The Love We Breathe

by Adelia Everett

  “Nothing specific.” He swatted the air with his hand.

  “What do you mean?”

  He hesitated for a moment and I watched him fold a few shirts and put them away. Finally, he turned and sat on his bed to face me.

  “My parents... aren’t very accepting of me.” He nodded, and behind his eyes I could see that this disappointing and upsetting fact was all he’d ever known.

  It broke my heart to hear him reveal that. Not only were my parents not accepting of him, but his own parents apparently didn’t like the fact that he was gay. It made me furious at the world, at society. Why couldn’t people understand?

  “Are you serious?” I asked, feeling terrible for him.

  “Yeah.” He nodded and looked at the floor, “Sometimes they pretend I’m straight and talk about my ‘future wife’ and stupid shit like that.” He laughed darkly, “Other times they almost bully me about it and mock me.”

  “That’s terrible.” I said sincerely. I wondered how it was possible for him to live like that. He was probably so excited to be away from home. He probably loved being at school. It broke my heart to think about the length of time he’d had to survive under his homophobic parents’ roof.

  “It’s fine, I’m used to it.” He shrugged, “I just don’t particularly like going home.”

  “I can understand why.” I said.

  I tried to imagine what life might’ve been like for Ryan, throughout high school or maybe even before that. What would it have been like for him to come out of the closet and tell his parents that he preferred the same sex? What might they have said in response? I hoped Ryan had friends back then that might’ve helped him through it.

  “But your high school friends were cool with it, right?” I asked, assuming the answer. Of course, some people had to have been okay with his sexuality.

  “Not really.” He revealed.

  What...? “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “I lost a lot of my friends...” He said sadly.

  I thought I knew Ryan pretty well. But I guess the thing we really hadn’t talked about yet was his “coming out” process. I had no idea that it had been so difficult for him.

  “Ry... that’s terrible.” I said again. I found it hard to look at him when his face looked so troubled like that. So I looked at the floor instead.

  “It’s okay.” He said, “I guess that’s why I clung onto Adam so much. He understood what I was going through and he was always there for me... at first.”

  I remembered what Ryan told me about Adam. He was seemingly the perfect boyfriend until he got what he wanted - sex. And then he turned into an asshole. Had Adam really been Ryan’s only friend throughout all this?

  “He wasn’t... the only friend you had, right?” I asked.

  “No, not the only friend.” Ryan admitted, “But sometimes I felt like he was.”

  My heart clenched. If I ever found Adam I would break his jaw.

  “My hometown was just...very conservative.” He explained.

  I felt terrible for him.

  “So,” He sighed, “All-in-all I guess my Thanksgiving break wasn’t that great. But I’m happy to be home now.” He smiled genuinely at me.

  I found it ironic that he called school home. This was his home now. This was somewhere where he was accepted and not bullied often. He had real friends here. Me, Chelsea, Jared, Ava, Lola, Avery. We were his friends. And I knew that I would always be there for him. He was my best friend.

  After chatting with Ryan about less serious topics for a few more minutes, I decided I should go and visit my girlfriend. Over the weekend, Loryn had called and texted me several times just to tell me that she missed me. It was a bit obsessive for her to do so after just a few weeks of dating. But I figured she was probably just excited to have a boyfriend.

  I walked to her dorm, wearing my heavy jacket. Winter was approaching and it was getting a bit chilly.

  I called her cell phone so she could come outside and let me into her dorm building. When she came down, she was ecstatic to see me and jumped into my arms. I laughed and placed a quick kiss on her lips.

  “I missed you!” She squealed, burying herself into my chest.

  “Missed you too.” I chuckled. I was stretching the truth a bit. It had only been a few days...

  “How was your weekend?” She asked, locking her arms around my waist and looking up at me.

  “Pretty boring, how was yours?”

  Loryn proceeded to babble endlessly about her cousins and their new dog and her grandma’s gravy and her parents’ reaction to her new hair. While she spoke, she led me inside her dorm building and up to her room. Apparently her roommate wouldn’t be returning to school until later tonight, so we had the room to ourselves for a while.

  Her room looked exactly the same as mine, except there were many feminine decorations plastered all over the walls. There was a poster of some shirtless male celebrity over by her roommates bed, and a few watercolor paintings I assumed Loryn had done. She told me she was interested in all forms of art.

  “Those are awesome.” I said, motioning to the paintings.

  “Thanks.” She blushed, “I haven’t taken any watercolor classes or anything. I just thought I’d try it out.”

  “Well they’re good.”

  “Come here.” She said, taking my hand. She pulled me down to her bed so we were laying on it together.

  I put a hand on her slender waist and let our foreheads touch.

  “I’m glad I’m with you now.” She said softly.

  I leaned over and kissed her without any hesitation. She was my girlfriend and I could kiss her if I wanted to. The problem was, she and I had only kissed a few times before. This was all new and different, for both of us. In fact, the last time I’d kissed a girl before Loryn was right after high school graduation. It had been almost six months since then.

  I intended to take things slow, because I respected Loryn and I wanted to treat her like a lady. I wasn’t normally so chivalrous with girls. In fact, with other girls (mainly Selena) my main intention had been to rip their clothes off as soon as possible. But it was different with Loryn. I cared about her and didn’t want to pressure her into anything.

  But she seemed to take the initiative. She made the kiss more passionate than I intended. In fact, within a minute or two it had turned into a full-on make out session, complete with tonguing.

  I tried to enjoy it. The last time I’d kissed anyone this passionately had been with Ryan. I couldn’t get that thought out of my mind, as hard as I tried. I inwardly cursed myself for letting Ryan affect me so much. If I had never started experimenting with him in the first place, I would be able to enjoy making out with a hot girl. But for some reason I couldn’t. Maybe it wasn’t even my thoughts about Ryan stopping me from enjoying myself. There was just something about her kissing that I just didn’t find appealing. Maybe I felt like she was trying to hard, or being too rough. But nevertheless, I couldn’t enjoy kissing my own girlfriend. It terrified me.

  Chapter Nine

  .

  I hadn’t partied much this semester, if at all. I feel like high school was when most of my partying phase took place. Now that I was in college, there was a lot more schoolwork to focus on and I didn’t necessarily have much time for parties. Plus, I hadn’t really been in the mood for it lately. But when Josh invited me and Loryn to a party that his friend’s fraternity was hosting, I thought it might be fun. Loryn didn’t seem too opposed to the idea either. She’d never been to a real college party before and was pretty excited about it.

  “Promise me we won’t drink too much.” She said as we were walking to the party, “I never feel comfortable when I’m drunk. I always feel so... out of control.”

  “Alright, that’s fine.” I told her, “I don’t really wanna get drunk anyway.”

  “Thank you, baby.” She leaned over and placed a kiss on my cheek.

  We held hands as we walked. Josh, Tanner, and Ben were all with us. Josh
was bringing his most recent girlfriend, Cynthia, to the party as well. I had only met her briefly. She seemed like a nice girl, but she was currently dressed like a slut. She had on an extremely tight-fitting dress that barely covered her ass. And her high heels made her even taller than Josh, which is quite a feat. Her long black hair was unnaturally straight. I couldn’t help but wonder if Josh was just in the relationship for sex. He probably was.

  This made Loryn an angel in comparison. She wore a tight skirt, sure, but at least it went down to her mid-thigh. And the shirt she wore didn’t show off too much. I was thankful for this, not wanting other guys to check her out. Her red hair was pulled back into a ponytail and she had on a perfect amount of makeup.

  It made me proud to have this kind of girl all to myself. I wanted to show her off, to have other guys tell me, “Well done, Radine.” She was sexy without being slutty. I loved that about her.

  Smiling, I let go of her hand and reached over to hold her tiny waist instead. She seemed to like that.

  When we arrived at the party, it was already pretty wild. Loud dance music was bleeding from a giant set of speakers in the main lounge area. A smaller room held a buffet table that was covered in various snacks. Another table was filled with the fixings for alcoholic drinks. A large crowd was dancing in the center of the main room.

  Loryn excitedly pulled me onto the dance floor and forced me to dance with her. The type of dancing that the people around us demonstrated was quite vulgar, and wasn’t really my style. But Loryn seemed determined to dance like that with me. She made me hold onto her hips from behind while she stuck her ass in my crotch. We moved our hips to the music, and it would’ve been slightly sexy if it wasn’t so overly raunchy. Part of me felt like she was just dancing this way because everyone else was. Like she just wanted to fit in. Like she was pretending to be someone she’s not.

  I was especially annoyed when she reached around and started sticking her tongue down my throat. I quickly tried to pull away without appearing rude.

  “Let’s go in the other room, baby.” I added the term of endearment so she wouldn’t get offended.

  She nodded. We left the dance floor and made our way to the smaller room. The music was much quieter in here, but the talking was much louder. People were standing around, chatting and drinking from plastic red cups. I remembered my promise to Loryn that I wouldn’t drink too much, but I needed to loosen up just a bit so I poured myself a little something. For a moment I worried that she would get upset with me, but thankfully I saw her pouring a drink for herself too.

  At this point we’d already lost Josh, Cynthia, and Tanner. They were still dancing in the other room. But Ben had followed us and was getting a drink as well. I remembered him telling me that he didn’t feel comfortable at large parties. He wasn’t exactly a ladies man, and he didn’t much like the partying scene. I found it ironic that he was such good friends with Josh and Tanner.

  “You can hang out with us, Ben.” I encouraged.

  He smiled gratefully in response.

  The three of us gathered together to form our own circle. We sipped from our drinks casually and glanced around at the other students.

  “I don’t know anybody here.” Loryn said.

  “That’s okay, I’ll introduce you to some people.” I squeezed her waist.

  But upon second glance, I realized that I didn’t really know anyone here either. I recognized a few faces. I noticed one guy from my English class, and another that I’d seen hanging out with Avery a few times. But other than that, I didn’t really know anyone.

  After almost giving up hope on finding a friend, I spotted Avery shoveling food into his mouth and chatting with his friend that I’d recognized.

  “Avery!” I called.

  He looked up at me and smiled. He strolled over to us and patted my back.

  “Hey, man, how’s it going?” He looked glad to see me, “Didn’t know you would be here.”

  “Yeah, my friend Josh invited me.” I said, speaking up over the noise around us.

  “Cool.” He nodded.

  “By the way, this is my friend Ben.” I motioned to him. Ben and Avery shook hands in greeting. “And this is my girlfriend, Loryn.” I added.

  “Girlfriend?” Avery exclaimed excitedly, reaching out to shake Loryn’s hand, “I didn’t know James had a girlfriend! It’s good to meet you!”

  She smiled brightly at him.

  Avery turned back to me. “Hey, is Ryan here?”

  At the mention of his name, I felt a slight panic. Whenever anyone associated me with Ryan, I always had a fear that they knew something had gone on between us. It always bothered me. I felt a flutter in my heart as Avery asked about him.

  “Nope.” I shrugged, trying to appear casual.

  “Oh, really?” Avery looked surprised, “His friend Chelsea is here. I thought maybe they’d come together.”

  Chelsea was Ryan’s feisty bisexual friend. I didn’t know her too well, but she seemed like a nice enough girl.

  We chatted with Avery for a few more minutes before he left us to hang with his other friends.

  Ben leaned over to my ear. “I think this party is mostly for juniors and seniors.”

  “Then how’d we get invited?” I asked.

  “Josh has...ways.” Ben rolled his eyes, “If he wants to party on a Friday night, he’ll find a way. I guess he just invited us because he thought it would be fun. He probably didn’t want to be the only freshman here.”

  “Well let’s try to have fun anyway.” Loryn said, leaning into me and smiling.

  So we did. Well, we tried. After an hour, I started noticing that I wasn’t having fun at all. Everyone was getting completely wasted, and it was incredibly crowded and hot. But of course, all the drunk people didn’t mind this at all. Loryn, Ben, and I seemed to be the only mostly sober people in the room.

  After dancing for a while, we decided to take a break in the smaller room. We munched on snacks and chatted a bit. The three of us agreed that we did not like this party.

  Across the room, I noticed Chelsea standing at the snack table. I decided that I wanted to say hi to her. Ryan simply raved about her, and apparently she and Jared knew him very well. What’s to stop me from having a casual conversation with her? She stood with so much confidence that it was intimidating to approach her, but I did anyway. I left Loryn and Ben to talk on their own and I strolled over to the snack table with my hands in my pockets.

  “Hey, Chelsea.” I greeted.

  “Hey.” She inclined her head and smiled.

  She wore dark red lipstick that looked sensual against her pale skin. Her long brown hair was styled in a wavy fashion. She looked nice.

  “Is Ryan here?” She asked, dipping a tortilla chip in salsa.

  “No, I think he’s just hanging back in our room.” I responded.

  “You should’ve invited him!” She scolded, punching me hard in the shoulder. But she was still smiling.

  “You’re right, I should’ve.” I laughed. I had to rub my sore shoulder. She was one tough bitch.

  Chelsea leaned over closer so only I could hear her. “So who’s the redhead?” She asked, lowering her voice.

  Her question made me laugh. I didn’t know her very well, and yet she was acting as if we’d been friends for years. I kind of liked that about her.

  “My girlfriend.” I answered, still chuckling.

  “Hmm... so that’s her, is it?” She asked, shooting a quick and somewhat angry glance back at Loryn.

  So she already knew I had a girlfriend? And why did she look angry?

  “Ryan told me you found yourself a girl, but I said I had to see it to believe it.” Chelsea said, shrugging slightly.

  “Why wouldn’t you have believed it?” I asked.

  She ignored my question and stuffed another chip in her mouth. Then she punched me in the shoulder once more and pointed a bony finger at my chest.

  “Hey,” Her friendly demeanor was gone. “Don’t break his he
art. Or I’ll break your neck.”

  My mind didn’t get a chance to understand what she was saying. “What?” I asked.

  “You know what I mean.” She said, looking me up and down.

  And then without another word, she walked away. I watched her go, and she strutted as if she were on a catwalk.

  It took a moment for her words to sink in.

  Don’t break his heart. She couldn’t possibly have been talking about Ryan...right?

  She was. Who else would she be talking about? I clearly heard her say his instead of her. Don’t break his heart. So she wasn’t talking about Loryn. She had to have been talking about Ryan.

  But if she was warning me not to break his heart, then she had to know that something happened between me and Ryan. She had to know that we had sex. And that must mean that Ryan told her we had sex. And if Ryan told her we had sex, that must mean that he completely broke his promise to me. We promised each other that we wouldn’t tell anyone. Because if anyone knew, then everyone would know. Everyone would know that I fucked a guy.

  Everyone would think I’m gay.

  Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

  Ryan told Chelsea. And probably Jared too. And probably all of his other friends. I bet anything he went and blabbed about it to everyone he knew. He was just a lying asshole. A stupid son of a bitch fag that only cares about getting attention. “Oh yeah, James Radine fucked me in the ass last night.” Like it was an accomplishment.

  At first I wanted to explode with anger. And then I became absolutely paranoid. How many people knew? Was I secretly known as the closet fag? Did all my friends know? Had Ryan told Avery, Lola, and Ava too? Did Josh, Tanner, and Ben know? Had the rumor gotten around to all my friends? Or was it just Chelsea (and probably Jared) that knew?

  I suddenly found myself looking around nervously, as if everyone was staring at me and thinking, “That’s him. That’s the fag who had sex with Ryan McMahon.”

  And then the anger came back. I wanted to beat the shit out of Ryan. I wanted to make it clear that from this point on we would not be friends. I couldn’t believe that I had wasted an entire semester being his best friend.