With or Without You (30 page)

I ask Mom, “If you knew about the ticket to San Diego, why didn’t you say something?”

She’s honest. “If I’d said anything, would it have made a difference?”

No. It wouldn’t.

She heads down the hall toward her bedroom and says, “Next time,
you
can feel free to say something.”

It’s an invite. Not sarcasm. I’m not sure I’d know how to say something. But I like knowing I can.

Before bed, I write to Mr. Grayson, explaining that Davis is gone but not saying why. I hope he gets that he has to help his wife now. But I’m not holding my breath.

My bare chest is pressed tightly to Erik’s back, my arms scooped up under his arms, my knees nestled into the backs of his. I slide my face closer to his left ear. His breaths escape in furious bursts. I glance at the clock. Two in the morning. Time for restlessness to prowl.

The bedroom is stark. We spent the morning at my parents’ house, loading up the U-Haul with everything I own. It was sad; I didn’t even take up a quarter of the truck. Dad watched us from the store; he’s still adjusting to the idea that I have a boyfriend. Mom kept busy in the kitchen, occasionally offering us lemonade or doling out odd bits of household advice.
Be sure to immediately wrap and refrigerate any leftovers. Never turn the thermostat over sixty-eight in the winter.
In the time it took to move my bed, my dresser, my paintings, and a gross of boxes, she gave me more advice than she had in eighteen years. But at least she tried. I stopped in the store before we left,
telling Dad I’d be in for my shift tomorrow afternoon. He nodded but never took his eyes off his ledger.

We unloaded my stuff into the State Street apartment, took a break, and then began the much longer task of loading Erik’s stuff back into the truck. He’s leaving tomorrow for San Diego.

I’m not.

The plan is simple, so simple it’s hardly a plan. Even though Mom and Dad have Ross now, I’ll be working at the store until at least mid-December. I have income. And savings. To prevent Erik from paying a huge fee for breaking his lease, I’m going to sublet his apartment until December when the lease expires. After that …

We have to be sure, Evan
.
Maybe we just need to do a little more thinking. You have to know that you can handle my suspicions and neuroses and I have to know that I can trust you.

I de-spoon myself, moving to the edge of the bed where I stand and look down. Erik lies naked, undisturbed, on the bedsheets. I resist the urge to reach out and touch his shoulder. Instead, I take the plane ticket from my nightstand. It’s the second one I’ve been given in as many months. This one is dated December 15.

There’s e-mail. There’s the phone. Hell, I’ll even fly back a couple times as my schedule allows. I’m not giving up on us, Evan, and you shouldn’t either. But let’s slow down just a bit, take some time.

And I had to ask.

No. I won’t be dating anyone. I’ll be honest and say that I hope you won’t either. But that’s part of what this time apart is about. If you decide you need to see other people, all I ask is that you tell me about it. But I won’t be dating anyone.

I step out of the bedroom. The living room’s cerulean darkness is mottled with half-open boxes. I’ve attempted to spread my few possessions around to make it look homey. It’s like trying to put rouge on an elephant. The hardwood cools my soles and I close my eyes and sway, remembering the times Erik and I spent dancing barefoot in this very room. We danced once more tonight. We made love—and it was magenta and taupe and sapphire—and when we were done, he held me gently as I cried. When I was cried out, I held him; it was his turn.

I won’t lie to you. We both have some big decisions to make. And you’d better be doing some thinking because I sure will be. You might decide you’re better off in Wisconsin or Chicago. I might decide I’m in no rush for a long-term commitment. Or maybe we’ll both decide that the fifteenth of December is the start of Evan and Erik, Part Two. Whatever we decide, we have to make the right choice. Promise me you’ll do some serious thinking over the next few months. Promise me.

I promise.

Propped up in the corner sits the antique oak mirror, orphaned so that I might have a lighter easel. My reflection
as I approach is dark and nebulous, the streetlights spilling away from the mirror’s base. I realize it’s been two days since I last thought about Davis, worried about him. He would have found the mirror gaudy. He wouldn’t have seen what I see. One big canvas.

So do it,
Oxana coaxes me.
Paint your own Haring. Let it stand as a testament that it’s time to move on and find out what Evan Weiss has to say
. I unpack my paints; it feels good to hold them again. I spread them out in the faint patches of light, squinting to read the labels. I begin mixing in the semidarkness, squeezing from tubes, picturing the hues and tints in my memory and hoping the dim light doesn’t taint my perceptions. It’ll be interesting to see what shades I’ve come up with, once the sun is up. I study the reflection, tall and lean, settled and unsettled, and begin to paint.

UNTITLED SELF PORTRAIT

INSPIRATION:
Keith Haring’s
Radiant Baby

PALETTE:
Background = too many colors to name
Body outline = black
Body fill = white

The background consists of jigsaw puzzle pieces, exaggerated in size, crooked and twisted. Each piece, bordered by thick black lines, alternates with a variety of hues of my own creation.

In the foreground, I am a faceless, featureless infant outline, squatting as though attempting to stand for the first time. Black lines—my radiance—surge out in every direction from my form. The interior of the body is painted in white.

But the portrait is unfinished. I have until December to mix the perfect color to fill in the last, unpainted portion of mirror. In the center of the chest, where the heart should be, is a silver, reflective hole.

A small, square-egg-shaped hole.

A daunting presence since the seventies, HIV and AIDS continue to exist as a global epidemic, affecting both LGBT and straight communities. More than 56,000 new cases of infection are diagnosed every year in the United States alone. One in five people infected with HIV is unaware that they carry the virus. This year AIDS will kill more than 18,000 people in the United States.

For more information, please visit the following websites:

http://www.avert.org/

http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/default.htm

Endless thanks to the trifecta who made this happen: my agent, Robert Guinsler, and my editors, Anica Rissi and Annette Pollert.

Thanks to the following beta readers whose feedback was in-freaking-valuable in getting through all this: Charlotte Sullivan, Swati Avasthi, Nicholas Hupton, Susan Power, Brett Fechheimer, Mark Schroeder, Pamela Jo Pape Schroeder, Michele Campbell, J. Quinn Malott, Joel Anderson, and Trisha Speed Shaskan.

And my thesis committee: Lawrence Sutin and Mary Logue. I couldn’t have asked for two wiser guides along my path.

Aaron Black, wherever you are, thanks for sparking the idea!

And, of course, all my love and thanks to Benji—my very own Erik—whose faith means the world to me.

To get to where he is today, Brian Farrey’s path took this route: student, stock boy, waiter, college TV program director, local TV news promotions producer, community theater executive director, bookseller, community relations manager, and publicist. He’ll leave you to guess which were willing choices and which were not. He currently acquires young adult novels for Flux. He holds an MFA in creative writing from Hamline University and lives in St. Paul, Minnesota, with his husband. He has an almost obsessive love of
Doctor Who
(both old-school
Who
and the recent reboot). You might find him skulking about
www.brianfarreybooks.com
.