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zweigarette · 3 months ago

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this was so good omfg.

Sweet Returns

summary: after two years of patrick calling her late at night to come over and fuck, reader decides to end the cycle. it just so happens to be the night patrick planned on confessing that he’d maybe caught feelings.

warnings: mentions of sex, kissing, angst, fluff, reconciliation, mentions of alcohol

no matter how bad or selfish or borderline rude he was- patrick zweig would call, you would come. literally.

you shook your head at him in the parking lot of the motel he was staying at while he was on tour. you were in college. he was in your area and he called, and you went. you shook your head and you stood your ground and you knew you’d come, but you didn’t come. you wouldn’t. this was it.

“came all this way for what, then?” he asked, arms gesturing to you. 2am on a sunday. your arms were folded over your chest, red zip up slipping down your shoulder. the end-of-summer air was the perfect temperature. warm, but with hints of a cool wind that tousled your hair a little. “you drive over here at 2am just to stand there and say you can’t and that i’m not good? for you? for what?”

his words sometimes stung like this, but this feeling- you felt it in your fingers like loaded springs in a pressed coil. you felt it shoot sharply against the very tip of your fingers and toes. live wires. electric pain.

he was loud for a motel at 2am. you hated it. you hated that you even showed up. your friends shouted at you to stop letting him dictate the place you lay your head when he’s in town. shaking you, telling you to stop seeing him if you feel like shit the afternoon of the next day. you tried to stay away, you did, you wanted to. but something about the whirlwind, like a riptide, pulling you back out. this early. this late. like a sleeper agent, you were put in action. like an on/off button on a toy. and you hated it. so you showed up. and he was greeting you, and you pulled away. which led to this mess, this confusion.

you did not want to be pulled under again just for an afternoon of shame. you swore sometimes returning home, you accidentally held your shoes in your hand minutes after getting back to your dorm. the shame lingered, festered. your girlfriends usually had to bribe you out of the disgusting stupor.

“i can’t, patrick, i’m sorry,” you said, anxious enough to shake just slightly. “i’m going home.”

“you drove thirty minutes to come here, say hi, and say sorry?”

“guess so,” you bit your lip. he looked at you with disbelief. this was unlike you. usually he had you horizontal by now. you guessed that he didn’t like your non-compliance attitude. it was new, fresh, probably scared him. you imagined he was hungry right now, upset about not having what he wanted. what he ordered.

“why are you still here then?” he asked. it was bitter, his tone. “you said it, go.” one of his hand shoved into his jean pocket, he gestured toward your car with the other one. “fuck, didn’t want to see you anyway. go.”

“you mean fuck me?” you scoffed, almost baffled at his choice of word. it was so simple, the word ‘see’ instead of ‘fuck’, but at this point. it was too far gone to be unnoticed. “didn’t want to fuck me anyway? god, what will you do when your number one piece of ass walks out on you? you’ve got the second piece of ass on speed dial, you don’t need me here, patrick. you want me. i don’t want that anymore.”

his raised eyebrows fell and his darkened, but not in a way that scared you at all. more like clouded over, like breaking a spell. you stood your ground, despite watching his body lose it’s tense.

you shook your head again, taking a step back. “goodnight.” he had nothing to say, he just stared at you. you imagined you’d upset him, and that he was only upset with you. not himself. would be just like him. so you took another step back and turned, walking back over to your car. you’d have to get gas on the way home. your heart raced, but this was it, this was over.

you unlocked the door, opened it, got in, and you reached to close the door, but it was stopped by his hand on the corner. his figure startled you just a bit, and you wondered if he had seen it, afraid you looked stupid or something. you also wondered if he’d hurt his hand catching the door like that. and then you wondered why he did it, before he spoke.

“there’s no ‘second piece of ass,’ first up.” he said. you couldn’t see his face. only heard him, voice firm. “it’s only you and you’re not just a ‘piece of ass’, or a toy. i don’t know where you got that idea.” he said.

you turned your legs out of the drivers seat and stood up. he stepped back to let you out and you looked at him expectantly. he stopped your door from closing, it better be fucking good. your anxiety was turning into adrenaline. recycling.

he kept talking, “yeah, i did want to fuck you. i always do when you’re around. can’t help myself. and speaking of no second ‘pieces of ass,’ i don’t have a single other girl in rotation, though i know you believe differently.” he said it like they were supposed to be offensive words, but they were genuine, hidden by sharp tone. shielded. “it’s only you. when i’m away i’m passing time waiting to come back around. i call you, we fuck, you leave. it’s all i get.”

“all you get?” you snapped. “like i’m supposed to do more?” you advanced a step on him, but he didn’t move. “i come over when you ask, i ride you until you come, you’ve insulted me, you’ve made me feel like i’m not good enough for you since we met. and i could have anyone else, but you keep me in your pocket to call and fuck and go back on tour, leaving me to feel used and stupid. and you want more from me? what do you want? a fuckbuddy, a friend? i feel like you want a toy.”

“what i want,” his words overlapped with your last ones. “fuck- i don’t have anyone else. it’s always you, i always come back here. i don’t have to, i could be closer to stanford with art, i could be back home constantly. but my winnings go to motels here, hotels here. when i say see you, i mean see you, i don’t just mean fuck you. what do you want me to tell you?”

“what does that even mean?” you gestured wildly. “what do you want me to tell you? i don’t know, patrick. i’m trying to say goodbye to you, i don’t want you around, i don’t want to see you. don’t come around here if you don’t want to.”

he looked far left, shaking his head, taking a sharp breath in. “what do you want me to say? because i’m sure you’re being obtuse on fucking purpose. i want to see you. i dont want to see anyone else. i dont want to fuck anyone else either, but they go together. you think i don’t know i’m an asshole? you’ve told me again and again.”

“you are!” you ensured. he shut his eyes tight and pressed his tongue to the side of his cheek. your body pulsed, electric pain now a current running through every vain. you felt it in every appendage. your stomach muscles were tight, and you were sure you weren’t breathing enough.

but he looked down at you, breaking the small silence, continuing, “an asshole. so yeah, i figure i should leave you alone for your own good, but then when i’m out of here and back on tour, i can’t get you out of my head and as soon as i’m done, i end up back here, calling you. and you come. and then you’re gone.”

“patri-“

“i don’t deserve more than that, i know you’re not staying. and you probably should go, but i don’t know. i don’t even know why i stopped your door. just go if you’re gonna fucking go.”

another beat passed. you looked at him, shaking your head in disbelief. “what are you saying?”

“i don’t fucking know.” he looked at his feet, tongue pressed to the inside of his cheek again. his hand met the back of his neck. “delete my number and i’ll delete yours. i’ll do it in the morning. just fuck off.”

your eyes burned, your emotions piling on top of each other, all pressing on your chest. you watched his foot turn to face you. you grabbed the door of the car and braced a little against the anxious ball of weight that was suddenly returning. circumstances began to shift underneath your feet, dizzying you just a little. and you were unfortunately sober. you blinked hard, shaking your head.

“yeah, whatever.” patrick replied to your own thoughts, reading your mind. he must have, there wasn’t another explanation. “i’ll do what you want, though. genuinely.”

you could feel he meant it. it wasn’t an empty promise. you knew he knew you were wondering if it was, and he wanted you to know it wasn’t. he was giving you up as well. when you met him, you thought he was cute, and you were drunk. sometimes you wondered if you had met him sober and didn’t take him home that night, that maybe he’d take you seriously. but that thought had been given up two weeks in, two years ago. it was weird to feel like it never really left as you slowly began to wonder if he meant what you never thought he could mean.

“okay,” you agreed, swallowing hard. he raised his head from his feet. you would give him up, he would give you up. the soft september breeze blew his curls just slightly. his eyes were softer than you’d ever seen them. you always liked his eyelashes, you didn’t think that they’d be even prettier when wet. you could see it in the motel light, the light bounced off of it. it was so weird. “you’re upset.”

“go.”

“patrick.”

“you’re not supposed to give a fuck. i’m begging you not to give a fuck.”

“say what you mean,” you ordered him, wits end. edge of your seat. “fuck, say it!”

“i don’t know what you want me to say!”

“am i just a body to you?”

“no, fuck off.”

“tell me.”

“tell you what?”

you looked him in the eyes, “are you telling me you… fuck, i can’t-“ you couldn’t even say it, you felt so stupid. “fuck, patrick!” both of you couldn’t say it. but it was so familiar, the feeling. the nervousness, the tingling in your limbs, the flip of your stomach. resurfacing, curious, naive.

both of you getting more riled up by the second, you looked anywhere else. you heard him breathe out hard, exasperated. “i don’t think i should say anything.”

“so why?”

he shook his head, “you deserve better.”

“than you?”

“yeah.”

the silence stung your ears. the hair on your arms stood up straight. the air was suddenly hot and thick. and you held onto the door a little tighter.

“patrick, do you want me?”

he pressed his fingers to the side of his chin, turning his body away from you. you watched his hand slide down to the back of his neck. you knew him, he wasn’t dumb, he knew he had to say nothing. if he said something, you might stay. and it was best that you didn’t. the fight wasn’t worth having. “just go.” he replied, not even turning around. he couldn’t look at you.

your heart pulled, a sinking feeling filling your chest. why? this wasn’t attachment, this wasn’t manipulation, this was him. for the first time. him. “okay.” you said. but you stood there, just a moment longer. and he did turn after a moment, eyes locking on yours. you couldn’t really read him. but you didn’t need to. you just wanted to say goodbye properly.

so your hands fell on his shoulders, squeezing gently as they trailed over, up his neck, and to the back of his head as you kissed him slowly, deeply, passionately. there was no lust in this kiss, no urgency, no bed in sight. his hands, the most gentle they’d been without having to fuck first, slipped around your waist. he kissed you back just as softly. there was no hunger. just the chirp of crickets and the whisper of the nearby highway. and you kissed him, pressed against the side of your car. he kissed you the same. you head swam.

this was him. his desire was only to kiss you, his hands travelling up to your jaw as yours trailed down his chest. it was deep, slow, every moment felt. he was the best kisser, it felt a shame to stop kissing. so your arms wrapped around him, pulling him closer. he smelled like cigarettes and his subtle cologne. it seemed like the most familiar thing in the world. you sighed between kisses.

you wanted this. and you wondered how real it was. how badly did he want you to stay? the truth was, he wanted you to be free from his cycle. he knew he wasn’t supposed to have you. he thought this would have gone differently, planning out an entirely different way to tell you this. but he couldn’t say it anyway. it- the words- hung in the air as you kissed, embraced, and said goodbye all in one. it was bittersweet. and a little bit sad.

because the kiss eventually ended. and you stayed against him. he didn’t want you to know how upsetting it was to wrap his arms around you for the first and hopefully last time in this context. his lips pressed against the top of your head as you stayed that way just a moment longer. and even that moment ended.

you looked at him again. “goodnight, patrick.”

“goodnight, y/n.” he replied. “just fuck off.” but he didn’t mean it. and you drove away. that was it. that was your goodbye. and he didn’t come around again. he kept on tour and started going back home instead of toward you. you kept going to school, graduated. your friends were proud you quit the cycle, but you didn’t tell them about any of what patrick meant. it wasn’t romance, it wasn’t going to be.

you missed him sometimes. and four years passed as you missed him occasionally. friends came and went. you dated two guys since then, terrible in bed and horrible in general. you missed him after having to fake your last orgasm with the guy you were seeing. you had a job now, an apartment, a solid group of friends. things were good.

you were grocery shopping when you ran into him again. a cheap little shop that had the best chip selection and most essential items. you thought maybe it was someone else, but it was him, in a sweater and jeans, holding a stack of ramen bricks. and your heart skipped a beat, like you were four years younger and he still gave you butterflies. and you were about to move, to start to think of what to do, when he turned around and looked up to see you. he turned his head away, then back at you, doing his own double-take.

his eyes, just a little wide locked onto yours. so you smiled, a little smug at his reaction. you walked over with a slight sway. he continued to look bewildered. he looked four years older. and he thought you looked gorgeous. “hi.” you said, keeping that smile.

“hey.” he responded, blinking once. “how are you?”

“i’m okay,” you replied. “how are you?”

“i’m fine.” he swallowed again, as if nervous. “are you stopping by or are you local?”

“local, why? are you local?” you asked.

“yeah, i live a block away.” he said. “just moved.”

you stared at each other for a second more, analyzing features, thinking back… and you nodded, holding your carton of raspberries. “are you free tonight?” you smiled.

“uh- yeah, think so,” he replied. still shocked.

“would you maybe want to get a drink?”

“i would, yeah,”

you nodded again, rocking on your heels, “perfect. see you then.” your heart was beating a mile a minute. it was him, he was here, he lived here… and you’d just asked him to get a drink. but you weren’t nervous. just… excited. something in you knew more. he was different, he had changed, he carried himself differently. and you were trusting it. the past was the past. and there was a reason you ran into each other.

when you got home, you texted him. and it was a leap of faith to hope he had the same number. you relied on it. because even after all the time had passed, you never actually blocked his number. you couldn’t.

and the address to the bar delivered immediately, meaning… he hadn’t deleted yours either. all these years. you grinned a little as you read his response.

‘its a date’.

cocky. presumptuous. horrible. terrifying. exciting.

a/n: omg first fic on this account. thought maybe this was a fun place to start off. also, i might consider a second part to this fic.let me know if you want IN on the taglist. requests open!

#this saved me #i love you patrick zweig

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zweigarette · 8 months ago

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read this as my bedtime story for tonight, and wow.

wounded in

(blue-eyed son part 2: electric boogaloo !!!! ; (hate to be that gal but you may have to read the first bit for context); homeless era!patrick zweig x jaded businesswoman!reader; nonlinear narrative; tw office job; tw coworkers; tw mcdonald’s; the sound of music stuff is for myself; i fucking love sound of music; and i fucking love cats (the animal not the musical, though that's lovely too) so there’s that; pushing a patrick zweig can’t spell agenda; tw new england maybe; i gave new rochelle a better rap this time; kiss scene kindaaaa ??..? ; tashi coaching patrick after new rochelle is canon to me; tw descriptions of emojis; what if i told you there’s a part 3; then what)

You hold in a bout of laughter when Patrick brings the drinks to the table.

His hair is longer than the last time you saw him, which wasn’t that long ago, in scale. In bones, in feels like a while.

Dear old New Rochelle. Far enough out that the city is a twinkle on the horizon like a cluster of stars, far enough that there are some actual stars above you, now. It’s odd to see him in New England. It’s odd to see him in jeans. But then it’s September.

There are new lines on his face already. He’s aging quicker now, as if to make a point.

Drinks are on me,

Is the first thing Patrick told you, when you walked in in a juniper parka. Scanned the room, picked out his booth.

Is this the part where you tell me you’ve opened a savings account? you said, trying to seem completely blasé about it. It would have been childish to be thrilled by such meagre chivalry at twentyeight. I feel like I should pay, you’re in my city.

Yeah, but you’ve hosted me enough for now.

That’s what you are, half the time. A host to him.

A museum. Thumbing through a rolodex of all the different shades of blue his eyes could go in one humid night.

You pass on more nights out than you accede to. You got a cat. You’re getting LASIK soon. But what it really looks like is that you’re wearing glasses to show that time has passed.

“What’re you smiling about?” Patrick asks, placing the foamy mug of beer in front of you.

You wipe discreetly under your eyes, spreading the mascara smudge. “Just thinking about how my aweinspiring generosity has rescued you from the misery of total squalor.”

Patrick chuckles. “Well, they say to pay it forward.” He sounds pleased as he lifts his own mug with a wink.

You look out the window. There’s a film of dust on it. There’s dust on the faux-chintz curtains too.

You start to wonder if that’s what he really thinks. That this is him going forward.

Patrick picks up the plastic menu. “We ordering sidedishes or do we want a full dinner? What’s good in Wellesley?”

You try to laugh, though the noise has the distinct tender hue of a sob. But you’re sure you feel mostly fine. “What are you doing here?”

“Hm?”

“What are you doing in Wellesley?”

Patrick looks up at you with bright, twinkling eyes. “Challenger in Boston. Thought it’d be a waste not to come see you.”

You clench your jaw to prevent more runny mascara. It’s stupid. You don’t much like waste either. But you’re not going to weep in front of Patrick like a child.

“You hungry?”

You nod, picking up your own menu, hiding your face behind it.

His hand reaches suddenly across the table, trying to touch yours. You pull away, but make it look like you didn’t.

“Bet you had a hard time leaving Tobes for the night,” he says, trying to lift the mood.

“Um yeah. A little. I like to imagine what she gets up to when I’m away.”

“My sister had a cat, when we were young. My sister was, like, seventeen, and I was eight, so pretty big gap.”

Because he has to clarify those sorts of things. Because you don’t know he has a sister. You don’t know anything.

You find it hard to picture him pinned down in any humane way. It’s always his beautiful leg (now sheathed in denim) writhing in a bear trap. Always his papery wings unfurled and pinned against a picture frame like a butterfly. Something metamorphosed. Something capable of a great change, and that must be tortured for it.

“She found the cat in an alleyway. She called it Patrick.”

You lift your eyes. You feel it bubbling in you like magma, the urge to coo. You feel all soft these days. And maybe that’s just open heart season, and the passage of time. But you see a vivid meridian in your life, and it falls right along the night you met this guy. And this back half is all soft, so you sort of want to blame him.

You swallow.

“Well, that’s sweet.”

Patrick lowers the menu. “Nope,” he shakes his head, that huge smirk on his face, like his name is on every ticket of the raffle, like he’s cheating at something. “Let me tell you what she used to do. She used to put the fucker in, like, a blanket, right? And she’d lift it up like a sack, with him inside, and he’d obviously start clawing and making all of these noises—“

He makes the noises. Just starts whipping his head around and making kitten growls, imitating this cat with his name. You get the sense that this is one of those anecdotes that explains a lot about a person.

“—And she’d come into my room, in, like, the middle of the night—this is real psycho shit—and she’d lift my covers and drop the cat. And the shit would fucking claw at me and bite me, just—“

He’s doing the noises again. And now he’s clawing at the air with his hands.

He stops, and the way he closes his mouth around his grin makes his teeth look like they’re trying to escape past his lips. But it looks sort of lovely.

“When the fuck died, Saskia texted me. She was like, oh, he loved you so much, you should’ve said goodbye.” He pauses, widens his eyes, looks at you with the pointed intimacy of sharing in this ludicrousness.

You roll your eyes. But you catch yourself smiling. You like the idea of him being mauled like that, skin deep. You get the sense that life has done to him a lot of that—those growls and scratches. And that sounds a little fucked. But what you like about it is how he seems so unmoved now, by this psycho shit. This flailing animal, this torture device. Pinning him down. He's laughing.

You try to imagine him as a child, but the proportions are all comically bizarre, in your mind’s eye.

“Pork chops,” you say, throwing the menu aside. “I feel like stuffing my face.”

Patrick gets three sausage egg McMuffins on the way to the New Rochelle Country Club—and fries, and a hash, and a soda—and he’s eating the second by the time you pull out of the drivethru.

There is a compelling sense of chaos to how he drives. Like, he’s so bad at driving. Three different people honk at him in a dozenminute window. And you feel content knowing that whatever had had your heart thumping last night has not shrivelled and died with the morningtime. Though now it’s maybe a partial distress for your safety. But you get the sense that, maybe, this is actually the person you are now. The woman who sleeps beside a rugged stranger and buys him breakfast and doesn’t care how he speaks with his mouth open while he’s eating the fries. Doesn’t care about the writhing mire of half chewed potato on his tongue. The way his lips gleam pink with salt.

“I need to listen to really specific music to, like, get in the zone? If you don’t mind?”

He sounds so uncharacteristically shy, for brief a moment. You have to lean forward and look to see he isn’t joking. He isn't.

“Uh— yeah, of course. It’s your car.”

He slides a Sound of Music soundtrack disc into the mouth of the dashboard.

You laugh so hard you fold over.

He’s got one hand on the wheel, and shifts is his seat, peeling the unfamiliarly clean skin of his thighs off the leather before sitting back down. He’s tearing into his third breakfast sandwich with a reckless abandon reserved for death row. He laughs around the bite, glancing, bemused, between you and the road, and, ultimately, spending more time looking at you.

“What?” he laughs around a halfmasticated mouthful. “What?”

There are tears sluicing down your face. You can’t breathe. You think you can, and then you start laughing again, and you can’t.

“How do you solve a problem like Maria?” Patrick hums cheerily as he noshes. It’s a gross and wonderful noise, the food moving between his teeth, circumventing Hammerstein.

You think the large coke is probably no performance enhancer, not only because he all but tumbles out of the car when it’s hardly halfway parked (poorly, you’ll add).

“Fuck, need to piss,” he says frenetically.

When you know the notes to sing…, carols Julie Andrews.

You’re still laughing. Crying. Your tummy fluttering painfully.

Patrick makes you order dessert too, since you’re celebrating.

Celebrating what? you had to ask, though, at the time, you were wearing an impish, knowing, frankly celebratory sort of smile.

Patrick feigned great offense. He said, I’m fucking here, aren’t I?

He wants you to have sundaes together. You spill some ice cream on your skirt. He finds that funny. He’s always got this weasel smile, like he’s constantly ready for amusement. He’s shaved, at some point between now and then. The hairs on his face are sparser. The skin on his face looks milky and organic like a crinite litchifruit.

The frumpy diner was his idea too.

He’s spent some time on the veritable extremes of the economic spectrum—that’s what life tends to be for him; veritable extremes, scratching him meanly—and now he just wants to play at being the average wage earner.

“You really are welcome to stay with me, if you’d like.”

Patrick looks at you like he’d rather shoot himself.

You sort of marvel at his sense of pride, as if it were a rare stone, swallowing light and spewing it out at all angles. The Sociology course you took in uni had a whole two modules on personal pride. It is one of the few emotions that are unique to humans.

Patrick—for his weasel smile and beastly hunger and feline anti—is remarkably proficient in being human. In the real, visceral parts of it. In wielding his emotions like kaleidoscope hues. Dancing freely in confinement.

“When are you leaving?”

“Don’t worry about that. If you have time for breakfast tomorrow, we can—”

“Mm, not tomorrow, I don’t think. But I have no plans this weekend.”

You say it with this weird, bright intonation, like you’re jesting. Which—a lot of things feel like a bit of a joke these days. But he seems to understand you well enough. Delivers a curt, unspurned nod, and even a smile. Not the weasley, chronicling one. The wolfish one that makes his eyes crinkle up.

“Come here then,” he says.

Patrick leans in for a hug. You can’t avoid it. He enfolds you in a fascinatingly soft, burning embrace. He still smells sort of musky and acrid. Like even though he can shower regularly now, he maybe doesn’t as often as he should. But you find a gross comfort that. This pleasantly fetid, human man. His cologne smells like a wine cellar.

He says, “It’s nice to see you again.”

Something churns in your belly. Maybe the pork chops. Maybe the ice cream. This whole fucking day. You accidentally deleted some files and IT spent five hours trying to help you unsheathe them from oblivion. You felt like a failure. And now you’re here and,

“Fuck, you’re still so cool.”

You push away from him with a forceful laugh.

You used to be able to tell your sister all kinds of things. But, lately, you haven’t been able to talk to anyone about anything.

Working so many years for a soulless corporate hive mind has turned you into an expert at short, polite, and meaningless feedback that only varies with inflection.

“Right”, “Sure”, “Got it”, “Whatever you think is best”, “Already on it”.

Half the time you sound illiterate. The other half, you sound like you could have written Prozac Nation.

When your sister asks, how was New Rochelle? she expects you to say something annoyingly vague and ominous in your cool, collected adjunct’s voice, like: Everything is under control.

But, instead, you say, “Do you and Mark still go to mass? I really want to start giving more of myself away.” And you’re wearing this smile that’s utterly sincere.

That’s what spooks your sister.

Of course, you want to tell her more. Because your sister married a Herman Melville character; one of those grizzly, stinky, sacerdotal men who don’t want to work but don’t want to lose either. You know your tale of Linklateresque, serendipitous connection would render her mesmerised and marginally jealous.

But, soft and charitable as you may now be, you keep it all to yourself.

Patrick is still in Massachusetts a fortnight later. You say you’d have loved to come and see him play, but you’re really busy, and he says not to sweat it. Insists really. Maybe even begs. Do not sweat it.

You text him, presumably a day or two afterwards, and ask how it went.

Smahsed it!, he texts, and garlands the (misspelled) notion with eight sunglassfaced emojis. You counted. Dibner? he texts.

Then, a moment later,

*dinner?

You get to see your first New Rochelle sunrise.

You slink out of bed with toothfairy softness, even though Patrick is sleeping the sleep of death—with a deep, miserable snore like a resounding dirge to prove it—beside you. Your pillow wall, in the night, had collapsed like Berlin in 89.

You step outside. You check your phone, first, but you do go outside. You do believe in fresh air in the mornings, even if you don’t have the fortitude for mindfulness and journaling.

The parking lot is a vast open soul. Regretfully resigned and stunningly silent.

The sky looks like a bleeding mouth, but the hard grey edges around it don’t seem to care. The concrete enterprises and litter splay do not want anything to do with this bruise. A tart, sort of sewery smell makes your eyes water.

Cars drive by too fast.

You think, in some faraway capacity, you can hear the soft, rhythmic thunk of tennis balls hitting asphalt. But it’s only your heart.

You hear things. You see things.

You don’t want to sound like some haunted Victorian heiress with a mystical past, but you do.

In the break room, mostly.

So you hadn’t noticed before. Your coworker, Sam, goes fucking wild for tennis. Sam’s slobbering lewd and voracious over tennis. It’s hard to witness. In fact, you feel dirty witnessing this. You should call HR. Sam’s in the break room doing an onanistic oneman scene play about tennis.

Or maybe he just kind of likes it.

And you hadn’t noticed it before.

There’s a lot, for your part, that you were content not noticing around the office.

But now every errant tenniscentric commentary makes your hands feel sore and weightless without the presence of a gun.

“No, you don’t get it, Deirdre, this is like if LeBron played a game at some random Y, and got dunked on by this fuckin’ nobody, and then just… quit the game.” He sounds tumid with bewilderment. “Just fuckin’ dipped!” Sam’s incredulous. “Forever!”

“LeBron…?”

“Fuck, Deirdre, you’re killing me.”

You slot the mouth of your bottle beneath the spout of the water cooler. You close your eyes—zombieleaden, uneven on the tiles; it’s only 10—and listen to the halting trickle, trickle… stream. The plastic goes cold against your palm as the water rises.

“All because of some… fuckin’,” Sam snaps his fingers, “Fuck, I forget the name.”

Peter Zeppelin, your mind supplies dryly.

It is then that Sam chooses to notice you. Points his finger. Wide smile. “Oh-ho, here’s trouble!” says Sam.

Sam and you have had enough one on one conversations for you to list on your one free hand, and you wouldn’t be spoiled for digits. But, all the same,

“Here’s trouble!” Sam announces, “Big shot boss babe, huh? Back from kickin’ rear in New Rochelle. I know you’re glad to be back.”

You don’t say anything. You feign responsiveness, flash a stilted smile. But you don’t say anything. Because what would you say?

Outside the men’s bathroom of the New Rochelle Country Club, you fidget awkwardly, standing against a wall and trying to look inconspicuous. Patrick’s duffel sits at your heels like a staunch hound.

Your gaze meanders around the venue with an idle sense of inquiry.

You’d expected a certain echelon of grandiosity, anyway. And the country club is nice—you feel silly casting any judgement at all—if a little outdated. All glossy wood-panelling and pea green outdoor carpet.

You can see yourself, warped and bleary, upon the polished floor. The bar flourishes a glassy sheen and cloistered amber rows of lavish whiskeys.

Through glass windows, golf splays unfurl, ceaseless viridescence, beset on all sides by sharpcornered hedges.

People mill about with the air of the lookedafter, and polo shirts as white as the maw of God.

Which is nice—it’s all nice—and all, but your chest seems to enwreathe a stark state of dread. You feel the sort of nausea that would rack you as a child. Floating in the curtains at your dance recitals, like an anxious little poltergeist.

When Patrick emerges from the loo, he is whistling. Fluting finely the swooping tune of ‘Sixteen Going on Seventeen’.

“You certainly seem unburdened,” you murmur, gaze shadowing him as he draws near. You know you sound unconvinced. For his part, he looks undeterred.

Slings his bag over his shoulder like it is floatable, even as you know it bears the poundage of half a man’s life.

He grins, flashing a canine.

To you, he has just eaten his weight in greasy, leaden carbcloth, and proceeded to piss for twelve minutes straight.

But Patrick seems imbued by morningshine.

He throws a heavy arm around you, squeezes your shoulder. Says, “Look alive!” Says, “I’ve had a good night’s sleep, a hot shower, the breakfast of champions, and I’m about to get paid!”

You wince a bit at his volume, and also because he seems to be emanating a bit of that morningshine. Not to speak of the heat. Searing from his very bones.

If nothing else you admire his buoyancy. In that way, the warmth—even as the sun blooms above you—is a fascinating comfort.

Like something to be shared.

You say yes to dinner.

You keep having dinner. He keeps taking you out for dinner, and to decent places, too, places you haven’t even been to around here.

You’re sitting across from him. You’re eating, as one does. He’s regarding you with something like awe. Though you wouldn’t know it, because he regards, too, his plate, when the waiter rests it before him, with a sort of comical reverence. Even though you’re pretty sure he’s not starving, anymore.

But hunger’s not always about those sorts of things, you suppose. Maybe he's just still hungry.

He’s winning a lot. Must be, if he’s taking you out all the time, and—hey—maybe you can get him to sign something for Sam. That’d be nice of you.

Patrick watches you eat.

You try not to stare back at him. As long as you keep chewing, you won’t have to ask why he’s still here.

“That’s a nice shirt,” he says after a long silence.

You smile. “Thank you.”

He doesn’t text you for months, many months, after New Rochelle. You’d given him your number, because you wanted to put the ball in his court, and—fuck—here’s hoping you didn’t say that.

But you can’t recall.

It’s been months.

So, when you do get the text, you’re pleased to see it’s aptly contrite.

ypu probably think I’msn idiot, it reads, and it’s late at night and you’re already in bed, stewing over NYT Connections.

You eye the ID. Maybe: Patrick Zweig, but that’s implied—so many implicit little shards—because not a lot of people are so tortured by the prospect of your opinion on them so as to text you at 1 AM. So.

Define idiot, you text back.

dictionary defenition is Patrick Rupert Zweih. There’s prpbably even a lil picture of me next to it.

A few moments.

A bad one.

Ten or eleven emojis of abject terror.

You consider this—not a bad picture of him (though he doesn’t quite strike you as wildly photogenic anyway), just... This Whole Wound—and tap the side of your phonecase in tentative thought.

Your full name is Patrick Rupert Zweig? Tough.

Like ypu didnt already look me up.

You blink. Whoa—okay.

Not a humble idiot, I see, you type.

You don’t know where you get the balls. There’s a sweeping litany of long, gorgeous miles between your bed and New Rochelle, but maybe he can smell you thinking as much because,

Im in MA next week

In the registration room, a man with a binder asks his name, and Patrick sheathes his canine in a way that makes him look conspiratorial and bemused. You suppose it’s become an inside joke.

The ATP official seems to gleam with recognition when Patrick does give his name—his real name—and he says, “Oh wow, that is you!”

You can’t see his face from this angle, but you can envisage the way his moue has settled in confusion.

Apparently, the ATP official was a line judge at the Junior US Open back in 06.

You try to think back to what you were doing in 2006. Probably populating your microcosm in The Sims. Trapping little imitations of those who had scorned you in swimming pools to drown.

“You were really something back then, huh?” says the ATP official.

Your eyes flicker to Patrick’s profile. He doesn’t quite know how to respond to that.

The official hands Patrick a packet. There’s a little map of the facility in there, in case he gets lost. His first match is against one Gonzalez, on court seven.

Patrick says, marginally halting, “Hey, so, is there any chance of an advance payment on the prize money.”

The official blinks.

“Because I know I’m guaranteed a minimum of four hundred dollars even if I get knocked out today—“

You frown a bit at that. The official frowns a lot at that.

“Well,” he says, “Generally we don’t give out winnings until a player makes his way through the tournament…”

A beat.

Then,

“You could always just lose today. Then we’d have to cut you a check this evening.”

Patrick hardens to bone. You hope he has another lifeaffirming piss in him. He doesn’t meet your eyes when he turns to leave, but flicks you a glance that seems to ask that you spare him the judgement.

You leave New Rochelle today. Good as the night’s sleep may have been, he knows better than anyone that life’s loveliest things are fleeting.

So—fine—you don’t begrudge him. Instead,

“He seems hopeful,” you say wryly.

“Must’ve been thrown off by my pretty caddie,” he says dismissively. Maybe a little bristled.

The warmup courts, deep blue plane, shimmer in the sunheat.

Patrick takes the asphalt, flicks his racket around by its handgrip as though refamiliarising himself with the palmfeel for the first time in a while. Which—well—doesn’t give you confidence, at risk of contesting Julie Andrews.

He practices his serve. Starts to work the ball up and down the court. Hits a few forehands, a few backhands.

Then,

“He was lying,” he yells to the bleachers.

The bleachers are mostly empty. A few errant loiterers. Bored spectators who have finished their lunch earlier than their friends. What have you.

He’s looking at you, though. With a staggering precision from so far away.

“What?”

“That guy. He was lying. Or… bigging it up. Or whatever. I wasn’t really something, I was just decent.”

He strikes a ball over the net. You can see, from here, the vibration ricochet through the racketstrings with a shudder that has you expecting music to flutter out.

You lean back in your seat, sort of sliding down against the glossy plastic, a tremor of induced electric tickling your bum through your jeans. You cross your arms.

“That’s kind of bullshit,” you call out.

He spares you a glance, sort of doubletakes, and you can see the corner of his mouth tremble with intrigue.

He takes another ball from the basket. Tosses it up. You watch the neon starsphere spin fleetingly in the air before being walloped to oblivion. And what do you know of tennis? But you do think his serve is a thing of beauty. Beauty measured in power and precision, sure (he hits the ball straight and hard and fast and low, just barely clearing the net), but you can also see the way his muscles work beneath his skin. Which—you know.

Patrick walks to the fence that partitions the courts from the stands. He leans over, rests his arms on the palisade, and looks at you.

“This was the whole problem,” he tells you, “Everyone was always telling me how good I was. And it got to my head. And now I’m here.”

It’s a shabby imitation of humility. What it really is, is an attempt to scale down the apogee, so the fall seems less mythic. So the years seem less unkind.

“I didn’t come here to watch you sulk just because some guy was nice to you.”

Patrick grins. His cheeks are flushed with heat, and there are little spots of sweat on the hollows where his skin and bones meet. But he seems to know not to exert himself fully right now.

“You think I’m sulking?”

“I think you seem pretty torn up for a guy who’s going to play a thirty minute match, and walk away a few hundred dollars richer.”

He makes a noise like you’ve wounded him, but he seems elated.

“A few hundred dollars?” he says, raising his brows. “So you’ve lost your faith in me.”

“I have some,” you allow, and you’re not surprised to find that you really do. “Just don’t choke.”

Patrick wears the smile of a newly crowned Miss Universe. He looks touched that you’re being so frank.

“I won’t,” he says, with a sense of finality and what you feel is an incongruous tenderness. “I’m pretty good at dealing with pressure. My parents always used to take me to work with them and tell employees to come to me at random intervals with madeup highstakes scenarios. Like, pretending to have a breakdown, and saying they needed me to help them out and make the final decision. Some of them could cry on command.”

You try and fail to hide a look on your face that divulges how demented you think that anecdote is. But you try to find something neutral to say.

“Well, maybe you’re lucky,” you tell him. “I was horrifically nervous as a child.”

“Not anymore?” he asks, swinging his racket idly, and you get the sense he’s actually very interested in how you will answer.

So it’s hard not to answer him honestly.

“I don’t know,” you say finally, and you look away from his eyes, and instead at the sky. You’re alarmed to find they are precisely the same tincture of aegean. “Mostly not. But if I have to give a presentation or speak up in a meeting, I have to take one of those beta blockers, you know? Propranolol?”

You are stricken, at odd moments, in New Rochelle, in Massachusetts.

You get the sense that he’s trying to be cavalier. But, at the same time, there’s this unmistakable fragility about him. Like it wouldn’t take much to knock him down.

You are stricken by how he’s managed to maintain this cocksure swagger for so long. With such a brittle, aching core.

How easily it all might’ve been shaken by the wrong person, and the wrong word.

You love the smell of your dear kitty’s head right after a bath. The fluff of dandelions and baby bird. You love toweling her, taking her little paws in your hand and prying the toes open.

Toby pretends not to like being fussed over, but she doesn’t put up much of a fight. In fact, most nights, she falls asleep in your arms.

When he pays you the visit, Ms Tobes is breathing evenly in your arms, your thumb caressing the organtender slope of her silky head.

You open the door, and great weeping gales have been jostling your windows all evening. But he is in shorts.

Patrick’s been in New England for nearly a month.

There’s an odd sort of look on his face, and an unlit cigarette behind his ear.

Hands in his pockets, he leans against the door frame, staring down at you. You feel a remarkable heat radiating from the downy flesh of his bare legs.

He doesn’t seem confident, nor does he seem unperturbed. He seems… pensive and maybe even penitent, but he wears it with a fascinating poise. There’s still something wounded and vulnerable about the way of his shoulders, the slant of his mouth. It's the softness that kills you, anyway, you think incoherently.

You peer up at him, dubious, through the briar of your lashes. He looks down at Toby, at the sweep of your finger over her head. You do not know if it is he or Toby who purrs.

When he speaks, he is whispering very softly, though there’s a frayed, low seep of his voice in his throat. It feels revoltingly intimate.

“When Patrick died,” he says, “The cat. I felt so shitty. I had this weird feeling of—like—I don’t know. Shittiness. Because of how Sassy said what she said. You should’ve said goodbye. What am I supposed to do with that, y’know?”

You swallow. The hallway is so vacant and noiseless you can hear the plush shuffle of his running shoes against the carpet. Dutifully beyond the boundary of your home, even though he’s been here quite a few times now.

“Patr—“ you croak.

“I’m not in Massachusetts for a game,” he tells you, shrugging hopelessly and almost smiling. But failing to. Which you register. “There’s no challenger in Boston. There’s just you. In Wellesley. All these… fucking ponds everywhere. Private schools. Bunch of rich little assholes who need a tennis coach, I bet. All these res—fuck. You know,” he shifts, taking the cigarette from his ear and gesturing with it between the two of you, “We’ve been out, like, twenty times, since I’ve been here, and there’s still, like, fifty restaurants we haven’t been to.”

You stare up at him. Your palms, where they cradle Toby, grow damp. The throbbing organ of your heart takes up residence in your throat. There’s a sad sort of clanging from the clock in the hall.

You lift one trembling finger to your lips.

Please, don’t say anything else, you beg with your eyes. Please, not in front of Toby.

Patrick’s eyes glint ruefully. Almost ominously. He seems insulted by your gesture, but he understands. He always understands. He never holds anything against anyone.

“No need for that,” he says very quietly. “I come in peace.”

He moves closer, breaking the enclave where the carpet of the hall meets the vinyl of your floor, until he is inches away.

A head taller, yet shrinking, as if you were seeing him from across a room.

He smells very good today. He smells like spice and bergamot and the laundered fabric of his navy blue halfzip. You sort of miss the musk. Of course you think of New Rochelle. You think of Bob Dylan and Hello Kitty and thermostats. Fucking Sally.

You lift your chin.

“I’m not asking you to—“

Patrick leans forward, his nose touching your nose.

“I’m gonna do the tennis,” he speaks the words into your mouth, voice like gravel melting in the sun.

You part your lips. A part of you hates him, hates how he’s insinuated himself in your life without warning. Another part, however, is asleep and betrays you.

He shushes you, though you’re sure you haven’t said anything. It’s just that you’re crying now. Completely still and silent. Weeping like the dead, because the dead weep, too.

He shakes his head, his nose brushing over yours, says shhh like you’re a cat, and, even then, Toby only stirs between your fingers.

“It’ll be good,” he says, and you’ve heard him sound convincing. You know that right now he sounds… something else. And he’s still shaking his head as he whispers, “It’ll be good, I’ll be good. I have a coach, I’m not done, I love the tennis.”

You look up at him. Lick your lips, which, when you’re so close, also means sort of licking his. Sort of licking into him. You want to say, fuck your tennis and fuck you too, but you also want to fuck him and you want to fuck his tennis, too.

You think of New Rochelle.

Patrick’s hand meanders upward toward Toby, and, if his cigarette was lit, you’d see sweeping coils of smoke floating heavenward.

It isn’t lit, but still.

You catch him quickly. You hold him by the wrist.

His skin is nauseatingly warm.

“You love it?” You sound unimpressed now. Your mouth moves over and around and against his as you speak.

“I do.”

“You love it, you love the tennis?” You’re sort of spitting it at him, and he tastes it.

And he thinks of Patrick the cat, how he lay there and was mauled. Pinned down. He thinks he’d let you draw blood, now, if you really wanted to.

“Tennis doesn’t love you.”

“Do you?”

There is time enough for you to answer. But when a sound is finally made it is only Toby, who mewls.

Patrick smiles. You feel the seam of his lips touch your lower teeth. “Didn’t think so.”

He straightens, his lips swiping your nose on his way up. He gently removes his arm from your grasp, your nails scraping is skin.

You exhale sharply. You feel stung.

Poor Toby, caught between your beating hearts. Patrick steps away. He places the cigarette between his lips, and then you do not stop him from touching Tobes. He strokes her gently.

“You got a lighter?” he asks around the cig.

There are three aflame candles in your home right now. He can smell the vanilla. You shake your head. He smiles again. Toby purrs. Patrick’s fingers touch yours between the heather fur.

You feel a strange ignition in your bones.

The game begins.

Everything is quick and violent.

You don’t know if tennis is actually quick and violent, or if that’s just him.

You are astounded by just how much a man can sweat. You are spellbound by the visceral implication of being drenched in one’s own exertion.

Gonzalez is younger. A little bit more thrilled to be here. And he’s got the kind of easy, quick thoroughness that means he probably practices with a ball machine at home, but not a lot of real experience.

Patrick makes brutal work of him.

There is a certain way his muscles tense through his forearm and the pulse travels up his bicep when he strikes the ball. His shirt rises as he twists to send it flying over the net. There is so much laboured breath and dripping skin.

He has you sit exactly where you sat during warmups.

Between sets, he extends his arm, taut and sweatsoused, and points to you with the scratched edge of his racket, one eye closed like he’s mapping trajectory. And he does sort of have this bloodhungry precision in his gaze, like a marksman.

You feel it in your neck, the ache of your focus, how your eyes water for lack of blinking as you swivel your head side to side. You do not close your mouth once.

He hits the ball again, and then again. Each with an almost startling accuracy. Each with a deep and fleshsatisfying thwack that makes your very ear canals thrum with the sort of pain that has you expecting the warmth of dripping crimson on your shoulders.

But it’s not just the force that strikes you. It’s that precision. That bulletgleam precision.

He seems to know, with a profound, animalic certainty, exactly where to place each shot.

At times, they will land exactly where the last landed.

And by the time his adversary cottons on, he has set his hungry eyes upon another target.

It’s beautiful.

You start to wonder if you have ever—ever—looked so fucking beautiful doing any single thing in your life. This strange and beautiful violence. Refined and delicate violence. He is violent and graceful.

Patrick groans when he hits the ball. Makes a guttural sound, a pained sort of sound, like he loses something of himself with each forceful departure.

The sun beams down, and you see his beautiful legs flex aglow with the beautiful gleam of his abject labour.

You think, fuck—

New Rochelle is beautiful.

“You know, I could have gone pro.”

Sam leans back in his Herman Miller chair. Takes a deep quaff of his coffee before pointing to Deirdre with his mug.

“You played for two years in middle school,” Deirdre deadpans, her gaze unmoving from her monitor as she populates a spreadsheet with who the fuck knows.

“This is huge, D,” says Sam, unhurt, “This is like if Jamal Mashburn started coaching the fuckin’ nobody that demolished LeBron at the Y.”

Deirdre seems to have forgotten this analogy, which, for her part, Sam first made months ago now.

“But also if Mashburn was married to Lebron,” adds Sam.

Your computer screen casts depressing polygons across your glasses. You slide your AirPods in. You don’t want to know where Bob Dylan will appear on your Spotify Wrapped.

I met one man who was wounded in love. I met another man who was wounded in hatred. And it’s a hard, it’s a hard— It’s a hard, it’s a hard—

It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.

#this is the best thing i’ve ever read #patrick zweig i can save you

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