Love & Other Curses, 1985 | bxb | ONC 2024

CHAPTER 17 - I Love You

It is true, we shall be monsters, cut off from all the world; but on that account we shall be more attached to one another.

~ Mary Shelley, Frankenstein.

"I think I know where Thomas is," Adam said after Mrs. Harding came downstairs without him. "Do you mind if I go look for him? I think he's pretty upset with me for what I said."

Mrs. Harding sighed, putting on her apron to clean the kitchen. "We're grateful for you speaking up, Adam. We may never have found out otherwise. But please understand, spreading lies, no matter how good your intention, will only cause more problems."

"Right, sorry. It wasn't something I planned—it just happened." He pointed toward the back door. "I'm going to go."

"Ok, thank you."

"Adam," the Chief said, stopping him. Since arriving home, he had transitioned from the Chief to Dad and now to Bishop as he put on his tie for a Church meeting. "How bad was it—the bullying?"

Adam hesitated. "I'm not sure I should—"

"I'm not asking for details."

"Ok, do you know what happened at my first practice?"

"Yes." And then his face dropped as he remembered Wally's broken collarbone. "You did that for Thomas?"

Adam nodded. "And I'd do it again."

"What happened at practice?" Mrs. Harding asked, abandoning the dishes in the sink. "Do what again?"

Something between a pained expression and a smile crossed the Chief's face as he pinched his eyes and stared at his surprising foster son. "I was wrong about you, Adam Lawson. Thomas is lucky to have you as a friend. Go find him."

Adam didn't hesitate. He ducked out of the kitchen before Mrs. Harding's questions could be answered, disappearing out the back door, up the small hill, and into the forest. His feet, perhaps more so his heart, knew the way. Only when he arrived at the lonely hill, that's all it was—lonely.

Thomas wasn't there.

"Where the hell are you?" Adam asked himself. He hadn't taken a car, wasn't in the house, and wasn't here, so where else would he go? Then he remembered what Thomas had said to his parents, mainly his father—isn't that what we do best?

The thought gave him an idea. The first time Thomas took him to the well, he pointed out the general area where he had built the tree fort with his father and sister. Adam traced his path back to where they had stopped—the place with the fallen tree, where he had asked Mud Boy if the fort was his secret, but more importantly, where Adam knew he wanted to kiss him.

From there, Adam ventured into a part of the woods he hadn't explored before, but he figured the location couldn't be too far from home if Thomas and Lilly had been allowed to sleep there in the summers. Within a matter of minutes, Adam stumbled upon the perfect storybook treehouse. Not the fancy kind for rich kids without imaginations, but rather the bare essentials kind built with two-by-fours and plank wood to create a space above the earth. The fort fit neatly between three trunks that had split from the same base, creating the perfect triangle to support the weathered structure, some three lengths of his body above the ground.

The triangular fort had square windows on two sides and a door on the other, where a rope once served as a zip line to the base of another tree off in the distance. Wood blocks nailed into the tree's side led to the opening in the floor. Above it all, on the flat roof of the hideaway, sat Thomas Harding.