To Build a Home

28 | Sanctuary

"Did the electrician stop by the cottage this afternoon?" Darren finally said, breaking the silence and changing the subject.

"Yes." I looked at him as he concentrated on the road.

"Was he able to get any of it working?"

"I didn't check," I said.

"Do you mind if we stop and check while we're out here?"

"Aren't you tired, Darren? It's like an hour to get home."

"It should only take a second. It's on the way." At the next turn, Darren made a right with my approval and we headed towards the cottage.

When we arrived a few minutes later, the property was cloaked in darkness except for the truck's headlights, which Darren kept on as he headed for the front door. I remained in the passenger seat on the lawn and waited. I watched as Darren struggled with the front door under the spotlight. He moved across the front of the house looking for a point of entry, but the windows and doors were clearly locked. I grabbed the keys from the ignition and walked them over to him.

"The key isn't on there," he said when I met him at the door and handed them over.

"I think we left the back open," I said.

We walked around the side of the cottage, the crickets chirping and sticks breaking beneath our feet. I could barely see two steps ahead of me in the darkness as the overhanging roof and the nearby trees blocked the light from the stars. I stumbled over a can of nails that was left by the workers and Darren intercepted me. We flew into the side of the house with the combined force and landed with Darren's back against the siding, my head buried into his chest. After we planted our feet firmly onto the wet grass and caught our breath, we laughed. I was still dizzy from the alcohol––or maybe I had just grown dizzy from our clumsy little dance. I rested against his chest for a second, drunk with laughter, his body warm and roasting me like a s'more over a campfire. I melted in his embrace, Darren rubbing my back the entire time to signal he was there in the darkness.

"Let's keep going," he said. "Are you ok?"

"Just drunk," I laughed.

"It's good to see you let your hair down," he said, leading the way.

We reached the closed-in back porch and both doors were open like I had remembered. It was even darker inside the porch with tons of debris from the demolition tossed into chaotic piles on the concrete. Darren rushed ahead, planning to turn on the lights to make it easier for me to move. I don't know why he considered me such a clutz, but I guess after the spill on the side of the cottage and with the bandage on my neck, I couldn't argue. To my credit, unlike the Pennsylvania wilderness, I was accustomed to the brightness of city lights.

Once he made it inside the cottage, I could hear him fumble around with the light switches, but nothing happened. He continued to move about the house, checking each switch and cursing. I left him alone and felt my way through the other side of the cottage towards the entryway and unlocked the front door and opened it. The truck's headlights burst brightly through the opening and shined right up the stairs. "I'll check the second floor," I said, though I wasn't sure if he heard me through the stomping of fallen sheetrock and the jiggling of light switches.

I followed the light from the truck that poured up the stairs and felt my way against the wall to the closest switch. After a few steps in the darkness, I found something sticking out of the wall and flipped it on. Suddenly the chandelier in the back corner illuminated the nook. "I got something," I called down to Darren, but I didn't think he heard me. He continued to shuffle around downstairs, crunching through the debris and kicking over cans or cursing the electrician. Then he reached the front door and called my name. Before I could answer, he ran out front and towards the truck. My name echoed outside through the trees, down the road, and up into the cottage behind him.

Darren ran back inside when he couldn't find me on the lawn and I met him at the top of the stairs. "I'm right here," I said. "The chandelier is working."

He was out of breath from running and screaming and panicking. He came barreling up the steps like a thunderstorm and pinned me against the wall in one swift motion. "What are you doing up here?" he yelled. He was still breathing heavily, gripping my arms between his own, standing a few inches from my face, and searching for an answer in my eyes.

"I was looking for a light," I said.

Then he kissed me. It was unlike our first kiss––slow and soft and interrupted. This time he pushed into me, fast, every inch of our bodies connected, his mouth opening with mine, his hands exploring my body with urgency. He held my face and stopped to breathe, pressing his forehead into mine. It was all happening so fast I thought maybe I was imagining it, maybe the alcohol was finally catching up to me and I wasn't standing at the top of the cottage stairs against a wall looking into Darren's eyes, but I was asleep in the truck. No, it was real. His breath on my skin, his pelvis pressing into mine, the scent of his cologne like the surrounding pine trees outside. Then I realized he was crying.

"What is it?" I asked. Did he think something had happened to me again? "I'm right here. I'm ok. I'm fine."

"I'm not," he said. Then he collapsed to his knees, crying. He released a moan from the floor that sent shards of glass slowly through my heart. He leaned into me, hugging my waist and mumbling maybe an apology or a confession or something else entirely.

I lowered myself to the ground and embraced him while he continued to moan into my shoulder. It was then that I realized all this time Darren had been a comfort and a savior to me, swooping in when I failed at bathtime or couldn't get tapes from under the floorboards or didn't have a suit for the funeral or when I cut my neck. The list went on and on. But who comforted him? Who did he lean on or confide in or cry to? A wave of emotions overcame me––anger, guilt, regret––but I ignored them, let them wash away. Instead of thinking about all the ways I could have comforted him, I kissed him––on his neck, his cheek, his forehead, his lips, hundreds of small kisses until the crying stopped. "I'm right here," I said in between. "You're ok. It's ok." I kissed him again, deeper this time, our tongues reaching for each other. I said it again, "You know it's ok, right? This is ok."

Darren looked deep into my eyes, our faces half-lit from the chandelier. Then he stood up and held my hand to follow him. We walked under the chandelier and he took off his shirt. It wasn't the first time I had seen his bare chest, but it was somehow different under the shimmering light in the empty cottage late in the summer evening. Then he put my hand on his skin and dragged it down the front of his body. I took my own shirt off and did the same. He removed the bandage from my neck, slowly, and then kissed the wound.

We removed our pants. We were in our underwear and I couldn't help but think of that first day in Windber, after soaking in the sprinklers, when he had asked me to remove my clothes in the foyer. I laughed. I had been so shy then, still that young kid who had so long looked up to his brother's best friend, harboring secret feelings and hiding a secret life. But at some point, and I didn't notice it had happened so slowly, he became more than that. He was my friend, my sanctuary.

Darren didn't know what I was laughing about, but he joined in and embraced me. We kissed and the world disappeared, we became one with the crickets and the breeze and the stars outside the window. We took off our underwear, the last secret between us, and spent the rest of the night in each other's arms, our bodies one, more myself than I had ever been. We were both safe and free.

Author's Note: I think that one speaks for itself...