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”heartless challenge,
pick your path, and i’ll pray
wake up in the morning”
I.
For as long as he can remember, Jerry’s felt pain other than his own. He’s hovering somewhere between gratitude, that it’s signifying proof someone out there is his and his alone, and irritation. Irritation, because there’s only so many times he can wake with his flesh bruised along the knee before he starts to wonder if his someone has a penchant for it. The pain.
It’s hard not to, when at only six years old he can trace along the jut of bone, where knee meets calf, and connect the swirling purples and greens like constellations. There’s never blood, because as his mother explains, blood doesn’t draw from other’s pain.
“I’d have liked to wait a little longer before telling you,” Gloria says to him one afternoon, right after school. “Seems like the decision’s been taken.”
“How come?” Jerry asks. He’s just started elementary school, and he’s got a question for everything. Why, why why.
“Because,” his mother supplies. She’s wrapping his pinky finger, smoothing down the bandaid with something like distaste curling over her lips. “Your soulmate can’t seem to watch where she’s going.”
“Oh.” Jerry nods, like that’s all there is to it.
He stubs his toe an hour later and spares a moment to issue his other half an apology. It seems only fair.
II.
He’s seven years old and clutching his wrist, sniffling as the doctor examines it. The bones feel as though they could break free from his flesh entirely, but there’s nothing but a mess of mottled red, bruise already half-formed.
“A sprain,” the doctor concludes, peering down at Jerry in sympathy. “Not your own.”
“Will it get better?” Jerry asks, because he’s seven years old and hurts so much. The doctor nods, sending him off with a Spider-man sticker peeling off his shirt and a lollipop clutched in his smarting fingers.
He’s ten years old and his stomach churns. He retches into the toilet bowl, and feels as though his throat burns from the inside out. Nothing comes up.
He’s twelve, moodily staring out the window as the school nurse tuts at him. “That’s the third time this week, Jerry.”
“I know,” he snaps, like he always does. It’s not my fault.
“I hate you,” he whispers into his pillow, and immediately covers his mouth. He pinches a roll of fat between his fingers just to feel sorry, then feels more so when he realizes she can feel it too.
He’s sixteen years old and nearly crashes his car because his arm is fucking broken. But no bone bends, no cast is needed.
“You know,” he says into the quiet, the radio having long since forgotten, “it’d do us both some good if you’d wear, I don’t know. Bubble wrap.” His knuckles are clenched along the wheel, skin taut and white. “Anything, babe. Christ.”
He’s been so careful his whole life, kissing along the innermost part of his arm when he falls off his bike, careful not to press too hard into his guitar strings so a girl doesn’t walk around with three inch calluses on the pads of her fingers. When he shaves for the first time, he just barely grazes his jaw with the blade.
His person doesn’t seem to possess the same capacity for caution. She seems to understand, though, because as he grows, the marks begin to recede. There’s an ache along his ankles during prom, and he glances at his date’s shoes and wonders if She’s wearing high heels, wherever his soulmate is.
He goes two weeks in his senior year without a single bruise, prick, or mark, and he stares at his flesh in something he pretends isn’t urgency. Breathes a sigh when his finger “breaks” soon after, relief blooming in his belly.
Somewhere along the way, he’s become reliant on it.
She’s alive, she’s his. That’s it.
III.
“Jerry,” Nick Pollock says to him, sweeping a hand through the air as if conducting a grand symphony, “this is Layne. Layne, Jerry.”
New guy, Layne, peers back at him in thinly veiled interest, though that could be the alcohol, his words a little strung together as he greets, “Hey, man. Thanks for coming.”
Jerry finds himself nodding, fighting back a wince when the action causes a stiff ache to flare along the muscle. She’s torn something, he guesses. Nothing he hasn’t dealt with before.
“Yeah,” he says in reply. Earnest, that’s how he sounds, practically pooling from his voice. Layne doesn’t seem to mind, if the amused crease of his brow indicates anything. His tongue is loose. “You’re, like. Really good. I saw you. Before.”
“Yeah?” Layne’s chin dips, head tilting. Through the haze of the night, Jerry doesn’t notice how his lips flatten in discomfort. “I got one of those faces?”
“I mean, I saw you perform.” He’s talking fast, spilling over. Laid bare. Both of them. “You probably don’t remember, but it was the Little Theater? Tacoma,” he adds lamely. “If you remember.”
“Tacoma.” Layne’s lips form around the word, familiar and not. “Mm, yeah. Nice place.”
“Yeah,” Jerry agrees, even as he thinks, No, not really.
Layne tips his head back, and Jerry catches a glimpse of long, pale skin, a stretch of moles, as he sips at his drink. Jerry’s neck throbs. Jesus. What’d she do this time?
“What’s got you in Seattle?” Layne asks after a beat, a hand dragging across his chin.
As if he couldn’t help himself, as if he had been waiting for this very question, Jerry tells him. His band, his dream, his very real lack of a house, a job, or anything solid to slip through his fingers.
He doesn’t know why, at this point, but talking to Layne is easy. It’s like breathing, like the brush of lashes against his cheek. And he doesn’t know how, but he leaves that party with a number in his pocket and a place to call his own.
For the first time in a long time, he doesn’t spare Her a thought, even as his neck flares on.
IV.
“You know,” Layne says, swinging his legs so they splay over Jerry’s lap. “I’m tired of singing your songs.”
Jerry doesn’t take the bait, just moves his guitar until Layne’s feet aren’t in any immediate danger of kicking across the frets. “Then don’t. Door’s right there.” He nods to said door, noodling a melody that’s been in his head all week, waiting to be stitched.
Layne pouts, like he always does when Jerry pretends to not give him the time of day. His foot digs into the sharp jut of Jerry’s hip, his voice indignant as he retorts, “You know what I mean. I’m sure Courtney doesn’t appreciate me ripping her a new one.”
“I don’t know what Courtney appreciates,” Jerry grouses, because he both loves her and can’t fathom for the life of him what she wants from him. “She’s decided it’s best we don’t speak for the time being.”
Layne clicks his tongue. “Demri, too. In one of her moods.” He shrugs a shoulder, What can you do? “Wish I could crack open her head, see what’s inside.”
“There’s a lyric,” Jerry muses. He glances over when Layne winces, having reached to grab his bottle of water. “What is it?”
“It’s fine.” Layne’s bottom lip catches between his teeth, two sharp canines that dig into the rolling flesh. “My fingers.” He wiggles them, Jerry’s mouth parting at the rough stretch of skin. “Calluses. Hurt like a bitch.”
“I can see that.” Jerry frowns, taking his friend’s hand in his own to squint down at them. He runs his own finger over them, and it’s like his own come to life, gnarled flesh flaring. “You been practicing?”
“That’s the thing,” Layne says. His hand flexes under his. “I haven’t picked it up in a week. Think my lady’s in a little band of her own.” He clicks his tongue. “Wish she’d give it a rest.”
“Mm,” Jerry agrees, letting Layne’s hand fall from his.
Neither comment on it, how Demri isn’t in a band, how my lady means anything but her.
It’s best not to.
V.
The needle comes down, and Layne’s fingers are beginning to purple from the crushing pressure from Jerry’s own. He can’t feel sorry, not when he’s nearly biting a hole through his tongue in the effort to not cry out in a decidedly unmanly way.
“S’ fine,” Layne soothes. “Almost done, yeah? Looks badass.”
“Shut up.” It hisses through gritted teeth, though Jerry doesn’t pull away when Layne taps a rhythm along the underside of his wrist. His eyes zero onto Layne’s face, the slight way his eyebrows draw together.
“What?” It comes out harsher than he intends.
“Feels like I’m in the chair,” is all Layne says, rolling a shoulder.
But you’re not, Jerry nearly snaps, though a new wave of pain ripples across his own shoulder, and his head falls against the cool leather of the chair.
“That’s common, you know,” the tattoo artist says, giving Jerry a moment of reprieve as he pauses, needle poised. “Happens all the time. Phantom pain. You’re gettin’ ready for your turn.”
A thoughtful look crosses over Layne’s face as he nods. He doesn’t speak for the remaining touches of Jerry’s skull, just watches. When Jerry studies the finished product, flaming grin leering from the mirror, Layne bumps their hips together.
“What’d I say?”
“You say a lot.”
“Thank you, Layne, for this wonderful, brilliant idea, is what I’m hearing. You’re so welcome.”
“That right?” Jerry can’t quite stop the smile from playing over his mouth, meeting Layne’s gaze in the glass. “Your turn, Blanche.”
He reaches for Layne’s hand without further prodding when Layne’s eyes fly shut. Layne’s skull begins to take shape, slowly.
His stings, as much as the needle had, and he figures it’s the lingering feeling that surely comes after.
VI.
“Baby, wait.”
Jerry calls after his—ex?—girlfriend, watching the swish of her dress as she disappears around the corner. He pads after her, even as any semblance of reason he has left tells him otherwise. Sometimes she wants him to chase, sometimes she doesn’t. He figures the ball’s in his court this time. “Courtney. Talk to me.”
“I’ve said what I need to say,” she says coolly, reaching for her purse, haphazardly slung over the mess that’s their (the band’s) dining table. Sean’s sticks drop to the floor. “You’ve made it perfectly clear.”
Jerry nearly sighs, though he figures she wouldn’t appreciate it that much. Instead, he brushes a hand over the small of her back, tracing the line of her spine. He bites back a smile when she sags under the touch.
“What’s clear?” he asks quietly. “Huh?” He takes her chin in gentle fingers, pushing so green eyes meet his, brimming in unshed tears. “Hey. Look at me. What’s got you so worked up?”
It’s the wrong thing to say. Courtney’s face flushes, still so pretty even through the twin splotches of pink. “I’m not worked up. Just tired of playing second class citizen in my own relationship.”
“You’re not making any sense.”
Courtney jerks from his grasp. Her curls spill into long, inky lashes, and Jerry wishes so badly. He wishes so badly he could pinch her skin and feel it jolt through his own.
“I hope you find what you’re looking for,” she says softly.
“I’ve got it here,” Jerry says after a beat. A beat too long, and they both know it. “Right here. Right here, baby.”
I don’t care, I don’t care, he should say, insist. Courtney falters, looks up at him as if he could turn time with that entirely, and he thinks he could. He thinks he could seize a few more years, enough, if he opens his mouth.
He doesn’t.
He can’t.
He watches her go and tugs a lock of his hair until it snaps.
VII.
His door slams open, the hinges shrieking in protest as Layne stalks in, curls seeming to bristle with an agitation of their own. He kicks it shut with his foot, almost an afterthought.
Jerry cocks a brow, meeting Layne’s gaze over the top of his magazine. Playboy, and it could be anyone of theirs, but he’d snagged it from under Starr’s bed. He won’t miss it.
“Hell—o,” Jerry greets. “Panties in a twist today, huh?”
Layne stops short of his bed, nostrils flaring as he scowls down at Jerry. He nearly demands what the fuck his problem is, what’d I do?, but Layne’s strings cut, a knee sinking into the mattress as he buries his face into Jerry’s shoulder.
Jerry’s arm is around Layne without further comment, guiding the rest of him onto the bed so he doesn’t spill in a pile of limbs on his carpet. “You talk or I do,” he says into Layne’s hair. “Tell me which.”
A short puff of breath pops against the curve of Jerry’s collarbone. “Demri found it.”
“What?”
“Her fucking—soulmate. Whatever.” Voice muffled, Jerry has to strain to her Layne’s next words. “Called me this morning. Said she doesn’t feel right seeing me anymore, whatever the fuck that means.”
Jerry frowns, brushing aside a lock teasing his nose. Layne’s hair spills just past his shoulders, and he secretly hopes he keeps it that way. He doubts, with how often Layne changes something, anything about him (like a nomad, always something. Always moving).
“Who is it?”
“Rosheen,” Layne says, low. “Whoop-dee-do for her, I guess.”
“Her?” he can’t help but ask, then feels like an idiot because, well, yeah. Her, him. Whomever Demri prefers, this or that. “Hey, her loss.”
Layne snorts. “You can cut the crap. Where the hell else am I supposed to find someone like her?” He noses along the stretch of Jerry’s arm. “No-one else would put up with my shit for that long.”
“I do,” he can’t help but point out. He can feel the unimpressed line of Layne’s mouth.
“No offense. You’re lacking a few parts.”
“And Rosheen isn’t,” Jerry says with a sympathetic tut. “Cheer up. Your lady’s still out there.”
“Yeah, she’s macking up on another lady,” Layne says sullenly. His hands come to grip at Jerry’s arms, pulling him further into their half-embrace. “I wanted it to be her.”
It’s an admittance, something Jerry’s long since known. Why wouldn’t he? He had his own time, his own wishes, his own failed attempts to mold another into his. There’s only one, though, and that’s the underlying promise of the universe.
“What can I do?” Jerry asks, because there’s nothing to do. Not really. “Tell me what to do. I’ll do it.”
Layne pulls back, gaze roving over the planes of Jerry’s face. Studying. Jerry nearly shifts, though he keeps his eyes there.
“Just.” Layne’s voice is breathless, nearly a whisper. “Just stay.”
Jerry says nothing, just pulls Layne back against him and adjusts the magazine so he can track each turn of the page. Layne hums something, his foot being asleep, and Jerry rolls his own, realizing his is too.
It continues to throb long after Layne leaves.
VIII.
“I wish,” Layne says into the low light of the hotel room, “it could be you.”
Jerry doesn’t blink. “I know.”
“If you were a girl, it’d be so easy.”
“I know.”
“I don’t understand her.”
“You don’t have to. Not anymore.”
“I want to.”
“I know,” Jerry says.
“I’d take anyone,” Layne murmurs. “Sean, Starr. I get them. They get me. ‘S not complicated.”
“You don’t love them,” Jerry reminds him. “You don’t love me.”
Layne’s head twists. His eyes flash. “It’s not fair.”
I know.
IX.
He’s tracing the lines of a bruise along his thigh, careful against the ridge, as if she can feel it.
He’s stopped looking for her. Decides it’s best to let her find him, that he’ll drive himself crazy otherwise. He dreams and dreams, a faceless figure, the warmth of fingers against his cheek. He dates a few girls, bites the edge of his hand when they don’t look, pinches his arm, just to see.
Nothing.
She’ll find him.
I hope you find what you’re looking for.
X.
The faint snip of scissors coupled with the soft puffs of Layne’s breath at the shell of his ear nearly lulls Jerry to sleep. There’s an old shirt tucked around his shoulders, a trash can that holds his falling hair.
Layne’d cut his own weeks earlier, the curls tight against his forehead, slicked back to high heaven. It’s not a bad look, all things considered.
“I bald yet?” Jerry murmurs sleepily. Layne’s chuckle echoes, a pop in his ear.
“Not yet,” Layne says quietly. “Patience, grasshopper.”
“Ay, ay.” Jerry tilts his head at Layne’s insistence, chin nearly digging into his chest. Layne’s surprisingly good at it, even enough that Jerry doesn’t have to fear disfigurement of his prized feature. Cheaper than a shop, too.
He scratches idly at a burn against his palm. Layne notices, laughing again. “Your lady’s about as much of a klutz as me, huh?”
“Worse,” Jerry agrees. “The amount of times she broke a bone—”
Layne clicks his tongue in sympathy, turning Jerry’s head. “I feel that. Not fun.”
“You’re telling me.” He flexes his wrist. “She must’ve jumped from every tree in her yard or something. Christ. Think she’s had about every part of her broken, twisted, burnt.”
“Builds character,” Layne says in amusement. “I was the same.”
“Oh, I’m aware. Your mom doesn’t hold back.”
“She never does.”
They share a smile, Jerry’s eyes falling shut, snip, snip, snip.
A sharp prick at his neck causes Jerry to hiss, whistling through his teeth at the feel of it. Layne’s apologizing, sorry, I’m sorry and Jerry opens his eyes to wave him off, when he catches it.
Layne’s hand, flying to cup his own neck, face pulling into a wince.
His breath stills. He can feel it, the slight sticky sensation of blood where the scissors had poked. Layne’s finger drags at his skin, and Jerry, without thinking, moves that hand aside.
Two twin idents, sans blood, embedded in Layne’s neck.
Their eyes meet.
Layne pulls back a section of Jerry’s hair, lines the scissors up. They shake.
Jerry looks at his lap.
XI.
Him, silently replacing Jerry’s razor blade when he nicks himself shaving.
Him, smacking aside Jerry’s hand when he spills hot coffee on himself, even as his flesh reddens all the same.
Him, placing soup on Jerry’s bedside when he’s half-delirious from fever, his own brow dripping in sweat and his cheeks flushed.
Him, staring up at Jerry when Sean calls 911, foot twisted and gnarled, lips pursing when he sees the way Jerry limps after him. They’d laugh at it later, Layne jumping on an ATV like it’s nothing.
“Be careful,” Jerry murmurs when Layne nearly trips over a shoe Starr’s left out. Layne stiffens, but neatly steps over the offending boot, barks at Starr to pick up after yourself, fuckface.
Him, him, him.
Why him?
(Who else but him?)
XII.
Pink curls, drawn face. His smile is taut, lips stretching thinly at the corners, a mockery of before.
He sounds the same, when he opens his mouth and sings their songs. He could stumble over a hundred words and Jerry would step back, laugh, Do over. It’s been awhile.
His hands, gloved to the fingertips, are fisted in his lap.
Jerry plays through the stinging, half-moon indents in his palms.
XIII.
“Clumsy.” Jerry’s voice is gently chiding. Layne’s palms are still in his hands, the nails bitten half to nubs. A hangnail torn, Jerry having felt the nauseating burst a day prior. “This’ll get infected, you know.”
“With you playing nursemaid, how could it?”
“You should take better care of yourself,” Jerry says, a touch colder.
Smile. “I always do.”
XIV.
“Still wish it were me?”
“Ask me tomorrow.”
XV.
Somewhere along the way, he’s become reliant on it.
He’s alive. He’s his.
That’s it.
Fin.