Chasing Jayce - 1. Chasing Jayce

The sun is swirling and hot against my face. I long to swat it away like a bug, like a mosquito, but all I can do is situate my sunglasses tighter against my eyes and pull the brim of my cap down a notch further on my forehead. For being the first Saturday in April, the weather is hot and bright, not a single cloud puffing in the sky, and I’m clearly wearing too much clothing: dark blue jeans, long-sleeve madras shirt, oxblood leather Docs. I wasn’t anticipating summer when I left my apartment. Walking the 3-mile distance across town to the café was not typically an exerting journey for me, but the mixture of heat and anxiety sizzling through my limbs had landed me at the café parched and tired, ready to be off my feet. Instead of ordering my usual steamed cappuccino with extra milk, I ordered a tall iced, sweetened berry tea, and now, already, the satisfying beverage is halfway gone, disappeared down my sweaty throat. I can’t stop sipping at it.

The sidewalk is abuzz with noise and activity, pricking against my nerves, heightening the edges they’ve already been teetering on for the past 24 hours – ever since I last heard from him, when the date and time had been finalized, set into stone, the commitment to finally meet face-to-face after months of online communication made official.

Him: meet u at 1. can’t wait babe.

Me: me too. how will i know u?

Him: no worries. i’ll find u.

Me: u don’t know what i look, i don’t know what u look like.

Him: i said no worries, i’ll find u. til tomorrow.. xo

Families pushing strollers, children playing chase, dogs yipping, food vendors peddling hot dogs and ice cream and cotton candy. A typical view of afternoon fanfare from the wrought-iron bistro table that I like to snag whenever I’m here. From this spot, I can see for blocks, down to the edge of the park where the giant cherub-and-angel fountain spouts water and kids dip in barefoot for pennies while their mothers hold their hands.

From this spot, I should be able to catch first sight of him, either idling down the sidewalk or taking a shortcut across the grass. Although I don’t know what he looks like, I’m convinced that I’ll recognize him the moment he appears; probably my height, my build. But of course I have no information to gauge that with, because we’ve never revealed our exteriors, only our interiors. Only those most intimate discussions and secrets shared in a virtual world.

I remove my cap and set it on the table next to my glass of dwindling iced tea. The sweat I suffer from isn’t just related to the midday heat. It’s also related to my frazzled nerves. Any minute now, jaywalk2, otherwise known as Jayce, is going to appear at this very café, this very spot where I now sit, and he’s going to find me and take a seat in that empty chair across the table, and we’re going to say hello to each other, in person, for the very first time. Months of fingertip conversations and midnight revelations will come to a crescendo as reality crashes forward and we’re actually facing each other, in the flesh. Speaking to each other with real voices in real time, not just abbreviated words tapped on a keyboard, sent across digital waves.

To say that I’m eager is an understatement. To say that I’m not apprehensive is a lie.

What if, after all this time of knowing one another in the virtual world, of sharing experiences and fantasies and mutual crushing, the chemistry that we think is between us fizzles into nothingness, disappears into the mysterious atmosphere like a mere speck of a dream that we only imagined, only wished was a certainty?

What if, once we finally meet and our breath shares the same space, we realize that the digital connection that originally bound us together for the last six months is just that – digital? An algorithm of chat blips meant only to occupy the internet?

I flip open the sketchbook I’ve brought with me, the one that I carry around for moments like this, when I’m seated at a café or on a bus, and I’m people-watching and someone intrigues me enough to want to draw them on paper. With a few scratches of my pencil, I sketch out a quick portrait of Jayce, trying to capture an image of the guy based purely on the conjuring up of my own imaginative mind. I give him dark hair, spiky at the top, and a long Roman nose. I have no idea why I’m drawing him, but it gives my nervous hands something to do while I wait.

And then someone takes a seat at the table across from me. I smell lavender. Glance up. Discover a young woman smiling at me. “Hi,” she says. Her eyes are pale blue, like mine. Her hair is also like mine, blonde, but long and straight, past her shoulders, dipping down across the cleavage of her teal summer dress. I am dumbstruck and say nothing.

“You’re Andy, right?” she inquires.

All of the noise around me shuts out like a door’s been slammed. My ears ring in the silence. Eventually, I stutter, “Y-yes, that’s me… Are you…?”

“Jayce,” she offers, extending a hand across the table. Even her fingernails are painted teal.

Again, I’m dumbstruck and say nothing. Ignoring her hand, I flip my sketchbook closed and push my sunglasses to the top of my head. I peer at her through squinted eyes. She’s real. She’s sitting here. She’s Jayce. How the fuck can she be Jayce? All of those correspondences that I thought were with a guy… All of those exploratory fantasies revolving around cocks and cum and fucking each other’s asses… They were with her? Holy shit. I’ve been completely and utterly duped. “This is fucked,” I say.

She retracts her extended hand and blinks at me. “What is?”

“This!” I gesture to her. “You!”

“I know you were expecting to see someone else…” she mutters, looking down at her lap. Her hair falls across her face, shielding her expression. “I didn’t know how else to tell you other than to just meet you in person…”

“You could have told me months ago!” I insist. “Why the hell were you even chatting with me? We met on a gay hookup site, for Christ’s sake!”

“I thought, you know, because our connection was so strong for so long…” Here, she looks up at me, all sorrowful and full of obvious regret. “I thought maybe you might be able to look past my gender.” She shrugs, as though to say “hey, it was worth a shot.”

More than I am angry, I’m crestfallen. She’s literally broken my heart. As much as I hate to admit it to myself because it’s ridiculous and pathetic, I’ve fallen hard for the fantasy partner called jaywalk2 – harder than I even realized until right now. This great revelation that I’ve been lied to, repeatedly, for months, sits like a brick in my stomach, and I’m hurting, both physically and emotionally.

“You could have told me,” I say. “You should have told me.”

The young woman called Jayce nods her head. “Yes,” she agrees. “You’re right, I should have. And that’s why I’m here telling you now. I really want us to be friends, if nothing else. Do you think we can we be friends, Andy?”

I study her. Try to see past her pupils, down into her soul. I want to figure her out, but I’m too dejected to make headway. Then, out of nowhere, hands wrap themselves over my eyes, shielding me from the sun, and the world turns dark. I quickly pull the obstructions away, startled and pissed, and realize that I’m holding strong hands with thick knuckles and tan skin. Unfamiliar hands, but definitely a man’s hands. Jerking my head up, I land in the smiling gaze of a handsome face surrounded by a halo of bright sunlight. The new visitor has brown hair, spiky on the top, and a long Roman nose.

“Hi,” he says, sliding his hands out of my grip. He moves around to take a seat in the now-empty spot across the table from me. I frantically search for Jayce, but she’s mysteriously disappeared, lost in the crowd somewhere. “She’s gone,” he says. “A figment of your imagination.”

I spin my gaze back on him. His eyes are brown with specks of gold in them. He’s grinning at me with an odd expression as though he’s laughing at his own joke. “Who are you?” I ask.

“Jayce,” he replies.

“Excuse me?”

His smile widens, revealing dimples, and he sits forward, clasping his hands together on the table. He’s dressed in a simple white t-shirt and gray zippered sweat jacket. I notice stainless steel gauges in his earlobes and a small silver hoop hooked onto his left eyebrow. I remember jaywalk2 telling me about his piercings and tattoos. I remember imagining how sexy that must look on him.

I remember imagining a lot of things when I chatted with him...

“It’s me, babe,” the stranger says.

I just stare at him. Finally, eventually, I manage to release from my mouth: “You’re Jayce.”

“Yep,” he replies. “And you’re Andy.”

“What the fuck…?”

Reaching across the table, he takes a hold of my right hand and clasps it tightly within his own. His fingers are strong. His gaze even stronger as he peers intently into my face. When he says, “April Fools’, babe,” I want to seriously punch him.

It’s the first day of April, a blazing hot afternoon in the middle of the city, and the man I’ve had a crush on for the last six months in cyberspace has just played a joke on me. Cruel? Yes. Funny? Yes – in a sick, twisted sort of way. In a I-would-probably-have-done-it-myself-if-I-was-clever-enough sort of way.

I want to punch him, but I also yearn to kiss him. He beats me to it, stands up and comes around to me, lifts my face up with a hand and plants a long, wet kiss on my mouth, right there in the middle of the outdoor café, surrounded by patrons and passersby. My heart ends up in my throat, beating strongly.

He is here. He is kissing me. He is everything.

And it’s the best damn April Fools’ Day I could hope for.