Love in Real Life

by Seth King

  “Stop that. It’s not your fault that this happened. It’s Golden Corral’s fault, actually.”

  “Yeah, but I still could’ve helped.”

  I slapped his hand a little. “No. My dad’s heart gave out for a second, and it sucks, but it has nothing to do with you. I’m the one who should be sorry.” I closed my eyes and thought of what my dad said. “But…he’s going to be fine, and…”

  “Yes?”

  “Well, if you would still like to visit Key West, I would absolutely love to go.”

  He did a double-take then. “What? Wait, repeat that.”

  “I’m serious,” I said, trying with all my might to believe in what my father had said – that I needed to hold onto him for good. “My mom’s actually…there. Her side of the family came from the Keys.”

  “Wait – your mother? She lives there?”

  I looked away. “Yeah. She’s…there.”

  He got closer, and I never wanted his smell to stop invading my nostrils. My body went rigid. Here in this broke-down city by a river, he was making me see stars in the sky, stars I had never even bothered to search for before, because my eyes had been focused on books. But my eyes were open now. I was open. And I never wanted to let myself close again. Not in that moment, at least.

  “Before then, you’ve gotta tell me why I can’t get near, why you shut me out,” he said soon. “Why, sometimes when you look at me, you’re a million miles away. It’s like you’re reading a book I can’t even see. I know I come on strong, but you jump back just as quickly. I don’t have the energy for another ‘break’ from you. Just the thought is horrible…”

  “You won’t understand,” I said.

  “Understand what?”

  “I just have issues. You did nothing wrong. Whenever I pull away, it has nothing to do with you.” I paused, breathed. So did he.

  “So do I, Teddy. I’m kind of the king of issues, actually. Imagine you lived your whole life treading water. Every moment was a fight not to sink down too low, every breath was a gasp. Instead of thoughts running in a straight line, they run in a circle, sometimes all the way down. It would be hard sometimes to focus on what’s going on around you, yes?”

  I nodded. I tried not to get all awkwardly teary. Stupid hospitals – they always made me emotional for no reason. Just walking into the front doors made me into a soap opera.

  “Well that’s my life. My darkness has nothing to do with you. You are your own sort of miracle.”

  “Stop that. If anything, I’m too nervous to be around you. I’m always thinking I’m going to come off as dull, unspectacular, make you lose interest.”

  “I can’t lose interest in miracles,” he said.

  “God. I really didn’t expect you to be so wonderful to me.”

  “And I didn’t expect you to be so hot. Can I say that?”

  I laughed, and he leaned in and kissed me so hard it was like he was trying to suck the air out of my lungs.

  “Let’s go to Key West tomorrow,” he said. It took me a second to register that he was not joking.

  “What? I can’t do that. My dad…”

  “I talked to him. He’s fine. He’s just here for monitoring at this point. He’ll probably be out by tomorrow or the next day. And you know he would say yes. Passive-aggressively, and with a few jabs thrown in, judging from my few interactions with him – but it would still be a yes nonetheless.”

  “What?” I asked. “Just get up and leave? That’s crazy. Why the rush?”

  “Because,” he said a little too quickly. “And it’s not crazy, although something about you just makes me want to do crazy things. In this backwards bizarre world we live in lately, it makes total sense. Actually, your dad’s the one who brought up the idea on the phone, when I mentioned the trip to him.”

  Of course he did, I thought to myself.

  “No,” I said.

  “Yes. Please?”

  I held my breath. A hot boy is taking you back, and wants to take you on a cool bookish trip, I told myself. Don’t ruin this. Not again.

  “Okay…maybe. If what you’re saying about my dad is true.”

  “It is.” He leaned back. “Well, then. Key West. I think it’s settled, then. Just try not to have any more meltdowns, okay?”

  I didn’t answer. I was too terrified. And excited. But mostly terrified.

  Books in Real Life

  So, Key West: I’m officially going, for bookish reasons, and for one last hurrah before summer says sayonara. I’ll update you from the other side. If I survive at all, that is.

  Question, though: how do bookworms go on adventurous vacations at all? Isn’t the main thing about us that that we feel safest locked in our bedrooms? (I’m going with a fellow bookish friend, by the way. Don’t ask for any more details. I won’t give them.) But will we crash on the way due to my driver getting lost in a mystery novel at the wheel? Will we barricade ourselves in the hotel room and avoid human contact instead of sightseeing? Will we even make it there at all, or will we give up and head to the nearest Barnes & Noble before our adventure can even begin?

  I guess I’m about to find out.

  With love and terror,

  Teddy

  THE GREAT CHARLES/MARTIN BOOKSTORE TOUR

  STOP NUMBER: WHATEVER

  KEY WEST, FLORIDA

  So: the trip did not exactly start out as the thrilling escape of glamorous vagabonds that I had envisioned. For starters, we ran out of gas in the line to the gas station, and rolled up to the pump with a sputtering engine. Then I got annoyed with my seatbelt and fell into a funk. It seemed, no matter my intentions, we would simply remain two nerdy kids on the nerdiest quest since the first Harry Potter book had landed in bookstores.

  “Any word from Pops?” he asked as we hit the freeway. I shook my head.

  “He’s fine. I made one million percent of that, actually. He’s already at home, actually.”

  “Who drove him?”

  “Hmm. I don’t know exactly, but I can guess.”

  “Maybe he just needs a hobby,” George said soon. “Maybe that’s his issue. Maybe that would get him out of the house and on his feet. We should find a nice lady for him.”

  “Guy,” I laughed to myself. “Not lady.”

  “What?”

  “Long story,” I smiled to myself. “I’ll tell you later.”

  He let out this weird little sound. “Wow, what are the odds?”

  “I know. I’ll tell you everything later. I need a break first.”

  “One thing, though. He’s been very nice on the phone, but also, very…cutting. Does he hate me?”

  “No,” I said.

  “But he seems like he hates me.”

  “Oh, I’m sure he does.”

  “Um? Explain?”

  “Look, he just…I don’t think he likes the way his life turned out, so he’s terrified of me having the same story. He just wants the best. I’d be happy living on the side of the road, if that’s what actually made me happy, but he doesn’t get that. He doesn’t want me becoming…him, I guess.”

  His jaw clenched. “Well I can certainly identify with that.”

  We got stuck in traffic near Orlando.

  “What if Judy Blume’s bookstore sucks?” I asked soon. “What if it’s literally the worst bookstore ever? What if she’s a bitch? What if a hurricane hits and drowns us while we’re walking to the beach?”

  He looked over at me, frowning. “And what if we have a good time, and you’re being a weirdo with all these doomsday scenarios? Who are you – George Charles?”

  “True.”

  “Just have fun,” he said, cracking a knuckle. “Just don’t look back there, okay?” he said, motioning to the back of his car, a Range Rover. I was still trying, and failing, to get used to the luxury of his life.

  “What?”

  “The boxes. Don’t look back there. I’m dropping some stuff at a friend’s charity organization thingy in Daytona.”

  “We passe
d Daytona forty-five minutes ago.”

  “I meant Miami.”

  “Okay, then.”

  I stared out the window and thought of what the world looked like now that I had him – the grass was emerald instead of pale green, the trees were swaying in bright vivid detail. Then I thought of the quiet, broken-down grace of having your heart broken.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Just stuff about…my past. My family. Or lack thereof.”

  “When are you going to open up about all that, anyway, weirdo?”

  “I don’t know. It’s boring, anyway, and it’s nothing compared to the hell you lived through.”

  He sighed.

  “What is it?”

  “You’re allowed to feel shitty sometimes,” he said. “You always deny your own feelings. So you don’t have a mental illness – there are other kinds of pain out there. There is no giant ledger called the Hierarchy of Pain floating around in the clouds somewhere, keeping track of who hurts, and how badly. The fact that someone else is hurting out there, too, does not diminish anything you feel. You were hurt, and that matters.”

  For a few minutes, silence.

  “How do you know all this?” I finally asked.

  “What can I say? Pain and I were acquainted long ago.”

  I didn’t question him.

  “What are you reading?” he asked, motioning at my Kindle.

  “A Joan Rivers biography – just something to pass the time. I am gay, after all.”

  “Ah, and thank the good Lord for that. And read away, my friend. I’ll take care of the driving.”

  Next to George, time meant nothing, and the hours melted away. The ride over the bridges and islands leading out to Key West was sun-drenched and gorgeous and distinctly turquoise. When actually got into town, I was shocked to find he’d gotten us a bungalow at the Waldorf-Astoria. I was embarrassed for him to be spending so much money, but I tried not to say anything.

  Something that wasn’t so easy to overlook: the check-in girl, who was unusually, almost aggressively, flirty with him. She kept staring me down, and she had the disposition of a raccoon trapped in a storm drain.

  “Where do you go?” he asked on the way to the bungalow, snapping me out of a trance I wasn’t even aware I’d gotten lost in. “When you’re not here, I mean.”

  “George,” I said. “You obviously don’t notice these things, but that girl was fellating you with her eyes.”

  “Who?”

  “The hotel girl.”

  He glanced over his shoulder. “Oh. Didn’t notice a thing.”

  “Obviously.”

  “And are you delusional in the membrane?” he asked me. “Do you know what it’s like being with you? Guys check you out so much, it’s a constant battle just staying calm. You’re a grower, babe.”

  “A grower?”

  “It’s a word people use,” he said. “You check them out from a mile away, even before they’ve walked near you. Then it just gets better. First your hair appears, then those eyes, and your lips, and those toned arms…”

  I blushed and slapped his back. “Okay, pervert, I get it. Stop.”

  Our bungalow was small and chic and impossibly romantic, which was probably his goal. But we didn’t spend any time there – as soon as we unpacked, he wanted to start walking around town.

  We started out down the main drag, which was full of grimy bars and grimier tourist shops. When we walked past Judy Blume’s store, it was closed.

  “Fuck!” he said, rattling the door.

  “Oh, well,” I told him as we turned and kept walking deeper into the tourist district. “Being in Key West with my BFFL is still a dream come true.”

  “Who?”

  “You. You’re probably my best friend now. Did you want another title?”

  “This feels beyond titles,” he said soon. “I don’t know. Is that weird?”

  “I know what you mean,” I said. We passed a bar with a sign saying KEY WEST: A WRITING TOWN WITH A DRINKING PROBLEM. Of course I made him take photos of me in front of every bookshelf I found in every window, and if I didn’t like them, I’d made him retake them. My Instagram wasn’t going to run itself, after all.

  When we got bored and returned to the bungalow, he didn’t come in.

  “I have to go somewhere,” he said a little nervously. “Where are the keys?”

  “We just drove, like, nine hours… why would you want to drive right now?”

  “You’ll understand soon. Be back in an hour.”

  After an hour and a half, he finally appeared again, taking my hand and leading me back to the car. After a short drive, he was walking me out onto the beach at sunset. Up ahead was what looked like a lump, or a fallen-down tent, but as we got closet I gasped. He’d recreated the Bookloft, my favorite reading nook at the Bookworm, right here in Key West. There were pillows, blankets, candles, books – all framed by a pale gold Florida sunset.

  And maybe, I thought soon, maybe bookworms could find love – all they had to do was find someone who adored books just as much as they did. Someone who was willing to slip into the fantasy, too. It was the most romantic thing I’d ever seen.

  “You made me a reading nook?” I asked, turning around to face him. This was, without a doubt, the most romantic thing anyone had ever done for me. “Outside of the Bookworm?”

  He shrugged as he sat down and took out a cold bottle of Rosé. Wine and books and a hot guy – could this night get any better?

  “What. Hasn’t anyone ever made you a reading nook on a beach at sunset?” he asked, smiling. I sat down next to him, ignoring the lumpy sand underneath the blanket.

  “Not exactly. The last present I got was from Brittany Grampton in the fourth grade. It was a homemade Valentine. Afterward she told me she only gave it to me because her mom made her. I never had another crush on a girl again.”

  “How romantical.”

  I lay against him and just breathed in the sandy smell, watched the waves crash against the rocks, pushing around the ugly, dark seaweed. How did I get so lucky to find this guy, this anomaly? Where did I go right?

  I turned to him and made a silent prayer to myself. Please don’t ever become a stranger, I thought. Don’t ever make me look back on your laughter when I’m older and more alone. Please know me forever.

  “You know, this is a book lover’s town,” George said as I stared. “Writers, too. Hemingway, Tennessee Williams, Silverstein, Robert Frost – they’ve all lived here. Isn’t that weird?”

  “That is some good company. But you’re the best.”

  He tickled my side.

  “Seriously. I was wondering…what do you think you’ll do next? With your life?”

  “I don’t know. It is a battle,” he said with some difficulty, “not to just think about you every day, actually.”

  I didn’t know how to respond to that. Clearly there was some conflict there. Did his parents think he spent too much time with me? I didn’t want to control his life, but then again, it was hot to be wanted. It was sexy to be needed.

  “Can we just read now?” I asked soon.

  “That’s the sexiest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

  He grabbed the nearest book and snuggled up against me, and together we read.

  We didn’t have to go on a roller coaster together, we didn’t have to run off to London, he didn’t even have to take me to bed to pull out his whips and chains to make our relationship the biggest adventure of my life. In that reading nook on the beach in Florida, I fell in love with him the way I fell in love with my books: swiftly, irrevocably, and without even really realizing it at all.

  George Charles

  Home.

  Whenever I looked at Teddy, I saw home for some reason. He was not flashy or confounding or even particularly exciting, if that made sense – he was comfortable and dependable and hot and perfect and quiet and adorable. I didn’t need excitement – it was the last thing I needed, actually, in this stage of my recovery. H
e wasn’t Vegas, he was a hometown – and that was so much better than the alternative. He made me feel like my childhood home did, the one with the old porch in the back overlooking a sinkhole, like I was exactly where I was supposed to be, steady and sturdy and lived-in. I used to be so afraid, and now I felt…braver. Not brave, but braver. For the first time I felt braver.

  Back in the bungalow, as I watched him sleep in the half-moonlight, being scattered to pieces by the blinds, I bundled up closer and just listened to his heart. And all over again I felt like I was home. A disapproving mother and a cringe-worthy childhood and a world that looked down at me for being a so-called “crazy person” or “pussy” or “recluse” – none of that mattered around him, in the sturdy home he was giving me. Because falling in love with Teddy didn’t feel like falling at all. It felt like opening up a new book and realizing within only a few pages that I’d found my new forever favorite.

  ~

  As Teddy slept, I called my mom.

  “Hello? It’s so late. Is everything good?”

  “I deferred my admission to Fordham,” I said, and I could hear blankets rustling as she sat up.

  “What?”

  “Mom, here’s the thing. I’m sorry you hate our town, and our lives. But I don’t. I’m gonna stay and figure this out, at least for a year.”

  “Wha – no you’re not. I’ll...”

  “You’ll do what? Dad is the one who set aside my college money.”

  “Well I-”

  “Yes?”

  Finally she sighed. “George, I don’t hate our lives. I just wanted something bigger for you. I wanted New York for you.”

  “Well I found someone who makes me feel tall.”

  “So it’s about him? You’re changing your future for some guy?”

  “Yes, I am…kind of. And that’s okay. Listen, Mom. I’m sorry it didn’t work out with Dad. But stop taking that fear out on me. There’s nothing wrong with loving someone.”

  She didn’t say anything.

  “And New York isn’t going to save me,” I said. “I’m fucked up in the head, and I always will be on some level, and running away isn’t going to help that or fix it. In fact, I’m the best I’ve been in years.”