by Rachel Kane
Jacob
“Break it off with Eli,” I repeated back to Amanda. “Are you serious?”
“I know. I know. I shouldn’t be out here. This is ridiculous. But Jake, you don’t know Eli like I do.”
The memory came to me, Eli’s face peering at me over the ledge on the mountain. Emotionless, calculating. Drained of everything except the desire to save my life. I had seen something true then, something I knew most people would never see in Eli, something deeper than he could consciously show.
“I think I know him pretty well,” I said. I’ve seen his true self. Have you?
She rubbed her forehead, in the same spot as Eli had his stitches. It was an odd moment. They looked so much alike, it was almost like he was standing here in front of me.
“I’m not good at this shit,” she said. “A lifetime of going on tiptoe around your parents’ weird emotions makes you bad at conflict. But if I don’t say this to you, I’m going to hate myself. Eli is going to get hurt with you. He is getting hurt with you.”
She didn’t have to say the next words, I could almost hear them already in my head. I countered before she could say them. I said, “He needs me. He doesn’t have anybody on his side.”
“He has me on his side, and I know a bit more about our parents than you do, Jake! I know that he has fallen for you at a seriously vulnerable time, a time when the future of our family is at stake, and he needs to be really clear-headed right now! Not mooning over his new boyfriend while the family goes down in flames!”
My cringe was involuntary. I took a step back, without realizing I was doing so. My hip hit the side of the truck, and I felt a sudden panic.
Go down in flames.
Shit. For one brief moment the crash had happened again in my head, as strong and as real as if I were back in the cockpit, feeling the tree branches rip through the fuselage.
She saw it. Worry crossed her brow, and she started to reach for me. “Are you…”
I shook my head. “I’m fine.”
“Damn it, Jake, that’s what I’m talking about. If you haven’t recovered from the crash, how can you expect that Eli has? He hasn’t. He hasn’t recovered from that, or from his book failing, or from our folks freaking out, or… He’s like a walking wound right now, and you’re just setting him up for another fall.”
“I’m not—”
“Not on purpose. No, I get that. You strike me as an upright guy. I’m sure you’re just as honest and good as Eli thinks you are. But you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time, and you’re going to hurt him.”
I sighed. It was a long damn sigh, like all the air in the world was flowing out of me, like I was sinking to the bottom of a lake.
She was right, and I didn’t care. Of course she was right. Eli and I were still in the honeymoon phase of all this. I wanted him constantly, and I knew he felt the same.
But we were both wounded. Both carrying the weight of other peoples’ judgment.
Still, while that was a reason not to get involved in the first place, it wasn’t a reason to break up now. Breaking up would just hurt us both worse. It would cut Eli loose in a world that hated him, in a world that offered him no support at all.
There was a fear underneath all this, taunting me. I thought about how his parents had reacted. If his normal, happy family could turn on him like a pack of dogs…what would Pop do, when he found out?
I thought of how he’d nearly killed us all, rather than let that drug runner get the upper hand.
Pop wasn’t a man who let things get in his way.
He would react badly enough if I ever showed up with a woman who wasn’t Marcia. God only knows what he would do if I showed up with Eli.
I’m not sure I ever realized this before, not in a clear way, but I was afraid of Pop.
Afraid of him, afraid for him.
Because the other thing he might do is just die. I could see that happening too. Red-faced, clutching his chest, choking on the horror of me outing myself to him. He was old, he was in poor health, and this might tip him over the edge.
Fuck. Fuck!
Amanda had been staring at me this whole time, waiting for a response.
I shook my head. “I don’t know what the fuck to do,” I told her. “But it’s late, and I’m going home. I’m sorry you came all the way out here.”
Her eyes glistened. She really believed Eli was doomed if he stayed with me.
“I’m sorry too,” she said.
* * *
The next night, I looked around the dark room lit by colored strobes. The walls throbbed with sound, transmitting it directly into my ribs. It was like standing in the midst of huge machinery, except the smells were all different, cologne and flavored vapes and human sweat, instead of machine oil and aircraft fuel.
“Isn’t it great?” screamed Eli beside me, his words lost in the music.
“Yeah, if you like seizures!” yelled his friend Cam.
Come with us, Eli had said on the phone. It feels like I haven’t seen you in days.
I don’t know, I’d said, clubs aren’t really my thing.
But you need to meet my friend Cam, he’s going to love you, and—
And so I was here. Not to meet Cam, not to be deafened by the roar of this music, but because I needed Eli. I needed to be near him.
It was a little embarrassing how urgent that need was. This wasn’t sex (although I needed him that way, too)…it wasn’t even that I wanted to talk to him, necessarily. My brain was still flooded with yesterday’s conversations and fears. Hell, talking might be the worst thing in the world right now; he’d hinted that he’d had another talk with his dad, and it hadn’t gone well. Maybe we’d just make each other depressed if we talked.
No, I just needed him. To be close to him, to draw strength from him. And the way his arm was around my waist, pulling me close, I sensed he needed the same from me.
“Where do we sit?” I shouted.
“It’s slightly quieter by those tables,” yelled Cam.
Along the way we got drinks. A beer for me, rum and coke for Eli, and a martini in a plastic cup for Cam. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone drink an actual martini before. It made me feel out of touch.
But sure enough the tables were quieter, so we didn’t have to shout.
“I truly hate this place,” said Cam.
“Oh, stop,” said Eli. “You love it.”
“Everyone’s staring.”
“Yes, that’s why you love it.”
I looked around. Were people staring? No. Was it a joke?
I felt like I wasn’t thinking very clearly. Maybe it was all the noise.
“Eli tells me you are a poetry lover,” said Cam, leaning over the table to be heard.
“I…” What do you say to a question like that? I sensed he meant something else by the question, some subterranean meaning based on his friendship with Eli.
“He’s a big fan of Coleridge,” said Eli.
“Oh, Coleridge,” said Cam, a look of disappointment on his face. “I mean, he’s one step up from a greeting card.”
Eli made a swatting motion at him. “Ignore him,” he told me. “He’s not happy unless he’s making one bitchy comment or another.”
“It’s not bitchy, it’s fact,” insisted Cam.
“Then who am I supposed to like?” I asked. I could feel myself getting tense. This just wasn’t the place for me. Too many damn flashing lights, too many men stripped to the waist walking by, too much everything all at once.
“Poetry doesn’t even begin until the Modernists—”
“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Eli said. “I came out to have fun tonight, not to watch a fucking fight about poetry.”
Cam laughed. “You would say that! I’m sorry there’s no poetry regarding sodomite robots for you!”
“He’s just messing with you,” Eli said into my ear. “Stop making fists.”
“Maybe I should go,” I said back to him, but he shook his head.
“I need this,” he said, raising his drink. “I need my friends to rally around me, Jake. I feel like shit right now.”
Yeah, I do too, but you haven’t asked about that.
“Oh god,” said Cam, “if you had just come out to your parents at a reasonable age, you wouldn’t be going through this right now.”
Before Eli could respond, I spoke up. “Sometimes you don’t know. Sometimes you don’t find out until later.”
Cam rolled his eyes. “I don’t believe that.”
“It doesn’t matter if you believe it,” I said. “Things just take longer to click for some people. I didn’t know about myself until pretty recently.”
He sat there with his mouth open. Finally he said, “What?” He turned to Eli. “Are you telling me your big pilot man just came out, too?”
There was danger in this conversation. I could tell. Cam and Eli had been talking about me, clearly…but Eli had kept some things to himself.
I don’t know whether I was happy about that or not. I kind of wished he’d never spoken to his friends about me at all.
Yeah, that’s realistic. You want him to keep you a secret his whole life?
“Why is any of this your business?” I asked Cam.
He sat back, startled. Like no one ever called him on his intrusive behavior.
“It’s of no concern to me at all,” he said sniffily. “You two lovebirds can announce yourselves or go into hiding, I don’t care.”
He drained his drink. “Eli, lovely time, call me later.”
Eli reached out for him. “You’re not leaving! We just got here!”
Cam stared at me and said, “I know when I’m not wanted. Trust me.”
“I’m so sorry,” said Eli.
I squeezed his hand. The quiet of the sidewalk was a welcome relief. My ears rang at the silence. “It’s all right,” I said. “I’ll have to meet your friends eventually, and I guess they can’t all like me.”
“Cam’s okay. He’s one of my best friends. Top five, at least. I don’t know why he reacted like that.”
I thought of my midnight conversation with Amanda.
“Eli, have you considered that a lot of people aren’t happy with this relationship?”
I could feel him tense up next to me. I wanted to wrap my arm around him, hold him, anything…but it didn’t feel right. Not while we talked about this.
“I don’t care,” he said. “My mom and dad don’t accept it, and that’s too bad for them, they’re going to find themselves locked out of my life.”
You don’t know that Amanda came to talk to me. You don’t know she’s against it, too.
“It’s not just your parents.”
“Don’t care. Friends… I can make new friends. Wait, you’re not having second thoughts, are you?”
“I’m just worried,” I said. It was hard to figure out how to downplay my concerns.
And I had to, didn’t I? I couldn’t tell him about Amanda. It would break his damn heart to know his sister had tried to come between us, even though I know she had good intentions, and was just scared of him getting hurt.
Everybody’s trying to break us up for our own good, yet the only time I feel good is when I’m with you.
“Are you worried about how your dad will take it?” he asked me.
I shook my head. “Nah, I already know he’s going to flip. Just a matter of figuring out when to let it happen.”
Eli leaned against me. “When it feels like the world is against us, it makes me want to get even closer to you. That sounds healthy, doesn’t it?”
I laughed softly and put my arm around his shoulders. “We’re the model of psychological health.”
But that nagging worry wouldn’t go away.
26
Eli
“Can I ask you something?” I looked down at Jake, who had his cock lodged deep inside me, while I rode atop him.
He opened his eyes. His breathing was quick and shallow. “Right now?”
I gave him a little squeeze, and he shuddered underneath me. “You do love me, right?”
That brought a smile to his face. “That’s your question? Fuck yes, I love you.”
“This isn’t temporary, for you? You’re not just doing this for the enjoyment? It’s real?”
I could feel his cock throb inside me, as though to reassure me of his feelings. Honestly, I wanted to shut up and just ride that thick thing until we both came. He fit so perfectly inside me, like he was made for me.
But it had been a rough couple of days and I needed reassurance.
He put his hands on my hips, and guided me into a rolling, undulating motion that caused him to bite his lip and moan.
“It’s real,” he said.
“Promise me?”
“It’s real.”
Half an hour and three other positions later, sweat was cooling on our skin. I felt sticky and loved, with his arm around me. I nestled into him, sore and tired and happy.
“Did the police ever talk to you?” he asked.
“God,” I said. “Police, your insurance company. This is my new life. Spend my whole day being interviewed about the crash, spend the night with you.”
“It turned out the hospital did a drug test on me,” he said. “I didn’t even know. Or maybe I had to sign something, and didn’t realize what I was signing.”
I put my head against his shoulder. “Is this where you tell me you were on heroin when you crashed the plane?”
Jake’s laugh was quiet and warm. “I told the police, if you think I was high while flying, you’ve never met my pop.”
“These past few days I’ve had the feeling that there are really two worlds, entirely separate. The world of you and me, right here, and on the other side, everything else that happens, full of doctors and cops and insurance agencies.”
His fingertips stroked my cheek. “I like this planet much better.”
“I am really, really sorry Cam was an asshole to you tonight.”
It might have seemed like that came out of nowhere, but it had been on my mind all night. How could one of my best friends turn on me like that? Couldn’t he tell how much Jake meant to me? Cam had made himself as much a citizen of that alien, outside world, as the guy from the insurance company who had asked me all the questions about my head.
“It’s okay, like I said.” As though to reassure me, Jake reached down and put his hand around my soft, tired cock. His rough hand brought it to life instantly, even though I was getting a little sore by this point, and probably needed some time to recover. “Nobody lived through that crash but us. Nobody knows what it did to us. Are you going to let other people’s opinions control you?”
I shrugged. “Well, I always have in the past, but…”
“I know.”
My look was skeptical. “How do you know what I’ve always done in the past?”
“Isn’t it the story of your recent life? People’s opinions of your book, your parents’ opinion of your coming out, driving you to find out your uncle’s opinion of your parents?”
I stiffened. Or, rather, the rest of me stiffened; one certain part of me softened fairly quickly, even though his hand was stroking it. “I hate it when you put it that way.”
“I’m just saying, who cares about the world’s opinions? I care about yours, you care about mine, we don’t need anybody else’s.”
But I felt a resistance on that point. “That makes me sound so weak,” I said. “Buffeted around by everyone’s views, like I have no spine of my own.”
“That’s not what I mean. I hope you know that.”
I shook my head. “Sorry. I’m just on edge. Taking everything hard.”
“Taking one thing hard in particular.”
I couldn’t help it, I laughed. He squeezed his hand on my cock again, and I kissed his collarbones. “Why does everyone care what we do? Why is it such a big deal? Everybody’s got so much advice.”
Jake sighed. “It’s my fault. You know that. If we had
met in a fucking mall or something, nobody would bat an eyelash. It’s because they know you were in a crash, and they’re worried about you. In a way, it’s kind of sweet, as stupid as it is.”
A look came over him then, one I hadn’t seen before. It looked like…guilt. And that made me very afraid.
“I need to tell you something,” he said. “It’s been gnawing at me since it happened.”
“Oh lord.”
“I’m not good with lying, or covering stuff up.”
I slid out of his arms and sat up in the bed. My body felt cold. “I’m listening.”
“No, look, come back under the blanket, it’s not some deep dark confession. It’s just, Amanda called me. She wanted a big secret meeting, just me and her.”
I didn’t feel like curling up next to him anymore. I felt a flare of anger, and I didn’t know why. My skull was starting to pound, as I thought of the two of them talking behind my back. “What did she say?”
“You know what she said. She’s looking out for you. She thinks now is the wrong time for us to have this relationship.”
“She doesn’t get a fucking vote on it,” I said. “Fuck, who does she think she is?”
“She’s your sister. It’s natural that she’d want the best for you.”
I was out of bed by this point. I walked over to my mirror and stared hard at myself. The area under the bandage really hurt. “You’re what’s best for me,” I said. “Aren’t you?”
He swung his bare legs over the side of the bed and looked up at me. “I don’t want you to get hurt, Eli. But I don’t know what to do about it. Your sister doesn’t want us together, your parents don’t want us together, your friend doesn’t like me… What am I supposed to do? Drag you out of the city, bring you back to my place, so you never have to see anyone you know?”
I looked at him through the mirror. “Are you offering? I’ll pack right now.”
He came up behind me, locking his arms around me. “As much as I’d like that, you can’t run away from this. You can’t give up your life for me. We have to figure another way to work this out.”
“But if they don’t want me to be happy—”
