Work Text:
‘94
As with every Sunday, after the morning service ends, the attendants gather outside the small, traditional church to chat, catch up, and make afternoon lunch plans.
Alex, standing with his parents, who are currently in conversation with fellow members of the church council, is trying to spot the dark-haired, pale face of his friend in the crowd.
He’s not paying attention to the movements of his parents and flinches when his mother suddenly tugs on the elbow of his dress shirt. She doesn’t react to that.
"Alex, sweetie, what are you doing?"
He chews the inside of his lip. "Looking for Reggie," he says.
His mother's lips press sweetly into a thin, pink line. She puts a hand on his shoulder. Her eyes do a quick scan of his body and he makes himself relax. "Maybe they've already left,” she suggests.
Alex considers this, but quickly writes it off. Unless he was forced to, he doesn't think Reggie would leave without saying goodbye. Or even hello, for that matter.
Usually, the two boys would meet outside the front of the church and exchange a quick fist bump before the service started. As they talked about the band and Luke and other things, Alex would feel the stagnant discontent of his mother’s glare on the back of his head, but with Reggie's bright-eyed, grinning face at his front, he didn’t care.
This Sunday, however, Reggie hadn’t shown up before the service and Alex was left hovering outside the church, searching the car park for his family’s beaten-up sedan, before he was pulled inside by his dad.
It was only twenty-minutes later, when the minister was delivering his sermon, that Reggie and his parents finally arrived. While the minister didn’t miss a beat in his story, members of the congregation looked over their shoulders in disgruntlement as they shuffled into the creaky pew at the back of the room.
Alex didn’t see Reggie’s face, but he felt better, knowing that his friend was there with him, even at a distance.
Now, as he begins his search again, his mother slides her hand down his upper arm and nods him in another direction.
“Here’s an idea,” she says. “Why don't you go and speak to Holly Jackson over there?" Alex follows her line of sight and sees a tall, brunette girl, with slim legs hidden beneath a green ankle length skirt. On top, she wears a white blouse, with elastic cuffs that grip around her wrists. He wonders if it cuts off the blood circulation to her hands.
Holly is the minister's daughter and has all the trappings of her position. Her smile is bright, her demeanour is cheerful, and her face is painted with a simple non-threatening beauty. She doesn’t even appear to have acne, Alex notes scornfully.
She’s laughing with other members of the youth group, when, as if she feels them looking, she glances over her shoulder. Her open-mouthed grin softens to a demure smile as she registers Alex’s gaze on her.
Her eyes dip up and down, before she lifts a hand to him and Alex mirrors the gesture.
His mother squeezes his arm. "I heard from Debbie that Clive Powell broke up with her last week. Katherine Jackson was devastated. Maybe you should go talk to her, check if she’s okay.”
This again.
Alex swallows. Despite telling her, three times, that he was gay, his mother is still determined to set him up with a girl from the church, as if he was merely stating a preference for the colour purple. Somehow she seemed to think orange was an option, irregardless.
He nods. "Okay, mom."
She beams and releases his arm, returning to join her husband in his conversation with their fellow worshippers.
With a familiar ache of disappointment, Alex takes this as his opportunity to slip into the crowd of attendants and looks again for Reggie.
--
A couple minutes later, he spots Reggie’s parents, Len and Joanne, sitting stiffly against the low wall of the graveyard. Nearby, people are huddled in threes and fours, discussing the service and asking about each other’s children, but nobody speaks to them. They both look miserable and Alex wonders why they bother lingering like this.
But part of him is pleased in seeing them, too, knowing that if they’re still here, then that means that Reggie, in all likelihood, is too.
He’s distracted by these thoughts and when a hand lands on his arm suddenly, he startles. He spins and finds Holly, standing behind him, her hand still hovering in the space between them. Her face is stretched in surprise, and she blinks at him.
“Holly,” Alex says, before clearing his throat. “Sorry, you caught me, uh, daydreaming.”
Holly chuckles and folds her arms across her waist. She dips her eyes. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to make you jump.”
“It’s fine,” Alex says, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Everything okay?”
She nods, looking up and smiling at him. “Oh, yeah, of course. Did you enjoy the service?”
Alex blinks. “Uh, yeah. Yeah, it was really... something. Your dad has quite the knack for parables about child murder, huh?” Holly laughs while Alex winces at his own awkwardness. “Sorry,” he says, rubbing his forehead.
“No, no. I get it, trust me. Be thankful that you only have to deal with that on Sundays,” She says, rolling her eyes. “Try putting up with it every evening. I go to bed and dream of stonings.”
Alex laughs a little. “That’s rough.”
“It is,” Holly agrees and titters.
And then they linger. Alex drops his gaze and toes the stoney path beneath his feet while Holly plays with the elasticated wrist of her blouse.
“So, I was wondering if –”
“I don’t suppose you’ve seen –”
They both cut off and laugh. Holly’s cheeks are red and she shakes her head. “Sorry, you first. Go on.”
Alex wets his lips. “Uh, okay. I was just wondering if you’d seen Reggie today.”
Holly furrows her brows - which are thin and neat, masterfully penciled - and purses her lips.
“Um, no, I don’t think so. Obviously, they were at the back this morning, so maybe they just made a quick getaway after the service?” She suggests with a shrug.
“Yeah, maybe,” Alex says, eyes darting over her head to where Reggie’s parents were continuing to skulk. “Okay, thanks.”
He’s about to step away and continue his search when Holly speaks again.
“Actually,” she says, and Alex stops. “Some of us are going back to mine to do some bible study before lunch, if you're interested?”
Alex stalls. “Oh,” he says. “Uh...”
“Edith asked if we could have a look at Psalm 91. You will not fear the terror of night, nor the arrow that flies by day, and all that. Could be fun. What do you think?”
Alex opens his mouth and attempts to formulate a soft decline, but Holly beats him to it.
Her shoulders sag. “You want to find Reggie, don’t you?”
Alex swallows and dips his head. “I just wanna make sure he’s alright.”
Holly’s face softens and she nods. “That makes sense.”
As people shift and disperse around them, they seem to be at an impasse once again. Holly makes no move to walk away, and Alex isn’t sure if the conversation is over.
“Okay, I’m going to–” Alex begins, before Holly takes over again.
“Did you know that your mom was at our house last Friday?”
Alex’s brows shoot up. “She was?”
Holly doesn’t meet his eye, focusing on her own fingers as she twists her them together. “She was crying to my mom.”
A heaviness begins to form in Alex’s abdomen.
She was crying about him, he knows. She’d been doing that a lot recently. How many times had he walked into his bedroom to find her sniffing and sobbing over his clothes. She was grieving him, clutching his blankets to her chest, and he wasn’t even dead.
He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath through his nose.
“I know about you,” Holly says, quietly. “I know about your... interests.”
Alex’s eyes flash open. He meets Holly’s eye and clenches his jaw. He waits to see which she’ll offer: pity or rage?
Instead, she says this, “I don’t think you should be ashamed, Alex, and I don’t think she’s right for making you feel that way.”
Alex’s whole body stammers. This is not what he was expecting.
"...Oh?” is all he can say.
“God only wants you to love and know love. That’s what dad teaches us.”
Alex knows could point to a hundred members of the congregation who would argue otherwise, but he doesn’t. Instead, he frowns at the minister’s daughter.
“I don’t understand,” he says, narrowing his brow. “What are you saying?”
Holly shifts with unease, she runs a hand up her arm.
“I’m saying...” She begins, tentatively. “I don’t think it should matter who you love or are loved by. Not to you, not to me, not to anyone else in the church. We’re taught that love is love in all its forms. I...” she swallows and Alex finds that he is fixated by the movements of her mouth. He watches as she brings her lips back together and rolls her unspoken words between them.
She sighs and lifts her head. “I’m saying that you should go find him, Reggie, and afterwards, if you want to, you should come by to bible study. And bring Reggie. Both of you.”
She darts her eyes to his and smiles. She puts a hand on his upper arm and presses up onto her tiptoes in her pale pink flats to kiss his cheek.
When she drops again, Alex is in total shock.
Did she just...
“Holly, you know I’m not dating Reggie, right?” Alex blurts and Holly snorts a laugh.
“It’s okay, if you are, Alex.”
“Okay, but I’m not.”
“He’s very sweet.”
“Holly.”
“I should go do the rounds. Maybe I’ll see you later.”
“Holly, seriously, I’m not –”
But Holly just sweeps past him, an amused smirk on her lips, which flourishes into a smile as she greets an elderly member of the church and clasps her hands. She plants a kiss on each of the woman’s cheeks.
Alex clears his throat and shakes his head. “Okay.”
--
The crowd has thinned out by the time Alex finally finds Reggie. He's in the graveyard, laying on his stomach in his Sunday best, his chin on his hands as he stares into the crop of grass.
He almost missed him, hidden amongst the gravestones, and is washed with relief and makes his way over. “Reggie, there you are.”
As Alex stops besides him, Reggie raises one hand in greeting. “Hey.”
Alex side-eyes a couple, who stands at a grave nearby. They’re tending to flowers. He lowers himself to Reggie's level. The boy still hasn’t looked up and Alex frowns. “Where’re you up to? I was looking for you.”
“Watching ants,” he says. Alex waits for him to expand, but he doesn't.
“Okay... why?”
Reggie shrugs. “Just interesting.”
Alex looks at the lump of dirt that Reggie is currently watching. As he stares, he begins to notice the thin strips of ants, pouring in single-file from holes in the earth, before returning again in uniform. They dart and twist and follow the exact path the ant before them took, as if following an invisible rail.
“Huh, I guess it kind of is.”
Alex drops down to his knees, knowing his mom would have his head for getting his dress pants dirty. He decides he doesn’t care. He looks up from the ants to examine Reggie’s face. He pours his gaze into the crevices of his frown, the point of his lips as he concentrates, and the flicker of his eyelashes as his eyes dart back and forth, following the march of the insects.
Then he notices some dirt on Reggie’s face and is about to mention it, when he realises the discolouration is coming from beneath the skin. He swallows and tries to meet Reggie’s eye.
“Hey, Reg?” He asks. “What happened to your face?”
Reggie snaps suddenly out of his hyper-focus and brings a hand to his cheek. When his calloused fingertips trail over the bruise, he winces.
“Oh, um,” He says, and then after a short hesitation, forces out a laugh. “I, uh, made dad angry and he threw a book at me. I don’t think it was supposed to hit me, but the top of the spine caught me here. Whoops.”
Alex’s eyelids flutter as a cold familiar anger seeps into his skin, sinking through his pores and compounding in his muscles. His fingers curl into fists in his lap.
“Reggie, that’s not–”
But then Reggie says, “Did you know that ants don’t breathe?”
Alex’s anger is thrown out and he blinks. “You what?”
“Well, okay, they don’t not breathe, but they don’t have lungs. They have little holes all over their bodies and that’s how they get oxygen. They also don’t have ears.”
Alex presses his lips together. “Oh?”
“Yeah, they find their way by feeling vibrations in the earth. And they leave pheromone trails, which is how they follow each other in lines like this,” Reggie says, gesturing to the busy ant’s nest in front of him.
Alex drops back and wraps his arms around his knees, holding his thumb to keep his legs in place. “Huh, that’s pretty neat, I guess.”
Reggie smiles.
“Reg, why do you suddenly know so much about ants?”
“Mom forgot to pick me up after school the other day so I hung out in the library until Miss Madison could give me a lift home.”
Alex closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Of course.”
“Did you know that ants can also carry 20 times their body weight?”
Alex shifts so that he’s lying on his side, opposite Reggie. He rests his temple against his hand and his elbow in the grass. Already, he can see mottled green and yellow stains seeping into the threads of his starched-white dress shirt. He decides he doesn’t care about that, either.
Watching Reggie, he exhales, feeling content as the dead that sleep beneath them. He feels their restful sighs carried on the rolling breeze.
Alex smiles. “I didn’t,” he says. “What else do you know?”