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Nelly Furtado chirps peacefully on the radio, her synthesized voice teasing about love and all. Art’s only sixteen and he doesn’t really know what love is – except that sometimes, on rare occasions, it can be Patrick Zweig.
His darling Patrick.
Patrick, with his killer tennis skills and acerbic wit and sharp tongue – slicing through hearts like a blade. Blue cat eyes and a crown of thorny black hair. Unafraid to kiss his own reflection in the mirror.
For most of Art’s life, he’s knelt at the altar of Patrick. Who wouldn’t be blessed to be a chosen disciple of Patrick? The first time Art met him, there was grass in between Art’s toes and a tennis racket gripped so tightly it turned his knuckles paper-white. Patrick – all chin-up and proud – walked over to his spot at the end of the field and offered his hand, nails filed down and perfect like the rest of him. That was the trend back them, and Patrick steered the trends of their school like a skilled cowboy to a wild mustang. Perfectly and meticulously.
And of course Art took that manicured hand in his, and of course the rest is history. Best friends from twelve to seventeen, so much so that they’re now in Queens, New York for the US Open.
The two of them – sewn together at the hip, never ever ever apart – are preparing for a party. To see none other than Tashi Duncan – another tennis prodigy and future power wife to Patrick’s power husband.
“You’re seriously wearing that?” Patrick titters.
“What’s wrong with it?”
Patrick leans in close and Art is almost suffocated with his signature scent – cinnamon and sandalwood, sweet and warm. Just like home. Just like Patrick.
“Nothing. It’s just…you should wear the pink striped one instead.” He shrugs, pulling the shirt in question off the hanger and throwing it at Art.
Quietly, resignedly, Art sighs and reluctantly puts it on.
Sometimes Patrick is so perfect Art wants to strangle the perfection out of him as if it was juice from a lemon. It makes something – stormy and furious – toil in his stomach, rotting like a spoiled fruit.
He should be grateful. He should be over the moon Patrick’s his friend. But he’s not. And because Patrick is a master of everything, he manipulates gravity to his will and uses it to weigh Art down. Art could have a whole fruit bowl of opportunities, juicy and sweet, on his plate; but with Patrick binding his hands and covering his mouth he will never get to devour them.
They’ll rot and turn sour and he’ll stay hungry. He’ll stay with Patrick.
He’s ruminated on this fact for a while. He’s dreamt – privately, quietly to himself – of tearing Patrick off of him like a blood-sucking leech, but he never has – because, deep down, in the murky and muddled puzzle parts of him, he fears cutting off Patrick will be akin to cutting off a limb. He’s dreamt of everyone who’s ever praised Patrick in front of him to realize their error and come running back to him, tail in between their legs, and apologize for ever overlooking him.
He dreams of apologies he knows will never come.
Either way, this strange gaggle of emotion all comes to a big head someday. By some absolute miracle sent by some God who isn’t Patrick, Tashi and Patrick fight.
It’s some stupid reason. Patrick didn’t show for the cursed game where Tashi lost it all; wasn’t there to support her. Patrick’s too high up on his throne to stoop down to the level of a winner turned griever. But either way, Tashi turns to Art for support.
And Art looks Patrick in the eye and finally takes his chance –his chance to be noticed, to face off against his oppressor, the man who has never wanted him to win.
He takes Tashi’s side.
Patrick’s head seems to swell up like an even angrier Queen-of-Hearts, and he eventually scurries off, retreating to whatever animalistic hole he crawled out of it. Art knows he can’t even think that knowing they were born and raised in the same rabbit-den – Siamese bunny twins – but he cannot even care. Not anymore.
Not when he can finally eat his fruits.
Most New Yorkers are sheep. After most of the tennis community of Queens, if not all of New York, witnessed or, at least, heard of the Kamikaze argument between golden-couple Tashi and Patrick, most took Tashi’s side after Art did. Because after all, two is more than one and majority rules.
Art doesn’t know how long it took for Patrick to fade and for him to bolden. Maybe a few months or maybe a few years or maybe a few hours. All he knows is that from the moment he took Tashi’s side, Patrick ceased to exist, and he was free, released from his shackles. He could taste the sweetness of his pomegranate-orange-fig future on his tongue without Patrick baying in his ear that you shouldn’t wear that, you shouldn’t do that, you shouldn’t exist if you don’t exist to serve me.
“Do you miss him?” Tashi asks one day at the table they built together. IKEA’S Murtunut set, bleached white and pristine. “Patrick, I mean.”
“Sometimes, yes,” He lies, while copying down a visual of a ‘perfect’ serve. “I don’t ponder on him that much.”
That was not true, but he didn’t mind lying to Tashi because their relationship – now six years in the making, six years since Patrick Happened – was built off of lies; he never supported her in the argument because he truly liked her and believed she was in the right, he just hated Patrick. He thinks.
Or maybe it was all-consuming adoration consuming too much of him, supermassive blackhole style. He doesn’t know. Adoration or hatred, he still wanted to throttle Patrick as a greeting if he saw him in the hall again.
Maybe that’s the thing with people who give everything from the depths of their soul and expect nothing back, and their closest friends – in a way, the masters to their dogs. They don’t know if they want to squeeze each other to death because of their devouring envy or devouring love.
“What are you watching now?”
“Something new.” He explains. “A new technique. Some strange cross-body one.”
“You’re abandoning your usual tic?”
“Yes. It seems something has possessed me to abandon it and begin my cross-body journey.”
“Ah.” She mouths, taken aback. “Patrick always said your tic was silly.”
“Mm.”
“It’s funny.”
“What is?”
“He used to serve cross-body.”
“Oh.” Is all Art can say.
As more years pass, Art thinks he lives Patrick’s life for him. Tashi and him have the child Patrick always raved about having – a baby named Lily with dark hair atop her head – a crown of thorns – and blue eyes.
And when Tashi gives birth to this Lily, Art is less of a father and more of a sperm donor, forming the baby Patrick and Tashi wanted, not him.
Sewing his pain over being ignored in favoring of Patrick into a flesh-and-bone, tangible creature. Creating what Patrick wanted. Essentially, doing what Patrick wanted once more.
“What is it?” Tashi asks when he cradles Lily. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” He whispers, whining, puppylike. Cottontail in hospital scrubs. “She just…reminds me of someone.”
He doesn’t need to say who.
Later, he dreams of Patrick, finding that he still cannot escape his ghost in his unconsciousness. He remembers the hot hotel room and the taste – the taste of honey, like Patrick’s scented balm. And then he’s awake again, and he’s 28, and it’s just Tashi putting on lip balm, wearing the old shirt Patrick would always don, proud and shameless.
“Hmm,” she hums, pulling out a tube of balm, rubbing it on her lips. Art already knows what scent it is from the golden label on it, but asks nonetheless.
“Is that honey scented?”
“Yes,” she replies quickly, but is cut off by him sealing his lips to hers in a swift move as soon as he gets his answer.
Art honestly doesn’t even know what he’s doing, attempting to pull Tashi’s head closer. He doesn’t even really feel conscious – more like he’s in the doorway, staring at himself being a fool. Or watching from the windows; the glass a barrier from himself.
And then it turns from a sloppy, mistaken kiss to giddy wildness. Like a terrifying spinning cup ride at a carnival. Bright lights bursting with exuberance and insanity and excitement; purples and blues and pinks all swirled together like melted rainbow ice-cream. Syrupy. Tashi tasted syrupy. Like honey.
She began to take her – or Patrick’s – shirt off as he bit down her neck, and he stopped her.
“No. Shirt stays on. Please.” He begged quietly, nuzzling the fabric hanging on her shoulders. Cinnamon and sandalwood.
“Okay,” she mumbled, carding her manicured hand through his curls. Seeming to understand. Smart girl. “Okay.”
When she slides her body a certain way, the way she definitely did when with Patrick, he slams his eyes shut, biting down hard on his lip to suppress an embarrassing cry. His nerves burn with desire; he glides his hands all over her torso, impatient and painstakingly eager to touch every inch of her skin. Tashi's razor-sharp teeth skim alarmingly close to his pulse, and he impossibly becomes hotter as a result, whimpering and succumbing to her spell. The same spell Patrick fell to.
And then while he thinks of it, he kisses her jawline; licks a bit of sweat that had gathered on her neck. Tasting her – vanilla and the smallest hint of mint. “I just want to understand,” he mumbles, as he repeats the motion, savoring the flavor on his tongue.
“Understand what?” Tashi asks, the end of a sentence cut off by a short gasp.
Understand what Patrick could’ve possibly seen in you. Understand why Patrick liked you so much. Why he clearly liked you more than me. Why he chose you over me. Why you chose him over me. Why you both chose each other and not me. “Nothing.”
She curls her fingers in his hair and tugs sharply; he pinches the meat on her hips. “Tashi, please,” He’d be on his knees for her if she wanted him to. He’d curl his fingers within her until they cramped if she wanted him to. He didn’t even know where this overwhelming necessity to become hers even came from, but it was here now and drowning him like a flood.
Because she had Patrick. Because she was Patrick’s.
And you like to take things from him, don’t you?
Tashi was everywhere and everything simultaneously; touching him and kissing him and holding him. She was so similar to Patrick in that sense – upfront and brutally honest and omnipresent – he could not escape her.
He couldn’t escape Patrick either. Not in his senses, his feelings, his mind.
What is it about love again, and it attaching two people together forever? The other half is always there?
“Do you want to…?” She asks quietly, and he knows what she means. It doesn’t need to be said. Because that’s what he needed to no longer feel trapped: he craved the sensation of satisfying every hedonistic urge he had. He craved the sensation of opening himself up. Years and years of stitching his mouth shut and licking his own wounds left every little cut left by Patrick all the more susceptible to rotting, and he’s rotten all over now, and needs to be cured from the outside in.
Please cure me. Please make me better.
“Okay, yeah, yeah. Please.” He whispers, switching off the light. It was better if he couldn’t see her face and couldn’t look her in the eye. He still closes his eyes, furrowing his brow, especially since those eyes are clouding with tears, obscuring her face. It twists, from hers, Tashi’s, to Patrick’s. Patrick. Patrick.
He can feel himself getting closer to release; his legs trembling and his body ablaze and his mind running wild like a frightened animal. Woozy, quick, exhilarated. Drunk. “Tell me I’m yours.”
“What?” Tashi snorts, taken aback as his hips snap down into her.
“You don’t have to mean it. Please.”
“Oh. Oh, okay,” Her voice teeters on a giggle as she rocks her head back. “You’re mine, Art.”
It’s a stupid fucking thing to say – corny, stereotypical, a line out of any poorly-made and written erotic dramas. You’re mine, Art, you’re mine. Mine.
He thinks about how if Patrick had said it, he wouldn’t have said it in a silly, sultry way. He would’ve laughed as he said it; church bells tolling, heavy and jangling and Patrick. He would’ve meant it as a joke to be taken seriously; like when he joked about tennis or about love or about a daughter or-
“Say you love me,” Art gasps, face still buried in the crevice of her neck, fingers curled in the shirt. Patrick’s shirt. “I’m begging you.”
“I love you, Art.”
I love you, Art. I love YOU.
I love you. I love you.
Hunger gnaws his stomach once again.
“I love you, Art.”
Tashi. Patrick. Tashi. Patrick. Tashi or Patrick. Tashi and Patrick.
Tashi. Patrick. Tashi. Patrick.
He moans and shudders and cries, squeezing the linen shirt between his fingers, squeezing her.
Tashi. Patrick. Tashi. Patrick.
He bites down on her shoulder; always a biter, always an eater, always hungry from being deprived of his rightful fruits. Teeth were made to dig into flesh, he thinks miserably.
Tashi. Patrick. Tashi-
“Patrick.” He gasps, shaking and muffled and crying. He’s certain that no one would’ve been able to hear it over his mouth’s position on her shoulder.
But then he’s certain she did from the way the name rings so clear; the ghost in between the two of them. And he hates himself so much that he feels all the more rotten.
And as the years pass, his own personal solar eclipse does too. Art, the moon, no longer shines in front of Patrick, the sun – he instead resumes his natural position hiding in the shadows. He lives and breathes in the silhouette of Patrick once more.
He should be grateful. He should be over the moon that he won and he’s living the life Patrick always wanted; his new serve – Patrick’s serve – booming with success, his daughter being made of the same flesh of the hypothetical daughter Patrick wanted, his wife being Tashi. But he’s not.
Thirteen years, and he’s thirty, and still bitter, and angry, and envious. If you cut open his veins and dissected his lungs, he’s sure he would bleed and breathe green.
His fruits were never sweet, but they didn’t need to rot to be sour. They just were. It’s his God-given – no, Patrick-given – destiny.
Oh, God. Why did it have to be this way? Or, in better words: Oh, Patrick, why did it have to be this way.
He sits now, in another room in another skyscraper in Queens, New York. It seems he never left the hotel room Patrick and him shared in 2006.
He sits and he burns with shame and he yearns. Thirteen years and he's learnt nothing.
“As announced in May, the winner of the McLean prize for Most Valuable Player has gone to…!” And they say his name.
People clap and cheer because of course they do. None of them know that he is just a marionette on a string that Patrick is spiritually puppeteering. He doesn’t even know where Patrick is and he still haunts him like a ghost, like the martyr he is. Was.
He doesn’t know.
Does he know anything? Who is he, really? Who is he without Patrick – the boy with the crown of thorns atop his head who Art can’t exist with and can’t exist without?
“It’s funny,” Tashi smirks, later on, at a bar when they’re celebrating. “I was on my phone, sorry, when you received your award.”
“Mm…?”
“And a memory of Patrick in my photo album came up.”
“Oh,” He says because he cannot say anything else. Patrick covers his mouth again.
“It’s funny, because I looked between you and Patrick, and then Patrick and you, back and forth over and over…”
“Yeah?”
“And I could not tell the difference.”