Nate opened his mouth, letting him inside. He sucked at Nate's tongue. They moved together as the sun finally broke through the shade of the trees above. Quinn stroked Nate's back, he could feel the faint outlines of the scars under his fingertips. Nate groaned, his body trembling in Quinn's arms. He cried out when he couldn't fight it anymore. Quinn joined him. The stress of the past few days draining from him as Nate held him. "Scream, baby."
Quinn screamed.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
There was a scent about summer that Quinn never could forget. As many summers as he'd been on this earth, he could never forget the elusive miracle scent of pine and water and sun that perfumed everything and everyone. He'd had pine and water and sun many summers, but that particular combination had never quite been achieved since the early imprint on his memory.
As a child, he'd spent most of his summers playing on the shore of the most perfect lake. Almost as if he'd seen a painting of some idyllic summer. The cabin in the pines. The perfectly round mirrored lake surface. Fine sand at the shoreline that gave way to grass soft enough to sleep on when he was tired from swimming and playing. The scent of all those summers seemed to cling to the skin of his best friend as a reminder of happier times.
He couldn't remember when he started spending the summers at the cabin. His first memory of more than a couple of days here and there started the summer after his seventh birthday. The first full summer was after his mother had died. He remembered that Nate didn't play that much that summer. His parents were worried about him. He seemed so pale even after spending the afternoons in the sun. They didn't dare let him go into the water. It was too cold. Nate didn't run or play ball with him that year. He tired too quickly. That was the summer he and Nate had slept in the double bunk together for the first time. Nate would shiver all night, even with blankets. He'd been so sick for so long that his parents had started to whisper when they thought Quinn couldn't hear.
They planned his birthday early that year. No one said out loud what they whispered. Nate wasn't going to live to see his seventh birthday. He wasn't getting better. Just like Quinn's mother had died before Quinn's birthday.
He hadn't seen Nate for weeks while he was very sick. He'd believed that like his mother, Nate had died, too, but no one had told him. That summer that Nate was supposed to turn seven, Quinn prayed a lot. He didn't know what praying meant or who to pray to. He did like the grownups did, and at night when Nate slept, he got down on his knees beside the bed and said, "please, please, please, please" a lot.
That summer went by so very slowly. The end of June seemed to take forever to come. Nate didn't talk much to him. He seemed so tired all the time. He never smiled anymore. The doctors said to keep him warm and make sure he got plenty of fresh air and sunshine. To keep him happy. He didn't cough or act sick anymore. He never ran fevers. Sometimes he threw up, but that was after the medicines the doctors gave him made him sick.
They started talking about cake and bringing a few of the kids from school up. The same time they started talking about sending Quinn home. His dad came every day, and every day Quinn begged to stay with Nate. That's when he started sleeping with him. Nate didn't shiver so much at night when Quinn slept with him. He didn't talk in his sleep. He didn't have bad dreams anymore.
During the day, Quinn did everything he knew how to do to make his friend smile. He didn't beg Nate to get up and play with him. He sat on the blanket on the grass and brought the toys to Nate. Trucks and cars or GI Joe and He-Man. Whatever Quinn could think of to try to get Nate to stay. He sang school songs and playground songs and songs he heard on the radio. He memorized the best songs from the radio and sang them to Nate at night when he shivered. He read books to him. The one about a mouse and a cookie was a baby story but it was still his favorite. That's the summer when he'd gotten the book Nate the Great from the library. He'd kept that one. He'd hidden it from his babysitter when she was supposed to return it, and he'd taken it to the lake. He read that book to Nate every afternoon. He did the voices.
They had Nate's birthday nearly a month early. He didn't seem to notice that it wasn't the right day. And every day after that, Quinn begged not to go home. He wasn't going to let them take Nate away the way they'd taken his mother. He didn't understand that Nate was dying. He remembered that he was going to stay until Nate smiled. Until Nate played with him.
He remembered that summer as if it was a story he'd read. Sometimes he confused it with the story about the stuffed rabbit who became a real rabbit. God, he hated that story. He couldn't even get past the first page of that book. He could never read it to his daughter. Never. He couldn't … He was that fucking rabbit, and it hurt too much to remember that summer.