The Other Half

by Jess Whitecroft

  “I didn’t realize it at the time,” I say. “But we basically had to get the hell out of Pittsburgh because all those friendly neighbors were about to form a lynch mob. It was a scam, Chris. Dad got a sniff of sympathy at the hospital and thought – like he always does – ‘How do I get more of this and wring this thing out for every last drop?’ He staged the burglary, because he never knows when to stop. We never had any Christmas gifts to steal. My mother lost a baby and my old man decided to jump on the sympathy bandwagon and ride that fucker over a cliff.”

  Chris stares at me, open mouthed. I can’t exactly blame him. “Oh my God,” he says.

  I shrug, shrugging it off the way I’ve tried to my whole life. “He can’t help himself. If he’d been born in a different century he’d have been fucking studied, let me tell you. One of those incorrigible criminals that Victorian doctors used to pass back and forth between asylums. Measuring his head and shit. Feeling the bumps on his skull to figure out this personality. You know that thing they used to do? The feelybumps thing?”

  “Phrenology,” he says, but I can see he’s trying not to laugh. I’m sure he thinks it’s inappropriate, but I don’t. I want to see him laugh again. Really crack up.

  “That’s the one,” I say. “Although we can totally carry on calling it feelybumps if you want.”

  I’ve got him. It’s his real laugh, the loud breathless one that made my heart skip a beat when we were almost strangers. And that’s when I realize that I’ve been into him for much longer than I’ve dared to admit to myself.

  “That’s like the second time I’ve seen you laugh,” I say, watching him wipe his eyes. “Really laugh. I like it.”

  “I know I should laugh more,” he says. “But I’ve been so sore. So mad.”

  “That’s okay.”

  “No, it’s not,” he says, frowning once more. Such a brief break in the clouds. “I need to get the hell over it. I need to stop letting it hang over my life, or I’m just going to start doing that thing where I can’t do anything because the fear of it not being perfect just paralyses me.”

  I want this to be going where I think this is going. I want this to go upstairs and into a bedroom. Take me to bed and fuck me with your heart in your mouth. I’ll take it as hard and messy and imperfect as you want, just so long as you tell me you love me and leave bruises shaped like your fingers on my hips.

  I don’t say those things, but he has to know I’m feeling them. It’s getting to the point where I feel like a beacon, blazing with this want that he must be able to see by now, because I’m pretty sure it’s lighting up the entire state of New Hampshire. I never understood the meaning of the word ‘yearning’ until I met him.

  “I had the same feeling the whole time I was planning that fucking wedding,” he says. “And it just about killed me. I was being forced into making all these decisions while part of me was howling that I couldn’t, because I was going to do it all wrong.”

  He sighs and I lean forward. Please, please. Just tell me that you want me.

  “And now I have it with the house,” he says, and I want to scream. “It was kind of therapeutic tearing all those baseboards out, but then the floor fell in and I’m just…frozen, I guess.”

  I take his hand. “I thought we weren’t going to talk about the house?”

  We’re leaning towards one another, our knees touching beneath the table. Come on, Chris – this is obvious.

  “I know,” he says. “I feel like I’m living in a giant eggshell sometimes, but no. We shouldn’t talk about it tonight. I just…I just wish sometimes I could plunge into something without fear, you know? Without feeling like I’d been dropped into the deep end.”

  “I think you know the solution to that,” I say, and I know he does, because when I look in his eyes I can see we’re on the same page. The one where we’re already naked, our mouths and hands and legs wide open, trying to take each other in all at once. This is it. This has to be it, because I don’t think I can stand much more of this.

  I get up from the table. “I’m going up to bed,” I say, and short of straight up telling him to fuck me I don’t think I could be much clearer. It’s an open invitation.

  “Okay,” he says, and that’s that. That’s all he says. Okay.

  “Well. Goodnight, then.”

  It’s hopeless. The week before Christmas I carved JO + CS into a tree trunk into the orchard, because I felt like I was going to explode if I didn’t tell someone, but now I see I may as well have kept on talking to a block of goddamn wood. How does he not see it? So he’s a mess – big deal, but I’m used to mess. I was born messy.

  I’m halfway up the stairs when I hear footsteps behind me. “Jody,” he says, and then I turn on the landing and finally…oh God, finally.

  My ass hits the wall. His mouth is somehow even softer than it looks, and I’m so insanely fucking glad to be kissed that I almost cry out right away – yes, at last – but his tongue fills my mouth and I can’t make a sound. Is he noisy in bed, or quiet? I’m about to find out.

  Like me he tastes of wine and cream, and his hands are big and seem to cover all of me at once, my ass, my back, my thighs, my face. I need to be naked with him right now, because I think I’ll die if I don’t have this. I’m too tender, bursting, so overripe that a single touch could tip me over the edge. When I come up for air his tongue fills my ear and then I feel his breath, blowing softly on the wet skin and sending shivers all the way down to the end of my spine. “Oh God, what are you doing?” I say.

  He catches his breath. “Plunging,” he says. “I think.”

  His reply is so totally Chris that I laugh. I’ve got him. He’s about to be mine. My Chris. I fumble the key in the lock as he crowds up against me, so that we almost fall into my room. The heavy door swings shut behind us, but we’re hardly paying attention any more, because there’s a bed and it’s way past time to get naked.

  My ass hits the bed. I yank my shirt off over my head and he dives right in, his mouth wet and hot on my nipple, his hands sweeping up the length of my arms to pin me. We’re both already moving, fierce and purposeful. I want to touch him. I need to touch him.

  “Chris…please. Let me touch you.”

  He shushes me in a kiss. “No, this is for you,” he says, thrusting against me. “Just for you. Let me take care of you.”

  Hell of a thought – being taken care of. And under other circumstances I might not resist, but I want to put my hands all over him. I want to touch and taste and smell and explore every last part of him. “Later,” I say. “Let me go.”

  His grip slackens a little, but his weight settles more fully on me. He thrusts again. Once, twice, three times, each one harder than the one before. His frown deepens with each motion of his hips, and when I catch his eyes he looks scared to death.

  “What?” I say.

  Chris shakes his head. “I’m sorry,” he says, scrambling up off me. “I’m sorry…I can’t…”

  “Chris? Are you okay?”

  He backs towards the door. “I’m really sorry,” he says, and my first thought is maybe he’s come in his pants. I look down at his crotch, but it looks…unruffled. Oh God.

  “We can talk…” I start to say, but he’s halfway out of the door.

  “I can’t,” he says. “I’m sorry. This was a mistake.”

  10

  Chris

  There’s always a point when you know you can’t come back from this. You look in the other person’s eyes and you know they’ve reached their limit. They can’t take any more disappointment or hurt, and if you’re not a total sadist you’ll stop. Maybe Sebastian saw it in my eyes that time, but right now that’s where I am with Jody.

  “It’s cool,” he said, on the one occasion we tried to talk about it. “You’re still hurt. It’s too soon. I get it.”

  No, you don’t, I wanted to say. I wanted to tell him everything. I wanted to beg his forgiveness for being so feckless as to initiate something while I still hadn’t ta
ken a test, but there was that protective, pewterish film to his gaze, a flat gray ‘nope’ that said the discussion was over.

  In the days after Christmas we rattle around the freezing house, apologizing to one another every time we threaten to collide in a doorway or on the stairs. At night he lies rolled up like an armadillo, and the one time we snuggled together in our sleep he woke up and immediately shuffled quickly out of my personal space. He’s protecting himself, and I can’t blame him for that.

  Meanwhile my family is getting even twitchier than they were already. I’ve missed Thanksgiving, Christmas and now it’s coming up on New Year. Josephine is not amused.

  “Come on,” she says. “What the hell are you playing at, Chris? Mom’s starting to think you’re punishing her for something.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Newsflash, Bro – irrational fears don’t. That’s why they’re irrational fears.”

  “Have you told her it’s irrational?”

  “Of course I’ve told her,” she says. “But you’re avoiding everyone. And everything. It’s not healthy.”

  Maybe I’m not healthy. Maybe I’m doomed to a drug regimen for the rest of my life. To scanning the news every day for the hope of a cure. Or maybe I’m just a toxic person. I glance out the window and spot Jody smoking and moping beside the fountain. All the exuberance has gone from his body language. All that cheerful, optimistic sluttiness. I managed to suck it out of him in the space of about five minutes.

  “I might come back,” I say, and Jo groans at me.

  “Don’t say might. Either do or don’t. You did the ‘might’ thing at Thanksgiving and still managed to flake on us. ‘Might’ is worse than ‘no way’ at this point.”

  “Am I not allowed to be indecisive, now?”

  “There’s a limit, Hamlet. Be real. Like, what are you even doing up there? Do you know the first thing about repairing a hundred and forty year old house?”

  “No, but I’m trying to learn.”

  “From who?” she says. “A gardener?”

  I sigh. “Have you been talking to Dad?”

  “Yes,” says Jo, with testy patience. “We have all been talking to one another, because we’re family and because we love you. And we’re worried about you. You want us to stop worrying about you? Show face at New Year, drink some champagne, smile, sing Auld Lang fucking Syne and everyone will move on, Chris. That’s literally all you have to do. Show up and show us you’re alive and happy.”

  I hesitate too long, and she knows me far too well.

  “You can’t, can you?” she says. “Because you’re not happy. You’re miserable as hell. I don’t need twin-sense to know that.” The tears start to fall and I can’t stop them. “It’s time to come out of the woods, Chris. Time to admit you got your heart ripped out and stomped on, because if you admit it you can start to get over it.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay? What does that mean?”

  “I mean I’ll come back,” I say. “For New Year.”

  She exhales. “There. Was that so bad?”

  “No. I guess not.” I look out again and see Jody skulking off into the orchard. I have an idea. It’s crazy, but it might just be insane enough to work. “Listen, I’ll call you back. I gotta go.”

  “Sure. We love you, Christopher. You know that, right?”

  “I do. I love you, too.”

  I hurry downstairs, grab a coat and run towards the orchard. I can’t take another night of him rolled up into a ball beside me. I can’t stand another day of seeing that film in his eyes and the slump of defeat in his shoulders.

  I find him standing half-baked among the bare winter trees, a few shriveled, frozen fruit still clinging to the branches here and there. It’s starting to snow again and he sticks out his tongue like a child to taste the flakes. I almost don’t want to interrupt him, because when he thinks he’s alone his eyes are dark and bright again, but then he sees me and once again the film clouds them. Grays them out and dulls their shine.

  “Come to New York with me,” I say. The snow is falling on his black hair, catching on the tips of his eyelashes. “For New Year.”

  “Why?” he says, like there’s a catch.

  “Because I want you to. Because there’ll be champagne and Times Square and it’ll be fun.”

  He shakes his head. “I don’t want champagne and fireworks. You know what I want, Chris.”

  I move closer, and as I do I see letters carved into a tree trunk nearby. JO + CS. He sees the direction of my gaze and shrugs.

  “I had to tell someone,” he says. “It was driving me insane.”

  I put my arms around him. The snowflakes caught in his hair melt against my lips. I don’t dare ask him – do you love me? – because I know the answer already. He stands stiff for a moment, but then he sighs – almost resigned – and wraps his arms around my waist. The orchard and the surrounding woods are so quiet, muffled in the softness of the snow. I think briefly of Robert Frost and the promise I just made, but Jody is right here in my arms. And it’s time.

  “I love you,” I say, with salt in my eyes and snow on my lips.

  He stirs slightly, his face still pressed against my chest. “I know,” he says, without looking up. “I love you, too.”

  It feels like a truce, but I need more. “Look at me.”

  Jody steps back and lifts his head. Tears have washed away the film from his eyes, and his pupils are small in the weak winter light, so that I can see the dozen or more shades of brown in his irises. I cup his cold cheeks in my hands and kiss his curving lips, but I can feel he’s still guarded. Under different circumstances this would be our cue to seek out a bed and pour out our feelings, but I owe him an explanation. And a warning.

  “Let’s go inside,” I say.

  “Are you going to talk to me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.”

  We go indoors hand in hand. I’m in no shape for love, but it’s here and now I know that I’m going to have to deal with it. I watch him finger-comb the melting snow through his thick dark hair and I’m lost all over again. His breath hangs in puffs as he prods the fire in the range, and when he comes to sit down at the table he has his hands thrust deep into his armpits.

  “I never meant to reject you,” I say, meaning to get to the heart of the thing right away. “On Christmas Eve. But my body – my brain – it’s all messed up.”

  He doesn’t say anything, but his eyes are open now. Bright. So I keep talking.

  “I wanted you. I did. I still do, but you have no idea how much he fucked me up, Jody. It was like…it was like trying to walk again on a pair of broken legs.”

  Jody sniffs, and the light in his eyes shifts into something that looks a lot like frustration. And I get it. I do. I should have talked to him about this earlier, before this all got out of hand. I was so busy telling myself that I wouldn’t fall in love that I gave no thought to what would happen if I did.

  “The night before I caught him cheating,” I say. “We had sex. Some of the best sex we’d ever had. We didn’t even make it to the bedroom, just went at it bareback right there on the floor. I’d never felt so connected to a lover in my life, and then when we were finished – all afterglowy – he said these three little words.”

  “I love you?” says Jody.

  “No. He said ‘Do you know?’”

  I watch as the implications settle. I hope he doesn’t think any less of me for being such a colossal dumbass.

  “I think he said them twice,” I say. “The first time I didn’t hear him properly, and now I get it. Now I know what he was doing. He was sounding me out, because he thought I knew about his affair. And every time I think about why he asked me that right after I’d had my dick in him I want to scream.”

  Jody pulls his chair closer with a scrape. “Oh my God, Chris. I’m so sorry.”

  “I can’t even jerk off without thinking what a goddamn idiot I was. The hurt keeps coming back to me.
That’s why I pushed you away the other night.” My voice is rising and I can’t help it. “You reached for me and the thing was like a well-cooked noodle and I couldn’t…I couldn’t get him out of my head, when there should have been no room for anyone but you in there.”

  “Shh.” He gets up from his chair and fluidly swings a leg over my lap. His slight weight settles on my thighs, his hands on my hair and his mouth seeking mine. “It’s okay. I know he did a number on you, but we’ll work it out.”

  Oh yeah. That will really work. Jody with his juggernaut sex drive and me with erectile dysfunction. Not to mention the rest.

  “No,” I say, before this goes any further. “Listen to me, baby. There’s more. There’s worse.”

  “What?” His lips are so beautiful I can hardly stand it.

  “I found out afterwards,” I say. “While he was stepping out on me. He wasn’t even safe.”

  Jody’s weight sinks against me as he breathes out. “Oh God.”

  “Yeah. I need a test.”

  He kisses me hard and deep, like he’s trying to prove something. I almost want him to stop, because I think I’m going to cry.

  “Okay,” he says. “So let’s do it.”

  “Do what?”

  “The test. Come on. We’ll go to the nearest free clinic and get it done. It takes like twenty minutes. I’ll be with you the whole time.”

  “What? Just like that?”

  “Yes. It’s the only way you’re going to be able to get over it, otherwise you’ll never be able to stop thinking about him.” There’s a little fuck-you glitter in his eye that makes me love him even more. “And I don’t want you thinking about him when you’re in bed with me.”

  In bed with Jody. God, what a thing that would be. Naked and warm, with the freedom to touch and kiss and taste and explore. I pull him close and his jacket falls open. When I press my head to his chest I can hear his heart, and the sound makes me hungry. I want to push up his shirt and lap at his nipples, tug at them with my teeth and listen for the noises he makes. My cock stirs in my pants, but with it my anxiety also rises. Is it going to stay up? And what about the test?