That Feeling - 13. Are we cool?

“She really said that to you?”

“I swear! It was insane.”

“And she was shirtless?”

“Boobs were everywhere, dude. It was like and episode of True Blood. You can’t make that shit up.”

Ethan and I are sitting in my bed, our backs against the headboard. Some made-for-TV movie is playing, but neither of us pay much attention to it. He has been telling me a story about a girl in Iowa who liked him and wouldn’t take ‘I’m gay’ as an appropriate response to her trying the give him a hand-job. We’ve been sitting here for an hour and my legs are starting to feel tingly, but I don’t want to move, because Ethan is cute with his messy brown hair and scraggly, wannabe beard and the way his smile kind of crooks to the right. He’s rugged in the ways that Knox is pretty and it makes me want him even more, because he seems to be everything Knox isn’t, wasn’t, could never be. Not like anything’s happened between us, but I wouldn’t mind it. I’d actually like it. I want it. This is the third weekend he’s come over and I’m still trying to muster up the courage to say something. What I really want is to ask him to spend the night one night and then maybe sleep together. But since I’m a coward, I don’t see that happening. Plus, I’m not sure how my parents would feel about that now that I’m a confirmed homo. Yeah, my mom eventually found out, not because of some huge coming out on my part, but because of a very rude remark on someone else’s part. Avery’s damn mother told my mom, like arch-bitch number one. Said she was concerned for me and how much what I’d said upset her daughter, wanted to let my parents know. Well, my mom was shocked, sort of. But not because I was gay, because that woman actually told her like that. She cussed her out and sent her on her way. Mom didn’t say anything about it for a week before she cracked and came to my room one night. We hugged and did all the lovey-dovey crap.

I guess I’ve just come around to the idea of being out, at least kind of. I spent so long being afraid of it, that I never thought about what it’d actually be like. And it’s pretty good. Not that I’ve actually come out to the whole school or anything. I don’t know if I’m brave enough for that. But I have friends and family and I can smile and laugh and blush and all that shit and feel okay about it. Because once people know who you want to have sex with, it kind of all goes down hill from there. What else is there to really hide? Which is why part of me is sure my parents, in all their progressiveness, probably wouldn’t like the idea of a boy they know I like, who is gay, spending the night with me. So I don’t even want to ask.

But I can still look at Ethan; at his eyes as they look at me and tell me the stories that are probably more for entertainment than factual accounts; at his thighs as his gym shorts have slid down and exposing the little brown hairs contrasting against his white skin, the hem of his black boxer-briefs visible around the pool of mesh fabric. He sees me glancing, but continues his story, grinning. I’ve noticed this. I’ve noticed how he notices me always looking, always peeking, and how he casually allows for the peeks, but never really encourages them, never acknowledges them. Just grins. I find it incredibly infuriating and sexy at the same time. I want to jump on him and stick my tongue down his throat and touch his muscular arms and feel his supple stomach. But I won’t. I can’t. He’ll have to make the first move and I think he knows it. The way he looks at me sometimes, like he can read my mind, but is silently chastising me like one would a young child: ‘Now, now Caleb, let’s not be so hasty.’ I think he knows how crazy he drives me. Which is scary. Because I was crazy over Knox, and that drove me down some crazy warpath of obsessiveness that made me loose my mind. And he never knew, not really. Oh, he can say all he wants that he suspected, but the more I think about this in a rational state of mind and talked to Carson and Sara extensively, Knox’s revelations feel more like power-plays against the poor, confused gay boy. Over the past month, I’ve actually come to almost hate Knox in that kind of passive way we reserve for people who’ve hurt us. I can look at him and even talk to him, and unfortunately work with him, and never let it show. But it’s there. Maybe it’ll always be.

And I don’t want my head to be in that place again, with Ethan. But it’s so different. Because Ethan looks at me, a lot. And touches my arm gently, sometimes. But never longingly, never like he wants me like I want him. He looks in my eyes and seems to reprimand my feelings. Or he tells outrageous stories about when he lived in Iowa or when he went to Copenhagen or when he got lost in the Costa Rican rainforest. He’s got story after story and half the time I’m not even sure I believe him. I want to believe, but I just can’t. Because he talks about his dad like he’s some great adventurer that travels the world whenever he feels like it, and maybe he is. But he’s also an English professor at the University and teaches a photography class at Gertrude Herbert and served on the county’s art council. Judging from the picture I found when I googled him, I just don’t see him trapping dingoes in Tasmania. And maybe that’s what I like about Ethan. Maybe I need someone who’ll tell me anything to impress me, and look at me reproachfully when it’s obvious I want this all to go somewhere, because maybe that’s normal. Maybe that means he actually likes me in ways that no one has before.

Ethan eventually leaves, it’s Sunday night and he has homework to get done before tomorrow and I do too, probably. I walk him to the front door and watch him pull out. The departure was chaste. No kiss. No hug. Not even a touch. Sometimes I don’t think he’s even gay, because I’ve made it abundantly clear what I want. My mom’s in the dining room again, her work spread out over the table. She’s typing on her laptop, her hair thrown behind her head in something like a pony tail. I walk around the table, rubbing the different fabric samples between my fingers. She has a square of this graphic lime and gray stripe fabric that she’s using to reupholster a chair for a client. I run my fingers over it, it’s soft, like silk.

She looks up, her black glasses balancing mid-way on her nose. She smiles. “What’s up?”

I remember how I used to think how stiff everything was. How I just went through the motions and lived life and boxed my mom and dad and everyone into these neat little boxes that made sense for me, but actually fucked up everything. “Can I talk to you about something?”

I’d have never done this a month ago, not even disguised as “safe” straight talk. I’d have thought my mom much too proper and uncaring for such a conversation, but of course I was wrong, like I have been wrong about most other things in my life. She nods her head and smiles.

“I like Ethan.”

“Yeah…”

Of course she would know. “I don’t think he likes me. That way.”

“Oh, Caleb. Unrequited love is tough. But unfortunately it happens more than we’d like.”

“But it’s just...Liking a guy who doesn’t like you back because he’s straight is hard enough. But liking a gay guy who doesn’t like you for God knows what is just...so much harder.”

“You’ve only known him for what, a month? Give it some time. Things don’t happen overnight.”

“I know. But I make it abundantly clear I am interested.”

She gives me this look down her nose. “In the right way, I hope.”

“Jesus, Mom.”

“Caleb, I still expect a certain level of decency, no matter who it is you like.”

“Mom--”

“You haven’t done anything with him, have you?”

“Mom!”

“Well, have you?”

“No! Jesus!”

“Okay, that’s good. No one else either?”

A picture of Jake straddling my lower body, his lips puffy as they moved up and down my shaft, entered my mind. I quickly said, “Gosh Mom! I’m not a slut!”

“I just want you to be safe. You’re not ready for intimacy like that yet.”

Her statement kind of rubbed me the wrong way, because who was she to tell me what I was ready for, even if it was mostly true. I wasn’t ready for sex. That first blow-job had been a mistake. Everything with Jake had been a mistake, even if a part of me didn’t want to believe it. I saw Jake sometimes at school. He’s stopped sitting with us at lunch. In the halls, he looked sad and withdrawn. Sara told me she’d heard he’d been hanging out with this kid named Carlo. I didn’t know Carlo, but apparently Sara did and only said he was “bad news.” After it all, I was still a little worried about Jake. Looking back, I’d treated him badly, mainly because I was going through my own shit, am still going through my own shit. But still, I could have done something. Said something.

Back in my room, it still smells like Ethan’s obnoxious body spray, but that picture of Jake on top of me, our skin touching, the feel of his breath and his tongue and his mouth in mine still plays on my mind. So much so that I’m hard, my heart beating fast. I make sure my door is shut and locked and then slip my pants off. Laying on the bed, my hands feel cold as I grasp my dick. As I slowly slide my hand up and down, up and down, the pictures of that night play through my mind. At first it’s Jake, kissing and caressing and bobbing up and down, but it turns into Ethan and his eyes smirking at me and he changes into Clark and then Knox and then Joey and finally back to Jake as I come into his mouth. I lay there, panting. I quickly grab the rag from the under my mattress and clean up the mess. Slipping my boxers back on, I feel a little down. What was that about? I’m over Knox and Jake was never even a thing, not really. But I know somewhere inside that that isn’t true. A part of me still needs something more with Jake, if only something to close it all down.

I grab my phone from the nightstand and scroll through my messages until I see Jake’s name. I haven’t texted him in a month. In fact, the last message there is from him, saying ‘I am so sorry…’ At the time, I’d cursed him and threw the phone down into my pillow and said I never wanted to see him again. That was the day I’d pushed him down in the hallway, the last time I’d spoken to him, but I’d thought of him almost everyday. I couldn’t text him. I just couldn’t, as much as I wanted to.

The next day at school is flat. I walk around and go to my classes and occasionally nod at people, but I’ve been really withdrawn lately. Because even though I’m not in crisis mode anymore, I still don’t feel like I’m that sociable, likable guy everyone thinks everyone else should be, or else something must be wrong with them. With me. But I don’t think anything is. I struggled so long being someone I’m not, that I’m starting to realize who I am and it’s not necessarily anyone I would have thought. I like to be alone. I don’t like people. I walk down the hall and I literally cringe at eye contact with people I don’t know, and before I would have taken a deep breath and just did it because, but now I can’t bring myself to pretend. Which makes people look at me funny. Because I don’t even look the same anymore, either. My hair is longer and I don’t think I combed it this morning. I didn’t even shower. Today, I’m wearing an oversized sweater I stole from my dad and a pair of jeans that are a little too small on me. Carson says I’m going for a grunge-esque hipster look, whatever the hell that is. It’s mainly because I just don’t give a shit anymore. Some people look at me with this look, like they’re trying to read my mind and find out what happened to me and why I’m such a freak now. I don’t care. It doesn’t matter. Before lunch, Clark stops me in the hall and asks if I want to go out with him this weekend. He knows this guy who works at this gay club downtown and can get us in. I say I’ll think about it, and I will. I’ll think about how to form the n-o as it comes up my throat, how my tongue will have to hit my palette, the long ohhhh. Then he’ll give me that look, his head cocked, sassy and judging. His hair’ll fall a little over his eye and he’ll push it back and he’ll smell like Givenchy and hair product and then I’ll say okay and his eyes will light up. I only say no as a matter of principle. Like when Carson asks me at lunch if I want to go to the mall with her after school.

“No.”

“You always say no.”

“Your point?”

“It’ll be fun! We can buy stuff. We can sit in the food court and make fun of middle schoolers. We can check out hot guys.”

I roll my eyes at her, but she’s got a pouty face. She knows I’ll give in. She knows after school I’ll be in the passenger seat of her black BMW, shuffling her iPod to some almost-famous pop act, singing along with the windows down, even though it’s getting colder every day.

“Okay, whatever.”

“Yes! Okay, I need a new jacket.”

“You always need a new jacket.”

“The modern fashionista cannot have too many jackets, Caleb.”

Sara sits down and she and Carson talk about something, but I zone out. Across the cafeteria, I see Jake sulking down a side hall toward the cafeteria. A few seconds later, a boy I don’t recognize catches up with him. The boy is saying something, his face neutral, but his hand straining Jake’s forearm. Jake shakes him off and keeps walking. The other boy says something, his face looking angry, obviously saying Jake’s name loudly. I can’t hear it over the roar of the lunchroom. But I know. Jake keeps walking toward the lunch tables, his hand stealthily meets his face and wipes downward. The crowded tables engulf him, but I try to keep an eye on him. I glance towards the other guy. He’s still standing there, watching Jake walk away. Jake goes down another hallway closer to me. I know he’s going to the library. I look at Carson and she’s explaining to Sara about a new make-up brush she bought over the weekend. Sara’s boyfriend has set down with us, but he’s writing something in a notebook.

“I’ll be back.” I get up and walk toward the library. I look back and Carson is staring at me, confused, but I keep going forward. The doors to the library slide open automatically. The smell of books hits my nose and I look around for Jake. There’s a freshman class at the first class area, the librarian is showing them a slideshow about how to do library research. I continue on. The second open area is empty, I cut through it to the stacks, which I know have study areas nestled at the ends. I walk past the ends of the stacks, passing students stacked with books or making out. After about five aisles, I see Jake. He’s sitting at a table, his arms folded and his face buried somewhere inside. I walk up and stand at the table unnoticed. I know he’s crying, but I don’t know how to approach it. I don’t know how to initiate this interaction. We were best friends for years and I feel like we barely even know each other. But my worrying doesn’t even matter, because he looks up and looks at me for a little bit, his face red and his eyes puffy and wet. He wipes at his face, but just smears his tears onto his cheeks and they glisten in the fluorescent lights of the library.

“What do you want?” He tries to make his voice steady, but I can hear the shakiness. I don’t think I should sit down, maybe that would be like an invasion and I can’t do that.

“I just, wanted to check on you.”

“Why?” his voice was thick and hateful and I felt bad for a minute. But why should I? He was the one who took advantage of me. Everything that happened was his fault. So I sat down.

“I don’t know. I just saw you with that guy and you looked upset and I saw you come in here and I thought, ‘hey, there’s a guy I used to know who looks upset, maybe I should check on him.’ But excuse me for caring.”

We were silent for a while, me looking at Jake, Jake looking at the books on the shelves. He took a deep breath and sighed. “That guy is a senior. His name is Will. He’s my boyfriend. Or...I don’t know. I don’t think he’s my actual boyfriend. We fool around.”

My heart felt a little deeper and I kind of felt momentarily lost, like I was back a month ago where things never made sense. “Oh. I didn’t...I…”

“What? You knew I was into guys...I gave you a blow-job for fuck’s sake.”

“But you weren’t admitting it at the time. It was a mistake, remember.”

“Yeah, well…”

“Well what?”

“Shit happens.”

“Yeah. I guess so.”

It was quiet for half a minute more. “That guy, Will, really likes me. He’s bi, like me. He broke up with his girlfriend because he knew he liked me. We met in graphic arts; he’s in the apprenticeship class that is the same period as mine. I was paired with him for the Photoshop lab. He’s really nice and good and I’m just shit. He wanted us to, I don’t know, go out and be boyfriends or whatever but I told him no, I’m not into that shit. But I lied, Caleb. Because I want that. I want to be with someone. But I’m no good. Not anymore. Carson was right. You were right. I’m a tool.”

I want to hug him because he was wrong. I was angry and Carson was frustrated and we were wrong. He still isn’t looking at me and I want him too. I want to tell him it’ll be okay. I want to tell him to talk to Will and work it out. I want to tell him everything, even if I know my advice is shit, because who even am I to give advice at all.

“You’re not a tool. At least, not any more than the rest of us.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right about that.”

“I’m sorry, Jake, about everything. I wanted you to give me that blow-job. I was upset, though, and confused, and it was probably the worst combination of hormones and timing ever.”

He chuckles. “Yeah. I shouldn’t have done it. But I was drunk and I’d wanted you for so long and those feelings scared me. They still scare me. It’s just, I really like people, and I really like sex, with all kinds of people. And why can’t it just be that easy. I...I just don’t know.”

“I can’t believe we’re actually talking about our feelings.”

“I know. Like a bunch of girls.” He laughs and looks at his hands for a bit.

“Are we cool?”

“Yeah. We’re cool.”

He looks up at me and smiles. I smile back, and even though I know we’re still a long ways from cool, really cool, it’s good to know we’re moving forward into something, anything, because he’s cuter than I remember when he smiles.