Wyatt was sitting on the bleachers of the baseball field, staring at the ground. He was still in uniform, and everyone else had left ages ago, it was just him now. He could've gone home, but he just didn't want to. He sighed, pulled his cap off and ran a hand through his hair. That's when he heard the sound of someone approaching, and looked up to see his father, Rufus, coming up to the bleachers, hands in his pants pockets. He must've come right from work, he was still in his suit.
"You alright? Mother said you didn't come home, so I figured I'd find you here," Rufus said.
"I'm....whatever," Wyatt replied, shaking his head. Rufus sat down on the bleachers and exhaled, putting his hands on his knees.
"You know," Rufus said, "this isn't exactly a bad thing. I know it sucks, but...it is what it is. If anything, what you're doing is going to only improve your life down the road. I know it hurts now, but...now is now. Everything hurts in the moment. She wasn't right for you."
"She was perfect for me," Wyatt muttered, sniffling, "and...and I didn't wanna hurt her like that."
"Course you didn't, nobody wants to hurt someone they're dating, or, I mean, sometimes they do but breakups are rarely intentionally cruel," Rufus said, "but Wyatt, you gotta pull yourself tgether. It's what's best for both of you, alright? This Scarlett girl, she's far more your type, she's gonna do wonders for you, trust me on that. That other girl, what was her name, Amelia? You guys were just too different."
"No, we weren't," Wyatt said, "you and she were."
Rufus and Wyatt stared at one another, and Wyatt knew underneath that this comment had made his fathers blood boil. Anytime he managed to stand up, say his father was a bastard, even in a thinly veiled way, enraged him, and that's the way Wyatt liked it.
"Either way, it's good all around. And you know what they say, a good compromise always leaves everyone angry," Rufus replied, smacking his son on the back, "get in the car, we'll go get dinner."
***
"This is delicious," Angie said through her full mouth, the enormous burger clenched tightly in her hands; Wyatt had picked her up and invited her out to lunch during his downtime at work, and offered to pay even. Angie couldn't say no to such a treat as this.
"I told you it was a good place," Wyatt remarked, using a toothpick, "their cheese fries in particular are a thing of beauty."
"Isn't it weird how cheese goes with almost everything? It's one of the very few foods that can be adapted to almost any dish, and instantly improves it threefold," Angie said, "you just...don't ever think about how magical it is."
"Did you just call cheese magical?" Wyatt asked, laughing lightly.
He liked Angie well enough, but he was putting on a particularly nice front today, because he needed a favor. A big favor. The kind of favor that could ultimately change a life forever, and he didn't want her to say no. Angie continued eating as Wyatt leaned back in his chair and continued picking at his teeth. He'd barely slept last night, instead staying up, revisiting childhood memories in his head, and when he wasn't doing that, he was spending all his time worrying about today, and what was to come after as a result.
"Listen," Wyatt said, finally tossing the toothpick on the table, as Angie looked up midchew; he sighed and leaned forward, "I need you to do something."
Angie chewed slowly, listening.
"I..." Wyatt said, his voice low, running a hand through his hair as he looked around to ensure nobody would hear him, "...I need you to kill someone."
***
The door to the shed opened, and Ricky opened his eyes. The sunlight was refreshing, albeit brief. Calvin had covered up the windows, seemingly just to punish Ricky, so he took whatever little slivers of sunlight he could steal. Calvin entered the shed and shut the door behind, then set whatever it was he brought with him on the workshop table. Calvin didn't even look at Ricky, let alone say a word to him, so Ricky just kept quiet. After a little bit, Calvin reached up to a small metal box on a shelf and pulled it down, setting it on the table alongside the other things, and then finally turned to face Ricky, which made Ricky tense up.
"I've been thinking about what you said," Calvin said, "remember, the other day when you asked what good could come killing an innocent child? You're right. No good can come from it. His wife is the one who really deserves to hurt, and I can't think of a better way to make she she feels the same kind of loss I have than by making her watch her child die in front of her, while she's helpless to stop it, just like I had to."
Ricky got a chill and shook his head.
"No, no man, weren't you doing all this to protect children? You were harming people because they were hurting children, and now you're gonna sink to the same level and still claim moral superiority? You don't get to do that."
"That's the thing, Rick," Calvin said, opening the steel box and reaching in, "I do get to do that. They say two wrongs don't make a right, but that's what I've learned, is that nobody cares about doing what's right. You can try, but you're never doing enough. Someone else is always in the crosshairs."
Calvin pulled his pistol from the box and Ricky felt his skin goosebump. Calvin turned and looked at Ricky, then opened the barrel to check how many bullets were in it, before shutting it again and looking back at Ricky.
"Dude, listen to me," Ricky said, "there's other aveues you can take. What happened to you? That was awful. Unforgiveable. I can't even imagine what it must've been like to-"
"No, that's the thing, you can't. You can't imagine it. You're right," Calvin said, "because it's a special kind of hell reserved for only to unluckiest of souls. To spend your whole believing you're not worthy of being loved, of watching your sister get hurt by people who claimed to love her, and then to somehow get lucky enough to meet someone who does love you? Loves you so much that they don't want anyone else? Someone who loves you enough that they want to marry you, start a family? Only to have that taken from you? Yeah. You can't imagine that. There's plenty of ways one could imagine that kind of loss, grief, pain that someone is experiencing because so much pain IS universal. But this kind of pain? This is unique, and I wouldn't want someone else to feel it."
"Someone except the one who caused it? But she didn't even cause it," Ricky said, and Calvin raised the gun, putting the barrel right between Ricky's eyes; Ricky grimaced and shut his eyes, ready to feel the eternal nothing, but instead he felt the cold metal leave his skin and opened one eye again, to see Calvin putting the gun in the back of his pants, under his belt.
"I'm gonna bring us some coffee, snacks, and then you're gonna tell me everything you know about her like I said," Calvin said, turning and heading back to the door, grabbing the knob, then asking, "Two sugars?"
"P...please, if you don't mind," Ricky said, as Calvin nodded and shut the door. Ricky unclenched his body and swore that he hadn't peed himself since childhood but goddamn if he didn't just come close.
***
Sun Rai was in the kitchen, doing dishes, when Rachel came in, putting the cordless phone down on the base. Sun Rai turned and looked at her, surprised by the somewhat eager look on her face. Sun Rai then dried her hands and turned to face Rachel as she came further into the kitchen.
"What are you so happy about?" Sun Rai asked.
"I wouldn't say happy, hopeful is maybe a better word," Rachel said, "I just got off the phone with my mother and I don't want to tear my skin off, so that's progress. Anyway, she invited me to dinner, and I asked if my partner could come, and she said sure. She said she was interested in meeting who I was dating."
"Wait wait wait," Sun Rai said, shaking her hands, "wait a minute, aren't you not out to your parents?"
"I wanna change that," Rachel said, "a friend told me the other day that, like...a lot of stuff I'd been blaming myself for for years aren't my fault, and ya know what? Neither is my shame about who I am. That's associated entirely with my folks. I'm not ashamed of myself, I'm ashamed that they would be ashamed of me, but I wanna try regardless. If you're comfortable with that, I mean."
Sun Rai walked up to Rachel and took her face in her hands, planting her lips on Rachel's, with Rachel happily kissing her back.
"Only if you're sure," Sun Rai said, "I'll do anything you want. I want to support you."
"And maybe I can start coming to your folks, helping you with your dad and stuff? I mean, that's...that's what partners do, right? We share one anothers lives."
"I'd love if you did," Sun Rai said, leaning back in and kissing her again. Rachel was terrified, she couldn't deny that, but at this point, after all she'd been through, been a part of, god, being openly queer was the last thing she should ever be scared of, no matter what her parents reactions might be. And really, it didn't matter. All that mattered was her happiness, and right now had that in spades, kissing the girl she'd loved a good percentage of her life in her kitchen, and nobody could take that away from her.
***
Angie was staring at Wyatt, still chewing. She finished chewing, picked up her glass and took a long sip, then set the glass back down on the table and folded her arms.
"Why?" she finally asked.
"You said you'd help me," Wyatt said, "you said...you said I saved your life, that unlike Brighton I was a selfless kind of savior, and you'd rather help me than someone who was nothing more than a wrongfully selected martyr responsible for horrible actions. Those were your words, Angie. So I need your help. Calvin is gonna kill a child. A mother too, but the child is my actual concern. This little girl is developmentally disabled, mentally challenged, and my own daughter has some of these types of issues. I...I'd feel personally responsible if I didn't try to stop him."
"How have you tried?"
"Every possible avenue has been exhausted at this point short of going to the police, but that would just incriminate all of us and I can't do that to Rachel and Celia," Wyatt said, looking down at the table,, at his hands, sniffling, "...Angie please. I don't know what else to do. Where else to turn. I...I need you."
Angie felt for Wyatt, she did. His words were coming from the heart, and he was doing this for a good reason. But she'd never killed anyone before. Could she even do it? She chewed on her lip and thought briefly. She exhaled and looked at the table.
"I wanna help you," she said, "and I would, but...but this is a big ask, Wyatt."
"I know. But rest assured, if anything comes of it as a result, I will make sure you aren't held responsible. I'll take the blame," Wyatt said, "you don't deserve to go down for something you're only tangentially related to. This is our mess, but...but right now we need help keeping it in check. If Calvin does what he's saying he'll do...he's gonna ruin all our lives in addition to murdering a child. Rachel doesn't deserve that. Celia has a son, she doesn't deserve to be taken away from him. If anything, I'm the only other one remotely responsible for what happened to Robert Grudin. I'll be the one taking the fall. But they don't deserve that."
Angie leaned back again and sighed. This was a huge thing to be asked, but Wyatt was doing this for such good reasons. Not only to save his friends from recourse, but also to save the life of a literal handicapped child.
"...how do we do it?" Angie asked.
"I have a plan," Wyatt said, "but...it's gonna be shaky."
"Like anything in my life has been anything but," Angie replied quietly.
***
That evening, Calvin made dinner for his folks. Something just told him, in his gut, to do something nice, likely to offset the evil shit he was about to attempt. Afterwards, while he was doing the dishes and his parents were watching TV in the living room, eating ice cream, he thought about some of the things Ricky had said, and he grimaced. He knew Ricky was right. Hell, he knew what he was going to do was wrong on so many levels, but...but the idea that Grudin's child was alive, the idea that Grudin's wife was coming after them, after everything Grudin took from him, it just made him so mad. Blinded him with irrational rage, allowing him to justify things he otherwise normally wouldn't. He set the brush down on the edge of the sink and put the wet plates on the side to dry when the landline on the wall rang. Calvin went and picked it up.
"Hello?" he asked.
"It's me," Wyatt said, "what are you doing tomorrow?"
"I have some plans, but not til much later in the evening, why?" Calvin asked.
"Cause I wanted to see if you wanted to meet, discuss some things. I think you need someone to talk to," Wyatt said, and Calvin paused, hesitant, chewing on his cheek.
"...you wanna talk to me? Because the last time you and I were alone, you told me you were going to kill me," Calvin said, "and now you wanna talk to me?"
"I just wanna talk with you before you go through with whatever it is you're planning on doing," Wyatt said, "just humor me. If I can't talk sense into you, then feel free to go along with your plan, but let's at least discuss it first, yeah?"
Calvin sighed and sat down at the kitchen table. He glanced towards the living room, hearing his parents laugh, and he scratched his forehead.
"Alright," Calvin said, "tomorrow evening. Maybe 7pm. Meet me by the river where we shredded the stuff from the unit."
"Sounds good," Wyatt said, before they each said goodbye and respectively hung up. Sitting in his car, Wyatt looked at his cell phone and shook his head. Angie bit into her ice cream cone and patted him on the back.
"This is the right thing, you know," she said, "he's dangerous."
"I know," Wyatt whispered. But it being the right thing didn't mean he wanted to go through with it. He wanted to actually find a middle ground they could agree on. Some other kind of less violent vengeance or something. But he knew it was of no use. He knew Calvin had made up his mind a long time ago. Wyatt started the car and began driving, taking Angie home. There was never a middle ground, and besides, like his father had tried to tell him, a good compromise always leaves everyone mad.
"You alright? Mother said you didn't come home, so I figured I'd find you here," Rufus said.
"I'm....whatever," Wyatt replied, shaking his head. Rufus sat down on the bleachers and exhaled, putting his hands on his knees.
"You know," Rufus said, "this isn't exactly a bad thing. I know it sucks, but...it is what it is. If anything, what you're doing is going to only improve your life down the road. I know it hurts now, but...now is now. Everything hurts in the moment. She wasn't right for you."
"She was perfect for me," Wyatt muttered, sniffling, "and...and I didn't wanna hurt her like that."
"Course you didn't, nobody wants to hurt someone they're dating, or, I mean, sometimes they do but breakups are rarely intentionally cruel," Rufus said, "but Wyatt, you gotta pull yourself tgether. It's what's best for both of you, alright? This Scarlett girl, she's far more your type, she's gonna do wonders for you, trust me on that. That other girl, what was her name, Amelia? You guys were just too different."
"No, we weren't," Wyatt said, "you and she were."
Rufus and Wyatt stared at one another, and Wyatt knew underneath that this comment had made his fathers blood boil. Anytime he managed to stand up, say his father was a bastard, even in a thinly veiled way, enraged him, and that's the way Wyatt liked it.
"Either way, it's good all around. And you know what they say, a good compromise always leaves everyone angry," Rufus replied, smacking his son on the back, "get in the car, we'll go get dinner."
***
"This is delicious," Angie said through her full mouth, the enormous burger clenched tightly in her hands; Wyatt had picked her up and invited her out to lunch during his downtime at work, and offered to pay even. Angie couldn't say no to such a treat as this.
"I told you it was a good place," Wyatt remarked, using a toothpick, "their cheese fries in particular are a thing of beauty."
"Isn't it weird how cheese goes with almost everything? It's one of the very few foods that can be adapted to almost any dish, and instantly improves it threefold," Angie said, "you just...don't ever think about how magical it is."
"Did you just call cheese magical?" Wyatt asked, laughing lightly.
He liked Angie well enough, but he was putting on a particularly nice front today, because he needed a favor. A big favor. The kind of favor that could ultimately change a life forever, and he didn't want her to say no. Angie continued eating as Wyatt leaned back in his chair and continued picking at his teeth. He'd barely slept last night, instead staying up, revisiting childhood memories in his head, and when he wasn't doing that, he was spending all his time worrying about today, and what was to come after as a result.
"Listen," Wyatt said, finally tossing the toothpick on the table, as Angie looked up midchew; he sighed and leaned forward, "I need you to do something."
Angie chewed slowly, listening.
"I..." Wyatt said, his voice low, running a hand through his hair as he looked around to ensure nobody would hear him, "...I need you to kill someone."
***
The door to the shed opened, and Ricky opened his eyes. The sunlight was refreshing, albeit brief. Calvin had covered up the windows, seemingly just to punish Ricky, so he took whatever little slivers of sunlight he could steal. Calvin entered the shed and shut the door behind, then set whatever it was he brought with him on the workshop table. Calvin didn't even look at Ricky, let alone say a word to him, so Ricky just kept quiet. After a little bit, Calvin reached up to a small metal box on a shelf and pulled it down, setting it on the table alongside the other things, and then finally turned to face Ricky, which made Ricky tense up.
"I've been thinking about what you said," Calvin said, "remember, the other day when you asked what good could come killing an innocent child? You're right. No good can come from it. His wife is the one who really deserves to hurt, and I can't think of a better way to make she she feels the same kind of loss I have than by making her watch her child die in front of her, while she's helpless to stop it, just like I had to."
Ricky got a chill and shook his head.
"No, no man, weren't you doing all this to protect children? You were harming people because they were hurting children, and now you're gonna sink to the same level and still claim moral superiority? You don't get to do that."
"That's the thing, Rick," Calvin said, opening the steel box and reaching in, "I do get to do that. They say two wrongs don't make a right, but that's what I've learned, is that nobody cares about doing what's right. You can try, but you're never doing enough. Someone else is always in the crosshairs."
Calvin pulled his pistol from the box and Ricky felt his skin goosebump. Calvin turned and looked at Ricky, then opened the barrel to check how many bullets were in it, before shutting it again and looking back at Ricky.
"Dude, listen to me," Ricky said, "there's other aveues you can take. What happened to you? That was awful. Unforgiveable. I can't even imagine what it must've been like to-"
"No, that's the thing, you can't. You can't imagine it. You're right," Calvin said, "because it's a special kind of hell reserved for only to unluckiest of souls. To spend your whole believing you're not worthy of being loved, of watching your sister get hurt by people who claimed to love her, and then to somehow get lucky enough to meet someone who does love you? Loves you so much that they don't want anyone else? Someone who loves you enough that they want to marry you, start a family? Only to have that taken from you? Yeah. You can't imagine that. There's plenty of ways one could imagine that kind of loss, grief, pain that someone is experiencing because so much pain IS universal. But this kind of pain? This is unique, and I wouldn't want someone else to feel it."
"Someone except the one who caused it? But she didn't even cause it," Ricky said, and Calvin raised the gun, putting the barrel right between Ricky's eyes; Ricky grimaced and shut his eyes, ready to feel the eternal nothing, but instead he felt the cold metal leave his skin and opened one eye again, to see Calvin putting the gun in the back of his pants, under his belt.
"I'm gonna bring us some coffee, snacks, and then you're gonna tell me everything you know about her like I said," Calvin said, turning and heading back to the door, grabbing the knob, then asking, "Two sugars?"
"P...please, if you don't mind," Ricky said, as Calvin nodded and shut the door. Ricky unclenched his body and swore that he hadn't peed himself since childhood but goddamn if he didn't just come close.
***
Sun Rai was in the kitchen, doing dishes, when Rachel came in, putting the cordless phone down on the base. Sun Rai turned and looked at her, surprised by the somewhat eager look on her face. Sun Rai then dried her hands and turned to face Rachel as she came further into the kitchen.
"What are you so happy about?" Sun Rai asked.
"I wouldn't say happy, hopeful is maybe a better word," Rachel said, "I just got off the phone with my mother and I don't want to tear my skin off, so that's progress. Anyway, she invited me to dinner, and I asked if my partner could come, and she said sure. She said she was interested in meeting who I was dating."
"Wait wait wait," Sun Rai said, shaking her hands, "wait a minute, aren't you not out to your parents?"
"I wanna change that," Rachel said, "a friend told me the other day that, like...a lot of stuff I'd been blaming myself for for years aren't my fault, and ya know what? Neither is my shame about who I am. That's associated entirely with my folks. I'm not ashamed of myself, I'm ashamed that they would be ashamed of me, but I wanna try regardless. If you're comfortable with that, I mean."
Sun Rai walked up to Rachel and took her face in her hands, planting her lips on Rachel's, with Rachel happily kissing her back.
"Only if you're sure," Sun Rai said, "I'll do anything you want. I want to support you."
"And maybe I can start coming to your folks, helping you with your dad and stuff? I mean, that's...that's what partners do, right? We share one anothers lives."
"I'd love if you did," Sun Rai said, leaning back in and kissing her again. Rachel was terrified, she couldn't deny that, but at this point, after all she'd been through, been a part of, god, being openly queer was the last thing she should ever be scared of, no matter what her parents reactions might be. And really, it didn't matter. All that mattered was her happiness, and right now had that in spades, kissing the girl she'd loved a good percentage of her life in her kitchen, and nobody could take that away from her.
***
Angie was staring at Wyatt, still chewing. She finished chewing, picked up her glass and took a long sip, then set the glass back down on the table and folded her arms.
"Why?" she finally asked.
"You said you'd help me," Wyatt said, "you said...you said I saved your life, that unlike Brighton I was a selfless kind of savior, and you'd rather help me than someone who was nothing more than a wrongfully selected martyr responsible for horrible actions. Those were your words, Angie. So I need your help. Calvin is gonna kill a child. A mother too, but the child is my actual concern. This little girl is developmentally disabled, mentally challenged, and my own daughter has some of these types of issues. I...I'd feel personally responsible if I didn't try to stop him."
"How have you tried?"
"Every possible avenue has been exhausted at this point short of going to the police, but that would just incriminate all of us and I can't do that to Rachel and Celia," Wyatt said, looking down at the table,, at his hands, sniffling, "...Angie please. I don't know what else to do. Where else to turn. I...I need you."
Angie felt for Wyatt, she did. His words were coming from the heart, and he was doing this for a good reason. But she'd never killed anyone before. Could she even do it? She chewed on her lip and thought briefly. She exhaled and looked at the table.
"I wanna help you," she said, "and I would, but...but this is a big ask, Wyatt."
"I know. But rest assured, if anything comes of it as a result, I will make sure you aren't held responsible. I'll take the blame," Wyatt said, "you don't deserve to go down for something you're only tangentially related to. This is our mess, but...but right now we need help keeping it in check. If Calvin does what he's saying he'll do...he's gonna ruin all our lives in addition to murdering a child. Rachel doesn't deserve that. Celia has a son, she doesn't deserve to be taken away from him. If anything, I'm the only other one remotely responsible for what happened to Robert Grudin. I'll be the one taking the fall. But they don't deserve that."
Angie leaned back again and sighed. This was a huge thing to be asked, but Wyatt was doing this for such good reasons. Not only to save his friends from recourse, but also to save the life of a literal handicapped child.
"...how do we do it?" Angie asked.
"I have a plan," Wyatt said, "but...it's gonna be shaky."
"Like anything in my life has been anything but," Angie replied quietly.
***
That evening, Calvin made dinner for his folks. Something just told him, in his gut, to do something nice, likely to offset the evil shit he was about to attempt. Afterwards, while he was doing the dishes and his parents were watching TV in the living room, eating ice cream, he thought about some of the things Ricky had said, and he grimaced. He knew Ricky was right. Hell, he knew what he was going to do was wrong on so many levels, but...but the idea that Grudin's child was alive, the idea that Grudin's wife was coming after them, after everything Grudin took from him, it just made him so mad. Blinded him with irrational rage, allowing him to justify things he otherwise normally wouldn't. He set the brush down on the edge of the sink and put the wet plates on the side to dry when the landline on the wall rang. Calvin went and picked it up.
"Hello?" he asked.
"It's me," Wyatt said, "what are you doing tomorrow?"
"I have some plans, but not til much later in the evening, why?" Calvin asked.
"Cause I wanted to see if you wanted to meet, discuss some things. I think you need someone to talk to," Wyatt said, and Calvin paused, hesitant, chewing on his cheek.
"...you wanna talk to me? Because the last time you and I were alone, you told me you were going to kill me," Calvin said, "and now you wanna talk to me?"
"I just wanna talk with you before you go through with whatever it is you're planning on doing," Wyatt said, "just humor me. If I can't talk sense into you, then feel free to go along with your plan, but let's at least discuss it first, yeah?"
Calvin sighed and sat down at the kitchen table. He glanced towards the living room, hearing his parents laugh, and he scratched his forehead.
"Alright," Calvin said, "tomorrow evening. Maybe 7pm. Meet me by the river where we shredded the stuff from the unit."
"Sounds good," Wyatt said, before they each said goodbye and respectively hung up. Sitting in his car, Wyatt looked at his cell phone and shook his head. Angie bit into her ice cream cone and patted him on the back.
"This is the right thing, you know," she said, "he's dangerous."
"I know," Wyatt whispered. But it being the right thing didn't mean he wanted to go through with it. He wanted to actually find a middle ground they could agree on. Some other kind of less violent vengeance or something. But he knew it was of no use. He knew Calvin had made up his mind a long time ago. Wyatt started the car and began driving, taking Angie home. There was never a middle ground, and besides, like his father had tried to tell him, a good compromise always leaves everyone mad.