by Damian Bloom
Conflicting thoughts swarm my mind, and, needing to talk to someone, I call Peter. I’ve been away from home so much lately that most of my communication with my brother now happens over the phone.
“You sound off,” he says the moment he hears my voice.
Hector purrs in my lap as I absentmindedly run my fingers through his thick fur. “I feel a little off these days,” I confess.
“Because of the guy?” Peter doesn’t like saying Adam’s name much. He pauses for a second. “You think it’s close? What Grandma said.”
“Yes. Somehow.” With a tired sigh, I rub a hand over my face. “I don’t know why, because nothing’s changed between us, but…there’s this strange feeling in my gut. Like a warning that our time is almost up.”
That’s not entirely true—things have changed. In barely perceptible ways, but the signs are there. I’ve noticed tiny shifts in Adam’s behavior. Every now and then, he’ll read something in my eyes or pick up on something in the air, and his face will twitch in some sort of fleeting but poorly dissimulated alarm.
Maybe it’s silly to think that someone who’s come to know me so well would be so unaware of my feelings. He has to know I’ve fallen in love with him, right?
I tap Hector’s little nose with my finger. “I guess I don’t expect something this good to last much longer.”
The sigh he lets out seems to come from the depths of his being. “You’re in love, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” I answer almost instantly. I’m disarmed by the relief that this small confession brings me—as if someone’s yanked out an arrow that’s been festering in my chest for days.
Peter grunts. “Does he know that?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
I heave a bitter sigh. “I’m afraid he’d end it if he knew. He was very clear from the get-go that he’s not looking for a relationship and he doesn’t want me to fall in love with him.”
My brother hesitates. “So he told you he only wants you as a fuckbuddy?” His voice thickens with anger. “Why would you be okay with this?”
“Peter…”
“I’m not judging you. It’s just not like you at all. You’ve always wanted the Hollywood romantic fantasy—proper dating, true love, marriage.”
“I still do. But with him…It’s almost impossible to explain. I knew I could never have what I want with him, but I liked him so much I was ready to sacrifice that for whatever he was willing to give me.”
“This doesn’t feel right, Luis. You deserve so much more.”
Although he can’t see it, I vigorously shake my head. He doesn’t get it. He couldn’t get it. “Even if I found the ideal man,” I say, “someone custom-made for me, looking for the same things as I do, I can’t imagine being happier with him than I am with Adam. Liking him more. Loving him the way I love Adam.”
In the long pause that ensues, I wonder if Peter hung up. When he speaks, his tone is softer, more understanding, but his voice is sad. “I don’t know, man…That sounds nice and all, but…don’t you think he deserves to know all of this?”
I grip the phone tightly, like I might drop it. “What if he’ll no longer want to see me?”
“Well, how much longer do you think things can go on like this?”
My chest aches. Hector gazes up at me with concern, its feline radar picking up on my silent distress. “I don’t know.”
“You’re in a limbo now, telling yourself you’re okay with what you’re given, but secretly dreaming of more. That must hurt.”
“I don’t want to say goodbye to him.”
“Maybe you won’t. Maybe his feelings for you have also changed, and he’s ready for your relationship to evolve. Or maybe you’re right, and this will be the end. But at least you’ll have your answer.”
My eyes are damp, my voice shaky. “He’ll break my heart.”
“And you’ll heal. But you’ll never have this luxury as long as he strings you along.”
Peter must hear my muffled whimpering, but I appreciate his tactful silence.
“Remember what we were talking about on your birthday?” he eventually asks.
I know exactly what he’s referring to. My mind leaps to the memory, and I repeat his words: “Ripping the band-aid?”
“Ripping the band-aid. If you already know he’ll break your heart, just go through with it already. And I’ll be here. Everyone will be here for you. You’re not the first and you won’t be the last person to be heartbroken, okay?”
I swallow hard. “Okay.”
I look around the room at the somber-colored bookcase, our writing table, at the darkness beyond the windows, out in the garden. The space is packed with ghosts—endless versions of Adam and me all around the house. So many moments crushed by time. Suddenly, I think of what he said—why can’t things just stay the same forever?
“So what do you think you’ll do?” Peter asks.
“I’ll tell him.” Hector dashes from my lap when I begin scratching his chin a little too furiously for his liking. “Tonight.”
“That’s very brave of you.” My brother sounds relieved.
And, in a way, relieved is how I also feel when I stand up after the phone call and start working on a nice, candlelit dinner for when Adam comes home. But, even so, the vague ache in my stomach doesn’t go away for the rest of the night. Those three words have never felt like more of a burden.
The table is set, the food is ready. It’s eleven-thirty, and I can’t picture Adam staying out much later. He’s not exactly the social butterfly.
While I wait, I sit down to journal, hoping it will bring me some clarity. But I’m so jittery, I can’t put pen to paper. How will I confess my feelings to him? How do you even bring something like that up? Should I start or end the dinner with it? If I start with it, it might ruin the night, but if I don’t, I won’t be able to think of anything else.
As much as I try to imagine it happening, I can’t picture those words coming out of my mouth. I love you, Adam. I shiver at the thought. Peter’s right. It’s an act of courage, and I’m not sure I’m brave enough to carry through with it.
I love you, Adam, I write in my diary, then take a deep breath. That wasn’t that bad. Again. I love you. I mouth the words as I write them. With each repetition, they feel less alien. Before long, it’s midnight, and I’ve got two pages full of I love yous in spidery handwriting.
And Adam’s still not here.
The last thing I remember is the blurry, red two on the digital clock before I drift off to sleep, curled up on the couch. Long after the food’s gone cold.
“What’s all this?” Adam’s voice startles me awake. His eyes glow from too much booze, and his shoulders slump uncharacteristically.
I knead the back of my neck. “I thought I’d cook for us tonight.”
Adam’s drunk eyes trail from the table to me. “Oh.” His expression can be interpreted as either regret over not showing up for this or a need to throw up. Suddenly, I feel stupid. What did I do all of this for? Was it too much?
“Did you have a good time?”
He nods. “I stayed—I didn’t—I thought…”
I push myself off the couch and rush to clear up the table. “That’s okay. Don’t worry about it. We can have it tomorrow.”
Adam studies the unlit candle and the mushroom and spinach lasagna, and looks even more sorry. But then, sorry turns to annoyed. “Why’d you go and do that?”
I shrug, a little taken aback by his question. “I just wanted to do something nice for you.”
He grumbles unintelligibly and almost trips over his feet on his way to the couch. I make room for him to topple over and take up the whole space with his large frame.
“And,” I continue, in a small voice, “I wanted to tell you something.”
He frowns. His eyes try to fix on me, but it’s apparently a challenge. I’ve never seen him like this. “Tell me what?” he asks, but his grimace indicates he wishes he wouldn’t have to
hear the answer. Did he somehow suspect this would happen? Is that why he stayed out longer than he ever has? No, it can’t be that. That’s stupid.
“Don’t bother about it. It can wait until tomorrow. Let’s put you to sleep.” I reach for his hand, but he pulls it back.
“No, tell me.”
I try not to feel hurt by how he yanked his hand away from my touch. “You won’t even remember it tomorrow, Adam. You’re too drunk.”
What starts as a soft chuckle quickly swells into an uncontrollable fit of laughter that makes him cough. “I am,” he admits, still laughing like it’s the funniest joke he’s ever heard. “I haven’t been this drunk since my divorce days.”
I crouch down next to him. He rests his head on the armrest. “You’ve been thinking of that a lot lately, haven’t you? Is that why you drank tonight?”
Adam scoffs. “Ease up, Dr. Phil.”
Although masked under biting sarcasm, it’s another defensive comment.
“Do you hate her?” The thought crosses my mind that I might be pushing too much, but I’m driven by that desire I’ve had ever since meeting him: to know more about him, crawl into his head and shine a light on the dark corners of his being that he might even keep hidden from himself.
“Do I hate her?” Adam considers the question for a long moment. “No. I care too little about her now to hate her. Besides, I should be grateful to her.” Words trudge out of him. He’s trying really hard to articulate them properly, so as not to sound like a drunk person, but it just sounds like he’s buffering. “She taught me a crucial lesson. One you’d do yourself a favor to learn soon, too.”
I already know what lesson he’s talking about, but he insists on reminding me. “That people”—He taps my nose like I sometimes tap Hector’s—“will cause you horrible harm in the name of love.”
Saying this, his head collapses back onto the couch, exhausted and dazed. “Now, what did you want to tell me?” he asks, slurring the words.
I cast my gaze down to my knees, thinking up a lie.
“Come ooon,” Adam says. “Just get through with it.”
“Okay,” I snap, surprising both him and myself with my feistiness. “I wanted to tell you that…”
The moment before the words clamber up my throat, a horrible thought rings inside my head. What if this is how it ends?
“I love you.”
The confession stumbles out of me, but not even I hear it, because of Adam’s sudden dry-heaving.
“Oh, shit,” I say, darting to the bathroom to bring a bucket. Luckily, Adam manages to hold it in until I return, but once the bucket’s at the foot of the couch, he lets it all out. He vomits for a long time. Long enough to make me worry, which is a nice distraction from what has just happened.
“How much did you drink?” I ask, when what I really want to know is why.
He grunts. “Too much.”
I wipe his mouth with my hand, then leave him there for a quick second while I rush to wash my hands and fetch some towels.
Another fit of vomiting hits when I come back, just in time for me to hold his head up. “I’m sorry,” Adam says.
“Don’t worry about it. If you had fun, that’s all that matters. You’ll feel better tomorrow.”
Apparently done with the throwing up for now, Adam lies on his back. He scoffs bitterly. “Nothing about this was fun.” He looks unbearably sad.
“What’s wrong, Adam?”
I run a hand over his face. It shines with a thin coat of sweat.
“It’s got nothing to do with the divorce.” He hesitates, but the pause is heavy with the need to get something off his chest.
“Then—”
“That’s not why I drank tonight,” Adam interrupts. He closes his eyes so he doesn’t see how my face crumples under his words. “I just didn’t want to come home.”
25
Adam
My head is a swarming beehive. “Fucking hell,” I blurt out as I press the tips of my fingers into my temples. It does nothing for the skull-cracking pain.
What the hell happened to me? Did a car run me over last night?
Then, like a wave crashing into the shore, memories of last night flood my mind. My evening with Tim started uneventfully enough. As always, the conversation began with business, before quickly switching to my personal life.
“There’s something strange about you,” Tim said.
“Yeah, I need a haircut.” I pressed a hand to the top of my head and laughed his comment off. It had been months since I’d seen Tim, despite our almost constant professional correspondence.
He squinted and shook his head. “You look good.”
“And that’s strange? Sheesh, thanks.”
“You’re happier.” He leaned forward, tilted his head this way and that, took a better look at my face. “That grim ghost of loneliness is finally off your back; the bar is teeming with skimpily-dressed twinks, but you haven’t wasted a single look in their direction…” Reclining in his chair, he shared his suspicion: “You’ve met someone.”
So I told him about Luis—as little as I could. I’m not entirely sure why, but I didn’t feel ready for Luis to stop being my little secret. Maybe I feared Tim would divine certain feelings I’d been struggling to keep buried.
“This is different,” Tim said, in his eyes, the smoldering pride of a private investigator on a promising lead.
“What do you mean?”
“This is no one-night stand, no hit-it-and-quit-it kind of thing.” I stared down at my beer bottle. He nodded to himself. “Oh, no. You’ve got it bad for this one.”
And then, I remembered Luis’s grandmother’s words. Hadn’t she expressed the same suspicion that I’d wholeheartedly denied?
“We’re good friends, yes,” I admitted. “I really like the guy. More than Ollie, for example. But don’t try to make it into something it’s not.”
After that, Tim dropped the topic, but my mind refused to. With every gulp of alcohol, the same bad feeling goaded me—the feeling that I’d let things slip from my control, that this thing I thought I could handle had grown into a veritable monster, right under my eyes, and it would eat me alive.
I did my best to drag the night out as long as possible, but eventually, eyes closing with sleepiness, Tim said good night, and we left the bar. Only, as I admitted to Luis in my drunken honesty last night, I didn’t want to go home. Because home was now the place I shared with the man that’d been by my side day and night for months, with whom I shared my bed and my body, my writing, and my thoughts. My life. Could I be…in love? The idea made me sicker than the countless beers I’d drunk.
So instead of going home, I strolled right into another bar, where I switched to scotch—many glasses of it.
And now I pay the price. If I move too fast, it sends the room spinning. When I struggle to hoist myself up to a sitting position, my foot brushes against a leathery surface on the floor. With a great deal of effort, I pick Luis’s diary up.
He needed to tell me something last night, but I can’t remember if he did. Trying to remember only increases my headache.
But I can’t shake off the feeling that it must have been something important. Especially when I think of the dinner he prepared for us—the dinner I missed because I was avoiding him. Guilt pinches my chest again. I must be the single biggest asshole Luis could have met.
Luis has often journaled around me. He’s been so open toward me so far that I never thought the small leather-bound notebook could contain anything I don’t already know about him. But today, my hands itch to open it.
Meow!
Indifferent to my nausea, Hector barges in and shoots me his most judgmental look.
“You’re right, Hector,” I say, crossing the room and dropping the diary onto the kitchen counter. “That would be awful of me.”
I feed the cat, then brush the awful taste out of my mouth and take a cold shower.
It’s only as I’m waiting for a slice of bread to to
ast that I notice how suspiciously quiet the bedroom is. My stomach lurches, and, this time, not only with the desire to throw up. Is Luis even here? Or did my “I didn’t want to come home” remark hurt him so badly that he stormed out in the middle of the night?
I poke my head into the bedroom to find Luis cocooned in the blankets, snoring softly. After I take a breath of relief, I chastise myself for my overreaction: It wouldn’t have been a tragedy if he’d slept at home for one night. It’s not like you guys are married.
In the kitchen, from the edge of the counter, his diary continues to tempt me. Was he maybe journaling before I came home last night? If yes, a quick look inside could answer numerous burning questions. What did he think of my long absence? What did he plan to tell me?
Tapping a finger against the cover of the notebook, I try to convince myself to not be the lowest type of scum and respect Luis’s privacy like he deserves. Hector leaps onto the counter, his elegant feline features engaged in a clear frown. Don’t do it, asshole, his eyes seem to say.
“Don’t give me that look,” I grunt. “I didn’t do anything.”
But the loyal tomcat continues to protect the diary while I nibble on the toast I’ve got no appetite for. When I check the fridge for some orange juice, I pull some salami slices out for Hector as a little treat. Like he usually does when salami is involved, he loses his cool instantly. He meows, purrs, and taps his paws in place, swinging his tail around like a whip. In one of his frantic movements, he nudges the notebook right off the counter, and it hits the ground with a thud, flinging open.
At my feet lie two pages filled with crowded writing. Even without wanting to pry, when I bend down to pick the notebook up, I inevitably register the words, repeated over and over and over again.
I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you.
I hate how my hands start shaking.
The walls close in around me.