Page 27 of Backward Motion

“Apparently, we’re all making a fuss, so I came to join the party.” She took a sip of wine, not bothering to hide the roll of her eyes. “I mean, come on, Mom. Sam has a hard time, and now you’re ferrying him around, catering to his every whim? Everyone gets depressed these days. It’s like a rite of passage.”

Sam said nothing. He walked to the cupboard and took down a stack of plates then opened one of the pizza boxes and helped himself to a slice. Taking a seat at the counter, he took a bite of pizza and swallowed without tasting.

“That junk won’t help either, if you ask me,” Georgia remarked.

“I didn’t,” Sam muttered through a mouthful of pepperoni.

“Georgia, it’s not just a hard time. The doctor’s been involved. He was very concerned for Sam’s well-being,” his mom protested.

“Well, your coddling isn’t going to fix anything. He needs to go back to work and get on with his life like the rest of us. Is he paying rent? Tell me he’s at least contributing. We see it all the time at the firm—adult children who end up back with their parents and never leave. It’s sad. I don’t want that for our family.”

“Sam’s working, Georgie,” his dad assured her. “He’s contributing.”

Georgia’s eyebrow twitched. “Wait, Oakdale has a brand agency now?”

Sam gripped the edge of the counter. She’d always been able to do this—hit him right where it hurt.

“He’s been helping in the office at Finnegan’s Electrical,” his mother said. The secret pride Sam had taken in his work evaporated as he heard his mother’s words with his sister’s ears.

“In the office? What, answering phones?”

Sam threw down the slice of pizza and stood to face Georgia. “So you showed up and did your concerned-big-sister bit. Now you can fuck off.”

“Sam,” his father reprimanded. “Don’t speak to your sister like that.”

Georgia narrowed her eyes at Sam. “Careful, Dad, we wouldn’t want poor Sam to have another breakdown.”

For days, Sam had lain in bed in his apartment in Austin and watched the ceiling fan turn above his head. He might as well have been the only person left in the world. He was sure no one had ever felt as alone as he did. Since moving home, there had been good days and bad days—recently far more good than bad—but the feeling was never far away. If he reached out, he could almost brush it with his fingertips.

He stalked out of the kitchen and grabbed what he realized was his dad’s jacket from the coat hook. Too angry to care, he threw it on.

“Sam,” his mother called after him, the all-too-familiar waver of worry in her voice. He didn’t remember it from before. It was there because of him. “Where are you going, Sam?”

He grabbed his keys from the hallway table and yanked open the front door. “Out,” he snapped, slamming the door behind him and disappearing into the cold night air.

A couple of months before Sam left Austin, Felix had hosted an impromptu birthday celebration at his apartment. His birthday wasn’t for another week, but Felix was turning twenty-nine and wanted to get a head start on living up the final year of his youth.

The place was packed. While Sam recognized some of their friends from the Austin queer scene, he didn’t know most of the people there. He assumed they were part of Felix’s wider professionalcircle. Working at the gallery, Felix rubbed shoulders with all kinds of people—artists and collectors and the city’s avant-garde elite.

Sam was in the kitchen getting drinks when someone called his name, and he glanced up to find Felix’s friend Remy standing there with his buddy Brandon. Sam had met them both on the clubbing circuit, and they occasionally ran into each other at group get-togethers. Unlike Remy, who was blunt and standoffish, Brandon had always been friendly. Scrappy and bohemian, he had a way of dressing that looked like he’d picked up the first item of clothing from the floor and thrown it on. That evening, he was wearing baggy cargos and a white T-shirt with a hole in the hem that seemed less a chic design feature and more like he hadn’t got around to tossing it. But the most striking thing about Brandon had nothing to do with his clothes. He had sweeping dark eyelashes that cast shadows across his cheekbones and gave him a sultry, pinup appeal.

In the doorframe, Brandon’s boyfriend hung back, looking decidedly uncomfortable. Mike, chinos clearing the tops of his suede chukkas, was your classic finance bro, sorely out of place among Brandon’s outlandish rabble. Brandon had gotten a lot of grief from his friends when they’d first started going out, but Sam had watched with envy every time Mike held the door open for his boyfriend or rescued Brandon’s abandoned phone from the bar when he drunkenly lurched toward the dance floor. The way the two of them made eyes at each other, it was like they knew something the rest of their crowd didn’t.

“I need to talk to you,” Brandon said, his expression serious.

“Come on,” Remy whined, pulling at Brandon’s arm. “It’s none of your business, Don.”

“No, I’m going to say something,” Brandon huffed, holding Sam’s gaze. “He’s been talking shit about you all night. Maybe he’s just drunk, but the things he’s saying... I thought you should know.”

Sam gave a masked smile as the fear resurfaced. Felix got like that when he’d had a few. If it wasn’t other people he was railing on, it was Sam.

“We’re heading out,” Brandon went on. “We can drop you someplace if you need a ride.”

It was a kind offer. Sam hadn’t thought they were that close. But Brandon moved between the divisions separating strangers and acquaintances and friends with an easy fluidity.

He lowered his voice, his eyes burning. “You know, you don’t have to put up with his crap.”

Sam was almost grateful someone was angry on his behalf. These days, he’d been finding it difficult to summon more than a deadened blankness. “It’s fine,” he managed finally. “He gets a little bitchy when he’s been drinking.”