Talker's Graduation Read Online Free PDF Page B

more word about him,” Brian said softly,
    “and you can forget the show, you can forget my pieces, you can
    forget the whole damned thing. I"ll go back to the Olive Garden and
    go back to sculpting on my kitchen table, do you hear me?”
    “Okay,” Orenbacher said, making an admirable attempt at
    dignity. “Fine. I get it. Throw yourself away on a skinny punk with a
    tattoo fetish and enough metal to—”
    “Fuck off, Mark,” Brian said coldly. Talker watched Brian
    appear in the doorway again and then disappear. He was going
    back to where pieces were stacked after their first trip through the
    kiln. He couldn"t see what Brian was doing there, but he heard a
    rustle, like a tarp being pulled back, and he watched his gentle, kind
    lover give a glare over his shoulder that would have sent Talker
    screaming into the next year.
    “You want to see who he is to me? You keep being shitty
    about him, and you won"t listen to my words. I suck at words. The
    only one I can ever talk to is him. But I"m good with clay. If this is
    the only way you"ll listen, then listen. You and me will never
    happen. But this is the boy you keep talking trash about, and you
    need to know why I can"t let it stand.”
    Mark moved slowly, stiffly, through Talker"s field of vision, like
    Brian had really hurt him when he"d been thrown up against the
    empty pottery rack. He moved to where Brian was standing and
    Talker heard the softly indrawn breath that indicated true shock and
    praise.
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    “That"s beautiful,” he said quietly, and Talker let out a breath
    he hadn"t known he"d been holding. “That"s him?”
    “The fact that you have to ask means you haven"t been
    looking,” Brian replied. His hand stretched out to the thing they
    were both looking at, and Tate recognized that angle of his fingers,
    the softness of his jaw—it was an expression, a touch, that Brian
    had only ever aimed at Tate.
    “Okay, Brian,” Mark said, his shoulders slumping. “I can"t say
    I"m not disappointed—I think we would have made a real good
    team here. But you"re… you"re brilliant. I"ve loved art all my life; I"d
    be a real asshole if I took away your big break. Just… you know. If
    this,” he gestured toward the hidden object, “isn"t who your boy
    really is, you know. Remember there"s this old guy with a lot of
    money who would love to take you in.”
    Brian"s look eased up a little. “Don"t need money,” he said,
    covering up the thing they"d been looking at. “Lived without money
    my whole life. I need Talker, though. Didn"t really live until he saw
    me.”
    Talker"s heart stopped. He held his hand up to his mouth and
    blinked hard, wishing he had a hole he could cry in or a church that
    would take him in or a holy place he could give offerings to—oh,
    Brian.
    You’ve been trying to make me believe this for three years,
    haven’t you?
    Talker hadn"t believed. He thought he had. He"d let Brian
    touch him in their bed, stood up for him when he couldn"t stand for
    himself, come to trust that Brian would always be there for Tate if
    he could ever possibly could….
    But he"d always suspected a grain of pity there. That maybe
    Brian was settling. He"d confessed it shyly to Doc Sutherland, his
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    shrink and his friend, in one of their one-on-one sessions, when
    Brian had been at class. Doc Sutherland had told him that he"d
    never seen anyone more in love with someone than Brian was with
    Talker, but Tate… he"d held on to that disbelief. His entire life, he"d
    had to settle for hand-me-down clothes, pro-bono medical work,
    leftover love. He didn"t trust that someone as beautiful, as true as
    Brian could serve up the real thing and not lord it over someone like
    Talker. But not Brian—Brian worshipped Talker because he thought
    what Talker had to give back was worth it.
    The man who had nearly decked his meal ticket hadn"t done
    that because he was settling. The man who had