BigBen

As long as no one is dangling any participles, what happens between consenting adults is nobody else's business . . .

And speaking of Cave-in, I'm reminded of Joan Rivers' old gynecologist routine: "There's Jimmy Hoffa!"

I was going to suggest introducing Mr. Practiced Predator Would-Be Date-Rapist to Kevin, but then I realized it wouldn't work: you can't rape the willing. 🍆😱😣

Not at all. He made perfectly reasonable deductions from the evidence available to him. His fault, if any, lies in not being able to allow new evidence to be presented to him. (At one point, when Chase tries to do so, he asks how long it took Chase to make up that "explanation;" on another occasion, he insists that his understanding of events is the only correct understanding.) At least he now seems to be listening somewhat, at least if Chase gets riled up and makes a point forcefully enough. Speaking of evidence, by the way, it was Lilah's error to try to cover up Henry's drinking. Her intentions were good, but the results were disastrous. Tidying up after Henry only allowed him to persist in his denial that his drinking was a problem. It also gave Hank the impression that Henry's drinking was caused by the divorce, whereas the reality is that the drinking was probably what made the marriage (not to mention Hank!) possible in the first place.

I'm not saying it's impossible for Chase and Hank to build a relationship, but they would have to start from the ground up. Hank still has a great deal of work to do, before he will be ready for a relationship. Assuming Hank is actually willing to do the work (possible, because he seems to now be in enough pain to be willing to change), will Chase be able to wait the necessary time? That's not actually under anyone's control. If they both still have respect and trust for each other, a new connection may be possible, but once lost, respect is extremely hard, maybe impossible, to rekindle. But Hank has not been treating Chase with respect, and appears not to feel that Chase has treated him with respect, either. In any case, they need to do the work for their own sakes, not to please each other, or getting back together isn't going to work.

You know, I'm not sure I want them to rekindle their relationship. The more Gary reveals of how messed up Hank is, the more I'm convinced that Chase could do better.

It was also a specialty of your grandparents', back in the nineteen-sixties and -seventies! 😊

And we all know what a gaping maw Kevin's opening is . . .

It's been nice to see Chase taking care of Hank, and even better, taking charge when necessary. It's also clear that Chase, like me, believes that their old relationship is dead—which I consider a good thing. Chase clearly cares a lot for Hank, and perhaps it would be possible, once Hank gets a clearer hold of his issues, for them to start up a new connection, on a solider basis. We'll just have to see, I guess. Gary isn't going to give us any hints, that's for damn sure! 😄

🎵 There's a place for us, somewhere a place for us . . . 🎵

I of course meant Henry and Will. I fixed the original post. That's a great thought, but unfortunately, I see two problems with it. The first is that Henry appears to have been an alcoholic, though Gary never states that definitively. And the problem with that is that once an alcoholic takes to the bottle, the bottle ends up taking him, usually with fatal results, as we see in this story. Had Henry not been an alcoholic, he might have eventually been able to pull out of it and get back on track. Unfortunately, barring a miracle, an alcoholic in the grips of the disease is incapable of escaping without help. The other problem is that Henry appears to have grown up with the attitudes that were generally inculcated in gay men and women when I was a child. That he had a close relationship with Will is one thing, but while Gary again does not give us a definitive answer, it does appear that, like many gay men I've known, he did his best to repudiate his nature and be "normal." It's possible that his connection with Lilah is what drove Will away. If he was trying desperately to be heterosexual, then that precludes a relationship with another man, and Lilah's testimony is that he couldn't even get an erection when she begged him for a second child, and I doubt things would have been any better with another woman. (Not that the alcohol was helping, either.) I have a lot of identification with Henry here, because the path he took in life was the path I would absolutely have taken, had it been at all possible, and his end would most likely have been mine. I'm really grateful that, if I had to be gay in the first place, at least I was so far at the end of the Kinsey scale that I had no hope of even trying to fake it with a woman. And fortunately that was very clear even during the horniest part of my teenaged hormonal phase. Given the ages of the characters in this story, Henry would have been born at a time when things were beginning to improve, but he could easily have been indoctrinated with all the old, toxic attitudes. And obviously, he was functional enough with women (at least at first) to get someone pregnant. And the result was one screwed-up young man, who is only now beginning to recognize how badly he was screwed up by his parents' situation. This is a really sad reminder of how bad things used to be for gay people. With all the problems and prejudices still remaining, our condition has improved enormously, thanks be to God.

A second reading let me see how Chase is now the strong one, taking care of Hank. Of course the circumstances are different, but it's nice to see that Chase can be there for Hank when Hank needs him. It also occurs to me that one of the reasons his connection with Charles means so much to Hank is that Charles fills part of the gap left by Henry's death. I wonder if Chase couldn't form a similar connection with Lilah that might help ease his loss of Christine. I'm still haunted by the story of Henry and Will. Of course, Gary has left it ambiguous what was really going on with Henry, but to a gay man of my generation, the story is all too familiar. One of the best reasons to stop stigmatizing homosexuality is how it causes just this kind of destruction in people's lives. It wasn't just Henry and Will who suffered, but also Lilah, Hank, and Chase. Looking back, I can see that it was a real blessing that marriage (with a woman, I mean) was never an option in my own case. At least that fact saved me from wreaking the kind of pain and chaos that Henry did. Because I was too weak to resist the pressure to conform, if conformity had been at all possible. Those were not good times for gay people. There were just no good options back then.

On that, we can most definitely agree!

It's a sad situation all around. But it's funny, that here you are, going off the idea of Chase's getting back with Hank, and I'm starting to feel it might actually work! But you're absolutely right that Hank has a lot of stuff to work through. Gary only knows how this will all play out. 😁

Wow! Poor Henry, caught in the gears like that. How many of us turn to tools like alcohol to try to deal with the pain and the cognitive dissonance? I was fortunate that in the end I decided I didn't really want to destroy myself, and Divine intervention saved me. Not all alcoholics are so blessed. This is not a turn I expected the story to take. Poor Lilah also suffered in all this, and Hank now has some more issues to deal with. I hope he and his mother can truly reconcile.

If you say so! 😄 Yeah, for some weird reason, bisexuals tend to get it from both sides. Not straight enough for the straights, not gay enough for the gays. You'd think that gay people, at least, would have compassion for members of another minority. I also have encountered Lydia's attitude that she'd know how to compete with another girl, but not with a boy. I don't believe I understand it, but it's a very real attitude. It's probably just that it's so easy to get hung up on externals. I had a friend who said essentially the same thing as Lydia, once. It was hard to get her to see that the sex of the person her boyfriend was attracted to was probably not as important as their qualities, and that she had qualities any man would go for. (I certainly would have, if I were anything less than a Kinsey 6.) In the end, her boyfriend's infatuation came to an end, and she won out by being the sweet and loving person she is. And she thought she couldn't compete!

Unlike a lot of commenters, I don't believe Danny's done anything essentially wrong. If he's led Jake on, Jake went with him willingly. We've all had crushes on straight boys, and they all eventually moved on, and we blamed them for it, but that doesn't mean we were right to do so. Jake's not distinguishing between the very real love Danny has for him as a friend/brother and the romantic/sexual love he wants in addition. Nor is it essentially wrong for Jake to do that, but I don't believe that Danny is to blame for Jake's feelings, however mixed the messages. What Jake seems to need to be reminded of is the fact that Danny's not going to stop supporting him—unless Jake actively drives him away. It will be interesting to see how all this plays out. I'm glad I'm old and don't have to deal with this crap anymore! 😄

Ouch!!! My bleeding heart. Am I really that old? (Don't answer that!)

One book I read decades ago, which helped me sort myself out, mentions that straight boys at that age will often form temporary sexual connections, but they will soon move on to girls, and the connection will be abandoned. If the other boy in the couple is gay, this can be seriously upsetting. One of the diagnostics of sexual orientation in this kind of situation is the straight boy's readiness to move on, and the gay boy's intense investment in the relationship, and painful feelings when it ends. I'm perfectly willing to believe Danny's assertion that he's straight. Though of course we know that sexual orientation is a continuum, and that very few people are either completely hetero or completely homo. It's why I believe that labels can be destructive, especially when there are aspects of ourselves that don't neatly fit into any one category. Using a label as a convenient, but not necessarily accurate, tag is one thing; forcing ourselves into a box in order to fit a label is a very different affair.

Oh, the fantasies of my youth! If only I'd had a Danny back then to make a move on me . . . (sigh). But of course in those days, the danger of admitting being gay to the wrong person was much more fraught than it is today (not that it's always consequence-free, even today).

This is going to sound snarky, but I mean it jokingly: Of course Jake is going to let Danny have his way with him! Most plots in this kind of fiction require all male characters to be completely subservient to their libidos. The idea that a teenage boy could possibly resist the offer of an orgasm is anathema in this kind of story. Why ruin a perfectly good story by including characters who can be responsible for their behavior? 🤣 🤣

I tend to agree with you on this. In my book, it will be a happy ending as long as they both learn something. But they've killed the old relationship and can't get back together. I could see an entirely new relationship going forward—maybe—but in order to be healthy, they'd have to really be careful to work through all the outstanding crap before trying.

It suddenly struck me that one of the things Hank will have to let go of is the idea that his mother caused his father's death. It appears from what we know, that the father was an alcoholic, so his death ws the result of his disease, not anything anyone did. And the father isn't really to blame, either. Alcoholism seems to be an innate vulnerability. Millions of people turn to drink and have no problem stopping when it's time. An alcoholic, however, has no control over his or her drinking, by definition. While alcoholics can get sober, and many do, the sad reality is that the majority are never able to achieve permanent sobriety. The ones who do recover from alcoholism are usually those who have experienced a life-changing moment of surrender, which is very hard to cause to happen, whether in one's own life or in another's. It's a really distressing business. As a long-time sober alcoholic once told me, when I was frustrated at not being able to help a guy I knew stay sober, "The sad reality is that sometimes we simply have to step over the bodies and move on."

The bang caused by piercing Wesley's bubble with your lawn dart? 🤣😂

I like that Chase is feeling good enough to rebuild his social life, and that Hank is feeling good enough to reach out to Chase. I especially like that Hank is in therapy now. That's a much-needed forward step. I was a little disconcerted by the phone conversation with Dawson. Dawson has given the impression that he is savvier about what's going on and what Chase needs, than to push Chase into reconciling. As others have pointed out, the fact that things have worked out between him and Brent doesn't mean that things will work out the same way between Chase and Hank. I was a little surprised by Chase's willingness to go with Hank to meet with the mother. On the other hand, however, Hank has stood up for Chase since the breakup, so perhaps he figures this is the least he could do in return. It might be a bit premature, in terms of building a new relationship with Hank, but it does show that Chase is a good guy. The intensity of the reaction to Julio's news surprised me. Other people have come up with good explanations for this however, and I have to remember that Chase and I are different people. In Chase's place, while I might have been disappointed that Hank needed outside confirmation before believing me, I would have accepted that this was the reality. After all, the whole affair began with Hank's seeing behaviour that led him to believe Chase couldn't be trusted, and sometimes that perception can be overcome only with outside help. Obviously, Chase is still hurting a lot more than has been apparent in the past few chapters. It's a very good sign that Chase is able to put aside his anger in order to help Hank deal with his mother. P.S.--As always, opinions are subject to revision at any time, especially on further re-reading and taking into account later comments!