Trust the Focus (9 page)

Onondaga Cave in Missouri made me flash back to ninth grade, when we created stalactites and stalagmites out of clay to make our own mini cave formations.

Landry had hidden smiley faces etched with a pencil on the underside of his clay model and snuck in a formation that looked exactly like a cock and balls. Our instructor hadn’t noticed and used Landry’s as an example during parent-teacher conferences of an excellent representation of the class project.

I stared at a particularly phallic formation now while breathing in the damp, cold air underground during our tour. Landry stood off to the side watching me.

I nodded toward it with my head and grinned. His lips twitched, but then he lowered his gaze and toed the loose ground. I shivered against the damp chill in the cave. It wouldn’t have mattered if we were on a beach in Fiji, the chill Landry was putting off would have made me want to wear a parka.

I sighed. Oh well, that small smile was the best I’d gotten out of him in a couple of days.

We’d taken a photo with Dad at the mouth of the cave and then sprinkled his ashes near where Sally was parked at the campground.

Our tour group in the cave was small. Most kids were still in school during the week, so our fellow cave dwellers were mostly older retired couples. Which meant that the pace was slow, so Landry had plenty of time to sketch. He used the light from his cell phone to help him see. I offered to hold it for him, and he snapped at me that he didn’t need help.

We looked out of place in this group of happy elderly people. But then, we looked out of place everywhere this whole trip.

The only place that was ours was in Sally.

***

Landry’s silence was so loud that I couldn’t hear anything else. I didn’t know what to do to make him smile at me or talk to me. I was so off-balance, I wondered if I’d ever be right again. If
we’d
ever be right again.

After lunch, we’d gone to the Laundromat, and that’s where Landry had stayed, gaze fixated on his sketchbook. The Onondaga Cave State Park offered on-site camping with RV facilities so we could dump Sally’s sewage tank and finally get our dirty clothes cleaned. I’d been doing the sniff-test way too often.

I thought about staying with him, but then I made some sort of excuse about Sally’s tire pressure. Now I sat on the back bumper, swinging my legs and tapping my phone on my knee. Landry had always been the one I had gone to when I had a problem. But since my problem was with
him
, I was at a loss.

I thought about calling Tomás, my old teammate, but that made me break out in hives. Hell, I showered with the guy. I wasn’t sure how comfortable he would be with me letting him know casually over the phone that I was kinda-sorta into guys.

That left Mia. She’d always been a good friend to me, and she wanted to be a school guidance counselor. She had a way of holding a conversation without talking much. She knew when to pause so the other person kept talking until they told their whole life story. It amazed me every time how she could meet someone in a cafeteria and five minutes later, know random shit about them, like what game they played during recess in third grade.

While the thought of calling her still made me break out in hives, they were less rashy than when I thought of Tomás.

Oh fuck it.

The phone rang, and I kept swinging my legs. When she answered, her voice was breathless. I pictured her just in from a run, slipping her earbuds out of her ears, long dark hair swinging from her ponytail.

“Justin? Is it really you?”

The smile in her voice made me grin and eased some of the ache in my gut. “Yeah, it’s me.”

“I’m so glad you called!” There was some banging in the background. “Sorry, just came in from a run.”

I chuckled. “I thought so.”

“So how are you? I’ve been following the blog . . .”

Her voice trailed off and I raised my head, squinting into the sun. “Yeah?”

A pause. “Yeah, and Landry made it seem like you’re not taking things so well.”

I blew out a breath. “Mia?”

“Justin?”

“Can I tell you something?”

Another pause. Then the sound of a chair scraping on the floor. “You can tell me anything.”

And that was all it took. I vomited up words, so many words that barely scraped the surface of how I felt, but I tried anyway.

I told her what a toll this was taking on me, visiting all these sites my dad had told me about. That’d he’d promised to take me.

And I told her, in halting, broken sentences, what had happened between Landry and me. And how he froze up afterward. And how I didn’t know what to do to make it all better.

She listened with strategically placed murmurs to encourage me to keep talking. And when I was finished, I wanted to take a nap. I was spent.

I heard a big inhale on the other end, and then an exhale. “Wow.”

I didn’t say anything.

“So, what’s your biggest fear in all of this?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“What’s the worst-case scenario?”

I thought about that. “I guess . . . that I can’t make this better. Make us better.”

“So does that mean you want it to work between you two?”

“I—”

“What’s your first reaction when I ask that question?”

“Yes,” I blurted out. “Yes, I do want it to work.” My voice lowered to a whisper. “He’s Landry, Mia.”

She made a little sound in the back of her throat. “I know, Justin. And trust me when I say that I believe from the bottom of my heart that no two people were born for each other more than you and Landry are.”

Had she suspected? “Mia—”

“When we first met, I wanted you to look at me like you looked at Landry. I thought it was a friends thing or . . . I don’t know. But I quickly realized you’ll never look at another person the way you look at him. And it’s the same for him. You’re it for him, Justin.”

“So you . . . you knew?”

“Not for sure. But I . . . guessed.”

I processed that and moved on. “So what do I do?” My voice was a plea.

“You give him time. And be there for him. And you make sure he knows how much you care. But you can’t rush this. He’s probably feeling like his world got turned upside down. His best friend is not only into guys . . . but he’s into
him
. Cut him some slack.”

I swallowed. “I can do that.”

“I’m sorry, but I have to go. If you need anything else, you call me, okay?”

“But I didn’t get to ask about you. How’s your summer?”

She laughed. “It’s good, but we can talk about me some other phone call when you’re not in crisis mode, okay?”

I scrunched my lips. “Yeah, that’s a good plan. Thank you so much. You really helped.”

“I’m glad you called, Justin.”

“Yeah, me too.”

I wasn’t sure how long I sat on the back bumper, staring at nothing. I heard the door to Sally bang open and closed my eyes. Then I took a deep breath and went into the RV after Landry.

When he was finished folding his clothes, I plopped a brochure on the kitchen table, right in front of him. I pointed to it. “Wanna hike?” I didn’t know what to do to pull back the curtain that was permanently over Landry’s face, but I sure as hell was going to try.

His eyes flicked down to the brochure, but he didn’t touch it. Then he shrugged. “Sure.”

“Well, that was enthusiastic,” I mumbled.

Nothing. No reaction. No flash of those eyes at me. God, I’d give anything to hear him raise his voice. To yell and rail at me, but all he did was lift one shoulder. So, now I got half a shrug. That was not an improvement, but at least it was a yes.

We changed into jeans and hiking boots and T-shirts. I’d chosen a three-mile trail where we could see a stream and some waterfalls.

Landry’s posture was better on the hike, more relaxed. A couple of times he closed his eyes and turned his face to the sun, a small smile on his lips. We passed some other hikers, but mostly we were alone, stepping over tree roots and brushing aside leafy branches.

I wanted him to talk to me. This subdued Landry was a stranger, and knowing I was the cause for his behavior was almost unbearable. Although, I guessed Landry felt his traveling companion was a stranger now, too. I wanted him to understand that Gay Justin wasn’t any different than Playing-Straight Justin.

Or was I different?

We reached a small waterfall, the sound of the water drowning out my thoughts as I gazed at the sparkling water.

Landry perched himself on a rock, curling into a ball—his legs hugged protectively to his chest—a position I hated, because it meant he was hurting.

I sat down beside him, toeing the ground at my feet. He rocked gently, and I willed him to speak. I opened my mouth a couple of times but the words died in my throat.
I’m sorry. You are everything to me. I wish I could do this all over. I’m sorry.

Until finally, he put me out of my misery and started talking. “You remember that party at the end of sophomore year at the Omega Chi house? I saw you carrying that girl from our freshman speech class up the stairs?”

Her name was Marie. She’d been drunk off her ass. Her cousin was a brother, one of my teammates, so I’d helped her up to his room where she could puke and crash in safety. “Yeah.”

“I thought you slept with her.”

“I didn’t.”

“Yeah, I know that now. But at the time, all your teammates said you took her up to a bedroom. What was I supposed to think?”

“I just carried her up so she could pass out—”

“It doesn’t fucking matter now, Justin!” he shouted, the volume of his voice slicing through the stillness of the area like a blade.

That blade, along with the tremors in his voice, cut through me. I started to sweat, that nervous sweat that started in my armpits and dripped down my ribs. That dread sweat, where I knew what was coming next. I wanted to hear it but wanted to shut my brain to it all at the same time.

“Okay,” I whispered. “Go on.”

He blew out a breath. “I knew you were straight. Or at least, I knew it at the time, not knowing it was a
lie.”
He spat the last word and I cringed. “But I think I carried some sort of rainbow torch for you. And after that night I felt so fucking pathetic. What was my problem? Pining for my best friend. Who sleeps with girls.”

He shook his head and rocked harder and I wanted to clap my hand over his mouth, stop the rest of this story, and just pretend it ended there. That he would say,
Glad I was wrong! Hooray!
And kiss me.

But that’s not what happened. He kept talking. Each word opening little cuts all along my skin.

“You remember I went out the next weekend with some members of the GSA club on campus? You had to travel with the team for a game so you couldn’t come.”

Landry had started attending meetings held by the Gay-Straight Alliance. I’d tried to attend them with him when I could, but between classes and my games, I couldn’t make many. It made me uneasy, not knowing who those people were, but I trusted Landry to surround himself with good people. And I remembered that weekend, bummed I couldn’t make the trip to Sacramento with them.

I nodded and he continued. “So, it was fun. I told you about how we went to a drag show and drank and sang and laughed. But then some of the older guys suggested going dancing to a club. A gay club. I’d never been to one so I thought, what the hell? All I’d done with guys at that point was kiss and some other tamer stuff. And you were straight. Completely straight, and I had to get over this Justin fantasy, so I went.”

It was like he’d plunged a knife into my gut.
What had I pushed him to do?
“Landry—”

He held up a hand, his eyes watery, and so blue from the reflection of the pool in front of us. “You need to let me tell you this. And I’m not saying this to make you feel guilty or place blame. What happened, happened. I just . . . never told anyone this before, and if we are going to . . .” He licked his lips and shook his head. “You need to know this.”

“Okay.” The word was a toneless croak in my throat.

“So I went. And I took some shots to get over my nerves. Tequila. Because I wanted to be cool. And I danced and laughed and kissed boys.” He closed his eyes. “It was a blur. I look back now and I can taste the tequila and I can feel sweaty skin and pounding base and hardness grinding into me. And I can smell the bodies. See the strobe lights.” His eyes popped open and he finally looked at me. “I guess I didn’t get it. I didn’t understand the hook-up culture in clubs like that. I’d gotten separated from the other guys . . .”

Rage flashed through me, hot and sudden, because I knew those guys. They should have been watching out for Landry. As a sophomore, he’d been five nine, having grown a couple of inches since, and he’d been a buck thirty, maybe. But his size didn’t matter as much as his naivety.

“And there was this guy—the worst part is, I can’t remember his name. Started with a ‘B’—so, Brad? Or something?”

Bastard.
In my head he was Bastard, because part of me knew what was coming next.

“He was bigger than me and had dark hair and . . .” He gulped. “Gray eyes.”

He twisted that knife in my gut. I shut my own silver-gray eyes that Landry always talked about and turned my face away. My heart beat painfully against the bricks stacked in front of it.

“And he kissed me and it felt good, so I kissed back. But then we were in the bathroom and alone and I started to get nervous, but he told me I was pretty and he liked my eyes.”

Please. Please. Please. Just no.

“And then he slipped on a condom and he pressed on my shoulders and I thought, well, I guess if I suck at sucking, no big deal since I didn’t even know the guy. And it was okay at first. I mean, I was drunk but I tried and he seemed to like it. But it was difficult because he was big and the latex tasted awful.”

I had to hold him, so I reached my arm toward his shoulders, but he pulled away. “Please don’t touch me while I’m telling this story.”

I lowered my hand, then quickly grabbed his, and squeezing his fingers, pressed a kiss to the inside of his wrist and released him. “Okay, go on.”