Lessons in Love

by Jerry Cole

  "Yeah, they play well. A little too well," Nate said, blushing and averting his gaze. "But isn't that a bad thing? Isn't it a bad thing that I'm starting to pick up on some of his negative traits? I find myself acting out, doing things I would never normally do."

  "Such as?" she asked, pouring the hot water onto her teabag, the scent of lemon and chamomile filling the air.

  "I'm breaking rules, putting myself and my position at risk for nothing other than to have fun," Nate said, feeling himself more ashamed by the second. "I always work so hard to be professional, to be good, and then he comes along and managed to get me to do dumb shit."

  "That isn't on him, Nathan, you know better than that," Mrs. Thompson said, giving him a knowing look as she passed him a mug of tea. "We all need to act immature from time to time. And I know you well enough to know that you've been holding back all your desires to have fun."

  "You raised me to act professionally, to act properly," Nate said, feeling a little confused but accepting the beverage. "That's all I'm trying to do. I'm trying to do what's right, to take this seriously so I don't lose this opportunity."

  "And that's very good, and I'm proud of you, but you can't be serious all the time," she replied, sitting down opposite Nate. "The reason you're acting out with this guy is because you want to, because those are your own deep-set desires. You can't just hide them."

  Nate stirred his tea slowly. "But you raised me to—"

  "I raised you to act right in all situations. If you just bottle it all up and focus on acting proper, then you'll go crazy," she said. "You need to calm down a bit sometimes. Do something dumb, like young people are supposed to."

  "But not at work?" Nate added, smiling faintly to himself.

  "Exactly. There is a time and a place to let off steam, and if you don't seize that opportunity, you end up doing dumb things at work," she agreed.

  "You never did," Nate replied. "How can you always be so calm, work so hard, never relax and be yourself?"

  "Oh, I let loose when I get the chance. We all do, we need to. I just don't do it in front of my kids," she replied. "There is a time and a place for these things. And that time and place isn't work, or home. If you want to go out and get drunk, dance all night with your friends, meet a new guy, whatever you like, then you need to make sure all your duties are handled already."

  Nate was a bit taken aback, but he also understood it. Even his mother, even the woman he'd always seen as responsible and calm and mature, even she needed to do some crazy shit from time to time to get it out her system. That meant that what he was going through was totally normal.

  It wasn't Victor’s fault. It wasn't even really Nate's own fault. It was just how humans were. And Nate couldn't keep fighting it, repressing it, pretending it wasn't there. He had to just find a suitable outlet for his desires.

  "I think I'll just spend the afternoon thinking that through," Nate said, standing up and taking his tea with him. "You don't mind if I just watch TV, do you?"

  "Go ahead, I have to clear my emails and have a nap," Mrs. Thompson replied, already taking her cell phone out.

  "Oh, and Mom?" he added.

  She looked up from the screen.

  "Too much info. Way too much info," he said.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Although he had been panicked and confused by Nate's sudden absence, Victor only had enough time to worry about Nate's disappearance until he got home Tuesday night. There was a call as soon as he got home. Busy taking off his boots and wondering what in the fridge needed finishing, Victor let the phone ring right through to voicemail.

  He didn't really give it a second thought at first. He was too caught up in a strange whirlwind of thoughts surrounding the mundane aspects of his current life. Food, work, love, it was all far more important to him than what was probably a cold caller.

  And then he listened to the voicemail.

  "I am calling from the Southside Springfield hospital, trying to reach the number of a Mr. Victor Walker. The matter is urgent and extremely confidential. If I have the right number, please call back as soon as possible. Thank you."

  Victor froze. Southside Springfield. Where he came from. Where his parents lived. There was no doubt in his mind what this was about. There was nobody else he still spoke to there, much less someone who the hospital would call him about. No, it was his parents. He quickly checked his messages, finding nothing from either of them. They probably couldn't speak on their own. He shivered and called the number back.

  "Thank you for calling back," a man's voice said sternly. "Are you the only son of Mr. Edward and Mrs. Angela Walker?"

  "Yes, I am," he said, already finding his voice shaking despite himself. "Are they okay?"

  "I am afraid not. They were involved in a car accident during the early hours this morning. They are now stable, but heading in for more surgery. As they were recorded as one-another's next-of-kin, we could not get hold of anyone for a while, but eventually we found your number," the man explained.

  Victor found it hard to even breathe. "Can I come over?"

  "It would be for the best. We're not sure how the surgery is going to go, the surgeons are going to do their best, but it would be a good idea for you to be here."

  Victor mumbled his way through the end of the conversation and then, when the other end hung up, he felt like the world was falling apart around him, like that voice in his ear was the last thing holding him in place in reality and now he began to float in a sort of void made of his own thoughts and fears, powerless to come back down to earth on his own, even if he'd wanted to.

  A car crash? Victor felt a chill running down his spine. They were stable? Stable did not equal safe. What did the man mean by that? He had said he was not sure how the surgery was going to go, but he hadn't said what the surgery was, or what the possible outcomes were. For all Victor knew, it could be that death was likely, or it could be that the worst possible outcome was losing a limb. Anything was going to be bad. There were no good outcomes when someone was involved in a car crash, especially not when the hospital was involved. But how good, or better said how bad, the outcomes were could be wildly variable depending on how severe the accident had been.

  There were a thousand questions Victor wished he'd asked, but he hadn't. He was too alarmed to think straight, much less ask questions. He knew he could call back and just ask those questions, but he felt the pressure. Those were valuable minutes he could be spending getting back to his parents, who either desperately needed him, or desperately wanted him there.

  Besides, his mind was a panicked blur, completely overtaken by this cursed flow of emotions and pain and fear. He could hardly formulate a plan, work out what would happen next, what he needed to do to get ready, what he needed to pack. It was impossible to think straight about such simple, mundane things.

  He knew he just needed to get home, to Southside Springfield Hospital, to see them before it was too late to see them ever again. He tried to tell himself not to think that way, not to start assuming they were dead or dying. It was so hard to calm himself in the face of so much fear, so many questions. What good would it do? Who would it help if he stayed calm and collected? That might be a fine thing to do in films, or less hopeless situations, but he was powerless and desperate. Panicking was natural, and so long as he got where he needed to get, it made no odds whether he panicked or repressed it to a point of driving himself crazy.

  Victor threw some clothes into a bag on his way out the door, not even looking at what there was in it. He called Mrs. Heeley from his car phone on the way there. She did not pick up. He would call her office in the morning. He wondered whether it would be worth it to call Nate, or to tell his landlady that he'd be away, or to just...

  There were so many things you were supposed to do if you went out of town, and Victor was doing none of them. He wasn't letting anyone know in advance, checking to see if everything in his apartment was off, packing the right stuff for the journey and the stay.
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  It didn't matter. None of it mattered. Nobody mattered but his family. He wanted to cry, but he knew he couldn't, not yet. Panicking was fine, but tears could cloud his eyes. He tried to remind himself that they were still alive, that the surgeons were doing their best, that all was not lost yet. Somehow the hope hurt more than the original fear. Fear was something familiar, manageable. Hope was something uncontrollable. Whoever would think they'd need to learn how to control their hope, after all? It consumed him and drove his mind in loops.

  Then he looped back around again to that intense, sharp, painful fear that he was about to lose them. There was so much left to live before he lost them. There was so much left to do, to say.

  His parents didn't even fucking know. They didn't know he was gay. They didn't know he was anything other than alternative. He'd taken a girlfriend home once and they'd been happy from then. They'd just lived in that sort of half-denial where they suspected he was unusual but didn't dare ask how. Much like his piercings, any display that could have been seen as flamboyant, feminine, homosexual in any way, was just ignored.

  He knew this wasn't about his sexuality. Not specifically, anyway. It was about standing out, not fitting in. It was about betraying their values and beliefs, embedded throughout generations. It was about not having to disown their only child, nor face the shameful wrath of their peers.

  So Victor had never confronted them. However much he fought against intolerance in every other aspect of his life, he refused to start this argument with them. When they called the neighbors' girl a dyke, he grit his teeth. When they told him a shirt looked campy, he didn't wear it around them. When they asked about girlfriends he'd shrug and smile and say he was playing the field. When he was dating a girl, he'd bring her home and know they would never even consider bisexuality to be a possibility. It was almost too painful to consider the possibility that they would reject him.

  It was all a secret. He had tolerated their intolerance, kept his own thoughts, beliefs, his whole life secret, all so he didn't have to risk losing his family. And now he knew they might die, he was wondering why he had done so much to protect their egos and bigotry, when he would never have done this for anyone else.

  Now it was too late. He couldn't tell them they were uneducated bigots and that he had been bisexual the whole time. Not now. Not if this was going to be their deathbed.

  It felt so odd, to think of all the things he'd never been able to tell them. And now he might never be able to. It felt so odd to realize that the second life he'd led might mean his parents would die having never truly known their only son.

  He couldn't let that happen. If they were gone, or on their way, then he would have to accept it. He would have to deal with the fact he'd been a coward and hidden his identity from his own parents. But if they pulled through this, if they would be all right, then he would tell them. No pausing, no rethinking, no hiding. Just tell them as soon as he got the opportunity to do so.

  Arriving at Southside Springfield Hospital, he praised GPS and cursed the parking fees on his way to finding his parents. The modern world was such a confusing, chaotic place. A place where technology was at once an obstacle and a blessing. A place where a computer could make or break relationships, where a car could steal a life or an ambulance could save one, where you could live a few hours away from your loved ones, yet a whole lifetime away from them as well.

  He found the reception desk in the emergency department. They were busy on the phones and attending to patients. He waited quietly, at once wishing they would hurry up but also reminding himself he was not the only person suffering then and there. There were many other people who were injured, waiting to hear news about their loved ones, scared and alone. There were dozens of others in that room alone who were the protagonists of their own stories, suffering their own pains, breaking under the burdens life placed on their backs.

  He was not so special.

  His problems were not so special.

  He was no more important than any of them.

  "I heard Mr. and Mrs. Walker were brought here after a car accident," he said as soon as he was asked over to the information section of the reception desk. "I am their son, I need to see them."

  The receptionist nodded and, after asking for a few more details, found them in the system. She wasn't too sure how they were doing, so Victor followed her to the waiting room outside the surgery department, and then went to the reception desk there to ask her colleagues about how Mr. and Mrs. Walker were doing.

  It was strangely tense and strangely calm all at once, like Victor's own sensation of powerlessness was just a general mood, an atmosphere that was surrounding everyone in this department. It probably was.

  "They are apparently still in surgery," the receptionist said as she finally approached him. "I can ask about their present condition, but I doubt anyone who knows much has come out of surgery yet."

  Victor wanted to ask her to stay, to ask questions, to help him in every way she could. She looked like the sort of person who would, too. But then he remembered all the other people downstairs, each the protagonist of their own lives, each waiting in impatient patience for the news they needed about their own or their loved one's condition.

  He shook his head. "I'll just wait here, I'm sure you want to get back to your desk."

  She sighed in apparent relief. "Take a seat. I'm sure that anyone at that reception desk over there can help you if you need anything."

  The waiting room was all but empty. Of course it was. This hospital probably oversaw one or two emergency surgeries a year. However busy the main department was, in most cases they could be treated with a routine scheduled surgery, or minor ailments, or some other treatment that didn't require an immediate invasive procedure.

  It was good in a sense. It meant that there were not many people suffering, not the same air of tension as downstairs. It meant that the best surgeons would be working on his parents, whatever the procedure. But it also meant he was left alone with his thoughts.

  Victor looked at the clock and realized that he had been awake, driving and walking around hospital and waiting, all night long. It was six in the morning. He would normally have rested by now, but he didn't feel tired. He didn't feel like he had done anything at all, even now he was only waiting. If anything, the sudden halt had left him feeling refreshed and alert again, worried about everything all over again.

  He watched the clock, the second hand ticking painfully slowly, wondering how time could pass so fast when he wasn't paying attention and so slowly when he was watching it. His parents' surgery would take the same amount of time however he perceived it. It was more an oddity.

  He didn't care much, but at least the time meant one thing: Mrs. Heeley would be in her office in half an hour. Feeling so awake meant he would be able to stay up until it was time to call her and tell her directly about his situation. Suddenly, as soon as he realized there was time to do this, it was as if all his resilience wore off. He was exhausted and all he could think about was sleeping now. It was just plain wrong. His mind raced, searching for ways of staying awake until he could call Mrs. Heeley and see his parents exit surgery.

  Trying to get his blood pumping a little, Victor stood up and decided to at least walk around. He paced back and forth, eyes locked on the clock. Why did time pass so fast when he was trying to get there quick, and so slowly when he was waiting to see his parents and call his boss? Why was it so easy to get through so many hours of driving without feeling tired, only to suddenly begin to collapse as soon as he needed to stay awake?

  Victor sighed. He wanted to channel the energy that his earlier panic had given him, but the empty waiting room and dull fatalism had taken over his mind. He had done all he could. And now his brain just wanted to shut down, to sleep, to fast forward to the next big event. He needed to stay awake, but his body didn't know that. All his body knew was that the adrenaline was running low, he hadn't eaten in ages, and he needed to sleep.

  Victor
could feel exhaustion catching up with him as he watched the clock. How could only three minutes have passed? He felt like it had been twenty, or at least ten. And he had to wait ten times that amount? Another twenty seven minutes felt like a complete and utter impossibility to Victor at this moment. And, as when he refused to hold back his panic, he realized he needed to accept that his exhaustion would get the better of him eventually. What good did it serve to wait and call to talk personally?

  Sitting down on the waiting room chair again, he called Mrs. Heeley's office number, leaving a message explaining he would not be in due to a family emergency. It was almost a relief to do this. It took so much weight off his shoulders. Once he felt it was all explained, he hung up and looked at the clock again. Even this call, which felt like it had taken an hour, had only eaten another five minutes.

  Victor wanted to carry on pacing, to hold himself upright, but his legs felt almost numb. He sat down, wondering if any feeling would come back into them if he sat, stretched, tapped his feet a bit. But he didn't stretch or tap. He just sat there, feeling a little bit dizzy.

  The hospital lights and the soundlessness of the waiting room was oppressive. He could feel and hear his own heart. His head hurt. His eyes felt like they were being burned out of their sockets. In fact, that was easily the worst part of it all. The burning sensation.

  It couldn't just be the lights. Surely they would be designed to be less painful, less harsh on the eyes, more appropriate for hospital staff? So it was his eyes. His eyes were just this tired. And he couldn't do anything about that. His eyelids felt heavy too. His eyes burned and tried to close, and the more he tried to hold them open, the more the burning and the weight built up.

  Closing his eyes slightly, Victor felt relieved from the angry glare. He wasn't tired enough to sleep yet. He was just dealing with an exhausted body the only way he knew how. It felt kind of nice to have his eyes shut and to lay back a little. The hospital waiting room chairs were pretty plush and roomy. It was a nice break from the car.