Hidden Wishes

by Lisa Manifold

  Besides, I needed to check messages, see if Graham had called me back. I hadn’t heard from him before everyone started arriving, and rather than carry my phone around with me and die over not being able to check it every two seconds, I’d left it in my office.

  Thankfully for my state of mind, I saw that he’d called and left a message. We were on for tomorrow, and he’d chosen one of our favorite cafes. Good.

  I got into bed, tired but partially happy. Sure, this hadn’t been perfect, but my family hadn’t tossed me out, or threatened to shun me or try to “fix” me. And now, I would get my dearest wish.

  Tomorrow was going to be awesome, and this weekend would officially go into my ‘best weekend of my life’ box.

  I was smiling when I turned out my light.

  7

  I got to Café Cordial early. I ordered a coffee and sat down to wait. I hadn’t eaten breakfast, and I might be pushing it with the coffee, because I was nervous.

  Which I didn’t understand. Dhameer had said I’d get my wish—so what was there to be afraid of? Last night had been where the fear was.

  My heart leapt as I saw Graham come in. He looked around, saw me, and oddly, glanced over his shoulder, and then made his way to where I sat.

  I got up and hugged him.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Hey. Let me get a coffee,” he said, putting his coat on the chair opposite me. I watched him as he went back to the counter and ordered the complicated coffee that he loved. He was like the stereotype of a coffee shop customer, but he loved coffee. I loved that exacting part of him that had to have things as he liked them.

  After some discussion, he moved to the end of the counter to wait. I was impatient for him to join me, but I was glad he was getting what he needed so we could talk without being interrupted.

  Finally, an age it seemed—he came back and sat with me.

  “So what did you want to talk about?” He asked.

  I guess we weren’t beating around the bush. Well, I could respect that.

  “I had dinner with my family last night,” I started.

  “You do that a couple of times a month,” he interrupted. “So?”

  “I invited them over to the house, and after dinner, I told them.”

  “Told them what?”

  He wasn’t going to make this easy on me. I deserved it. I shouldn’t have asked him to marry me without being willing to tell the world. Because that what marriage was, right?

  “The truth. That I am gay, and that I asked you to marry me.”

  Whatever he’d been expecting, that wasn’t it. He opened his mouth and then shook his head. “You actually said that? Told them, I’m gay?”

  He looked like he didn’t believe me.

  I couldn’t believe that I’d inspired so little confidence in the man I loved, and I felt like a shit.

  “I told them that I’d asked the love of my life to marry me and I was lucky as hell because he’d said yes.” I smiled, loving how good it felt to say that.

  “And what did they say?”

  For the first time since Graham and I had fought, since he’d walked out of our home, I saw him. He was leaning forward, and his interest was evident.

  “My mom said, you’re gay? And I said, yes, I am.”

  “What else did she say?”

  “That she liked you, and then wanted to know what kind of wedding we wanted,” I could feel myself beaming, smiling so big that it felt like the smile would fly off my face.

  The furrow between Graham’s brows wrinkled. “What else? What did everyone else say?”

  “My brothers had a bet! Can you believe it? Matt said he knew, Casey said he wasn’t sure but had to bet against Matt on principle. Apparently they had the bet going for years.” I felt a wave of love for my brothers. In spite of all my fear, they had acted like brothers should.

  “Pricilla, Matt’s wife, was totally good with it. But Melissa,” I sighed. “You know, Casey’s wife?”

  Graham nodded.

  “Well, she didn’t take it well. Said she didn’t approve although she didn’t say why. Probably a good thing, now that I think about it. Anyway, she took the kids and left. Casey stayed. I haven’t heard from him today. Did you know,” I interrupted my own train of thought, “my mom said someone said something to her about me being gay, and she said, well, if he is, he’ll tell me? Can you believe it?”

  “It’s not a huge surprise to me. People aren’t all mean ogres,” he said, echoing an argument we’d had before.

  “Well,” I reached across the table and took one of his hands. He stiffened, so I didn’t grip it tightly. “You were right, and I was wrong.”

  “What did your dad say?”

  I sighed. “He wasn’t happy, and he left. He didn’t yell, or say anything really horrible, he just left. Mom left with him and even though they brought Granddad with them, he said, I’m staying, I’ll Uber home.” The memory of my grandfather waving his cell at my mom made me laugh a little.

  Graham smiled.

  “That sounds like it went okay, then.”

  I nodded. “It did. It went a lot better than I hoped, even though I really wanted everyone to be happy for me, and celebrate with me. But we don’t have to worry about that. Once you move back, we’ll start planning for the wedding, and people will either come around or they can stay home!”

  Graham eased his hand from mine.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Well, I don’t think I want to move back in,” he said slowly.

  “What do you mean? What’s changed, other than for the better?” I felt my cheeks start to get hot.

  “I’m glad you told them. You’ve needed to do that for a long time. I’m glad that this was the thing that pushed you forward, but…” he stopped, and looked away.

  Then he looked at me again. “In the week since I moved out—”

  “Yes, what’s happened in that whole week? That whole, long week, apparently?” I asked, trying not to be an asshole, because I remembered that when he left, he got into someone’s car. Someone who was waiting for him.

  After I’d asked him to marry me. And he’d said yes. He hadn’t made a call or anything between that time and when he walked out with a suitcase in hand. That meant there was someone who was already planning to be there, waiting for him.

  “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and talking—”

  “I bet,” I said, and somehow I kept any bitterness from my tone.

  “Listen, I was so excited that you proposed!” Graham knew me well, and must have sensed how I was feeling. “I thought that at last, you had decided to move forward with honesty and openness.”

  “That’s why you had a bag packed, and someone waiting to pick you up,” I said, unable to contain myself any longer.

  “I had my plans ready because I figured we’d have our normal fight about your avoidance in relation to your family. And had you said that you planned to tell your family the truth when you announced our engagement, I would have told him to go on home. But you didn’t. You wanted us to get engaged in secret because of your demons. I couldn’t do that. Not to me, and not to you.”

  I started to speak, then closed my mouth. His last comment made me feel bad.

  “I love you, and I am so glad you proposed. But I need to think some more. I need some time,” Graham continued.

  “What is there to think about?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t want to get into that right now. You’ll have to be okay with knowing that I am not ready to just pick up our lives as though the last week didn’t happen.”

  “So much has changed after only a week? I mean, it has. I finally did what you wanted!” I could feel the heat rising in me again. This was not going how I hoped at all. I felt like I was lost and had no way to get out of wherever it was I’d gotten lost. How had this gone so sideways?

  “But that doesn’t change how I feel about you, or that I want to marry you,” I said. “I even came out when I told my
family about our engagement, just as you wanted,” I added.

  Graham held up a hand. “I think it’s better if you don’t tell anyone else, and ask your family to keep it private,” he said.

  “Oh, who’s heading back to that closet now?” I asked, and I could hear the nasty tone of my voice.

  “No, it’s not the closet at all,” he shot back, equally angry. “It’s the ‘I’m not sure where or if this relationship is going anywhere’ zone, and frankly, Bryant, I have every right to take as much time as I need. It broke my heart that you asked me to marry you on one hand and asked me to keep it secret on the other!”

  We’d both leaned in, our voices lowering to that tone that couples used to fight in public.

  Which felt like shit. Just as I felt like shit. Like a tornado, my emotions had whirled from anger to shame. I’d done this to him, I’d made him feel this way.

  “You’re right,” I sat back in my seat. “Take all the time you need.”

  “I don’t like telling you this. I was so nervous, I didn’t sleep last night. But I have to be honest with you. This has been one of the hardest weeks of my life, Bry.”

  Hearing him use my nickname nearly undid me.

  “I get it,” I mumbled.

  He didn’t say anything and when I looked up at him, I could see the mixture of emotions playing across his face.

  “I have to go,” he said abruptly and got up.

  “Already?” I asked before I could stop myself.

  “Yes. There’s nothing else to say that won’t end up with us fighting, and I don’t want that.”

  “So what now?” I asked.

  He sighed, looking down at his feet. Then he met my eyes. “Let’s keep it low key. I need some more time. I need to put my feelings in order, and I think I need to keep working on this on my own. I’ll call you later this week, okay?”

  “Okay,” I said, because what else could I say?

  Another moment of silence where I looked away, and then I heard, “See you, Bryant,” and his footsteps walking away.

  A week after we’d met in the coffee shop, the week that was even longer than the first week after he’d left, Graham had not called.

  8

  A month.

  One. Whole. Fucking. Month.

  It had been a month since I’d talked to Graham. I’d picked up my phone to call him, probably about, oh, a billion times. Every single time, I put the phone down, even after I’d hit his name in my contacts.

  He said he would call me when he was ready.

  He hadn’t called.

  Which meant he wasn’t ready.

  In between wearing out my phone’s screen, I’d been pacing. When a week had gone by, and he hadn’t called, I called my mom. I’d been bitching to Tibby every day, but calling my mom made it real. I might have cried a little on that call, but only a little.

  I wasn’t ready to break down in front of her.

  I was also making myself crazy with all the reasons why he hadn’t called. I knew it wasn’t healthy, but I’d gotten stuck on the idea that the guy who picked him up when he’d moved out had something to do with it, and I took to stalking him on social media. Graham had always been a fan, loving to post things with funny captions and hash tags.

  But his social media was a bust. I’d noticed that he’d changed his relationship status to ‘It’s Complicated’ and it pissed me off every time I saw it.

  Which was daily. Like I said, I knew it wasn’t healthy.

  I tossed back the covers and hauled myself out of bed. It was a gorgeous day today, and I was going to make the effort to not be such a grumpy bastard. I knew, even though I didn’t want to accept it, that I was going to have to deal with the potential fact that Graham would never call me.

  My call to my mom had staved off any questions from the family. Thank God, because I didn’t think I could stand questions about wedding planning right now.

  Melissa was the only one who was holding her ground of lack of acceptance. No one would tell me what she was saying, which meant it was bad. I’d seen that in clients. People didn’t want to tell you the really shitty things other people said.

  Casey looked miserable when he mentioned her. She hadn’t come to our family dinner after my announcement. I felt bad for him, but I couldn’t fix his wife, or how she felt.

  My dad was not as abrupt as he’d been, but he was gruff, and I sensed that he hadn’t totally accepted it. I let it be. He wasn’t being hateful to me, so I took that, and worried about the bigger fish I had to fry.

  I decided to walk to the office. When I’d gone to Tibby with plans to open a firm together, we’d initially based it out of here, the townhouse. We had the office on the ground floor level, and we lived above and below it. About three years in, we bought a building four blocks away that we used as our office, and she’d started spending more time on her boat. So I’d been able to claim the ground floor again until Tib moved out of the basement for real.

  I loved that it was so close but I hadn’t walked in ages. I needed it, needed to get out of the house, and try to start moving in some kind of forward direction again. Even though my heart felt like it was lying around busted into a thousand pieces, and I was too tired and too sad to even start to pick them up.

  “Damn you!” I yelled at the ceiling. At Graham. At the unfairness of life. At Dhameer.

  Dhameer. I hadn’t thought of him much in the last month because moping and online stalking with bouts of obsessing over whether I should be jealous had preoccupied me.

  But now that I thought of him… “Dhameer! What the hell? You said if I made changes, I’d get my wish! What the hell? Because I sure as hell don’t have it! You lied to me!”

  I threw my brush across the room. It felt better to throw something. Maybe I needed to go for a run before I went into the office. Because now, I was seething with anger.

  I hated it when people lied to me. I am an adult, and I can handle truth, even if it sucks.

  I heard a whoosh, and I turned to find Dhameer floating in the air behind me.

  “You are upset?” He asked mildly.

  Which pissed me off even more.

  “Yes, I’m upset! I did what you said I needed to, and my life is even more in the shitter than it was when you showed up! You said my wish would come true, and I can assure you that it is most definitely not coming true!”

  “Why do you say that?”

  My outburst didn’t seem to bother him.

  “Because I’m still alone, Graham hasn’t come back, I haven’t even heard from him and my sister-in-law seems to have taken complete opposition to me. I put a rift in my family—”

  Dhameer held up his hand. “You did no such thing. What your brother’s wife chooses to do is not your fault, or your problem to handle. Besides, how do you know your brother isn’t handling things?”

  “Because he looks like a man haunted every time I see him!”

  Dhameer shrugged. “That is the nature of marriage at times. Partners will disagree, and it takes time to work through them. Do not add that to your list of things you feel you need to manage. Let us return to your claim that I have lied to you. What do you base such a statement on?”

  “You told me if I fixed the things that were wrong, I’d get my wish!”

  He sighed, shaking his head. “You humans always shift things to best work for what you want to believe. I told you that if you did the work, and made things right in your life for it, you would get your wish of love and happiness.”

  “Yeah, and none of that has happened.”

  “Are you not happier with your family?”

  “Don’t pull that crap with me! Yes, I’m happier with my family. But I want to be happy with Graham!”

  “Have you considered that Graham has not contacted you because he is not really what you wish for?”

  “What? What the hell are you saying? Of course he is what I wish!” I mimicked his formal way of speaking. “He’s the man I want to spend my life with!
The man I made changes for!”

  Dhameer held up a hand again. “I think I might see your problem, Bryant.”

  “Oh, you’re actually going to tell me something?”

  He grinned. “Well, perhaps. I am never not a djinn. We do not deal in direct answers. Remember, a thing given for free is never appreciated as it should be. That counts for knowledge and advice in addition to everything else. But what I want to say to you is that you made these changes for Graham—what have you done for yourself? What changes have you made to make your life better? What are you doing solely for yourself? You cannot make your life revolve around the actions of others. I’d like to give you a piece of advice, as well.”

  “You make no sense at all,” I stared at him. “But sure, add in some more advice that also makes no sense.”

  “I think you need to turn inward, instead of looking outward. You are focused on what’s around you rather than on what is within you.”

  “Well isn’t that just the end all,” I began, but I wasn’t able to finish.

  He vanished, leaving a cloud of glitter in his wake. Damn him. I remembered that was X’s biggest complaint. He suspected that Dhameer showed up, without showing himself, and left glitter to be spiteful.

  I hadn’t told X I thought he might have deserved it. The thought made me smile.

  Almost immediately, the smile dropped from my face. I still hadn’t told Tibby about him. She would be angry I’d kept this from her.

  I went about my morning routine, thinking over what he’d said, and cursing him when I did speak. But I couldn’t stop his words from rolling around in my head. Inward. I had to look inward.

  Which meant I was focused on the wrong thing. All this time, and I wasn’t on the right track.

  That pissed me off all over again, and I indulged in a heated conversation about what I’d say to Dhameer with my bathroom mirror.

  However, cursing at him in absentia helped, and when I was ready to go, I set out with a heart a tiny bit lighter, and far more determined.