Chapter 10 – Chapter 10

Chapter Ten

I moped around school for a couple of weeks. I couldn't even tell Lori why, as she still had a blind spot for Evans, and she'd have been pissed about the encounter in the bathroom.

I was raw and so unprepared for Steve's return. I was at my locker, and Steve – out of nowhere – asked me what me and my mother were doing for Thanksgiving.

"I don't know. Why do you care? You haven't talked to me for, like, two years."

"I know. That was douchey of me. I knew it was douchey, but then it went on and on and just got easier and easier."

"It wasn't easy for me."

I thought Steve was going to cry. I was not a good person, but I decided to do a good thing, so I tried to let him off the hook.

"Look, Steve. What's done is done. It's all behind me. I move forward, not backward."

Steve grabbed my hand and apologized. "Eric, I'm really sorry. But, things we spiraling out of control. We were making out all the time, I liked it but wasn't sure I wanted it, and then my friends accused me of dating you, and I lost it. I felt like I was getting painted with the wrong brush."

"It's okay. I'm fine. I missed you, but I got over it. I'm resilient, remember."

"Yeah, I remember," Steve said, defeated. "I'm a better person than you think I am."

I wanted to be curt and say "that's a low bar" or "I don't think about you at all" something similarly accusatory and bitchy. But, I had already tried to let him off the hook, so I decided in that split second to try again.

"Steve, I don't think you're a bad person. I just think you did bad thing. And, I'm over the bad thing. If you need or want to be forgiven, you are. You have been. Be free. Walk with a clear conscience. I'm over it." I wanted to add "and you," but I didn't.

"Thank you. Anyway, my dad thinks you and your mom should come for Thanksgiving this year."

Of course he did. And Steve almost certainly didn't know why. He would not have been so cavalier if he had.

I didn't think we should go. My mother disagreed. Vehemently. I felt the tunnels starting to narrow. I felt the water covering me. I felt the flames engulfing me.

It was an extremely awkward dinner. Mr. Lustig sat at the head of the table, directly across from his wife, pretending. My mother sat between them, also pretending.

The pretense was suffocating me. The conversation got faster, the words smashing into my like bullets from a machine gun. I couldn't breathe, and I needed desperately to get away from that table, from my mother and from Henry.

I excused myself and went to the bathroom. I put cold water on my face, but it didn't help. I sat on the edge of the tub, trying to think of something other than the game that was being played at the dining room table. My thoughts started to scramble, and the demons started pressing in. I put my head in my hands and tried to slow my breathing down. I knew the demons fed off my anxiety.

I was in jeopardy when I heard a knock at the door. It was Steve, and he was checking on me, just as he had when I had taken a knee to my stones.

I didn't answer him, but I moved from the tub to the floor. I leaned my back against the door. I couldn't open it. If I had, I'd have spilled my guts. And, the story was not mine to tell.

Steve asked me to let him in, and I told him I couldn't. So, Steve leaned his back against the door, too. Neither of us said a word for the longest time, but I started to calm down, knowing someone was on the other side, that I was not alone. Finally, Steve asked again if he could come in. I didn't answer, but I unlocked the door and moved out of the way.

Steve came in, and I settled back into my spot. Steve sat down next to me.

"Are you okay?"

"Did you know people call me Cupcake?"

"Yes."

"Do you?"

"Yes."

"I'd rather be a Cupcake than a Cookie."

"I'm not sure I understand the difference."

"Of course you don't."

"You never answered me, Eric. Are . . . you . . . okay?"

"I'm not, but I think I will be."

"Can I help?"

"No."

"I'd like to."

"Okay, but you can't."

We sat silently. Without thinking, I rested my head on Steve's shoulder, and he rested his head on mine.

I tried to match his breathing. I could feel myself calming down. I could feel the threats evanescing, the demons retreating.

"I'm not good with secrets," I finally offered. "They threaten me."

"You kept a pretty big one for a long time."

"No, I didn't. People just chose not to know what they didn't want to know."

"I knew."

"I know."

We stayed like that, quiet, our breathing matching each others', unconcerned about what was going on at that table. "Talk to me," I insisted.

"About what?"

"I don't care. I just need you to talk." I couldn't tell him I needed him to drown out the voices in my head, the ones that wanted me to do what I didn't want to do. "Just talk about you."

He started. "Alright. Let's see. I'm color blind. Not a lot of people know that. My favorite color, to the extent I have one, is orange. I see orange better than I see other colors. But, it's not your orange. It's my orange. My colors are different than everyone else's. For some reason, I like the idea of having my own colors. My favorite sport is football. My favorite player is Joe Montana. I like how calm he is under pressure. I'm not. I get rattled. My favorite movie is Animal House. My favorite TV show is Cheers. Your turn."

"My favorite color is red. Blood red. I don't have a favorite sport. I don't much care for sports. I like athletes, but not sports. My favorite athlete is Bjorn Borg. Like me, he has long blond hair. And, he's hot. My favorite movie is Ordinary People. It's also my favorite book. I don't watch TV much. Your turn."

"I rooted for McEnroe over Borg at Wimbledon. Because he's American. I hated Ordinary People. It was too slow. And Mary Tyler Moore was not the Mary Tyler Moore I knew. They made her awful. Raging Bull was a better movie and should have won the Oscar. My favorite book is In Cold Blood. My favorite song is Bruce Springsteen's 'Born to Run.' I miss kissing you. Your turn."

I was surprised by the candor of "I miss kissing you." With that admission, I felt free to move my right hand under his shirt. I wanted to be distracted from what I would have given anything not to know but could not un-know.

Like me, Steve had both filled out and thinned out in the intervening two years. He was 6'4". His curly brown hair was longer. His face and body had lost all vestiges of any baby fat. His arms and chest and legs were thick with muscle. He shuddered a little when I rested my hand on his stomach.

"I love Ordinary People because Donald Sutherland and Timothy Hutton survive the brother's death and Timothy's attempted suicide. It resonated with me, in light of what me and my mother have gone through. My favorite song is Dolly Parton's 'Coat Of Many Colors'; it reminds me of my mother and what she's done for me. Although I also love Allison Moyet's 'Invisible.' I feel that way most times . . . invisible. I started wearing makeup when I was little. It made me feel special. It still does. I miss kissing you, too. A lot. Your turn."

"You're not invisible, Eric. You're among the most visible. You wear makeup and stake out ground that no one else walks on. It draws the light to you . . . ."

I didn't hear the rest of what Steve said. I held my breath as I moved my hand over him. His nipples were hard, and had a hint of hair around them. He had a narrow, thick mat of hair on his chest. As I moved my hands to his belt, I felt the same hair leading from his navel to his crotch.

I started to unbuckle his belt. I was disappointed when he told me to stop. "Not here," he said, "not like this."

"Why not?"

"One, they're going to come looking for us soon. I don't think they should find us rolling around on the bathroom floor. Two, I don't want my first time with you to be on a bathroom floor."

"With me?" I asked.

"I'm not a virgin."

"I am. Mostly."

"Mostly? You either are or you're not."

"I made a guy come once," I said, ignoring the events of the bathroom stall as too sordid to share.

"Evans?"

"How'd you know?"

"I was jealous."

"Really?"

"Yes. Very much . . . . Since it's confession time, I have one. I'm really nervous about this. I've never been with a guy. Ever."

"Are you sure you want to be," I asked, standing up, and preparing myself to return to the table.

"I'm sure I want to be with you," he answered, certainly. "I have for a couple of years."

With my mother sober, there was no reason for her to spend the night, and she didn't. I did. When we got back to the table, Steve asked his mother and my mother if it was alright if I stayed.

My mother raised an eyebrow and asked to talk to me one on one before answering. We went to the family room, and she asked about my abrupt and extended departure from the table. I was honest with her, even though I feared I'd wound her, and I had never wounded her before.

"I just couldn't take the pretense. We were all just sitting there, ignoring the betrayal and the damage and the dishonesty. I had to get away. I couldn't control my thoughts. They were pinging and racing and out of control."

"Son, with all due respect, you don't know as much as you think you know." She then proceeded to tell me about the Lustig's marriage, which apparently had been sexless for a decade and joyless for longer than that. Mrs. Lustig had long taken a "don't ask, don't tell" approach toward her husband and whatever he did without her.

For the first time, she didn't comfort me when I told her my thoughts were uncontrollable. She must have trusted that I had worked through it. Or, she was more interested in her self than in me.

My mother's explanation did not assuage my concerns. But, they were at least cast in a different light, encased in a different context. I didn't head toward Steve with a clear conscience, but it was clearer than it had been.

Mollified, my mother headed home knowing that I was not in jeopardy. I don't know what I was in, but it wasn't jeopardy.