desert too hard for him to text back, he sort of longed for a Xanax.
    Please don’t give me shit about that , Trav texted, and Mackey stared at his phone for a minute. It was just so damned honest, really.
    I’m sorry . He wondered when the last chance he’d had to say that had been. I crossed the line. I’m sorry.
    I will never be okay with that, do you understand?
    Mackey sighed. This here was a fundamental disagreement. Then you will never be okay with me . And wasn’t that scary? He wanted to take it back. He had been anything for Grant, would have done anything to make it so Grant would stay with him and not Sam. When he’d been high, he’d been like an in-and-out drive-through of ass. He would have bent over for Satan if he’d had a condom.
    But he wasn’t high, and he wasn’t a kid. This… this attachment he had to Trav—it was not going to be worth anything if Trav couldn’t deal with Mackey James Sanders as God made him. Mackey could change for the better—he could learn to say “I’m sorry” and try not to piss people off quite so much—but he would never believe that people were meant to be perfect.
    Trav apparently believed he was meant to be perfect.
    Not so serious , Trav prompted.
    Mackey cocked his head, smiling a little. What in the hell does that mean?
    It’s not a philosophical disagreement if I think what I did was wrong.
    Mackey laughed. Okay. So they were going to debate—that was okay. A debate was good—it was bickering, bantering, whatever. Mackey could deal with that.
    Do you MEAN to contradict yourself? Should there be a sarcasm font I can read?
    I don’t want you to forgive guys that hit you, Mackey.
    Trav, if I hadn’t been losing my fucking nut, do you think I wouldn’t have hit you back?
    If you hadn’t been losing your fucking nut, I wouldn’t have hit you in the first place!
    So think about it like a really hard bitchslap. I had it coming.
    This whole conversation is making me