The Art of Hero Worship (21 page)

“What’ll you do to me if I decide to get off
the bed to clean your kitchenette?” I smirk.

“Just try it and see.” He winks. “It’s time
for some ‘normal’ in our lives. Prepare yourself to be bored.”

I laugh and take his hand in mine.
“Promises, promises.”

We walk past the theater and around the
building to the parking lot where our very normal chariot, if you
count red Dodge Chargers as normal, awaits.

I asked for normalcy, and Liam delivered. We
spent the remainder of last weekend lounging around his apartment.
We studied a little, watched plenty of movies, and consumed far too
much pizza and soda. It was great in a very ordinary way, which was
just what I needed. But it wasn’t even slightly boring.

More normalcy: Club soccer games are on
Wednesday nights, and BJ and I have standing running dates on
Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, as soon as classes end. We meet in
our dorm, change quickly into running gear, and are out the door
within ten minutes because BJ works restacking books at the
Batcheldor College Library most weekdays from six until nine.

Today, as we stretch out on the scanty
patches of autumn grass in front of RetroHouse, BJ and I catch up
on what’s been going on.

“So Dacia wants me to go home with her for
Thanksgiving.”

“Doesn’t she live in Florida? Sounds like a
mini-vacation to me.”

BJ isn’t laughing and joking as usual. In
fact, he looks terrified. “I can’t go… I can’t meet her parents,
cuz Jase—they’re lawyers. They’ll see right through my bullshit
line and know that I’m no good for their daughter.”

My right calf is tight and I rub it hard
with a pink rubber ball I keep in the pocket of my sweats when I go
running. “BJ, you aren’t so much full of shit as you are a colorful
kind of guy with a lot to say… about everything.”

“Yeah… like I said, I’m full of shit. I know
it and you know it, but Dacia doesn’t.” BJ drops to the cold ground
in a defeated pile of limbs.

“Get up, BJ. Dacia’s nuts about you. So you
should go home with her and meet her folks… and while you’re there,
soak up the sun. It’ll move you into a more serious zone in the
relationship.”

“You met Liam’s folks. Did that move you
forward in your relationship?”

I shake my head remembering the severely
dysfunctional family I met in Lockwood, Maine. “I think his family
falls into a unique category called ‘major exception to the rule.’
But my mom met Liam and fell in love with him and
that
moved
us forward. As in, I have some serious competition for my
boyfriend’s attention with my mother. He’s coming to my house for
Thanksgiving. It’s already settled.”

“Your mom just accepted that you’re all of a
sudden gay?” BJ knows how to get to the heart of a matter. “I’m
pretty sure my folks would have something to say if I woke up one
morning and told them I was into dudes.”

I get onto my feet and bend down to stretch
my hamstrings. “You ready to run now?” There’s no way BJ will
understand the “we’re not necessarily gay, we just love each other”
relationship status Liam and I have come to embrace, and I’m not in
the mood to explain it, especially since I don’t know how. It just
is.

“Yeah… you go on ahead and set the
pace.”

I start running slowly down the side of the
country road, thinking about Liam. It seems I’m constantly trying
to explain the exact nature of my feelings for him.
How can I
have fallen in love with Liam when I’m attracted to women
?
How can sex feel so good when I know it’s supposed to be a
girl’s body providing the pleasure?

I turn up Main Street and head for the first
set of lights, so deep in thought I’m only half aware of my
surroundings. I might find it hard to explain in words, but I can’t
deny that I love him. When it comes down to the barest of facts, I
love a
human being
, not a gender or a sexual orientation.
Maybe Liam and I are the only ones who are able to see love
clearly, because we love each other for reasons that don’t involve
sexuality. We love for how we feel in our partner’s presence:
secure, protected, and treasured, and we’re compelled to be
together. When we touch each other, it’s because we can’t
not
touch each other.

It isn’t really so complicated at all.

When BJ catches up with me, I’m ready to
tell him the truth. “I don’t much care if my mother or my friends
or Mariah Craft thinks it’s fucked-up that Liam and I are
together.” I’m running at a good clip now, so I take a few deep
breaths before I continue. “My sexuality hasn’t changed; but my
life experience
has
changed radically. Shit, I almost got
killed twice. And loving Liam works with the way I now fit into the
world.”

BJ slaps my shoulder and pouts noticeably.
“Hey, chill out! I wasn’t putting you down, dude! It was just an
innocent question.”

“No hard feelings… I guess I’m just reacting
to our meeting with Mariah.”

“This morning Liam told me she was super
pissed at you guys.”

“Yeah… but I think a lot of it was because
she felt like she needed to defend Ginny’s honor… and then there’s
the part where she still has a thing for Liam.”

We’re far enough along in our run where the
gab session has to end, and it’s time to get serious. I sprint out
ahead of BJ and focus on my inspiration: Liam Norwell, who just
happens to be pumping iron in the Batcheldor College Gymnasium.

“You’re no monster,” I whisper when he rolls
off me, both of us sweaty and satisfied, but I see that troubled
look in his eyes.

“You’re no monster,” I say as he gently
pushes me beneath the spray of hot water, after soaping up my
entire body in his usual attentive manner. Because I can see the
suffering on his face.

“You’re no monster.” I tell him between
spoons full of butterscotch ice cream that he’s feeding me in the
ice cream parlor downtown, because his guilt is showing again.

“You are not a monster, Liam.” Time and
again he hears these words from me, because I know that he hasn’t
fully forgiven himself for something that doesn’t even require
forgiveness. All he did was save himself instead of die trying to
save his little sister. I plan to give him the absolution he thinks
he needs, which his parents refused him.

And Liam still won’t open up fully about the
details of the night he lost his little sister. Last time I brought
it up he said, “You know what happened on the night of the fire.
I’m not trying to hide anything from you, but it hurts like hell to
think about, so there’s no way I can talk about it.”

I step into the shower and think about how
far
I’ve
come in six months. Although I still experience
some post traumatic symptoms from the shooting and the subsequent
attempt on our lives—like feeling panicked when I hear sudden loud
noises and completely avoiding small, enclosed public spaces—I’m
back to being a reasonable facsimile of the Jason Tripp I used to
know. And every day I hope it will be the day that Liam allows my
words, with regard to Lucy, to sink into his brain, but I’m
especially hopeful this morning, because today marks six months
since the Harrison Theater shooting.

“I owe so much to Liam.” I say it aloud, the
water dripping into my mouth as I speak. “I know I can help him
feel better, like he helped me.”

***

I end the call and put my cell phone down on
the desk where I’m sitting, studying Media Law and trying not to
dwell on how it’s been half a year to the day since my life changed
so dramatically. “Okay, BJ. I talked to Liam and we decided that
we’re going to go see Dacia at the Volunteer Entertainers Show
tonight at the Oakwood Theatre downtown.” I really want to support
Dacia’s efforts at raising money for local homeless families, but
the decision to enter a theater has been a tough one for me. All I
can say is that I’m glad it isn’t taking place at Harrison Theater,
as that would have been a deal breaker.

“So Liam worked his magic and got you to say
you’d go?” BJ never takes a subtle approach.

Liam and I have been going back and forth
about whether or not to attend the show all day, until finally I
agreed.

BJ is dressed in black because he’s working
as a stagehand for the volunteer event. “Awesome. And speaking of
magic, Dacia’s been taking magic lessons at the Community Center
since school started to get ready for this event. She’s gonna be so
psyched you’ll be there! You said that Liam’s coming too,
right?”

Hello!
Like I would actually
consider entering a theater without Liam….

“Yeah, I’m going to meet Liam in front of
Charlie’s Steakhouse, and we’ll go across the street to the theater
as soon as he gets there.” I swallow hard as I’m struggling with
this decision. I’m honestly afraid. “But Liam might be a little
late meeting me because he has a Marketing Club meeting until
seven. So we’ll probably miss the first couple of acts.”

“Dacia’s magic act is second to last in the
show, so you guys should be fine.” He pulls a black sweater over
his black T-shirt. “Okay, so I’ll see you at the show and maybe
afterwards we can all grab a bite to eat downtown. And fair
warning: if you sit too close to the front of the stage Dacia might
pick you for the audience participation section.”

“Then we’ll be in the back row, for sure,
but tell Dacia good luck, or, maybe
break a leg
is more
correct.”

“Will do…. See yah later, Tripp.”

As soon as BJ leaves the room, I place my
head between my knees. The mere thought of setting foot in a dark
theater has me ready to vomit.

***

The scene at Charlie’s Steakhouse is totally
chaotic when I arrive. I thought the walk from campus would do me
good, maybe even clear my head, but not in my wildest dreams did I
expect to see people streaming out of the theater, screaming that
there’s a fire. As soon as I notice that many of the theatergoers
are children, my thoughts turn to Liam.
How is he going to react
when he gets here—to a fire in a place where there are children
present?
A tragic fire is his biggest fear, and to compound it,
the fire is in a theater, which is a place that puts both of us on
edge. And we both reacted badly to the fatal arson in the Imax
theater that we heard about on the news a few weeks ago.

As the horror sinks into my brain, I become
completely disoriented. This is the type of situation I’ve dreaded
since last April. My thoughts stray to masked gunmen and hooded
arsonists, and I bend and vomit on the sidewalk. I’m alarmed to see
that no rescue vehicles are here yet, and I find the presence of
mind to pull my phone from my pocket and dial 911 to report the
fire.

“Jase! Jase!” It’s Liam. He isn’t coming
from the direction of the theater parking lot, but from down the
street in the opposite direction. “You okay?” Before I can answer,
he stops in front of me, runs his hands across my body, starting
with my face, from my neck to my shoulders, then right down my arms
to my fingertips. There’s no doubt in my mind—no matter how I
answer, he won’t believe I’m okay unless he checks for himself.

“I’m freaking out—I called 911!” I stare at
him. He’s as pale as a ghost and wearing a frenzied expression.

At this point, thin billows of smoke are
streaming out the theater’s double doors. The few people who are
still straggling out are soaking wet, and many are holding their
jackets on top of their mouths.

A woman carrying a baby girl in her arms,
and holding the hand of a little boy, rushes up to Liam and me.
“Oh, God! My daughter… she was right behind me but now…. Now I
don’t know where she is! Oh, God! I told her to follow me and… Oh,
God! Please help me!”