The Wicker King

You deserve to heal and grow, too. You deserve to have someone to talk to about your problem; you deserve unconditional support; you deserve care and safety and all the things you need to thrive. Just because you may not have them doesn’t mean you don’t deserve them. If someone tells you that you don’t deserve those things, they are lying.

Keep trying your best.

Ask for help when you need it.

Do your best to be brave, but it is okay not to be.

If you drop the weight you’re carrying, it is okay. You can build yourself back up out of the pieces.

If your mind stops listening to you, it’s not your fault. There are billions of us; you are not alone.

And lastly, whoever you are:

I am so so proud of you.

Love,

Kayla

Now, August and Jack are fictional. They wind up okay in the end. They’ll learn how to love each other with fingertips, instead of claws. They will build a home and a life together, and there they will heal and grow.

Many young people, perhaps like you, find themselves being forced to carry something they never imagined would be so heavy, with no one around to support them. It must be said that they are rarely ever at fault for the
multitude of ways they choose to bear that load. Even if they are destructive. They are not “failing”; someone has failed them.

If you read this book and you see too much of your life in the codependence and neglect that is August’s and Jack’s lives, please know that it is not your fault.

If you are dealing with mental illness and you are exhausted, please know that it is not your fault.

If you are alone and overburdened, please know that it is not your fault.

There were so many opportunities for figures of authority to disrupt that pattern. Their parents, who were never there. Teachers, who preferred to reprimand them for their uncharacteristic actions instead of being concerned. The dean, who was more interested in disrupting August’s income instead of wondering why he needed it. The nurses and social workers their high school undoubtedly had, who were missing entirely from this narrative, having never been alerted to the problem. The police who took them to jail instead of to the hospital. August’s lawyer, as well-meaning as she was. The only people who were not in some way at fault were all the young people in this story, who were doing the best they could with the situation they were given.

Jack and August are both victims of neglect. They are neglected by their parents and ignored by all figures of authority around them until it is entirely too late. The structure of their relationship and the journey that they take are only the symptoms of this larger and more pressing issue.

Like most teenagers, Jack and August both need certain things in order to thrive. They need to care and feel cared for; they need structure and authority; they need unconditional support; they need someone to be concerned for them; they need to be able to rely on someone; and they need to feel safe. Because those things were absent in their lives, they tried to build versions of them within each other. Then, because they had no other options, they took these things from each other until they both had nothing left to give.

August needed to care for someone to feel like he had his life in control, so Jack made himself easy to care for. When August grew exhausted from caring too much, Jack took the reins of authority in the only way August would accept. When Jack needed unconditional support, August gave it happily. When Jack needed to feel safe, August made a home for Jack in his house—and in his own mind. They were always designed to be perfectly balanced. Like an ouroboros: eating while being eaten.

August and Jack’s legend continues in their fantasty world …

Long ago, when the earth was still young, there were two kings: the King of the Wood and the Wicker King.

They were brothers and their kingdoms lay side by side, shuttered away behind a wall. The two kings were fair and just, mischievous and fond of sport. They were generous, brave, and well loved by their people. It was a golden age, when the fruit hung ever ripe from the trees and milk animals grew fat and plenty.

Every year in midsummer, when the second sun was highest in the sky, there was a Great Hunt. All the eligible men and women joined together to go out into the wildlands to capture a great beast for the midsummer feast.

But a black fog seethed and roiled outside the country wall. It was a wild, hungry thing made of sorcery that had been banished by the Champion and the capital council in the days of old, five hundred seasons past. It was held back from swallowing them all by the country’s greatest boon, a living stone: the Rapturous Blue …

Read more of this digital short, along with Jack’s version of the story, wherever ebooks are sold.

They gave him his letters at the end. They’d held them from him all this time.

One was from Roger, the other was a padded envelope from Rina. He opened Roger’s first:

Dear August,

Peter said you wouldn’t want to hear from us. He’s probably right, but I didn’t want you to think we were mad at you or forgot about you. I know we can get a little bit … I don’t know. But Peter cares, even if he acts like he’s too smart or strong to.

Anyway, after you left they boarded up the factory for good. Peter and I stopped by to see. They put up a “for lease” sign and everything. It was the only thing anyone talked about for weeks after you left. Kids had been going over there and acting like it’s haunted. I’m glad they boarded it up. I didn’t think you’d like that.

Everyone else is doing all right. Gordie got into Yale, which surprised everyone. Peter and I are going to Brown and Alex decided to stay in town and get a job in the town next to us. She told us to tell you that she’ll make you as many muffins as you like when you get back.

I don’t know if they let you send letters in there, but if they do, can you send one back?

Your friend,

Roger

August folded it back up and pulled out Rina’s.

It was a page ripped out of a notebook with a bit of lipstick smeared messily at the corner and some speckles of coffee on the sides. Crammed inside was a single tea bag of that dark spiced tea she always drank.

Returned to you is one backpack, which had in it one sweater, three rags, a lighter, a cell phone, a notebook, ten pencils, a wallet with two bus cards and $35.03 inside it. And here are your street clothes. You can change in the bathroom inside the ward, but must remain inside the lobby once your uniform has been removed. You can bring it to the front desk.”

August shucked off his hospital pants and put his legs back into the jeans he’d been wearing when he’d arrived. The cloth felt rough in comparison, and it still smelled of ash and fire. It was much more comfortable to finally be dressed like himself, though.

“Good-bye, August. Best of luck!”

He politely waved back at the orderly. He didn’t know her, but the well-wishes were appreciated.

August’s heart seized.

He didn’t … know he could have this.

Jack kissed him so carefully that August thought he would fall to pieces. Kissed him with the weight of knowing the price of risk. Then he gazed back at August like his heart was already breaking.

It was the same face that Jack had made on the roof, in the middle of the night, when they rolled in the grass, when he sat back with August’s blood and ink on his hands, when his face was lit orange with flames, when he’d opened the door to Rina’s room, when he stared across the gym at the homecoming dance, when he pulled him from the river and breathed him back to life.

Jack had been waiting. He’d been trying. He was scared. There were tears in his eyes and it took August’s breath away.

They were being watched, but August didn’t care. He curled his fingers into Jack’s shirt and dragged him closer.

“How long?” He had to know.

“August, please—”

“How long have you been waiting for me?” The words tore themselves roughly from his throat.

Jack closed his eyes and hung his head in despair. It had been before all of this, then. Maybe even earlier.

August brushed his fingertips against the sharp edge of Jack’s
jaw. Then he touched the edge of the bandage on the side of Jack’s head.

“I’m right here,” he said. “I’ve always been right here.”

The sound Jack made was so quiet and so desperately lonely. So August closed the last inch between them, and answered it. He ate up the noises Jack made, sweet and lush as they were, and tasted the rest of their lives.

“When we are free and have healed from this, will you stay?” he gasped. “Will you stay with me?”

The guard pounded on the door. Jack jerked back from him with a start and placed his hands in full view of the window. He was still wrecked and wanting, glorious and raw. August reached back out for him, instinctively, but Jack shook his head, scrambling to his feet as the door began to open.

“I have to go. But I’ll be back for you,” Jack promised.

“Mr. Rossi, your time is up.”

“I’ll be back for you. I always will.”

The door shut loudly behind him, and August was once again left alone in the dark..

feel as though your stay here has been less than advantageous for you,” the psychologist said.

“What makes you think that?” August replied. He took a bite of his apple, pilfered at lunch.

“If I was to be completely honest, you’re much worse now than when you came in. The only thing we seem to have fixed is your pyromania.”

August snorted. He wasn’t a pyromaniac. He hadn’t had the urge since he’d nearly burned off the entire first layer of skin on his palms. Which was totally a rational response. If they wanted to take credit for that, whatever.

“It’s likely that Jack will come out of this situation with significantly less trauma than you will,” the psychologist remarked. “The procedure is invasive, but the recovery time for this illness is notoriously very short. Only a couple of days, actually. If the surgery is successful, he should be right as rain.”

August took another bite.

“How do you feel about that?”

He chewed for a bit instead of answering.