Chapter 1
Starting fresh ( Nathan )
NATHAN FELT the phone vibrate in his pocket and debated not answering. His mother had called three times in the past hour. Just the thought of trying to have a conversation with her while the cab driver judged him intently through the rearview mirror, gave him anxiety, but Nathan knew she wouldn’t stop until he answered. He hunkered down into his coat, hoping the driver wouldn’t hear his conversation.
“Hello, Aurora,” he said. Nathan stopped calling her “Mom” when he was seven because she said it made her feel old. Talking with her was always challenging for Nathan and usually ended badly.
“Why in the world are you whispering, Nathaniel?” she asked in her extremely proper no-nonsense tone.
“I’m on my way to look at an apartment. I mentioned it to you last time we talked.” Nathan fidgeted with a tear in the seat upholstery, feeling more like a child than a twenty-three-year-old.
“Well, I didn’t think you were serious. There is no reason for you to move across the city. Why would you want to stay in some cheap apartment when we practically live in a mansion? Now stop being ridiculous. The Jamesons are coming for dinner tonight, and I expect you to be at the table.”
“Yes, Aurora. I will be there.” Nathan heard the phone click as she disconnected.
Aurora was what Nathan referred to as “maternally challenged.” He wasn’t very good at interacting with people, but he was really good at watching them. Not in a creepy way—well, he hoped he wasn’t creepy, anyway—but he would study other families when he was younger, how they interacted with each other, and even at a young age, he was positive Aurora was doing it wrong, but no one dared tell Aurora that. She was a perfectionist, had always been more concerned with public appearance than anything else. She strived to have the best reputation, the perfect husband, and live in the best communities. If anything didn’t fit into that perfectly created existence, she found a way to change it.
Nathan was the poster child for things that didn’t fit into Aurora’s ideal world. A gay son with anxiety issues, a higher-than-average IQ, and no social skills, he was pretty sure she would have hidden him away if people didn’t already know he existed. He wished she would let him bury his head in a book somewhere and leave him be, but she wouldn’t quit until everything was perfect, and if it wasn’t, she pretended it wasn’t happening.
Nathan had come out of the closet to his mother three times since he was fourteen, like getting up the courage to do that once wasn’t hard enough; each time she responded with some mundane response like “Did you get the mail on your way in?” Or his favorite: “Can’t talk now, I have an appointment at the salon,” she would say frantically, rushing out of the room like a queen who’d lost her servants.
Nathan grabbed the headphones out of his jacket pocket, turned on some relaxing music, and laid his head on the back of the seat, zoning out on the changing landscape through the window of the cab, trying to calm his nerves. His anxiety always tried to stay ever present and was always worse after talking to Aurora. The collar of his shirt started to feel tighter and the back of the cab suddenly seemed smaller. He felt an urge to make sure the back doors weren’t locked. He’d seen a movie once where the driver was actually a serial killer who locked people in the back of the cab and drove them to an undisclosed location where he eventually disposed of the bodies.
Nathan rolled down the window and focused on breathing deep, picturing himself on a beach, watching the waves hit the shore, in order to shake off the unwanted thoughts. As his heart rate calmed, he watched the roads get narrower, the hills get higher, and the shops and people get more colorful as the tempo of his music increased like his life had a soundtrack. This was his chance for a fresh
Starting fresh ( Nathan )
NATHAN FELT the phone vibrate in his pocket and debated not answering. His mother had called three times in the past hour. Just the thought of trying to have a conversation with her while the cab driver judged him intently through the rearview mirror, gave him anxiety, but Nathan knew she wouldn’t stop until he answered. He hunkered down into his coat, hoping the driver wouldn’t hear his conversation.
“Hello, Aurora,” he said. Nathan stopped calling her “Mom” when he was seven because she said it made her feel old. Talking with her was always challenging for Nathan and usually ended badly.
“Why in the world are you whispering, Nathaniel?” she asked in her extremely proper no-nonsense tone.
“I’m on my way to look at an apartment. I mentioned it to you last time we talked.” Nathan fidgeted with a tear in the seat upholstery, feeling more like a child than a twenty-three-year-old.
“Well, I didn’t think you were serious. There is no reason for you to move across the city. Why would you want to stay in some cheap apartment when we practically live in a mansion? Now stop being ridiculous. The Jamesons are coming for dinner tonight, and I expect you to be at the table.”
“Yes, Aurora. I will be there.” Nathan heard the phone click as she disconnected.
Aurora was what Nathan referred to as “maternally challenged.” He wasn’t very good at interacting with people, but he was really good at watching them. Not in a creepy way—well, he hoped he wasn’t creepy, anyway—but he would study other families when he was younger, how they interacted with each other, and even at a young age, he was positive Aurora was doing it wrong, but no one dared tell Aurora that. She was a perfectionist, had always been more concerned with public appearance than anything else. She strived to have the best reputation, the perfect husband, and live in the best communities. If anything didn’t fit into that perfectly created existence, she found a way to change it.
Nathan was the poster child for things that didn’t fit into Aurora’s ideal world. A gay son with anxiety issues, a higher-than-average IQ, and no social skills, he was pretty sure she would have hidden him away if people didn’t already know he existed. He wished she would let him bury his head in a book somewhere and leave him be, but she wouldn’t quit until everything was perfect, and if it wasn’t, she pretended it wasn’t happening.
Nathan had come out of the closet to his mother three times since he was fourteen, like getting up the courage to do that once wasn’t hard enough; each time she responded with some mundane response like “Did you get the mail on your way in?” Or his favorite: “Can’t talk now, I have an appointment at the salon,” she would say frantically, rushing out of the room like a queen who’d lost her servants.
Nathan grabbed the headphones out of his jacket pocket, turned on some relaxing music, and laid his head on the back of the seat, zoning out on the changing landscape through the window of the cab, trying to calm his nerves. His anxiety always tried to stay ever present and was always worse after talking to Aurora. The collar of his shirt started to feel tighter and the back of the cab suddenly seemed smaller. He felt an urge to make sure the back doors weren’t locked. He’d seen a movie once where the driver was actually a serial killer who locked people in the back of the cab and drove them to an undisclosed location where he eventually disposed of the bodies.
Nathan rolled down the window and focused on breathing deep, picturing himself on a beach, watching the waves hit the shore, in order to shake off the unwanted thoughts. As his heart rate calmed, he watched the roads get narrower, the hills get higher, and the shops and people get more colorful as the tempo of his music increased like his life had a soundtrack. This was his chance for a fresh
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