by Jerry Cole
“Jesus,” Jason said.
“I know,” Taylor replied. “I honestly, I don’t know what I was trying to do. But I know I thought we would all be better off, and it almost crossed my mind to thank her. Of course, I didn’t do that. I went to get help, eventually. Like, as soon as I stopped looking at her face and looked at the floor again. I ran to my dad’s shop, which was a block away and I told him he had to come home. He called the ambulance from there. They took her to the hospital but it was too late.”
“I’m sorry,” Jason said. “That sounds awful.”
“Yeah,” Taylor replied, drinking the last of his soda. “It wasn’t the greatest day of my life. It’s pretty difficult to die from slashing your wrists, actually.”
“So she didn’t die?”
“She didn’t,” Taylor said, “but I never saw her again.”
“You said she died, though,” Jason said, then put his hand over his mouth.
“Yeah, when she got out,” Taylor said, smiling briefly at him. “Of the involuntary psychiatric hold. It lasts seventy-two hours or whatever. She was released to my grandparents, she walked to the basement and she put a bullet in her head.”
“When?”
“Like a day after she had been released,” Taylor said. “She said something about being a burden to my grandparents, I guess. I don’t know. I haven’t spoken to them since then.”
Jason swallowed and looked at Taylor. He looked fine, he wasn’t crying, his voice wasn’t shaking. He didn’t seem particularly upset, if he was upset at all. “I’m so sorry.”
“Thank you,” Taylor said, turning to look at him. “But the point of that story wasn’t to make you feel sorry for me, though I can see why you would think so.”
Jason sighed. “I don’t know if I got the point.”
“So, do you need me to spell it out for you?” Taylor replied, laughing.
“Yeah, if you wouldn’t mind,” Jason said. “If you’re going to keep hanging out around me, you’re going to have to learn that about me. I’m not the kind of person that you can just tell stories to and not spell out what it means to them.”
“You’re not?”
“I’m really kind of dumb,” Jason said, looking down at the floor.
Taylor laughed, throwing his head back. He really laughed, which Jason wasn’t expecting.
“I think you just like making sure that you have it right,” Taylor said. “Which, as far as I’m concerned, is really kind of the opposite from dumb. It seems very smart and sensible.”
“Maybe,” Jason replied. “I just — I mean, if the point was to compare the scenarios, I don’t think that you can. Because you were a kid, and you were right to be angry. And you still did the right thing, despite all your feelings toward your mother. You were very brave.”
“I had more of a right to be angry toward her because she was my mother than you had to be toward your ex because he was a dick?”
“Well, yes,” Jason replied. “I mean, you had every reason to trust your mother.”
“Trusting people isn’t a bad thing, Jason,” Taylor said. “It means you’re probably a good person.”
“Hey, you don’t know me!” Jason replied. “Shut your damn mouth.”
Taylor laughed again. Jason wanted to make him laugh all the time. He loved the way that Taylor laughed and he wanted to hear it more.
“Sorry,” Taylor replied, winking at him. “I promise, I won’t tell anybody.”
“Good, because now that, that would be completely unforgivable.”
Taylor smiled weakly this time. “You don’t — I mean, you don’t think I’m a dick, right?”
“You? No,” Jason replied. “If anything, I think I’m more of a dick. Because you’ve been super amazing, you’re sharing all this wisdom with me, and I still like, don’t get it.”
Taylor shrugged. “There’s nothing to get, really. The point of that story was both to show you that you’re not alone and that I do get how you’re feeling, at least to an extent. And the other thing was just to show you that you were human. And as human being, you’re just going to react how you react and that’s okay. You can’t expect anything else from yourself. You can’t, because that’s not fair to you. That’s the easiest path toward self-destruction. And you don’t want to self-destruct, do you?”
“No,” Jason said. “Of course not.”
“Then don’t,” Taylor said. “Try to spend your time thinking or doing something else, and find a way to let this go. Because that’s all you’re going to be able to do.”
“I don’t know if I’m going to be able to let it go, though,” Jason replied in a thin voice. “I don’t know if I can come up with a way to distract myself.”
“Well,” Taylor said, leaning back on the sofa and smiling at him. “That’s what you have friends for, right?”
“Right,” Jason said, smiling back. “Good point.”
Chapter Fourteen
Taylor didn’t know what had possessed him to tell Jason his life story. He had only meant to go over the basics, the fact that he had been the one to walk in on his mom after she had tried to kill herself. That was more than enough information. It wasn’t information he really shared with anyone if he could help it. In fact, he tried to keep that part of his life story to himself, as much as he could.
Jason had needed him to tell him something, anything. Jason didn’t know this yet, because Jason was still in shock, but the event of the days had been traumatic and Jason needed to feel like someone understood him.
It was lucky, then, that Taylor had been the person he had felt like opening up to. Because Taylor did understand how he felt and he needed to make Jason believe that. The issue was that Taylor didn’t want Jason to change the way that he thought about him, but did Jason really even think about Taylor in the first place? The answer was likely to be a no. And Taylor had wanted an in. He had wanted one, and when one had fallen into his lap, he had taken it and ran with it. Far too much.
Jason was probably scared of him now. Taylor didn’t remember the last time he had been so real and vulnerable with someone that wasn’t his therapist.
“I should probably head out,” Taylor said, standing up. “I don’t want to impose more than I already have.”
“Impose? Are you crazy? You’ve been nothing but incredible and helpful as fuck,” Jason said. “Seriously.”
“Nevertheless,” Taylor replied, smiling at him as he walked toward the door. “I’m sure you want to go in your shower, change your clothes, sleep on your bed. There’s something about familiarity.”
Jason nodded. “Well, I mean, I will admit that I’m gross and I did want to go in the shower. But like, I also really enjoyed your company. You know, the reasons why it happened notwithstanding.”
“You did?” Taylor asked, unable to hide how excited the words made him, which, in turn, made him feel like a kid. He tried to hide his excitement a little better by looking away from Jason, though he couldn’t stop the smile on his face.
“I really did,” Jason replied. “And I know that you have to go now, but would you let me do something for you, too?”
“Nothing like this,” Taylor said.
Jason’s eyes widened.
“Oh my God, that was a joke,” Taylor replied, waving his hands in front of his face. Jason laughed, closing his eyes and throwing his head back.
“Good,” Jason said, once he was done laughing. “I’m glad to hear it. But seriously, will you let me, I don’t know, return the favor somehow?”
“What did you have in mind?” Taylor said.
“I, um — we could go for something classic, I guess. Dinner and a movie? You choose both the restaurant and the movie. Though I must warn you, I don’t do Italian food.”
Taylor looked at him, cocking his head. Was Jason asking him out? Was he asking him to go on a date with him? If he really wanted to show Taylor his gratitude, he could have just bought him a beer. But he was taking the opportunity to ask him out. Rig
ht? Taylor hoped he was asking him out. But he couldn’t just ask him that. Could he?
“Like — a — are you talking about a date? Are you asking me out on a date?”
Jason looked at him and nodded slowly. “I mean, yes, but only if you want to,” he said. “Like, it can just be a totally platonic dinner and movie kind of deal. A man date.”
“A man date.”
“Yes, a very straight manly date,” Jason said. “Though I’m afraid you’ll have to fill the straight quota. I cannot get anymore gay.”
“I am,” Taylor said. “Straight, I mean. Like I really appreciate the offer and everything, but I’m straight.”
“Okay,” Jason replied. Taylor thought he looked disappointed for only a second before he smiled brightly at him. “Straight, gay, pansexual, whatever. I still owe you.”
“I’m not — like I don’t know,” Taylor said quietly, completely ignoring what Jason had just said. He didn’t want to lie to him.
That seemed to get Jason’s attention. “You’re not sure?”
“No, I mean — I’ve always been sure,” Taylor replied. He was close to the door and he considered opening it, making a run for his car, driving away and never coming back. He was making such a fool of himself. Jason looked like he thought that he was such a bumbling dumb ass. “Just not — not lately. Something happened.”
Jason raised his eyebrows. “Something happened with someone? Like with another man?”
“No,” Taylor replied. “No, not exactly.”
“So, what was it?”
“It’s so stupid,” Taylor said, biting the inside of his mouth.
Jason walked over to where he was, so Taylor had no way to escape anymore. Jason put his hand on Taylor’s arm. He could feel how warm he was over the fabric of his shirt. He had touched Jason before, just to be reassuring, but it hadn’t felt like this. It was as if everything was going crazy in Taylor’s body and head, maybe because they were talking about the issue at hand.
“No, it’s not,” Jason said, softly. He looked down at Taylor’s lips before he spoke and Taylor felt his mouth go dry. “If you ever need to talk about this, or you need someone to hear you out, or whatever, I’m here. No pressure, no expectations, nothing. Okay?”
“You’re just going to hear me complain about —”
“About whatever,” Jason replied. “After what you did for me, it’s the least I can do.”
“But I’m not confused about guys,” Taylor replied, shaking his head. “I’m confused about one guy. Just one.”
“Yeah, that’s kind of how it starts for some people,” Jason said, his hand unmoving. “It’s okay. If it’s something you need to figure out, then I may be ab—”
It wasn’t what Taylor was planning to do, exactly, but he hadn’t thought about how he was planning to do it. If he was planning to do it at all. It was just that when Jason was talking, telling him how much he was going to support him, there was nothing Taylor could do to stop himself. Jason looked gorgeous when he talked and Taylor had been almost completely unable to take his eyes off of his lips. When he took a step closer, intending to thank him, to tell him how much he appreciated it, he found himself giving into instinct and kissing Jason on the lips instead. It was brief at first, but it was enough. Taylor moved away from him, convinced that he had been right in the first place, that he didn’t want to be Jason, he wanted Jason. He could feel it all over his body, washing over him.
Jason didn’t seem to know how to react at first, his eyes widening when Taylor first kissed him. Then he fell into it, closing his eyes, exhale, pressing his lips against Taylor’s, wrapping his arms around Taylor’s neck. Taylor was taller than him so he had to lean down a bit to kiss Jason, but he was only vaguely aware of that fact. He cared more about the way that Jason tasted, the way that he smelled, his skin so close to Taylor’s own.
Taylor had to break the kiss off because he could feel himself get carried away, but as soon as he moved his head back, Jason looked for him and Taylor couldn’t resist him. They kissed desperately, passionately. Taylor moved away from him again, but only because he had to breathe this time.
“I’m sorry,” he said, quickly. “I —”
“It’s okay,” Jason said. His arms were still wrapped around Taylor and his face was still so close to him. “Seriously. I wanted you to do that. I just — you know, I didn’t want you to feel like that was something that you needed to do to have me support you.”
Taylor laughed. “You’re an idiot.”
“I know!” Jason said, moving away from him and laughing. “That’s what I told you. But apparently, when I say it, you don’t believe me?”
Taylor looked at him and sighed. “Jason —”
“Look, whoever this guy is, he’s lucky,” Jason said. “And if he doesn’t like you the same way that you like him, then he’s the one who is an idiot.”
“Jason,” Taylor said, again. This time, he was unable to suppress his smile. “I was talking about you. You were the man who was making me doubt how straight I was.”
Jason’s eyes widened again as his brows shot up in surprise. “I was?”
“Yes,” Taylor said. “You were.”
“And now you know for sure,” Jason replied, looking down at the floor.
“Now I know one thing for sure,” Taylor said. “And that was that I loved kissing you. That I can’t wait to do it again.”
“So don’t,” Jason said. He took a step toward Taylor and kissed him again, passionately, hungrily. Taylor kissed him back, opening his mouth to let Jason’s expert tongue in, the kiss warm and soft and suddenly everything. Taylor could almost forget everything that was around him from the way that Jason was kissing him.
He had kissed plenty of girls before, but he had never felt anything like this when he had kissed a girl before. When he had kissed anyone before.
It was like the rest of the world didn’t matter, like the only thing that mattered was that Jason’s lips were on his. That it was Jason who was kissing him.
“Stay,” Jason said, moving away from him. “I’ll have that shower and you can stay the night.”
“But —”
“I won’t touch you,” Jason said quickly. “If you don’t want me to. But I know you do. I want to touch you, but I’m going to wait for you to be ready, and if you just want to stay and kiss and chat, that’s totally fine, too. Or not even kiss. Just stay. We can talk about whatever. Anything you want.”
He spoke breathlessly, as if he was intoxicated. Like he had been drinking or something, even though Taylor knew that he hadn’t been. He knew that the only thing he was high on was him. But the words scared him, too. He wanted him to stay the night and staying the night implied doing something more than kissing, even if that was all that they did that night. A kiss was one thing, but what about everything else? Maybe Jason wouldn’t expect anything right then, but he could expect something later. He could expect anything and Taylor wouldn’t be able to say no, because Jason was Jason and he had an intoxicating effect on Taylor that no one else had ever seemed to have. And Jason wasn’t quite sure how to handle that.
He wasn’t sure what it meant for him and he wasn’t sure what it meant for him in the bedroom. For them in the bedroom. Because Taylor knew that was where things were going. And he was emotionally equipped for a kiss, even though he hadn’t expected the kiss to be as mind-blowing as it was. But a kiss was just a kiss.
Anything else would prove something else to Taylor. It was something that he wanted to show him but not until it was possible for it to be shown to him. What if Taylor did like Jason? What if Jason liked him back? Wouldn’t that change everything? He was almost completely positive that it would and he wasn’t sure how he would feel about that. He wasn’t sure that he was equipped to deal with it.
“I don’t — I can’t,” Taylor said, finally, when he saw Jason staring at him.
Jason nodded, slowly. He didn’t take his gaze off Taylor, but he looked a little upset.
Almost like he was about to cry. Which couldn’t be the case, because it was just a kiss. It was nothing but a kiss, Taylor kept repeating in his head.
Jason swallowed. “I get that. Thank you for anything, anyway. If there’s anything you ever need, just —”
“No,” Taylor said, shaking his head quickly. “No, no, I’m not saying no to you asking me out. I’m definitely saying yes to that. I’m just — I can’t stay here tonight. It’s just all so much.”
“Oh,” Jason replied, his face lighting up. “Okay. So, do you want to do dinner and a movie?”
“Yes,” Taylor said. “I want to do whatever. I don’t care what we do in terms of dating. I just — I need to — I don’t know. This is hard for me. I’ve never done this before. This is bigger than me and I’m not good at not knowing how to do things.”
Jason bit his lips, obviously trying to stop himself from smiling, and failing. “Bigger than you?”
“I just mean, like, I don’t know how to handle it,” Taylor replied. “And I’m a little scared.”
“About what it means for you?”
“About that,” Taylor said, nodding. Then he looked down before he spoke again because he didn’t want Jason to see the fear in his eyes. He didn’t want Jason to see how hard this was for him, though he didn’t mind talking about it. He just didn’t want Jason to see how real it was for him because he didn’t want him to be scared by how intense and real this was for Taylor. “And about me messing it up. You don’t understand, Jason, I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how to like, be with a guy. I don’t know how to talk to a guy, I don’t know how to like, woo a guy. I have no idea how to have sex with a guy. I’m basically an inexperienced virgin and I don’t want you to be let down because of me.”