The Limelight

by Louisa Keller

  13

  Porter

  Orlando, FL/Various Cities

  I thought I had a grip on exactly how messed up I was.

  Things were really, really bad.

  But then Dom showed up and my mood skyrocketed. Oddly, that was what showed me just how deep I had been in my anxiety and depression. It took the contrast of feeling better to see it, and that scared me. Because I realized that things were even worse than I had thought, and that meant that I had been running myself into the ground.

  Dom, one of my very best friends in the world, had known before I had that I needed him. And without giving it a second thought, he had flown across the country to be with me. That was the dynamic of our friendship—and not just me and Dom. All five of us had that bond, the kind that defied explanation. They were my brothers, my knights in gay armor. It was such an unbelievable relief to have Dom with me.

  He and Levi hit it off, of course. I had known they would, but it still made something warm and content settle in my chest. There is a unique joy in seeing two people that you love—albeit in very different ways—enjoying each other’s company. It felt like my family was coming together in a cohesive way.

  Naturally, Dom was not content to just hide away in a hotel room. People who are not brutally depressed generally do not enjoy self-imposed house arrest.

  He was able to coax me out, after dinner, by assuring me that we were not going to run into anyone else.

  “I hit up a friend who used to live here,” he told Levi and me, “and he gave me a lead on an epic place to watch the fireworks tonight. It’s on his grandfather’s property, so it’s incredibly unlikely that anyone else will be there.”

  “Does his grandfather by any chance read tabloids?” I asked nervously.

  Levi wrapped me up in a tight hug and said, “You can always wear your disguise.”

  “Right,” I said, reaching for my sunglasses which were perched on the bedside table.

  “Bro,” said Dom, raising an eyebrow. “You are not watching fireworks with sunglasses on.”

  I stuck my tongue out at him—he took me right back to third grade even though we hadn’t known each other back then—and said, “I will if it keeps me from being heckled by the paparazzi.”

  Levi was laughing at me, and I shoved him playfully.

  “What was that for?” he asked, stifling his laugher.

  “For making fun of me,” I said.

  “Um, baby, you just stuck your tongue out at Dom. I’m pretty fucking sure that merits a bit of mockery.”

  Dom grinned at Levi. “I like him,” he told me.

  “Of course you two would gang up on me,” I muttered with a smile.

  Dom’s super-secret exclusive fireworks watching spot turned out to be a decrepit old water tower in the middle of a patch of overgrown farm land. I had not even realized that people farmed in Orlando, but there we were.

  My legs were scratched up from the brambles we had waded through on our way to the base of the tower, and I reached down to pull a tiny thorn from my calf.

  “I am not sure we should go up there,” I told Dom.

  He rolled his eyes and looked over at Levi. They had somehow become co-conspirators in the past couple of hours, and I was not sure how I felt about it. There was no way that this would turn out well for me in the long run. I could already see them working together to coerce me into doing all kinds of crazy stuff. Like climbing up a rusting water tower.

  “Come on, man, Keith said it was totally safe. He used to come here all the time as a kid,” said Dom.

  “See? Totally safe,” chimed in Levi.

  “Uh,” I began, “how long ago was this? You know, the thing about metal is that it rusts over time. And I do not want to be one of those people who dies trying to get a good view of a damn fireworks display.”

  “Is that a type of person?” asked Dom. “I have literally never heard of someone dying that way.”

  “I am sure that it happens all the time,” I said, glancing up at the top of the tower. It looked very far away.

  Then again, Dom’s presence really had chased away my baseline anxiety. That moment seemed as good a time as any to take a chance, seeing as the fear could creep back in at any time.

  “We don’t have to go if you’re not comfortable,” Dom said, “but I really, truly think it will be okay. And I guarantee you that seeing these fireworks from up there will make you feel better.”

  “I’ll even go first,” Levi offered. “You can just follow my lead. And if the ladder acts like it’s going to fall off we can just climb right back down.”

  I weighed my options. I could stay safely on the ground. Or I could take a chance and do something that would undoubtedly be memorable with two of my favorite people.

  I took a deep, shuddering breath, and nodded.

  “Okay, I will follow you up.”

  “Atta boy,” said Dom, grinning at me.

  “If we die, I want it on record that this was not my idea,” I said.

  “I’ll make sure to alert the press,” Dom said solemnly.

  I flipped him off. “You will be dead too. Not sure how you are going to pull that off.”

  “Enough chatter,” said Levi, placing his foot on the lowest rung of the ladder and reaching up. “Here goes nothing.”

  I let him get about five feet above me before I mounted the ladder. The rungs were cool and rough against my palms. They had been painted green long ago, but the paint was chipping away to reveal a reddish-brown underneath.

  It reminded me of the Eiffel Tower. I had taken French classes all the way through high school and college, and in one of the culture courses I had done a project on French monuments. The Eiffel Tower, it turned out, had not always been an iconic brown; over the years it had been painted various shades of yellow and red.

  Okay, I thought. Just focus on the Eiffel Tower, do not think about how far up you are.

  I kept my eyes fixed above me on Levi’s beat up Converse.

  Up, up, up we went, a light wind whipping around us. I could hear Dom below, making his way at a steady pace. Time kind of slurred together as we ascended the tower, and all at once I realize that I was at the top. It was not a huge tower, we were probably only fifty feet or so above the ground, but the ledge that wrapped around the tower was narrow. There was just a thin guardrail separating us from a deadly plunge, and my stomach turned.

  Levi sidled off to explore, but I sank down at once to sit. I felt better with a sturdier center of gravity.

  “God, this is gorgeous,” Dom said, plopping down next to me.

  “It reminds me of the time we snuck onto the roof of our dorm,” I replied.

  “Yeah, but this sunset is way prettier,” he pointed out.

  I could not argue with that. Far from the overcast Oregon sky, Florida was putting on a spectacular show of purples, pinks, and oranges. They were smeared across the horizon like oil paint, intricately layered. I thought about pulling out my phone to snap a photo, but I knew that I could not capture that level of beauty on a camera. Some things just did not translate.

  My heartbeat, which had quickened as we climbed, was beginning to slow down. I closed my eyes for a moment, breathing in deeply. Dom reached out to pull me into a one-armed hug, kind of crashing our sides together, and I let out a little burst of laughter. I felt light, light as air. Home did not feel so far away when he was there.

  Then Levi came wandering back into view, and I realized all at once that I had two homes: my creaky Victorian house, and my wild-eyed rock star.

  He settled down on my free side and nuzzled in to lean his head against the crook of my neck and shoulder. I reached for his hand, linking our fingers together, and stared out at the sunset.

  Everything is going to be okay, I realized. I can do this. I am going to make it.

  We stayed up there for a tiny eternity, watching the colored sky fade to navy and, at long last, black. As with most cities, the light pollution prevented the stars fro
m putting on much of a show. But we did not have to wait long for fireworks to paint the horizon.

  There were two displays within view, and although they were probably miles apart, I barely had to turn my head to look from one to the other. Our height, enhanced by fact that the water tower rested atop a plateaued hill, let us look down upon one corner of Orlando without anything to block our view.

  My heart seemed to swell with joy as I sat between Levi and Dom, all three of us entranced.

  Everything is going to be okay, I repeated to myself. And in that moment, I believed it.

  Fireworks displays tend to follow a set pattern, beginning with one or two at a time, and then crashing into a crescendo as the finale approaches. Levi waited until the entire sky was frosted with sparks before he pulled me into a deep kiss. I turned to cup his jaw, my tongue slipping against his, and the finale exploded before us.

  Later, when we had descended and planted our feet safely back on the ground, I wrapped an arm around Levi’s waist and pulled him along next to me. For the first time in forever, I was relaxed. Content. Happy.

  Dom sent a fond smile our way, but stayed a few feet from us, giving Levi and I a tiny bit of space.

  “I’m so glad you went up there with us,” Levi whispered to me.

  “I’m so glad you led the way,” I replied.

  He darted up to kiss me, a wide smile on his face. “Any time, my love. You just say the word.”

  Dom’s visit seemed to make everything better. Our platonic connection—born of years living together—provided something that my new love with Levi simply couldn’t. And it was because of Dom that I was able to relax for the first time in weeks.

  That night, once Dom had retired to his own hotel room, I took Levi to bed and ate him out for half an hour. He keened and gasped and thrust back against me, begging, as always, to be filled. I waited until he was sensitive and wrung out, almost painfully so, before I relented. When I slipped into him, at long last, he let out the most gorgeous little sigh and pushed back until his ass was nestled against my hips. I ignored his attempts to speed up the pace, taking him slowly until he spilled across the sheets, crying out my name.

  He was perfect, and I felt like anything was possible. The whole world was laid out before us, ripe for the picking. All we had to do was reach out and take what we wanted.

  I fell asleep wrapped in Levi’s arms, my mind slowing down enough to allow me to slip into a deep slumber.

  There is a strange phenomenon with anxiety.

  My experience, at least, swung between extremes. When my circumstances dictated that I fall into depression and panic, I could barely remember if there had ever been a time when I had not felt that way. But when things were going well for me, my fears seemed tiny, easily confronted.

  The steadying presence of Dom had banished the immediacy of my anxiety, and all too quickly I forgot how difficult it had been just to get through each day before his arrival. Once he left, however, things went downhill so quickly that it made my head spin.

  In New Orleans, I had a panic attack during the show.

  The stress of being scrutinized and commented upon and exploited hit me all at once, and I sprawled headlong into crisis mode. I had hit my threshold; I could no longer handle all of the attention and fear and doubt.

  I was backstage, sitting in the green room by myself while the band was onstage, listening to the echoes of their show, when my phone went off. I had turned off all social media notifications as soon as the shit hit the fan back in New York, but that did not prevent people from sending me links to inflammatory posts about Levi and me.

  I opened the text to find that an old friend from high school had sent me a post with the most explicit of the photos. He had added, ‘is this u??’

  That was what set me off, but if I am being honest, the panic had been lying in wait for quite a while.

  It came on so suddenly that I didn’t realize what was happening until I was in the thick of it.

  Racing heart, pounding ears, tunneling vision, erratic breathing…it lasted an unbearably long time.

  When my body finally wore itself out enough that it literally could no longer sustain the panic, I collapsed onto the ground and just lay there until the show was over.

  Cooper must have been the one who found me, but I couldn’t remember for sure. The rest of that night was a blur.

  In Austin, I spent forty-eight hours in bed.

  I got up to use the bathroom a couple of times, but other than that I was utterly sedentary. Levi tried to convince me to eat, and I made an effort when I had the strength. But I was so tired, from my mind to my bones. The long hours I spent sleeping did not alleviate any of my tiredness. It did not have anything to do with rest.

  I was exhausted in a way that could not be cured.

  In Denver, the insomnia set in.

  The first night that it happened, I just lay there beside Levi with my eyes open all night long. I memorized the little imperfections in the popcorn ceiling. I could have drawn them like a map by the time morning came.

  The second night, I read two books on my phone.

  The third night, I went to the hotel pool and swam laps until I was so tired I could barely make it back to the room. But even then, my hamster-wheel mind did not permit me to fall asleep.

  In San Diego, I took an over-the-counter sleep aid and slept so heavily that I missed bus call the next morning.

  Levi plied me with coffee and rubbed my back until I was awake enough to drive. We showed up late to our next hotel and found that they had given our rooms away. We had to stay at a cheap motel that night with scratchy sheets and stains on the carpet.

  Everybody assured me that they were not mad, but I could sense them whispering about me.

  Levi started looking at me with this concerned expression that made me itch under my skin. I wanted so badly to be doing well for him, but I knew that I was falling apart. There was only so much he could put up with, surely, and I wondered when he would decide that I wasn’t worth the trouble.

  I heard his words, over and over again, asserting that he loved me, that he would do anything for me, that we were going to make it through.

  He did everything right.

  I did everything wrong.

  In San Francisco, I spent an entire day with tears slipping down my cheeks.

  I hid from everyone, wandering around the city by myself while they did whatever band stuff they had to do.

  I ignored ten text messages from Levi, unable to bear the fact that I was letting him down so spectacularly.

  There was nothing I could do to quell the slip of tears down my face, and so I bought a case of La Croix and drank my way through it, rehydrating my fatigued body.

  In Portland, I realized that I was just two and half hours from home.

  It was one of those moments where the clouds break and the sun peaks through and you see that you will not have to suffer for the rest of your life.

  But then I started crying again, because I was so overwhelmed by the realization. I guess that’s how depression works.

  I had been meaning to show everyone around the city, but they all knew that I was not even remotely capable of playing tour guide by that point. I had started losing weight somewhere along the way, and when I caught sight of my reflection in the mirror I was taken aback. There were dark circles under my eyes, and my cheeks were considerably hollower than they had been before I went on tour. I looked wretched, and my first thought was to wonder how Levi could possibly still find me attractive.

  When I voiced my concern, Levi whipped around to look at me, his eyes wide.

  “Are you kidding me, Porter?” he asked, and to my surprise his tone sounded hurt. “I am in love with you. You’re the only person in the world who makes me feel whole. I barely even see your face when I look at you these days. You are beautiful to me no matter what. That’s what love is.”

  My eyebrows knitted together and I kind of stumbled forward into his arms.
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  Once again, my tiny punk rocker was holding me up, supporting me entirely. I had no idea how he was able to do it. Physically, emotionally…he seemed to defy the laws of the universe. Because he had never once wavered in his affection, even while I was losing my mind on the road.

  “I am a mess,” I murmured into his chest, my knees bent so that I could nuzzle up against him.

  “Yeah, thanks for the update,” he muttered, and I was sure—even though I could not see him—that he was rolling his eyes at me. It made me smile, a tiny, fragile little twitch across my face.

  “I think we should talk about what’s going to happen after the show in Seattle,” Levi said, his arms still securely around me.

  I nodded against him, not ready to disengage and support my own weight quite yet.

  “What are you thinking?” I asked.

  “Well,” said Levi, “I want to start looking at apartments. I can definitely find an Airbnb or something while I’m shopping around, but I was hoping I could stay with you for a couple of days while I sort that out.”

  I looked up, at long last, and said, “You can stay with me until you find a place.”

  “Your roommates won’t mind?” he asked.

  “Nah,” I said. “Leo literally always has a different guy staying in his room, and Finley has definitely had a boyfriend stay with us for a couple of months in the past. It’s an open-door policy.”

  “Well, that makes it easy,” said Levi. “I was also wondering…when is your lease up?”

  My eyes widened. “Um…it’s month-to-month actually.”

  “Okay,” said Levi, nodding. “Would you consider moving in with me?”

  “Are you kidding?” I asked. “I would love to. Oh my god. You’re serious?”

  He laughed, reaching out to stroke my face affectionately.

  “Of course I’m serious, you ridiculous man,” he said. “I want to be with you for…well, for as long as you’ll have me. And it doesn’t make much sense to live in two separate places if we’re planning to be together for the foreseeable future.”