Loving Sam Lynch - 10. Chapter 10

It was a day like any other. There was nothing on TV, the weather outside was gray, snow dusted the rooftops and billowed in the wind like leaves in the autumn, transporting dead bugs and twigs from place to place. It was bleak, as winters can be, and it was beginning to have an effect on Sam

He flicked idly through the channels as he waited for his cell phone to go off at any second. He’d been waiting for a call from Max all day. There was nothing good on, at all. Ugh. He felt like he’d finally dealt with the situation with Max adequately. Gone was the nausea and anxiety over Max’s romantic decisions, the jealousy. He understood it better now, saw the motives and reasons behind all of it, and all he wanted was for Max to be happy.

Gosh he loved Max to bits. It was a little scary. But he’d always have Max, always. No matter what happened in life. There was no rhyme or reason to it. It was neither platonic nor romantic, it just was what it was. It did not fit neatly into a jar and nor cold he even begin to put in a jar. It just was.

Frustrated, he snatched his cell and dialed Max.

“Hello?”

“Why haven’t you called me?” Sam asked. He heard a distinct male giggle in the background. “Are you fucking some bimbo again?”

“Maybe,” Max said.

“Max, this is the third time this week that you’ve picked up some random guy and fucked his brains out. Don’t you think that’s a bit much?”

“Not really…I like sex.” He said sardonically.

Sam laughed.“Max--.”

Max sighed. “Look, I’ll come over later and we’ll talk, and if you invite Cam over in the hopes that he can make me see some sort of philosophical reason to amend my ways again, I swear on my dick that I will convert to Islam or Christianity and accept God.”

Sam shuddered. “Please don’t joke about that.”

Since last week, when Max had just let all of his stress and negative emotions that had built up over the years out in the form of tears, they’d gone back into their usual routine. Except they actually spoke about things now instead of living in a world where issues weren’t discussed, and they touched, they felt.

“It’s my house, you don’t know that he isn’t already over.”

“Well, is he?”

“I won’t say. Come later.” Sam hung up and dialed Cam instantly.

“You’re coming over tonight.”

“I’ve just had the time of my life with a woman twice my age for the last two days, ask me tomorrow and I may want to.”

“Is everyone getting it on but me?”

Cam snorted. “I see Max is worrying you with his slutting around as usual.”

“Don’t be insensitive.”

Cam sighed. “Youre right, im sorry. I should know better, it’s just be brings out the childishness in me, though he is an intriguingly closed off person. I don’t know why he hates me so much.”

“He doesn’t hate you. He says he doesn’t like that you’re prettier than him, smarter than him, and a little boring but pretentious.”

“That’s ridiculous; he’s the um…prettiest guy I have ever seen. Though I can’t disagree with the rest, and as for boring—well coming from a guy who finds discussing the merits of the Darwinian theory of beauty ‘a yawn’ is a bit much.”

“You know he was teasing you when he said that, right?”

“Well, I couldn’t tell.”

“I could. Now come over.”

“Fine. Give me twenty.”

“I’ll give you thirty.”

“Generous.”

“Always, baby.”

~*~

There was this toy fire-truck Max had as a child that he’d always adored. The minute he’d seen the toy, he’d been hooked, and carried it around with him for ages. His mother always described to him, how that was like his teddy bear or stuffed animal or something. When the truck had gotten crushed by his mother’s car one spring morning as she left for work, he’d been so crushed as well. He’d found the broken red pieces on the asphalt later that day and cried his heart out. A child’s singular anguish is not something to be reckoned with.
This was worse.
Max felt the tears just waiting at the surface, threatening to burst. He didn’t quite know how he ended up here, but here he was, on his bed, head thrown back against the wall as he tried not to cry.
Biting his lip, he let his phone fall on to the bed, but in his mind, the image he’d come across in the picture gallery was ingrained. Xander with his red hair and luminous eyes glowing as he posed saucily for a picture. It was so precious, and it hurt Max. He had tried not to think about Xander at all lately, because he didn’t need that on top of everything that had happened. Everything that he had never expected to confront. And now he had been forced to confront it. Sam--he could never have, and that was okay all of a sudden? What was up with the Universe? One second he felt strong, the next he wanted to curl up and cry.
So now what? What was he supposed to do? Where did life go from here? He had no idea.
Maybe, just maybe, that wast he point. He had to stop lingering in yesterday or daydreaming about tomorrow. Stop fucking thinking so much and just be positive.
Max wiped his eyes and got up to wash his face, change his clothes, and flash a quick look at himself to make sure he was presentable before appearing at Sam’s door. His mind was blank the entire car ride as he drove, and it was still blank when he stood on the doorstep to knock.
Sam pulled him inside with a contagious smile and have him a warm hug,, rubbing his back gently and pressing a kiss to the side of his head. It was precious. It was right. It felt good. It was slightly weird, and fucked up and made his heart tingle and his eyes tear up, but he’d fucking take it. And he could see that this was how things were meant to be. But he hurt, because he didn’t know himself anymore, because he still longed.
He didn’t know anything anymore.
Cam gave him a slow, warm smile as he walked in. It tilted up the corners of his exotic eyes. He looked a little mussed up and that was cute. He had his laptop before him and appeared to be in the middle of typing something away.
“I’ve had a brainwave,” He explained. “Let me get all my thoughts out and then I’ll be fit for company again.”
“I miss Xander,” Max told Sam, surprising himself.
“I know,” Sam said, sitting next to Max so their sides pressed together. “You could call him?” Sam suggested hopefully.
“No. It would be selfish. Especially when I don’t even know what I want from anything or anyone and he’s so sure he wants me.”
“Maybe you should figure what you want?” Cam suggested simply, shutting his laptop. His expression was neutral, not sarcastic, and Max decided to give the guy a break. He didn’t want to be that jealous person anymore, and there was no need. He’d always have Sam, and Cam wasn’t going to change that.
“Easy to say, harder to do.”
“Not if you let yourself experience things. Whether its love, heartbreak, whatever—the only way you figure out who you are and what you want is by doing, experiencing, and letting yourself hurt and learn in the process.”
“You sound like you’ve done that quite a bit, “Max said a little snidely.
Cam rolled his eyes. “Yeah, this conversation is over. When you decide you want to talk to me like an adult, get back to me. In the meantime, I’ll get back to blogging or something.” Cam reached for his laptop, switching gears and transferring his attention back to the words on his screen immediately, as if Max were of the least interest to him.
Max felt irritated. He could feel Sam laughing a little beside him and grumbled.
They were silent for the rest f the evening as they watched the rerun of some old TV movie, each person lost in their heads. Max let his head fall on to Sam’s shoulder and his eyes take in the moving pictures on the screen. It made it easier to avoid thinking and feeling. When the final scene ended and the credits rolled, the sun had gone down.

Sam detracted himself from Max and stood, stretching gracefully. “I have to get to get to class, because I, unlike you…still have school and my class was rescheduled to this shitty hour.”

Max just nodded sleepily and stretched out so he lay on the couch comfortably.
As Sam changed, Max watched Cam type on his laptop intently. He vaguely heard Sam tell them to help themselves to anything they wanted as he shut the door behind him.
Cam wasn’t paying him any attention, so lost he was in what he was doing.
Max felt irritated. “What are you doing?” He called out.
“I’m reading. Why?” Cam replied smoothly.
“Just wondering…What are you reading?”
“It’s an article on the lifetime of the Hubble telescope.”
“And Hubble is…?”
Cam finally looked at him. He shut his laptop. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Max shook his head. “Nope. I assure you, I’m entirely serious.”
Cam narrowed his eyes. “I can never tell if you’re being sarcastic or not.”
“Neither can I. But really, what’s the Hubble telescope?”
“It’s only the telescope that has given us countless pictures of the universe in its life in space, not to mention the picture of the farthest we’ve ever seen into space. But it’s done its job now.”
Max shrugged. “What’s so great about that?”
Cam sighed. “Well knowing things about the universe is important to some.”
“For what reason? We’ll never find out anything substantial in our lifetime.”
“That is completely untrue, and ridiculous. Imagine if everyone who has ever contributed to scientific endeavours felt that way and decided not to contribute anything, to not seek out knowledge. Besides, you don’t go looking to find out something big, it’s in the process of trying to understand that you may hit something previously unknown. We don’t usually know what we don’t know, and we don’t know what we can’t know—for the most part we can guess as to what is unknowable. All we can do is try to know things as well as we can.”
Max felt his head reeling, though it was interesting him. “And what do we know?”
Cam grinned. “I don’t know the whole of what we know.”
“So who does?”
“Google, maybe?”
Max laughed. “Probably. But I thought you were the artsy type. Words, images, things of that sort. I’m supposed to be the rational science guy.”
“Most people who enjoy learning for the sake of learning don’t limit themselves by choosing only one area of knowledge to focus on. I’m that type of person, though art has always been and will always be what I immerse myself in. I do love the beauty of science and I see it as the best way of understanding things around us.”
“Even things like love, art, beauty?”
“Science gives us the best explanations, not the only, not perfect explanations, but the only worthy explanations for such things. It helps us to understand why we find things beautiful, what the experience of joy and love are at the chemical level. And that doesn’t detract from their wonder and the experience I think.”
“You surprise me.”
“Why? Because I’m not spouting crazy creation myths to you that have some sort of deeper philosophical meaning? I have those as well, but they are stories with morals, and great ideas, not reality—whatever that’s supposed to be.”
“No…because you aren’t bhuddist. You seem like the type.”
Cam shrugged. “Bhuddism is wonderful, but I don’t need religions to teach me about spirituality. Life has no meaning and religions try to give it one (which is fine for those that need it), but that’s about it.”
Max frowned and sat up. “Sometimes I hate to think about that. The meaningless of life, and yet the beauty of it. What’s the point of it all if you don’t have anyone to share it with?”
Cam too frowned and shoved his laptop away. “Don’t think like that. Of course life has no ultimate meaning… maybe no higher purpose, but we give our lives meaning every day. We give life meaning. And you do have people to share existence with, to share the little things that are important with.”
“But I want more…” Max said softly.
Cam nodded. “Of course…that’s only natural. Especially from a biological perspective you see. If we didn’t always want someone of our own to share existence with, we’d end up alone and it would be less likely for us to reproduce. But anyway, you don’t go looking for these things, Max. That’s what I was telling you before. You have to understand yourself, you have to learn to rely on yourself, be there for yourself, love yourself, and what you want will find you. You just don’t go looking for these things.”
“This is an intense conversation.” Max said softly.
“I could dumb it down some and superficialize it if you like? That seems to be a la mode.”
Max chuckled. “No…I like it.” He smiled. “You say it like it is. That’s refreshing. You don’t tell me “It will all be okay.’”
“Well it may and it may not. It’s up to you.”
“When did you get to be so wise?”
Cam grinned. “I’ve had a strange life. And it’s forced me to think about things. But I’ve always thought about such things, I guess.”
“So what made you discover the need to rely on yourself?”
“When my mother died, I was twelve, and I lived with my Dad. We never got along. He was completely different in his thought process. I’ve always been a free spirit, always asking questions, and he’s always tried to make me see things his way, to believe things without question, to accept. He’s Persian you see, and grew up in a strict Muslim family. He has his own interpretation, but at the end of the day, disbelief is not tolerated, and neither were questions.

My mother, who is British, converted to Islam before she met him, and when they married, I guess they really were happy together. After she died, he tried to fill the void with his religion. We never got along, because I guess I always rejected the dogma I was presented with while he tried to shove it even harder in my face. When I was sixteen, he kicked me out because I refused to pray. I probably should have just pretended to, I guess, but I was a kid and angry with the Allah that didn’t even exist. And so yeah….I won’t bore you--.”

“—You aren’t boring me,” I assured him, sucked into the story he was telling me.

He grinned. “I guess I’m unused to telling this story.”

“You don’t like to talk about it?

“It’s not that. I tell people who give a crap about me the story, but I guess I’ve never felt that anyone needed to hear it as much as you…if that makes sense. As if it will have some undue significance to you.” Cam’s brow furrowed. “Anyway, so I left home at sixteen and mooched off friends here and there. I managed to finish high school and got a scholarship to university…and here I am.”

“That must have been really hard…” Max said. “You were only sixteen.”

Cam shrugged. “It wasn’t that bad. Sometimes I got hungry and cold and tired, but I knew life would get better, and I realized the importance of being there for me, of relying on me first and putting myself before others. But again, I won’t bore you with the details. As for my Father, we speak now, but that took a lot of time to accomplish.”

“You tried to get to know him again?” Max asked, shocked.

Cam shrugged. “He’s my father. He wasn’t wrong in what he did in a way, and I wasn’t wrong either. We just have different values, and just because a relationship isn’t perfect or what you want, doesn’t mean you can’t keep it and try to maintain some contact. Besides, I know he needs me, even if he doesn’t want to admit it. And I want him in my life. Life is too short to bother with holding grudges. ”

Max sighed. “Why do you get me to think about such things?”

Cam grinned. “Sorry, bad habit. I get that a lot. Again, tell me at any moment and I’ll play it coolio.”

“No. Just be you.” Max said.

Cam smiled. “Right. Well I’d tell you to just be you, but I don’t think you even know what that means.”

“Huh?”

“It looks to me like you’ve spent a lot of your life holding back and hiding from yourself ,and others and that does tend to have its lasting effects. It’s evident in the way you prevent yourself from just feeling things, from thinking about things, from experiencing things and saying things.”

“So how do I stop that?”

Cam shrugged. “I’m just telling you what I’ve observed. I’m guessing I’ve been fairly accurate. As for how to overcome that, well it’s up to you. Maybe start small, like right now, whatever you’re trying to keep back, just let it out?”

Max stared at the carpet. “Am I that easy to read?”

“No, but I’m unnaturally perceptive, and I happen to see a lot of myself in you, so that makes it easy for me to understand where you’re coming from. You feel things strongly, like me, but you let it fester and eat away at you instead of just letting the emotions run through you. It takes time to understand that people like us need to let things out. We sometimes need to feel the pain because it feels good in a way.”

“You want me to just let myself hurt?”

“Aren’t you hurting anyway?” Cam asked softly. He crossed his arms over his chest and stretched his long, lean legs.

Max stared at Cam annoyed. Did the guy fucking know everything? “Yes, yes I am.”

“And you know you’re going to release all that negative emotion sometime, negatively, some day, spontaneously. Why not control how you channel it? Why not master it? Why not just feel?” Cam asked. “When my mother died, I ended up bottling all my emotions, just locking them up because I didn’t want to deal with them, and I channeled my anger and frustration into violence. I ended up almost killing a guy. I never want to feel that way again. I’m not saying you’ll go through that. What I’m trying to say is that I learned to just feel. I just cried. And cried. And cried. And it sucked. I was miserable. I hated it. But it was better than being in limbo, because once I was done crying, I could see past the haze.”

Max shrugged. “I don’t know if that’s what I want to do. I don’t know if I can let myself.”

Cam shrugged as well. “It’s your life,” He said. “I’m just giving you advice from a kindred spirit.”

“We aren’t alike.” Max said.

“Maybe not, but for some reason I understand you. I dunno.”

“I understand you sometimes , but you’re a little confusing as hell and hard to pin down from one moment to the next.”

Cam shrugged. “That’s not the first time anyone’s said that. Besides, I think you like not being able to pin me down.”

“What do you mean?”

“You enjoy chasing people around their thoughts. I can tell.”

“How?”

“From the way you deal with Sam. I usually think of him as this butterfly that you can’t really capture for long before it slips away. And you speak to him in a way that’s kind of like, you let him fly around and be free because you have no desire to grasp him entirely. God I sound gay.”

“You’re a little gay,” Max agreed, nodding his head. “But such labels are pointless for people like you, I can see.”

Cam grinned. “Don’t make me blush.”

“Then stop making me like you.”

“You never hated me.” Cam said confidently.

“You’re annoying.” Max retorted.

“You like it. You enjoy being understood.”

“Stop telling me what I do and don’t feel.”

“Why?” Cam asked.

“Because it’s irritating.”

“But why are you bothering to let me get to you, icy, cold, Max?”

“I’m not trying. It appears to be effortless on your part and mine.”

“I only irritate you because you know I’m right about it all.” Cam said.

“Probably.”

“Definitely.”

“I’m going home.” Max stood, a little annoyed still.

“Okay,” Cam said. “Have fun.” And then Cam changed gears entirely and stood as well, heading off to the kitchen as if they hadn’t just had an in depth conversation and as if he didn’t give a crap at all about continuing it like Max wanted.

That night, while Max lay in bed, he cried. It felt like he would never stop, but he did. And it felt good in a strange, unfathomable, unexplainable way.

Things were going to be different from now on, he could feel it. Because he wanted them to be different, and that was the underlying difference tonight.

Max’s dreams were filled with memories from the past, distorted. Sam’s face flashed through his mind, butterflies flew away. He kept trying to reach out to snatch the colourful creature but it kept getting away. Eventually, out of breath and panting, he slowed down and stopped chasing it.

If you truly love something you set it free.

~*~

There was a smile on Sam’s face. He watched Max nervously adjusting his shirt, looking anywhere but a him. He wondered what was up.

Max finally looked up at him and bit his lip. His eyes flashed to the window where the bleak winter weather stared calmly back at him, a taunt.

“I’m finding it hard...” Max fidgeted with his shirt again. “It’s just, everything feels different, yet not.”
Sam sighed. “I know it’s not easy. Look, I think it might be good for you to get distance. Maybe we should just go off in separate directions for a while.”
Max looked up, alarmed. “N-no, I don’t want that.”
“Max, you know how I feel. It’s hard to express.. It’s not normal, it really isn’t. But I’ve finally consciously accepted it and made my decision. We make good friends, we’ve always made good friends, and our paths lie together, just maybe not in the way that either one of us would like. Ideals don’t exist, that’s why they’re ideals. This is reality. Our friendship.” He reached out across the table and placed his hand on Max’s.
Max stared back openly, without fear. He hardened his jaw. “You’re right, of course. It’s just that I still hoped, you know? It’s like crushing my childhood and the little futures I’d unknowingly created in my head.”
“That’s not the right way to think about it,” Sam shook his head. “You aren’t crushing anything. Those experiences still exist, those thoughts were real. They shaped you. This will shape you. And I’m still there in your future, more than ever. You’re finally getting it in the open and you’ll see, eventually you’ll see. You’ll find the person who really does it for you, who loves you the way you need and it’ll be wonderful.” Sam felt funny saying this, a lump lodged in his throat. He swallowed and stayed strong.
“I know, I know, but I don’t want to hear that now.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s okay. I’m just trying to be there for me, to sort of, be better to myself right now. All of this, it’s really making me re-evaluate myself, my life, my thought processes. It’s been good for me. I-I wanna thank you. ”
Sam said nothing. He took a swig of beer and just smiled at Max. When Max said he wanted to come over with that urgent tone in his voice, he hadn’t known what to expect, but here they were. They were okay. All was fine. They decided to go out for the rest of the evening, and that was fine too. More than fine. It was great.