by Roan Parrish
His apartment is an efficiency, with a kitchenette that connects to the living room-slash-bedroom, and a bathroom off to the other side. It’s dark and musty and everything is brown and a yellowish color that was probably once white.
He has a couch backed against the kitchenette, with a card table in front of it and a small TV on an upended wooden crate. On the card table are his phone and a beat-up old laptop. Taking up most of the rest of the space are a mattress and box spring pushed against the far wall and a small dresser next to them, stuffed to capacity. There’s no closet, so a few dress shirts and a suit are hung from a hook next to the window and his shoes are lined up along the wall. A shelf between the kitchenette and the living room holds a few stacks of books, some DVDs, and random odds and ends piled among framed photographs of what must be his family.
Several posters for political rallies and groups hang in the living room, among them one for Books Through Bars. Other than the posters, the only decorations look suspiciously like craft projects. Maybe things his nieces and nephew made him? But no, looking closer at the amount of glitter and the preponderance of rainbows, they have to be from the kids at YA.
Rafe drops down on the couch and I sit next to him, sinking deeper into the worn couch than I expect to.
“Are you… okay?” I ask like an idiot. He’s clearly not.
“Nope,” he says flatly, staring straight ahead. “I’m exactly what I never wanted to be. An unemployed ex-con addict who sits around his apartment all day wishing he could get high and forget everything.” His voice is so blankly hopeless that he doesn’t even sound like the same person.
“No,” I start to say, but he turns to me and grips my forearms.
“Yes,” he snarls. “Those are true things. You can’t hide them by keeping me a secret from everyone. I’m a fucking loser. So why are you here? I didn’t call you.” He drops my arms and turns away.
Rafe is pushing hard. I’ve done it so many times but never quite seen what it looks like from the other side: forcing someone to see you the way you see yourself. Forcing them to press their face right up to the ugliness inside and then make the decision about whether they want to go or stay from there. Most people go. But Rafe saw me at my ugliest and he didn’t go. He asked for time and I gave it to him, but now I’m done. Done messing around. Done sneaking around. Done making excuses for either of us.
“Okay, yeah. You are unemployed. You went to prison so you are an ex-convict. You had a problem with drugs. And maybe you have been sitting around thinking about getting high. God knows you smell like you haven’t left your apartment in weeks. So sure, those things are true.”
His shoulders soften a little bit.
“Listen,” I tell him, deciding to jump right in to what I came here to say. I’m not much for comfort at the best of times. “About YA. I’m so fucking sorry, man. I really tried to get them to give you your job back. The kids did too. Jesus, the shit they said. But….” I shake my head.
He turns to face me. “What?”
I tell him about talking to Carly and how I asked the kids to write testimonials about how important Rafe had been to them. When I tell him that instead of writing them, they recorded videos on their phones, he almost smiles, and mutters, “Of course they did.”
“I can’t believe you did that for me,” he says finally, and shame settles in my gut at how clearly Rafe expected absolutely nothing of me.
“Sorry it didn’t do any good.”
“It did,” he says softly. “Thank you.”
“I get it more now. How freaked you were about the thing with Anders. How scared you were to break any rules. I—” I roll my eyes at myself. “—read some articles about all that stuff. How difficult it is to get hired when you have a record and how hard people come down on anything you do that’s not perfect.” I trail off, not really knowing how to talk about this stuff. “It’s so damn unfair.”
“Fuck, Colin,” he says, and he takes my hands. “I don’t know what I’m going to do without them. I just… I haven’t felt this… untethered since….” He shakes his head and slumps back into the couch.
“Look, everything sucks right now, but you’ll figure it out. You will,” I insist as he starts to turn away. “When I met you, my life was utter garbage. No, it was. You changed everything for me, man. If you can do that for me, you can do it for yourself. Hell, maybe you’ll start your own version of YA. Or whatever. I don’t know. But you’ve got all this experience and you know tons of people who’d want to help. Maybe you can’t do the same job. But that doesn’t mean your life is over.”
Rafe bites his lip and doesn’t say anything, and I go up on my knees on his stupidly uncomfortable couch and put my hands on his shoulders. “I know my timing’s shit,” I say, forcing him to look at me, “but I want to be with you. For real. I want to… go to dinner at your mom’s or whatever the hell.”
“You do?” Rafe says suspiciously.
“Well, okay, no, I don’t actually want to go to dinner at your mom’s, but I will. If you want. And yes, I want to be with you. I just… I need you to tell me shit that you want. Like going to dinner. And I’ll try. I know I haven’t been very good at that, but I’m going to do better.
“And, like, we might each need different things, but that’s normal, and if we can tell each other what those things are, then we can try and… you know… give them to each other, and….”
I trail off, embarrassed. Rafe’s looking at me with narrowed eyes and a slightly open mouth like he has no idea what to say to me, which is fair, given that I totally garbled that.
“Uh. Fine. Daniel told me a bunch of that stuff, but it’s true, right?”
Rafe almost smiles, then lets out a long sigh and scrunches up his eyes. “You’re not really letting me wallow in my misery here, babe.”
I grin. “Yeah, I guess I’m not as good at that as you are with me. Besides, you’ve been wallowing for weeks, looks like. So go on, then. Tell me what you need.” I cringe at sounding like a self-help book.
He runs a tentative finger up my arm, and I brace myself to listen to what Rafe’s conditions are. “I need you not to be drinking, mostly. A beer every now and then, sure. A glass of wine with dinner once in a while, okay. But I… I can’t see you drunk. I just can’t. And I can’t know that it’s your coping mechanism. I can’t be honest with you if I know that I might potentially be the cause of you going off and getting wasted to cope with what I’ve said, even if you do it where I can’t see. I can’t know that’s what I might trigger. It’s not something I can live with. And I need to be able to be honest with you, so….”
“I get it,” I say. “I—it’s just something I’ve always done. I—Pop was always a drinker, and my brothers, and so….”
“I know a lot of people who could help you with it. There are meetings. A lot of support.”
I shake my head. “Nah. I mean, no offense to the twelve steps or whatever. I know it helped you a lot. But I don’t want to talk to people about that shit. I haven’t had anything to drink since that night. The night you left. I can do it. I promise.”
Rafe traces my mouth with his finger, but he doesn’t look as hopeful as I’d like.
“That’s good. That’s really good. But… you can’t promise something like that, okay? I mean, promise that you’ll try, but it’s a big deal. A process, not a onetime decision. And it’s exactly because you’ve always done it that it’s going to be hard. Because it’s not only about stopping. It’s about finding other ways to cope with stressors and problems when they arise. Do you see?”
I want to fight him with everything I have. Want to assure him that I can promise this, since it’s the thing he says he needs. But I know he’s right.
“But if I can’t promise, then… are you saying you don’t want to…?” I gesture between us, and Rafe catches my hand and kisses it.
“No, I’m not saying I don’t want this. I’m saying that’s one thing I need, and if you can promise me that you’
re going to work on it, then thank you.”
I nod. I can do that. I can fight for that. “Okay, so what else?”
Rafe slumps back into the couch like he didn’t expect me to agree or something.
“I missed you,” he mutters. “I hated not being with you.”
“Yeah. I—look, I know I fucked up. I’m going to prove to you that you can trust me. That I can be your, um, your you.” He looks confused. “You know. Like when you said you were jealous of Luz because she had you.” Rafe’s expression softens and leans a little closer. “I know I’ve been a mess since you met me, okay? I do know that. But you can talk to me about the shitty stuff too. You don’t have to wait until it gets this bad.”
“I tried,” he says.
“Yeah, maybe. And I probably fucked it up. But there have been other times. When you’ve been upset about things or feeling shitty about stuff and you didn’t tell me. Like you thought I couldn’t handle it. But I can.”
“Yeah?”
I nod once. I think it’s even the truth.
“Er, and I have to tell you something. You might be mad.” Rafe tenses immediately but schools his expression. “I, um, I gave Anders my phone number that day that he came into the shop, and he gave it to the other kids and we’ve been texting. Especially me and Anders. Not in a creepy way, I don’t mean. Just, I’ve been thinking a lot about all the shit he’s going through. All of them are going through, really, and then we were texting, and anyway, I know it isn’t protocol or whatever. But there are records or something, I’m sure, so it’s not like anyone can accuse me of being inappropriate.”
I’ve said all this in basically one long sentence so Rafe can’t say anything, and now he groans and collapses onto me.
“Jesus Christ, Colin, I thought you were going to say… I don’t know. Don’t fucking scare me like that.”
His body against mine for the first time in so long feels exactly right. I breathe him in and he smells—well, he smells bad, honestly, but underneath the not-showered, hiding-in-my-apartment mustiness, he smells like Rafe. I put my fingers in his dirty hair.
“I told Brian and Sam that I’m gay,” I tell him quietly.
It feels like I’m peeling off my cards one by one and throwing them down on the table for Rafe. It’s shock and awe and I’ll be damned if I’m leaving here without getting Rafe on board. Something about seeing him this low, this down about everything, makes me finally feel like I have something to offer him.
“You what?”
He jerks away from me, and I start laughing at the look of total shock on his face. It may be slightly on the hysterical side because once I start, I can’t stop. He’s staring at me like I’m nuts, mouth hanging open ridiculously, which makes me laugh harder. He sputters.
“But… you… but, why?”
“Because of Anders’ stupid dad,” I get out through my laughter, “and because of Daniel, and because—because I fucking love you,” I cackle. “I think. Maybe. Probably.”
“What!”
He sounds so exasperated and looks so affronted that I laugh until I have to sit up so I don’t choke. “Well, I don’t know! I’ve never… you know.” I gesture between us.
“Oh my god,” he mutters, shaking his head, and starts laughing. Then he lunges at me and kisses me until I’m gasping for breath. He kisses my neck, and his hair falls in my face.
“You’re filthy,” I say. He makes a noise in the back of his throat. “No, I mean, when’s the last time you took a damn shower, seriously?” I feel so light, so buoyant in the moment that I can’t put any heat behind it. And honestly, I don’t care.
“Mean,” he murmurs and pulls me off the couch and onto the mattress two steps away.
“Ow! God damn it!” I roll to the side to escape the stabbing spring that Rafe just threw me onto.
“Sorry,” he says, but he goes right back to attacking my neck.
“Jeez, no wonder you want to stay at my house all the time. All your shit is uncomfortable as hell.”
“Mmhmm.” He nods into my throat.
We kiss hotly, grinding together, and I roll us until I’m on top of him. I slide our pants down but that’s all I can do before we’re pressed together again, drinking the breath from each other’s mouths and losing where one of us ends and the other begins, all playfulness dissolved in desperation.
We both fumble between our bodies, working our erections. Bolts of pleasure rocket through me and I grab at Rafe’s arms as he drives our hips together. I’ve missed this so much. Forgetting myself in his body, his smell.
Rafe’s usual finesse is nowhere to be found, and it’s as if a wall has dropped between us. He’s wild, overwhelming, his weight pressing into me, his ragged breaths in counter rhythm with the groaning of his horrible mattress as we hump against each other. After only a few minutes I lose it, shuddering hard against him, shooting onto his stomach, crying out into his mouth, and pulling his hair harder than I mean to. He moans and comes with a few more strokes, heat blooming between us, and collapses next to me, sweaty and flushed.
When his breathing evens out, he pushes up on one elbow and kisses me sweetly—barely a kiss at all. More an innocent press of lips. A teenager-on-tiptoes impulse. We lie on our backs, our faces turned close together. I look at the freckles scattered across his nose and cheeks, and his eyes linger on my mouth. Rafe twines our fingers together and squeezes my hand, eyes fluttering shut.
Despite the saggy mattress and the stickiness coating my belly and thighs, I’m almost asleep with my face in Rafe’s dirty hair when he cups my cheek.
“I love you too,” he says. And I don’t have to see his face to know he’s smiling.
Epilogue
“Thanks for coming with me,” I tell Rafe as we walk to the restaurant where we’re meeting Daniel and Rex for dinner. They’re moving here next month so Daniel can take a job teaching at Temple, and they’re in Philly to find an apartment.
“Well, it’s the least I could do since you’re coming to Gabriela’s birthday dinner with me this weekend,” he says, smiling.
“Uh, I am?”
Rafe spins me around the corner and presses me against the wall in an alley between a parking garage and a 7-Eleven.
“Please?” he says, leaning in to kiss me softly.
“Hmm,” I murmur against his mouth.
He runs a hand down my neck and presses a thumb against my lips. “I can make it worth your while,” he whispers, and he slides a muscular thigh between mine, making my breath catch.
“Hmm?”
“Oh yeah. Never doubt it.” Then he kisses me until I’m clutching at the back of his shirt and pressing against him and we’re both breathing heavily.
“We’d better go to that restaurant right this second or else I’m taking you home,” he says heatedly. “Besides, it’s filthy in here.”
I look around. It’s definitely… an alley. “Hey, you dragged me in here. Besides,” I say, bumping his shoulder, “don’t knock it. We met in an alley just like this.”
“Yeah, and if I remember correctly, I wanted to take you home that night too.” He kisses me again, then pulls me against him so he can look into my eyes, his expression suddenly kind of… sappy. “I knew you were something special that night, Colin. Even though you didn’t.”
“Aw, man.” I can feel myself blushing. “Well, I thought you were basically a dick.” Way to ruin a moment. Rafe laughs and grabs my hand, pulling me toward the restaurant.
There should be a word for living a life so different from anything you ever thought was possible that you don’t even recognize yourself in it.
The last few months have been hard. Rafe didn’t adjust well to not being able to see the kids, and in an attempt to fill the space they’d left behind, he threw himself into political organizing projects so aggressively that I wouldn’t see him for weeks at a time. Which made me think he didn’t want to be around me. Which made me act like an asshole and insult his work when I did see him. Whic
h made him actually not want to be around me.
Things were awkward for me at the shop. I’d told Luther and the other guys about being gay since it seemed ridiculous to keep it a secret when Sam knew. Though Luther didn’t care much, the others’ reactions varied and some of them ended up quitting.
Finally, though, after some epic fights and a particularly dark moment of Rafe’s when the only thing that made any difference was forcing him to watch the video testimonials that the kids had recorded for the YA board, things have turned a corner. Rafe has had a bunch of meetings with people who are interested in helping him start a support group for queer youth and young adults who are currently incarcerated in Pennsylvania. They’re only in the planning phase, but some of the calm satisfaction that he got from working with the kids at YA is already back.
And I’ve been trying to integrate our relationship more into my life outside my house. That’s Rafe’s term for it, anyway. Which basically just means keeping the promise I made about being willing to go out to dinner or the movies, and to meet his family.
They clearly weren’t sold on me the first time we met. Except for Luz, who I think would like anyone Rafe liked, the consensus seemed to be that I was a boring white dude who didn’t want kids and therefore brought very little to the table. His mother warmed to me a bit when she found out my parents were both dead, as if it was her responsibility to step up and force-feed me. Which, honestly, was irritating as shit, but I just smiled and let her do it, a decision that earned me epic sexual favors from Rafe. So I guess that was okay.
We also went to Xavier and Angela’s for dinner. It was intensely awkward for the first half hour or so, with Xavier trying to play host and Angela asking all kinds of intrusive questions that made me want to punch her. Rafe was on his best behavior but was clearly uncomfortable because he’d given me permission to tell X he’d been in prison. Finally, Angela broke the tension by telling me she’d never liked me but now she felt like she was meeting me for the first time, and I told her I’d never liked her and actually nothing had really changed about that, and everyone laughed and she wasn’t even mad about it. Which kind of made me like her a little bit.
