Pursuing Happiness

by Jessie Pinkham

  None of this was Levi’s fault. It was Matt’s. He was the one who let his priorities get so out of order.

  “Are you sure? Because I know you felt bad that you missed my call, which wasn’t a big deal. I couldn’t stand it if taking me in cost you Collin.” Levi worried at his lower lip, a sure sign he was stressing.

  “This isn’t about you, Levi. Collin and I aren’t on the same wavelength.”

  Maybe, if Collin could’ve agreed that they needed to reevaluate how they approached sex, the relationship could’ve been saved. As things stood, there was no way to mesh their perspectives. Matt wished the relationship hadn’t ended this way. He really, really liked Collin, and missed the man like crazy.

  Funnily enough, he wasn’t as worried about his immortal soul, not like he used to be or his parents would’ve wanted. No, Matt was worried about the here and now, less concerned with the afterlife than with not allowing his carnal desires to dictate and take over his life.

  “I’m sorry,” Levi said.

  “So am I.” He couldn’t stop thinking about Collin, like the way his eyes would glimmer with delight over his own smartass comments or how he gave such wonderful hugs.

  It wasn’t just the end of his relationship which had Matt’s stomach all in knots. He was also deeply disappointed in himself, something he assumed would be around for a while.

  Matt’s butt had barely touched his therapist’s sofa when he said, “It’s been quite a week.”

  “What happened?” asked Elaine.

  He related the whole story in as detached a manner as he could, because if he got into talking badly about himself, she’d make him start over. She was big on reframing so as not to ‘engage in negative self-talk,’ even though Matt frankly thought he deserved it in this case.

  When he finished, Elaine prompted, “Why do you think your family was correct about the dangers of sex?”

  He wished people would stop asking him this stupid question. “I proved it.”

  Elaine raised one eyebrow, as calm and nonplussed as ever. “Did you? How?”

  “I just told you.”

  “You told me the story of a perfectly understandable choice not to answer your phone while you were in the middle of an intimate experience with your boyfriend. Giving someone your phone number is not entering into a contract whereby you must answer their calls.”

  “Taking Levi in was signing a contract,” he retorted. “I literally put my signature on official forms, which means I can’t only think about myself anymore. Why can’t anyone see the problem here?”

  “Is it possible that nobody sees the problem because there isn’t one?”

  Well. He hadn’t thought of that option. He thought for a second, then decided it really was safer to err on the side of caution for something of this magnitude. “What if that’s because everyone else is blinded to the problem because they have the same one, but they don’t know it?”

  “Does that seem very likely? Do you think everyone else is neglecting all responsibilities in favor of sex?”

  “Maybe not everyone,” he conceded, if for no other reason than the sheer number of people who went to work every day.

  “So, is this you talking, or your parents?”

  He slumped over in defeat. This was going to be another long, challenging therapy session. “Both?”

  “As I recall, your father believes anyone who isn’t strictly heterosexual will be eternally damned.”

  “There’s a little wiggle room if you realize it’s a sin, don’t act on it, and pray that God will make you straight, but you’re more or less right.” Matt had tried earnestly praying to be straight, and God hadn’t delivered, so these days he could only assume God wasn’t too worried about his homosexuality after all.

  Elaine nodded. “Why is he right about this, then? Excluding the phone call.”

  “That’s not fair. The phone call is everything.”

  “The phone call is one incident. A single data point, if you will.”

  Matt just stared at her. A single data point? It seemed like the harbinger of things to come if he didn’t shape up.

  Encouraged by his lack of outright denial, she continued. “Has anything else happened to make you think you’re letting a desire for sex take control of your entire life?”

  After careful thought, he said, “No.”

  “Then why should this be anything other than a single data point?”

  Matt started to get an uncomfortable feeling that he’d made his decision based on irrational fears. Again. He’d thought he was breaking that habit, but apparently not. He looked over at Elaine’s orchids while he thought, and she gave him the time to process without any interruptions.

  “I’m afraid of failing Levi,” he said. “What if Dad was right? It’s one thing to take the risk when it’s just my life, but that’s not the case anymore.” If he screwed up his life before, the consequences only fell on him. Everything was different now.

  “It sounds like you’ve given a great deal of thought to the ramifications if your father was right. How about if he was wrong?”

  “I won’t have failed Levi.” Again, better safe than sorry.

  “And?”

  The unpleasant implications came back. “And I just broke up with a guy I really like for no reason.”

  “And?”

  Elaine was really on a roll. Matt scowled at her. “Isn’t that enough?”

  “What would this say about your future, if your father is wrong and you continue in this line of thinking?”

  The part where Collin wasn’t in his future stung enough that Matt didn’t answer her. She almost sighed. “Matt, you’ve stated previously that you would like to be in a happy, healthy relationship with a man.”

  “Yes.”

  “One that includes sex.”

  “That was before,” he said.

  “Yes, I know. Is it something you still want?”

  “If it’s possible for me to have that without losing sight of everything else, yes.” He wasn’t so sure the goal was, in fact, feasible, but it sure would be nice.

  “How exactly do you plan to accomplish this?”

  “I don’t know.” He looked over at the orchid again, because eye contact with his therapist was too hard. “I don’t know anything. I miss Collin, and I enjoyed our sex life, but I’m so worried I’ll let Levi down, and that Dad was right after all.”

  “What else do you think your father was right about?” asked Elaine.

  “The value of personal responsibility.” Which played directly into the current problem.

  “How about anything related to sex?”

  Matt drew a complete blank.

  She made a note on her paper. “Do you honestly believe you’re in danger of caring only about sex?”

  “I didn’t,” he said, “until the other night.”

  “What do you think a responsible sex life would look like? Something similar to what you’d want for your cousin, let’s say.”

  “One that comes after the other stuff in life, like work and taking care of Levi. A sex life that could be set aside when another pressing concern came around.”

  He thought quietly for another moment, brain circling back to her earlier comment. “It’s always been like that, until this phone call incident. Maybe that really was a single data point.” The implications were staggering, and he dropped his head in his hands. “Damn it.”

  The uncomfortable feeling was back, this time with certainty. He’d panicked, overreacted, and broken up with an amazing guy because he was afraid. Worse still, this was his upbringing haunting him, continuing its legacy of making his life harder.

  It didn’t have to be this way.

  He could’ve still had Collin, if only he hadn’t been so afraid, if he’d done a better job at unlearning the lessons of his childhood.

  I ruined everything for no reason.

  In that moment, Matt wasn’t sure who he hated more, himself or his parents.

  Chapte
r Twenty-Two

  Collin paused his movie when the doorbell rang. He hoped Kathy downstairs hadn’t gotten his mail again, because she was the type to chat a man’s ear off regardless of how obvious it was he wanted to escape. She’d once gotten his electric bill and it took him ten minutes and a willingness to be rude before he shut the door on her.

  When he swung the door open, he found Matt standing on the other side. He hadn’t seen his ex since the breakup five days earlier, which was just as well, really. It was bound to be weird.

  “Hi,” said Matt, managing to make eye contact for a brief moment.

  “Hi.” Yeah, post-breakup awkwardness abounded for sure.

  “May I come in?”

  “Okay.” He stepped back to let Matt inside. Not because he was holding out hope they’d get back together, but because he’d like to get the worst of the awkwardness out of the way. They were still neighbors, after all.

  Matt didn’t speak for a minute. Collin resisted the urge to break the silence and waited him out. Finally the redhead said, “I overreacted.”

  That sure as hell wasn’t news to Collin. “I know.”

  “I’m afraid of failing Levi, and I’m apparently still screwed up from my parents’ worldview.” He said the last bit with understandable anger, jaw tightening.

  “Everyone’s afraid sometimes, but you really went overboard with it.” Honestly, Collin had never seen someone take their fear so far, and it would probably be instructive as to how the reactionary religious crowd managed to control people, once he could step back a little from his personal involvement.

  He wasn’t there yet, because after everything, he still wanted to kiss Matt.

  “I don’t like that my parents can still mess with me, after everything and all this time. My therapist tells me I shouldn’t beat myself up over it, but it’s hard not to when I broke up with you over some kind of relapse.”

  Collin raised his eyebrows at the word choice. “You make it sound like an addiction.”

  “Kind of feels that way at the moment. It’s something I want to move past, but sometimes it still haunts me. I – well, anyway, this is supposed to be an apology. I’m sorry I ruined everything because I freaked out,” said Matt, kicking the carpet idly.

  He seemed genuinely remorseful, and Collin began to wonder if Matt was going to ask for a second chance, which led to the question of whether or not one was on the table. His heart leapt at the idea of being with Matt again.

  Looking perfectly forlorn, Matt continued, “You were right, you know. You and Sarah. I’m human, not a sex addict in the making.”

  “You were the only person who ever thought that.” Okay, maybe his parents did as well, but their opinion counted for nothing as far as Collin was concerned. Bastards.

  “I thought I’d dealt with all of this, but obviously I hadn’t, and with Levi here it stirred up some issues.”

  Seeing how Matt was still in his apartment, it seemed like a good opportunity to ask the question which had baffled him since they broke up. He understood why people struggled when previous loving parents were homophobic, but Matt’s folks were so batshit crazy that writing their opinions off seemed like the only reasonable thing to do. “Why do you give weight to anything your parents told you?”

  “They were right about a few things,” said Matt. “Very few, but I don’t want to reject something good because of everything they got wrong. It’s like God. My conception of God is, well, still a work in progress, really, but I do believe God exists. I didn’t decide to be an atheist and reject the good along with the bad, or the truth with the lies, just because my parents have an unpleasant take on religion.”

  Collin doubted he’d have gone the same way, but he could see the reasoning, to a point. Not to the point of the Aldridge clan’s fucked up views about sex, though. That was beyond the pale.

  “If I did that, then everything I went through would’ve been for nothing, you know?”

  Oh, this was one of those deeper meaning points. Collin didn’t think every experience had to have meaning, but then he’d never gone through anything close to what Matt had, so who was he to say?

  “I guess that makes sense,” he said.

  Matt frowned a little. “To be honest, it’s also pretty deeply ingrained. So much of what we did in my family was based on fear and erring on the side of caution. I’m still trying not to let those be the deciding factors, but obviously I have work to do there.”

  “So you thought it was better to deny yourself a normal love life on the off chance it might prevent you from being the best guardian you can be?”

  “Pretty much.”

  There was a massive hole in that logic. He couldn’t see how a sexually frustrated and repressed man was going to be an ideal guardian, not least if he was supposed to be showing Levi it was possible to have a good life as a gay man.

  “It was a fear reaction,” admitted Matt. “I’m entirely too good at those.”

  No kidding. Meanwhile, Collin gave in to his curiosity and inquired, “So, are you just explaining, or asking me to take you back?”

  Matt was startled enough for his eyes to open wide. “Is that an option?”

  There was the million-dollar question. Collin wanted to get back together, but remained rational enough to realize they ought to discuss a few things first. “It might be, but I’m not making any promises yet.”

  “Oh.” Matt looked toward the window, then finally back at Collin. “Can you elaborate?”

  “We’d need to talk more. Do you want to sit?”

  At Matt’s nod, they moved to opposite ends of the couch. Collin took a moment to gather his thoughts, because while part of him very much wanted to reconcile, he was not okay with the fear reaction becoming a pattern.

  “Is this going to be normal for you? Overreacting in a panic? Because if it is, we won’t work.”

  “I can’t promise I’ll never panic again,” said Matt. “What I’ve been thinking about, and discussing with my therapist and Sarah, is taking time to step back and figure out if I am, in fact, overreacting or letting my fears take control, before I do anything drastic.”

  On the strength of that, Collin began to thaw a little. If Matt was willing to use this as a learning experience, so much the better. Theirs was Matt’s first relationship, so maybe expecting him to know how to handle life as half of a couple had been overly optimistic.

  The fact that he wanted to pull Matt in for a marathon hug was also pretty telling.

  “Obviously, I still need to keep up with my therapy,” Matt said. “I’d gotten a bit complacent. I have more work to do, and maybe I’m not ready to be in a relationship.”

  “You don’t have to be perfect to have a boyfriend.” In that case, no soul alive would ever manage a significant other. “You just can’t freak out and then make a unilateral decision for drastic changes in the relationship, and expect me to just go along with it.”

  “I know,” sighed Matt. “Less panicking, more talking to make sure I’m not making mountains out of molehills. I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t want me back, you know. I really messed up.”

  “You did.” Collin had never believed in sugar coating, and he wasn’t about to start now. “If this is something you can learn from, that’s one thing. I won’t pretend to understand where you’re coming from, but this can’t be a pattern. If we do get back together, and you break up with me again, you’d better mean it. I wouldn’t take you back a second time. I’m happy to support you when things get tough, but none of this breaking up or cutting off sex business, okay?”

  “That’s fair,” said Matt. “I’m coming up with a list of questions to ask myself if I start to get afraid again. It’s kind of a logic test.”

  It certainly seemed like Matt was making a genuine effort not to repeat his mistake, and Collin let himself be hopeful, though he resisted the urge to go in for his hug. “What do you want, Matt?”

  “That’s a very broad question.”

  “W
hat’s your goal here? Do you want to work through your baggage, or do you really think it’s better to keep erring on the side of caution?” The two were mutually exclusive as far as Collin was concerned. He didn’t understand why this fear conditioning shit was so hard to drop, but he accepted Matt’s assertion that it was, which in any case jived with much of what he saw in the world around him.

  “I want to get rid of my baggage,” said Matt without hesitation. “I don’t like that my parent’s terrified way of life still impacts me, and I’m not proud of how I acted here. I want to be, well, more like you.”

  Flattering though the comment was, Collin needed more specifics. “In what way?”

  Matt flushed, which was always adorable. “Confident and well-adjusted.”

  Yeah, that was an ego boost, for sure.

  Matt added, “Also, I really miss you.”

  “I miss you, too.”

  His life had been awfully lonesome the last five days. Until the sudden freaking out over turning into a sex fiend, Collin had greatly enjoyed the time he spent with Matt and thought they made a good couple. It all felt so right. There was no artifice with Matt, just a sweet and thoughtful guy who had some issues thanks to his shitty parents.

  Maybe Matt would panic again and they’d crash and burn, but Collin decided to take that risk. It was preferable to the risk of not taking him back and regretting what they might have shared, and he wanted nothing more than to have Matt back in his life. He waited until he had solid eye contact to ask, “Do you want to give us another try?”

  Matt nodded. “So much. I didn’t even think it was a possibility before.”

  They were entirely too far apart, so Collin slid over to the other end of the couch. “You can’t freak out on me again. This is a one-time deal.”

  “You mean?” Matt blinked rapidly in astonishment, evidently not believing he really would get a second chance.

  “I mean yes,” said Collin. “I’m not ready to give you up yet.”

  This got him a lapful of very emotional redhead. “I’m so sorry,” Matt muttered into his neck. “I think I have some learning to do about being in a relationship.”