Vanished Things

By Grayson Sydney

A boy coming to terms with his gender while circumnavigating the violence of others, all while being supported by the boundless love of his soon to be adopted brother...

Lance has always been the kid from down the street. That is, until he moves in with Thierry and his mother. They've grown up together, and Thierry's been in love with the boy from down the road for almost as long as he can remember. Even before Lance was Lance.

Thierry's grown protective of Lance. Lance isn't like the other boys at school, and Brant and his goons find joy in bullying him.

Following an attempted assault, Lance and Thierry must try to find their new normal. But then Lance leaves, and Thierry is left on his own to wonder how he wasn't enough to help his stepbrother—his love—heal.

Seven years later, after the death of his estranged father, Lance shows back up with a military issue duffel bag, and a story.

Thierry only knows one thing; Lance is his.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Grayson Sydney
• Release date: Sep 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393348955

Book preview

Vanished Things

Vanished Things

Grayson Sydney

Vanished Things by Grayson Sydney

Visit the author’s website at: https://graysonsydney.com

Copyright © 2020 by Grayson Sydney

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

For permissions, contact the author at their website linked above, or email [e-mail]

Cover by Grayson Sydney

First edition: September 2020

Contents

Sunday

Tuesday

Thursday

Wednesday

Friday

Part One: Dream

Part Two: Reality

Saturday

Part One: Reality

Part Two: Nightmare

Monday

Part One: Seven Years

Part Two: Lies

Part Three: Halves

Part Four: Fiber

Part Five: Time

Part Six: Home

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About the Author

Sunday

He doesn’t really know him. But he kind of does. Wants to. Hopes he knows more than he sometimes feels he does, stuck lying awake at night and worrying about it. He hopes he means more than he probably does.

Lance, that is.

He’s a skinny kid, known for staring at girls that send him flirty gazes for days until they start whispering to their friends about serial killer eyes and they finally leave him alone.

He doesn’t eat with anyone at lunch.

He smokes cigarettes and criticizes anyone and everyone who vapes instead. Calls it unhealthy. Says it kills you and doesn’t realize the irony. He walks home every day. Always has.

Lance is always walking; up the street, back down it carrying groceries, or smoking, or looking at the ground. Up and down for hours, like there’s nowhere else for him to go. And maybes that’s the truth of it, though it hurts to consider.

He hears yelling from down the street sometimes near Lance’s house, late, when most houses are dark, the families inside in bed for the night.

Thierry.

Thierry blinks at his name. He sees Lance with a toothbrush hanging out of his mouth and a book in his hand, held up for Thierry to see.

Since I’m staying at your place a while, I’m using your statistics book for our exam next week. You’re acing anyway.

Thierry nods like an idiot, feels completely like one, wonders how Lance knows that. He swallows when Lance brushes past him, shoulder bumping him haphazardly.

Thierry stares at the wall. Finally, he goes to his room.

Thierry thinks it first started because of his mother.

He’s not totally sure, since it’s more a feeling than anything else. One day, Lance came over to borrow some notes, Esther, Thierry’s mom, side-eyed him for a while and then eased Lance into the idea of staying with them. Just for a stretch.

His mother watches Lance a lot. Frets over him like she just took in a cat hit by a car. Maybe she kind of has, all things considered. Lance had had bruises along his legs, his thighs; Thierry had accidentally walked in on him when he was changing the first night.

Lance had thanked him for the fresh towels, then closed the door in Thierry’s face, looking stoic as ever.

Now, Esther bakes him too much food each morning before class, and even more on the weekends. Thierry tends to eat the leftovers. He has the metabolism to spare for it, but Lance is too skinny. He always leaves leftovers no matter how much Thierry bugs him not to.

Lance converses easily with her every morning and every night. Thierry’s never heard him talk so much, and he smiles often. It’s odd to see.

In school Lance is a loner. Quiet, secluded, hardly talks to anyone at all, teachers included. Thierry’s never really paid him much mind. Well, not too much. They’re kind of friends—at least Thierry hopes.

Lance stays late every Thursday and Friday to watch Thierry’s lacrosse practice. He stays until the last players leave the field. Then Lance will stand, stretch his back, take out a cigarette and start walking home.

It’s just at the edge of two weeks that Lance has been with them.

Lance leaves his statistics exam front-up on Thierry’s desk. He only sees it after he gets back from practice.

Lance pokes his head around Thierry’s doorway, offering him a nod only when he’s noticed.

You got an A, Thierry tells him.

You too, Lance replies.

Thierry smiles, more to himself than anything. The bridge of his nose feels hot, and he chalks it up to still having to shower. He’s running hot from practice, that’s it.

I didn’t see you at practice today.

Lance shrugs, doesn’t blink. I don’t go every time.

Thierry knows that’s a lie. Today is the first he’s ever missed.

Later, Esther tells him after dinner that night that the pie they had for desert is one that Lance helped prepare for her that afternoon.

Thierry begins to wonder. Maybe his hopes are less far fetched than he thought.

Lance sleeps in on Saturdays, but not Sundays. Thierry thinks he goes to church.

Fuck no, Lance tells him the day he’s asked, snorting.

What do you do then?

I visit friends. Lance’s eyebrows twitch oddly before he stubs his cigarette onto the curb he’s sitting on. He spits on the ground.

Thierry doesn’t buy that for a second.

He follows him the following Sunday. Follows him down to the water. Lance sits for a while at a bench, alone. Then a woman in a black dress sits down beside him in jagged movements. Lance leans an elbow behind her and after a few minutes he curls his arm back.

Thierry sees a telling bag in Lance’s fingers disappear into the pocket of his jacket before he stands and starts walking again.

Thierry is pissed off. He doesn’t really know why. Tells himself it’s because Lance is an idiot, that he knows better.

He confronts Lance that night, in his room. Starts it quiet because Esther is sleeping downstairs.

I saw you today. What the hell was in that dime bag you got?

Lance blinks lazily up at him from where he leans against his doorframe. Snow.

Thierry frowns, tells Lance to turn out his pockets. Lance saves him the trouble and reaches somewhere behind him to hand over the bag instead.

Looking down at the little ziplock makes his heart race. Makes it real. He feels like punching something.

Thierry squeezes the bag in his hand, rams it into Lance’s chest. The seal bursts and white powder covers his shirt and right leg, littering the floor in a mess.

Lance is smiling at him.

Clean this shit up. It’s not the eighties.

Lance shows up late to class the next morning. Meets Thierry’s eyes immediately upon arriving. He walks to the back of the class and sits in his usual spot, not caring that the teacher is glaring at him.

At lunch he surprises Lance by sitting with him. This isn’t usual for either of them.

Lance is looking at his food but hasn’t touched it from what Thierry sees. He scratches at his elbow when Thierry sits in front of him.

Your friends are staring, Lance informs him.

No, they’re not.

You’re right. What do you want?

To eat with you.

Lance tilts his head but says nothing. He bumps Thierry’s shoe with his own beneath the table. Thanks.

Lance picks up his fork, stabs it into the sticky mac-n-cheese sitting in front of him.

Thierry tosses his arm too hard during practice. He hits another player in the head with the butt of his stick. Luckily, Max is a cheerful guy and isn’t put out by it, despite the welt quickly forming between his eyes.

He’s sat out for the rest of practice so he decides to go bother Lance who’s sitting where he usually is.

Lance’s shirt is dotted in blood.

What the hell happened now? Thierry asks, exasperated.

Lance grins at him around his cigarette. Nothing you’d like.

He indulges in a long drag and knocks a few embers free, ash scattering at their feet.

Thierry is doing laundry the next morning. The blood seeped deep along the neckline of the shirt he’d worn the day before, with some scattered spots at the waist.

He spies Lance’s face and knuckles during breakfast. Nothing incriminating. Lance smirks to himself like he knows a secret that Thierry doesn’t.

He’s learning that with Lance, it could mean anything.

Another two weeks and Thierry’s getting used to sleepily mumbled arguing in the morning over who gets the shower first, the conversation over meals, the easy way they banter at lunch.

Then it’s the start of the second month that Lance’s lived with them that his father comes knocking. Thierry is thankful his mother isn’t home when it happens.

It’s Sunday and Lance is out too.

So when Thierry is punched by a man that’s only just introduced himself as Grady, Lance’s father, he’s very glad no one is there to see him return the favor.

Soon there’s blood on the carpet, on a frame that cracked and fell from the wall when Thierry’s rammed up against it.

My boy’s coming back with me. His mother misses him.

Thierry’s vision in his left eye is hazy, dark at the corners. He sees some distance behind Grady is a woman, thin and fidgety. She’s looks like an addict.

A lot of what he knows about Lance makes sense now.

And he decides like hell he’s letting Lance go back home to these people. Fuck you.

That gets him another punch, and then another. He’s kicked in the stomach and he realizes he missed the moment he fell to the floor. His mouth and chin feel hot, wet, there’s more blood on the carpet in front of him. On Grady’s shoes.

Dad, comes a high voice. Unlike Lance in every way. In every way that Thierry’s gotten used to knowing him. There’s fear there and Thierry hates that worst of all.

He grabs Grady’s calf while he’s distracted, roars as he forces him onto his back. Thierry crawls on top of Lance’s father, pins him with him knee, and gives one good solid blow to the side of his head, knocking him out.

Lance’s mother is standing, shaking like a rabbit. Her eyes dart between Thierry and her son, who’s standing midstep on the stairs. Lance is watching Thierry like he’s a god.

Thierry just nods to him and then Lance is pulling out his cell and dialing three numbers.

It’s too many long hours before the police let Thierry alone in a space with Lance again. Esther’s inside the precinct discussing the signing of papers. Thierry is just letting the door close behind him as they’re telling her it’ll take a few months, don’t worry, there’s more than enough precedent here. And this isn’t the first time—

Sitting on the curb, Lance is staring at his hands. He barely shifts when Thierry comes to sit beside him.

You need a doctor, Lance tells him, blunt.

Thierry just laughs, leaning back.

You’re covered in blood.

I didn’t know you were home, Thierry says. It’s Sunday.

Lance looks at him then, quick. There’s something there, in his eyes. Thierry doesn’t know what it means.

I wanted to stay, is all Lance says.

Thierry sighs and closes his eyes. He’s not sure how he got here, but he feels relieved.

He’s mildly startled when he feels fingers maneuver their way in the bend of his palm.

Lance isn’t looking at him now, but when Lance squeezes his hand, he obliges by squeezing back.

Tuesday

I want to suck his cock.

Are you high? That’s gross, he’s like your brother now isn’t he? Ava asks, her mouth twisting.

But Lance is sure it’s only because she didn’t think to say it first is all. He’s certain Ava has a mind of her own and knows that’s not how that works. Especially given