It's All Relative

by J. M. Snyder

  Chapter 34: What’s Really Wrong

  I cry when it’s over, like I did the first time he ever entered me. Then I had felt empty, used, the moment he pulled free—Matthew was the first guy I ever had sex with but Dan was the first to make love to me, and the wild, uncontrollable lust that consumed my body when he was inside terrified me to tears when we were finished. They scared him too, my tears, because it was the first time he ever saw me cry. In my bed, our bed, we were sharing it by then, he held onto me until the storm passed, his legs entangled in mine, his arms around my shoulders, his face buried deep into my hair. “Shh,” he murmured, over and over again. “It’s okay, Michael, shh, I love you, it’s okay.”

  I love you, as if that alone made everything better. But it worked, my tears tapered off and later that evening, I took up my usual position, thrusting into him with long, slow motions, the words repeating in my mind like the pounding surf. I love you.

  He whispers it now, here beside the bubbly creek, amid the tall grasses and tall trees, and it’s still enough to dry up my tears. We lie together on the ground, his body covering mine, his arms cradling my head and his hands clasped together in my hair, his kisses sweet and tender and soft on my face, my neck, my lips. He’s still inside of me—I swear I can feel his heart pounding in my groin. Every now and then he shifts above me, small movements that cause his wilting member to flare to life briefly, a thickening throb deep in the very center of my being. I don’t want to lose this moment, I don’t want to lose him, and the tears that fill my eyes and course down the sides of my face leave me shaky with relief. Mine, he tells me in a gentle voice that barely rises above the rustling leaves. “I’m yours, Michael. Forever and you know it. Don’t block me out, baby, please. Don’t turn me away.”

  “I won’t,” I swear. “I won’t, Dan, ever again. I’m so sorry.” He kisses the apology away.

  Some time later, when the sun begins to slant through the trees with the golden glow of early afternoon, he extracts himself from me and I let him go. From my position in the grass I watch him stand, a glorious shape of a man blocking the sky and eclipsing the sun, the trees. He fills my whole world. “How are you feeling, hon?” he asks, nudging my leg with one foot as he tucks himself into his jeans and zips them up.

  “I’m okay,” I tell him, and I am, mostly. I still feel this lingering sadness in the back of my throat that might dissolve into fresh tears if I let it, but it’s not the same cloying helplessness that I felt before. Once he’s put himself together again, Dan offers me a hand and pulls me to my feet, my jeans dropping to my ankles as I stand beside him. Almost instantly, his hand is on my bare ass, wiping away dirt and grass and whatever else I’ve picked up from the ground. With a laugh, I tease, “Copping a feel?”

  As I lean against him to pull up my pants, his hand eases between my legs, rubbing over hidden flesh tender after sex. One finger slips inside of me up to the knuckle, his palm open across my buttocks, and I clutch at his arm, push back against the sensation. “God,” I moan, guttural. His other arm comes up around me, holds me steady, while he shoves further inside. Between my legs, I’ve grown hard again, and I wish I had picked up more than one condom at Grosso’s, because I know we just made love but with his hands on me like this, all of a sudden I’m ready for a second round. “Again?” I ask, arching into his hand.

  Dan laughs and tells me, “I like you like this.” His finger slides out of me, rims around quivering flesh, trails over sensitive skin that yearns for more.

  Somehow I manage to let go of his arm, and I’m surprised that my weakened knees hold my weight as I stand. His hand falls away. “I like me like this, too,” I say with a shaky smile. As I tug up my briefs, my jeans, I give him a wink and ask, “Tonight?”

  “You promise?” he replies. He leans closer for a sweet kiss, his hands covering mine at my waist. I drop my arms at my sides and let him straighten out my clothes like an overprotective mother—gently he cups my erection and folds it into my underwear, then he jiggles my jeans up over my ass, hefts them once, twice, to settle them on me comfortably while his kiss deepens, his breath soft on my cheek, his tongue licking into my mouth. I don’t feel the rose from Grosso’s slip free—he does this to me, makes me blind to everything else—but he brushes the tiny vial with the back of his hand as it works itself out of my pocket and looks down to see the glass tube as it falls by our feet. “What’s this?” he asks, bending to retrieve it.

  “Just something I picked up at the store,” I say, taking the vial from him. “It came with the condom.” He laughs and I have to assure him, “No, really. It did. I bought it for you.”

  He holds a hand out but I turn it over between my fingers, studying it. Inside the glass, the silk rose is undamaged, trapped. Its stem is straight, unbent, the petals folded perfectly, the ribbon around it unfrayed and whole. My gaze finds the legend etched into the tube—In Case of Emergency, Break Glass. I almost don’t want to because then what? The rose will get crushed, the red will fade, the stem will snap and break off and the ribbon will be lost somewhere along the way. That’s not damage, I think, and it’s not the rose on my mind now, it’s me, it’s my own heart trapped inside these walls I’ve erected to shield myself from the world. That’s love that dulls the edges, dilutes the colors, smoothes it all together and makes it right. I imagine Dan’s strong hands on my chest, reaching inside me, in case of emergency…

  Break glass.

  Without further thought, I snap the vial in half. “Mike!” Dan laughs, surprised. “If you bought it for me, why’d you break it?”

  I grin and toss the two halves of the tube into the creek. They’ll float away downstream to that mythical netherworld where everything winds up eventually, every lost object, every broken toy, even my swimming trunks that Ray stripped off and threw away in the creek behind Aunt Evie’s house all those summers ago. The rose is fragile in my clumsy fingers, so damn delicate that I’m sure I’ll be the one to break it, before Dan even takes it from me. But his hand covers mine, his touch is warm, and the rose fits snugly into the palm of his hand. I can feel that same warmth on my soul, cradling me, loving me. “I thought you might like it,” I whisper.

  “I do,” he tells me.

  For a moment, I’m afraid I’ll start up again. I can feel that unmistakable swelling in my throat, the one that creeps up on me when I’m listening to a sappy song or watching a chick flick. I’ll start to cry, I just know it, and Dan will hold me, I feel so damn pathetic like this. With a sniffle to keep back the tears this time, I hope I sound nonchalant when I shrug and say, “If I had known about the free condom up front, I would’ve bought you a whole damn bouquet.”

  That earns me another kiss and I duck my head, chagrinned at the sudden attention he’s giving me over a silly gift. “It’s just paper,” I mumble. “I’m sure it’ll get messed up in no time.”

  He gives me a strange look, one of those unreadable expressions that have become all too common for him this weekend, and I realize that despite the progress we’ve made this morning, we still have a long way to go before we’re perfect again. “I’ll keep it safe,” he says, twining the stem around his finger. The rose looks like the stone of a ring. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” I whisper. I shove my hands down deep into my pockets and rock back on my heels, staring at his hand and that rosy ring and wondering what else I can possibly say. I feel like I’m out of words.

  Dan kisses my cheek, a tender press of lips, and murmurs, “Can we take a walk maybe? If you want?”

  “Sure.” Hurriedly I put my socks back on, my shoes—I straighten my sweater, smooth it down over my stomach, run a hand through my hair to set it right. When I’m ready, Dan takes my hand in his and starts for the trees. He pulls me to him, then slips his arm around my shoulders, hugs me against his side and my own arm encircles his waist—I feel like one half of a couple in a postcard walking along the beach at sunset, the words Wish You Were Here scrawled above us somewhere to the le
ft in a flowing script. The image is so bright in my mind that I actually glance up, but all I see are dark branches written out in runes against bruised clouds in the sky.

  A lone raindrop lands on my wrist as we enter the safety of the trees. Just in time, I think when we’re beneath the shelter of the forest, but now that we’re on the path back to the car, I don’t want to go home. At Aunt Evie’s, Caitlin will hound me about what we talked about, though it’s none of her business. Ray will want to bitch about the milk being too warm—I know that bastard drank some of it, he’s too damn lazy to hike his ass to Grosso’s for his own carton. There will be all those kids running around and vying for my time, and there’s still so much to do in that house before tomorrow, so many rooms to go through, so many knickknacks and closets full of clothing and boxes in the attic, has anyone even touched those yet? And then there’s my father, who will see that we’re back and snatch Dan away from me again under the pretense of fixing this or moving that. Ugh. Without realizing it, I start to walk slower, forcing Dan to shorten his strides to keep beside me. I don’t want to go back now. Dan and I are just getting to where we need to be. I don’t want to let all of them in, as well.

  Sensing the change in my mood, Dan kisses my temple and wants to know, “Something wrong?”

  I shrug, the word nothing on the tip of my tongue, but that will make him angry, it would suggest that this little getaway hasn’t improved things in the least, and more than anything else right this second, I want us to be okay. Even if nothing else is right out there, as long as we’re fine, together, then I’ll be fine, I just know it. Still, I don’t want to sound petulant or jealous. “I don’t want this to end,” I admit softly.

  With an indulgent smile, Dan’s arm tightens around me. “It won’t,” he swears to me. “And you already promised me later.”

  I laugh at the eagerness I hear in his voice. “I mean I don’t want to have to share you just yet,” I explain, nuzzling into his shoulder. “We get back to Evie’s and everyone will want a piece of our time. Out here it’s just us. You’re all mine.”

  Now it’s Dan who slows the pace, until we’re standing still, ringed by trees that surround us like curious onlookers. What leaves remain on their branches whisper together like rumors, the steady fall of light rain that we can’t feel an insidious hiss like discontent in a crowd. “Is this about your father?” Dan wants to know.

  The way he stares at me, a mix of love and something else, something darker, in his gaze, I can’t look away, and I can’t not answer him. “Not just my father,” I say, feeling around what’s going on inside my mind. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, hon, I think it’s great that he likes you. Or he acts like he does. Maybe he’s just not as disgusted with the whole thing as my mom is, I don’t know.”

  “Michael,” Dan warns. I grin sheepishly and he touches my face, his fingers wandering over my cheek to curve around my jaw. “Are you trying to change the subject?”

  Maybe not change it completely, but I know I’m drifting away from it, I don’t want to think about my family or the bright thorn of jealousy that digs into my heart every time my dad calls out Dan’s name or Caitlin makes him smile. “I don’t know,” I murmur. Any way I say what I feel is going to sound bad. “I’m just…it’s like I don’t exist when we’re both with them, you know what I mean? There’s Cat, the girl, the punk. There’s Ray, the oldest, the village idiot. Then there’s me. I’m in the middle, sort of lost in the whole scheme of things. I’ve just always been overlooked somehow.”

  Growing up, I was never the one in trouble—that was my brother. I got good grades in school, nothing outstanding but they passed me to the next level year after year, they got me into college. I kept away from a bad crowd, went for my degree—several of them, maybe I keep going back for more on the off-chance that the next one I get will be the one to make them notice me. I moved out on my own as soon as I could afford it, have a steady job that pays well, drive a nice car and somehow it’s still not enough for my parents. They still don’t see me. I was never into the things my dad likes, sports and fishing and drinking, those are Ray’s pastimes. And I was never rebellious like Caitlin, I was a good kid. I’m witty and a good conversationalist, I read the books on the New York Times best-seller list, I take in all the new movies, go to the theater, I have plenty to talk about, but put us all in a room together and I’m the one who disappears into the wallpaper. I’m the one no one notices. Around my family, I simply vanish.

  Part of me wonders if maybe I didn’t bring Dan home in the hopes of stirring shit up with my family. I’m gay, of course that would get my mom’s attention, the woman’s been trying to marry me off since I was old enough to masturbate. But I expected more of a reaction from the others, not Caitlin’s so what? attitude or my dad’s silent acceptance. I bring home a boy and the first thing he does is try to bond with him, like he’s the son, not me. I feel like I’m the boyfriend here, awkward around a family not my own. I feel like I think Dan should feel, and I hate that. I force a laugh that isn’t humorous in the least and say, “Hell, even you get more attention than I do, you know?”

  “And what, you think that’s my fault?” Dan asks softly. He holds me in the middle of the forest, his arms around my shoulders, his lips against my hair. I’ve never felt so safe in my life—at this exact moment in time, nothing is his fault. It’s all mine.

  But he doesn’t agree with that, either. “You can’t blame yourself, Michael,” he tells me, though that’s what I’m doing, it’s what I’ve always done. I was a good kid with a good childhood but nothing outstanding. Nothing to make my parents glow with pride, nothing to differentiate me from thousands of other kids out there, and now that I’ve grown, I still feel the need to please my mom, to strive for my dad’s approval even though I know that’s one thing I will probably never get.

  I cling to Dan and, my face hidden against him like a shy child’s, I can admit that I’m sorry. “I’ve disappointed my mom,” I whisper. “I didn’t…I didn’t think she’d take it this bad, you know? She’s acting as if I’m gay just to spite her.”

  “It’s going to take time,” Dan murmurs, his hands soothing on my back. “You can’t just expect her to be okay with it, Mike. It’s taken you twenty-five years to get to the point where you’re comfortable enough to tell her. You have to give her awhile to get comfortable with it, too.”

  “I know, but still…” Actually, I hadn’t thought of it like that. I guess I just assumed that I would come home, make the announcement, and…I don’t know, everyone would be okay with it? There might be tears at first, of course, but we’d talk past that, I was sure we could move on. Only we didn’t get a chance to talk, did we? Not two seconds after the hardest moment of my life, the phone rings and Evie’s dead. Passed. As much as I hate myself for it, I can’t help thinking she somehow ruined the whole thing.

  Maybe if my mom had had a chance to digest my words first—horrible as it is, that’s what this all boils down to, isn’t it? If I could’ve had that one night to myself, was that too much to ask? One unadulterated evening where I fielded whatever questions my family might have, when we talked out all we thought or felt instead of each of us keeping those emotions hidden away inside, one communal moment and we might not be living these different hells, my dad might be more open, my mom more forgiving, and Dan wouldn’t have had to drag me out to the middle of nowhere just to get me to open up to him. One night that was just me, I’ve never had my family to myself before, they’ve never known the real me. I’m so much more than the middle child, the shadow son. One night to prove it…that’s all I really wanted from this weekend. It’s the one thing I didn’t get.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper. My voice is muffled in Dan’s shirt—I don’t know if I’m apologizing to him or Evie. I feel so damn selfish for even entertaining these thoughts, I just want to curl into a tight ball right here in my lover’s arms and disappear. “God, Dan, I’m so sorry, I feel awful for thinking this. My aunt died and her
e I am acting like it’s all a big inconvenience to me, like she did it on purpose. What kind of evil ingrate does that make me? Aunt Evie was the one refuge I had as a kid, Sugar Creek was the only place I could be me without reprimand, and now I’ve fucked it all up just because things didn’t go the way I hoped over dinner.”

  “You didn’t—” Dan starts.

  But I insist, “I did, Dan. I almost ruined us because…” I sigh, close to tears again. Will I ever stop crying? “Because I’m an ass, okay? I’m sorry. It’s hateful what’s been going through my mind these past few days but I can’t help the way I think. I’ll never see Evie again, I’ll probably never come up here for the rest of my life, and now all my memories are tainted with thinking that maybe if Penny could’ve waited until Sunday to call, or maybe if Evie could’ve held out a little while longer, things might be okay.” Tears trail down my cheeks and I rub my face in his shirt to brush them away. “I should’ve come up here over the summer and I didn’t. I didn’t.”

  He kisses me, his lips a brand on my skin. “You can’t change that now,” he murmurs. “It’s too late. Stop thinking it’s your fault, or Penny’s, or Evie’s. Maybe it’s no one’s fault, it’s just the way things happened, and you’re just going to have to live with that.”

  Chapter 35: The Way Home

  We’re almost to the car when the skies open up. Rain beats down around us so hard, the grass is flattened, and the drops sting my skin, my face. It’s freezing but so damn refreshing and ferocious that I can’t help it, I start to laugh in child-like wonder, the way I laughed when I was eight and everything was right in my world. Dan looks at me with a goofy grin on his face, surprised at my lifted spirits maybe, or concerned at the sudden change in my mood. “Race you!” I call out, and before he can respond, I take his hand in mine and pull him towards the car, leaping and running over the grass.