Dance With Destiny

by Sloan Johnson

  “Are you sure about this?” I ask, staring at the jet skis bobbing in the water. Brandon looks around to make sure there’s no one around other than Jason and Deena before wrapping his arms around my waist. I like hanging out with them because Brandon knows they won’t judge him. “I mean, what if something happens out there?”

  The foreboding pit in my stomach hasn’t eased a bit since I woke up. I’ve tried telling myself it’s because of too many drinks around the bonfire last night, but I don’t think it is.

  “Come on, Dom. You can’t go your entire life being a chicken,” Brandon taunts me. “There are no guarantees in life, so take a chance for once!” He releases me and dashes to his jet ski. By the time I decide that he’s right, I’m not sure I’ll be able to catch him as he bounces across the waves. As I settle myself into the seat, I grow agitated with Brandon. The man will do just about anything if there’s some sort of adrenaline rush attached to it, but he shuts down about issues that really matter in life.

  Within minutes, the four of us are chasing each other around the harbor, yelling and laughing.

  My nostrils flare as I desperately try to draw a breath. The sound of my heart beating a furious tattoo is the only noise I can hear. If I don’t go to sleep, I won’t have to see what happens next. But staying awake will only lead to me talking to a fucking ghost. Coming here was a huge mistake, but I can’t go back. I can’t let Tony know how deeply he cut me with his denial.

  By morning, I’m no longer questioning why I thought it was a wise decision to come to the cottage. I know it’s because I never let go of Brandon, no matter what lines I tried feeding myself. Tony is the first person with whom I’ve felt the same raw chemistry that led me to come here with Brandon that summer. They’re the only men who’ve made me want to feel, to take chances I shouldn’t, because they’re worth it. And yes, even with as mad as I am at Tony right now, my heart’s still telling me that I’m only upset because he succeeded at making me feel something beyond the physical need for release.

  After a quick trip into town, I curl up on the end of the lumpy couch with a cup of coffee. Deena has been trying to get me to redecorate the cottage since the day it became mine, but a new mattress is the only concession I’ve made so far. While we never owned the cottage together, I want to keep everything the way it was when Brandon was here with me, as if that’s somehow honoring his memory. To make the property more appealing to potential renters, Deena covered the hideous, outdated upholstery with a slip cover in muted tones. It hides the ugliness, but I will never forget the scratchy, burnt orange fabric underneath.

  Eventually, I stretch out on the couch, imagining Brandon’s body covering mine the way it did when we’d watch a movie together late at night. The memory isn’t soul-shredding today, there’s only a dull ache in my chest. It’s only when my phone rings that I realize I’ve finally succumbed to the exhaustion that’s been building for far too long.

  “Hello?” I sit up on the couch, squinting at the clock on the opposite wall. My contacts are dry, which makes no sense since I’ve spent hours moisturizing them with my tears.

  “Rumor has it you’re in town,” Jason begins without any other greeting. “To what do we owe the honor? And why didn’t you tell me you were coming? I would have called Deena to stock the kitchen and air the place out.”

  “Because I didn’t realize I was going to be out here until about three hours before I pulled into the driveway.” And because I didn’t want you sitting on my doorstep with a welcoming party.

  “Well, now that I know it’s true, I’ll be there in an hour,” he informs me, hanging up before I can protest.

  In my haste to return to my pity party, I forgot to call him this morning and now I’ll have no choice but to face the good doctor. Jason means well, but I’ve pulled away from him over the years because he pushed too hard for me to talk about what happened that day on the water. Knowing him, he probably psycho-analyzed me and based a term paper on the effects of post-traumatic stress. I know I thought about using myself as a research subject a few times, but decided against it because it’d be too painful to revisit that part of my life.

  Just you. I know you’ll still show up even if I tell you to give me the space I came up here to find, but please don’t bring Deena with you.

  Hopefully my quick text response will be enough for him to realize that I’m not in the mood for company.

  “What, no welcome home kisses for me?” Jason teases when he walks through the door exactly fifty-nine minutes later. He bumps the door closed with his hip before setting a mountain of grocery bags on the faux-woodgrain laminate counter.

  “What’s all that?” I ask, pointing at what appears to be enough food to feed a family of four for a week or two.

  “Just the staples,” Jason assures me. He pushes past me to begin loading food into the cupboards and the refrigerator. “How long are you up here for?”

  Originally, I thought I’d be here for the night and head back to face reality, but now that the desolation is easing its grip on my heart, I’m beginning to feel like I’m home. There will likely never be a day when being here doesn’t remind me of Brandon, but with nothing more than a knowing smile and a six-pack of microbrew, Jason’s made me see just how far I have come. I’m no longer the eighteen and nineteen year old boy mourning the loss of his first love; I’m now a thirty-four year old man remembering the boy who taught him that it’s okay to love.

  Love? Where did that come from? You, Dominic Tricoli, are delusional if you’re already thinking about falling in love with him. He’ll leave you, too. The difference is you know that Tony’s not going to be around for long.

  “Hey, where’d you go?” Jason asks, cracking open the tops on two bottles of beer. The clock on the wall says it’s only eleven-thirty, but I figure drinking might be the best way to get out of my head for a little while.

  “Nowhere,” I lie, taking a long draw of my beer. “If you’re going to go all shrinky on me, you might want to head back into town because I’m not in the mood for it. Not today.”

  There’s a gray mist hanging over the choppy waters; it’s a view so different from the one I remember when Brandon and I shared breakfast at this table, but it seems to fit the mood. Every day with Brandon was filled with sunshine and vivid oranges, pinks, and blues reflecting off the water. I can feel Jason watching me as I stare into the distance, wondering what Brandon would say to me if he were here.

  Within these walls, both of us were free to live our lives openly and honestly. There was no need to hide or be afraid because anyone who crossed the threshold was trusted with our secrets and our demons. Thinking back on the fear in Tony’s eyes yesterday as he realized that he was going to have a man he’d been intimate with in the same room as his entire family, I wish Tony was able to know the peace that Brandon felt for the short time we were here together.

  “No need to get all defensive on me,” Jason chastises. “All I did was ask what you were thinking about. You didn’t hear a single word I said for over a minute. But now that you brought it up, I’ll admit that I am worried about you.”

  “Thanks for your concern, but I’ll be fine. Better than fine if we can just kick back and relax for a while.” I look around the kitchen, and I realize how stupid it is that I’m holding onto garish rooster wallpaper. If Brandon was here, I have no doubt he’d tell me it’s time to take the cocks off the walls. I’m beginning to see more clearly just how much of my life is stuck in the past, and I need to catch up to the world around me.

  Jason runs out to his car, returning with a bottle of Malibu. It’s too sweet and I can’t stand the taste of coconut, but it’s become a bit of a tradition since the summer we met. When you’re eighteen and raiding whatever alcohol you can get your hands on, you can’t afford to be picky. Jason and Deena’s mom was more like a really cool big sister most of the time and she turned a blind eye to the fact that she never got more than one or two drinks out of each bottle. In retrospect, I t
hink she got a kick out of making us drink the tropical, fruity liquid.

  “Do you remember the time Deena dared Brandon to go drink for drink with her and he almost fell into the fire?” I ask as Jason pours each of us a drink. He stands there, stunned by the fact that Brandon’s name not only crossed my lips, but that I have the slightest hint of a smile on my face. “What’s that look for?”

  “You’ve spent the past fifteen years avoiding talking to me about him. Maybe moving to Phoenix has been good for you.” His praise only sounds mildly condescending.

  He sits down across the table from me and we keep talking. Every time I start thinking about that day Jason steers the conversation back to happier memories. My heart skips a beat when I hear the front door open and immediately drops into my shoes when I realize it’s only Deena. I should have known better than to think Jason wouldn’t have told her to come out after work. Her arms are loaded with pizza, wings, and even more beer. On the other hand, who else would it have been?

  “You guys can keep drinking that fruity shit if you want, but I outgrew it right about the time we turned twenty-one,” she teases when I try to hand her a drink. Deena pulls plates out of the cupboards and disappears into the living room after instructing us to load up because it’s going to be a late night.

  “Dom, your phone’s buzzing in here,” Deena yells from the other room. She hands it to me when I walk into the room, announcing that I must be Mr. Popularity because I have so many missed calls and texts. I shove the phone into the cushion next to me so I don’t have to think about how pissed off Andrew probably is right now. “Trouble in paradise?”

  “Not really. Just a series of stupid coincidences biting me in the ass,” I blurt out, clamping my hand over my mouth. Now that Deena’s been given a tiny nibble of gossip, she won’t quit. It’s why I didn’t want her here in the first place.

  “Okay, spill it.” I’m given a brief reprieve as she spreads a blanket out in front of the hearth and lights a fire. “It’s too damn cold for a bonfire, but you’re always willing to talk when we get your drunk enough that you’re mesmerized by the flames.”

  As I move to the floor, I can hear my grandmother’s words reverberating in my mind. You can’t create a future if you’re being held captive by your past. We all have pain, it’s how we manage the pain that determines whether we thrive or wither. I’ve been lying to myself for so long, I’ve forgotten how to live. Whether conscious or not, the ghost has made too many decisions in my life. I love my job, but being here in my heart’s home, I realize I gave a dead man the power to move me across the country to fulfill a dream he shared in almost this exact spot one rainy night.

  Andrew teases me, saying that I wouldn’t know what to do with myself if I couldn’t get an adrenaline high. He has no clue that I became addicted to that feeling during a time when the rush of endorphins was the only thing that could make me forget about the pain of loss for a little while. Everything I did was to feel closer to Brandon, strengthening the invisible tether between us.

  Over time, the tears stopped, but I was so used to finding the next high that I couldn’t think about stopping. Rock climbing became my favorite pastime because I felt so close to the heavens when I was sitting on the edge of a cliff. There was even a time when I considered parasailing so I could feel like I was flying through the heavens with Brandon, but I couldn’t do it because that would have meant overcoming my fear of being on the water. The day Brandon died was the last time I did anything more than wade into the waves.

  “Come here, Dom,” Deena coos, opening her arms to me. I look at her and her brother; their worried eyes the only thing identical about the twin siblings. Neither of them urges me to talk as I stare into the flames. Her nimble fingers swipe away tears that I didn’t realize were falling. Deena rocks me gently, whispering that they’re here for me whenever I’m ready. But they’re not who I need this time.

  I miss the feel of Tony’s strong arms wrapped around me as he sends text messages to Kennedy, sharing way too much information about what we did after the reception. I want to wake up knowing that his face will be the one I see when I roll over. There will always be a part of me that misses Brandon, but I want Tony to be the one to help me heal. I try to convince myself that it’s not Tony that I need, just someone to share time with, but I’m lying to myself. He’s the one I see.

  It’s a shame that we both know that’ll never happen.

  “I bought this place because I couldn’t stand the thought of anyone else living here. After Brandon died, I used to drive down here on the weekends when I didn’t want to face my dad asking me why I was crying like a little bitch and I’d sit on the beach for hours, talking to him as if he wasn’t gone.” The dry logs crackle in the fireplace, the dancing flames encouraging me to keep talking. Staring straight ahead, I continue exorcising the past. “Over time, I really thought I was getting better. Andrew brought me on board after I graduated and I started thinking about what I wanted my life to be like.

  “I thought I was over Brandon, that I was ready to find someone to settle down with, but every time I got close, I’d think about the night Brandon made me promise to be patient with him. He told me that nothing could keep him from loving me, but it was going to take time before he could tell his family. And then I’d think about the night he came home after spending the weekend with them and he had told them.”

  “Baby, what happened?” Brandon’s eyes are red and his face is puffy when he walks through the door. He won’t even look at me before he disappears into the bedroom. “Brandon, you’re scaring me. What’s going on?”

  “I told them,” he whispers. I sit down on the bed next to him, pulling him onto my lap. His tears quickly dampen my shirt and I’m sure there are marks on my back from the way he’s holding onto me for dear life. “I couldn’t lie to my family anymore. Before I fell in love with you, it was easy to tell myself it wasn’t worth the fight. I didn’t see the point in pushing them out of my life until I found the man who would complete me. You are that man, Dominic. I know we’re young, but I can’t imagine living a day of my life without you in it.”

  “You should have told me. I would have gone with you.” I press my lips to the top of his shaggy brown hair, holding back the anger building inside of me. He should have trusted me enough to let me be there for him. “I want everything you want, but we have to do it together.”

  “NO!” he shouts, pulling his head away from my chest. The anger builds as he tries to justify why he thought it was better for him to do this on his own. “I knew what my father was going to be like and there’s no way I’m going to let him poison what we have. I didn’t tell you because it was the only way I could protect you from him.”

  Brandon’s entire body is shaking uncontrollably now. His fear and rage are tangible and they’re eating away at him from the inside out. “Baby, was it really that bad? Tell me what happened.”

  “Shh, it’s okay,” Deena whispers. Jason settles on the floor to my other side, wrapping his wiry arms around me. “We were there, remember? You don’t have to go into it.”

  “But I think I do,” I argue. “I think I need to purge all of this so it’s not weighing on my heart and mind, otherwise I’ll never be free of that pain.”

  “Whatever you need, buddy. You know we’re here for you.” Jason reaches behind his back and opens another beer for each of us. “Can I ask one question, though?”

  I nod, not trusting myself to speak. “Why now?”

  “Because I want to be happy. It’s time.” I lean into the embrace of my friends and close my eyes, allowing the heat of the fire to warm me. Memories dance through my mind, shifting from Brandon to Tony and back again. Somehow, the two of them have become woven together in my head.

  “Has he answered?” I ask as I walk into my sister’s condo. She’s sitting in the middle of the living room sorting wedding gifts to cull the duplicates. I know the answer when she looks at me with dull eyes.

  It’s bee
n three days since Dominic left and he won’t answer any of our calls. Andrew’s worried, but keeps saying we have to give him his space. “No, sweetie, he hasn’t. Are you ready to tell me what happened Sunday morning? You keep saying this is your fault, but I don’t understand how it could be.”

  I’ve replayed every second of that morning in my mind and every time I grow more ashamed of myself. If it was a matter of Dom leaving because he was pissed off at me, I could handle it. But the moment haunting me is when I wrapped my arms around his waist and could feel the sadness radiating off his body. There’s no way that anguish was because of what I said. And he allowed me to hold him for that brief moment. If he was walking away because of what I said in the elevator, he would have jerked away from me the way he had before. None of this makes any sense, but I know that something I did set him off.

  “Andrew hasn’t filled you in? I know Dom was talking to him before we all sat down for brunch.” She’s the type to reserve judgment until hearing both sides of the story, but from what I overheard, Dom was pretty straight-forward when he told Andrew what a colossal ass I was to him.

  Before she can answer me, the office door opens and Andrew comes out, his brow furrowed and eyes vacant. Caroline bounds over to him, wrapping him in her arms. “Baby, what’s wrong?” she asks quietly.

  “I figured he had gone home early, but Dom’s dad just called asking if I’ve heard from him. He was supposed to be there earlier this afternoon and they haven’t seen him.” Andrew pulls the phone from his pocket, mumbling about not wanting to do something. Caroline watches him carefully, just as confused as I am. Andrew’s her rock and he’s become mine as well. Seeing him so worried about Dom does nothing to ease my fears that I’ll never see him again.