Trust the Focus

by Megan Erickson

  Trenton: No really, did Landry turn you gay?

  Katy: Shut up, Trent. I’m happy for you, Justin!

  Tomás: So fucking proud of you. Nice tat.

  Shane: . . .

  Anonymous: This is fucked up. I shared a locker room with you for four fucking years.

  Chase: How about you be a man, “Anonymous,” and tell us who you are?

  Trenton: I think this is some crazy shit but at least I’m man enough to comment with my name. Fuck you, “Anonymous.” This is Justin’s blog, and he’s brave enough to tell us who he is.

  Katy: I’m giving you a blow job for that, Trent.

  Trenton: I LOVE THE GAYS.

  Chapter Eighteen

  I expected the Portland Head Light to look smaller now, the way things always look much smaller when you see them as a little kid and then again as an adult. Like that twisty slide at the playground that freaked me out when I was in elementary school. Then I visited again as a senior to mentor some kids playing baseball and the top of the slide barely came to the top of my head.

  But the Portland Head Light was still tall and wide, a white beacon rising from the shoreline at Fort Williams Park.

  Dad loved Maine. He loved to hike the state’s many trails and rock climb and camp out. I hadn’t been to Maine since I was a kid. He’d told me we’d visit again after I graduated college. Well, I was here. And now, breathing in the fresh air, I swore Dad was right here with me, taking in the horizon where the water met the sky.

  The surrounding buildings were white and maroon, matching the lighthouse, and really, any photo angle looked straight out of a magazine. I parked and crossed the park lawn as families lounged on blankets and flew kites. It was all so homey, and while a pang in my gut made me wish I wasn’t alone, I didn’t mind too much.

  I’d done it, crossed the country and took photos of Dad at all twelve locations from his calendar. I’d finally told the boy I loved the truth and learned he loved me back. I’d decided to focus my future on myself and my goals, not my mother’s.

  I clutched Dad’s urn tighter in my right arm, the left still sore from the tattoo inked onto my skin yesterday.

  And I wished for the millionth time that he was walking beside me. And Landry on the other side.

  But I was alone.

  I found the location I wanted, a paved, fenced area along the shore down from the lighthouse where tourists could stand and take pictures. I set Dad’s urn on a bench, kneeled, and took out my camera. I squinted through the viewfinder, positioning the urn in the foreground and the lighthouse in the background.

  Click. Click.

  I didn’t bother looking in the screen to check my shot.

  I grabbed the urn and made my way down one of the trails to scatter the ashes in peace. When I reached a hand in, I realized this was the last of the ash. The last of Dad. Only fitting that this would be his final resting place after touring the country, little pieces of him left in all the places he loved.

  I fingered the lid of the urn, then placed it on the ground. I’d get some more shots while I was here before I said good-bye to Dad for the final time.

  I was a little secluded on the trail; most of the tourists were in the heart of the park or near the lighthouse. I raised my camera to my eye and clicked away, getting shots of a tree branch dipping its leaves in the water. Another of a little boy pointing excitedly at the lighthouse. My camera landed on a familiar checkered patterned shirt on someone several hundred yards away, and my heart skipped, because I knew Landry had a shirt like that. I loved when he wore it, this formal shirt in conjunction with his tattoos and earrings. I snapped a picture as the figure moved closer, then shifted the camera to something new.

  But my name . . . my name on a voice I never expected to hear in Maine drifted over the salty, humid air like a bird bobbing on the surface of the water.

  I froze and then there it was again.

  Jus.

  I twisted my waist just a little to bring back that checkered-shirt figure, not daring to believe the lips would match the words. I rotated the lens, bringing him into focus in seconds, and those lips, they did match the sound of my name as he came closer, running now.

  The lips matched the words and shouted, “Jus!”

  I didn’t lower the camera.

  Click.

  “Jus,” he said again, fifty feet away now, slowing to a jog.

  Click.

  “Jus.” He stood in front of me, his cheeks flushed, that black-and-white checkered shirt rolled up to his elbows, untucked over cutoff denim shorts and Chucks.

  Click.

  If I lowered the camera, maybe he wouldn’t be here. Maybe this was just the mirror in my camera messing with my head, showing me shots from earlier in the summer. So I kept the camera on his face, focused on those blue eyes I got lost in every single day.

  “Are you really here?” I asked.

  “Put down the camera.”

  “Are you really here?”

  “Trust the focus and put down the camera.”

  I lowered it and there he was, live and in the flesh, the same as since I last saw him. Except his eyes were brighter. I slipped the strap of the camera over my head and laid it on the ground beside the urn at my feet. “Lan.”

  And then he was in my arms, a lanky bundle of energy as he wrapped his thighs around my waist and clung to me. I somehow managed to stay on my feet and clasped my hands behind his back, burying my face in his neck because that’s all I had thought about since he left.

  His body shook. Or maybe that was mine. I couldn’t tell because I didn’t know where he ended and I began.

  “I’m so sorry,” I murmured into his neck. Over and over again I apologized against his skin, my lips tasting the salt of his sweat and the sea air.

  He held the back of my head, his lips at my ear, saying “It’s okay, I’m sorry, too,” and we were a broken record of apologies until I skipped the needle and said, “I love you, Lan.”

  His thighs released their tight grip on my hips and I helped him find his footing, but he held my face between his palms. “I love you too, Jus.”

  “Still?”

  He pursed his lips and exhaled harshly through his nose. “Even if you’re an asshole. You couldn’t have given me a heads up?”

  “On what? I—”

  He dropped his hands and placed them on his hips. “The blog post.”

  “Oh that.”

  “Oh that?” He shoved my shoulder with a smile. “Like it was nothing?”

  I searched his face. “It wasn’t nothing. It was everything.”

  His eyes searched mine and his smile grew wider. He reached out and grabbed my left arm, turning it over so he could see my tattoo. He didn’t touch it, surely understanding it was sore, but his eyes didn’t leave it as he talked. “I was already on my way. I couldn’t . . . I couldn’t handle knowing you were finishing this on your own. And I kind of felt like I maybe put too much pressure on you—”

  “No!”

  “Jus.” He raised his eyes to mine. “Just let me say this.”

  I nodded and he gripped my wrist but kept his eyes on mine. “I wanted to be here. I wanted to finish this with you. But then I read that blog post, and I think I might have scared the bus driver when I asked her to put the pedal to the metal.”

  I winced. “Too much?”

  “The blog post?”

  I nodded.

  He laughed. “It was perfect.”

  “What’s everyone saying? I turned my phone off.”

  He inched closer so that the toes of his shoes met mine. “The gamut. ‘Good for him.’ ‘I guessed it.’ ‘I never guessed it.’ ‘Landry turned him gay,’ yada yada.” He paused. “What do you think about that?”

  I shrugged. “They’re going to say what they want to say. I said my pea
ce.”

  “You didn’t have to, you know.”

  “I know.”

  He took a deep breath. “I just . . . I don’t want you to regret doing all this for me because if it ends up—”

  “Stop.” I tugged my arm out of his grasp and curled my hand around his neck, bringing our heads closer. “I did this for me, Lan. For me. I’m gay and that’s a fact. And I don’t want the future that was planned for me. I dreaded it and I’m too fucking young and have too much going for me to settle. So I did all this for me. Getting you back is the best result.”

  His eyes crinkled, so I knew he smiled. “Yeah?”

  “You taking me back?”

  “I didn’t ride in a bus for eight hours just to look at a lighthouse.”

  I brushed my lips along his, just a taste, not caring that we were in public. At least Maine was a pretty liberal state. “Thank you. Seeing you here . . . Well, I’m putting off the final good-bye.”

  He pulled back and my hand dropped from his neck. “Well, let’s get to it.”

  We walked closer to the shoreline, my left hand in his right hand. I took off the urn’s lid and stared out at the Gulf of Maine. “Even after you’re gone, you’re still with me, Dad. You knew me. Thank you believing in me and loving me. No matter what.”

  Then I swung it in an arc, scattering the ashes in a wave over rocks on the shoreline.

  And that was it.

  “Rest in peace, Dad.”

  ***

  When we reached the camper, Landry dramatically flung himself onto the front grille. “I missed you, Sally!” he wailed.

  I laughed. “Who’d you miss more, her or me?”

  He straightened but left his hand on Sally’s hood, caressing the chipped paint. “Don’t make me choose. I just . . .” He flopped his other hand on his forehead” . . . can’t be without either of you.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Get in the camper.”

  “Yes, sir.” He winked.

  I followed him inside and opened my mouth to tell him where I stored his laptop, but he spun around, grabbed my face, and smashed his lips to my open ones. Then his tongue was in my mouth, and mine in his. Clothes dropped to the floor because we couldn’t touch each other enough, couldn’t love each other enough, couldn’t express how those miles and days felt like we’d been drawn and quartered.

  But then the urgency drained from my body. I squeezed Landry’s wrists, slowing his grasping fingers as I licked slowly into his mouth.

  He pulled back a little, giving me a quizzical look.

  I rubbed my thumbs on the underside of his arms. “There’s no rush.”

  A look passed over his face, and he ducked his head. I kissed his temple and he raised his eyes. “I think . . .” He paused and raised his head. “I think this whole summer I was desperate to . . . I don’t know . . . convince you. Persuade you. To be with me.”

  I cocked my head. “I always wanted you, Landry—”

  “I know, but—”

  I shook my head and slid my hand up his bare chest to his shoulder and around to cup the back of his neck. I looked him in the eye. “I get what you’re saying, but there’s nothing to convince anymore. It’s always gonna be you for me. It always has been.”

  His eyelids fell shut and then shot back open, the blue shining so clear. I lowered him to the bed on his back and covered his body with mine. He was mine now, just as I was his. When I ran my fingers over his clavicle, it wasn’t with longing, it was with a contented possession. Here, this moment in Maine, it was no longer the finish line we’d been dreading. It was just a stop on the journey I planned to take my whole life with Landry by my side.

  I scraped my fingernails up his side, over his ribs, and he shivered with a chuckle. When we kissed, he touched the corner of my mouth, like he wanted to feel where our lips met. He whispered in my ear that he was proud of me, and I whispered back that he was the bravest person I knew.

  I thanked him for not giving up on me.

  And he thanked me for not giving up on myself.

  We lay there, fingers grasping, breaths mingling, the taste of salty skin on our lips until the light outside darkened to dusk.

  As I entered him I thought my heart would beat out of my chest or my brain would melt because the burning in his eyes and his heat surrounding me sent my body soaring.

  He was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

  We didn’t talk. Not one word. Our fingers and mouths and goose bumps doing it for us.

  And when we came together, I wasn’t sure who exactly caught whom as we crested that hill. I kept him pinned to the bed, but he wrapped me in his arms and legs to keep me from floating.

  I laid my head in the crook of his sweaty neck, and he stroked my hair.

  The sun was setting by the time someone spoke. “I was coming back before I saw that blog post,” he said, his voice hoarse.

  “I know, you said that.”

  “No, but, I really need you to understand that.”

  “I do.”

  His voice was even quieter this time. “I didn’t mean to pressure you.”

  I propped my chin on his chest and he tilted his head so he could look in my eyes. “I know you didn’t. I needed a nudge but it was something I had to get right in here.” I tapped my temple. “Hey, wanna see something cool?”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Why are you even asking?”

  I grinned and crawled off the bed, scrambling naked to the front of the camper to grab Dad’s note off of the dashboard. Then I dove back into bed, making Landry laugh and shaking the whole camper. “Read this.”

  He sat up beside me, so our backs rested on the wall behind us, knees bent. He held the paper and squinted at it in the dim light. I saw the moment he realized what it was. “Holy shit. Where did you find this?”

  “One of his atlases.”

  Landry read on, his eyes widening by degrees the further he got. “He knew, Jus.” He turned to me, mouth open. “He knew.”

  “Yep.”

  “What did you do when you found it? I’m so mad at myself I wasn’t here—”

  I took the paper from him. “Don’t do that, Lan. You leaving, as much as I hated it, was a good thing for me. I needed to get my head straight without you here . . . distracting me.”

  Landry grinned. “Distracting you?”

  “Yeah, with your eyes and hair and butt and stuff.”

  Landry’s shoulders shook with silent laughter. “My butt?”

  I pointed a finger at him with a mock glare. “Stop, don’t pretend you don’t know you have a hot ass.”

  Landry pursed his lips and wiggled said hot ass. I elbowed him in the ribs and he doubled over laughing, collapsing in my lap.

  He gazed up at me and I ran my fingers through his curls, then down his neck and left arm, tracing the tattoos. I lingered on the one inside of his bicep—the pitcher’s mitt and ball.

  His grin faded. “You know why I got it there?”

  “The only spot left un-inked?” I said, poking the ball.

  He shook his head and crossed his arms over his chest. “Where is the ball now?”

  I stared at him. “What are you talking about?”

  He gave me a look like I was an idiot. “What part of my body is the tattoo touching when I cross my arms?”

  I opened my mouth to say his bicep to be a smart-ass but then it hit me. I pulled his left arm off of his chest, looked at him, then dropped his arm back down. “Your heart,” I whispered.

  When I looked into his eyes, he bit his lip. “Seriously, Lan?”

  “Now do you get how bad I had it for you?”

  “I . . .” I didn’t know what to say. He was a damn good actor because I never suspected he had a thing for me. “Fuck.” I hung my head.

  “Hey.” He rolled over and kissed
my stomach. “Remember what we said?”

  “No if onlys,” I repeated.

  “No if onlys,” he said softly. “Because we’re here now. And this is the only place I wanna be.”

  ***

  Landry stroked his laptop. “Oh baby, I missed you.”

  I shook my head, and focused on stirring the eggs I was scrambling for a late dinner. “So I’m in competition with both Sally and your laptop for your affection.”

  Landry didn’t answer me, his eyes on his laptop screen.

  I divided the finished scrambled eggs between two plates. I dropped Lan’s on the table beside his computer and sat across from him.

  Over the top of the screen, his brow furrowed, then his eyes widened, and then they met mine as I forked some eggs into my mouth.

  He bit his lip and watched me.

  “What?”

  “Um, did you look at my laptop while I was gone?”

  “I looked at a lot of stuff while you were gone.”

  “Did you read my e-mail?”

  I looked down at my plate. “You need to password protect that shit if you don’t want me reading your e-mail.”

  “I did password protect it.”

  I chuckled. “Okay, then you need to think of a new password instead of using the same one for everything that you’ve had since middle school.”

  He glared.

  “Check your sent folder.” I gestured to his screen with my fork.

  He held my gaze before lowering his and tapping on his trackpad. I continued to eat my eggs as his eyes shifted back and forth, reading what I knew was my e-mail to Lamar Crabtree, accepting the offered assistant’s position.

  The clear blue of his eyes met mine again, and his were wide with a hint of wariness. “You . . . you . . .”

  “Spit it out, Landry.”

  “Are you still going to work for your mom?”

  I let my head drop to the side and lifted my gaze up to him. “Seriously? You think I got this tattoo and wrote that blog post and confessed my undying love to you just so I could go back to work for the conservative slave driver?” I shook my head and laughed. A real one. I’d put that look on Landry’s face, a mix of surprise, pride, and disbelief.