New Experiences - 4. Grappling

Grappling

“Do you think God is mad at us?”

his voice so soft I can barely hear it.

He’s crying again

in the thin blue light filtered

through the blanket covered window

his tears are fragile sapphire lines.

I want so badly

to brush them away with my fingertips

but I can’t bring myself to disturb

whatever sordid deal or truce

our bodies have made with time

by moving.

“If He is, I don't want to know.

I don’t want to think about any god

that could look at what we just did

and see anything less than the love I feel for you.

I know in my heart that what we have is right

and it’s good.

I hope you do too.”

The tears have turned into sobs now

I’m forced to break our truce

so that I can pull him to me.

I hold him while he cries and into his hair

I whisper “I know” over and over like a prayer.

Knowing is all I have.

I can’t help him find the answers he’s looking for

but I can know his pain

and maybe that will lessen it just a little.

After some time the tears stop.

I feel his breathing slow to an even rhythm.

By then the truce has been well and truly broken.

His parents will be home soon.

I untangle myself, stepping into his bathroom

shutting the door behind me.

It’s not until after the shower is on

and I stand under painfully hot water

that I allow myself to cry -

and even then only for a moment.

I wish I knew how to help him.

I wish I could just love him better somehow.

I wish I could take him somewhere far away from here.

Build a life that belongs to just us.

I step out of the bathroom,

drying my hair with a towel still damp from his morning shower

when I hear the sound of the front door opening.

Cold forks of electricity jolt up my spine.

Back early.

I freeze for two seconds too long,

only moving when I hear the creak of one of the attic steps leading up to his room.

I snatch clothes from the floor indiscriminately,

pulling on whatever I can find and kicking the rest under the bed.

My frantic movement wakes him and he pushes up blearily.

I’m just about to duck into the closet when the door opens and his mother steps in.

“Oh! Isaac! Jacob didn’t say you were here -”

her eyes catch on her son, curled small and scared in his blanket.

They return to me, then again to her son.

She is suddenly pale.

I want to run but I can’t abandon him here.

Paralysis.

Silence for too long,

then he says “Mom… this is my boyfriend.”

I don’t know where the laughter comes from.

It bubbles up like a geyser,

so much force it physically hurts as it leaves my lungs.

I am doubled over with it,

and in the bed he is laughing now too.

I notice I put on his shirt inside out

and it only makes me laugh harder.

His mother only stands there, silent.

Finally, after a long moment

she backs out and softly closes the door.