Ugly Love: A Novel

“I have to pee.”

Corbin groans. “Again?”

“I haven’t been in two hours,” I say defensively.

I really don’t have to use the bathroom, but I do need to get out of this car. After the conversation I had with Miles last night, the car feels different with him in it. It feels like there’s more of him, and every minute that passes and he’s not talking, I’m wondering what’s going through his head. I’m wondering if he regrets our conversation. I’m wondering if he’s going to pretend it never happened.

I wish my dad would have pretended it never happened. Before we left this morning, I was seated at the kitchen table with him when Miles walked in.

“Sleep well, Miles?” he asked as Miles took a seat at the table.

I thought he was going to flush with embarrassment, but instead, he regarded my dad with a shake of his head. “Not too well,” Miles replied. “Your son talks in his sleep.”

My father picked up his glass and lifted it in Miles’s direction. “Good to know you were in the room with Corbin last night.”

Luckily, Corbin had yet to sit down and hear that comment from my father. Miles was quiet through the rest of breakfast, and the only time I noticed him speaking after that was when Corbin and I were both in the car. Miles stepped over to my father and shook his hand, saying something that only my father could hear. I tried to read my father’s expression, but he kept a tight lid on it. My father is almost as good at hiding his thoughts as Miles is.

I really want to know what Miles said to my father this morning before we left.

I also want to know about a dozen other answers to questions I have about Miles.

When we were younger, Corbin and I always agreed that if we could have any superpower, it would be the ability to fly. Now that I know Miles, I’ve changed my mind. If I had a superpower, it would be infiltration. I would infiltrate his mind so I could see every single one of his thoughts.

I would infiltrate his heart and spread myself around like a virus.

I would call myself the Infiltrator.

Yeah. That has a nice ring to it.

“Go pee,” Corbin says with agitation as he puts the car in park.

I wish I were in high school again so I could call him a butt­hole. Adults don’t call their brothers buttholes, though.

I get out of the car and feel a little more like I can breathe again, until Miles opens his door and steps out of the car and into the world. Now Miles seems even bigger, and my lungs seem smaller. We walk together into the gas station, but we don’t speak.

It’s funny how that works. Sometimes not speaking says more than all the words in the world. Sometimes my silence is saying, I don’t know how to speak to you. I don’t know what you’re thinking. Talk to me. Tell me everything you’ve ever said. All the words. Starting from your very first one.

I wonder what his silence is saying.

Once we’re inside, he spots the sign for the bathrooms first, so he nods his head and steps in front of me. He leads. I let him. Because he’s a solid and I’m a liquid, and right now, I’m just his wake.

When we reach the bathrooms, he walks into the men’s restroom without pause. He doesn’t turn and look at me. He doesn’t wait for me to walk into the women’s first. I push the door open, but I don’t need to use the restroom. I just wanted to breathe, but he’s not letting me. He’s invading. I don’t think he means to. He’s just invading my thoughts and my stomach and my lungs and my world.

That’s his superpower. Invasion.

The Invader and the Infiltrator. They pretty much have the same meaning, so I guess we make one screwed-up team.

I wash my hands and waste enough time to make it seem like I actually needed Corbin to stop here. I open the door to the bathroom, and he’s invading again. He’s in my way, standing in front of the doorway that I’m trying to exit.

He doesn’t move, even though he’s invading. I don’t really want him to, though, so I let him stay.

“You want something to drink?” he asks.

I shake my head. “I have water in the car.”

“Hungry?”

I tell him I’m not. He seems slightly disappointed that I don’t want anything. Maybe he doesn’t want to go back to the car yet.

“I might want some candy, though,” I say.

One of his rare and treasured smiles slowly appears. “I’ll buy you some candy, then.”

He turns and walks toward the candy aisle. I stop next to him and look at my options. We stare at the candy for way too long. I don’t even really want any, but we both stare at it anyway and pretend we do.

“This is weird,” I whisper.

“What’s weird?” he asks. “Picking out candy or having to pretend we don’t both want to be in the backseat right now?”

Wow. I feel like I really did infiltrate his thoughts somehow. Only they were words that he willingly spoke. Words that made me feel really good.

“Both,” I say steadily. I turn to face him. “Do you smoke?”

He gives me the look again. The look that tells me I’m weird.

I don’t care.

“Nope,” he replies casually.

“Remember those candy cigarettes they sold when we were kids?”

“Yeah,” he says. “Kind of morbid, if you think about it.”

I nod. “Corbin and I used to get those all the time. There’s no way in hell I’d let my child buy those things.”

“I doubt they make them anymore,” Miles says.

We face the candy again.

“Do you?” he asks.

“Do I what?”

“Smoke.”

I shake my head. “Nope.”

“Good,” he says. We stare at the candy a little bit longer. He turns to face me, and I glance up at him. “Do you even want any candy, Tate?”

“Nope.”

He laughs. “Then I guess we should get back to the car.”

I agree with him, but neither of us moves.

He reaches down to my hand and touches it so softly it’s as if he’s aware he’s made of lava and I’m not. He grips two of my fingers, not even coming close to holding my entire hand, and gives them a soft tug.

“Wait,” I say to him, tugging back on his hand. He glances at me over his shoulder and then turns to face me completely. “What did you say to my father this morning? Before we left?”

His fingers tighten around mine, and his expression doesn’t deviate from the poignant look he’s perfected. “I apologized to him.”

He turns toward the door once again, and I follow him this time. He doesn’t release my hand until we’re close to the exit. When he finally does let my hand fall, I evaporate again.

I follow him toward the car and hope I don’t really believe I’m capable of infiltration. I remind myself he’s made of armor. He’s impenetrable.

I don’t know if I can do this, Miles. I don’t know if I can follow rule number two, because I suddenly want to climb into your future more than I want to climb into the backseat with you.

“Long line,” Miles says to Corbin once we’re both inside the car. Corbin puts the car in drive and changes the radio station. He doesn’t care how long the line was. He wasn’t suspicious, or he would have said something. Besides, there’s nothing to be suspicious of yet.

We drive for a good fifteen minutes before I realize I’m not thinking about Miles anymore. For the last fifteen minutes of the drive, my thoughts have just been memories.

“Remember when we were kids and we wished our superpower could be to fly?”

“Yeah, I remember,” Corbin says.

“You have your superpower now. You can fly.”

Corbin smiles at me in the rearview mirror. “Yeah,” he says. “I guess that makes me a superhero.”

I lean back in the seat and stare out the window, a little envious of both of them. Envious of the things they’ve seen. The places they’ve traveled. “What’s it like, watching the sunrise from up in the air?”

Corbin shrugs. “I don’t really look at it,” he says. “I’m too busy working when I’m up there.”

This makes me sad. Don’t take it for granted, Corbin.

“I look,” Miles says. He’s staring out his window, and his voice is so quiet I almost don’t hear it. “Every time I’m up there, I watch it.”

He doesn’t say what it’s like, though. His voice is distant, like he wants to keep that feeling to himself. I let him.

“You bend the laws of the universe when you fly,” I say. “It’s impressive. Defying gravity? Watching sunrises and sunsets from places Mother Nature didn’t intend for you to watch them from? You really are superheroes, if you think about it.”

Corbin glances at me in the rearview mirror and laughs. Don’t take it for granted, Corbin. Miles isn’t laughing, though. He’s still staring out his window.

“You save lives,” Miles says to me. “That’s way more impressive.”

My heart absorbs those words on impact.

Rule number two is not looking good from back here.