by David Connor
He kissed me good-bye at my dorm, and I hugged him so hard I could feel the button on his brand-spanking-new khakis.
“I’m glad we made up.” We’d basically just stopped talking. “Call me after.” We were even in separate groups for orientation that first evening. “We’ll get together, okay? No matter how late.”
It was around ten by the time we did. We took a walk outdoors. He carried a book with him he held close to his chest most of the time, and he was awfully quiet.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Mm-hmm. You?”
“No.”
“Me neither. Hey.” We stopped walking. “You know what we can do here?”
“What?”
“This.” He took my hand. “We don’t have to let go when someone walks by, like in the field. And we can do this.” He kissed me, a gentle peck, and then one that left the taste of him in my mouth. “See? No one cares.”
“I think Mama and Dad are going to like us as a couple.”
“I think so too. I really don’t think you have anything to worry about there, as far as coming out goes.”
“No. I think you’re right. I should have just done it already.”
“Shh.” Mathias quieted my worry with another kiss.
“Did you take a lot of notes?” I nodded toward the notebook as we took off again at a leisurely pace. I wanted the night to last forever. I knew it would be our last chunk of quality time for a while.
“Not really. I… I brought something with me. It’s… it’s silly.”
“What?”
“Naw.”
“You better tell me.” I tickled him, just for second. I knew the most sensitive spots on his body by then: the one that would make him melt with a single brush of a fingertip—behind his ear—the one that would make him the horniest when I just rested my hand there, still as could be—his lower gut—and the one that would make him defenseless. “Tell me… or else….” My hand was too close to his rib cage for him to risk it, but he showed me instead.
“It’s from the yard. Devon helped me pick out just the right one.” He’d been carrying a notebook with a leaf pressed inside. “These trees don’t talk to me yet.”
“Well, they only just met me,” I said. “What would they have to tell you?”
“You need me, right?”
I looked at him, under the yellow glow of the well-lit campus and all the outdoor wattage. “Of course.”
“There’s this thing in me… I… I always felt as if no one really cared if I was around or not.”
“Mathias, that is so not true.”
“It’s kind of pathetic, really. I mean, I know once in a while, someone likes me.”
“Someone loves you. This someone.”
“But that song… from Oliver. I want someone to need me.”
“I do.” I hugged him and spoke right into his ear, right where I knew it would make his thoughts dissolve. “I swear, I do. I’m kind of petrified here. I haven’t really been alone… ever. It feels like that. Now I am—except thank God I’m not, because you’re here. I don’t know what I’d do if we weren’t in this together. And even though I have a roommate, of course, it’s not Dev… and I’m dreading the thought of sleeping by myself.”
“So don’t.”
“No?”
“Uh-uh. We’re college men. I’ll come sleep with you.”
“I’m not sure my roommate will go for that. I don’t want to make an enemy.”
“How’s about we just sleep out here?” We’d arrived at a bench, and the timing seemed perfect.
“Will we get in trouble?”
“You’re such a good boy.”
“I grew up with great motivation—the back of my father’s hand and his hugs, both equally effective.”
“Come on.” Mathias sat and then patted the space beside him. “We’ll settle in, sleep together, let the trees get to know you some so they can reminisce with me when you’re not here.” I sat. “If campus security comes by for a sweep and sends us packing, so be it.” He nestled his head into my neck.
“Nice.”
“It took us forever to find just the right leaf—Devon and me.”
“Really?”
“Two. They had to match perfectly. He kept one too. We both wished they weren’t so green. He said we’ll pick out new ones closer to Thanksgiving.”
“You’re so patient with him.”
“He’s amazing.”
“You’ll come home with me for Thanksgiving?”
“And Christmas, and spring break, and summer, and next Thanksgiving, and after Rio, and when we’re a hundred and fifty years old.”
I laughed.
“You’re laughing at my sweet talk?”
“I’m picturing us showing up at my parents’ house when we’re a hundred and fifty and they’re, like, two hundred. Desiree’s great-great-grandbabies will let you nuke the corn.”
He didn’t laugh back. His breathing was slow. He was close to sleeping, if not already there. It had been a long day.
“I’ll see you first thing tomorrow morning in Calc,” he promised. It scared the crap out of me, because I’d been certain he was drifting off.
“Get there early so we can sit together,” I asked of him.
“I will.”
Then we fell asleep, both of us, hugging one another against the coolness of a night that said summer was waning, holding on against time that was going to pull us in different directions except when in the water.
“IT’S MORNING.” I’d been awake awhile when Mathias said it.
“Yeah.”
“I wish it wasn’t.”
“Me too.”
The sun was getting bigger and bigger, rising up over the mountains behind us. It was happening far too quickly, like everything else.
“I guess we have to go,” I said.
“I guess.” Still neither of us moved, except to tighten our hold. “Okay.” More of the sun shone. The sky was no longer gray with a halo of yellow. Now blue and pink was showing, and all of the colors around us showed their trueness. “For real.”
I stood and we kissed. “I probably need to brush my teeth.”
“I don’t mind.”
We kissed a dozen more times, and Mathias took my hand, not the conventional way. He put four fingers to my palm and then clasped them around four of mine, closing his thumb on top. “Okay. We’ll do it in stages. Have a good day.” He lifted his thumb. “I love you.” Then he took one finger away. “We still have pool practice.” He unlinked another. “And the day might speed by.” He took away number four, leaving only one more that connected us. “I love you.”
“You said that already.”
“It’s important enough to say twice.”
“I love you too. And I need you.” Our last fingers were conjoined like two letter C’s, closed so tightly around one another it hurt. I hated the thought of breaking the final link of the chain.
Mathias took a breath. “Fucking time.”
“I know.”
“Okay. I’ll see you in Calc. We’ll sit together. It’s only a couple hours away. We’ll kiss. We’ll hold hands. I’ll send you the answers in Morse code.”
“I don’t need to cheat.” I smiled.
“Then we’ll talk all romantic… or dirty. Romantic today, dirty tomorrow. Calculus will become our thing, like my leaf.” He held his book to his chest with his free hand. “Okay.”
I knew what was coming, but I was going to make him be the one to remove his last finger. “Okay.”
Finally, he did. He had to. We had to, if we wanted to ever start college. “See you in Calc,” he called back over his shoulder as I stood there and watched him get smaller and smaller.
10
MATHIAS WAS never particularly punctual, and college didn’t change that. It was my turn to stare at doors that opened and closed and feel disappointment when the person I was waiting for never came. As the week progressed, our seats in Calculus class go
t farther and farther away in the large, off-white lecture hall with shiny wood stadium seating. The growing distance was a fitting metaphor.
In addition, college swim practice was not at all like private training with Coach Keller. There wasn’t much palling around. We hadn’t proven ourselves yet and therefore received no special treatment from Coach Collouci or the other older swimmers, who pranked us after our first practice as a team by putting dildos in all the freshmen’s lockers. I happily took mine back to my dorm, not that I had time to try it out. We had practice with Coach Keller after practice with the college team, at a different Cloverton pool—they had three—about twenty minutes away. I hoped Coach Keller wouldn’t have reason to look in my bag.
In addition to that, we worked out on dry land, hours of strength and resistance, then got back in the pool with ankle and wrist weights. Some days we tugged a sled behind us in the pool like frigging Alaskan Huskies hit by the scourge of global warming, and then got out and threw balls with our feet like dogs auditioning for Ringling Brothers. Frankly, the physicality of it, not to mention the schedule, was going to be brutal. Unfortunately, as the second practice of the fifth day ended, neither Mathias nor I had come close to our best times—not once that first week.
“You’re not fucking, are you?” Coach Keller asked.
“No,” we said as one entity.
“No blowjobs? No rimming? No handsies or making out?”
“Not since we’ve been here.” I hadn’t meant it as some sort of smart-ass response, but the smack upside my head told me that’s how he’d taken it.
“We make out,” Mathias said. “But you already knew that.”
“We haven’t in two days,” I said grimly.
“Hmm.” That was Coach Keller’s response. “Hmm,” he said it again more gruffly. “Well… you’re not taking this seriously, I see. Get out. Go home.”
“What?” We were like backup singers. Once again our words came in unison.
“Back to Dover. Never mind how much I stuck my neck out, how many people worked their asses off and bent rules to get you in here long after admissions were set for the semester, or how much money is being spent because of you. Just go. Quit. Fuck.”
“We’re just tired,” I said. “It’s a lot for one day.”
“Really?” Coach Keller asked. “Is it a lot?”
“For our first week, I mean. We’re not used to it yet, maybe. We always swam better in the morning, and now it’s always at the end of the day. It’s different here. We—”
Coach Keller snapped. “There is no ‘we,’ Reed. You and Webber aren’t a ‘we.’ There’s I. Speak for you and worry about you. If Webber’s too tired, let him tell me. ‘I’m tired too,’” Coach Keller said in a condescending baby voice.
He’d become like a drill sergeant, not the stoic but supportive man I had always known, and I feared I’d pushed the button that caused the change.
“And really, that’s no excuse,” Coach continued. “What happens after two weeks? One month? The day you have three papers due? What happens when finals roll around? What happens when someone you love dies?”
Even our gasps came in stereo.
“I know a pair of skaters who lost their father two weeks before Sochi. They continued to train. They went. Could you pledge yourselves to that?”
“Yes.” Mathias answered right off. I stalled, and Coach Keller didn’t like it.
“Is that a no from you, Watson?”
“No.” There was no verbal hesitation that time, but there sure as hell was in my heart and my head. I doubted I’d be able to commit myself to Rio if it meant ignoring my grief if something bad—God forbid—happened to Mama, Dad, Devon, Beth, or my niece or nephew between now and August of 2016—even Julius or Cal. My God, I loved Cal so much. His “you ditched me the day you met Mathias Webber” contradicted that, but I knew how I felt, and I wasn’t sure I’d choose Rio over any of them. The argument in my head would have to wait, though. I knew what Coach wanted to hear. “I mean… yes… I guess.”
“Four years seems like a long time on this side of it, but I promise you, it’s not. This is your life from now until then, and after that, maybe another four years, and another four, and then nothing will ever come close for the rest of it.”
Wow. I didn’t know what to make of that.
“I’m missing time with my family to drive all the way up here and home every fucking day because I thought we were all devoted to one thing.” I found it disingenuous Coach Keller would use a guilt device such as that, seeing as how he’d now implied twice his happy home didn’t measure up to an unfulfilled Olympic dream. “Make damned sure you’re in it one hundred percent, because if you show up here and half-ass it again tomorrow, the decision won’t be yours; I’ll be done.”
He stormed off, punctuating his threat with one more demand. “And keep your hands completely off each other! From now on, you’re competitors, not lovers, not ‘we’!”
As Mathias and I stood in the echo of the slammed door, I thought, Fuck that “from now on” part, because I haven’t been fucking anything else.
A COUPLE weeks later, not too much had changed, except in the water, where I was finding my groove again. Communication with Mathias was still hit-or-miss. One morning, to my complete amazement, he showed up for Calculus before the lecture hall doors even opened, meeting me where those of us who were consistently punctual—or anally early—always waited outside.
“Hey.” He kissed me on the cheek and then suggested we blow off class and hang out.
“I’m not sure I should.”
“Come on. We learned everything there is to know about calculus the first day. The rules that apply are the rules that apply. We can practice their applications on our own, really.”
“Is that true?” The fact I needed to ask proved I didn’t understand the class at all.
“Have you checked your mail yet?” He answered my question with one of his own that had nothing to do with what I had asked.
“No.”
He whipped out a manila envelope. “Package from Devon.”
“It’s awfully flat.” It should have dawned on me right away. “Oh.”
“It was the first one to turn, he says. He waited and waited when it started, day after day after day after day for it to fall off.”
It was a leaf, of course, in bright orange. I smiled. I couldn’t help it. “He said that?” Mathias showed me the note my brother had included. “He did indeed,” I said. “It’s early. He’s lucky he got one so soon.”
“I bet he got two. You probably got one. Let’s go check. Hey.” Mathias stopped some girl I’d seen in class but had never spoken to just as the doors opened. “Can we bum your notes tomorrow?”
“Sure,” she said.
“Done and done. Let’s go.”
We spent the time walking the paths around the quad, some of which took us out of the way as far as getting back to my dorm to check for my envelope from Dev was concerned. “We’re going the wrong way.” At first, I hadn’t even noticed. I was just so happy to be with Mathias.
“We’ll get there,” he said.
The weather was perfect, mostly warm, except when thick, gray clouds covered the sun for several minutes. The chill then was good for getting closer.
“I’ve missed you,” I told him.
“College is a bitch. Isn’t it cool Devon knows we’re in love?”
“Hmm.” I tried to put my head on his shoulder as we walked. It didn’t work out very well. He was too tall, and our stride didn’t match up as well as our fingers. “From the moment he met you, he’s been trying to put us together forever. I wish we could tell him.”
“We can’t?”
“He’s not good with secrets.”
“Maybe it’s time not to make it one. Let’s call them.” Mathias pulled his phone from his pocket.
“Who?” I knew who. “Devon’s at school. My parents are at work.”
“Come here, sexy.” He bent
down to me, despite his command. It was as if he was a little drunk, but I knew it wasn’t alcohol that had him intoxicated. My own mood lifted as I picked up a contact high. “Ready?”
“For what?”
His phone flashed three times as he kissed me on the cheek with exaggerated smacking sounds. “Nice?” He shoved the phone in front of my face.
“Yeah.” Mathias looked adorable with his lips in a pucker against my cheek. I appeared all “WTF?” in the picture or like I smelled the cat litter pan two days past the one it really should have been changed.
“Can I send it?”
“To Devon?”
“Yeah.”
“How about we Skype with him some night? My parents never wander far when he’s online. We can tell everyone at once.”
“I can’t wait.” He seemed excited. It was cute as hell.
“Me neither.”
“Or we could drive down this weekend and tell everyone in person.”
I pondered that idea. “I have a paper. And next week is Dev’s birthday—Wednesday. I definitely want to head home the Friday after, if Coach won’t be too pissed.”
“All the way next week? You’re not just trying to put it off?”
“No. It would be better in person.”
“Okay. Deal. One, two, three, four… eleven days. Almost two weeks, but…. Okay. Deal.”
We sealed it with a kiss and then continued our walk.
IT MADE me smile as he held up the appropriate number of fingers each day in Calculus class. “Ten days,” he mouthed the first one after. Then he showed me his leaves—both of them—which he still carried in his notebook. I held up mine, from my seat midway down the room. I held it high so he could see it toward the back. Mathias being early was a one-time thing.