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Adam Parrish grew up in a single-wide trailer in a park full of other single-wide trailers. The only real wood he had ever touched until he got himself into Aglionby was the pathetically slim trees outside, the ones that grew tall and dropped more branches than they grew leaves, whose bark was brittle but made for something decent enough to chew on when you didn't have food on the table. He grew up with holes in the wall, plastic veneer made to mimic real wood-grain on the counters, plywood cabinets, a shower you had to use a wrench to turn on. His father drank beer by the caseful and sat on an EZ-Boy recliner he'd shirked from the curbside of a rich neighborhood, watched TV with a satellite bought from a Walmart, something that only played a handful of channels, something he only watched sports on. His father was mean, his mother was meek — she cooked mashed potatoes from a box, made the ground meat spread farther by combining it with lentils and using it to make hamburger helper she got on sale, flinched whenever she dropped a spoon or a spatula, only hid her face with her arms when her husband made a swing toward her, and she tried not to look Adam in the eye, and Adam thought that it was the only good thing she'd ever done. When a bruise spread on his face, violent purple and green and blue, she told him, never looking at his eyes, always somewhere else — her clasped hands, the newest hole in the drywall, a fleck of dust on the counter — always told him the same thing: lie, tell them you fell, that it was your fault — because wasn't it, Adam, wasn't it your fault, just a little? And she would wring her hands, would tell him that she would talk with his father, that they would handle this together, as a family. That family was important. That it wasn't something they could lose. Sometimes, at night, Adam heard his mother murmuring to herself in the kitchen, broken prayers sent up to God through popcorn ceiling and a tarp-covered roof. When he left, that final, bruised afternoon, he thought, in the back of his head, with his ear ringing something fierce and almost melodic, that he hopes her husband doesn't kill her. When his father gets a sentence, when Ronan shows up to the courtroom with his tie done up properly, he hopes that she doesn't kill herself — because some part of him needs her to suffer for everything she didn't do. Immediately, though, he stamps the thought out, chews it to pulp and swallows it down.
College has done Adam good. He has new clothes, he has a falsified childhood to relay back to his normie friends, and he's swallowed his accent down for good. He's 20 years old and he still has to hold back a flinch when someone makes a movement like they're going to raise their fist, he still tastes blood in his throat, his ear still doesn't work. But he's here, not there, and he has an image to uphold, so he holds every instinctual reaction back, tells everybody he was in a car crash and that's why he has the one deaf ear, why his torso and back are littered in switch marks. None of them ask about his accent, about why he sounds like he's from a TV Midwest version of Henrietta, of Virginia, and Adam has to swallow down the searing knowledge that he already knows what it's like to be known. Completely. But, then, he's changed his accent, hasn't he?
Ronan visits him, and it feels like something sacred being brought into a barrel fire. Ronan, still wearing his black wife beaters and leather bracelets, still with his hair shaved down, meets Adam's friends and suddenly, suddenly Adam feels like everybody's looking at him differently. Like they all want more information and are fully aware that Adam won't give it without a fight. He catches Nathan's eyes with his own, offers his hoodie-clad peer a smile. Watches as Nathan's eyebrows furrow, as he starts to open his mouth, finger raised in question. Adam has to fight down the urge to be mean, to be vicious. He swallows and smiles and emulates Gansey as much as he can, throws in a little Declan for good measure. His posture straightens, his hands clasp behind his back, he turns his good ear toward his friends because he knows he can trust Ronan with his bad one. Ronan knows the spiel, knows how desperately Adam wants to run from himself, from his past, from everything he ever was. He loops his arm around Adam's shoulders, stares at Adam's friends as they try to form words. He puts on a Henrietta drawl when he asks Adam if there's any good places to eat around here. Puts his hand up when one of them, a girl with bright blue hair, starts to rattle something off. He doesn't want a sushi bar or a steak joint; he wants Adam to be himself, to lay back, let loose, he wants to stop talking to a stranger.
When they're away, tucked into the corner of some 50s style diner, single milkshake with two straws between them just to seal the deal, Ronan tells him that he's in fucking Boston, he doesn't need to hide his accent, has he heard the way these fuckers talk? He tells him that his accent, in comparison, is like honey, like syrup, like the way water rushes, like popcorn. And Adam laughs, because why popcorn? And he talks slow, lets his syllables roll off his tongue. Stops because it doesn't feel natural, not anymore. Adam thinks the only thing he's ever truly known is the way to act when he wants something, the way to look and speak. He thinks back on some rich kids making fun of his accent, imbuing it with old money vitriol. Thinks about the way Ronan looked at him, that first time, so many years ago. About Gansey's casual eloquence. He thinks about Blue, who shares his accent and doesn't hide it, doesn't feel ashamed of it. But Blue grew up with love, unconditional, and Adam grew up trying to keep his teeth from spilling out of his gums and onto the sticky linoleum lining their kitchen. Sometimes, he still lets it simmer. It's hard for him to accept casual kindness, harder still for him to see smiles that don't hold beer-stained cruelty or hands that don't tell him they'll get through it, as a family. Adam wants to punch something, the feeling is sudden and he thinks that Ronan is too much of a reminder. Adam always places the blame somewhere else, somewhere other than his own concave stomach, starved of affection. Instead, he clasps his pinky with Ronan's, smiles at him when he huffs out a laugh. Tries not to think about dollar store flatware, about plastic bowls with scratches from forks, about half of the rent money going to cases of poor quality beer. Tries to think, instead, of Ronan in his perfectly done up tie, of Ronan sleeping on his floor at St. Agnes's, about when Adam first noticed Ronan's huge, pathetic crush on him. About their first kiss. About the way Ronan, ever the Catholic, made him sleep in another room after they had spent several minutes making out with each other. Adam laughs and Ronan quirks a brow, lets Adam tug him into a kiss, soft and sweet and tasting of strawberry milkshake.
Gansey calls while Adam is in a class, and Adam lets him go to voicemail. He listens, later, to the sound of Gansey's voice, to the way you could hear his perfect teeth through the phone speaker, as he tells him about where they're at, now. Blue cuts in and Adam lets himself smile, laughs when she says something about Henry and Gansey not being able to stand the motel she suggested even though Gansey chose to live in Monmouth, with a mini fridge by the toilet. Laughs again when Gansey cuts in to say this is a road trip, Jane! they ought to be sleeping in the Pig. He can imagine Gansey's face when Blue tells him that cops kill homeless people for that, that she's not going to let Gansey or Henry cosplay being poor in an orange Camaro. He laughs again when Blue stage whispers that they've only slept in 4-star hotels. She talks, then, for several minutes about a decent quality camera she had found at a thrift store the other day, about how she's going to start taking nature shots and submitting them to magazines, and no, she won't let Gansey call in any of his magazine friends. When his phone goes silent after Henry regales him with a one-man performance of Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, Adam stares at it. It's a small thing, not anywhere near the latest model, something his friends here think he's "cool" for having, they say that it's kind of retro, kind of vintage, all while they hold their latest-model smartphones to their ears and talk about what color they want their new laptop to be. He doesn't call Gansey back, doesn't even send him a text.
If Adam Parrish is anything, he's scrap metal. He's a junkyard full of crashed cars, full of scavengers hunting for a new trunk, a new spare, a new steering wheel. He's a tinny music box that plays an off-tune and grating melody, something that lines up with the off-tune and grating nature of his face. Ronan had left a few days ago and Adam was in the passenger seat of a car, hand out the window and music blasting loud. Something by Katy Perry, something that Adam doesn't think is really radio material. Two of his friends are talking loudly in the backseat, the driver is singing over them, and Adam wonders if this is how normal tastes. But then he wants to get his hands around his father's throat, bang his head against the trailer wall, for depriving him of this, of friends in a car singing radio songs, and he has to reel himself in, has to take several deep and controlled breaths, has to close his eyes around these people who are wildly moving their hands. Has to simmer in his fear. Freezes when one of their hands glances off of his face, all rings and heroin chic boniness, and they immediately apologize but all Adam can hear is ringing. And he opens the door at a stoplight, and he steps out of the car, closes the door, and he walks across the street to a cracked sidewalk, and then he runs. He ducks behind a dumpster when he reaches one of the gas stations a full mile away and he dry heaves. He puts his hands in his hair, thinking about putting his fingers down his trachea, about making himself throw up all the fear and cowardice. He doesn't think he can ever talk to those people again, blocks all of their numbers with shaky hands, calls Ronan before he can talk himself out of it.
"Adam?" Ronan picks up, and Adam's only answer is heavy breathing and heaving gasps. Over the line, Ronan makes exaggerated breaths for Adam to follow, and eventually Adam is calm, boiling in shame. "Adam, what's wrong?" Ronan asks. And Adam ends the call, hangs up, kind of wishes he had called on a payphone instead of his cell. He silences his phone when Ronan calls the first time, pockets it when he calls the second. He's sweaty, stinks like the dumpster. He pats himself down, looks in his pockets for change, cash if he has it. He comes back with six crumpled dollar bills and two dollars in change, walks into the gas station and buys the cheapest deodorant they have. He puts it on, then rubs some on his chest, his neck, the creases of his elbows. Until he smells like cheap deodorant instead of raccoon soaked dumpster. He calls a cab, uses the ATM in the gas station to withdraw enough cash for the ride.
When he's back, he climbs into his loft and presses his face into the pillow. He lets it sting a little, lets the pressure hurt his nose just the slightest. His roommate is out, thankfully, so Adam lets himself stew. Thoughtless, he reaches into his pocket to check his phone. 50 missed called from Ronan, 18 missed from Gansey and another incoming. He doesn't let himself throw the thing, places it, instead, beneath his pillow so he can forget about it. His ear rings. There's a knocking on his door that he doesn't answer.
"Adam?!" he hears Ronan call, then he hears Blue, too, and Gansey and Cheng. His door opens and Adam peeks from his bed to see Blue wielding a credit card. Thinks, vaguely, that the school should have more secure doors with how much it costs. Ronan is tall enough to be face to face with Adam, cheek pressed against his pillow. The four of them are standing awkwardly in his dorm, taking up too much space, bumping into things they shouldn't be touching. Ronan puts his hand on Adam's face, brushes the hair out of his eyes, caresses his cheek. Asks, soft and low and concerned, what happened.
And Adam, despite himself, tells.
They end up, to Adam's amusement, in a 4-star hotel. Holiday Inn, somewhere Adam had only gone once, for a birthday party. Adam knew the dinge of a Motel 6, of a beaming neon "No Vacancy" sign, another sign beneath it boasting cable television. The place was beige and looming in a way Adam didn't like but couldn't explain why. Blue walks in front of him, skin tanned and hair longer than he'd seen it last, and tells Adam about how many endless hallways she's had to suffer. She thinks Gansey has the money to buy them camping gear, why doesn't he? She talks about their trek for Glendower, about the woods and water, states that Gansey and Henry both should be perfectly comfortable in a tent. Adam doesn't ask her how they would carry all of that in the Pig: a tent and stakes, fire starter, pots and pans and water bottles, coolers, boots and sleeping bags or air mattresses, fishing poles and pillows to sleep on, chairs to sit on. Ronan hasn't left Adam's side, is glowering at every stranger they pass. Adam clasps their hands together, relishes in being understood, in being loved.
Gansey is flipping through channels, stops at a nature documentary. Tells them he knows the narrator, and Adam feels the pit in his stomach grow. They're in a two-bed with a pull-out couch, though none of them will use it The TV is flat screen, large, attached to the wall. Adam is sitting on one of the beds, with its white sheets and its white pillows, nothing stained the yellow of cigarette smoke, next to Ronan and Blue. Both are touching his shoulders with their own, both are emanating vitriol and anger on his behalf. Adam thinks about his own anger, about how it can boil over. He recalls, some time ago, telling someone "Sorry, I got that from my father." when he had gone off at them, or at something, or had gotten road rage. He thinks of rust red carpets, of peeling, yellowed wallpaper, of a broken ice machine and a broken vending machine and a tip jar with a single penny in it, of lights that buzz so loud they follow you. Of a dollar tree right across the street with nearly expired eggs and a liquor store right next door. Of his father, coming back with a brown paper bag and an off-brand frozen pizza and no plates and no way to heat it up. Of the way CPS agents looked at him and knew, and did nothing about it. He thinks of the Patsy Cline cassette his mother listened to, volume so low it could hardly be heard. Adam notices a microwave in the corner, looks at it perhaps a bit too long. Ronan has his left hand in his, is massaging the fingers, the palm, the knuckles, the wrist. Adam lets it happen, lets himself watch. Thinks, unwillingly, about his father's fists.
Adam asks Blue if she'd ever been to a Holiday Inn before the road trip, lets his shoulders settle when she says just once, for a birthday party, they didn't travel much. He wonders if it was the same birthday party he had gone to. He listens to Blue's accent, to the way she drawls certain words, the way some words are sharper, the way she sounds different when she says SAT vocabulary words, like she learned how to say them from TV or YouTube, or a library cassette tape. He leans back onto his elbows, looks at the TV through heavy eyes. He wonders if he should check his phone, then doesn't. He's comfortable, almost falling asleep. The curtains are drawn, the temperature is set to something comfortable, and Adam thinks about the safe being in the closet, a big thing, instead of hidden in the cabinet of the bedside table, small, enough for a passport, a handgun. He thinks about a girl in his class, Sylvia, who starves on purpose and stares at his wrist bones for too long, who once asked him what he takes, is it a laxative? cocaine? and Adam told her, genetics, didn't get into the time there was a roach infestation in his trailer, about how they contaminated all the food, about how they didn't have food for two weeks after that because they could only afford to grocery shop once a month at most, about how Adam survives on the free lunch program at school, about how his stomach started to hurt so much he couldn't sleep. Because he thinks all of that would be something she wanted, just so she could be skeletal and wear flannel shirts that are too big for her, and cry when the scale goes up half an ounce. He looks over at Blue, comfortable in her own body, in her own expression, and he thinks that she would hate Sylvia, not because of the whole eating disorder thing, rather because of the whole rich person starving for no reason thing, thinks Blue would rant at the girl about how the government wants her starving so she can't escape, so she doesn't have the strength to help herself.
Gansey and Henry are asleep, but Adam, Blue, and Ronan are awake. Blue and Ronan are playing variations of Rock Paper Scissors, laughing like children when they get one over on the other, and Adam is just watching them, in the dim blue light, shining up between them from Ronan's phone. Blue laughs so hard she almost topples off the bed backwards, but Ronan grabs her arm and pulls her back to balance, and Adam thinks all this love is going to kill him one day. From the other bed, Gansey mumbles something and gets up, leaves Henry there to continue sleeping. He stands behind Blue, puts his chin on her shoulder and wraps his arms around her, and Blue turns her head to kiss his cheek. And Ronan has Adam's hand in his again, kisses his knuckles. And again, Adam thinks all this love is going to kill him.
Adam wakes first. The clock blinks a red 4:30 at him and Adam wonders if the power had gone out or if this blinking was a design choice. He gets up, carefully, slowly, removes Ronan's vice grip from him and replaces it with a pillow. He looks at the microwave, just stares at it, at its steady red 4:31. The bathroom isn't huge, but its bigger than what he's ever been used to, with a bath/shower combo and a sink with a mirror that has its own lights. The toilet paper is folded into a triangle and Adam feels like just sitting on the cold tile of the bathroom, just staring at it. But Ronan shuffles in, kisses his neck, tells him he wondered where Adam was. And Adam think he's physically aching. He kisses Ronan's wrist, turns and kisses his lips, smiles against them and hums, tells Ronan to try and get back to sleep, doesn't notice how his accent is some kind of sick amalgamation of TV bland and Henrietta, Henrietta, Henrietta. Ronan grumbles, kisses his lips, then his nose, both eyelids, and Adam smiles, feels something warm and comfortable settle within him. Adam stands in the middle of the bathroom for a few more seconds, then washes his hands for no reason. He pockets a few of the travel size things, doesn't let himself feel guilty about it.
Gansey is the next to wake up. Adam is back in bed, covers pulled up to his nose, Ronan's arms around him, and he's wide awake, his eyes open. Gansey is mumbling to himself as he starts coffee using the tiny pot next to the microwave. He uses water from the tap, dumps a packet of dark roast into the coffee filter, turns it on and stares at it. Adam laughs, can't help it. Gansey looks around, eyes bleary, until he lands on Adam and he smiles so wide, Adam thinks his face is going to split in two.
"Would you like coffee?" Gansey asks, and Adam nods from his place under the covers. Roman grumbles something in his sleep, pulls Adam tighter to him.
"Cream? Sugar?" Gansey asks, and Adam nods because he doesn't want to taste plain hotel coffee. Gansey putters and Adam doesn't let himself think about anything at all, just watches as Gansey pours half the little pot into one Styrofoam cup and half into another Styrofoam cup, as he opens each creamer cup and pours them individually, as he does the same with the sugar packets. He tastes both of them, adds another packet of sugar, tastes both again. He hands Adam his cup, something beige and covered in curly letters that spell out "Coffee". It warms his hands, and Adam wonders if it got colder during the night. Gansey sits on the edge of the bed, close to Adam's legs, and they drink their coffee in silence until Blue wakes up and Gansey goes to make her tea. Blue crawls over Henry, jumps to the other bed, wakes Ronan in the process.
"Oops," she mumbles, "did nah' know you weren't 'wake." and Ronan tries to kick her but misses. Adam smiles, kisses Ronan's neck, just behind his ear. Ronan settles, kisses Adam's cheek, then his mouth, then, for some reason, his chin. Adam laughs and Ronan looks at him with mild confusion, sleep still heavy in his eyes. He's making kissy faces at Adam, and Adam kisses his lips, his nose, his eyelids, his lips again. He does something Ronan does to him, blinks his eye against Ronan's skin to leave eyelash kisses. Blue is looking at them with a smile, sleepy. Gansey comes back, hands her a cup, kisses her head. Blue is in the middle of the bed, between Ronan and Adam's legs, and she's overly careful not to spill. Gansey sits back on the edge, and they're all silent for a while.
Henry wakes up and is immediately fully awake. He's asking Gansey where they should go for breakfast, telling them all that he looked into it and thinks they should go to this local pancake house. Gansey is smiling, fond. Blue, too, as she drinks her tea. Gansey asks if Henry wants coffee, smiles when he says no like he was expecting. Blue asks Adam for the TV remote and he hands it to her. She flips through channels until she gets to PBS Kids, then drops the remote on the bed. The channel is playing Arthur, and they all watch unblinking for two full episodes before Henry tells them he thinks they should get ready to go, tells them he factored in how long it would take them all to brush their teeth and says that starting now leaves them arriving at the pancake house ten minutes after opening, accounting for any delays the staff may experience. Adam smiles, thinks he's been smiling a lot, then gets up. Ronan follows and they brush their teeth, looking at each other in the mirror, kissing again when they're done. Gansey, Blue, and Henry go in after them, and Adam thinks they're taking a long time, looks into the bathroom with its door open and sees Gansey still flossing, Blue shoving Henry over so she can look in the mirror, Henry laughing around his toothbrush. There's toothpaste on the mirror and Adam tells them to clean it when they're done, and they all say "Okay," around their dental tools.
The pancake house is open late into the night, houses many a high school prom group. It's almost 9 A.M. when they get there, and Adam puts three spare dollars into the tip jar at the entrance, puts on a charming smile for the hostess that seats them. They get their menus, sticky things with four double sided pages. Blue orders waffles with whipped cream and strawberries, a glass of ice water; Gansey gets the Senior Special: two eggs, one sausage link, whole wheat toast, black coffee because there are creamer cups and sugar packets at the table; Henry gets a specialty french toast, something that's supposed to emulate horchata, a diet Coke for a drink; Ronan gets pancakes with a side of fruit, orange juice, asks them to give him a side of whipped cream in a ramekin; Adam gets two pancakes with a sunny side up egg, one sausage link, black coffee. The ice water is free, the waiter tells Blue, and she says that's all she'll have, thanks, and he accent is put-on, amplified for the waiter.
Ronan puts his finger into his bowl of whipped cream, swipes it against each of their cheeks with a grin. Gansey's smile is indulgent, Blue puts a strawberry in Ronan's shirt, Henry just laughs at their antics. Adam wipes the cream of with his finger, licks it off, laughs when he catches Ronan staring at him, kisses his cheek as Ronan scrambles his arms in an attempt to remove the strawberry.
Gansey pays, leaves a 50 percent tip. Adam almost lets the casual use of money sting before he tells himself to be thankful that this is how Gansey is using it. He smiles at him, bumps their shoulders together. Blue is chasing after Ronan, both laughing maniacally, with a wet leaf she found in the grass. Henry is telling Adam and Gansey about something or the other, but Adam isn't really listening, is mostly just looking at the sky, gorgeous blue and fluffy clouds, a backdrop for the gas stations and chain restaurants and power lines.
Gansey asks if they'd like to go anywhere else and Ronan says there's a museum close by. Adam watches Gansey's face light up as he puts the Pig in gear, asks Ronan to get it up on the GPS on Gansey's phone. He hands it back to Ronan, and Ronan bites his finger and growls but takes the phone and gets the directions up anyhow. Gansey pats his hand in thanks when Ronan hands the phone back. Henry is shotgun, making them all listen to top 40 hits from the 1980s. Blue is poking Ronan's sides, giggling when he starts kicking at her shins. Adam watches out the window, looks at the potholes in the road. When Ronan grabs his cheek, ever so gently, Adam kisses his palm like he knows Ronan wants. Blue is sticking her tongue out at him, blowing her cheeks up to make a monkey face, and Adam laughs, mouth still against Ronan's palm.
The museum is a local history museum, something that struggles with funding. It has a number of textiles, jewelry, baskets, a few cars and horse saddles. Everything is displayed in glass cases, bar for the cars which are behind red rope, and Gansey looks at every single one, reads every single plaque. He asks the person working the front desk if he could get in touch with the curator, pouts when the kid says no.
When they're back at Adam's dorm, they walk him up. His roommate is back, nods at the group of them and fistbumps Adam. Blue hugs him tight, Gansey hugs him long, Henry hugs him and slips a trinket into his back pocket, Ronan hugs him tight and long, kisses his lips, his cheeks, his eyelids, his forehead, his ears, his neck, his hands. Adam's roommate is looking at them now, confusion present on his face. Ronan kisses Adam's lips again, lingers there, squeezes his hand and kisses him again at the door before they all leave. For a moment, Adam feels their loss like an emptiness in his chest, like with them they took his heart, or some other vital organ. His roommate shoots him a look, but doesn't ask. And Adam doesn't tell. He doesn't turn his phone back on for another several hours, doesn't unblock those numbers. He talks to Gansey and Ronan and Blue and Henry on speaker phone, laughing at how they cut in and interrupt each other. He thinks he'll be fine, for now. Knows he has his friends when he needs them.