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    Adam Phillips
  • Adam Phillips
  • Author
  • 07/30/2013
  • 1,214 Words
  • 13,912 Views
  • 45 Comments
Stories posted in this category are works of fiction. Names, places, characters, events, and incidents are created by the authors' imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to actual persons (living or dead), organizations, companies, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.
Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you. 

Crosscurrents - 36. Epilogue

I stared off into forever.

The night was black. A full moon shone down upon the water.

The tide called to me with its hypnotic, incessant song, as I watched it kiss the shore and fall back, over and over and over.

"More Than Words" repeated itself endlessly on my boom box. Beth's boom box, actually. My sister's portable player was the only one I ever brought to this place. I thought about that first time and smiled.

The fire I'd lit flickered in my peripheral vision, and if I'd had company, they

he

might have asked me about the streaks that the fire illuminated. The ones running down my face from my eyes.

It was the song, really. The Extreme song, and the memories of first hearing it down here, and the memory of the awful year that had led up to that night on the beach.

A year I produced and directed to punish him for loving me enough to go where I was, even though it wasn't first nature to him.

But it wasn't only those memories. There were so many others, and I'd been soaking in them.

All week long, I'd lived him. I'd lived us. I'd traveled back in time.

Back to the Endless Summer.

Back to my earliest, scariest longings for him.

Back to our first days together, and on through time to the current ones.

I'd been us all over again, at all our ages. And with every memory, I looked at him intently. I listened to his words carefully.

And I loved him through all those memories as if I were living them for the first time.

And I felt him loving me. More clearly than I'd felt it the first time around.

Soaked in all that, I tried to make sense of the road that lay ahead of me.

The desperately rational part of me saw long odds, dim prospects, and no realistic way to guarantee that we had a future together that in any way resembled our present.

But life without him was unthinkable.

So why did I keep thinking of it? Why did I keep dreading it? Why did I keep assuming it as the default inevitable future?

I knew there had to be an answer for me. Some peace for me.

For us.

And I knew the answer lay in those memories.

Rich and inexhaustible, tenacious as Matt himself, the memories had accompanied me every hour I'd been here.

Branding me. Marking me.

And there on the shoreline, on the final night of my stay, a quiet understanding came to me as I gazed out into the Gulf of Mexico.

I'd walked into the condo at the beginning of the week prepared to load all my past with him into my mental museum. To remember with love...and then to release. To go back home and enjoy his love until our lives diverged, and then to let him go. For his sake. So he wouldn't have to figure out what to do with me as he moved into his future. A conventional future that had no room for me.

Over the five days that I'd relived my memories, though, I got a better look at him than I'd ever allowed myself before. The time didn't flash by. I could slow things down. Replay them. Live in them again.

And I discovered that my memories had pull. Even more surprising was that they had intention. They weren't interested in merely providing a mental playback of my life with Matt.

At first, I'd resisted the conclusion they'd been urging me toward. Not because I didn't like its contours or content.

No. It was because I wanted to be responsible, and loving, and to do the right thing, and I'd been stubbornly committed to believing that what he needed was a return to the conventional life. Pressuring him to carve out a space in his conventional life for me felt selfish and self-centered. I didn't want to keep dragging Matt back to me if and when life called him forward.

Called him away from me.

But as I stared out into the Gulf, the things he'd been saying to me over the last year rearranged and repeated themselves in just the right order and at just the right level for me to hear them.

As if for the first time. As if I'd never heard them before.

And when I listened...

I understood that preparing for us to drift apart wasn't necessarily an act of love. It was an act of self-protection.

And I understood that--just maybe--the highest love I could give him would involve summoning the courage to trust what he'd been telling me.

You are my fuckin' life, Andy. You've always been.

I played the words over and over in my head as the sound of the waves against the shore soothed the anxiety that was trying to rise up in me.

This week, this concentrated immersion in Matt and all he meant to me, brought me to a point of decision.

It was time to decide whether his words meant anything or whether I'd always think I knew better. Whether to soldier on in monster-slaying mode, or whether to risk getting hurt for the sake of trusting a promise that as yet had no shape.

A promise that was as essential to my life as it was to his.

I took a deep, cleansing breath of the salty air.

And then I went to that mental door, the one with his name on it, the one through which I'd been so frantically anticipating having to shove him and my memories of him.

It was standing open. And, oddly, given that I'd decided to make the place a museum, the room was still empty.

But it seemed like a different kind of empty. A waiting kind of empty.

I closed my eyes as the deepest aches and yearnings and hopes I lived with swirled to the surface of my consciousness.

And a conviction broke through the swirl.

There aren't any monsters under beds. There's only you, and the roads you walk, and the choices you make. And you are loved throughout all of them. And you are asked to love throughout all of them.

I don't know which part of me that internal voice was, or whether it was someone else, or whether it was just something convenient my subconscious tossed up.

But it was as clear as a bell, and it felt like some kind of final word.

I took another deep breath, and my mental eye looked up at the nameplate on The Door of that room.

This time, it read "Andy and Matt. Room Reserved For Part Two."

I opened my eyes. Nothing looked different.

But everything was.

I breathed in once again. Deeply. Gratefully. As I exhaled, years' worth of fog dissipated, and the diamond-hard clarity of the night brought this place home to me once again, giving me an opportunity to experience it--at last--with an unclouded mind and a heart free from crosscurrents and cross-purposes.

I grabbed handfuls of sand and put out my fire with them. Then I picked up my belongings and began walking back toward the condo.

It was time to go home.

THE END

So concludes the story of Andy and Matt. It's been a long, strange trip, and I thank all of you for taking it with me. You haven't seen the last of me. Check my latest few blog entries here at GA.

I finished it, Sean. This is for you. It's always been for you.
--Adam
2003-2013 Adam Phillips; All Rights Reserved. This story and its characters remain the property of the author and may not be reproduced or republished elsewhere without the author's written consent. Chapters may contain scenes depicting a loving and/or sexual relationship between consenting males. If you find this material morally or legally questionable, please do not read further.
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Stories posted in this category are works of fiction. Names, places, characters, events, and incidents are created by the authors' imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to actual persons (living or dead), organizations, companies, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.
Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you. 
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Chapter Comments



DirkS

Adam, all I can say is "Thank you!" At one point you said that writing Crosscurrents seemed like work--and it must be. The standard of writing...plot, character, expression...is so utterly good that it has to be hard work. But what a reward for us who have followed it through! The limits of unconditional love when put to so much doubt and pressure has been your theme, and it has been handled so well. The characters, especially Andy and Matt, have come to mean so much to me and I have learned an awful lot from how they related to each other. I could go on, but really words fail me. So, Thank you!!! Dirk

  • Love 2
Breeze

OK...ready now. I read these last two chapters a few days ago and kinda wanted to let them sink in. I loved it all.This entire book captivated me the beginning. Waiting oh so patiently for each chapter was worth it.

The epilogue was great. To me it was the perfect ending of this story.

"And I understood that--just maybe--the highest love I could give him would involve summoning the courage to trust what he'd been telling me.

 

You are my fuckin' life, Andy. You've always been."

 

That part right there said alot for me. Summoning the courage to trust.

So thank you Adam, this is a truly great story and I am so glad you shared it with us.

  • Love 2
Alcarose

This story had me thinking about the things I've done in my life.

Most people wouldn't understand why Andy acted the way he did, but I think I understand it perfectly. I used to get paranoid when it came to a...friend...or former friend of mine...

However my paranoia was justified as I watched our relationship fading into the dark. At least Andy was able to fight it.

I don't remember reading a story that had me thinking this much. I enjoyed it, all of it.

Thank you, for posting this story!

  • Like 2
Lisa

Adam, this was truly one of the most powerful stories I've ever read.

 

The emotions between these two boys were so powerful throughout the whole story I found myself grabbing for the Kleenex in almost every chapter.

 

This story is a masterpiece and you are a master at weaving the plot, the emotions...the love Andy and Matt have for each other, the love that is bigger than both of them, into a fantastic journey for the readers.

 

As I've told you before, I purposely put off reading the last two chapters b/c I didn't want this story to end. I have laughed and cried along with Andy and Matt and I never wanted to say goodbye to them.

 

Maybe one day we can re-visit them in a sequel, just to catch up and see what they're doing. In my HEA, I have Andy, Matt, Angie, and Julie all living together as one big happy family b/c I never want to see Andy and Matt apart again. :)

  • Like 1
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Uplifted Spirit

Adam,

Let me begin by saying, I admit that conflict is important to making a story interesting, and from the reviews you've gotten it looks like many readers identify with the conflict that goes on between Andy and Matt. And, of course, there's a lot of sex in it as Andy tries to run away from his feelings and his fear of what Matt's feelings and fears are.

While I enjoyed this story and found it well written, I felt good friends would not be afraid to talk to each other. Most guys would just say, "What's with the attitude?" OR "What the fuck's the matter with you?" They'd argue about it and talk. They'd clear the air. Instead, Andy, who is usually assertive and confident, can't talk to his best friend Matt about much of anything, including the sex they had. He avoids him. I could be very wrong, but it just didn't seem like Matt would have let him get away with it. After all, they're best friends and are both confident guys. I found it hard to believe Matt wouldn't force Andy to tell him what's going on. That's what guys do. Instead, these two act like two wimpy friends who are afraid of what might happen if they talk to each other.

I actually found it easier to believe that the wives would let them run off with each other every now and then. ( Although, there probably are very few wives who would do that.) The reason being that they communicated with their future wives about their feelings. They let them know how they felt. Where neither Matt or Andy communicated very well with each other until the very end. .

This lack of communication between Andy and Matt was the conflict that carried the story from beginning to end, and from watching soap operas, I can tell you this is what they often do to make the story line work. People love it, so what can I say. I watch The Young and the Restless, and every time they do it, I get frustrated. But I guess art imitates life or at least that's what they say.

  • Like 2
Adam Phillips
On 01/28/2014 06:15 AM, Uplifted Spirit said:
Adam,

Let me begin by saying, I admit that conflict is important to making a story interesting, and from the reviews you've gotten it looks like many readers identify with the conflict that goes on between Andy and Matt. And, of course, there's a lot of sex in it as Andy tries to run away from his feelings and his fear of what Matt's feelings and fears are.

While I enjoyed this story and found it well written, I felt good friends would not be afraid to talk to each other. Most guys would just say, "What's with the attitude?" OR "What the fuck's the matter with you?" They'd argue about it and talk. They'd clear the air. Instead, Andy, who is usually assertive and confident, can't talk to his best friend Matt about much of anything, including the sex they had. He avoids him. I could be very wrong, but it just didn't seem like Matt would have let him get away with it. After all, they're best friends and are both confident guys. I found it hard to believe Matt wouldn't force Andy to tell him what's going on. That's what guys do. Instead, these two act like two wimpy friends who are afraid of what might happen if they talk to each other.

I actually found it easier to believe that the wives would let them run off with each other every now and then. ( Although, there probably are very few wives who would do that.) The reason being that they communicated with their future wives about their feelings. They let them know how they felt. Where neither Matt or Andy communicated very well with each other until the very end. .

This lack of communication between Andy and Matt was the conflict that carried the story from beginning to end, and from watching soap operas, I can tell you this is what they often do to make the story line work. People love it, so what can I say. I watch The Young and the Restless, and every time they do it, I get frustrated. But I guess art imitates life or at least that's what they say.

I hear what you're saying...but one of the main threads running through the story is that Andy has a couple of demons. Matt does too. Figuratively speaking, of course. And when those are at the helm, all bets are off in terms of what people would "ordinarily" do. In fact, it seems to me very much the case that "what friends would ordinarily do" is something of an abstraction and that real, individual cases invariably deviate from that "ordinarily." I know guys who are friends and who have behaved in exactly the way I narrated. ;-) It's maddening, and it makes life frustrating, but if friends always behaved the way you say they always do, it would be a very different world. And many of us wouldn't have anything to write about. :-)
  • Like 2
Puppilull

I read the story over the weekend and I must say I was totally captivated. Of course it was frustrating when they were acting like idiots at times, but I had to remind me they were very young to deal with this. Bisexual and polyamorous... Difficult stuff when you are just 18.

 

I would really like a follow up, epilogue to the epilogue so to speak, just to see how they solve this puzzle. Because I for one am sure they will.

 

If I can't have that, just keep writing. You have a true gift. Thank you!

  • Like 1
  • Love 2
Adam Phillips
On 01/31/2014 07:24 PM, Jaro_423 said:
Wow! I have to say that's the best read on this site I have had to date. Gripping, powerful, moving, captivating, enthralling, soul-wringing, mind-twisting stuff. Thank you. Glad you said you still have more to give. That's great!
Sorry it's taken me so long to respond, Jaro, but I appreciate the reviews. Those of us who do this without expectation of monetary reward...well, it's the feedback from the readers that is the reward. So thanks.
  • Like 2
Adam Phillips
On 04/28/2014 04:03 PM, Puppilull said:
I read the story over the weekend and I must say I was totally captivated. Of course it was frustrating when they were acting like idiots at times, but I had to remind me they were very young to deal with this. Bisexual and polyamorous... Difficult stuff when you are just 18.

 

I would really like a follow up, epilogue to the epilogue so to speak, just to see how they solve this puzzle. Because I for one am sure they will.

 

If I can't have that, just keep writing. You have a true gift. Thank you!

Thanks. I'm glad you enjoyed it.

 

I've gone back and forth regarding whether or not CC "wants" a sequel. And after CC was finished I was ready to get away from writing for a while, so I haven't been too active. My main problem with a sequel to CC is that all decent stories--at least in the standard Western version--need a central focus, problem, or crisis as the engine that drives the train. Matt and Andy definitely worked their stuff out, and in between where we left them and a full resolution there's some drama and some crisis...but not much. It's mostly happily-ever-after following the last scene of CC. I'm not sure I can make a compelling story out of all that lol. But we'll see. In the meantime, the next thing I'll be doing is putting the next two--and final--chapters on Brushfire. Hopefully before September's over.

  • Like 2
Adam Phillips
On 07/24/2014 02:33 PM, Kjamieson said:
Wow. One of the best stories I have read on here! Thank you so much for sharing it. And writing it so well; I often felt like I was there watching, sometimes smiling at what was going on and sometimes grimacing and feeling awkward for the characters, you have a gift for captivating the readers attention!
Thanks for the kind words. I'm glad you enjoyed it.
  • Like 1
LongBeachThomas

What a story! I have read good gay/bi fiction for years, but none of them can compare to your story. The pain, agony, drama, love, passion, joy are overwhelming. I had an experience with an American army soldier stationed in Germany years ago, and the story brought back to me all the pain and heartache that had long been suppressed, You are able to convey all these feelings with so much intensity. I would read the chapters during the day at work, and then sob on my commute home for half an hour. I have decided to write my army soldier (now civilian) in Munich and mention themes from your story. I love him as much as Andy loves Matt. Thank you for the powerful journey!

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