Just Like Heaven

by T L Bradford

  “Why exactly did we break up in the first place, anyway?” I ask absently. So many things had passed; it was not clear to decipher why we failed. On paper, everything looked perfect.

  “It was never meant to be Noah.”

  “How can you say that? We went through so much to be together. We were equals. We were great companions and co-workers. We had the same interests. We were compatible, reliable, functional; I’ve never cared for anyone the way I did about you.”

  “I think you just answered your question,” she says, no longer looking at me, but off into the distance as if remembering a time from long ago.

  “What do you mean?”

  “There’s so much more to being in a loving relationship than just compatibility and functionality. That’s something you can get from a computer readout.”

  “Are you saying we sucked as a couple?”

  She sighs deeply. “Listen to you; you’re using four-syllable words to describe our relationship. Everyone knows the best way to recognize love is with one-syllable words.”

  “You’re losing me here.”

  “Exactly, and that is why we didn’t work out.”

  I hang my head and look down at her trying to decipher her girl speak. “What are you saying? Was I too analytical?”

  She’s getting frustrated. “It wasn’t a matter of how you were or how I was. It was just that we didn’t work together.” She looks directly at me again. “For a relationship to last, there needs to be love, bliss, joy, damn even a healthy dose of lust thrown in there. See what I’m saying? Fewer syllables,” she goes back to her analogy.

  “I didn’t give you that?”

  “No, I’m not saying that. It just wasn’t something we were able to generate together. That is why we broke up.”

  I’m so confused. I turn completely around to look at her. Instead of giving me a look of pity, which I was expecting, instead, she takes her hands and places them on the sides of my face. “Noah, I loved you with passion; you loved me with familiarity. I needed more than that.” I see her eyes begin to turn glassy and brim with unshed tears. “But there is one thing I will never change, and that is having you in my life. You are my soulmate, and that is forever.”

  It hurts again, just like the first time. A stabbing pain in my chest that I know I am helpless to do anything about it. She draws me in and hugs me tightly. I smell her soft scent. Always feminine and subtle, like cream and honey. She pulls in closer and puts her head down on my chest. “You will find your someone someday, and you will feel all of those crazy emotions too.”

  “But I want you.” I break on the last word.

  “But I’m not what you need. What you need is chemistry.”

  We eventually fall asleep on the couch, per usual. I wake up around 2 am and watch her sleep for a while. Creepy, I know, but she’s so adorable in her onesie that I can’t help it. I turn off the TV and move our takeout containers into the kitchen and dump them into the trash. I then grab a thick blanket from the hallway closet and place it over her like a child, then turn out the lights. I go to my room and contemplate what she spoke of earlier.

  It came as a surprise to me, hearing her say that there was no passion in our relationship. I felt we were on the right track. Gemma was the woman I planned to spend the rest of my days with, marry, have children with and grow old. I am blindsided by the fact that she felt I was not fully engaged in our partnership. I felt I tried the best I could.

  Nothing we did was under normal circumstances. Fame is a real bitch. We had to be careful in public and not show too much PDA. We had to be mindful of the cameras. We were asked very personal questions in interviews. People feel that because you are a public figure, it gives them every right to know the intimate details of your life. It made me paranoid and perhaps led me to pull back some from the affection I could have shown her. But I thought she knew this. I thought she understood and wanted the same thing. I was wrong.

  I’ve always been incredibly careful about how the public perceives me. I feel they are analyzing my every move. The cameras see everything and pick up on your every weakness and flaw. I’m self-conscious about the press picking up things about me, like my gestures, the way I speak or who I interact with.

  It stems from my early childhood. People could sense I was a little different but could not pinpoint what it was. I grew up in a small town in Tennessee. My father’s side of the family came from great wealth. My mother’s family did not. The Sinclair’s were an institution in the Virginia community going back generations. So, they were none too happy when my father, Tobias, knocked up my mother, Helena.

  I have memories of us all together in those early days. I remember the tension and stress over money. My father’s family had cut him off, so they were struggling to survive on just his meager income from the parish where he was the local pastor. We had a tiny two-bedroom house down by the Elk River, where I would spend most of my time playing in the forest behind our house.

  Around the time I was 6, I noticed kids started to distance themselves from me. They began to tease me relentlessly and make life generally miserable. I had only one friend around that time a boy named Jay who lived across the river from our house. We would play toy soldiers and crawl around in the dirt riverbeds between our houses. He never seemed to care what the other kids thought about me. All we knew was that we enjoyed hanging out together and getting lost in the woods. We would spend hours at a time exploring the backwoods, sometimes taking our bikes and being gone the entire day. We grew closer, and he became my best friend.

  Jay had to put up with pressure from the other boys who kept warning him to stay away from me. But Jay, being the guy he was, gave zero fucks about what they thought.

  He was a couple of years older than me and was really into sports. He played on the pee-wee football team and had a lot of friends. It always amazed me that even though he was quite popular among his friends, he still wanted to hang out with me.

  The following year the bullying became even worse. Jay pretty much became my protector at this point. I was smaller than all the other boys and painfully shy. I began having issues with my schoolwork because I was afraid to speak up and ask questions. I feared being singled out. I started falling behind the other kids in my grade. The taunting and abuse made me turn into myself. I would rarely speak because when I did, I had a terrible stutter. Most kids thought I had a learning disability. So, on top of being a social outcast, I was also the class loser.

  By the time I was 8, kids were already calling me “fag.” I seriously doubt they even knew what the word meant. I know I didn’t. But I did know that was not something I wanted to be. This has always been a sore point with me because, despite that fact that I have no outward displays of my being effeminate or flamboyant in any way, people could always tell something was off with me.

  Jay started getting into trouble in school. He had many fights to defend me. I felt rotten because he was almost kicked off the football team for the fighting.

  I remember, on one particularly rotten day when I was 12 years old, I came home from school and noticed my father was home. He was never home at this time of the day. I went into the living room and heard screams and shouts coming from upstairs. It was my parents having what was probably the nastiest fight I had ever heard from them.

  Tobias was calling my mother the town whore and talking about how she had been sleeping with some friend of my fathers. She said that she was tired of being scared and alone. She said my father resented her because he lost his inheritance when he married her because she got pregnant. He accused her of getting pregnant on purpose. Then giving him a son that was broken.

  My mother began threatening to leave him and to take me with her. My father was livid that there was no way she was going to run off with his only son. If only to spite her, he would keep me to make her life miserable.

  At some point, they both turn around and see me standing there like a deer in the headlights. Their words I cannot unhear. My
mother’s face is drenched in tears. My father tells her that she must leave, but she cannot take me with her. She looks over to me in desperation. Then he threatens her saying that no court in the country would give her custody after what she had done. Tobias strikes her across the face where she falls to the floor. Then, he forces her to get her bag, throwing it on the floor and making her crawl to put her belongings into it. She cries the entire time. I back into the hall until I hit the wall, and I slowly slide down, watching the whole time as my family falls apart.

  The next thing I see is her picking up the small bag and heading towards me. She gives me a quick hug. Then she mouths, “I love you.” My father then grabs her arm and forces her down the stairs. I follow downstairs and watch as she gets into her car and looks back at the house. Then she drives away.

  I look up at my father, furious that he drove her away and begin to cry. He says it was time I man up and stop being such a sissy. And that it’s no wonder why those kids tease me. He throws in that I was part of the reason why she had to leave. I know somewhere inside it is residual anger from his bout with my mother that is making him say these things. But in a way, I think it is also something he held at bay for a long time. He knows his kid is a freak and it will not be tolerated as a Sinclair.

  So, I run. I run as far away as I can from there. As I run out the front door, Jay sees me get on my bike and calls after me. When I do not answer, he takes off after me into the forest. I flew on my bike with the shouts of Jay behind me. Tears are burning my eyes. We had a treehouse fort built and would hang out there almost every weekend. This was my destination.

  I skid to a stop and drop my bike at the base of the treehouse and then run up the 2x4 stairs we had nailed to the tree. I sit on the floor of the treehouse and bring my knees all the way up to my forehead and rock myself while crying. A short while later, I hear Jay climb up the stairs and approach me. He sits down right next to me and doesn’t speak. When I am finally able to talk, he asks me what happened. I told him that my parents had a huge fight, and my father kicked my mother out of the house. She left us, and now I was alone.

  Jay looks over at me with his huge blue eyes and puts his hand on my arm attempting to comfort me. I lean into him and put my head on his shoulder. I feel my deep breaths wracking in my chest. He puts his arm around me and soothes me until I am no longer sobbing. Then I tell him what my father said about how it was partly my fault because I was so odd. Jay holds me tighter and tells me there is nothing odd about me. I turn my head up to his and position into his body. He is no more than an inch or two away from my face, then he simply leans down and places a kiss on my lips.

  It is a strange sensation at first, very light and soft. Then he leans in and deepens the kiss more. I close my eyes. No longer stunned, I lean in and begin to kiss him back. I feel his hot breath on my lips. He then moves his hand from my arm and places it behind my head on the back of my neck. As he kisses me, he softly rubs small circles at the tender base of my neck, massaging me and coaxing me to open further to him. I open my eyes and see him looking back at me, full of compassion and curiosity. I take my hand and begin caressing his cheek. We fall into the kiss again, neither one of us hearing the footsteps coming up the planks.

  It is Tobias. He saw us leave and followed us out to the treehouse. My father lets out a curse that I am sure could be heard a mile away. He storms over to where we are sitting and grabs Jay by the front of his shirt. He picks him up and nearly tosses him across the room away from me and begins slapping him hard across the face and hitting him in his ribs. He mumbles some nonsense about knowing all along that Jay planned to ruin me. He calls him a litany of slurs including being depraved, a pervert and a sinner. He then yanks my arm and drags me down the stairs of the tree house. My bike is left behind.

  The entire way back through the forest, he yells and screams at me for allowing Jay to do those things to me. I am prohibited from ever seeing Jay again. The next day I am put into a taxi and sent off to live with my grandparents who I have never met before in Virginia. My father sells the house and comes to live with us shortly after. We never spoke of the incident again, but I felt the disapproval every day afterward. He never let me forget.

  When I turned 18, I ran, having found my mother. Never would I return to living with Tobias.

  My mother Helena still lived in Tennessee. She tells me she is remarried to a man named Jacob, and I am welcome to live with them. She has a very happy, simple life with Jacob. My mother was always a free spirit, and her choice of careers suits her. She has a small business making custom wax candles.

  Jacob is a warm and friendly man who I take to immediately. Over the many years, he becomes a father to me, vastly different from the cold, cruel man that my father became. I end up spending a lot of time with them, and their home becomes mine as well.

  It is at Belmont University that I decide on my career path. I take speech therapy classes, where I am encouraged by the therapists to sign up for acting class to help me with my stutter and learn to speak publicly. I take to it like a fish to water. Acting becomes my life.

  I am enthralled by the performances of actors such as Paul Newman, Dustin Hoffman and Sidney Poitier. I emulate their physical movements as well as their elocution to remove my southern drawl. I start to come into my own. I gain the confidence that had escaped me in my early years. For the first time in my life, I go out to parties and have friends. I am free from the clutches of my father and the Sinclair family legacy.

  I get a big break when I am cast in the role of Vladimir in Waiting for Godot. It is a defining moment for me — finally, acceptance from my peers. I received great reviews and was on a high from all the accolades. After drinking way too much one evening and celebrating after a successful show, I let my guard down and somehow ended up in the dressing room with one of the other actors after the show. Although I’d never shown any interest in the guy before that moment, he cornered me in the dressing room and started coming on to me hardcore. I was just drunk enough that I did not put up any fight to stop him.

  We mess around a little, and it ends up with him jacking me off against the wall. Afterward, I gain clarity enough to come to my senses and stop him before anything else could happen. I push him back off me and stumble to the door. I shout out to him that I’m not that way. And he laughs and says, “That’s what they all say.” I make my way back to my dorm and proceed to empty the contents of my stomach immediately. If it is from alcohol or the accusation, I have no idea.

  After that night, I resolved to put that piece of my life in the rear-view. I shoved those feelings down so deep they were never to see the light of day again.

  Chapter 9

  Josh

  Isay a silent “Hallelujah” when I go to deposit my first check from Americana. It has been several weeks, and I’m fed up of sleeping on couches. Sometimes I stay at Sam’s, and sometimes I crash in the dressing room after everyone leaves. It’s not enough for me to a clear out all my bills, but at least enough to make a small dent in my ever-mounting debt.

  I had the awkward talk with my family about my role on the show. My parents seem okay, if maybe a little confused about how I didn’t know what type of part I was up for at the audition. My brothers ribbed me endlessly, joking about how I’ll need to get a gay dating profile for all the male tail I was bound to be getting. This strikes me as a little odd since there seemed to be no push back on the idea of me playing a gay character, only about how I was going to handle all the unwanted attention.

  My scenes will start airing this week, so I’m getting nervous about the reception. It’s one thing when I’m here on set with this supportive environment, but it will be a whole other thing when the public gets a hold of the topic.

  Jace is a popular character on the show. A lot of people are not going to be happy about Max taking Jace away from Gracie. I’m trying to prepare myself for the backlash mentally, but not entirely sure how to do that. We’ve talked with Steph and Genie about it, an
d they have an entire plan in place.

  Today I am shooting with Noah. We have come to an unspoken agreement. We don’t speak at all. Only when scripted. Even though we have no relationship off-screen, our on-screen personas are unaffected. The storyline is coming along nicely. Unlike most same-sex couples who get little screen time, ours are being pushed to the forefront. It will also be seen every day as opposed to maybe one or two brief scenes that most shows give these couples.

  The angle that Americana wants to explore is not to focus on their physical relationship so much as it is the emotional connection that these two people have for each other regardless of their sex. It is simply a story of two human beings who happen to fall in love with each other. This is how we approach the characters, as well. It is a slow-burn type attraction that is kindled by the surrounding forces. Whatever our differences are, we have been successful in not bringing it to the soundstage.

  Today’s shoot has Jace and Max going to a ball game together and hanging out. This requires Jace to be casually dressed, not typical for his character who is normally well-dressed running the bar. Noah comes to set in a pair of blue jeans and a Saint Louis Cardinals baseball jersey.

  I admit I’m a little taken aback by his transformation. As always, his eyes are the first thing that completely captivates me. I’ve never met anyone with eyes that pull you in like that. I find it difficult to look away. It does not help that he holds overly long eye contact with limited blinking. He is doing it right now as he looks at me. It makes me uncomfortable, and I feel myself flushing a little.

  We talk through the scene with the director first, then find our marks. We are sitting in the stands for the game, so we are close together. It is an outdoor scene, and the temperature is chilly. However, Noah is radiating heat that feels pretty good. The scene has me starting to flirt with Jace. As we had discussed in rehearsals, I would be brushing my leg against his in a way that looks like Max did so unintentionally. Jace looks down at our touching legs then up to Max. I then turn my head to look at Jace. I am sucker punched by the look Noah is giving me. It is a deep burning look of want. He is so convincing it shakes me for a minute, and I miss my cue. He says something that gets me back on track. I must swallow hard to get the words out. What was that?