Trust the Focus (8 page)

***

I opened my eyes to the morning sun streaming through the cracks in the curtain. Lan sat beside me, his arms wrapped around his legs, his cheek to his knees, his head turned away as he looked out the window.

I didn’t like that I couldn’t see his face, his eyes, but I didn’t let him know I was awake. I wanted to sit in this moment forever, before we opened wounds and rubbed salt in them. Before I had to talk about what I said last night. What I did. What we did. The memories flashed through my mind. The feel of his skin, the taste of his mouth. All of it equaling everything I’d been missing only touching girls for twenty-two years.

But the anxiety in my gut wasn’t about saying that I was gay or about coming out, it was about the possibility that this whole revelation could cost me my best friend. Because every second that ticked by brought us closer to the future I increasingly dreaded.

“I know you’re awake,” he whispered.

I didn’t say anything, focusing on the curls on the back of his head, mussed from the pillow and sleep and my fingers.

“Your breathing changes,” he continued. “And you always jerk your left leg right when you wake. You do the same thing when you’re falling asleep.”

His voice dropped a horrible weight on my chest. “I didn’t know,” I whispered back.

“Well, apparently, there are some things I didn’t know either.” His breath hitched.

I needed to make sure he stayed until I could explain. I didn’t think about the future or last night. My goal right now was to keep my best friend. “Look at me.”

His arms gripped his knees tighter, his heels pressing closer, curling himself into a solid ball.

“Landry—”

He turned. His eyes were bloodshot and puffy. His lips red, a dot of blood on the spot where he always nibbled when he was nervous. “You lied.”

“I know.”

“No, Jus, this isn’t just a little lie. This is huge. This is betrayal territory.”

Don’t cry, Jus. Don’t cry. Stay strong and take this like a man.

“I know, and I’m sorry.” I sat up, now aware we were both completely naked. “Can I . . . can I touch you? Hold you?”

His eyes flashed and his eyebrows shot in.

I didn’t give him a chance to answer, because hearing no would have killed me. So I threw my arms around his shoulders, his back to my chest, my chin on his shoulder, lips at his ear, caging him in with my legs on either side of his hips. His body tensed but he didn’t shove me away. He never tensed when I touched him. My touch relaxed him and the thought that it didn’t at this moment pained me.

“I want to talk now. Please, just listen.”

A pause, then a single nod.

“Thank you, for listening and not running away. I know you probably hate me but—”

Now a jerky shake, the curls tickling my nose. “Never hate you, Jus. Never.”

“Okay—”

“But I’m pissed and hurt and I really want to kick you in the balls right now.”

“That’s fair.”

Some of the tenseness left his shoulders. “How long have you known?”

I paused, thinking back. “I guess high school. I’m not like you, Landry. I didn’t have the confidence about myself. When I wasn’t interested in girls, my mom told me I was just a
late bloomer
or something, and I believed her. I thought I’d
get
interested. And then when I didn’t . . . I was scared and in denial about it. I thought maybe because you were gay, that’s why I was curious. And I didn’t have the support of my parents. Well, my dad would have been fine, but not my mom. And—”

“You had
me
,” he said. And the first brick of guilt lodged in my stomach.

“I know, but—”

His voice grew stronger. “You think it was easy for me? Justin, when you weren’t around, I heard it all. You didn’t hear the under-the-breath comments, you didn’t see the looks, the guys who wouldn’t get near me in the locker room during gym class.”

He was stacking up those bricks of guilt one by one, and soon I wouldn’t be able to move from the weight. “I’m sorry.” I sounded like a broken record. All I could see was the side of his face, the crinkles around his eyes showing his strain, the toll this conversation was taking on him.

“What about . . .” he began.

“Us.”

He sucked in a breath. “Yeah. Was there anyone else . . .”

I closed my eyes and rested my forehead on his shoulder, the knot of bone digging into my skin. “I’ve never touched another guy. It’s . . . always been you, Landry.”

“So, what, this is a gay-for-me thing?”

“No, I’m definitely gay. I just . . . knew because of you. Because of how I felt about you.” I wanted to ask if he felt for me too or if last night was a fluke, a physical convenience.

Now he shifted, turning in my arms, sitting cross-legged between my legs, his hands on my thighs as they stretched around him. I bent my knees so my heels touched his butt.

“How long?”

“I already answered—”

“No, how long have you felt this way about me?”

He was going to kill me. “A long time. High school, probably.”

“Jesus Christ, Justin!” He blew out a breath and tugged on his hair. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me? Were you ever going to tell me?”

I looked out the window, unable to face his accusing blue eyes. “I don’t know. I guess I hadn’t planned on it. I was going to get through this summer, start working for my mom in the fall, and be the good son.”

“You were going to marry a woman.”

I shrugged.

“Well, you’ve slept with one before.” His voice was bitter. “I guess you could live your life continuing to fight who you really are.”

I flinched. “I don’t know.”

“What?”

“I don’t know,” I said, facing him now. “I’ve never had sex with a girl.”

Landry exploded, jumping from the bed, pulling on a pair of jeans commando and tugging on a T-shirt. I focused on his face even though I wanted to catch another glimpse of the body he was covering up.

I reached for him. “Landry, please—”

He whirled on me, pointing a finger and backing up out of my reach. “I need to get away. Just . . . I need some time. Right now. To myself. I did it for you last night, so you can do it for me tonight. I’m not leaving. I’m just . . . separating myself before I say something I regret.”

I opened my mouth to protest but he cut me off. “You need to understand that I thought I had a crush on my straight best friend for a decade. Do you get that? Do you get that my head cannot comprehend what is going on right now? I need some time. I’m going to walk around this rest stop and eat my weight in chocolate and Twizzlers from the vending machines. And you’re going to wait here until I’m ready to continue this conversation.”

He had a crush on me?
I nodded as he opened the door. I didn’t want to, but I did it for him.

“Okay,” he said. And then the door to Sally slammed shut behind him.

I lay in the middle of the bed after tugging on a pair of boxers. I threw my baseball up toward the ceiling and caught it with one hand. The repetition, which was usually therapy, did nothing to calm my racing thoughts.

The bed smelled like Landry, and I smelled like Landry, and I wanted him to come back. It’d been twenty minutes and I thought I was going to come out of my skin.

Skin that felt alive for the first time in my life. Last night had been unexpected. Unplanned and unrehearsed. But I couldn’t stop thinking of my mouth on Landry’s, his hands on me, my lips on him. The feeling of being in the right place and the right time with the right person for the first time.

Wondering if it would happen again.

I dropped the ball on the floor and fingered the Saint Christopher’s medallion around my neck.

Despite my revelation last night, I still didn’t know where the hell this journey was taking me. Or what the right journey was. I didn’t regret my admission to Landry, but looking at it without the haze of lust clouding my vision was almost enough to send me into a panic attack. Was I out? Could everyone tell now just by looking at me—
hey, that guy kisses dudes?
Did I need to learn some special handshake to join the club?

And most of all, what the fuck did I do to Landry and me?

Sally’s door banged open, and I bolted upright. Landry walked inside in a scent cloud of coffee and something sweet. I studied his face, but it was blank. My heart sank, but hell, at least he’d come back.

He knelt on the bed and walked on his knees toward me, then dropped a greasy bag at my feet and handed me a coffee. I took a sip. One sugar.

I opened the bag and peered inside. He’d even picked up my favorite doughnut—chocolate icing on top.

I took a bite, not realizing I was hungry until the ball of sugary dough settled into my empty stomach. I washed it down with a sip of coffee and looked at Landry.

He sat cross-legged and watched me eat, his clear blue eyes studying my face, but he didn’t talk.

“Please say something, Lan.”

He picked at a napkin in his lap, methodically tearing it into strips with trembling hands.

The doughnut now sat like lead bullet in my stomach so I dropped the uneaten half back in the bag and tossed it away from me on the bed.

“I’m sorry—”

“Please stop saying you’re sorry.” He didn’t look at me, just paused as he spoke, then continued to shred the poor innocent napkin. At least he wasn’t shredding my balls.

“Okay, I’m—”
Shit, he said not to say that word.
“Um, okay.”

I didn’t know how much time passed while we sat there in silence. Five minutes? An hour? In the past, this is when I’d grip his neck or squeeze his knee, something to bring him back to the present, get him to focus. Ironic that last night I’d touched him all over and this morning, I couldn’t even brush his hand. Finally that napkin had been reduced to mere confetti, and he raised his head.

I couldn’t read him. Landry had pulled the curtain closed, and I didn’t know when he’d let me see the man behind it again.

“I’m not ready to do this right now with you,” he said, and my head spun.
Did he mean the conversation? A relationship with me? Is that even what I wanted? For God’s sake . . .
“You kept this from me for years and now you need to give me some time to process this, okay?”

I nodded, sick to my stomach as the doughnut bullet grew heavier in my gut. I hoped it didn’t burst and send shrapnel into every organ. Death by spontaneous doughnut combustion.

Landry exhaled roughly. “Why?”

“Why what?” My voice was a croak.

He looked at me with wet eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me before now?”

Honesty time.
“Truthfully, I was in denial about it. I know I had you, Landry, but I’m not as brave as you. I was surrounded by baseball, and that sport was important to me. But it wasn’t such an accepting place to be . . . gay.” I swallowed. “And I feel trapped now. I gave in to my mom and spent four years preparing for this fall and now . . . I don’t know how to get out of it.”

Landry stared at the shredded napkin and didn’t say a word.

“I had a plan,” I continued. “I was going to tell Dad and you but then . . .” I let my voice trail off. Landry didn’t look but his mouth moved, like he was biting the inside of his cheek.

“Is this . . . did I ruin us?” I had to know.

Landry’s jaw clenched, and I braced. “You changed us.”

“Good change or bad change?”

Landry eyes held a pool of grief. “I don’t know yet.”

***

The drive to Monument Rocks natural area in Lewis, Kansas, was about seven or eight hours. Because of our
late start
—Lan’s diplomatic, avoiding-talking-about-it term—we decided to drive most of the way and then get some sleep before checking out the sites the next day.

Our drive was silent. Landry tapped away at his computer, ignoring me. When he asked my opinion on which pictures of Pikes Peak to post, he did so without making eye contact. When he saw a photo I captured without him of a marmot, his mouth tightened.

I wanted to apologize for being an asshole. I wanted to apologize for my whole fucking life but he didn’t want to hear it, and even I realized the words sounded empty. I could fill up this whole RV, the whole fucking state of Colorado with
I’m sorrys
and it wouldn’t mean shit to Landry.

That night Landry slept as far away from me as he could, clutching the edge of the mattress, the muscles in his back quivering. I lay awake, listening to his breathing until his muscles finally relaxed and his breaths evened out.

Now that I knew what he felt like and sounded like and tasted like, being in bed with him—but not touching him—was torture. He was inches away but it felt like the Grand Canyon separated our bodies.

After about an hour, he woke with a start and a whimper. I froze as he crawled over me and stumbled into the bathroom. I heard heaves, and I squeezed my eyes shut and clenched my fists to keep from running in to rub his back and wipe the sweat off his brow.

The toilet flushed and he came back out to flop down beside me again.

“You okay?” I whispered.

Pause. “I will be.”

“Can I do anything?”

“No.”

I tapped my fingers on my breastbone, the popping sound echoing in the silence. “This morning, when you said you’d never hate me, did you mean it?”

A longer pause. “I meant it.”

When his breaths evened out again, I let myself steal one touch, just a brush over his blond curls, which were shining in the moonlight. Then I rolled over to get some sleep.

***

May 29

[Picture]

[Picture]

The Monument Rocks natural area in Lewis, Kansas, includes huge chalk formations, some of them as tall as seventy feet. You can see Sally in the background on the second picture so you have some idea of the scale.

Sorry this is brief but I don’t have much time. We’re on our way in Missouri now to see some caves. Wish us luck. Talk to you soon.

4 Down

8 To Go

—L

Comments

Tomás: You guys going to be coming through Chicago at all? Would love to see you.