A Long List of Nevers - 22. Chapter 22

Minutes passed before Keith could gather enough courage to look at the rest of the pictures. There were more of Carl and Josh. From the slightly less bulky Carl when he was probably twenty-one to his current muscular build. The pictures spanned at least a couple of years, the latest one probably mere months ago.

Years of the two of them together.

Each one was like a bucket of cold water dousing the happy warmth he had cocooned himself in the past week. Each one was a taunt at how easily he let himself believe something that really should have been suspect from the start.

There was no way Carl could have fallen for him that quickly. No fucking way.

He wanted to tear the pictures up and pretend he had never seen it. But he knew it wasn’t going to suddenly make it go away.

Carl had been deliberately lying to him.

His mind was whirling, trying to understand why. Why would Carl lie to him and what was Josh doing in the pictures? What was Josh doing in Cronek? And the most frightening of all… what was Carl doing with Keith?

He replayed all the conversations he’s had with Carl until something came back to him:

“I only had one crush in high school… he never had any idea I even existed.”

The morning Carl had nearly been beaten up he had been staring at Josh.

Not that Keith could have blamed him. Josh had a body to die for, even then. Hooking up with Josh in his college years was probably a dream come true for Carl. Especially since by that time, Carl himself had become a god himself. He had become someone people took notice of. Chooky, the gangly, pimply, timid kid who barely had friends was long gone by then.

Trying to figure out Josh’s reasons was easier.

Josh had not been in the football team in the yearbook. He was probably outed as a result of the incident, he had hinted as much.

Keith didn’t know how exactly, but that probably had massive consequences not only on his life, but his family as well. Keith knew Josh’s family was incredibly rich. Josh’s father was a shipping magnate. They weren’t talking about a little family misunderstanding here, but probably the loss of an inheritance of hundreds of millions of dollars.

That was a motive, a reason to seek revenge.

And from what the pictures imply… Carl was the weapon.

Keith almost crumpled the pictures in his hand but stopped himself and tucked it inside his jacket instead. He carefully replaced the yearbook and made sure that everything was as he had found it before closing the drawer. He made his way back outside, turning the lights off and locking the door behind him.

“John?”

John was fiddling with his mobile phone on the steps of the verandah. He looked up when he heard his name.

“Could you take me home, please?” Keith was thankful that the darkness hid his face.

John drove him back in silence. The car was ancient since John and Brett rarely used it. The light in the car interior wasn’t working so the night effectively cloaked the turmoil of emotions on Keith’s face. When they pulled into the driveway to Keith’s house, John turned to face Keith before he could leave the car.

“You alright? Did you find anything about what that Josh guy said? Did you guys really know each other before?”

“Yeah, a lot of things that Carl should have told me.”

“But why wouldn’t he tell you?” Keith could almost see John’s forehead crinkling with puzzlement. “It sounds bad.”

“It is and I don’t know.”

“Want to talk about it? I’m dying of curiosity here, mate.” He laughed.

“Not really, sorry. Not yet.”

“Fair enough.” John sighed. “Would this mean trouble for you and Carl?”

“I don’t know. I have to talk to Carl first when he gets back. And John… I really can’t talk about it now, sorry.”

“Alright, alright.” John sighed again. “But are you going to be okay?”

“Yeah.” Keith replied quietly. “Yeah, I’m alright.”

John peered at him in the shadows for what seemed like a several minutes then shrugged. “Whatever you say. And mate… just call us if there’s trouble with this Josh guy okay? Is he threatening you or anything?”

“No. I don’t know, but I don’t think there will be trouble. He’s out now, no reason anymore for the violence thing. Though he still hasn’t outgrown being an asshole.” Keith replied, his voice sounding more confident than he felt.

John remained silent, obviously not falling for Keith’s bravado. “I really hope you and Carl will be alright as well.”

Keith didn’t reply. He opened the passenger door and let himself out. “Thanks, John. Good night.” He didn’t lean down when he said it, keeping his face out of John’s view. He closed the door and started walking to the house. He didn’t look back.

“Good night.” John called back, still frowning. He watched as Keith disappeared into the dark house. The windows lit up one by one, silhouetting Keith inside. John stayed there with the engine running for a few minutes before sighing and driving off.

As soon as Keith heard the car leave, he turned the lights back off and burrowed into his bed. He didn’t even bother taking his shoes off.

He cried himself to sleep.

The washing machine was on the fritz again. The spin dryer wasn’t moving no matter how many times he rotated the dial. Keith banged on it none too gently a couple of times before giving up. It was bloody cactus. He slammed the hatch down and stalked off into the kitchen.

Just great.

He gulped down a glass of water to calm himself. The urge to hurl the emptied glass into a wall was still there but he gritted his teeth and resisted it, He’ll probably be unemployed again soon enough, taking his frustration out on his worldly possessions would only make things worse.

Through the window he could see Caz lying on their front lawn, forehead wrinkled in concentration as she painted the scallops laid down in front of her. The morning sunlight hurt his eyes. They were still sore from last night’s crying.

Keith leaned down and splashed water on his face. He watched the water swirl down the drain, his hands gripping the edges of the sink tightly.

He whirled around and made his way to the bedroom. He didn’t feel like doing anything today. Okay he did, but it involved breaking everything in sight.

Having had time to sleep over his discovery that Carl was Chooky and was probably still romantic with Josh, the bewilderment yesterday had given way to a seesaw of emotions between sadness and anger.

At this moment, it was anger. He was almost thankful that it was a Sunday. He’d probably have trashed the bookstore.

He threw himself down on the bed.

There was also a certain surrealism in finding out that Carl was Chooky. He still couldn’t think of Carl as Chooky and vice versa. He kept thinking of them as two separate people.

Keith had been one of the few people who had ever interacted with the kid. They had never been friends though, despite Keith’s efforts. The kid would barely even look at him when talking, but Keith had gotten the impression of a certain emotional strength and razor-sharp intelligence behind those coke bottle glasses.

Chooky had been going to the nearby primary school like a lot of the kids who later took high school in Greenwell. Chooky had carried the lifelong stigma of being a weirdo long before Keith had enrolled in Greenwell. He was basically shunned, an outcast even among outcasts. Painfully shy, short, and, from the way he dressed, poor as well.

Keith had actually liked Chooky. They had shared exactly one class during his time in Greenwell, an elective marine biology classes when Keith was a junior and Chooky had been a freshman. In the last couple of months of the class, they had been partners in the final project because no one else would pair with Chooky. Keith had seen firsthand how the other students had treated Chooky, but he had never joined in. In fact, he, and a few other people (mostly those who weren’t locals unlike majority of the student body) had defended him several times.

Keith also always called out ‘g’days’ when they met on the hallways. Though Chooky’s response had been to look away, turn red, squeak something unintelligible, then hurry off.

And then of course, there had been his attempt to protect him against Josh that fateful morning.

Still, all in all, Keith couldn’t exactly say that he had known Chooky that well.

And then there was Carl - carefree, confident, and extremely attractive. The exact opposite of what Chooky was.

He had liked Chooky, however outlandish he had been, and he liked Carl… a lot. And he can’t, for the love of all things sacred, accept that they were one and the same person.

Those pictures made him realize that he never really knew any of them. All those things Carl said, his smiles, the kisses, the sex, those were things deliberately calculated to hurt him. All for his real perfect boyfriend who still held a grudge for something that was his own fault in the first place.

So why the fuck did he feel so hollow? He wanted him still. Wanted his arms around him, telling him it was alright, that the past week was real.

His arms found a nearby pillow. He hugged it tightly.

There was still the question of why though. Boyfriends or not, why would Carl do this for Josh? Surely being the kid Keith had saved, Carl at least owed him something.

He could still be wrong.

But then again, he couldn’t think of any other reasonable explanation for Carl and Josh’s presence here. And the pictures don’t lie.

One way or another, he’ll soon find out.

He fell asleep imagining that the pillow was Carl’s strong warm body.

Carl called Keith later on in the afternoon. He was probably in Exmouth by now, waiting to board the ferry back to Cronek.

Keith didn’t answer it. He was curled up on the doona, staring at his last finished painting hanging on the bedroom wall.

It was of Carl, done entirely from the memory of their ‘first’ night meeting each other in Midsummer’s. He was sitting on that pockmarked shelf of rock in Sunrise Cove, looking back over his shoulder and smiling while the moon rose ahead of him. The way Keith had remembered him that night.

He had wanted to give it as a present when Carl came back tomorrow.

The phone finally stopped its insistent ringing on the bedside table, plunging the room into silence once again.

The funny thing was, for a few seconds right after he woke up and opened his eyes earlier, he actually forgot about last night. The first thing that met his sight was the painting of Carl, and he had smiled.

Then he remembered and it all came crashing back down. The smile had suddenly felt like a rictus. In those few seconds, the feeling of despair he had been wallowing in finally crystallized into cold anger.

What were they planning to do to him in the first place? Lead him on? Ruin him financially? Kill him perhaps and dump his body into the ocean?

There was only one way to find out. He sat up on the bed and picked up the now silent phone. He called Brett up.

“Do you have Josh’s number?”

“What? Keith, is that you?”

“Yeah. I need Josh’s number. You still have it, right?”

“Keith… John told me about his visit to the bookstore yesterday. Something about Carl. Do you want to talk about it now?”

“No. Look, just give me Josh’s fucking number.”

The other end was silent for a few seconds. Keith had never spoken to Brett this way before. “Look, something is definitely wrong, but I’m not going to push you for it. Just remember we’re on your side. If you need to talk about it, you know where we are. Anyway, here.” He recited Josh’s number.

“Sorry.” Keith exhaled. “And thanks.”

“And mate?”

“Yeah?”

“Be careful around that Josh guy. I’ll be keeping an eye on him.”

“I will, don’t worry.”

Keith hung up and dialed the number Brett had given him. His fingers were steady. He wasn’t afraid this time. This bullshit had gone too fucking far.

“Hello?” Josh’s deep voice answered. He sounded a lot like Carl that for a moment Keith almost dropped the phone.

“Why are you and Carl here?” Keith demanded.

“Keith?”

“Who else, you sick fuck?”

“Why not ask him?”

“He didn’t even tell me he was Chooky.”

“Amazing how much he’s changed, isn’t it? I barely noticed him in high school.”

But you almost beat him up, Keith thought.

“When I met him again in uni, I didn’t recognize him until he introduced himself. And god, he’s beautiful now, don’t you think?”

Keith stopped himself from turning around and looking at the painting behind him. “Stop fucking around. I don’t even want to talk to you, just tell me what I want to know.”

“Sheesh, mate.” Josh laughed. “Are you really in that much of a hurry to end it?”

Keith gritted his teeth to keep himself from losing patience. He didn’t reply, hoping his silence would make Josh get to the point.

“Right. After what I… did to you, my parents bought a lot of people so they could keep me out of jail.”

We’re getting somewhere, Keith thought.

“It cost a lot so they also hired private investigators to keep an eye on me from then on… without my knowledge. It wasn’t long before they discovered their eldest was a big poof.”

“And they disowned you?”

Josh laughed. “Hell no. That would cause more than enough scandal to last two lifetimes. No, they just shifted the inheritance to my younger brother. I still get a stipend, but other than that, I’m the son no one talks about. No one in school even knew about it, but I stopped caring there as well. Still, I only came out fully in uni. My parents knew, and that was all that mattered to me.”

“And you think it’s my fault? Is that what this is all about?”

“I admit, I did. I was so angry I plotted revenge for years. Petty I know.”

“Childish.”

“That restraining order made sure I was never anywhere near you. But it also gave me something else – your location. I always knew where you were all those times.”

“Where is this going?”

“I met Chooky again in uni. All grown up. We got romantic. He was struggling to pay his way through school. I may not be the heir anymore but I still have money. I gave him a loan on the stipulation that he’ll help me take my revenge on you. Strangely enough, he wasn’t averse to the idea.”

Keith had been right. God, his theories had all fucking right. Keith wanted to start crying all over again.

“If he succeeded in the um… revenge mission, all his debts to me would be good as paid.”

“What the fuck is wrong with you?! I was the one that got hospitalized, remember? What were you guys planning? And why did you tell me?”

“Oh don’t worry, I wasn’t planning anything that bad. Just a bit of heartbreak that’s all.”

“But it’s been fucking eight years, Josh, you dumb spoiled piece of shit!”

“Oh. But you see… I changed my mind. I realized it wasn’t your fault. Of course it wasn’t. But Carl still wanted to do it anyway. I reckon it was the only way he could repay his debt. I tried to stop him. Thing was, the contract is completely legal… or at least my lawyer assures me. Under its terms, there were two ways Carl could clear his debt. One was to pay me off completely with interest, and the other was to come here, get to know you intimately and then leave. It’s all worded pretty carefully to avoid being voided for intending to cause emotional distress.”

“Fuck you.”

“Look, Keith. I’m helping you out by coming here and telling you about it. I was still a kid when I thought that shit up. I really don’t care about it anymore. Not doing it because I like you, I might add. I’d rather just get paid. I mean, now that you know, he can’t fulfill it anymore, right? And I kinda miss that tight perfect ass, if you know what I mean.”

Keith remained silent, his mind whirling at the implications.

“You haven’t had sex with him yet, right?”

Keith slammed the phone down.