A Promise Fulfilled [WattyAwards#2012]

Chapter III: Arise From The Ashes

Chapter III: Arise From The Ashes

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"The phoenix must burn to emerge."

― Janet Fitch, White Oleander.

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It felt good, being happy again. He'd forgotten what it was like. Dex passed the rest of the evening with Jon and Davis, a smile permanently plastered on his face and his hand still tingling with the sensation of Timmy's cool skin. His friends exchanged bewildered glances at his sudden change in demeanor, but Dex didn't care. For the first time in months, he had something to look forward to.

He was going to go see Timmy again.

Dex went to work the next day, and the purple sharpie was still stained on his hand, a harsh contrast to the formality of his suit. Other people congratulated each other in the halls of his building, hailed the New Year, and that was something that Dex had never understood in the past. Why did people welcome another year? But when he made a fist, the letters on his hand stretched and burned, that of a constant reminder, and suddenly Dex understood why others might be excited to have a new year come upon them. It was a celebration they survived the last. It was a hope for new things to come.

All day he felt elated, excited, and it was its own sort of oblivion in a way, but one he'd managed to reach without copious amounts of alcohol. He went back to his apartment that night, still euphoric, and cooked himself a proper meal, his first in weeks. Later, he trudged his way out to the streets, found the nearest art supply store, and bought exactly eighty-two dollars and forty cents worth of fine quality oil paints, and twenty of the best stretched canvases they had. He threw in a new package of brushes as well. Back in his apartment, he wrapped everything up in a neat package and set it by his door to wait. He knew that Timmy will probably catch on, give him that wide-eyed look of surprise when Dex gave the package to him, but, to be perfectly honest, Dex had never been good at waiting around. When he did something, he did it with all his heart. He couldn't stop himself from remembering Timmy's soft face in the dim light of the apartment, and his heart jolted a little each time. There was something so different about Timmy that won't let Dex go. So unpredictable, so puzzling, so strong, so fragile, so everything Dex had never encountered before.

It was almost like a slap in the fact to his father's expectations, to feel something for a boy, and Dex reveled in it.

It was three days later when he decided he could finally visit Timmy without seeming like an overeager fool. He microwaved dinner and ate quickly as soon as he got home, not even bothering to change out of his suit. It wasn't important. He couldn't remember feeling this excited for something in years, probably not since high school, when he'd allowed his childish fantasies to control his life. This felt like one of those fantasies, in a way, something his fevered teenage brain would come up with in the depths of his hopeless romanticism, but the fact that it was all real, that Timmy was corporeal and solid and there made everything all the better. When he dreamt, there was an element of reality to it.

He almost forgot the package on the way out, but remembered it because he nearly forgot a winter jacket as well. When he turned back to grab his coat, the bright red wrapping snagged his attention, and Dex rolled his eyes at his own stupidity before gathering the present into his arms and heading for the elevator.

Rush hour was just ending when he reached the ground, so there were plenty of taxis threading their way among the streets as the cabbies looked for stragglers in need of a lift home. Dex stood at the edge of the sidewalk and waved one down, jumping out the way to avoid being hit by slush when the cab pulled up to the curb.