Chapter 2
1059 Words
Chapter 2“You’ll be poor.”
“Are you mad?”
“You won’t make it.”
“Nobody reads anymore.”
Those were a few of the unconstructive comments I had received from my parents and my friends when I told them I was leaving small town life in Milton to major in composition. I was determined to become a novelist.
“I want to write books,” I announced to my mom and dad in mid-June, before I enrolled in a four-year college program, two hours from my hometown of Milton. I grew up in a small upstate New York town of ten thousand unmotivated people living in a minuscule bubble, going nowhere.
When I got the news that I was accepted at Lennox State College I nearly combusted with joy. I wanted to get out of Milton shortly after my Gram’s death, to escape my domineering parents.
I told my plan to my best friend Rocco, who was still recovering from being a suspect in his boss’s murder investigation last week.
Our talk didn’t go well.
* * * *
It happened during a school night. I climbed out of my bedroom window to meet Rocco at the landmark footbridge, which was hidden from the main road between Palm and Sager Street, and where droves of high school students walked through it, to and from school, stopping on occasion to make out and smoke weed. When I got there, Rocco was stoned out of his mind, his gaze glassy.
He told me his parents heard on the news that the local officials and politicians had threatened to close the footbridge in recent weeks for repair and renovations. Some people even wanted to close it permanently, citing the safety of the structure and illegal activities among Milton’s youth.
Like now, as Rocco lit a hand-rolled reefer, took a hit off it, and offered it to me. I declined, shaking my head, and telling him I didn’t smoke the stuff anymore.
He argued that I had changed after my Grams died. “You’re not the same dude I kissed downtown a few weeks ago.”
I was the exact same guy who helped him out of a jamb when he was suspected of foul play in his boss’s murder. I told my friend of longstanding that I was the same person who supported him when he needed to talk and vent and lean on somebody when he had no one else to talk to, not even his parents.
He scuffed his worn boot on the bottom of the footbridge, sucked in a deep breath on his joint, and filled the enclosed space with smoke.
“Why do you want to go away to college?” he asked, offering me a smoke even though I declined again. “What’s wrong with a four-year degree from Milton State College?”
I packed my hands into the cotton lining of my cargo shorts, and looked away down into the tranquil waters of the Saranac River. As I looked up and caught Rocco’s gaze, a sharp pungent smell of pot cut across my face, stinging my eyes. I wiped tears with my bare knuckles and shifted in my loafers.
“Lennox offers a comprehensive writing program,” I said.
He wrinkled his forehead as if he had to sneeze. “I don’t know why you want to be a writer. Nobody reads anymore.”
I rolled my eyes.
I didn’t want to argue with my best friend, the beautiful dark-skinned man I had a crush on. So instead I hugged him, hard, ignoring the rugged stink of pot on his breath and clothes. I really just wanted to feel his muscular arms around me. Rocco worked out religiously, six days a week, and whenever we were together, I fought like hell to hide my true feelings for him. I wanted to take him with me to Lennox. We could be roommates, I imagined, and I wouldn’t have to worry about him being two hours away.
Best friends or not, I didn’t want to share Rocco with another guy—or girl—whoever he had lassoed into his world that given day. I wanted him all to myself. But when I left Milton, I knew my unrealistic expectations of Rocco and me—whatever we had these days—was merely a creation of my imagination.
I didn’t even know how Rocco felt about us. Clearly, he didn’t want me to leave. But our differences, much like this middling town, would ruin us if we didn’t spread our wings.
“You and I were a team,” he grumbled, inhaling three more puffs before grounding the joint under his hiking boot. When he crossed his massive arms over his long-sleeved shirt, tendons tugged along his sinewy arms. His commitment to bar bells and the cable machine had molded him into a muscle-bound boxing champion.
He stood against the metal fence of the footbridge and crossed his feet over an ankle in an Abercrombie & Fitch classic pose.
“We’ll always be tight,” I said, biting my bottom lip, browsing the fine, black stubble on his angelic face.
“I want us to be tight ten minutes from each other,” he said. “Not two hours away in another godforsaken town.”
“We’ll visit. We can talk every day, morning and night, I promise.”
He shook his head. “Not the same.”
“Rocco, please don’t make this any harder than it already is.”
“Then don’t leave. You’re the one who’s making it hard.”
An explosion of June air from the Saranac River whistled through the metal-link fence, brushing our faces, carrying with it the earthy smells of moss and m*******a.
I wiggled my nose, turned away.
Rocco must have noticed my disgust as he unfolded his arms and sauntered over to me, wrapping me in his warmth.
As he pulled away, rolling his sleeves up to his elbows, I noticed a dark bruise under his left arm.
“What happened there?” I asked.
He closed his eyes and shook his head. “A rough night with another one-night stand.”
“I want to know his name,” I said, meaning it.
He ignored my comment, laughed it off. “I can take care of myself.”
“Looks like it.”
My pulse quickened. Muscles in my neck and shoulders tensed. I was livid that another guy had put his hands on my best friend.
Part of me wanted me to stay with Rocco on the bridge, hidden away from small town Milton. The other half of me, the brave voice in my head, urged me to run as fast as my feet would take me, to a new world, with Rocco at my side.
But something changed drastically, altering the rest of my life.
- Writer
