Tips on Having a Gay (ex) Boyfriend (3 page)

In the morning, after the gloom of a typical overcast day wakes up my mom, I leave the kitchen, where I’ve moved from the floor to the top of the counter.

“Good morning, sweetie. You’re up early,” she says in her sleep-heavy voice. She makes her way to the coffeemaker, eyes barely open and not really registering anything. She is not a morning person.

“Yep,” I say.

I go in my room, ignore Gabriel, and turn on the stereo. It’s Barbra Streisand, this super-crooner lady that Dylan loves. She’s got this CD of show tunes that came out way back in the 1980s some time. Dylan and I sing to it together. He’s a great singer, with one of those musical-classical choir voices. He’s an all-state, all–New England baritone. I’m an alto and I’m more folk. When I sing you expect to hear a guitar with me.

But I don’t turn on my music. I turn on his. This is ironic, of course, because he’s just dumped me, and here I am in my room listening to his music. I can’t help it. I turn it up louder and remember.

Sometimes Dylan would sing to me. Sometimes he would sing even if I didn’t ask him to, like when I was nervous or we thought I might have a seizure. I’d rest my head on his stomach and his breathing would change, it would become deeper and longer. The breaths flowed out music words that would soar around the room or outside and then flit gracefully into my ears. Even when he sang in chorus, I could always pick out his voice. It was the voice that cascaded into my head, down through my throat, and settled into the depths of me.

I put up the volume real loud because my mom’s gone out to the grocery store.

Barbra’s got this voice that goes loud and soft and spirals all over the place. I pluck up Muffin, scratch her kitty head, and stare out the window while Barbra sings.

Muffin puts her paw on the cold pane of glass. I close my eyes and hear Dylan’s voice mixing with Barbra’s.

We’d always come to my house after school and sing this with my stereo. We’d belt out old show tunes, the stuff Dylan really liked. We’d get overdramatic and laugh so hard we couldn’t sing anymore. We’d flop on my bed and start kissing. That was our routine.

Dylan can sing everything—folk songs, opera, show tunes, rock. Although, he’s not too good at rock. No offense to him. It’s too brash for our music breathing. It’s not Dylan.

Although, how can I know that? How can I know who he is anymore? And if I don’t know who he is, how can I know who anyone is?

I open my mouth and try to sing but just a gulp comes out, like I’m gasping for air. Muffin puts her paw on my face, I breathe her in . . . cat fur, and outside smells like the forest. She purrs.

“Muffin,” I whisper to her but I’m not sure if my voice makes it into the outside air or can be heard over Barbra. I close my eyes and lean my forehead against the window, remembering things that are not healthy to be remembering when it turns out that your boyfriend is gay. I do it anyways.

One time after Dylan and I sang this song, we made love and then took a bath. We folded our bodies into the tub and put in raspberry bubble stuff. We laughed and laughed and made bubble beards and bubble boobs and bubble hair and then the bubbles started popping. They just weren’t there anymore and the water left the world of hot and journeyed into the world of lukewarm and Dylan kissed me a long, long kiss. Then we just sat there facing each other and everything in the whole bathroom seemed to glow—the tissue box that my mother made with plastic rectangles and yarn, the peach-colored towels, the photo of a southern plantation above the toilet. But mostly it was Dylan. Dylan glowed.

We looked at each other and then this weird, good beam of golden light came out of my eyes and drifted toward Dylan. And at the same time this good, weird beam of golden light shifted out of Dylan’s eyes and touched my beam of light. They just stayed there, mingling for a minute. They just stayed there and with them came peace and comfort and all those Hallmarky cheese ball things.

In the water, we sat. In the water, we were silent. In the water, we waited and waited until it was cold. Then we pulled ourselves up and out. The only noise was the water dripping off our bodies and rejoining the water in the tub. Dylan gave me his hand and we toweled each other off with good rubs.

“I love you, you know,” Dylan said, pulling on his jeans. He had to tug them up, because I hadn’t dried off his thighs well enough.

“Good,” I laughed, reaching around my back to snap my bra. My shoulders stretched. I was still thinking about the light thing, and whether it was just some freak weird hallucination/illusion, or whether it was real. I didn’t want to mention it though, because what if he didn’t see it? I needed it to be real.

Dylan turned me so my back was against him. His body felt warm. “I’ll do that for you.”

His fingers snapped my bra closed. He kissed my neck. I shivered. He gently pulled out my ponytail holder and said, “You love me too, right?”

“Yeah.” I raked my fingers through my wet hair and turned around to face him.

He tilted his head like a dog does when it’s trying to figure something out. “How much do you love me?”

“With all my soul,” I said. I believe it too. I believe that’s how I love Dylan, even though it’s corny. And I believe that afternoon, in my bathtub, we saw our souls. It was the only time in my life anything remotely magical happened. And I was going to keep believing it. No matter what.

How can you not believe you’re meant to be with a guy when that happens? How does anything make sense anymore, when that happens and then he turns out to like boys?

“He is not!”

“I swear it,” I say. I would hold up my hand and do the Boy Scout honor pledge but I am too sad, too tired.

Emily, my best friend that isn’t Dylan, has lost the ability to close her mouth. It hangs there and hangs there. Finally, I reach over and gently shut it for her. She blushes, flops onto my bed, and covers her face with her hands.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “It’s just . . .”

“Unbelievable,” I say. “Bizarre? Horrifying? Ridiculous? Ludicrous? Humiliating?”

“Yeah,” she says and moves her hands away from her face. “Yeah. But, you know, it kind of makes sense.”

Anger wells up inside of me. I push it down to my piggy toes. It does not stay there. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well, he does sing show tunes, and he dresses really nicely.”

“All men who sing and dress well are not gay!” I yell at her. “That is a stereotype.”

She sits back up. “I know. I know. Oh, you poor baby.”

She scooches next to me and hugs me sideways.

“I thought he loved me,” I sniffle.

She nods.

“I can’t believe he doesn’t love me.”

“He still loves you, honey, just not that way,” she says and gives me a little squeeze.

I groan. “Yeah, right.”

She thinks for a second and says, “Who’s going to help him with his economics homework?”

I shrug.

“And who’s going to help him study for English?” she asks.

“I don’t know! Maybe me. Maybe we’ll still be friends.”

We sit there for awhile and then I say, “It must be awful hard for him.”

“What?”

“Being gay.”

Emily nods. My cat, Muffin, jumps on the bed and rubs her head against our backs. Emily picks her up and kisses her nose. “Oh, who’s the pretty kitty. Yes. You are. Yes, you are.” She settles Muffin in her lap. “At least he doesn’t have some weird cat fetish or something.”

“True,” I say. “But what if he gets a boyfriend? What if he starts dating someone and then everyone realizes that my quote-unquote One True Love likes boys?”

“That would suck,” Emily says. “Definitely. But this is Eastbrook, everyone’s going to figure it out eventually.”

She picks up Muffin and kisses her kitty belly. Muffin puts her paws on the top of Em’s hair but doesn’t scratch it. Em moves the cat away and says, “Eddie Caron will be happy.”

“Oh, great. My life’s goal is to make Eddie Caron happy,” I say.

Em shrugs. “It’ll make Tom Tanner happy.”

“Give me a break. Tom is a shallow, shallow boy who went out with Mimi Cote and obviously is not my type. He calls me Commie.”

“He’s liked you forever,” she says, settling Muffin back on her lap. “Remember in fourth grade when he gave you that I LOVE YOU ring for Valentine’s Day and how jealous Dylan got?”

“That was fourth grade. I’m not really looking for another boyfriend right now.” I flop down on the bed, squeeze my eyes tight so I don’t cry.

My mother’s voice careens down from the living room. Now that she’s done with the groceries, she’s dusting and singing, which would be embarrassing if it was anyone other than Em here. Em is used to my mother. She’s even used to the way my mom sings the wrong lyrics to songs all the time.