Date: Sat, 23 Oct 2004 09:05:38 EDT
From: PrismSentence@aol.com
Subject: Refracted Light Part 3

Refracted Light

III. Rising Moon

1.

	Matthew gazed out the dormitory windows, arms folded over his
chest, and shivered as he contemplated the cold just beyond the
glass. There was little down there now, the quad deserted, only the odd
students on the footpaths that hugged the red-bricked buildings. He watched
a group of three pass under the bare, thick limbs of the oaks and make
their way towards the science building standing opposite of Martin Hall. He
squinted and shaded his eyes. The sun, weak as it was on this late February
afternoon, was all painful and bright in his eyes.

	He drew the blinds, let the cascading plastic blot out the
light. He turned towards the dim room behind him, towards the walls and bed
covered in half-shadow. His eyes were drawn to the mess of pages on his
desk, to the crude sketches and drawings that had been distracting him from
his studies. Try as he might to absorb Kant, he found his pencil sliding
across the page, gently at first, then darkening as the details poured
across the paper, animated by a will and a hand that seemed little like his
own.

	First came the eyes with the thick lashes, and the lightest shading
over the irises. He wanted colored pencils there, but doubted he could
capture the deep-water green. Then he delineated the darker, denser
eyebrows and the slight furrow between them. His hand moved across the
lined paper in his philosophy notebook, but all he knew was that he was
touching Alex's face as best as he could allow himself, knowing him in this
way when he wouldn't allow himself to touch actual flesh.

	How many hours had passed this way over the last two weeks? How
often did he do sums for statistics, only to find himself drawing those
eyes again, and crumpling half-completed homework and tossing it away,
because the lips that suddenly appeared in the margin were too wide, too
thin, too thick? Now and then another face entirely appeared, but he ripped
those into a hundred pieces the moment he realized what he was doing.

	Now he stood in the dark room staring at those pages, illuminated
only by his desk lamp. He sighed, hugged his chest, and sat down at the
desk. He pulled the papers into a neat stack, one by one, and set them to
the side. Driven to distraction. He looked down at that face, that
unblinking face that stared back, and he felt as lonely and pathetic as
ever.

	He had tried to gather himself after that night under the
footbridge. Tried studying, tried eating, tried resuming a social life. But
the notebooks were filling up with Alex's eyes, and the turkey sandwiches
didn't taste so good anymore, and his friends seemed less a comfort than an
idle threat, especially when they asked him questions.

	He hadn't seen Emily or Sean in three days, and that was just fine
with Matthew. He wasn't forced to tell them nothing was wrong, that he felt
just fine, that he wasn't sick, wasn't depressed, and wasn't stressed over
classes. They brought him food once in awhile from the little shop near the
union, and he let it pile around the small fridge in the corner of his
room. Little stacks of instant noodles, cans of soda, and a few bananas
that had gone spotted brown lay forgotten during the long nights spent
conjuring Alex on the page and listening to the quiet of his self-imposed
isolation.

	Matthew reached into his shirt pocket and withdrew the little card
Alex had given him. He laid it on the desk. The paper was creased and
folded, the blue ink smeared and nearly illegible from all the times he had
crumpled it in a damp fist full of indecision. He had thrown the little
ball into the plastic trashcan countless times, only to retrieve it
immediately and place it on the desk once again. When the numbers became
too smudged to make out clearly, he transcribed them onto a fresh sheet of
paper and stashed it away in his sock drawer. He hid them underneath the
boxers he wore the night they'd met.

	Now, his eyes moved between the card and the phone. He traced the
numbers from the paper to the numbers on the dial. It was simple to reach
over and pick up the receiver, to hear the dial tone drone endlessly on
until the automated voice came, and then the horrid screeching that hurt
his ear until the final, deadening silence. His fingers knew only that
tight, hesitant fist, unable or unwilling to quicken and push the buttons
that would bring Alex's voice to him.

	Matthew tossed the receiver onto the desk and ran his hands through
his hair, clutched at the black tangle in pure frustration. A small hiccup
leapt from his throat, the barest fraction of the sob he held in, the
smallest sign of the hurt that came with eyes rimmed in tears. He could not
do this thing, could not call out to Alex as he wanted, could not cross the
boundaries of self-possession he had spent the past three years drawing
across the landscape of his soul.

	He spent hours hunched over the desk, his mind quiet like Sundays
were quiet. There was no thinking left in him, only the dull ache of
feeling, of a heart wrung out by hands of fear. His eyes remained fixed on
the stack of pages full of Alex, but he didn't see them. His ears took in
the sounds of the dorm, of students calling each other down the halls, of a
brief conversation in the bathroom across the hall, but the words didn't
register.

	The small heater by the window whirred to life. Matthew sighed as
the warmth coursed through the room. He rested his cheek against his folded
hands and gradually slid into sleep.

2.

	"Late, Matt. Very, very late," Matthew whispered to himself as
picked his way through the undergrowth of the forest. He hadn't counted on
having to mow the lawn. He had charged back and forth across the yard that
afternoon, and after his father inspected his rapid work, Matthew charged
back and forth again. He didn't wait for a second inspection. Instead, he
stuffed the mower into the rusted metal shed and raced down the street
towards the forest preserves.

	Matthew's blue shirt snagged an outgrowth of unruly thorns. He
tugged on it in frustration, and then frowned when the ripping sound came
and a long gash appeared along the side. It was never easy to reach the
secret place where they met almost every day after school and on
weekends. There were no horse trails or bike paths in these woods. Only the
thick underbrush and a few hilly markers to find his way as weeds and ivy
lashed his bare legs.

	As he drew closer to the spot, he slowed to a crawl and crept
towards the edge of a steep drop. Parting long grasses and weeds, he peered
down into a crevice, smiling as he saw a mop of blonde hair bob in time to
a tinny beat scratching out of a set of cheap headphones.

	Matthew leapt down into the crevice.

	Justin Nowicki, all sky blue eyes and white teeth, grinned as
Matthew landed next to him. Justin looked up with an amused expression as
if he had fully expected Matthew to materialize in front of him just as he
did. "You're never going to get the drop on me, O'Brien," he said as he
took off the headphones. "Give it up."

	Matthew flicked Justin's shoulder and sat down on a small boulder
opposite his friend. The tingling that came whenever they met began
spreading through his chest. Good to be away from home. To be here. With
him. Now I can smile, too. "I think I killed my shirt," he said, turning to
show Justin. "Mess."

	"Mess is good." Justin's hand touched the rip in the shirt,
explored its length. Soft fingers brushed Matthew's skin. The hand reached
through the tear and came to rest on his stomach. "Man, look what you did."

	They were alone in this place, but Matthew felt uneasy. There had
been close calls before, no matter how isolated they seemed out here. He
tensed and put his hand over the Justin's. "Not now, Jus. I heard noises a
little ways back."

	Justin ignored him as his fingers moved over Matthew's chest,
twisted a nipple playfully. "It's probably a deer. Fawns are out now."
Justin kissed Matthew on the cheek. "I'm glad you made it."
	Matthew was glad too. Overjoyed, in fact. "Not easy," he said with
great emphasis. "My dad's in the middle of a two-caser weekend and the
grass was pissing him off."

	Justin took his hand out of Matthew's shirt and began stroking his
thigh. "Not again. Didn't you just cut it on Wednesday? That's the second
time in four days."

	"Third," Matthew corrected. "I missed a few blades on the second go
round." He didn't want to talk about his father just then. "What about you?
Been waitin' long? Get the stuff?"

	"Pfft, did I get the stuff he asks me," Justin teased as he crawled
into the back of the crevice.

	They had discovered this place several years before while
exploring. Water might have once run over the drop and down the incline, or
perhaps some animal had burrowed into the side of the hill. Either way, a
large pit had been cut diagonally into the ground. Only the scarcest slant
of light pierced the wild bushes along the edges. A creek lay far below, a
silver ribbon curling through the oaks and sugar maples.

	Over the course of their twelfth summer, the boys had molded the
dirt walls and moved the stones and boulders to their satisfaction. Justin
had even dug holes into the sides and lined them with wood for their own
personal storage. While other kids nailed together ramshackle forts up in
the neighborhood trees, Justin and Matthew had carved out this place for
themselves from the very earth itself.

	Justin let out a small, triumphant laugh. He emerged from the back
of the crevice and threw a paper bag down at Matthew's feet. A blue bottle
tumbled out along with a half-smashed pack of Mrs. Nowicki's
cigarettes. "Not easy," Justin said, just how Matthew had a few moments
before. "But I don't think they'll miss it. I pinched it from a table
during my sister's twenty-first." He picked up the bottle.

	Matthew watched Justin unscrew the cap, tilt his head back, and
take a long swallow of rippling sapphire light. He grimaced, coughed a
little, and handed the bottle to Matthew. "Go."

	Matthew hated alcohol, hated vodka. He stared into the open bottle,
afraid he would throw up just from thinking about the taste. Like drinking
liquid bile. But his friend was smiling now and flushing from the
warmth. And what came after was always worth it. He took a drink and
clenched his stomach as his throat burned and his eyes watered.

	"It's awful," Matthew choked.

	"You have no taste." Justin grabbed the bottle and took another
long pull. "You just have to get it in you. Then you're all done and you
can enjoy it." He leaned back and sighed.

	They passed the bottle back and forth this way until it was
empty. Then came Justin's mom's cigarettes. Those were better than the
vodka, the smoke smooth and cool in Matthew's throat even though the rest
of him had gone numb. They smoked and laughed and stumbled around until the
shafts of sun sank sideways into the western canopy of the woods.

	Matthew grew silent and drunker in the gray twilight. He listened
to Justin talk about his parents ("assholes") and his older sister ("a
total bitch"). The words slurred in Matthew's ears. He fell into listening
to the sound of his friend's voice, to that strange rhythm and almost raspy
tenor.

	Matthew found himself staring as Justin sat on a rock and related
his life story for the billionth time. Matthew studied his friend's calves,
his knees, his smooth, tanned thighs, and the gap in the leg of his red
shorts. Too dark to see anything there, but Matthew certainly knew more
than enough to form an image in his mind.

	Matthew liked this. Lived for this. To sit alone with Justin in the
dark and listen to him talk. To take in his friend's face and eyes, the
muscles still forming on Justin's fifteen year old frame. To reach over now
and then and touch the light blonde hair just beginning to show on his
friend's arms. And, alcohol or no, when Justin's hands were on him, and
Justin touched him and kissed him, and made him feel not so alone
anymore. That was life itself to Matthew.

	"You haven't been listening to a word I've said." Justin reached
out in the dark and gently scratched the front of Matthew's shorts. "Uh
huh. I figured."

	The hardness between Matthew's legs twitched. He smiled and reached
between Justin's legs to feel if there was hardness there as well. There
was.

	Suddenly, Justin stood and lifted a dizzy Matthew to his
feet. Justin's lips briefly pressed against Matthew's. "I've got the best
idea. Come on."

	The two friends scrambled out of the crevice and staggered into the
woods. Matthew watched Justin's white sneakers flash in and out of his
vision as they half-jogged below the tall, black trunks of the oaks. His
own feet seemed to catch every root and bramble as they passed deeper into
the forest, Justin pulling him along. "Where we goin, Jus?"

	"To the grove!" Justin panted.

	Matthew came to an abrupt halt, jerking Justin back. Matthew could
feel sweat running down his chest like acid as his heart sputtered and
pounded in alarm. He tasted salt on his upper lip. A low buzzing sound
thrummed in the center of his brain. "The grove? Now? Are you crazy?!" His
voice sounded hysterical in his own ears, but then hysteria was exactly
what a trip to the grove at night warranted.

	Justin pulled Matthew close and ran his hands up and down his wet
back. "It'll be great. I've always wanted to do it. I bet you cum harder
when you're scared."

	Scared? Nearly petrified into sobriety was nearer the
mark. Thoughts of the grove, with its giant green lagoon and dilapidated
cemetery ran wild through Matthew's mind. Walking among the broken columns,
obelisks, and crumbling markers in full sunlight was daunting enough. But
in the dark? "Justin, no, seriously."

	Justin leaned in and kissed Matthew's neck, licked at the sweat on
his collarbone, pressed his erection against Matthew's thigh. "Come on,
Matt. It'll be great."

	Matthew's knees nearly gave under this assault. He swallowed and
held onto Justin's shoulders, folded into him and trembled. "Ok, Jus. Ok."

3.

	Matthew awoke in his dorm room with a start. His sweater had soaked
through. His hair was matted and wet. He wiped the four-year-old memory out
of his eyes. "Justin," he whispered hoarsely.

	Had it happened just like that back then? Of course, it had
to. There was little he could forget about those years with Justin, of
spending all those days and nights at their secret place in the woods.

	Matthew picked up the discarded phone receiver from the desk and
placed it on the cradle. Confused images of Alex mixed with Justin flashed
in front of his eyes. And here he was, thoroughly drenched in sweat, and
the room stifling as the heater continued to pump hot air.

	He grabbed his keys and left his room. He jabbed the elevator
buttons with damp, impatient fingers. He ignored people on the way
down. Paying no mind to how he looked, he hastened across the crowded
student union, threw open the glass double doors, and passed into the cold
night air beyond.

* * *

	Matthew watched as wisps of steam rose from his sweater and
dissolved against the sky. He had lost feeling in his arms and legs, but
the motion of the waves was lulling him to sleep. So easy to stay out here
and think of Justin, think of Alex. He reached up to touch his hair and
found it stiff. It was as frozen as he felt; as frozen as everything else
out here on the lake, on the little floe of ice he lay upon.

	His dark blue eyes became slits as he contemplated the stars. He
squinted, as if looking at the magic-eye puzzles from his childhood. He
willed himself to look past the stars, to see the sky in three dimensions,
as if there was shape and substance to all those tiny pinpricks of light
against the flat, black expanse above.

	"Should I ask what you're doing?"

	Matthew felt the floe tilt as someone stepped onto it. A cigarette
was slid between his lips and lit for him. He took a long drag and blew the
smoke skywards, his eyes never moving, never blinking. "I'm regarding the
stars."

	"Are they regarding you back?" Sean sat down next to Matthew on the
ice and lit his own cigarette. "Or is that a stupid question?"

	"Probably. To both." Matthew sat up and rested his elbows on his
knees, shrugged the chill from his shoulders. "What are you doing out
here?"

	Sean laughed and flicked an ash into the water. "Lucky me, I'm on
Matt Patrol. That's what Emily calls it. It was my turn to sit in the union
and wait to see if you ever left your room. Which you did. So now I get to
freeze my ass off on a Friday night. Thanks for that."

	"I didn't ask . . ."

	Sean waved him off. "Yeah, yeah. You didn't ask. Emily ordered. And
since she said she'd tear my balls off if I didn't help watch you, here I
am. Because, you know, I like my balls. And so do a couple other
people. We're all very happy with them staying just where they are."

	"Man-whore."

	"Drama queen."

	Matthew smiled. He even laughed a little in spite of himself. He
had sought cold isolation, but now felt the ice in his soul melting at the
sound of Sean's voice.

	"So are you going to tell me what's up?"

	Matthew glanced over. Sean's hazel eyes were looking across the
lake, looking at the mounds and swells of the winter waters. "Just thinking
is all. Everyone needs to sit down and think once in awhile."

	Sean began gesturing with his cigarette in what he must've thought
was a scholarly fashion. "Matt, we're in college. All we do is think all
day long, right?"

	"Right," Matthew replied.

	"It seems to me, if anything, that we need to sit down and stop
thinking. All that thinking, it rots your brain. What's the use of filling
up your head if it all spills right back out again? No one needs that
shit. You have to slow down a little and let it absorb. Like beer."

	"Like beer?" Matthew rolled his eyes.

	Sean nodded firmly. "Like beer. See, you drink beer, and nothing
really happens at first. So you drink more and more. Eventually you feel
it. Eventually everything's real nice. And that's good. You keep the good
parts, and piss out all the extra you don't need. But if you drink too
much, then it's mess. Then it's no fun, because you have no idea who you're
with or what you're doing. Then you're just groping some chick you just
met, but you're not really having fun. You're just doing it. You're not
getting anything out of it."

	Matthew turned and blinked at Sean. "I don't think I'm following
this."

	Sean shrugged. "It sounded good in my head."

	"And then you opened your mouth."

	"And then I opened my mouth." Sean laughed. "Fuck you."

	Matthew teasingly nudged his friend. "Maybe I do get what you're
saying. If you take in too much information, it gets all jumbled and
useless."

	Sean nodded vigorously. "Yes, exactly."

	Matthew smiled to himself. "Well done, professor."

	Sean raised his hands to the sky and let out a mock cheer. "I
impress the hell out of myself sometimes."

	"And you confuse the hell out of everyone else." Matthew tossed his
cigarette into the water.

	"That's the best part. When they're confused, they never see you
comin. Score." Sean threw his cigarette after Matthew's. "So what are you
thinking about out here anyway?"

	Matthew felt the inner frost begin to creep again. He
shrugged. "The grove, oddly enough."

	Sean fell quiet for a long moment. Matthew could almost hear him
reaching for the memory. "The grove, huh? I haven't thought about that
place in years. What got you thinking about that?"

	Matthew shrugged again. "It was such a mystery while we were
growing up. I was thinking how it represented the unknown for me for the
longest time. And how the unknown was frightening. There were ghosts in
there, and the dead. What you didn't know was scary."

	Sean began tapping his shoes together, for warmth perhaps. "It
couldn't have been that unknown to you. I seem to remember you going up
there all the time."

	Matthew's heart ached. He pursed his lips and felt himself lapsing
towards the silence that had shrouded him from other people these past few
weeks. He made a concerted effort to beat it back. "I did go up there all
the time. But there was still the unknown. We never swam in the lagoon. We
always said we would, but we never did."

	Sean chuckled under his breath. "Well, yeah. That's only because
you were never that stupid and I was never that crazy."

	Matthew rubbed his hands together. "I always wondered if the
stories were true. Maybe if I had tried to find out, it wouldn't have been
such a scary place."

	Sean wrapped his arms around himself. "So what did you do up there
all that time if you weren't trying to figure out if the stories were
true?"

	Matthew closed his eyes and pressed his fingers against them. "Not
much."

	"Right," Sean said. "So you sat up there afraid of the unknown and
never did too much about it?"

	"That's about the sum of it," Matthew replied, wishing the lump in
his throat would go away.

	"What a shittin waste of time." Sean stood and shook himself all
over. Matthew knew this was the universal dramatic signal that Sean was too
cold and ready to leave. "And this is a waste of time, too. You need to get
out. Here doesn't count. Don't look at me like that. It's Friday night and
there are parties. Get your ass in gear."

	Well, why not? Matthew thought. Why the hell not? He got up off the
ice. He tried to rub feeling back into his limbs. His sweater had become
just as stiff as his hair. "I need to shower and change first."

	Sean rolled his eyes. "You're worse than Emily sometimes, I swear."

4.

	Matthew held a plastic cup full of beer between his knees as he sat
against a wall watching Sean dance with Mandy to a driving club mix full of
piano trills and a histrionic voice. How many weeks had it been, and Sean
was still interested in the same girl? Impossible. But there they danced,
and Matthew thought they looked good together. Her face was full of jungle
juice, and Sean's full of rum. Still, they seemed genuinely into each other
rather than oblivious.

	Matthew lightly knocked his head against the wall to the beat, a
cigarette dangling from his lips. He took a sip from the cup. Warm and
bitter. He didn't really want the beer or the cigarette. He dropped the
butt in the cup.

	The house was full of couples, some dancing, some trying to talk,
their mouths gaping like fish as they shouted at one another over the
music. Something about a boy and girl on the couch across the room caught
Matthew eye. The young man's hand stroked the girl's leg while her head
nestled under his arm. At least a dozen others shouted, sang, danced, and
stomped around them while they serenely took in the scene. Every few
minutes, the boy bent down to place a soft kiss on the girl's lips.

	Matthew rose and eyed Sean while Sean eyes Mandy. No worries on
that account. Matthew retreated into the kitchen and picked up the phone
and dialed the number he knew by heart, hoping there would be an answer,
and hoping he didn't have to scream bloody murder to be heard over the
party, to relate what he needed to.

* * *

	Matthew stood by the plastic kiosk with the broken clock just in
front of Martin Hall. He rubbed his hands together continuously during the
fifteen minutes he spent waiting. He paced around the kiosk. He tried to
read the tattered and waterlogged bulletins posted on the plastic
postmodern monstrosity.

	A hand came down on his shoulder and gave it a soft squeeze.

	Matthew turned around and found himself staring into those green
eyes, the ones he couldn't quite capture on paper. Something inside him
cracked and sloughed away, fell onto the floor full of forgotten nothings.

	He looked at Alex Pendleton, tried to pick out the expression on
the face he knew so little and so well. And then Matthew stopped
thinking. "Ok," he said simply.

	"Ok?" Alex replied, uncertain.

	"Ok," Matthew nodded. "But slow. For now." He grabbed the thick
leather belt around Alex's waist and pulled him along as he turned and
walked towards the dorm.

End Part III

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