18 Nov Horns, By Sam Arkeveld
Trigger Warnings: Death, blood, violence, homophobia, self-harm, ableism
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There is no funeral for the boy who drowned in the lake.
He was only sixteen, a year older than me. A life ahead of him, until there wasn’t. Until someone saw him kissing Tommy Gilner from down the lane at some party. Until he threw himself from the cliffs and landed spine first on the rocks. That’s what all the reports will say.
Tragedy will be the word whispered amidst the pews this Sunday. His daddy hasn’t been to church in years, but this week he will attend, face tight and lips pressed. Terse nods and stiff shoulders.
No one will mention that the boy’s injuries do not match the official record. That his spine was shattered in a way that would suggest multiple impacts.
The boy who drowned in the lake was born with a small lump in his back, where his spine jutted out slightly more than usual. I used to run my fingers over it, over his gorgeous, patterned skin of cream and purple, when we lay together in his daddy’s trailer, flies buzzing against the screen windows. He would smile and tell me it was where God planned to give him his wings.
His hands would wrap around my arms, caress the scattering of faded lines he found on the insides, just above my wrists. After, he would always say that I would not grow wings like him. I would grow horns.
Then he would kiss me and we would fuck each other again.
We used to walk around the town together, the dirt streets we knew like each other’s lips, dreaming of a way out. We’d stop at the corner store sometimes to pick up a drink if we’d forgotten to snag a beer or two from his daddy’s stash. He never went to church but would meet me afterwards, and we would laugh at the people I’d describe to him, the secrets I’d happened to overhear.
When we would find our way into the woods by the edge of town, he always made me tell him something no one else knew. The first time, I said I didn’t know how to swim. He stopped in his tracks and faced me.
No, he said. Tell me something real.
I didn’t have to ask what that meant. We walked in silence for a few minutes, until we were deep and lost in the thick oaks. I looked over at him finally and said that if I could, I’d find my Pa’s shotgun and shoot his daddy right through his fucking skull.
He grinned real wide at that.
That was where he died. Those woods where we fed from each other, two beasts ravenous for comfort in a world that held little for us. There was no party. He never kissed Tommy Gilner from down the lane. I was his, after all, and he was mine, and that was something sacred.
That was fucking religion.
Six boys from the high school found us by the lake, shirtless from the heat of the night. Out here, the stars are bright, so it was easy to see everything as it happened. Four of them held me back as they dragged us up to the cliffs. Blood coated my mouth. Not mine. I’d managed to bite one of them, tear off a chunk of flesh from his thumb.
They noticed his hunchback. The place I’d caressed so tenderly. Get that from bending over for this one here? Wouldn’t have taken you as the girl, they said.
They made me watch. Watch them pummel his face until he fell on his stomach and covered his head with his arms. He didn’t cry. Or maybe I just couldn’t hear over my screams. I told them I would kill them all, that I’d cut them open one by one and have the birds come peck out their insides while they were still alive. They just laughed.
One of them took a rock, a stone that seemed impossibly large for anyone to hold. Let’s whip him back into perfect form, hey?
I watched, thrashing, snarling, as they took the rock and slammed it down onto his spine, right on the spot where it jutted out. The bone crunched repeatedly as they did it over. And over. And over. Splinters of white glistened on the rock in the starlight. Splinters of him, taken unrightfully from me. When did I start crying? Before he went still or after?
When they were finished, they tossed the rock over the edge of the cliff. I didn’t hear it hit the water. They left me with him. Two boys once again alone in the woods we made ours.
He didn’t move. Eyes closed, mouth open, rasping breaths. I held his head and for the first time in my life, prayed and meant it. It wasn’t enough.
The blood coating his back looked like wings.
I don’t remember pushing the body into the lake, but that’s where they found it. The body. It. How quickly someone transforms into something in death.
There is no funeral for the boy in the lake.
They will not even say his name.
I sit in my bedroom with a razor and a fierce heat in my temples. Slowly, I drag the blade across the inside of my arm, over skin, over veins, ignoring the familiar pain, ignoring the way my sheets soak up the flow. I give my flesh freely in promise. Just this once, just for him. Letter by letter he comes back to me.
When I am finished, my skin is a jagged mess. Mason, it reads.
There is no funeral for Mason. But I will remember.