That Feeling - 6. Converging

I don’t know why I came here. I don’t know why I’ve decided to torture myself even more by sitting in my car staring at the Starbucks sign knowing Knox is inside waiting on me. But I did come. Maybe because I know everything is unraveling faster than I can figure out and after lunch today I am so confused that I think something like this might even help. Even if it’s a bad idea because I don’t know why Knox wanted me to come here. I have no idea what’s going on and that scares me because everything seems so out of control and the last thing I want is out of control. Maybe it isn’t as bad as it seems. Maybe he just wants to talk about something easy and clean, but I know that’s not what this is about, because nothing is ever easy and clean for me and that is why it all sucks. I know this has to do with me and maybe that text and maybe those stares I can’t help, but I just don’t want to believe it. Part of me wants to go in if only to see him sitting there and know he’s waiting on me. I could smile at him as I walk in and make my order and turn and see him sitting there. I could hug him and sit with him and stare at his blond curls as they graze his collar and see my reflection in his green eyes. I could tell him how beautiful he is and he would blush and maybe I would touch his foot with my foot and then we would talk about John Green novels and maybe French films. He’d tell me all about Texas or Louisiana or wherever it is he’s from. He’d tell me about the time he fell off his bike and scraped his knee and that is where that scar on his knee came from. He’d tell me he wants to be a lawyer or a teacher or an engineer or maybe even an artist and he’d sip his coffee in slow sips, looking up over the cup at me. It’d be sepia with grainy film and Sofia Coppola camerawork and a feeling of warmth and good smells and belonging. He’d smile and lick the froth of his lips and it’d be the happiest I’ve ever been. My heart would beat faster than ever before; I’d be afraid of a heart attack, but I’d be in love. We’d leave Starbucks and go to the park over by the river and walk along the rapids. We’d hold hands in the moonlight and watch the water flow slowly over the rocks at the fall line. He’d tell me the river is rocky the rest of the way up, that’s why they built the city here way back in the 1700s as the last inland port. We’d look the other direction at the broad river glinting in the moonlight. He’d say something about taking a boat down the river to Savannah in the summer. He’d say we could jump in the water along the way, as long as the alligators didn’t eat us and he’d smile at me. I’d smile back and tease him for being so smart. He’d hold my hand tighter and look into my eyes. My heart would beat even faster, almost coming out of my chest. We’d kiss. I’d float away into the sky and touch the stars and be part of the moonlight because it’d be that good.

I blink. I’m not at the river kissing Knox anymore. I’m still in my car. I get out. I start to walk toward the door. A feeling of dread washes over me and I turn around. God, I’m a coward when it comes down to it. I can’t even talk to the guy I like. I can’t even be nice to him, so it’s just all shit. I’m almost back to my car. But I need to go in. I’m here and I need to and maybe I will say something with meaning and everything won’t be so hard and I ask “why am I even worried anyways?” Not going in will only makes things worse because he expects me to be here. He told me to be here and I’m here, so I have to go in. I wonder what Avery is doing and where she is at and what is going to happen to us. Will I see her tomorrow and act like everything is normal again as she hugs me? Will Carson be there checking her make-up in the mirror and giggling at something Jake has said and telling Sara she needs to break up with her boyfriend because he’s cheating on her? I imagine this in my mind and it all seems so perfect, so normal and comfortable and right, but I don’t know how it’ll work out. I think it’s all going to fall apart. The pieces might land in neat rows and work out, but it can never be like it was because I just can’t pretend anymore. I am so tired and blank that I just can’t stand the act. I know if I go into the shop, it’s over. The act is over because I don’t think I can do it anymore. Knox is Knox and I’m Caleb and I like him a lot in a really gay sort of way that I can’t control anymore. But can I tell him that? I don’t think I can, but it’s better to take baby steps now and maybe we can both understand something more about this whole situation than we did yesterday, or even this morning. I turn around and walk into the shop. The smell of coffee overwhelms me and for a second I feel like things aren’t so bad. Because coffee is good and so everything else must be too. I see Knox sitting at a table in the corner. I decide to not order anything. Seeing Knox there makes me think I’d puke it up anyways, because my stomach feels like it is going to fall out. He’s looking directly at me and I can’t stand it. I glance around the shop. A man is working at his laptop. Two girls around my age are talking and giggling. A mom fusses at her son who has spilt her coffee. I sit down at the table. I don’t say anything, just sit there looking for patterns in the blank tabletop. Knox sips from his cup. He doesn’t say anything right away. He looks to the counter. At something behind me. Anywhere but at my face.

“I didn’t think you’d come.” He pauses. I don’t say anything back. “Being as you hate me and all.”

I cringe because that’s not true, not even a little bit. But how could he know that? I treat him like crap and expect him to just know that it doesn’t mean anything. I expect him to be fine with it all and love me unconditionally because that’s how I want it to be, because I’m a selfish asshole. But he doesn’t even know anything about me, so how can it be that way?

“I don’t hate you.” It comes out feeble and I hate it because the whole tough, hating, ignoring act feels a million miles away and all I can do is look at the table and mumble words and I don’t know how I’m even breathing anymore. I feel empty and hollow and I want the dead feeling back because the dead Caleb could look Knox in the eyes and say something horrible and not feel anything. But this Caleb can’t and I feel shriveled and low to the ground. I can feel everything and that scares me, because everything feels so fragile. I don’t want to be here anymore because it’s too easy to be broken. I want to go back to my car and imagine the river and the moonlight and the kiss and the floating to the star. But things aren’t that simple. Were they ever that simple at all?

“Could’ve fooled me.” His voice is harsh. I don’t like it. I look up and he’s staring straight at me. He sighs deeply and leans back in the chair, covering his face with his hands open. “I know you don’t like me hanging out with your friends so much. Maybe you’re jealous or something. I don’t know. I don’t even know why I asked you to come here anyways. At lunch I was just so fed up with it all and I just...cracked...It’s just like...I tried so hard to be your friend, Caleb. I tried and you just ignored me. You talked about me and said hurtful things and you didn’t even care. But I still tried because it seemed like you were the reason it all worked. Jake and Avery and Carson and even Sara seemed to work only because you were there. They kept telling me to give you time, that you’d come around. But it never happened. I don’t know. I don’t know anything.”

He stops talking and looks away. I look at his neck muscle straining the neck of his t-shirt. I want to touch his skin. I want to run my fingers over his skin and know that it does something for him. He looks back at me. In an awkward moment our eyes meet.

“Avery thinks you’re jealous of God-knows-what. Carson won’t tell anyone what she thinks other than she doesn’t think you actually hate me. So what is it, Caleb? What’s your deal?”

He looks at me and he wants me to say something. He wants me to talk now, but my mouth won’t move and it feels like years have passed with only the ambient sounds of a suburban Starbucks as a reply. My throat feels dry and I swallow my saliva. I test my tongue, moving it around trying to form different words. Finally something comes out, but it’s not what I want, not quite: “I’m sorry.”

His eyes kind of squint and he cocks his head. He looks annoyed. He doesn’t say anything, though. He means for me to go on. But what do I say? I can’t tell the truth. I can’t tell him the reason I acted like I hated him was because I have a huge gay crush on him that I didn’t want anyone to know about. I can’t do that without giving away a little part of myself, because I’m not ready for that yet. Maybe I’ll never be. Honesty is hard and the truth is sometimes the only thing we have all to ourselves.

“I didn’t mean it to be so bad. I was...jealous...at first of you and Avery and then you and Carson and then you and Jake and maybe you and Sara. I don’t know. It just all happened so fast, and, I don’t know. It was dumb. I don’t do well with new people.” I say it fast, but low. My voice isn’t as strong as I want it to be and that’s bad. That doesn’t work because he’s looking at me now like I’m unreal.

“Okay. Let’s just get over all this bullshit and stop acting like little girls, okay?” He sits there for a few minutes, then does a half smile at me and gets up. “See you tomorrow, Caleb. I hope you get over whatever it is that has everyone worrying about you so much.”

He walks out the door and I just stare after him. What just happened? What was that supposed to mean? People are worried about me? I want to run after him and ask him. I want to punch him in the stomach until he tells me what no one else will. Do they all see through me? It feels that way right now. It feels like all that effort wasn’t paying off and I want to die, because they all let me do it. That’s it: I want to die. I don’t want to kill myself or anything like that. But just to die. To get some virus and be dead tomorrow, or maybe a freak accident. I don’t know. I just want to be gone and done and free of it all. But that feels wrong. I feel guilty. There are so many people in this world who have it so much worse than me. People with cancer who fight with everything they have for life to stay with them just a bit longer. People who are starving everyday with no food because they can’t afford and maybe even steal just for that little bit to stay alive. Thinking like this makes me feel worse. I want to cry. I always want to cry, but I’m in Starbucks and there are people all around me. I wish I could make it all better by myself, but I don’t think I can. I just don’t know if I can. I thought the problem was the hiding and the faking and all that shit. I thought all the bad feelings were because of that. But the more I think about it, coming out won’t help much of anything. Because even if I keep my friends, it won’t be the same. It can’t be the same because as much as I want to be the same person as always I don’t think I can be. I can’t because I’ve never liked that person, not the scared little boy, or the fake adolescent. I hated him all along. I’m not saying coming out won’t be good. It could let be me without the hiding and the faking, but I don’t know if the feelings will go away. I don’t know if I can be anyone anymore.

The giggling girls walk past me on the way to the bathroom. They look at me and smile. I do a half smile, but my heart isn’t in it. They want to flirt with me and maybe talk but I can’t do it. They disappear into a hall and I get up to leave. There is no reason for me to stay and stew over everything in Starbucks, when I could easily go home and lay in the comfort of my duvet where everything makes sense and isn’t so hard.

By the time I get home, everything seems so out of place. I sit in my car in the driveway, staring up at my house. I want to go in, but I don’t want to see or talk to anyone. I just want to be alone. I haven’t eaten yet, but I’m really not hungry. I don’t know if I could eat anyway. My whole life seems like a bad dream; some distant phantasm jumbled together in the mind of a sadistic creator that I can’t control because it’s not even real. The house is dark when I walk in. My dad is in his office; the light floods down the hall and I can hear him talking on the phone about the third quarter profits. It was apparently a good quarter. I want a drink, but do I chance going to the kitchen? I walk forward. I walk to the stairs and hear Cassie’s music drifting down. I hesitate. Should I go up? Should I flee to the comfort of my room and my bed and take off all my clothes and play sad music until I drift off into something truly unreal? I walk forward to the kitchen. My mom is sitting in the living room, reading a book by lamplight in a chair. I open the refrigerator and grab a soda. I shouldn't drink it this late but I'm over what I should and shouldn't do at this point. I know my mom has probably seen me by now. I know this and I hate it because I don't want to talk to her or even see her. For some reason I feel like she can see right through me and that's no good because I can't pretend anymore. I close the refrigerator waiting for her to say something. I can feel her watching me over the breakfast bar and I know she'll call out to me.

"Caleb."

I knew she would. I turn around and she's laid her book open on the arm of the chair. It's that Jonathan Franzen novel she's been talking about for the last two weeks. She's pushed her reading glasses up to her forehead. Shit. She wants to talk to me. I pop the soda's tab and swallow, sitting it on the granite countertop after it fizzles down my throat. My hand feels heavy and I lay it open on the cold granite. I want to leave.

"Caleb, come here. I want to talk to you."

"Okay."

I walk out of the kitchen and into the living room, though the open floor plan leaves little distinction other than the furniture. She’s sitting there in that big chair. It engulfs her and she looks so small. Her blonde hair, usually sculpted with hair spray and product, is thrown haphazardly into a kind of pony tail. She has her legs crossed and her elbows propped on her knee. She smiles at me and motions for me to sit on the arm without the book. I grimace because I don't want to be this close, not now. This closeness feels like telling secrets. Like the heat from out bodies transfers things unspoken. But not just my secrets, hers too. I need to think of my mom as the ice queen who reigns over the controlled domesticity of suburban life with Coach purses and Ralph Lauren blouses or she'll be too real for me to compartmentalize. She’d become hyperreal in my constructions and that’s something else to try rationalize into the world I’ve built. Something I just don’t want to do. I love my parents, but I need the distance, especially now with this transparent feeling, because who better and worse to see through your bullshit than your parents.

But I sit on the arm of the chair anyways. Her hands start to gently rub across the small of my back, tracing my t-shirts' threads. I want to like it, but I can’t. Not now. Not tonight.

"Do you remember when you were little and you couldn't go to sleep unless I rubbed your back? You'd pull on my arm and beg and I'd always give in. And we'd talk about your day and you'd ask me silly questions or I'd sing you songs until you'd fall asleep. And then you grew up, and you barely let me in your room anymore."

Her voice is far off and that makes me uncomfortable. I feel like a character in a book everyone has read. Like everyone knows where I've been, and where I'm at, and where I'm heading because they've read the book six times already, but I'm always stuck in this moment forever until they read the next chapter. My experiences only happen because the reader lets them. I remember the back rubs now because my mom is reading that chapter, but she’s at the advantage because she knows what happens next. The rubs are important because they have to be, or else the book makes no sense. They have to be a symbol of something I can’t understand yet, something at the end and everything will suddenly make sense. Everything has to be important like that or why does any of it even matter.

She continues rubbing, now in tiny circles. I want to get up, but I can't. I feel stuck. Why is this so difficult? I want to squirm, but I can’t even do that without her knowing I’m uncomfortable.

“Carson called.”

I turn my head. “What’d she want?”

“To talk to you.”

“She say why?”

“She’s worried about you.”

Her voice is almost a whisper and she’s not really looking at me, more like looking through me. My heart feels like it’s going to stop because everything is converging. I’ve tried to keep everything in nice, neat compartments, but they’re converging and I can’t control them anymore. Carson is calling my mom and Cassie knows and Knox demands me to go to Starbucks with him. What do I do? I turn my head back but stay still on the arm and my mom continues the slow twirling motions of her fingers. She lifts up my shirt and touches her hand to my bare back. Her hand is cold and I shiver.

“Is everything alright, Caleb? I mean, does Carson have reason to worry?”

I want to say yes. I want to tell her everything if only to get it out of the way. But I remember the list and how she’s under the minus column and it’s just all too risky because I still don’t want it to be real. I know it’s there, I’ve always known it’s there, but I’m not sure anymore what it is. I thought it was being gay, but I don’t know anymore. Because plenty of gay kids don’t feel like this, right? Maybe I’m depressed and need to see a doctor. But won’t telling your mom you’re depressed be almost as bad as telling her you’re gay? I think so, at least a little bit. So I want to tell her, but I really can’t. I just can’t.

“I’m fine.” The words come out shaky and my voice cracks a little on “i” in fine because I feel like crying and anyone would know I’m not fine from just that. But my mom doesn’t say anything more, because that’s all the authenticity we can muster. These past few minutes are all the time we can allow for the masks to fall for a bit.

I stand up and face her. She’s not looking at me, but slightly behind me.

“G’night, Mom.”

“Good night, Caleb.”

I start to walk back through the kitchen, heading for the stairs.

“I love you, Caleb.”

I don’t respond.