Boys Don't Cry

River

The kitchen smells like burnt toast and coffee, which is basically the smell of every morning in this house. Ian’s version of breakfast is enthusiasm plus a total disregard for the toaster’s actual settings, and today is no different. He’s standing at the counter scraping black crumbs into the sink like it’s a completely normal Tuesday activity.

“One day,” I say, “you’re going to set off the smoke alarm and Mum’s going to make you sleep in the shed.”

“Your mum loves me too much for that.”

“Don’t test her.”

Mum comes in, tying her hair back, already dressed for work. She takes one look at the state of the toast before she looks at Ian. “I’ve told you. Level three. Not level six.”

“Level six is perfect.”

“It’s charcoal, Ian," she scolds him fondly. Like she looks forward to his culinary incompetence as much as anything else.

I grab a slice anyway, because free food is free food even when it tastes like the inside of a chimney. I lean against the counter whilst they bicker about toast settings like it’s the most important disagreement in the world.

This is what mornings look like at home. Nobody’s walking on eggshells. Nobody’s watching what they say. It’s just noise and coffee and Ian burning things on purpose because he thinks it’s funny, and Mum pretending she isn’t a little bit charmed by it anyway.

I used to think every house was like this. It took me a while to understand that wasn’t true. At eighteen, I'm old enough to know that, even without my sperm donor, I have a great family and I appreciate them every day.

“You’re at the garage today?” Mum asks, wiping her hands on a tea towel.

I nod, my excitement about the mural outshining my nerves about the rest of it. "I'm meeting Cilla first, then heading over.”

“Give my best to Mr. Randolph.” She says it automatically, the way you’d say bless you after a sneeze, because Randolph’s Garage has been part of this town’s furniture for as long as I can remember.

She catches herself a second later, the way people still do when his name comes up without thinking, and her face does something small and sad before she smooths it over.

Mr Randolph had run the place for a decade and somehow made it feel like it had always been his. Half the town owed him something. A fixed car when they couldn’t pay, a job for a kid who needed one, a quiet word when someone was struggling that never made it further than the garage walls.

He died in March, sudden and unfair the way these things always are, and the whole town’s still finding new ways to miss him.

Which is, more or less, why I’m about to spend my summer with a paintbrush in my hand and my least favourite person for company.

“I'm off,” I say, grabbing my bag. “Love you both. Try not to burn the house down.”

“No promises,” Ian calls after me.

The morning’s warm already, that early-summer kind of warm that makes the whole town feel happier than usual. I take the long way into the centre, past the bakery and the church hall where the mayor’s office runs half its events. I like the walk and I’m in no rush to get where I’m going.

Cilla’s waiting outside the café with two coffees, one of which she hands over before I’ve even said hello. I bloody love this woman.

“You look like you’re bracing for something,” she says.

“I am bracing for something.”

“The mural?”

“The company that comes with the mural,” I moan with the dramatic flair that she loves me for.

She winces in sympathy, because she’s heard me complain enough about Aiden Cole over the years to know exactly what I mean without me explaining further.

Cilla’s known me since primary school. She was there for the version of things before Aiden turned into whatever he is now. She’s patiently heard every theory I’ve ever come up with about why he changed, none of which have ever actually held together.

“Maybe summer will mellow him out,” she offers unhelpfuly.

“Summer’s never mellowed him out before,” I pout.

“Optimism, River. Try it sometime.”

We walk together as far as the corner where she peels off towards the bookshop she works at. I carry on alone, coffee in hand, trying to enjoy the last five minutes before I have to deal with anyone who isn’t in a good mood about seeing me.

That’s the thing about small towns. You can’t avoid people here. You just orbit each other, over and over, until avoiding someone stops being possible and starts being its own kind of toxic relationship.

I see him before he sees me, which almost never happens. He’s outside the hardware store, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, waiting for something or someone. His jaw is set in that permanent way that makes strangers assume he’s angry about something specific. He isn’t. As far as I can tell, it’s just his resting face.

He looks up, and any hope I had of walking past unnoticed evaporates.

“River,” he says, like my own name’s an insult on its own.

“Aiden.”

“Didn’t think you got up before noon.”

“Didn’t think you could do anything but that scowl. Guess we’re both learning new things today.”

Something dark flickers across his face, quick and cold, gone before I can be sure I saw it at all.

“I heard about the mural,” he scowls.

“Everyone’s heard about the mural.”

“You doing it?”

“Leading it, actually," I answer airly.

Something shifts in his face, quick and unreadable, gone before I can name it. “Of course you are. Little golden boy gets to lead the tribute.”

“That’s not what this is.”

“Isn’t it?” He steps closer, close enough that I have to work not to back up, and his voice drops into something flatter and colder than the usual sniping. “Here’s some free advice. Stay out of my way this summer. Do your painting, get your gold star, and stay away from me. I mean it, River.”

“It’s a mural, Aiden. Not a public stoning.”

“I’m serious.” Nothing about his face is joking. “You don’t want to make this difficult for yourself.”

“Is that a threat?”

“It’s a warning. The difference is I only give one of those.”

He stops. Just for a second, just long enough that I notice it, and when he looks back at me there’s something underneath the hostility that I don’t have a name for.

It’s there and then it’s gone, replaced by the same flat, closed-off expression he’s worn around me for as long as I can remember.

“See you at the garage, River.”

“Can’t wait,” I drawl. Ian says sarcasm is the lowest form of wit. But it's still wit.

He walks off without looking back, and I stand there a second longer than I need to, coffee cooling in my hand, the warning sitting heavier than it should for a summer painting job.

It happens every time. Some flicker of something underneath the hostility that isn’t quite hatred, gone before I can catch it properly, like he’s letting a window crack open and then remembering he’s not supposed to.

I’ve stopped trying to figure it out. Mostly.

I finish the walk to the garage telling myself that’s true.