by Posy Roberts
“Give me a sec.” I stood, fighting back a wince as my hip protested, and headed into my apartment. I came back out a few minutes later with my beat-up ereader and the charger. I clicked the screen to life and went through my library until I found my copy of The Outsiders.
I passed it to him. “Try reading on that. At least you can adjust the text size and the spacing of the lines.”
He stared down at the screen and his eyes easily traveled back and forth over the text.
“Is that easier to read?”
“Yeah! Why?”
I smiled at him. “All the things I mentioned, but it could also be the font I have uploaded on there.”
“What do you mean, like the font helps me read? I don’t get it.”
“Err … When I was younger than you, I couldn’t read. I struggled a lot until a teacher figured out I had dyslexia.”
“Is that the thing where letters jump all over the page?”
I nodded. “It seems like it sometimes. I had to concentrate really hard to read a paragraph in the same time it took my friends to read five pages. I had a teacher who helped me. But what makes that e-book easier to read is a special font designed for people with dyslexia. See how the letters are irregular and have more weight in certain places?”
He studied the text closely and drew his brows together. “Yeah. I didn’t even notice that.”
“Learning cursive helped me too. I ended up loving reading once I figured out what worked for me.” I gestured to the ereader. “That went to war with me even. It’s my old reliable clunker that can withstand a beating.” I gestured to my apartment. “I read on a newer one most of the time, so if you want to borrow that, you can.” I wouldn’t ever be heading back into the field, so he may as well use it.
“You sure?”
“Yeah. I’m sure. You can probably talk to someone at the library to help you get all your school books on there. I always found librarians to be really helpful when I was struggling with my reading.”
“Wow, thanks, man.”
“Sure.” I hesitated but knew I needed to say something more. “Does your mom know about how you struggle?”
“Nah. She has enough to worry about. She’s got two jobs, man.”
“You could get help through school with this. There might even be money in the school district to get your textbooks in digital form. Tell her. I know she’ll advocate for you.”
“Advo-what?”
I chuckled. “Go to bat for you. If you want, and it’s okay with your mom, you can come over to my place and I’ll help you. I’ve learned a lot of strategies over the years to compensate.”
“Like a tutor?”
I shrugged. “I suppose. I mean, I’m not a teacher or anything, but I know tricks that worked for me. I’m more than willing to share them, especially if you tell your mom so you can get help at school too.”
So that’s how I ended up tutoring Carlos. That fall, he’d come to my apartment a few evenings a week. He’d never learned cursive, which had been such a help to me. It was one of the reasons I hadn’t stalled out in school, as I so easily could’ve. It was also the reason I started journaling.
Cursive had taken something I dreaded and turned it into art, which I already loved. But it was art made up of letters that turned into words that turned into whole stories in new worlds I could visit without ever leaving the comfort of home.
So I pushed Carlos to learn cursive and pushed him to keep reading.
In return, he pushed me out of the house and back to the library, insisting I come talk to the person in charge of his new after-school tutoring program. Next thing I knew, I was volunteering every Thursday night.
It was crazy that a kid in tears ended up having so much influence over me. He gave me a little bit of hope, if I could even call it that.
It was the closest I’d come since that damn bomb ruined my life.
*
A letter from Shep arrived right before Christmas. It was in the distinctive Airmail envelope, striped in red and blue and had been sent from Sweden. All I could think about as I stared at the canceled postage was Shep visiting Milo.
I refused to open it. Reading about his marvelous adventures or his rekindled love would’ve destroyed me right then.
I faced the letter each morning, pushing it around my tiny kitchen table before breakfast, tucking it under the salt and pepper shakers for dinner so I had enough room for my plates, bowls, and whatever book I was reading at the time.
When Carlos arrived, he sat at the table and immediately picked up the envelope. “What’s this?” he asked.
“A letter, young squire.”
“What’s the funny envelope for?”
“It was sent via Airmail.”
He scowled down at the letter and studied both the cursive and the choppy script. “Who’s Shep? Your boyfriend?”
“What?”
He shrugged. “Who writes letters? I mean, I text my buddies. The only person I ever wrote a note to was Rick. I had a crush on him, but that didn’t work out. Straight boy …”
I gaped at him.
“What? I’m gay, so? You got a problem with that?”
I shook my head, too stunned to talk. He was fourteen and more comfortable in his skin than I was at a decade older. And he just came out so easily?
“No, I don’t have a problem with that at all,” I finally managed to utter. “I’m gay too, and Shep is … the guy I wish was my boyfriend.”
“Why can’t he be?”
“’Cause he lives all over the world.”
“Is that why you write letters? No international texting plan or something?”
I grinned. “Yeah, partly. Sometimes he’s in villages without internet, and before I moved in here, I was deployed.”
He gave me a knowing nod.
“Still, he could be your boyfriend, ya know. He doesn’t have to be here for that.”
His view of the world was so different than my own. He saw no barriers.
All I could focus on half of the time were barriers.
Carlos made me take a good, hard look in the mirror. I still didn’t open the letter from Shep, but I did find myself pushed somewhere new. I was compelled to take stock of what I had control over and face what was standing in my way of living.
I tossed out the hard pain meds, the numerous opioids that turned me into a zombie or dulled all my senses down to nothingness. I added a Saturday afternoon to my volunteering, this time working with dyslexic adults who wanted to tackle their reading challenges.
And then in my spare time, I wrote a million thoughts down in my journal. It was how I got out of my head when I was in high school, so I figured I’d try it again.
Every morning, I woke, sat on my balcony where I sipped coffee, and wrote until I had to go work my shift or volunteer. Anything that came to mind.
Bad dreams. Fears. Memories.
Kisses. I wrote about the kisses I’d shared with Shep. I wrote down everything I remembered from that day in the cornfield. I wrote down the fantasies I had, what I craved, what I wanted to do to him. What I wanted him to do to me.
I let my mind go to all the places I’d avoided going for years, and I explored desires I never knew I had until they were written in stark black ink.
A month later, Carlos was on my case again about the letter.
“Seriously, what are you waiting for? It’s not like it’s a letter bomb.”
“I know,” I said as I swiped it out of his hand.
“Does Shep not know you’re gay or something?”
I laughed at the nosy little shit. “He knew I was gay before I did.”
He raised his eyebrow so they disappeared under his dark fringe. “So it was like that, huh? He was your first?”
“Geez. Get out of here if you’re going to be like this.” I playfully shoved him and he dodged me, running around my kitchen to escape.
He bumped into the grocery bag I hadn’t unpacked yet and it went tumbling to
the kitchen floor. A glass jar of roasted peanuts rolled noisily along the tile, clattering over the grout lines until it came to a halt under the toe kick.
“Please tell me that didn’t crack open,” he said.
I retrieved the jar and inspected it. “Nope. It’s good. Why?”
“I’m like super allergic to peanuts. Airborne or something. I just know I have to stay away.” He patted his backpack. “I carry epinephrine wherever I go just in case.”
“Okay … No more peanuts in my house. But you’re good now, right?”
“I’m fine. I’d already be having trouble breathing if I reacted.” He lifted the unopened letter again and said, “So what are you waiting for? What if he declared his undying love for you in here and you never find out because you—” He waved the letter around as he searched for a word. “Because you went out and ate bad shellfish and ended up dying from some horrid poisoning.”
“Wow, morbid much?”
He slapped the letter down on the table, picked up his backpack, and headed for the door. “Just read the damn letter, Andrew. I’m sick of staring at it. The stripes on the envelope make me dizzy.”
I laughed as he left, but then sat down at the table and decided to finally allow curiosity to get the better of me.
Maybe he hadn’t written about his love life. After all, it had been months since I last wrote to him. Hell, I’d still been in the army. My last letter to him was the one where I finally admitted I was gay. I had to see what he said about that, so I used a knife to open the letter.
Dear Andrew,
I’ve been off doing my thing again, so I know I’ve not been easy to get a hold of. I’m sorry it’s taken so long to write, but I only just got your letter yesterday. I’m back in Sweden for a few weeks before I have to decide what’s next for me.
If my memory serves me, you’re now a free man, likely have been for a while. Congratulations on getting out of the army. I bet you’re relieved!
Are you enrolled in school already or are you taking some time for yourself?
I’m thinking of going to grad school. As much as I love moving from place to place, job to job, and absorbing all the art and culture I can get my hands on, I’m thinking I need to find a direction and head there. You were always so good about that. You made a plan and stuck to it, unless something derailed you, like your father. The jackass. Even so, I’m sure you’re well on your way to getting your life back on track now.
I’ve been thinking about you a lot.
Your last letter was surprising, though, I have to admit. How did you come to the realization you’re gay? I have so many questions, but I don’t want to add even more pressure than I already have.
I hope all those letters I wrote challenging you to face your sexual desires didn’t feel like pressure. That’s not what I intended. I only wanted to help you accept this part of yourself.
I do have to admit that I was thrilled to see what we shared wasn’t a heat-of-the-moment thing. I mean, it was, but it was so much more than that to me. I’d love it if it could be more again.
Love,
Shep
That was the first time he signed a letter with Love. I wasn’t sure what he meant by it, if anything, but I smiled nonetheless.
Shep was the one I dreamed about at night, the one I wanted to lie beneath, the one I saw myself spending the rest of my life with. He was the only person I’d felt drawn to. And even after five years, that pull hadn’t diminished one bit.
But being with him was impossible now that I was injured. He sure as hell wouldn’t want to be slowed down by me, and there was no hope I’d ever be able to keep up with him.
Maybe that was for the best, considering I was still a mess in the head from the shit I’d seen. So I was even more determined to make myself better. If not for him, for me.
It had to be for me, I realized.
Despite his last line, I knew Shep would find another someone in another city.
He wasn’t really going to settle down. His wanderlust was too strong. A new destination was always luring him.
I refused to write him back. I wouldn’t until I was ready to hear about his next love without falling apart. Because I was sure there would be a next love.
6
“I’ve got your six,” I told Specialist Fritz as he approached a young Afghan soldier, who was in obvious distress. He didn’t look old enough to fight, but it was hard to tell from this far away.
Someone in the Humvee called my name. I glanced behind me.
My first mistake.
The sun blinded me.
When my eyes focused back on Fritz, I saw the Afghan kid’s hand twitch. He wasn’t a soldier, I realized. He was only dressed like one so we’d let our guard down. He was a suicide bomber.
“Get out of there!” I shouted. “Get out! Get out! Get out!”
But it was too late.
I woke panting, sweating from head to toe. My comforter tangled around my legs, which only made things worse. Claustrophobia gripped me until I managed to break free, wrenching my hip painfully in the process.
My mind didn’t know I was back safe in Austin even months later. It kept replaying battles long-ago won and lost, and I remained constantly on alert.
But I was used to this now or as used to these shitty nightmares as I was likely going to get. At least I knew what to do to bring my head back to the present.
Yet even after I’d done my physical therapy, showered, and eaten breakfast, I still felt jumpy, so I took my journal out to my patio that overlooked the pool. I wrote until I no longer had the visual of losing my team leader, and friend, replaying behind my eyelids.
Writing seemed to push the dreams away from me, compartmentalize them so I could study them without being overwhelmed.
Studying my sexual fantasies had helped in a similar way. I’d gone out, met up with men, and sowed my wild oats as best I could in a club while being physically disabled. I clearly established I was as gay as they came, loving everything I experienced and craving more with men, but never with women.
My only caveat: no leaving the club. I refused to invite anyone back to my place or go to theirs for fear I’d fall asleep and have a nightmare. Waking up in an unfamiliar environment wouldn’t go over well, if that happened. Hopefully someday that wouldn’t be the case.
But then, not long after I started hooking up, something else changed. For reasons I didn’t fully comprehend, my dreams blended real battles with my precious time with Shep, leaving it up to me to sort through when awake.
My mind forced me to watch Shep die over and over again. When I woke, I worked my muscles to the point of pain, then wrote stories about making love to him under the stars to convince my fucked-up mind he was still alive.
For months this went on, and each time I woke, it felt as if it had truly happened.
Before long, I had a shelf of journals filled with disjointed ramblings about men falling in love on battlefields.
Shep dying in my dreams was my hope dying, I came to realize.
He’d been the linchpin in my wished-upon future as I lay in hot, dusty deserts. I’d attached hopes to him, dreamed that we’d meet again someday, fall madly in love, and live happily ever after. And though I knew the likelihood of that ever happening was nil because he was always off loving other men, maybe there was someone else out there like him.
So when a new letter arrived saying he was going to be in Austin in a matter of days, I was thrown for a loop. It made it sound as if he worried I’d gotten killed in action, considering he’d contacted friends of mine on Facebook.
But it was the I need you in my life that sent me to my lacquered box where I paged through all his previous letters. Over the next day, I read them all, saw new truths in old words, read how naïve I’d been. I’d practically run him off, told him to fall into the arms of other men because I refused to be available to him.
I opened my favorite letter from him, the one I’d taken with me everywhere,
even the middle of the desert.
The envelope was no longer crisp, the paper now smudged with dirt, but it still smelled of him. His personality practically jumped off the page. I could see him smiling at me, feel his whispered words pressed against my skin.
I can’t get your kisses out of my head. I’ve never felt anything that equaled them. It was as if I was kissing you with my soul, sharing my darkest secrets and learning yours, all without words. Still I can feel the tug deep in my belly. I feel tethered to you. Everywhere I go, my mind is pulled to where you are, my body facing whatever direction that will take me to you.
I hate that you were forced into the army, taken away from your life. Away from me.
Someday we will be together again. We’ll see if those kisses we shared on a pretend battlefield were as great as our memories of them. I promise.
I blinked away tears that I refused to let fall as I slipped that letter away, unwilling to read anymore while in this state. It was too much to hope for. Nothing more than a childish dream.
Going back to the newest letter, I pulled it to my nose and sniffed it to see if he spritzed it with the same cologne he used on older notes, the scent he wore that day on the battlefield. This one smelled of paper, not memories still so vivid they transported me back in time.
We weren’t the same people we’d been as boys. So much had happened in the last years. We were different men from different worlds. Always had been.
We never stood a fighting chance.
I need you in my life. It’s that simple.
The thought of not seeing him when he was so close was enough to make breathing a challenge. I simply had to know if there was hope.
I dialed the phone number he included in his letter and broke into a sweat as soon as it rang. He picked up on the third ring, just as I was about to chicken out.
“Hello?” his smooth-as-silk voice came through the line. It was so much deeper than I remembered.
“Hi, Shep. It’s Andrew.”
“Hey, it’s so good to hear your voice. I haven’t talked to you in so long. Did you get my letter?” Uncharacteristic insecurity threaded through his words.
“Yes, that’s why I’m calling. What day are you coming?” I nearly stopped him from telling me, the desire to say I didn’t think it was a good idea to see each other, let alone start something I knew was destined to fail, right on the tip of my tongue. But I resisted.
