by Adam Silvera
It didn’t surprise me that he agreed to chat, considering he’s messaged me a dozen times since I left California. I’m only surprised he agreed to speak so early, considering it’s seven in the morning in Santa Monica. Maybe he was also awake all night.
He answers on the fifth ring. The screen is still black, but Jackson’s voice carries through the speakers: “Was that four on your end, too?”
I’m ready to tell him no, when he appears and, yeah, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss him. I grew so used to seeing him around, hell, to even waking up close to him. There have never been any romantic feelings for him, which is the straight-up truth, Theo. No one’s perfect, and Jackson is certainly not the exception, but I’ve never been drawn to him the way I was with you or even the way I was becoming with Wade. It’s okay for two boys who are gay to hang out and not want to be with each other.
I’m learning. I’m adjusting.
“Five,” I answer.
“Sorry. It was four rings on mine. I’ll hang up and try again. I’ll answer at four again, and then it’ll be eight on my end and ten for you.”
“Let’s just move past it,” I say. It’s funny how you always played along and made similar adjustments, just as Jackson is trying to do now. I should ask Jackson how he’s doing and how his Christmas was, but none of these things feel right—too friendly and, as we’ve learned, over and over, I haven’t earned that friendship. “I’m sorry for cutting you off. You were really good for me, and I know I was good for you, too. But it got too messy.”
“I was going to tell you the first night we hung out. It’s why I wanted to meet,” Jackson says. He shifts uncomfortably, and behind his shoulder Chloe hops onto the bed and rests her head on his pillow. “I wanted to rip you apart, but then we were getting to know each other, and I knew your pain was just as bad. I didn’t want to sharpen that dagger.”
He’s a better person than I am.
“I’m sorry we had sex,” I say.
“Me too.”
“I’m not saying this to hurt you, but you should know why I made that first move,” I say. I tell him about the series of kisses I shared exclusively with you, the series of kisses you passed along to Jackson, the series of kisses I never introduced to Wade, the series of kisses Jackson will never look at the same way again after this story. I take a deep breath before I finish. “I couldn’t believe he shared something so personal with you. I acted out. It’s not the first time I’ve done something like that. I started hooking up with Wade over the summer. It was turning into something, and that’s why I called Theo that day.”
“Whoa.”
“Except Wade sort of hates me now. It’s probably for the best. I’m not sure I can handle love again,” I say. Being this honest about how fragile I am with someone who was my worst enemy a couple of months ago is an insane relief. Honesty is not history. I’ve learned that, too.
“I didn’t know he was gay,” Jackson says. “I know Wade and Theo had their nonsense going on, but I know Theo loved him and missed their friendship. One day I asked Theo when he thought you would move on. I never got a straight answer out of him.”
“Did it sound like he wanted me to move on?”
Jackson nods. “But remember who he was talking to.”
“He loved you,” I say, which is the hardest and most honest thing I could possibly tell Jackson. “I’m sort of a pro on what Theo looks like when he’s in love.”
“I’m happy for you if that matters,” Jackson says. “I’m sure Theo would’ve been, too.”
I believe Jackson is happy for me. Would you have been happy for me?
“It does matter,” I say.
Jackson smiles. “I’m coming back to New York first week of January for a couple of days. Sometime after the flights become less crowded. I’m hoping to talk things out with Anika and Veronika. You too. It’s totally okay if you’d rather not talk again.”
“We better keep talking,” I say.
“I’ll be conscious of the time zone difference,” Jackson says.
“I’m always awake. I’ll try not to wake you up at seven in the morning again.”
“This was a good reason to wake up.”
We agree to talk again soon. I end the call, and the screen goes black.
It’s suffocating how, like me, Jackson also doesn’t have all the answers surrounding your life and death. Wade, Jackson . . . we all have questions and we can ask you as many as we want, but you’ll never answer us. There’s always going to be some mystery. And there are pieces to the puzzle I can hand over to Jackson. Our taboo kiss and the kisses you had no business teaching him. But maybe I can protect the history you two had so he doesn’t pick apart the puzzle. I really want to protect the happiness he found in you. Maybe some mystery isn’t a bad thing.
Thursday, December 29th, 2016
Wade still hasn’t responded to my text message yesterday asking if we could meet up. I really thought when I woke up from that four-hour “nap” after video chatting with Jackson that a message from Wade would be there. And I was even surer he would’ve responded by this morning, but nothing.
I think I really screwed up here, Theo.
Friday, December 30th, 2016
I knock on Wade’s front door.
I can hear someone pressing their eye against the peephole, and considering how quickly they walk away, it’s safe to guess that someone is Wade. I knock again and again until his mother opens the door to let me know Wade isn’t home in the most unconvincing voice ever. I know she knows I’m not that stupid, but it’s not her fight.
I back off and wish her a happy new year because it doesn’t seem likely I’ll be seeing her in 2017.
Sunday, December 31st, 2016
There is one hour left in 2016. If Wade wants nothing to do with me by the end of the year, then this is where I’ll leave him. I’ll be Wade-less in 2017. These are the rules of New Year’s Eve: out with the old, in with the new. I’m not sure about this newness I should look forward to, but I know this begins with me trying to become my own rock. I’ve leaned on Jackson for the better part of this past month and Wade before that. Being my own rock is promising, but it would be a huge lie if I didn’t admit that becoming a mountain with someone else could be equally rewarding.
Maybe it’s the cider—or the spirit of drinking with my parents—but I’m calling Wade one last time so I can leave him a voice mail and say bye the right way. I’m done with this texting nonsense, where he can’t hear the honesty in my voice. I want him to know I’m not angry and how I’m just kicking myself for never giving us our best shot.
But Wade picks up.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hey. I was actually calling to leave a message,” I say, hurrying to my bedroom.
“Would you rather do that?”
“Not if you’re okay with talking to me,” I say. He doesn’t say no. “What are you up to?”
“I’m home with my mom, but you know her.”
“She’s in bed already.”
“She’s not one for New Year’s excitement.”
“You should come over.” To anyone else, this would be a casual thing. For Wade six months ago, this would be a casual thing. But everything changed before you even died, Theo. “Don’t turn me down. We have food and bad music and we’re going to watch the ball drop. You shouldn’t have to do that alone. We can talk if you want to talk, or we can shut up tonight and talk later and—”
“You should definitely shut up now,” Wade interrupts, and softly adds, “We can talk when I get there.”
“Get here before the ball drops, please.”
Recap: I called Wade to say goodbye and now he’s on his way. There is one hour left in 2016, and this is the first time all day I’m actually feeling the high of possibilities and rebirth. And I didn’t lie to make it happen.
I run and tell my parents Wade is coming over. They don’t get why I’m so excited, but they’re pretty damn happy to see I am. I rush back into my bedroom, cleaning clothes off the floor, making my bed, throwing my boots and coat in the closet, and doing other little things until the doorbell rings twenty minutes later.
I rush to greet Wade myself, opening the door to find him with a neutral face and panting. His lungs must be burning, and my hugging the hell out of him in the hallway can’t be helping much either.
He catches up with my parents for a bit, but time is running out before the ball drops. I pull him away, dragging him into my bedroom and leaving the door open so he doesn’t think I’m trying to use him for sex, and so my parents don’t confuse the situation either.
It’s been a long time since he’s been here. Wade looks around, taking in every wall, every piece of furniture. There have been some changes, the biggest one being himself, whether he realizes that or not. You would probably say it’s safe to assume he knows it, right? My persistence the past few days and tonight for us only to be friends would be really unfair, considering I know how he feels about me.
“Thanks for coming over.”
“Thanks for the invite,” Wade says, sitting on the windowsill.
I shake my head and reach out to him. “Come sit with me.” Wade takes my hand and we sit closely, my knee against his thigh. “I should jump right in before it hits midnight. I don’t want you starting off your new year wondering if I’m worth hanging around for or not.” I take a deep breath. “I’m sorry my love for Theo has been a roadblock for you. It’s been a huge one for me, too. But you should know the day Theo died I called him because I wanted to talk about you. I couldn’t reach him, so I left a voice mail, which apparently put him in a mood that sent him walking into the ocean . . . I killed the person I’ve loved more than anyone because I was trying to tell him about my new feelings for our best friend . . .”
Wade doesn’t wait until I’m finished before he hugs me, massaging my back. “There’s no way this is your fault. There are one hundred things that could’ve gone wrong. Damn, dude, I didn’t know you were carrying around this guilt.” He pulls back. “I messed up, too. I knew you weren’t actually trying to have some relationship with Jackson, but I got jealous anyway. It’s not fun being the loser. I’ve spent the past couple of nights feeling like an idiot about our whole situation. If we never had sex, we wouldn’t be sitting here right now trying to figure out if we’re going to be in each other’s lives next year.”
This is true. “I want to give us a shot, I swear. But I can’t rush this or we’ll get it wrong. You have to understand though that I’m still carrying Theo around with me, and I’m sure you are too. But it’s different for me. I know you’re not Theo, and I don’t want you to be.”
I promise going forward I will never demote the love I have for anyone. I’m growing to hate the word love because it always sounds lame, but love shouldn’t only count when there’s a victory. Love was never the liar; I was.
“Do you trust me?” I ask.
“I guess.” Wade kisses me on the forehead, which sends one of those cold shivers across my shoulders and down my spine. “Do you believe I want to be something more to you?”
“I guess.” I kiss his cheek.
My mom calls for us; the countdown is about to start. We rush into the living room and put on stupid party hats and wear plastic whistles around our necks. My dad pours us cider in plastic flute glasses. I really wish you were here, not romantically, but to reunite the squad, back in full force like when we were younger, before everything got complicated. But that’s okay. I’m going to try and have fewer regrets in the New Year. I’m going to move past what’s already done and make sure I don’t repeat my mistakes moving forward.
Ten. Nine . . .
Wade turns to me, smiling like his life has already been rebooted.
Eight. Seven . . .
I throw back my cider and put down the glass.
Six. Five . . .
Wade does the same, knowing he’s about to need his hands, too.
Four. Three . . .
I’m getting ready to reintroduce him to the world.
Two. One . . .
My heart is out of control, but I’m not as I pull Wade to me, kissing him with the force of everything happy. A lot of that unexpected happiness is thanks to him. Once my parents pull apart from their own kiss, they’ll be expecting to embrace me, and they’ll find me in arms they were never betting on finding me in. I stay in Wade’s arms because “Auld Lang Syne” comes on, and, damn it, Theo, last year was so impossible and trying, I don’t know how I got out of it alive. But I know how I’ll be surviving this year.
And I still know the hardest part of my survival is ahead of me.
Wednesday, January 4th, 2017
Sharing a cab to your house with your ex-boyfriend and my not-quite-yet-but-maybe-one-day boyfriend seems like the start to a bad joke. But the only thing funny so far is that Wade threatened Jackson, warning him to stay ten feet away from my dick at all times or Wade will chop his off.
That was all in good awkward humor, I think.
Jackson got here with good timing because I’m returning to school tomorrow. Luckily I’ll have Wade by my side: Team Mountain. It sounds like Jackson isn’t quite ready to return yet himself, and I won’t fight him on that decision.
We get out of the cab and head straight upstairs to your apartment, where your parents are expecting us. Russell and Ellen give us the warmest hugs. They seem in good spirits. I’m sure it makes you happy to see them getting better and better every time, right? On a scale of happiness, no one wants them stuck on the unhappy side, unable to lift themselves up and move on.
Your mother prepares iced tea while Jackson and Wade talk to your dad and Denise tells me everything she got for Christmas. Every single gift . . . I’m rescued shortly because Ellen knows the conversation the three of us want to have with her and Russell isn’t Denise-friendly and we don’t want to upset her, so she sends Denise to her room to play her racing video games.
“So what’s going on?” Ellen asks, crossing one leg over the other while sipping from her hot tea.
We—Jackson and I—tell your parents how we’re responsible for your death. We tell them how if we hadn’t been feuding, we possibly wouldn’t have driven you so crazy, you needed to distance yourself from everyone. I tell them about the voice mail that sent you there, but not why I called you in the first place. Jackson apologizes for not being brave enough to save you himself.
“Oh my God,” Ellen says, shaking her head. “No. No. You cannot do this to yourselves. Theo’s death isn’t your fault. Griffin, unless your voice mail was some sort of hypnosis trick where you convinced Theo to walk into the ocean, then you’re not to blame.”
“Right,” Russell says. “Same for you, Jackson. No one ever expected you to go running in there to save Theo. He was in danger, and you could’ve drowned, too. Theo’s death was an accident and unpredictable.”
“We play the blame game, too, I promise,” Ellen says. “What if we never sent Theo to school on the West Coast? What if we put him in better swimming classes when he was younger? We will drive ourselves crazy forever coming up with new what-ifs.”
“Leave that insanity to us,” Russell says.
“I don’t think I’ll ever stop feeling guilty,” I say.
“That’s because you love Theo, wherever he is,” Ellen says. “All three of you. You know this already, but you have to live for him, and you have to love for him.” Ellen eyes me and Wade, probably because we’re significantly closer to each other than we are to Jackson, and there’s so much space here that we could man-spread if we wanted to. “You’re not supposed to be stuck. Do not feel guilty for falling in love again.”
“It’s scary and the last thing on my mind right now, but I doubt I
’ll ever be ready for that,” Jackson says.
“Whenever you’re ready, that’s the right time,” Ellen says.
“Might even happen before then,” I say. I turn to Wade and take his hand in mine, locking fingers with him. I’m scared to look up, but he squeezes back and gives me strength. Both Ellen and Russell are grinning and nodding. Their approval means the universe to me, because I know they want what’s best for you, and if they can see that me moving on is a beautiful thing, then I trust that’s how you would’ve felt, too.
Ellen and Russell tell us how we’re very much family. The three of us are their extended children, and we’re all older siblings to Denise. We call Denise back into the room and set up her new Wii out here and play the racing game with her.
I don’t know when I’ll see your parents or sister next. Maybe next month around your birthday I’ll stop by and bring something for Denise. But it’s good to know I’ll be welcomed back.
“I’m visiting Theo’s grave today,” Jackson says after we leave your building. “I was planning on coming out for his birthday, but I think I’m going to stay home and try to figure out what’s next for me. It’ll be nice to have a little one-on-one time with him.”
“Is that your way of making sure we don’t invite ourselves to tag along?” I ask, wrapping my arm around Wade’s.
“A little bit,” Jackson says.
We try to convince him to have lunch with us, but he’s dead set on having his Theo time before having to meet up with Anika and Veronika tonight to try and repair their friendship. Jackson invites the two of us out to California in April for spring break, and looking that far ahead in my almost-relationship and in general is sort of scary, but not overwhelming.
“Is it okay if I hug him again?” Jackson asks Wade.
“He’s not the boss of me,” I say, stepping into Jackson’s arms. I hug him like the brother I never had, like the brother I would’ve never slept with if I’d known I’d one day be calling him a brother of mine. “Thanks for everything, Jackson. I don’t even want to think about where I would be if I couldn’t turn to you. That Alternate Universe Griffin is pretty fucking screwed.”