Page 42 of Epidermis

Jasper looked up. He didn’t know when he’d closed his eyes, or when Hiyori had come into his booth, her arms crossed but her face soft. “No?” he replied hopefully.

Her silence was all the answer he needed.

So he told her everything. Not the explicit parts, or the tender ones, but he gave her the gist. He was surprised to hear it all come pouring out. Even Hiyori usually had to fight him for anything personal, but maybe he needed to talk about it. To say the smallest and most painful part out loud for the first time. “I miss him.”

“You know where to find him.”

“I haven’t talked to him since the airport.”

Hiyori gave him a long look. “You bared your souls to each other all weekend and then you told him you want to pretend it never happened. You wanted to go back to the way things were when you left—which was actively ghosting him, in case you don’t remember. I love you, Jazzy, but I wouldn’t text you either.”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah.”

He took it back; talking about it wasn’t worth having to hear how the summary of his actions actually sounded. Especially when it didn’t change anything. His reasons were terrible and unfair, but they were still his reasons.

His mom had been the first one to leave. He didn’t remember what she looked like. Then, it was his dad. As soon as Jasper was eighteen and out on his own, they started to drift, his father growing more accustomed daily to how much simpler life was without Jasper there. His dad started having excuses to reschedule the dinners they had every Sunday. When Jasper was twenty, his father eloped with the woman he’d been dating for awhile, who Jasper had never met—apparently she wasn’t comfortable being around Jasper, since he was from his dad’s first wife.

Weekly dinners had long since turned into weekly phone calls by then, and those thinned until they were replaced by occasional texts. Now Jasper got two texts from his dad per year. Birthday and Christmas. His dad and his new wife had two kids of their own.

Jasper had tried dating and it never went well. The best attempt he made was with Maya, who he stayed with for two years in his late twenties, in an unspoken mutual understanding that they weren’t what the other needed, but that they liked each other more than they liked being alone. She was the one who convinced him to get a psych evaluation, which resulted in the unsurprising confirmation that he was on the autism spectrum.

Then she met someone, a new coworker who she connected with instantly. She came home from spending time with Sarah looking more flushed and alive than Jasper had ever seen her, and he gave Maya his blessing before she had to ask. They hugged when they said goodbye.

Maya cried. He didn’t.

She was married now. Her and Sarah had a two year-old, and his communication with Maya began and ended with liking the rare post she made on her Instagram, where he followed her from his professional account since he didn’t have any personal ones. She sometimes liked a post of a tattoo he’d done.

Jasper used to wonder if Sarah had never shown up, if he would have married Maya. Maybe had a kid. He liked the idea of being a father, but he also used to like the idea of being a vet, until he realized he didn’t have the stomach for it. He expected it would be the same with fatherhood. Any marriage to Maya would have been a legally binding friendship at best. They had good sex, but that was because they were both good at sex. There had been no sparks once the newness of the relationship wore off.

Even at its best, it was nothing like what he’d had with Konrad.

He chewed on his pencil. Many of his pencils had teeth marks in them, and more than a few of his hoodie strings were frayed at the ends from his chewing on those too. He did it when he was nervous.

Hiyori had long since retreated to her own booth, giving him space to ruminate on the most recent in a long line of personal failures. Jasper checked the clock; his first appointment would be coming in soon. He had to get his shit together.

A week passed, and his shit was as together as it was when he got on that plane.

He thought he’d be sparing himself future pain, but he’d underestimated how much it would hurt to pretend those days never happened. He couldn’t. They were etched into him, every touch, every whisper, branded onto the inside of his chest where every aching heartbeat agitated the wound. He kept starting texts to Konrad and then deleting them.

What could he even say? “Hey, it’s Jasper. Sorry I gave you the old ‘you can’t fire me, I quit’ at the airport. Miss you!” Or maybe, “Hey, I fucked up really bad. I do that. Let’s have dinner?”

He owed Konrad a little more than just telling him he fucked up. Konrad deserved an explanation and a real apology. Jasper couldn’t go to him before he was ready to offer that, if he ever was. Laying himself bare in that way would be like stabbing his own heart and then asking Konrad to stop the bleeding.

Strands of red started to appear in Jasper’s drawings. He’d only ever sketched in black, but a red line kept opening across his art like a wound.

It took Jasper almost another full week to realize the void yawning wide in his chest wasn’t getting any smaller. One night, he even went to the restaurant. He stopped on the sidewalk and watched through the window for any sign Konrad was there. Worse, he half expected to see someone else there having dinner with Konrad, occupying the space at his side where Jasper had so callously created a vacancy. Jasper didn’t knock, his imagination eager to provide the thought of Konrad closing the door in his face without letting him say a single word.

Jasper didn’t recognize the exact moment he decided what to do. It just happened at some point, a rare pang of decisiveness crawling out from under the rubble of self-loathing and regret that had collapsed on his heart the day he let Konrad walk away from him.

He hadn’t saved the date of the restaurant opening when Konrad told him about it, but Jasper remembered. The way Konrad’s eyes sparked with pride had cemented the conversation in Jasper’s mind. Something tangible he could revisit, a place he could still feel Konrad’s warmth, however fast it faded. So the day of the opening found Jasper in an all-black suit, his curls fighting against his attempts to style them. He wrapped the scarf that didn’t smell like Konrad anymore around his neck and drove to Annapolis.

Jasper made a stop on the way that made him a few minutes late, but he was glad he wasn’t the first one there. He usually hated crowds, but he would make an exception if it gave him somewhere to hide until he worked up his nerve. He tentatively stepped inside The Chesapeake Trattoria with his hands behind his back, politely declining the hostess’s offer to seat him, jarred by her presence. Seeing staff and patrons around the restaurant felt oddly invasive.

In his mind, an unfair and possessive place that twisted reason, this place belonged to him and Konrad. This was where they started.

He walked between already filled tables and under the branches of the dogwood tree, twinkling with golden lights. A few curious glances landed on him, and he knew he must have looked utterly lost. Which he was. He had been for two weeks, constantly pulled between resenting Konrad for having shown him affection, and the guilt of being the one to reject it.