You Can Let It Go [ZARRY]

Twenty One

Harry:

Marcel was already at the dining room table, head bowed, aligning his silverware—three forks, two spoons, and a knife—perfectly at the edge of the tablecloth.

I noted the table was set for five, Dad at the head and two on either side of him.

Dad’s having Zayn eat with us?

The notion filled me with suspicious dread and a twisted kind of happiness at the same time—or whatever passed for happiness in the vast wasteland of my heart.

One of the servants—Andrew—offered  a tray with two tumblers of cognac on ice.

Taylor took hers and waited for me to do the same, then clinked her glass to mine.

“Bottom’s up.”

I put the glass to my lips.

Don’t. . .

But the wine I’d had a while back had reminded me how good it felt to take a step or two back from reality. To live life with a little bit of a buffer so that everything wasn’t so goddamn painful.

That “buffer" turned into an addiction.

I shut off the thought and swigged my five-hundred-dollar-per-glass Louis XIII like it was a shot of Jager at a frat party.

The alcohol bit the back of my throat as it went down and then mellowed into smooth warmth.

I nodded at Andrew to pour another.

When Zayn wheeled Dad in and set him up at the head of the table, I did my absolute best to look anywhere else.

I could still feel the touch of Zayn’s hand in mine and ran my fingertips over my palm.

Touching him, feeling the strength in his grip. . . I’d felt anchored to something real and solid for the first time in years.

The texture of my skin changed under my thumb where Coach Simon had made me pick a burning ember out of a campfire one night.

Zayn knows about Alaska.

The shame/relief battle began again, and this time the shame brought reinforcements:
memories of snow and endless cold. Of hunger and forced marches through dead
forests with bare trees like skeletal fingers scraping a leaden sky. Of Coach Simon’s words hammering into our heads how
worthless we were.

Unacceptable.

Unlovable.

Of being submerged in the flat, frigid water of Copper Lake when I spoke out. When I spoke up. When I fought back. For me and
the other boys.

And yet Chisana still happened.

I put my cognac glass in my left hand, the ice and alcohol killing whatever was left of Zayn’s touch.

Because it was too late for me. I had a company to take over and a huge wrong
to try to set right. Everything that happened in Alaska had to stay there.

All the humiliation, the shame. Those scars and ugliness needed to stay buried forever.

What I felt for Zayn....that needed to stay buried too.

“Hello, Desmond,” Taylor said, bending to kiss Dad’s cheek.

“You look dashing as ever.”

He gave her hand a pat.

“Don’t bullshit me, dear. I can take it from anyone but you.”

“Well in that case, you look terrible. Someone get him a drink.”