Choices(Waiting for Forever BK 1)

by Jamie Mayfield

  When I got through the line and back to where Jamie was waiting, I handed him his ticket, and he handed me my popcorn and soda. We climbed the long, decrepit stairway until we reached the back of the sloping balcony.

  It was deserted.

  We took the stairs down the side of the rows of seats, past discarded popcorn buckets and sticky stains of spilled beverages, to the very front row. We sat in two seats directly in the middle of the row, propping our feet up on the railing. Every few minutes we glanced back over our shoulders, but no one else entered the balcony. We looked down over the railing and saw that the main theater area was also pretty empty.

  This movie must really suck, and I, for one, am grateful.

  We settled back in the seats as the lights went down, working on the popcorn we were forbidden to share. Within the first ten minutes of the movie, we knew where it was going, a melding of heterosexual machismo and sex, but I didn’t care. I was on a date with Jamie. No matter how bad the movie was, it was perfect because I was there with him.

  Just as the ninjas, or whatever they were, back-flipped onto the screen for the third time, Jamie pulled out the generic, black hooded sweatshirt he had brought in. At first, I didn’t realize why he’d bothered. The theater was air-conditioned but still not cold enough for a sweatshirt. I was even more confused when he laid it over his legs rather than putting it on. Then as he straightened it out, he took my hand underneath it, and I understood. He wanted us to be able to hold hands during the movie without taking the chance of anyone seeing the small gesture of affection.

  It thrilled me that he was holding my hand in this place, around people, even if there were only a few and they weren’t in the balcony. The date meant as much to him as it did to me, but it saddened me as well. Why does being together, here in this second-run theater, or anywhere else, have to constitute such a risk for us? What I wanted more than anything was to lean over and rest my head on his shoulder while we finished watching the movie, but that would be like a neon sign flashing “fag” over our heads. I had to be content with what I could get.

  So I was.

  Sitting in the theater, we held hands under the cover of the sweatshirt and ate popcorn for the next hour. Even though the movie was awful, it was the best time I’d had in a long time. For that short period, we felt somewhat normal, like our feelings for each other weren’t some kind of abomination, but rather something beautiful.

  We continued to hold hands on the drive back to my house. However, in the safety of the car, we didn’t need the camouflage of the sweatshirt. Every once in a while, on a deserted stretch of road where no one could see, Jamie would bring our entwined hands up to his lips or to caress my cheek. My heart swelled with each gesture. Just before reaching the Crayford city limits, he glanced around and pulled to the side of the road.

  “I can’t kiss you goodnight on your doorstep like you deserve,” he said quietly, letting go of my hand for the first time since we left the theater. “It will have to be here.”

  Jamie cupped both sides of my face in his hands, rubbing my cheek with his thumbs. Watching my face for a long minute before he leaned in, he captured my lips with his own, and every feeling of love and sexual desire escalated into a slow burn through my skin. God, I loved the way he kissed me, like nothing else in the world mattered. The smell of popcorn still clung to his clothes, but there was something else, body wash or shampoo, something uniquely Jamie. The passion in our kiss continued to spiral as our tongues explored, danced against each other’s, and everything else was blocked out by its all-encompassing heat. Sun, moon, and stars took a backseat to him. Sacrificing modeling supplies and downloaded songs for weeks was definitely worth it, even if just to have this kiss at the end of our very first date.

  Jamie stopped the kiss before either of us got too carried away. Even though it was more chaste than I would have preferred, I got what I needed: his love, his comfort, and my very first real date with the boy I could not live without.

  THE next morning, I was still thinking about my date with Jamie, holding his hand at the theater, and kissing him in the car. I had just decided to jump in the shower and think about it more thoroughly when I was interrupted by a knock on my bedroom door.

  “Brian, could I talk to you for a minute?” Richard asked as he stood in the doorway. Immediately, I was uneasy; my foster father rarely wanted to have a heart-to-heart, covering mostly superficial things at dinner but never anything that really mattered. Those talks were left up to Carolyn. It meant he wanted to talk to me about something Carolyn didn’t feel comfortable discussing with me… like sex.

  Oh God, he knows about Jamie.

  “Sure, Richard,” I said, trying not to let my voice crack from the fear that was now coursing through me.

  Please don’t send me away. Please don’t tear me away from Jamie.

  Jamie was the first person in my life to ever truly love me, and I wasn’t going to give that up without a fight. I would be seventeen in just over two weeks; we could tough it out one more year, or I could run away from Richard and Carolyn and hide. It was as simple as that. Richard turned and motioned for me to follow him. The sinking feeling deepened when I saw we were headed for his office, even more so when we headed to his computer. He sat down in his desk chair.

  “A few days ago, I wanted to do some research on a rare gastrointestinal condition I was trying to treat at the hospital. When I started to type in the search criteria, look what starts to auto-populate.” He typed in “g” and then “a” and to my horror “gay men” showed up as one of the recent searches. My palms started to sweat as he showed me the browser’s history, including some photos I was sure he never wanted to see.

  I stood there, stunned.

  The shame washed through me, and my face reddened. My eyes filled with tears. Trying not to cry, I looked out of the nearby window onto the street below as my mind went numb.

  “Was this you?” he asked quietly, and there was absolutely no point in denying it. It’s not like Carolyn was going to come up here and search for “gay men.” I nodded, feeling the first of the tears fall. I knew from years of experience that it only took one phone call for them to get rid of me, and I would never see Jamie again. Belatedly, it occurred to me to tell him that I had done the search for a school report, but he would not have believed me. No teacher in his right mind would assign it, and the guilt was already etched onto my face that was streaked liberally with tears. I hung my head, waiting for it.

  “Then there are a few things I’d like to talk to you about.” I nodded, completely unable to look at him. He was going to send me back to the state, return me like a defective toaster. Well, why not? I’m a throwaway kid, right? Why, when I’m finally happy, when I finally have someone who loves me? All I could think about was Jamie. Will they even tell him why they sent me away? Tracing a line in the worn carpeting with the front of my shoe, I heard my blood pounding in my ears. Desperately I wished Jamie was there with me, but of course, I also didn’t because he would be in trouble then too. Obviously there was nothing about Jamie in those searches, but it seemed like a simple leap to me, like there was a sign on my forehead.

  “Are you using condoms?” Richard asked, breaking into my thoughts. My head jerked up, and I stared at him. It took me several seconds to even compose anything near a coherent reply.

  “I don’t… I mean I haven’t… I’ve never…,” I spluttered, entirely unable to convey to him that I had never had sex.

  “Brian, I don’t want you to think I’m prying into your sex life. I just want to make sure you’re being safe. There are so many things that could happen if you’re not careful, not the least of which are HIV and AIDS. You’re a good kid, and I really care about you; I want to make sure you’re going to be okay.” It was the longest conversation I think we’d ever had on any subject other than sports. To me, it was the most important conversation we’d ever had. He didn’t hate me; he was trying to look out for me. For the first time since I’d c
ome to live with him, he was being a father to me. I couldn’t even come close to expressing the gratitude I felt for him, but I was sure as hell going to try.

  Once I decided to be honest, the dam broke, and everything I had been holding inside for the last six months came spilling out. At first, my confession was just a small stream, breaching the cracks in my resolve, but as my words gained momentum, it turned into a flood. It felt so good just to talk about it. So, I told him about my feelings for Jamie and about Pastor Moore’s sermon. I told him about being terrified all the time that someone would find out, that Jamie’s parents would find out. I told him about the girl at school Jamie was pretending to date. However, I didn’t tell him what Jamie and I had done together sexually. That was something private, sacred, between Jamie and me.

  We talked for more than an hour, and I learned more about him in that time than I had since he’d picked me up at the state home almost six years before. He hadn’t grown up in Alabama; originally, he was from New York and had come to Alabama to go to college. While at college, he’d met Carolyn and decided he wanted to stay in the South and build a life with her.

  “See, when I was a boy, my parents had my life all planned out for me,” Richard said, his eyes far away. “But I wasn’t meant to lead the life they’d planned. They were both in law, and my father wanted to see my name on the door right below his. To say that I disappointed them by going into medicine would be an understatement. They found my choice to remain here in Alabama to practice a calamity. What destroyed my relationship with them, however, was their attitude toward Carolyn. I believe people should live their lives on their own terms, Brian. Whether those terms are heterosexual, homosexual, law, medicine, etcetera, the choice is up to you.”

  More than half our conversation was centered on the mechanics of sex, gay sex in particular. As a doctor, he had a unique perspective on the subject. Using a banana, he taught me the right way to put on a condom, leaving space at the end for the semen. We discussed different kinds of lubricants, condoms, and some of the more sensitive topics of sex, so I could make good choices and be safe. I felt completely awkward asking him questions, but he answered every one with a clinical detachment. It was easier for him to talk about it in the abstract, because I knew talking about it with Jamie and me in mind was uncomfortable for him.

  “Are you going to tell Carolyn?” I asked once we were finished with the awkward topics. Richard might understand about my sexual orientation, but Carolyn was a good, pure, Southern woman. What will she think of me if she knows Jamie and I are in an intimate relationship? Will she be appalled? Disgusted? Scared of what her sewing circle are going to think?

  “No, you should tell her,” he said, standing up from his desk chair and heading for the door. “You’ll find her more sympathetic than you might imagine. She was brought up with strict Southern values, but she also has a mind of her own and strong opinions about certain topics. She believes, like I do, that you should live life on your own terms. When she gave up her dream of being a child psychologist to marry me and raise our son, she weighed the choice carefully and did what her heart told her to do. When our son died, she questioned every decision she made. She just wasn’t the same woman.”

  Richard’s eyes were sad as he spoke of the death of his son and what it had done to the woman he obviously loved more than anything. “One day, she was working in her garden in the backyard, and a little girl wandered into our driveway. We had never seen the girl before, and she appeared to be lost and unkempt. Carolyn asked the little girl where she lived, but the girl wouldn’t speak. Finally, we got the police involved and found out that this poor lost child had been abandoned by her mother the day before. It was then that Carolyn knew she wanted to help the girl, and we applied to be her foster parents.” He smiled at the memory. “So, having been through more than most people should in one lifetime, Carolyn has a different perspective on life than most people in this little town.”

  “Thank you, Richard,” I told him earnestly. In spite of his discomfort, he had helped to calm some of my fears and answer all my questions. I couldn’t have asked for a better counselor.

  I stayed in the office for a while, watching the sun set through the open curtains, thinking about our discussion. What kinds of implications will it have for Jamie and me? I had just told our secret to an outside person. The more people who know a secret, the less secure the secret. We only had one more year, and then we could be together; we had to hold on. Of course, we would still have to worry about hatred and bigotry, but we would be in charge of our own destinies and lives together.

  I stalled, wondering how Carolyn would take my revelation. I was most afraid of disappointing her. She had always worked so hard to try and make me a good person, to make up for the life I had been given, and I was about to tell her I was flawed, in more ways than she’d originally thought. Not only was I concerned about disappointing her, but I questioned whether or not I should tell her about my relationship with Jamie. That isn’t my thing to tell, but what if she asks, or what if she guesses? Will she look at him differently once she knows?

  Even though I wasn’t staying over at Jamie’s every weekend, I was still spending an increasing amount of time with him. It was summer; we didn’t have anything to do, so we spent almost all our time together, hanging out at the Schreibers’, or sometimes at Jamie’s, always making sure we weren’t too obvious. We tried to avoid the tree house as much as possible, because we didn’t want to give any indication about what was going on in it when I stayed the night. Our sexual exploits were getting more and more adventurous. We hadn’t gone all the way yet, but we had gotten each other off in a variety of ways during the times I stayed over.

  The biggest problem we had right then was Emma, as she was tired of Jamie avoiding her to spend time with me. She had also asked why I had run from the band room that last day before school ended. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to know I had been upset when I’d seen them kissing. Emma was a bright girl, and without some kind of explanation, she would begin to draw her own conclusions. Jamie had dismissed it, explaining that I had been embarrassed and wanted to get out of the room, and that I hadn’t been feeling well, telling her that the next day we discovered I had the stomach flu. Emma accepted his explanation because Jamie had an honest face and rarely lied. Well, before we had started dating he had rarely lied, but it had become a knee-jerk response. I hated that I had done that to him.

  I had made him dishonest.

  Then Jamie had told her that I might have a crush on her friend Brenda Sears. Brenda was a shy, rather frumpy girl who Emma seemed to have a soft spot for. His ingenious bit of fantasy had derailed Emma from figuring out my feelings for Jamie. So, once again, Jamie and I had a double date for Saturday night. To me, the only good thing about it was that Jamie and I would be able to spend the night alone afterward.

  Between sweet and almost chaste kisses in the small confines of my upstairs bedroom, among the pieces of the new model we were working on, he reminded me that we had to go out with them in order to be together. We had to pretend we were just like everyone else, and at seventeen, the mold we were forcing ourselves into included dating teenage girls. I consoled myself that at the very least, she was a nice girl and not Karen Simmons. He sat beside me on the edge of my bed, and I rested my head on his shoulder, completely lost in the scent of his soap, and reminded myself that it was just one more year.

  My seventeenth birthday was one week away, and then just one more year and no one could tell me who I could and couldn’t be with. I would be my own man.

  Well, really, I would be Jamie’s man.

  “THERE’S always the church fair; we could take them there,” I suggested to Jamie. I sat back against his chest in the tree house. We’d decided to take the chance and sneak up to our sanctuary for a little alone time before getting ready to take Emma and Brenda out on our double date. While I was following the conversation, my attention was more focused on the way his hard chest fel
t behind my back and the way his arms felt around me. It was warm but not uncomfortable with the fan blowing.

  “You sure you want to be around the holy masses?” he asked, kissing me lightly behind the ear. I turned my head and caught his lips in a slow, deep kiss before he could sit back against the wall. He smiled down at me, filling me with a warmth that had nothing to do with the hot summer day.

  “I think that would be less awkward than going to the movies. What if Emma decides we should split up once we get there so she can have her way with you in the dark?” I was only half serious, but it still caused a little bile to rise up in my throat. I couldn’t imagine the thought of sitting in a dark theater with some girl I didn’t want to be with while the guy I did want to be with was making out with someone else.

  “I wouldn’t let that happen, but I see your point. Being outside around other people may give both of them less expectations.” He pressed his lips against my neck and just held me back against him. I put my hands up on his arms, holding them there, wishing we never had to leave our tree house, but that just wasn’t how life worked.

  “It’s six o’clock, and I need to shower before we pick up the girls at seven,” Jamie said, still nuzzling my neck, holding me tighter as if he’d read my mind about never wanting to leave.

  “Okay,” I replied, reluctantly attempting to slide forward out of his arms and get up off the inflatable mattress. Jamie held fast, not letting me move.

  “Yeah, ten more minutes,” he said in almost a growl as he pulled me to the side with him, laying us both down on the mattress. I laughed and rolled onto my back so he hovered over me. Leaning down, Jamie tilted his head slightly to the right and came closer. He stopped just short of a kiss, his mouth slightly open and his lips turned up in a smirk as I strained up to kiss him. Moaning, he pushed me back and kissed me slowly.

  “Tonight I want you to remember this moment whenever you feel like she has something you don’t. I want you to remember that deep in my heart, I’m wishing it was you and only you,” Jamie whispered as his lips molded against mine, licking, teasing, tasting with a gentle sensuality that made my breath catch in my throat. First, he caught my upper lip between his, sucking lightly before doing the same with my lower lip. His thumb stroked my cheek as his hand curved around the side of my face, and I gave everything to him. My love, my affection, my very soul was his.